could be suspected like Cato that came into the Theater at one door and went out at another Ideo tantum intrarunt ut exirent Surely the Disciples thought if these would have staid they could have hung at their lips and heard the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven from their mouth No says the voice let them go here is one that is the chief Master in Israel far above Moses and Elias hear him Moses will stand dumb while he speaks and this is Moses his own Doctrine concerning Christ A Prophet will the Lord your God raise up unto you like unto me hear him Deut. xviii Moses confesseth of himself O Lord I am not eloquent I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue therefore hear not him Exod. iv 10. Elias is rigid and severe and will call down fire from heaven hear not him Peter knew not what he said in this very story David said it in his haste but it is very true upon deliberation all men are liars Lying is not all that is naught in the mouth of man filthiness and blasphemies issue from some uncircumcised lips no ways fit to be heard as Eliakim the servant of Hezekiah besought that odious tongued Rabshekah to speak in such a language as few or none might understand him The talk of him that sweareth much maketh the hair stand upright and their brawls make one stop his ears Ecclus. xxvii 14. In a word men may bewitch us with their fair words not to obey the truth but we are sure how all that Christ speaketh is just and righteous therefore let men vanish away the truth of the Lord abideth for ever hear him Again the Disciples might be confused not only for the departure of Moses and Elias but because the form and fashion of Christ did return to his wonted humility the fashion of his countenance did no more look like the Sun neither was his rayment white and glistering what amends can be made for this loss But that God declares our happiness consists not in seeing but in hearing His Person must ascend unto the Father and his glory dwell there but his Word abideth for ever if we keep his sayings we are Christs and Christ is one with us hear him Be it the abrogation of Moses Law be it the contempt of the world the denying of our selves the sufferance of the Cross the losing of our life all is one his roughest Precepts are to be obeyed hear him indefinitely without restriction or exception As the Blessed Virgin his Mother said unto the Servants at Cana in Galilee Whatsoever he saith unto you do it Joh. ii 5. Be the Commandment great or small it claims obedience whosoever breaketh one of the least Commandments and doth not repent him shall be counted the least in the Kingdom of heaven Some man I know hath framed this cavillation already in his own heart if Jesus Christ were now upon the earth as sometimes he was in the Land of Jury who would not travel over Sea and Land to hear him This Precept should be kept with all alacrity Indeed the words which dropt from his own lips were most winning and pathetical Therefore this voice might justly challenge the Jews to give him fair audience and hear him speak and they could not refuse him If Tertullian presumed in his Apologetick to the Emperor that the Christian cause in his days had never been cried down if it might have been heard speak in the trial of judgment much more must it hold in the person of Christ himself Nolentes audire quod auditum damnare non possunt The Judges would not hear our Plea says Tertullian for had they heard us with patience they knew they could not cast us so the gracious words which fell from our Saviour made those Officers relent at least if not repent that were sent to betray him Never man spake like this man Joh. vii 46. They brake out into that passion before the Pharisees They had heard but little from Christ says St. Chysostome yet enough to turn their hearts from that purpose which they were sent to execute Cum mens fuerit incorrupta non longis sermonibus opus est Few words will prevail where the mind brings no corrupt passions to hold off the truth This is to shew that the Oracles which the Son of God spake from his own mouth were most moving and gracious that tongue was able to charm the very Devils to obey him Why Beloved we do hear him speak continually in the Church as verily as if he were now among us and preach'd daily as sometimes he did in the Temple at Jerusalem So St. Paul commends the Thessalonians that his Doctrine took with them as if they had heard Christ himself Ye received it not as the word of man but as it is in truth the Word of God For whatsoever we believe if you ask after the formal cause of faith the answer is neither because the Apostles writ it or the Church delivered it or such to whom God hath commited the dispensation of the Word do preach it but because God reveals it the formal cause of all faith is divine revelation therefore hear Christ speaking among you to this day not by the instrument of his own tongue but by the revelation of his Spirit I say the formal cause of faith is divine revelation but the Church is the mouth that utters it And therefore because the Church is the Pipe which conveys those sacred mysteries which Christ reveals our Lords own sentence was If he will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Ethnick The meaning is while the Church directs you in a right line The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe observe and do You hear what awful submission is due to them who are sent from God to teach you Perhaps you will demur upon those words of our Saviour For in that same Chap. Mat. xxiii 16. Christ calls the Pharisees blind guides reproves their interpretation of Scripture for saying If a man swore by the Temple it was nothing if he swore by the Gold of the Temple he was a debtor Generally he gave his Apostles a caveat Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees not meaning their Bread but their false Traditions But take our Saviours exhortation in a right construction and thus it is all that the Scribes and Pharisees recite out of Moses and the Law observe and do They are the mouth of God by their place and calling When they speak the truth all is one whether you hear them or Christ or God speak from heaven it is the same Gospel and all have but one intendment He that receiveth you receiveth me and he that heareth me heareth him that sent me you know who spake it This voice did not purpose the present Age should hear Christ only but that the future Ages should hear his Priests when they speak like
from thee and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth But St. Paul doth not use to obscure plain Doctrin with strange Poetical Phrases and Estius hath requited Beza with another place out of the Psalms to confirm my Doctrin Psal lxiii 9. Those that seek my Soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth that is the enemies of the innocent should go into the place of the damned The other Testimony of Scripture for I will press no more is Psal xvi 10. and rehearsed by St. Peter in this Chapter Thou shalt not leave my Soul in hell c. What pains some men have taken to no fruitful end that I know to make these words bear any sense rather than that which is literal no man that marks their diligence must deny but the Soul in divers Authors is taken for the Body and Hell for the Grave and so they patch it up Thou wilt not leave my life in the Sepulcher but why should literal Scripture be so eluded St. Austins rule is that when the literal sense of the Text sounds somewhat that is sinful or impossible then discreet and learned Interpretations must mollifie the letter but it is not to be suffered where good divinity is conteined in the letter as there is in this the meaning is as no flesh in the Sepulcher was ever free from corruption but only Christs so no Soul in Hell was ever supported and assisted by God and not forsaken but only Christs So Fulgentius most divinely anima immunis à peccato non erat subdenda supplicio carnem sine peccato non debuit vitiare corruptio Christs Soul knowing no sin went not to Hell to pay any debt of punishment for an innocent could not be obnoxious to those flames and torments and his Body never executing any evil act could not be tainted with corruption and putrefaction Is it not therefore consonant to reason to stick to the letter of Scripture when it bears an Orthodox exposition of faith and whether we say that Christ being free among the dead to walk whither he would his Soul being separated in death first shewed it self to the Saints in Joy to their exceeding comfort then to the Unbelievers in Hell to their woe and confusion or whether we say He descended that such as believed may never be thrust into that infernal Prison or rather that He brought his triumph over death with him before the face of Hell and brought those unruly spirits under his yoke entred upon the strong mans house and spoiled his house as it is in the Parable Matth. xii All these ways are agreeable to Gods word and to be admitted without contention Thus far upon Scripture attended by reason Indeed Stapleton says that two Articles of the Creed are not to be found in Scripture this of Christs descent in to Hell the other of the Catholick Church I confess in his sense they are not to be found in Scripture but in ours they are But last of all attend what light the very Creed it self will give to the confirmation of this Doctrin The ground that a learned Father of our own Church lays I take to be most rational Thus take these words properly and not figuratively as it is fit in a short abstract of faith next let them have a sense different in matter from all other Articles or else they were a superfluous repetition then let every Article keep a true consequent order of time one after another or else it would make a strange confusion and all other Expositions will give place Some of the Romish and some of our own part have taught that when Christ was crucified he susteined the pains of Hell but observe against them how this Article should come in most preposterously after his death and burial which was in time before Others make this sense of it that he was dead and deteined in death others to be no more but that he was buried but according to these opinions there shall neither be property of phrase nor difference of matter in this Article from them that went before To be dead and buried are as plain speeches as be in all the Creed and should these be explained by an enigmatical Phrase to descend into Hell rather to obscure than to explain the former Observe how our Church of England hath differenced it from death and burial art 3. As Christ died for us and was buried so also it is believed mark that 's another point that He went down into Hell And the thirtieth Article of the Church of Ireland doth not satisfie me that this line is in one comma I know not whether by the negligence of the Printer He was buried and descended into Hell I cannot come to the third part of my Text and I have done as much as the time will permit upon the second only let me add let weak capacities be no ways discomforted though they cannot explicitly understand the meaning of this controverted Article of the Creed Christs descending into Hell they must believe that Christ vanquished the Devil for our sakes that 's necessary both for their comfort and salvation And all Articles of Faith are not equally necessary and fundamental Gregory Valenza and many others I think not imprudently hold that the main and necessary points for unlearned simple people to believe are the great works of God remembred in the principal Feasts of the year Christs Nativity his Passion Resurrection Ascension into Heaven and the coming of the Holy Ghost And though this Article of the Descent into Hell contein an excellent mystery of Faith yet it comes not near the excellent knowledg and use of the former Suarez the Jesuit writes confidently that if by an Article of Faith we understand a Truth which all faithful people are bound explicitly to believe so he did not think it necessary to reckon it among the Articles of Faith The Nicene Creed in our Common-prayer Book hath left it out Ruffinus says that after 400 years it came into the Latin Church and like enough for St. Austin expounds the Creed five times and Chrysologus of Ravenna ann 440. six times and never glance it For that Creed called the Apostles was not so drawn up by the Apostles for ought we can find in good antiquity but called so because it conteins the sum of all Apostolical Doctrin one part of it was laid too after another and this I believe was the last addition of all Therefore it is a main arm of faith that Christ loosed the sorrows of death and a Truth it is no doubt though not of such prime consequence that He descended into Hell to loose those sorrows for our liberty but the main Pillar of Faith is the first Comma of my Text that God raised up Jesus from death and it was impossible He should be holden of it AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN xi 43. And when he had thus spoken he cried with a
faciem Because in this life we see darkly as in a glass but hereafter we shall see God face to face As concerning natural Causes and Effects says Aristotle we see into them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Owles eyes by day that discern nothing clearly but as concerning the Mysteries of Godliness we look upon them as Moses did upon the Land of Canaan when Jordan was between we are in one Country and see afar off indistinctly the prospect of another As Rebecca took away her vail when Isaac came toward her that she might see his face so this vail shall be taken from the Church which is the Spouse of God when he draws near unto it Now Lazarus his Napkin is about our face O that thou wouldst rent away this vail O Lord that we might see thy glory Behold as the eyes of Servants look unto the hand of their Masters and as the eyes of a Maiden unto the hand of her Mistress even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have mercy upon us AMEN THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN XX. I. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early when it was yet dark unto the Sepulcher and seeth the stone taken away from the Sepulcher THis is the day which the Lord hath made and thus begins the Gospel appointed for this great day of the Lord. A Gospel of which I may say it is full even to the brims of Divine Meditations For here are those two Christian Pillars that uphold the Church of God such as shall never be removed Fides Fidelis the faith of the Elect and relatively an elect Vessel that receiv'd the faith a principal Article of our Creed that Christ rose again the third day from the dead and a very illustrious instance of Mary Magdalene who was brought to believe in that Article 1. The Faith which must be believ'd to sanctifie our contemplations 2. The Faithful that did believe to bring us to a godly practice So the Spirit of God hath led Mary Magdalene to the Sepulcher to see that Christ was risen from the dead and the self-same Spirit hath led us to see the love and piety of Mary Magdalene And as this devout woman hath obtained a place of memorial for her name among the blessed of the New Testament because the example of her zeal did shine before us So our names shall find a place among those that are recorded in the Book of Life such honor shall they have that follow after My Text begins a story concerning that first witness to whom our Lord and Saviour's Resurrection was revealed Now upon so much of the Story as is recorded in this verse five things shall be handled First the Condition of that Witness before whom our Lord did first appear after he came out of the Grave Mary Magdalene 2. You may note the Constancy of her love that she remembred him after death and came unto his Sepulcher 3. It is to be ascribed to her Faith that she chose the right season the first day of the week 4. The Expedition which she made is a token of restless diligence that she came early when it was yet dark 5. An Accident of admiration encounters her that she seeth the stone taken away from the Sepulcher No Witness more classical for Gods use than Mary Magdalene a repentant Sinner No love more expressive than to shew affection even after death no season so fit to be watcht as the same which Christ foretold how the third day he would rise which fell out on the first day of the week no fruit that doth better become Faith and Love than vigilant diligence without sloth Repentance Love Faith Diligence shall ever be thus requited that God will shew them a sign from Heaven beyond their expectation The condition of the person is the first thing that we encounter Mary Magdalene cometh unto the Sepulcher She came not alone but other Associates did bear her company such as were devout women and loved our Lord. But our Evangelist knew a reason that she alone was worth the mentioning instead of all besides and upon her name only his Narration runs that Mary Magdalen came unto the Sepulcher The Scripture hath not forgot some of those that were her Associates in other Gospels St. Matthew says Mary Magdalen went forth as it began to dawn and the other Mary St. Mark names three Mary Magdalen and Mary the Mother of James and Salome St. Luke speaks of an indefinite number but every Divine Writer begins with Mary Magdalen she and Joanna and Mary the Mother of James and other Women that were with them But this Woman in my Text was more fervent and passionate in the cause she incited all the rest to go with her to the Sepulcher wherefore she is remembred by our Evangelist in a kind of singularity above all the rest John himself was the Disciple of Love and was careful to eternize her name in this story which did abound in Love above all her Fellows Some antient Writers knew not how so good a Work could be done wherein many religious Women conspired together without the most Blessed Mary the mother of our Lord. Rather than it should turn to her disesteem to stay behind Sedulius Nyssen and Nicephorus were willing I think to mistake that the Woman whom St. Matthew calls the other Mary was the Holy Virgin The disadvantages which this Opinion brings with it were not thought upon that another name should stand before hers to be past over with such an easie mention as the other Mary and not the mother of our Lord a thing which especially St. Luke useth not to forget And what an instance of moment were this that among all others our Lord did first appear to Mary Magdalen after he was risen from the dead Surely his mother had been partaker of that sweet Vision as soon as any if she had been in place to behold him Bernard invents a reason to satisfie himself though perhaps it will not satisfie all men why the Blessed Virgin did willingly absent herself from coming to the Sepulcher the first day of the Week because her Faith abounded more than all the rest She was constantly persuaded that Christ was risen upon the third day even as he had spoken before and she would not go to the Sepulcher to seek the living among the dead But if any man should cast a doubt that the Holy Scriptures would not have concealed such a superexcellent strain of Faith in the Blessed Virgin if she had believed the Mystery of the Resurrection when the Disciples and all other were mistaken besides that none of the Church did perfectly understand the Scriptures until the Holy Ghost fell down upon them at the Feast of Pentecost I say if any should cast in such a doubt I know not how it would be resolved I have no Warrant to affirm any thing in this point neither doth the Scripture
it will be time enough for you to come in and joyn in Prayer O ye loyterers Do you know the hurt of it when ye lose the opportunity of one minute to serve the Lord Pliny in his Letters to Trajan reports of the Christians that they had Ante lucanos congressus they met together before day to read the Scriptures to pray and sing Psalms I confess there was great reason for it then because they held their Assemblies when their Enemies were in bed that they might not know of it But I am sure since the Apostles time never were so many miracles wrought as at those early Vigils And that I may conclude this Point with one use more Mans life is but a day and what part of life is the early morning of that day but Youth If you will do well unto your own souls seek out Christ betimes when the Sun of Reason begins to dispel the darkness of ignorance in your tender age Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth and God will not forget thee nor forsake thee in thy old Age. Some Fiend of hell made that Proverb Angelicus juvenis senibus Satanizat in annis as if the Child could be taught too soon to choose the good and to refuse the evil as if young holiness were obnoxious to become old iniquity I will ask you Why do we Catechize the younger of both Sexes in Lent but to teach them to seek Christ early against Easter I will come to a less matter why do we ever paint Angels with the faces of young men or Children but that youth is a fit stock upon which we should ingraft the heavenly vertues and holiness of Angels If Mary Magdalen gained by rouzing her self up early to seek Jesus Christ seek him then I beseech you when he may be found that is with the most timely opportunity I have done with the circumstances which were but Preambles to the substance of the Text that substance may easily be discerned from all the rest for the Kernel taken out of the words is this that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen As it is said of St. Thomas the Apostle so of her she believed more than she saw yet according to the dimness of faith which was in those times unless she had seen she had not believed If Christ as soon as he was risen had ascended immediately unto heaven if no Witnesses had been left behind that could say they saw him and eat with him and conversed with him the words of truth would have wanted credit with the world because our wisdom is rather carnal than spiritual Therefore says St. Peter Acts x. 40. God raised him up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto Witnesses chosen before of God This made the Apostles set their Seal to the confirmation of it Luk. xxiv 34. The Lord is risen indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you would say in good earnest he is risen and hath appeared unto Simon Now let no man contradict it for Peter hath seen him with his eyes But let me tell you the bodily eye ought not to come in for his part to peep into those mysteries into which Faith doth search The secrets of the Kingdom of heaven which we believe are invisible and incomprehensible But Christ considered it was but New Moon with the Church now it was but Tyrocinium Ecclesiae the fresh-man-ship I may say of Christian Religion and the young graft must be held with Props from the shaking of the winds which are needless to be used to an old Tree whose root is fastned The Apostles and sundry women and divers brethren did see Christ after he was risen this was milk for babes but now we must believe that which we have not seen and the vision of God and of his Son shall be the reward of faith in the Kingdom of glory Last of all he was seen of me also says St. Paul as of one born out of due time 1 Cor. xv 8. Then look not to see him manifest in his fleshly presence any more till he comes in judgment For the Apostle seems to me to say plainly that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last of all that shall see him in that manner So having setled the ground-work that he appeared I draw on to consider by what degrees he appeared and that is suppeditated to us with much variety out of the twentieth Chapter of St. John's Gospel The last year you know I handled that part of sacred story fit for the day how this woman having complained to the Disciples that the body of our Lord was stoln away Peter and John ran hastily to see the wonder and she would not be left behind she follows them to see what they could make of it they found it true as she had related and departed full of great admiration This poor Wretch alone continues at the Monument and resolves not to stir till she have better satisfaction Quantum bonum est assiduitas perseverantia says Theophylact Shall not assiduity and perseverance reap plenteous fruits of comfort Yes no question yet because she was a narrow-brim'd vessel observe how God pours his favours into her as it were by spoonfuls that she might not be overwhelmed with the excellency of revelations She that had often lookt into the Sepulchre and was sure the body she sought was not there I know not by what divine instinct she looks in again Whether it were as Tully said of Crassus the Orator says he we came into the Capitol to please our selves with looking upon that Bench in the Senate where that famous Citizen was wont to sit So she looked in now with a resolved mind that it would delight her to view the place where her Saviour had been interred though nothing else were to be discerned But loe she spied that there she did not look for two heavenly Ministers all in white the Grave which always before was the den of worms was now become the throne of Angels And it came so to pass first to refer us to that which shall befall all the Sons of God our bodies shall be buried by the Ministry of men as Christs was by Joseph and Nicodemus but we shall be raised out of the dust at the last day by the Ministry of Angels Secondly says St. Hierom in his Epistle to Hebidias this was enough for all parties if they would think upon it wisely that the body of our Lord was not stoln out of the Grave by any malicious Adversaries because the place was so well guarded with the custody of Angels And thirdly Jesus appeared by these as by his Proxies they stand in his stead for a while to tell Mary to tell the other women He is not here he is risen But behold she looked for a greater than these for him of whom it is said When he bringeth his first-born into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him
you must know that there is a threefold evidence of truth to be distinguished First there is the evidence of our outward senses Matt. xvi when it is Evening you say it will be fair weather for the Sky is red O ye hypocrites can you discern the face of heaven says our Saviour as who should say then there is more to be understood 2. There is the evidence of knowledg which will condemn the Heathen that know not God for the invisible things may be understood by the things which are made even his eternal Godhead Rom. i. both these truths you see are fruitless without a third and what is that but the evidence of faith Heb. xi As for other Truths every man is in the high way to get them capiat qui capere potest but as for this Truth it hath looked down from Heaven says David looked upon whom it listeth and all men have not faith Whether Faith be the evident Truth or not all the World almost upon a time stuck at that point but onely Abraham either because their eyes were dim or because it shined like the face of Moses that they could not behold it Yea we have sundry Traditions that some Philosophers cast an eye upon the first verse of the Scripture In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth but they started at it like the Host of Israel at the dead Corps of Amasa and went no further Alas poor Philosophy who knows not how to confound the wisdom of her Principles The fire hath been as temperate as the morning air Dan. 3. the waters have stood upon an heap like the strong ribs of a Mountain Exod. xiv the Sun hath hid his face at noon day when Astronomy could find no reason for it their Art was as blind as the Heaven in the Eclipse But every part of nature should be out of frame Heaven and Earth should pass away before one title of Gods book should perish that with the dissolution of the Heavens no Angels might remain and with the ruine of the Earth no men might be left to testify against it The holy Martyrs have forsaken their lives that this truth might not forsake them And as it is reported of our Philosopher that the ashes spread upon the high Mountains of Tenariffa retain for ever any letters drawn out upon them by reason of the tranquillity of the place So no wind or storm can scatter away those holy words of Gods Book since they have been written in the ashes of the Martyrs the Law cannot endure better in the Tables of Stone than the Gospel in that sacred dust If Faith be not a Truth how did Abraham see Christmas day and rejoyce and keep it a solemn Festival more than a thousand years before the name was entred into our Calender He knew the faithfulness of Gods Promise that made Jesus our Redemption so undoubtedly that he swore him a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech The Mother of our Lord might ask reverently quomodo How should these things be The best in the World have their doubts of infirmity but Domine non erit tibi this thing shall not be so when Christ had spoken it that was a mistake in St. Peter and yet behold the Evidence of Truth shewed it self more abundantly anon after in the faith of that Apostle than in all the skill of Greece and Egypt Tell me what Physician could promise recovery to the Cripple lying at the Beautiful Gate Durst all the Colledg of Galen say unto him confidently stand up and walk but the Apostle saw that one grane of faith could give him the use of his feet and ancle bones that he might leap and praise the Lord. Whatsoever is confirmed by the mouth of two or three Witnesses it passeth for truth by the Law of God and Man and good reason for it Now the Old Testament was confirmed under the name of three Patriarchs I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. In the New Covenant whether it were at the Transfiguration of Christ Peter James and John three Attendants did bear him company to Mount Tabor in like manner at the raising up of Jairus Daughter and in the Mount of Olives when he sweat and prayed so many were with him as before and the self same three Disciples all was confirmed under the mouth of three Witnesses But I will take no more pains in this point to prove Faith to be a Truth as I remember the great Orator reports of a good man Q. Metellus he was excused or rather forbidden to shew his proof unto the Senate in a Controversie to be debated lest the Bench should seem to distrust so reverend a Citizen None but Julian the Apostate and such accursed as he hath left behind him would scoff at Faith whose cavil it was as Nazianzen reports that we had a starting hole for all objections in one silly word Believe These men knew not that Faith in a little Pearl was worth all the substance of a Merchant and he sold all he had to buy the Pearl Matt. xiii Surely if the Womb of Mary deserved a Blessing from all Generations that bore the Infant from everlasting if the Arms of Simeon deserved a Church Anthem every Evensong that enclasped him if the Tomb of Joseph was attended by Angels where his body lay then cut down Palms and spread your Garments in the way for Christ is rode in triumph into that heart into which faith is entred Now Truth is fruitful and brings forth Truth a Daughter not unlike her self Divine Truth is the cause of Human Truth of a true Conversation of a right Balance and a just Fphah Her Merchandise is such as Abraham's was with the Hittites Gen. 23. which I will ever commend when he bought a Tomb for Sarah such as the ancient Romans was aedes pestilentes vendo the Seller was not ashamed to confess that his House had the Pestilence Not as St. Hierom told the Trades of his time tanti vitrium quanti margaritam to chop away Glass for Rubies or as St. Basil says of Gordias the Martyr that his Soul was vexed with the City and he retired into the Wilderness leaving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he could not endure the Buyers and Sellers the forswearers and liars And what doth all come to when they cast up their Audit Prov. xxi 6. The getting of riches by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death Let our Merchants beware that they carry not that report which the Wits of St. Paul's time put upon the Cretians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwayes liars evil beasts and slow-bellies or as Plutarch spake of Demades the Pleader then grown past the best that there was nothing left in him but his Tongue and his Paunch his Tongue to tell lies and his Belly to surfeit the meer Reliques of an Ox sacrificed Nay I beseech you
to distort this saying as if Christian were general to every Schismatick and Sectary and Catholick were appropriated to the Orthodox abiding in the bosom of the true Church Nay some are so senseless to make the Apostles the Authors of such childish counsel that because good and bad would invade the name of Christian therefore the Disciples should call themselves Catholicks for distinction sake Why list I pray you he that can falsly say Christian is my name can he not with as much impudency and falshood say that Catholick is my surname the word becomes the Creed most divinely the holy Catholick Church for what Church shall I adhere to That which is for Time universal from the preaching of Christ unto these dayes that which is for Place universal dispersed wheresoever the Faith of the Elect is received that which is for Truth universal believing all that the Prophets and Apostles have delivered and whatsoever the Church hath ratified by its continual interpretation But our fine Italian Wits have spun out another notion that particular Church is Catholick which hath reteined the pure Truth in all Ages since Christ and never failed from whence hath resulted that proud inclosure of Roman Catholick an error not to be argued me thinks but to be whooped at I am sure Catholick in their sense is neither name nor surname of them that seek for peace They pour it on as Vinegar to make the wounds of the Church smart The Name of Christian is the Sanctuary of Unity and Oil to heal the wound let that be our Badg then which was the good Disciples c. But if you wear this Livery of Christ what service will you do him do you consider it unto what holiness you are engaged if your Title be derived from so pure a Fountain Now I am at the top of the spire at that point of my Text which is nearer to Heaven than any other It is well that we were Infants when we were first inrolled to be Christians in those sucking days we did not feel the weight that was laid upon our shoulders if we came with ripe years to Baptism and with premeditated understanding it would make us sink down when we put our foot into the waters and tremble all over to bethink us what heavenly part a Christian is to act upon the Earth as if he were an Angel incarnate Alexander Severus the Emperor whose Mother Mammaea was a Christian was saluted in the name of Antoninus by the Romans a name which had been most auspicious in that Republick By no means says the Emperor do not engage me to the necessity of that expectation Nomina insignia onerosa sunt illustrious names are burdensom and I cannot satisfie that which is looked for from them Alas but a trifle was looked for from an Antoninus in comparison of that is looked for from a Christian A few sins were esteemed no blemish in one of them one sin and unrepented of shall be an everlasting woe to one of us The similitude of a few Vertues made up a gallant Heathen the defect of one Vertue degrades a Christian In whom there is not meekness and mercies there 's no print of Christ in whom there is not humility there 's no colour of Christ in whom there is not perfect charity there is no agreement with Christ non potest esse concors cum Christo qui est discors cum Christiano he that doth not abrenuntiate and deny himself he hath no part in Christ for he that thinks his good works are estimable with Heaven and looks to be saved by his own merits est latro insultans cruci Domini says St. Austin he is the wicked Thief that insults over the Cross of Christ He that hath Christ alwayes in his eye to follow him in his heart to love him in his faith to trust in him in his works to glorifie him he is co Christus he shall communicate of his name here and he shall be cohaeres Co-heir with him in his Fathers Kingdom hereafter St. Austin calls us Heirs in this World by the usurpation of this Name sicut sunt haeredes nominis ita sunt imitatores sanctitatis Christian thou art Heir of his Name thou shalt do well therefore to be Executor of his Sanctity There are three things as the same Father hath filed them together with which our Christendom holds a secret antipathy in his short book of true Religion Neque in confusione Paganorum neque in caecitate Judaeorum neque in purgamentis Haeâ—eticorum quaerenda est it is neither to be found in the confusion of Pagans nor in the blindness of the Jews nor in the filthiness of Hereticks Justin Martyr is well rejected by the great Annalist for condescending to call all the Heathen Christians qui 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vixerunt who from the beginning of the World had instituted themselves by well guided reason This can never be concocted with truth for Christianity in the very essence is an explicit knowledg of the Son of God that died for our sins and rose again for our justification Beside Gentilism doth incorporate in it the worshipping of vain Gods and how abhorrent is that to this Name When the Roman Deputy urged Polycarpus to swear by the Genius of Cesar his answer was no more but I am a Christian a Negative to all Idolatry in that Affirmative Secondly Where there is Judaism there is no Christianism He that hath relished the honey of the Gospel says St. Austin cannot endure the bitter waters of the Law Circumcision hath a bitter acrimony in it to offend his taste nec hostiarum ferre cruorem valet nec Sabbati observantiam custodire he will not offer the bloud of Sacrifices he will not keep the observation of the Sabbath Let them note that who strive to have the entire fourth Commandment to be moral and perpetual A strange refractariness in some men that cannot endure to be Christians in Ceremonies and yet are content to fall back to those beggarly Elements of Moses and to be Jews in Ceremonies Thirdly The filthiness of Hereticks either in Doctrin or Life it draws a dash through the Name of Christian and blots it out No lie is of the truth and he that denies that Jesus is the Christ he is a liar and an Antichrist Jesus is the name of the Person of our Lord Christ is the name of his Office how every Heresie clasheth either against his Person or his Office and such a one doth so little merit to pass for a Christian that he is published for an Antichrist Or be it that you are undepraved in the truth but most depraved in manners there again you forfeit your interest in this spotless Name For why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Luk. vi 46. Cum impiis homines sumus sed non cum impiis Christiani sumuâ—â— I do not yield clearly to that but
a scandalous Minister had confiscated his own authority of reprehending that in others which he was guilty of himself and that the Doctrin and Discipline of our Church could never have been so contemptible but for their sakes who with their ill lives and manners made all the threatnings of holy Scripture which they preached and all the Censures of the Church which they passed or denounced ridiculous and insignificant yet withal his Lordship ever gave the people warning not to despise the chastening of their Mother for no man can lightly esteem the power of the Keys upon earth and yet be well prepared in heart to receive the judgment of God in the World to come For better amendment of whatsoever was amiss his Lordship would like St. Austin and other antient Bishops frequently sit Judg in his Ecclesiastical Courts and hasten the dispatch of all Affairs and especially if there were any thing that concerned his Clergie would always be present at the hearing of those Causes that neither his Clergie nor any by them might be wronged when he went not in person to the Court he gave ready access at his own House to all who came to complain even the meanest people who were grieved with long and tedious Suits and after hearing what they could say would sometimes send for the Chancellour and Proctors on both sides and what he could not redress at home he would oftentimes go to Court and end there throwing out many Causes that had been long depending for trivial matters and would not suffer any Causes to be entred for defamatory words or trifles without his own knowledg first to the end they might be composed without much vexation to the parties by this means his Lordship created to himself much trouble which he valued not for the great good he did by it and though less profit came to the Officers of the Court yet were they also contented believing God would better bless them for taking onely those Fees which so conscientious a Judge was willing to allow After Ordination he seldom dismissed any whom he ordain'd without rare counsel To remember they were Ordain'd to Cures not to Sine Cures the Cure of Souls the greatest of all others and wish them every day to think of the invaluable dignity and seriousness thereof and therefore in all their Preachings to avoid lightness Quia Nugae in ore Sacerdotum sunt blasphemiae as likewise all ridiculous gestures and loud vociferations empty affectation of words and phrases without weighty and ponderous sense and significancy accounting that elegant words without solid matter were but perfum'd Nonsense and that there was infinite difference between plainness and rudeness They had a duty to discharge both to the wise and unwise and therefore must take care that the learned Auditor might still learn somewhat and the unlearned Auditor might understand not only some but all His charge was that in every thing we should retain this great Principle to offer to God the very Best we have whosoever builds God an House let them build it better than their own the Ornaments thereof should be fairer than our own our Sermons there superiour to our ordinary discourses or labours in any other kind arising not from extemporary sawciness but our studied and best industry and therefore ever warned them as St. Paul did Timothy though he had the gift of Prophecying still to attend to reading as Preaching and remember St. Paul himself would not preach without Books and therefore caused them to be brought after him in all his Travels and sometimes preached the same thing the next Sabbath-day and therefore probably kept Notes He conceived it small commendations to any to pour out faster than they took in and that indiligent and over-frequent Preaching beyond the Preacher's parts or what the people 's needs required was no advantage to learning or piety especially in the obvious way of Preaching altogether by Doctrin Reason and Vse which of all Expositors of Scripture Musculus first took up and was one great means to lay the Pulpit open to the prophanations of the late times such Preaching being oftentimes so poor and easie that every Justice of Peace his Clerk thought he could perform as well as his Minister whereas a good Preacher had need be skill'd in the whole Encyclopedy of Arts and Sciences Logick to divide the Word aright Rhetorick to perswade School Divinity to convince Gainsayers knowledge of many Tongues to understand Originals and learned Authors and above all he would recommend St. Hierom's counsel Discamus in Terris quorum scientia nobis perseverabit in Coelis for otherwise all kind of learning in a Minister without good Example and innocency of life was but a jewel of gold in a Swine's snout This was his constant advice to his Clergie at Ordinations and Visitations which he duly held every third year Visitation of Churches he would maintain was no Filia noctis started up in a night of darkness and Popery but an Apostolical Institution and practised afterwards by all the Primitive Fathers and Bishops Herein his Lordship would oftentimes be the Preacher himself so that in his first Visitation Anno 1665. in his Progress in Shropshire and at Stafford from the last of May to the fifteenth of June he preached eight times in the compass of those few dayes at Bridgnorth Salop Elsmere Wem Whitchurch Drayton Hodnet and Stafford and confirmed above five thousand persons whom he required not to be tumultuarily presented but with the preexamination of their several Ministers and was in all places most joyfully received So that when he put on his Episcopal Robes he put not off his Ministerial Labours no man had reason to say his Majesty by making him Bishop had spoiled a good Preacher as it was said of Frier Giles that the Pope had marr'd a painful Clerk by making him a powerful Cardinal nor was he like Julius the third of whom the Historian complains that he had been formerly a diligent man but when he came to the Popedom never minded his Study or the Affairs of the Church more Our Bishop on the other side professed he found as many cares in his Bishops Rochet as he believed Antigonus did in his Royal Purple and if it were not for the glory of God and good of his Church had rather throw it away than hang it about his shoulders St. Paul very well understood his Office when he called it a good work not to be discharged without painful study often preaching daily hearing and determining Cases of Conscience judging in Causes Ecclesiastical repairing or building of Churches These and so many other things beside he found to do at home that all absence seemed tedious and intolerable to him abroad so that he never slept out of his Bishoprick in many years nor was willingly absent from his Flock but upon extraordinary occasions as in Parliament c. and then would often request my Lord Chamberlain
veritas displiceat seditiosa After his Majestie 's return and restauration of the Church of England he prayed for nothing more in this World than the downfal of Mahomet and the resurrection of the Greek Empire and Church again and would say he thought in his complexion and Religion both that he was the greatest Anti-Ottoman in Europe he was extremely afflicted for poor Hungary the Antimurale or Bulwark of Christendom in the last Invasion and consequently for the horrible division of Christians through the juglings of the Papacy for which reason he could not yet foresee which way possible they should unite under one General who might be able to put an Hook into the jaws of Mahomet and repulse the Grand Signior into Arabia again or to his Scythian Cottages and therefore he never hoped for this happy time till he saw the Papacy fall first which yet he hoped should never be brought to pass by those Infidels though he was very much affected with the words of Musculus spoken above a hundred years ago Ecclesia Sancti Petri sic aedificatur Romae ut ad plenum aedificata sit nunquam citiùsque destruenda sit a Turcis quà m ad finem structurae perducenda a Romanis He took the Pope to be an ill Member of Christendom yet would have no man desire the Devil should pull him down viz. the Turk or Goths and Vandals viz. German Anabaptists and Socinians for fear the change should be for the worse the Italians were a civil people and lovers of learning the Anabaptists of Germany more ignorant and bloudy far than they From this civility of his own temper he did not much love to fix the Title of Antichrist upon the Papacy yet believed that our learned Divines Mr. Mede and Dr. More especially had with that great learning in all kinds so charg'd this crime upon Him that he admired his Champions who daily scatter books of all other matters could permit their supreme Pontife to be so slander'd if it were not true and he thought it frivolous for them to write upon other controversies before they were able to clear themselves before all the world of this Capital one and which being true concluded all other crimes in it Though a reconciliation of all Christians were desireable yet he held it impossible to be effected as long as the Doctrines of their Churches Infallibility and the Popes Supremacy were so obstinately maintain'd The Pope was now become like a Blazing-star dreadful to all Potentates and Rulers and therefore whereas his two great Friends Bishop Vsher and Mr. Mede out of Apocalyptical Principles were of opinion that there would be a general Apostacy and Dagon set upon his feet again he could not believe it For he never feared Christian Princes would be so forsaken of their own understandings and other Counsellers as to resign their own Crowns to adorn a foreign Mitre especially when both Mr. Selden and Sir Robert Cotton had told him they could shew undoubted testimonies that all the Princes in Christendom envied Henry the Eighth's Act in this kind and would gladly have imitated him if they durst But this he imputed to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or want of Magnanimity in them who would not endeavour to recover their own rights in calling Councils presenting to Churches and other Flowers of their Crowns unjustly deteined from them by the See of Rome and therefore ever prayed the Kings of England might still retein their own just Supremacy without giving up their Regalia to any foreign Jurisdiction He thought the increase of Popery ought to be strictly watched not only for the perniciousness of the Tenents of their Heterodox Religion in themselves as being in his opinion Idolatrous and favouring of Rebellion but likewise for the cruelty and sanguinary minds of Papists themselves that whereas all Protestants express a charitable respect towards the souls and bodies of all Papists abhorring all bloudy Persecutions of them on the other side Designant nos oculis ad mortem Papists ever bear bloudy minds towards us and want nothing but power and opportunity to make as many Bonfires in England as they had done formerly and whereas in their excuse some say that the many late Treasons against their Princes were but the private Acts of some particular Papists then he wondred no Pope should ever think fit to send out his Bull to declare that he abhorred them or that none of their learned men should print books licensed by authority wherein they were renounced which he would have given a great deal of money to read The Bishop was an enemy to all separation from the Church of England of whatsoever Faction or Sect But their hypocrisie he thought superlative that allowed the Doctrine and yet would separate for mislike of the Discipline these mens impudence outwent all preceding Histories and he would challenge any to shew him in all Antiquity for 1500 years where any Christian withdrew from the Churches Communion much less rose up against lawful Governors for their imposition of indifferent matters or Ceremonies though in ancient times they imposed more than we do now All that were baptized were presented in White Garments which the Priest charged them to keep white and undefiled to the Coming of the Lord and they used not only the Sign of the Cross but praegustatio mellis lactis intimating that they were now brought to the Land of Canaan flowing with Milk and Honey Standing at Prayers was required upon all Lords-days between Easter and Whitsuntide and Prayer with their hands extended after the similitude of a Cross sometimes which must needs be very tedious and so many other things in St. Austin's time that his complaint is well known Tolerabilior erat Judaeorum conditio yet no Separate Churches were then set up for these things Truth is he thought the permission of Conventicles did shew great irresolution and unsatisfaction in the Truth administred great tentation to Shopkeepers and sedentary people to be tainted with errors and novelties of which the English temper is too receptive people being generally vain and whimsically sceptical and never to be satisfied like Him in the Talmud that would alwayes be questioning why the Sun rose in the East and set in the West to whom it was answered if it should do otherwise he would still complain to know the reason But above all he held we ought to become wise by former experience for Conventicles in Corporations were the Seminaries out of which the Warriours against the King and the Church came and therefore would much admire that if any man coin'd false money it was counted Treason if any man cheated a Pupil or an Orphan he was punisht or if he spread false News he was lyable to suffer for it but if any man publish'd false Divinity to the damnation of souls or perverting the minds of people from their obedience to their Governors there was little or no regard of it Beside he
Apostolical Bishops from others according to the old Story of Austin the Monk who came into England in the time of King Ethelred 600 years after Christ and prest the West Britains of this Island to receive him as their Master and Governour because he was sent by the Bishop of Rome A learned Abbot of Bangor having no fancy to his Message consulted with an Hermit what they should think of this man and his Message from Rome hearken says the Hermit the next time you and your Brethren meet to attend this Austin in Synod observe if he shew any reverence or carry himself humbly when he comes before you but if he salute not and bear himself disdainfully receive him not for he is no Apostle of Christ At the next Synod the jolly Prelat entred among the Monks with a braving courage never stoopt nor vail'd his head but usurped the highest place in the Congregation as the Roman Legate at this the Britains disliked his Arrogancy and would not receive his Message Yet our good Bishop's humility appeared not only in his outward demeanour and verbal salutation which he knew were often forced and more then was required and that Rivers were not deepest where they overflow but in their own Channels but in paying all due respect to the deserts of others without reflecting upon his own perfections therefore it was not his fashion to undervalue other mens learning or magnify his own Upon frequent occasions he would confess his want of Eastern Languages but in such studies wherein he was conversant would by private letters give great help to many writers of books who have confessed in their returns to him that the books were not theirs but his and thereupon would have had him to have own'd them or at least to have suffered an honorable mention of himself in those books which he would in no sort permit that as Camerarius said of Melanchton he was like a Nightingale that with his singing sweetly affected all others but would not endure to hear of it himself Notwithstanding this great civility and sweetness of temper towards all people generally we must acknowledg a vanity and defect in all humane accomplishments and perfections it being not possible that almost 80 years should be spent in this Age of humane infirmity and that any mans actions should be all fine flour without mixture of coarser Meal and Bran to say so were not to commend but to flatter not truly to represent but to dawb our Bishop would often severely censure himself and said he best knew his own heart to be of sinners the chief most unthankful to God for many Divine Talents confer'd upon Him and most wanting especially in many grains of meekness and forbearance to his Neighbours Indeed he was by nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most great wits are irritable and subject to great eruptions of anger oftentimes especially if he had met with bold and arrogant but slow parts St. Hierom acknowledges the like harsh disposition in himself and compares himself to an angry horn'd Beast and says that all the strict Discipline of Bethlehem and Watchings of Arabia could not mortifie this indecent passion in him God Almighty permitting these most holy and learned men sometimes to betray themselves in such palpable weaknesses does sufficiently convince us that humane infirmity cleaves to humane nature and absolute perfection belongs only to the Divine Yet I will add that as he was very irritable and apt to be offended so he was exceeding placable and ready to be appeased too generous he was to be vindicative and therefore though he would chide earnestly yet he ever censur'd mildly like the Apostles who had fiery tongues but gentle hands besides it was his judgment that if any man asked unreasonable things it was much better to chide him away from his house for his fault than give him good words and afterwards not do it minus negatur qui negatur celeriter and would alwayes advise other people if any thing troubled them to speak it out and never to retain a dry discontent and for the most part made his passion subservient to virtuous ends by his great natural inclination to anger becoming far more active and zealous in the carrying on his great projectments for piety and charity For any other censures of being illiberal and covetous which are so frequently and unduely cast upon Divines examin his life and few men will appear more incontaminat and free In bad times when he had lost his best Incoms and like the Widow of Sarepta had but an handful of Meal and a Cruze of Oyl left for himself and his Family yet he then thought Elias was worthy of one Cake out of it and accordingly has given a distressed friend twenty pounds at a time and would always argue that Times of persecution were the most proper seasons of charity and that charity was oftentimes the happy means to preserve us from suffering for Tyrants more commonly oppress the rich than their inopious Enemies as the Historian observed in the days of Nero Alium Thermae alium Horti trucidarunt many men might have fared better but for delicious Gardens and sweet Baths no man was safe that had a sumptuous Building or an envied Possession and therefore he believed it a prudent as well as a religious act in the Primitive Church at Jerusalem to surrender their Estates to the holy Apostles for pious uses rather than to leave them to a violent extension of prophane persons in a short time afterwards When he was made a Bishop no man was less lucripetous he desired to hold nothing in Commendam he renewed all his Leases for years and not for lives and upon very moderate Fines and spent a very considerable share thereof upon the repairs of his Cathedral often applying to the Church what the Orator said of the Common-wealth Non minori mihi est curae qualis futura sit Respublica quam qualis est hodie while he lived besides his constant charity to the poor of Lichfield City he enquired out distressed Cavaliers in his Diocess and lent them 50 or 100 l. for a year or two upon their own Bill or Bond and afterwards frequently gave it to them And thus he did sometimes to persons of a differing Religion with whom he held no Christian Communion but in this one thing of giving and never looking to receive again He reckoned that charitable Expences left to the power and managment of Executors were more theirs than the Founders and therefore was resolved to dispense his own in his life time and not be like the Whale that affords no Oyl till she die and must disgorge it To several Colledges in Cambridge he gave liberal summs of money to Clare-Hall fifty pounds to St. John's fifty pounds to Trinity Colledge he added a peculiar building call'd Bishops Hostle which cost him 1200 l. and appointed that with the yearly Rents of those Chambers Books should be
Tribes carried quite away by Salmanezar only Judah and Benjamin were left behind not able for their small number to fill the whole Land of Canaan whereupon that part wherein Nazareth and Capernaum did stand was called Galilee of the Gentiles Mark here the equity and indifferency of the Son of God both to Jew and to Barbarian He was conceived among the Gentiles at Nazareth brought forth into the world among the Jews at Bethlem Lived at Galilee of the Nations but died at Hierusalem So in this Gospel his Mother brought him forth within the Walls of the City that was proper to the Jew but the tydings were heard abroad without the Walls in the Country that was proper to the Gentiles The Collection is not violent but natural for so St. Paul argues that Christ belonged unto us aliens from the Covenant who were not of the Jews that served at the Tabernacle for Jesus also that he might sanctifie the people with his own bloud suffered without the Gate The benefit of our Saviours life and death was communicated to all people not only to the Seed of David passus extra Hierusalem He suffered not within but without Jerusalem because the fruit of his death lay open to all Ascendens è monte Oliveti extra Bethaniam Ascended into Heaven upon the mount of Olives without the Town of Bethany because he opened the Kingdom of Heaven for all believers But hear what follows in the Jesuit Salmeron natus in Speluncâ extra Bethlem born in a Grote or Cave for so he calls the Manger without the Town of Bethlem because the benefit of his Incarnation was open and publick to all Here his observation sticks and is erroneous although he hath the judgment of Cajetan to favour him and the conjecture of Baronius almost concurring with him for he says the Stable was in Suburbiis Bethlem not within but without the Gates in the Suburbs of Bethlem And what more manifest to convince their fancy than the eleventh verse of this Chapter This day is born unto you a Saviour in the City of David The Moral therefore is more fitly made up as I told you before that He came first into the world in the City of Bethlem by which deed he doth intimate that He was made flesh for the Salvation of the Jew but the tidings were heard abroad at the first publication in the same Country whereby it appears he was made man also for the salvation of the Gentile Another circumstance of place is in the Text that the Angel chose the open fields to annunciate the Messias of the world and who can deem but that they were fitly chosen for the purpose The Priests of the Temple would not be glad to hear of him that cut off their Types and Ceremonies they that inhabit the City would not relish such a Prophet that will say unto them Sell all and give it to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven The pleading places of Justice would laugh at his prescription He that taketh away thy Coat let him have thy Cloak also The Seas had heard of nothing but Neptune and Thetis and the titles of false Gods all their ships were called by the names of Idols but the plain Fields had no such prejudicate opinion against a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. Upon their pleasant fruitfulness the happy news are showred down as if the dawning of this bright day should change all the Earth into another Paradise Mystically thus much may be collected as all increase and abundance wherewith we are fed is brought out of the field so the Incarnation of Christ should fill the world with the plenty and abundance of Salvation I will not say according to the Letter of the Miracle in the Gospel that the fishermen laboured hard all night and took nothing so in the darkness of the Law which may not unfitly be called the night nothing at all was taken yes there was a number of those that believed but a very small one here a berry and there a berry says the Prophet upon the top of a bow The Pharisees compassed Sea and Land to gain one Proselyte and scarce glean'd up one in all their travel but since the Church writes it self not Jew but Christian Since the day spring from on high hath visited us the number of the fishes is so great which the Apostles drew into the Ship that the nets were ready to break because of the multitude As the Widows oyl fill'd every vessel which she could borrow of her neighbours so the faith of our Redeemer hath fill'd all Nations in the world As Job said by Allegory Petra mihi effundit rivos olei Rivers of oyl trickled down from the rock and the rock was Christ During the time of Moses Law what a paucity there was of those that spent their industry to interpret the Canon of the Scriptures How few are reckoned that shed their bloud for the maintenance of the truth Not any almost that made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven many Ages yielded small store of Saints But see what the Gospel hath brought forth like a fruiful field many Penmen of holy Writings many Virgins unspotted touching the flesh thousand thousands of Martyrs They that have gone about to cast up the number think that as many have lost their lives for the profession of righteousness in the time of the Gospel as there were beasts in the old Law slain for Sacrifice before the Altar Et nunc omnis ager nunc omnis parturit arbor Now the trees of the Lord are full of sap now the Temples of the Lord are throng'd with those that believe as the fields stand thick with Corn in Harvest This is the good will of him that was born in Bethlem prefigured to give increase and abundance because the Angel did annunciate him in the fields where fruit grows up for the use of man The errors of men are captious and catch at any occasion to argue for their own defence and why may not this Text be distorted by some to prove that fields and desarts are fit receptacles for Congregations of Christians But for Churches and Chappels they may be demolished or else neglected It was an Heresie of the Massilians as Damascen oserved that God might be worshipt as well in the Woods or vast Mountains in any place unhallowed as in those Oratories that are dedicated to his honour I would they had left none of their brood behind them but the first broacher of that corrupt Doctrine as I have told you once before in my conceit was Jeroboam for he made a rent in the Kingdom of Israel alienating ten Tribes from their Allegiance due to their lawful Prince Rehoboam But one thing troubled him that according to the Law all the Tribes must go up once a year to worship at Hierusalem which was the imperial City of the King of Judah This was it that cut the very nerves of his conspiracy
was to be feared that he was to be admired for his excellency that he was increate immortal eternal and not like the Idols of the Heathen there was Grace and Religion other Nations knew not him therefore he puts them by as if he knew not them he is the God of Israel Secondly This whole World is made for no other end but that Christ may exalt his Dominion in it and therefore the Nation of whom he was to come according to the Flesh that is spoken of as if it belonged to God alone and all other People were quite forgotten Well therefore might Zachary say O thou God of Israel for upon the Nativity of Christ now it was fulfilled why long since he was called the God of Israel His Incarnation as old Simeon said it was the glory of his people Israel his conversation among them was their temporal protection that their enemies should not devour them while he was with them upon earth his word confirmed it that the children of the Bride-chamber should not mourn while the Bridegroom was with them Finally His appearance among them in the Flesh was their spiritual exaltation for he preacht to none other but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel But Israel doth now no longer stand for those that according to the Flesh descended out of the Loyns of Abraham as St. Paul says he is a Jew that is one inwardly Rom. ii 29. So he is an Israelite that is a true man like Nathanael that hath no guile in him he that believeth in Christ that visited and redeemed Israel And that you may know the term stands now for the Church of the Faithful and Elect St. Paul calls them that walk according to the rule of Jesus Christ the Israel of God Gal. vi 16. You know that Jacob wrestled with an Angel of God at Peniel and thereupon the Angel changed his name and called him Israel because as a Prince he had power with God and men and had prevailed Gen. xxxii 28. he prevailed over men that is over his Persecutors Esau and Laban He prevailed with God by tears and supplications and this is the exact description of all those that belong to the Church of Christ that is of the Israel of God Their outward foes shall be subdued unto them when God shall think it time to put an end to their sufferings they must overcome their spiritual Foes that is get the victory over the passions and lusts of their own flesh vanquish the Devil overcome the attractive delights of the world and then they shall be no more Jacob but Israel they shall prevail with God It is well noted by one that when the Church in holy Scripture speaks of her infirmity she is called Jacob when she speaks of her happiness she is called Israel Isa xli 14. Fear not thou worm Jacob and Amos vii 2. by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small but in a thousand places ye shall find thus saith the Lord God the King of Israel and never was the Church in more prosperity then when Christ came among us in the likeness of man then it was not Jacob the worm but it grew mighty indeed it prevailed with him that sits on high then it was fit the Song should run in the best title Blessed be the Lord God of Israel You have received the first part of the Text entirely in every particle the solemn praise of the Divine goodness now follows the reason in two most glorious acts why the God of Israel deserveth this praise For he hath visited and redeemed his people Blessed be his name for he hath visited blessed be the Lord for he hath done marvellous things We want not many of these fo rs when we ascribe excellency to the King of Heaven Fame is a good companion for Virtue I love to see them fast together let there want no praise if there be a quia visitavit a good reason for it a deserving action to advance it but to spend our good word upon them that have no merit to speak good of the covetous as David saith whom God abhorreth to cry up Absalom among the people for a little out-side formality such praise is most fulsom that 's broacht either by flattery or ignorance When renown is so ill bestowed upon the wicked it makes the righteous that they do not regard it But the object of Zachary's benediction is so gracious so full of perfection that when we say all we can in the honour thereof we shall say too little for he hath visited for he hath redeemed his people The first of these is that which makes this the double double Holy day above all the Feasts of the year visitavit he visited and it is once again repeated in this Hymn of Zachary's the day-spring from on high hath visited us ver 78. Some there be that collect the three capital works of Christs dispensation out of my Text and the verse that follows for that he visited us say they it denotes his Incarnation that he redeemed us it betokens his Death and Passion that the horn of salvation was raised up in the house of his servant David it implies his Resurrection I think these things are minc'd asunder that should not be divided but all agree that to visit is a word so proper to Christmas-day as none more namely to take flesh and to dwell among us Doth the same fountain says S. James send forth sweet waters and bitter why that 's no such marvail for this very word to visit is so diverse in holy Scripture that sometimes it relisheth as sweet as mercy can make it sometimes it is as bitter as the very gall of his anger can temper it Visitat quando flagellat quando miseretur says S. Austin God visiteth when he punisheth and he visits when he pittieth In the first acception nothing is better known than that of the Decalogue Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me And again I will visit their offences with the rod and their sins with scourges and in the Latin Translation Jer. xxvii 8. That Nation will I visit with sword with famine and with pestilence And Psal lix 5. Thou Lord of Hosts awake and visit the Heathen and be not merciful to any wicked transgressors From hence we have drawn it into our common phrase that we call the infliction of the contagious Pestilence the visitation of the Lord. God is ever present with us but when he shews himself to be present by some exterior and notable work bringing his Judgment or his Mercy in a conspicuous manner to our City or even to the doors of our own house then he is said to visit us And if it be a visitation of vengeance yet refrain not to say Blessed be the Lord God of Israel whether he send his Angel with a Sword to smite us or with a Song as at Christs Nativity
thirty he drew in his head and in the fulness of ripe years he came to be baptized in Jordan Dion accounts it an happiness in Trajan that he began to govern the Roman Empire in his staid years I think he was then forty years old Vt neque per juventutem quicquam temere aggrederetur neque per senectutem languesceret that he was neither rash in execution by the heat of youth nor slow and timorous by the infirmity of age But the sacred story of the Scripture will give us instances that accord more aptly with our Saviour Joseph was thirty years old when he began to govern Egypt as who shoul say he was in the flower of abilities Joseph rul'd in another mans right David the best King of Israel in his own and he was thirty years old when be began to reign in Judah But because our Saviour offered himself to be known in my Text not in his Kingly but in his Priestly Office to be baptized for the washing away of our sins therefore the the best application will be to find the manner and custom of the Priests in the old Law and then for your satisfaction consult with the fourth of Numbers and it is ten times exprest in that Chapter that the Levites were to wait upon the work of the Tabernacle from thirty years upward and not before and at that very age Christ came to the waters of Jordan to be anointed an high Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech From this example some Canons have issued out in ancient Councils that none should take the Orders of a Priest before this age wherein our Saviour began to preach Afterward some years were abated for taking Priesthood yet peremptorily it was defin'd and never recalled that I know by any other Council that none should be allowed for a Bishop under the age of thirty So the Church of England hath appointed and commanded in the Book of Ordination of Priests and Consecration of Bishops which Book is confirm'd and ratified by Act of Parliament and yet it is sometimes dispensed withal in Rome that Children may hold the Title of the richest Archbishoprick in the world Viderit utilitas judge whether it be meant for the honour of God or for the profit of man Nazianzen urgeth it stiffly that the measure of this age of Christ is to be respected in every man before he negotiate in sacred Function to teach the Word of God Gregory collects the same from my Text Perfectae vitae gratiam non nisi perfectâ aetate praedicavit He taught his Disciples how to obtain the perfect life of glory when himself was gone on in his race to the perfect life of nature and like a good Master-builder he directs Novices as St. Paul calls them 1 Tim. iii. 6. to forbear a while and to give place to well-season'd Timber to make Pillars for the Church of God I have heard of a more satyrical similitude but a very true one that the Kine which gave milk drew the Ark to Bethshemesh and the young Calves were shut up in their Stalls at home I could not but give this instruction by the way taken from the complete age wherein our Saviour began to execute his Priestly Office There is a rub cast in my way by the Anabaptists which I must remove and so conclude this Point an exception against the Baptism of Infants because our Saviour was baptized in his manly stature Nay rather this collection is to be warranted that the children of faithful Parents are to be baptized in infancy even as Christ was circumcised an infant the eighth day And if any be converted to the Faith in their grown years it is not too late to come to that Sacrament for the washing away of their sins because Christ himself and many multitudes of elder people were baptized of John Surely Circumcision in the old Law doth so expresly answer to Baptism in the Gospel both being the first seals of the righteousness of faith that it stands uncontroulable that little ones are to be baptized as well as they were circumcized and the Ordinance of Circumcision being once appointed to belong to Infants the Holy Ghost hath spared the labour to appoint any other age for the Baptism of Christian Children as if no reasonable man could make a question of it And as all Israel that came out of Egypt men women and children were baptized that is had the figure of Baptism in the Cloud and in the Sea through which they marcht and escapt the pursuit of Pharoah so in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile Bond nor Free Male nor Female Young nor Old no difference of Nations Age or Sex but all are baptized unto the Remission of sins Our Saviour suffered his disciples to doubt somewhat concerning Infants for our better resolution for when they rebuked such as brought Babes unto him Jesus called them and said Suffer little Children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God Suffer them to come why we cannot put them into Christs arms where he sits in glory how shall they come unto him then unless we present them in the Sacrament Besides that which follows presseth further Theirs is the kingdom of heaven it is not theirs by such right as the Angels hold their place in heaven because they are free from sin And how can it be theirs since they are dead in Adam unless it be theirs by the seal of some Covenant And that is the Fountain of Regeneration I call them regenerate in that Fountain for as Christ blessed them when he took them up in his own arms so he blesseth them in our arms and if they be blest they are regenerate And so likewise they are made believers but after what sort they believe I know not St. Austin hath two opinions The first on this wise Accommodat mater Ecclesia aliorum pedes ut veniant aliorum cor â—t credant c. The Church our mother helps babes with other folks feet to bring them to the Font with other mens hearts to believe with other mens tongues to confess the truth so he means they are called Believers by the faith of the Congregation till they come to age to know Christ themselves His other opinion grants that Infants themselves are believers even as faith is in men that sleep who do not perceive it Aqua forinsecus exhibet sacramentum gratiae spiritus sanctus intrinsecus operatur beneficium gratiae The water sprinkles them with the outward Sacrament of grace and the Spirit breaths upon them the inward blessing of grace I see no cause why we may not apprehend this and assent unto it 1. It is as easie to apprehend they have a faith which they cannot use as to know they have an intellectual reason which they cannot employ And to facilitate our assent one urgeth it modestly thus it was passing strange that
be in the strict Grammatical sense to forbid according to the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to thrust back with the hand as I would derive it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to push away with the arm or some member of the body But I cannot I must not suspect John of such rudeness I incline much rather to the moderation of the gloss Non negat simpliciter sed deprecatur He did not stubbornly deny his Master what he bad him do but fearfully and with reverence declined him In the story of the old Church we find that some renowned men being called to the Office of a Bishop hid themselves out of the way some debased themselves in writing as most unfit for such a calling nay some disfigured certain parts of their body whereas the ancient Canons admitted none to that place but such as had perfect limbs and straight proportion yet they were not accused for this that they contemned the authority of the Emperour but they were rather noted for a great deal of modesty that they set themselves far under that esteem which the world had of them So this unwillingness in John to baptize our Saviour was not a countermand against his offer but a pleading with God that his Ministry deserved not to be so highly exalted You may parallel this action with Moses when he excused himself that he was not eloquent enough to speak to Pharaoh with Jeremy when he laid open his own imperfections that he had not the graces of a Prophet Ah Lord behold I cannot speak for I am a child With the Centurion that laid a bar in Christs way when he was coming to his house I am not worthy thou shouldst come under my roof Finally with Peter Luk. v. who thought such company as himself not to be meet for the Son of God Depart from me Lord for I am a sinful man One comparison more with St. Peter in another place will fit our turn exactly Joh. xiii 6. Lord says he dost thou wash my feet No thou shalt never wash my feet This were very audacious to oppose his own will against our Saviours but that no man knows how bold humility may be with God and give no offence Upon this very instance S. Ambrose excuseth both John and Peter for their meaning was not pertinacious to remove Christ from his intended purpose but to withdraw themselves because of their own unworthiness And I had much rather take this distinction than be their accuser Non crat inobedientia sed humilitatis pavor It proceeded not from disobedience but from the abashment of humility Michol was ashamed of Davids dancing that man should humble himself so much before God Now the opposite to her scorhful folly must be very good in John who is ashamed that God should humble himself so much before man Shall the Clay say unto the Potter What is it that thou hast made me thus No that were presumption But may not the Clay say unto the Potter Why hast thou made thy self thus Yes that is reverence and humility Therefore Peter pluckt away his feet from his Master as who should say Dost thou stoop to wash my feet to whom all things in heaven and in earth do bow and obey It was fit for an honest servant to have such a consideration Therefore John Baptist likewise trembled to dip his hands in water and to sprinkle it upon the Lamb of God As who should say in St. Ambrose words Tu venis ad me peccatorem Dost thou come to me a sinful man as if thou wouldst lay down thy sins and knowst no sin Did it not become a Prophet to make a scruple before he entred into such an action It is an excellent judgment that St. Bernard gives on both parts Magna utringue humilitas sed nulla comparatio quomodo enim non humiliaretur homo coram humili Deo A great vie of humility on both sides between Christ and John Yet both being truly censured John is no way comparable with Christ for it is not strange to see a creature cast himself down before his God when God did first drink of that cup and began to cast himself down before man The emulations of men are foolish and we contend for the most part who shall exceed another in vanity and of many of us it may be said as once it was of two great Roman Ladâ—â—â— Non minùs vitiis quam aliae virtutibus emulabantur They strived as much which should be most vitious as other chaste ones did which should be most vertuous Not so this excellent Prophet who did aspire to imitate the Son of God in humility and thought it the best part of Religion to be fearful of presumption As Tertullian spake what a strict care he had not to offend Timeo ab omnibus indulgentiis Domini mei I am afraid to accept of all that licence which God hath given me So John Baptist was so afraid leâ—t he should be exalted above measure that he thrust back that honour which the Lord himself imposed upon him He that will strive with God that he may not be too much lifted up I believe such a one would be easily perswaded to make no dissention in the Church for the defence of his own meritorious righteousness Nay if God himself shall speak to his praise I do not say to attribute strict merit to his work but if God shall give him testimony I was hungry and thou gavest me meat I was naked and thou didst cloath me in this the Lord pardon him if he deny it modestly When did I see thee hungry Or when did I see thee naked I must not omit to give you this observation into the reckoning John had pass'd the whole course of his life with an even obedience stuck at nothing though never so hard and austere this one instance in my Text excepted wherein he was loath to yield He was content to converse with beasts in the solitary Wilderness he thought he had enough when he made his meal of Locusts and wild honey His rough hairy garments were fit enough and fine enough in his opinion Imprisonment and death in a good cause were as welcom to his heart as life and liberty He that was obedient and pleased in all this can there be any thing so much against his mind that God should ask him twice to do it Yes he knew not what to make of our Saviours offer to come to him to be baptized for doubtless the lesser is blessed by the greater in this he was scrupulous And he that never flincht for abundance of misery there can be hurt in that knew not how to entertain this glory which was put upon him there may be danger in that and it could not displease that he was jealous for Gods honour but he forbad him saying I have need c. The zeal which we have seen in John that Gods excellency be not diminished leads us to the consideration
So the Father is the Voice the Son is the Word the Spirit proceeding from them both is the Truth and these three are all one and undivided So you see why the Father is resembled in the signification of a voice I must adjoyn also how well this doth express the comforts of a Gospel The Law was a dead Letter litera occidit by the strength of sin it killed us all because we were not able to perform it The Gospel is viva vox a quickning living voice such a one as quickned Lazarus when he was four days in the Grave The Law was heard in Trumpet and Thunder upon Mount Sinai Now comes a still voice such a one as would not scare a Dove away now comes Musick from heaven now comes obsecro vos that fair spoken language of the Apostles I beseech ye brethren This is such a winning allicient voice that the words that proceed from it are rather kisses than words therefore the Church speaking to the praise of the Gospels sweetness begins the song on this wise Cant. i. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth The first time that ever we read of Gods voice in the Old Testament you shall hear what Adam says upon it Gen. iii. 10. I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid But at the first time that you read of Gods voice in the New Testament it is made smooth and soft to our ear with This is my beloved and here I am well pleased What else to be concluded from hence But that an evidence and manifestation of faith shall be discovered to all men As when one telleth his mind to his Friend not by messengers or by Script but face to face Thou spakest sometimes in dreams and visions to thy people But says the Lord I will speak with my Servant Moses mouth to mouth Num. xii 8. So by the revelation of the Gospel we are all become as precious to God as Moses was and the Lord talketh with us as one doth with his friend face to face And with all succinctness that is the sum of the second Point Neither must I insist long upon the third thing noted which is the great Authority that this voice doth carry because it came from heaven and Loe a voice from heaven The Oracles of the Gentiles were wont to come out of hollow Caves and Rocks The Law of the Hebrews was delivered from the top of a smoaking hill but as Judges and great Magistrates were wont to publish their Laws from their Throne of State so doth God deliver the Law of Faith from Heaven and that Firmament above it is the Throne of God When the Earth opens it is to swallow Chore Dathan and Abiron When the Heaven opens it is to pour out consolation The Gospel reckons up three times that the Lord spake from heaven above and at each time it had the same Theme to magnifie the Saviour of the World The first time at his Baptism the second time at his Transfiguration the third time anon before his Passion when the Son begg'd earnestly Father glorifie thy name the Father answers him I have glorified it and I will glorifie it again Joh. xii 28. And that you may be assured how that celestial voice continues to speak unto us in the accent of comfort John tells us he heard a voice from heaven saying Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord Rev. xiv 13. Bode no evil with your tongue to any since the Lord out of his habitation speaks nothing but love and benediction towards us The voice of God is an open heaven but as for the curser and reviler his throat is an open sepulchre Sursum corda The tidings of Salvation come not from beneath they hover above our head therefore lift up your heart lift up your understanding and you will easily perceive that every part of sacred Scripture is a voice from heaven I know unless the inward testimony of the Spirit prevail upon your soul and induce it to believe all external Arguments from the judgment of the Church in all Ages from harmony of truth from fulfilling of Prophesies and whatsoever else will be insufficient to perswade you Yet if any thing more than other will puzzle the refractory it is this that in every part and scope it sounds like a voice from heaven far otherwise than the books of humane learning That which drives our labours and studies only to the glory of God that which propounds no other reward but the fruition of God that which talks of no acts and monuments but such as belong to God this must be divine and from above Nec vox hominem sonat Surely it must be a voice from heaven But do the Heathen thus in any of those three parts of their Sciences either in their Moral Institutions or Natural Disquisitions or Historical Narrations In their Histories they write to honour men in their Philosophy to know the World in their Moral and Politick Axioms to make a just and a noble Patriot for his Country No Tract throughout all mans wit and learning but only in the sacred Scriptures like a voice from heaven Perhaps here and there a Sentence of theirs may soar aloft but as Kites flie high yet still look down to the Carion upon the Dunghil So the stile of the Heathen may rise up in some things as it were in the clouds but from thence they look down how they may be famous and popular And that is no better than a blast of vanity sure it is no voice from heaven Beloved this is a most illustrious opening of the Gospel that the heavens assumed a tongue and began to speak wherefore it is for good reason that our Saviour had that diction so often in his mouth He that hath ears to hear let him hear Let me be bold to add he that hath a tongue to confess let him praise the Lord. As we delight to have the Lord speak to us so it delighteth the Lord to have us speak to him And as the Father did vouchsafe to send his voice from heaven to earth so let our lips be full of Prayers that we may send our voice from earth to heaven God is not an Eccho nothing but empty voice we read of his face and his presence and his right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore And as Absalon though he were a disloyal Son yet he did wishly desire to stand before his Father Says he to Joab wherefore am I come from Gerar to Jerusalem if I may not see the Kings face So the rebounding of the voice from heaven is to enflame our affections that we may see his face in heaven So shall it be their fair lot and inheritance who are Fìlii dilecti complacentes Sons Beloved in whom he is well pleased These are the Testimonials due to Christ and flowing from Christ to us which now I come to handle The fourth annotation is the Person to whom
his Sons for he provides not for him Secondly Whosoever wants bread let him never aske God for it but fetch it out of the hard stones get it by any stratagem or device let him remember to furnish himself with the slight of his own wits since God hath forgot him These are the upper and the nether Milstone by which Beelzebub grounds despair and worldly sorrow out of one principle and all manner of injustice and wrong dealing out of the other I called them lately the two Tables of the Devils Law unto which it is easie to reduce the most common sins that reign these two I make the parts of my Text which being throughly traversed will be sufficient to take up my discourse and your attention The first of those false rules which the Tempter teacheth is this that we must measure our filiation that God is our Father and tenders us as his Children by this note namely by our portion in this life if we have a full supply of worldly blessings then call him Father if you be pincht with sharp necessity then never call your self his Son a rule fitter for a beast to know his Master by than for a Christian to know his God by A Dog will wait upon him that gives him Crums under his Table the Oxe by this sign knoweth his Owner the Ass though a stupid Creature knows his Masters Crib by the allowance of his Provender But Brethren will you depend upon such a carnal mark to know the Lord and make your selves fit to be compared with the beasts that perish Fides est rerum invisibilium Faith hath an eye upon invisible things it is the evidence of things not seen But the Devil in his Catechism contradicts the Scripture and says Fides est rerum visibilium If you have not a competency of these things which you see why will you believe you shall be partaker of those things which you do not see Thus the Flesh is so partial in its own behalf that unless it have provision it will not suffer the Spirit to say Thou God carest for me and wilt never forsake me There is a passage well wrought into a Fable that shews the true disposition of a natural man Chremes casts off his Son Clitipho for attempting a Marriage without the consent of his Parents the refractary young man knew not how to revenge himself but pretending suspicion before his mother that he was none of her true Child but some exposed Brat or Changeling whom they had fostered for a time Alienus sum subditus volo parentes meos ut commonstres mihi So the Devil would whisper into our ear if God cast us off and gives us not relief and nourishment it is fit we should disavow him for our Father and especially he thought this a good motive among the Jews who had all temporary blessings promised unto them in great abundance That Promise made them so touchy that they quarrelled yea and denied the Lord which had done so great things for them if their desire were not satisfied At Massa and Meribah when they wanted water Is the Lord among us or no Exod. xvii 7. Upon the pressure of their Enemies the Angel could not make Gideon believe at first that the Most High was the Watchman of Israel that overlook'd them If the Lord be with us why then is all this faln upon us Judg. vi 13. In the Psalms of David it were without end to instance how the Prophet expostulates Awake why sleepest thou Why dost thou turn away thy face Why dost thou not see our misery and trouble And at last seeing Gods enemies have the upper-hand of his Servants in these external blessings my feet were well-nigh moved when I saw the ungodly in such prosperity In this common Theme I take it as I light upon it you shall hear my reasons which flatly check Satans rule that there are and have been divers opprest with necessity and want of bread and yet God doth not cease to be their Father and they must retain the consolation that they are his Sons First and before any thing attend to this consideration If every good Christian were satisfied at all times with temporal blessings we should appear to serve God for our own profit that we might lack nothing which concerned this transitory life But Abraham flies his Country and hath not a foot of ground to dwell upon Jacob and the Patriarchs have no food in Canaan unless they go into Egypt for it Peter and John have not a mite of Silver and Gold no not for the use of Charity that the World may see there are some that serve the Lord for pure zeal and not for the wages of Fortune as we call it The Devil in whom it is proper to calumniate vertue he gasht at Job with his Tusk and slighted his integrity as if he were a mercenary friend of God Doth Job serve God for naught His substance is increased in the Land And therefore to confute Satan the Lord put him to the utmost trial and took away almost all he had It is good humility to say unto out Father with the Prodigal Make me as one of thy hired servants that is Put me into thy Family though I be in the lowest rank a door-keepr in thy house as David said Put me to any drudgery and labour but it is not the meaning he would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an hireling one that would do his Father just so much service as he was paid for Of such a one the Orator said Non est amicitia sed utilitatis mercatura So in our Dialect we may say It is not to glorifie God but to merchandise Religion Like that saying 1 Sam. ii 36. Put me into one of the Priests Offices that I may eat a piece of bread It is pity he should eat that would not be a Priest to serve at Gods Altar unless he might eat by his Office St. Thomas the Disciple had not yet taken out the true lesson of faith when he required to put his finger into the print of the nails and to thrust his hand into Christ else he would not believe but they are further off than he that will not believe unless they may finger their gains and thrust their hand into the commodity of the world I and perhaps look for honour to boot bare riches will not content them Many Sons of perdition even in the ancient and pure times of the Church started away to rank Atheism and renounced their Baptism upon discontent that some promotion did not fall upon them Ammianus Marcellinus could sâ—y in his time it would encourage a man to be a Christian if he might be chosen Bishop of Rome and so flow with wealth and dignity Gratis poenitet esse bonum O base earthly mind that would be an Infidel unless he might be a rich believer Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts says Solomon But he that loves God for his
bodie nor with our substance He shall have neither our goods nor our knee but likely we put it off He shall have our soul why this is only to give God his thirds as a reverend Father saies to compound like Bankrupts and give him two parts less than we owe him and yet we look for ten thousand times more than He owes us We have some that are to be suspected for a kind of Sadduces among us that believe no resurrection of the body else they would never palter with discipline but be more forward in the prostration and worship of the bodie than the Church could be to command them Some have given a great blow to this duty by harping upon the bare words of S. John and not digesting the true meaning of his Text Joh. iv 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Mark the occasion why this was spoken and the words precedent The woman of Samaria moved a doubt whether God was to be worshipped at Jerusalem as the Jews taught or at Mount Girizin as the Samaritans taught Now the Samaritans worshipt God falsely they worshipt they knew not what says Christ The Jews held strictly to Moses Law and observ'd figures and shadows of things to come which were all to give place and vanish upon the incarnation of our Lord. Now it is easie to discern the substance of our Saviours answer what it is to serve God in spirit and truth Truth is opposed to the false superstition of the Samaritans Spirit is opposed to the Jewish figures and sacrifices And Christ tells the woman God will neither be served any more after the Samaritan way or Jewish way but after the newness of the Gospel The hour cometh and now is when ye shall neither worship the Father in this Mountain nor at Jerusalem but they shall worship him in spirit and truth Do these words exempt the worship of the body nothing less The word spirit is not taken there for the soul divided from the body signifying only an internal act of the spirit but for all manner of virtuous actions as well external as internal which proceed from the grace of the Holy Spirit being acceptable to God because the Holy Spirit brings them forth not because they are figures of things to come I will sing with the spirit says St. Paul 1 Cor. xiv 15. and yet singing is a bodily action He did worship in spirit when he said For this cause bow I my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Ephes iii. to come to a point Remember therefore how we adore God in spirit when we adore him with those outward gestures of the body to which we are stirred up by the Spirit of truth And so much of the first member of my Text which I laid out to be handled by it self the Lord God is to be worshipped The next duty is the other Pillar of Religion which upholds the Church of the Elect the Lord God is to be served By worship you know already we understand all humble outward devotion and reverence Now by service you must conceive the inward conformity of the heart to all duty and obedience The will of the Lord is revealed to us two manner of ways Either as he doth promise us blessings and benefits and assures us great rewards in the Kingdom of heaven Or as he doth stipulate and covenant with us what we shall do to obtain his favour In the former respect as he hath given us the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth most liberally and as he doth promise greater fruits of his mercy most graciously we fall down and worship him for his benefits but as he doth condition with us to do somewhat for his sake that he may leave a blessing with us we serve him faithfully and bind our inward faculties our soul and our mind to be prompt and ready to execute all obedience That you may the better compose your hearts to attend Gods will in all things and to serve him I will supply your knowledge with these few motives following First There is no other Lord beside our God properly called 1 Cor. viii Though there be that are called Gods as there be Gods many and Lords many that is by opinion and nuncupation but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him And again Eph. v. 4. One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God who is above all and through all and in you all Super omnes dominio per omnes providentiâ in omnibus justificatione Above all by his Dominion through all by his Providence in all by sanctifying us with his grace and justifying us from sin He that is subject to none inferiour to none independent of himself in all his power He may well be called a Lord and such a Lord deserves to be served Petty Magistrates hold of Princes favours and Kings hold their tenure under God Therefore some of the Roman Emperours having the perceivance that they could command nothing absolutely if he that sate above the heavens did stop it they would not be called Domini because themselves were servants in relation to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords therefore their circumscribed power did not answer the title When the Scripture brings in the most High the saying is Haec dicit Dominus Thus saith the Lord. If we would examine this after the stile of man you would say Lord of what Why universal Lord without any particular designment Specifications to be Lords of this or that are earthly phrases are notes of minority Attalus the Martyr was askt what name that Lord had whom he served Says he Qui plures sunt nominibus discernuntur qui autem unus est non indiget nomine Where there are many Lords they must be distinguish'd by their properties but what need that Lord a name for distinction who is the only Ruler by himself without any equal or partner in his dominion now since we must serve for sin hath brought servitude into the world whom would a man choose to serve but that only Lord to whose sheave all other sheaves do bend and who only hath authority Secondly In all service you will consider in what state and place it puts you Do so in this and spare not But let St. Peter be the Judge 1 Epist ii 9. Ye are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people There is royalty in the very service Cui servire est regnare To do him service is a Kingly Ministry Nay there is more in one of our Church Collects in one Line of it than in the most Augustious title of a King God whose service is perfect freedom A King may be so much subject to naughty passions as he shall be in vile thraldom to his own sensualities and so
which was in them all brought out an harmony of the same truth from several Authors apprehend it if you will by this vulgar similitude A Gardiner curious in devices had taught four several learners to draw the same artificial knot upon the ground and every of the four laid out his knot as he was instructed upon several beds but each set it with several kinds of herbs you will not say I hope but the knot is the same albeit the herbs planted upon it are different So all the four Evangelists were taught by one Holy Ghost to draw out the same model of our Saviour's life his Transfiguration his Passion his Resurrection the herbs indeed with which every Gospel is planted are divers the narrations differ in words but that 's the excellency of the truth of our Gospel that in several phrases every one of those holy Scribes sets down the same Lord Jesus Christ This I have added to the illustration of this seeming difference after six days Christ was transfigured 't is true and as true it was about an eight days after these sayings The last respect unto the time is joyned with the place this Transfiguration fell out after he was gone up into a mountain to pray A valley is as capable of Gods glory as a mountain for God is God of the valleys as well as of the hills whatsoever Benhadad the King of Syria said to the contrary but Christ chose this high hill as well for the exercise of Prayer as for the mystery of his Transformation there may seem to be two intentions that he desired such a place for prayer quia coeli conspectus liberior quia solitudo major First upon the higher ground there is the more free contemplation of Heaven the place to which we lift up our eyes and our hearts in prayer for though our Lord is every where both in heaven and earth and under the earth yet thither we advance our devotions as to the chief Throne of his Majesty Next our Saviour left a concourse of people beneath and went to the mountain to pour out his devotions there as in a solitary sequestration where he should not be troubled Into such unfrequented hills he did often retire alone as if he would teach us to bid all the world adieu and all earthy thoughts when we utter our supplications before our heavenly Father neither doth it seem expedient to act the miracle of the Transfiguration upon a meaner Theater than an exceeding high mountain to shew what ascensions must be in their soul who have a desire to be exalted to Gods glory Our heart according to its own evil inclination cleavs unto the dust like a serpent our thoughts are of low stature like Zachaeus if they will climb up let it be for no other end or errand but as he did to see Christ There are two mountains says Bernard which we must ascend but not both at once First there is the mountain where the Son of God did preach Mat. v. and after that go up to the mountain where he was transfigured Mat. 17. Non solum meditemur in praemiis sed etiam in mandatis Domini I beseech you first meditate upon the Sayings and Commandments of God and afterward upon his Transfiguration upon the reward of glory and not as it is the vain custom of the world run on presumptuously upon assurance of glorification and to forget the true order first to ascend upon the mountain of obedience If you think it material to my expositions to know what mountain this was on which the dignity of this great work did befall you shall be informed in that also I know none but Ephrem the Syrian that says it was Mount Sinah He had his fetch oportebat in eo suggeftu consignari novum testamantum in quo conscriptum fuit vetus it behoved he speaks as if he would appoint God it behoved the New Testament to be chiefly honoured in that place where the old Law was delivered But God is not bound to man's witty divinations for this Mountain as it appears in our Saviour's journeys was in Galilee and Sinai is in Arabia Galat. iv 25. St. Hierom did long dwel and study in the Region of Judaea and he says in his Epitaph or Funeral farewel to Paula that it was Mount Tabor And Euthymius interserts as much Psa lxxxix 13. upon those words Tabor and Hermon shall rejoyce in thy name This was so constantly believed that Helen the Mother of Constantine built a Church upon that ground to celebrate the place where Christ had been wonderfully dignified and if relations deceive us not there are the ruins of two little Chappels more upon Mount Tabor at this day erected by some superstitious conceipt because St. Peter said Master let us build here three Tabernacles All that I read beside is in Josephus that it was the most craggy and steepy high place in all Galilee in some parts inaccessible the fitter to resemble the Kingdom of Heaven to which we cannot ascend but in one rugged path repentance and faith And the Historian who was a famous Captain also adds that he built a wall about it in 40 days that the Jews might defend themselves there as in a strong Castle from the incursion of the Romans It is more than all these have said that S. Peter calls it the Holy Mount This voice we heard when we were with him in the holy mount Holy because the Sacred Trinity did open it self in that place as I will shew hereafter holy because Jesus the Holy of Holies did shine there in the bright lustre of beatitude not as if there were any holiness in the soil and all other earth prophane God did not mean so when he said to Moses Put off thy shoos from thy feet for the place on which thou standest is holy ground but because it puts an holy reverence into a man that approacheth either in body or mind and thinketh seriously what wonders were done upon that holy Mountain So I have done with the first part of my Text the circumstance of time and place which is the entrance into this Miracle It cannot be unpleasant to examine the smallest parcels of such divine works to them that love the History of Christ In the next general part we read as there was choice of time and place so there was choice of persons He took Peter and John and James What a-do should we have had with some men if none but Peter had followed his Master into the Mountain upon this glorious occasion as it is Leo caught hold of it to speak strange words and such as may amuse the Reader The Lord did take Peter into the fellowship of the indivisible Trinity When the Wolf in the Fable peept into the Shepheards house and saw him and his servants dress a Lamb to be eaten says the Wolf what a stir would have been made if I had done as much So I dare be bold
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
also thinks to elude the Scripture with a distinction that his holy Mother did first see him on this day non ad confirmationem dubii sed ad consolationem gaudii not to confirm her faith so he appeared first to Mary Magdalen who wavered and distrusted but no fill her with gladness If these things were so why did not the Book of God explain them if these things be not so why do they pretend Tradition without authority The truth is Gerardus a learned Lutheran hath taught us with more likelihood than ever any before how some unwary Clerks stumbled upon this error Epiphanius in his 68 Heres against the Marsalians lapsing in memory alleageth the words of Christ Touch me not to be spoken to his Mother when he first rose from the dead which indeed were spoken to Mary Magdalen and from hence came the misprision that he appeared first to his Mother when he rose from the dead Not out of desire to quarrel any thing that might justly concern the honour of the Blessed Virgin but for truths sake I have vindicated this Scripture that Christ first appeared to Mary Magdalen she saw his resurrection in the first bud and not only as others did in the blown flower You might have imagined this favour would have faln upon his Apostles or upon Joseph of Arimathea the Lord of the Soil where he first appeared but he was first found of her that first sought him especially he came first to her who gave greatest attendance to meet with him She brought a company of women with her to the Tomb before the Sun rose they were all vanisht but her self She fetcht Peter and John they came and lookt in and shrunk away Their going away commends her staying behind she held out to the last till at last her joy was fulfilled Reason good that those that run longest in the race should be first rewarded Our patience I fear is not so firm and stedfast as hers was if we have not every thing we ask for at the first we think our zeal is prejudiced and we utterly give over as if God were not our King on whom we waited but our Servant that must come at the first call Whereas you shall never speed with a twitch and be gon but with importunity and pertinacy The Kingdom of Heaven is gotten by violence and the violent take it by force But beside as all note it was her great love to Christ that made her partaker of the first-fruits of his glory a love that hath great perfection in it in contraries in the hardiness of her courage and in the softness of her mourning In the hardiness of her courage for do you know upon what pikes she run to stay so long at the Sepulcher of our Lord. As Thomas noted into what danger our Saviour embarked himself when he told his Disciples Lazarus is dead and we will go unto him Let us also go and die with him says Thomas So there were Souldiers abroad to watch the Sepulcher Spies in every corner from the High-Priests to mark who did confess and honour our Saviour to go to his Tomb much more to stay at it was in effect to say let us go and die with him we care not for our lives But true love esteems it sweet to suffer for his sake to whose memory their affection is constantly devoted And she that was thus magnanimous to die for him was a true woman in compassion and wept exceedingly because his body was lost They were tears mistaken as most tears are unless we weep for our sins As one says well our life is full of false sorrows and false joys we laugh when we have no cause to be merry and we weep when we have no cause to be sad So Mary laments that Christs body was not in the Sepulcher which truly known was the greatest cause of rejoycing that ever the world had No mans injury had brought that to pass but his own power and glory yet certainly her weeping was reputed as an office of love and zeal because she did it ignorantly out of a pious intention and we are all so addicted to profuse mirth that God doth seldom make a bad construction of mourning But alass how often do we lose God by sin through our own default which is the worst taking away of all and yet we afflict not our heart at the mischance we grieve not for it O weep for the light of that grace which we often lose and the day-spring of comfort will rise again in our consciences But it may be for all this Christ would not first have appeared to her after he was risen but that she was one out of whom in times past he had cast out seven Devils To the letter of the words be thus much said before I come to make application out of them the story runs concerning this Party that she had led a very wicked and a scandalous life for which she suffered this judgment from the Lord and very deservedly that she was made a prey to the Devil and seven evil spirits entred into her possest her wrackt her and tormented her But if seven evil spirits should take up their quarter in every Strumpet in these days wherein they abound I think their would not be Devils enough in Hell to furnish them I know that some who dip their Pen too much in allegories expound it not as if the very Devils themselves but as if the seven deadly sins had taken up their seat in her This is wrong for Luke viii 2. we find that there were with Christ certain women that had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities among whom was Mary Magdalen out of whom went seven devils Therefore it is not to be gainsaid but she was really dispossessed of seven infernal spirits that had entred into her Upon the account of this benefit she began to turn her heart to the fear of the Lord and grew up from grace to grace till no Disciple of her sex was more godly in her profession more servent in love more sincere in amendment of life Now out of all the Train that believed in the Name of the Lord he chose this convertita whom he had so mightily raised up to newness of life from the power of Satan I say he selected such an one to appear first unto her that the Church might know that such humble sinners as were partakers of his greatest mercy should also be partakers of his greatest glory And let every conscience which hath been opprest with the burden of iniquity refresh it self with this hope that our Redeemer liveth to gather those unto him whose iniquities have been many but they are washed clean in his bloud and are buried in his Grave As you have those comfortable words sounded in your ears before the receiving of the Lords Supper Come unto me all ye that are weary c. But thus Christ did as it were celebrate the resurrection of the body from
upon each of them Now this is nothing sutable to that which immediately ensued and was prefigured in this Miracle namely the speaking with divers Tongues to the fit intelligence of all Nations The most probable conceit that I can frame of it is to imagine how fire disparts it self into flames especially a celestial irradiation like the light of the Sun that was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like as of fire Fire you know will cast out many flames in sharp and Pyramidal points or as the Sun lays his beams forth in many ejaculations nothing fits it righter than the expansion of the fingers of the hand so this fire did glister like several beams in proportion to the Tongue when it is rather pickant and sharp than broad and in that sort as I fancy it as is above the skill of any Limner in the world to paint it for the Holy Ghost perhaps intended not to be set forth in Workmans Art and Imagery and so it multiplied into the shew of several disparted Tongues as many of them seemed to sit upon every several Apostle My drift is to make this conceit of it enter into you that from one Language the Apostles grew expert of a sudden to speak many their Harp now wherewith they praised the Lord was not only ten stringed but ten times ten stringed to make a more chearful melody to the God of Jacob. The Tongue which was confined before to a little corner of the world in Palestina and there only to bless the Creator that made us is now set at liberty that in all Languages it may glorifie the Saviour that redeemed us And as the Fathers do very well shew it this is a plain reversing of the curse of Babel by the blessing that came out of Sion For as God pulled down that proud Tower which those insolent Builders intended by the confusion of many Tongues so he built up the new Jerusalem in an instant by the gift of many Tongues and as diversity of Tongues was a punishment to scatter Rebels for their pride so diversity of Tongues was made the only means to reduce Infidels that had not heard of God into the unity of the Faith And they that advanced themselves against heaven says Gregory lost the communion of that one tongue which they had but they which submitted themselves to the good will and pleasure of Christ obtained the communion of all Tongues which they had not Sic humilitas unitatem meruit superbia confusionem And all this was done visibly upon this one day that we may believe the Church shall never want Gods invisible grace that is though not in this kind yet in some other benefit A miracle in the same kind they that are the common minters of Miracles dare not urge or pretend And although nothing be more expedient for the setling of the Gospel in an unknown world such as America was within one hundred and forty years then the gift of Tongues to be able to speak to those Savages to their own understanding yet the Jesuites have never arrogated that any of their Order who visited those parts could speak new Languages by inspiration only Turcellinus a man of no forehead nor modesty says that Xaverius the Jesuite spake but his mother tongue to the Indians of Goa and that all those heathenish people did understand him as if it had been their native Dialect an impudent forgery confirmed by none disavowed by Acosta of his own Society and quite contrary to the nature of a Miracle that Infidels and Pagans should be inspired to understand and the Christian that converted them should have no extraordinary inspiration to speak Therefore as I said before we have no kind of invisible grace in the same kind that the Apostles had cloven tongues that is a faculty to speak by instinct with all Nations but the Lord did never give to any Age more blessing in the learning of the Tongues than he hath done to this furnishing men with rare skill to be able to communicate in speech with those of the world beneath us which is a sign to me that he is gathering the World unto him by the calling of all Nations and hastening his Kingdom But now I gather in further upon this Miracle Can any thing be more Diametrically opposite to the good intention of it than publick Prayers recited in a Tongue unknown to the ignorant people to which they cannot understandingly say Amen Why hath God sent down this Vision of Cloven Tongues but that the Lips of all Nations and Languages may as well publickly as privately resound his glory If Beasts and Birds could speak they would utter nothing but that which they understand and shall reasonable men be tied through the tyranny of Church-men to fumble words by roat like Beasts It is against Nature which gave us a Tongue to be the interpreter of the mind to those that listen to us It is against Reason to make the Laiques say Amen to the Priests when for their part they are uncertain whether he blessed them or cursed them It is against Scripture 1 Cor. xiv If you speak in an unknown tongue how can he that supplies the place of the Ideot say Amen And Lyra says upon it If the People understood the Priests they would serve God better be converted sooner answer much more devoutly to the Contents of the Liturgie It is against the Scope of the Holy Ghost who enabled the Apostles to speak with divers Tongues that all people might hear and know and know and believe to eternal life It is against all possibility of Edification For where knowledge enters not first how can zeal and desire be kindled Ignoti nulla cupido And it is an impious derision of one of the Romish to say that although the Priest stand at the Altar so far distant from the people that they neither hear nor understand yet the people may be taught by Signs and Ceremonies It is quite against the old Imperial Laws Justinian the Emperour strictly commanding all Priests so to officiate in the Church that their voice might come distinct and intelligible to all the people present that they may answer again as is their duty Finally it is most utterly against the ancient use of the Church one example for many St. Hierom says that at the Funerals of Paula the people sang Psalms some in Hebrew some in Greek some in Latine and Syriack all in their several Dialects to praise the Lord for her happy departure So I have delivered what is most opposite to the gift of Cloven Tongues one thing more for a caution that a double tongue is a gift of the Devil as a cloven tongue is the gift of God The cloven Tongue was the dispersion of many beams out of one flame of many Tongues out of one root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Oecumenius so that there is unity in the root and distinction in the stalks but the double tongue which
them he gave them to speak with other Tongues with other Tongues which is simply and without any Periphrasis termed the speaking with Tongues For when Peter preached to the Gentiles of Cornelius house Acts. x. 46. the Holy Ghost fell on them and the Jews heard them speak with Tongues and magnified God In St. Mark our Saviour promised his Disciples that they should speak with new tongues Mar. xvi 17. not with tongues such as were never heard before for that were direct canting as we call it and it would turn to no profit of edification but they were such tongues as were new to them that spake them and they had the faculty to utter them in a new manner by a sudden inspiration and for a new work which was not begun before to call all the Gentiles unto the knowledge of salvation that there may be one Shepherd and one Sheepfold over all the world And then was verified that of the Prophet David There was neither speech nor language but their voices were heard among them their sound is gone out into all Lands and their words unto the ends of the world Psal xix The miracle is stupendious the end of it much more admirable than the miracle It is a glorious remonstrance of the infinite power above that from one Tongue and Dialect these holy men should be expert of a sudden to talk with all Nations whom they encountred The suddenness was wonderful to get such a volubility so as Mithridates had never the like without all study or premeditation Says Leo upon that circumstance Quà m velox est sermo sapientiae Et ubi Deus est Magister quà m cito discitur quod docetur The Word of Wisdom runs forth very swiftly and where God is the Instructer how soon doth he learn us that which he is pleased to teach us The multiplicity of that which they were able to utter was most ineffable their voice did come distinct and intelligible to all people that they might say Amen with an understanding heart when the name of Jesus is blessed in the Congregation Quot linguas quis callet totidem viris aequipollet as the old saying goes A man stands for so many men as he can speak Languages and therefore look how many Tongues one of them could speak in effect and sufficiency he was so many Apostles You see this well enough I will stand no more upon it the Miracle was one of the greatest that ever was brought to pass Even as those Jews that resisted the Holy Ghost were convinced in heart to think so their astonishment is expressed in three several terms ver 6. and 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the multitude was confounded they were all amazed and marvelled But they did not see the end of it that it was the opening of the door to bring the Gentiles into the Church and our induction to be admitted into the number of the people of God How could our stony hearts be mollified during so many Generations during the long time of ignorance that no man preacht in our Confines to make us understand him we were Barbarians to him that spake unto us and he that should speak was a Barbarian to us The Prophets of the Old Testament that had the will of the Lord revealed to them in all kind of Mysteries were tongue-tied that they could not express themselves to the Nations that sate in darkness And as one says very elegantly Religion before was as the Musick of a Monochord now the Harp of the Apostles was not only ten stringed but even ten times ten stringed to make a chearful noise to the God of Jacob. The Tongue which was confined before to the little corner of the world in Palestina and there only to bless the Creator that made us is now set at liberty that in all Languages it may glorifie the Saviour that redeemed us And as the Fathers do all hit upon it this is a plain reversing of the curse of Babel by the blessing that came out of Sion For as God pulled down that proud Tower which those insolent builders intended by the confusion of tongues so he built up the new Jerusalem in an instant by the gift of many Tongues And as diversity of Tongues was a punishment to scatter Infidels for their pride so diversity of Tongues was made the only means to reduce Infidels that had not heard of the Word of God into the unity of the faith And they that advanced themselves against heaven says Gregory lost the communion of that one Tongue they had but they that submitted themselves to the good will and pleasure of Christ obtained the communion of all Tongues which they had not Sic humilitas unitatem meruit superbia confusionem And all this was visibly done upon this day that we may believe the Church shall never want Gods invisible grace though not in this kind yet in some other benefit For in this kind the Lord did not assist his Church any long time surely after the first hundred of years it was scarce conferred upon any although Prophesies and gifts of healing did continue among some eminent persons afterward for a great space Irenaeus seems to speak as if some few had the gift of Tongues in his time Lib. 5. c. 7. which was about one hundred and fifty years after Christs Ascension But after him I find no Author touch upon it and perhaps Irenaeus speaks of the time when he was very young and knew Polycarpus and the Scholars of the Apostles I make no reckoning of Antoninus the Plorentine nor of any reports which he and his Pew-fellows make concerning some of their Friers whom they say God did inspire with all sort of Languages They have whetted their tongues I am sure with sharp lies and in that respect they have one tongue more than a good Christian should have They that are the common minters of miracles dare not urge or pretend this faculty of all kind of Languages in our days because they would quickly be descried when they came to parley with learned men For though nothing be more expedient for the setling of the Gospel in an unknown world such as America was within one hundred and forty years than the gift of Tongues to be able to speak to those Savages to their own understanding yet the Jesuites do not arrogate that any of their Order who have visited those parts could speak new Languages by inspiration Only Turcellinus a man of no forehead or modesty says that the Jesuit Xaverius spake but his Mother Tongue to the Indians of Goa and that all those heathenish people did understand him as if it had been their native Dialect An impudent forgery testified unto by none but himself disavowed by Josephus Acosta of his own Order who was long in those parts and quite contrary to the nature of a Miracle that Infidels and Pagans who perhaps never believed should be inspired to understand and the Christian that converted
Negotiation what manner of Teachers they should be First To be diligent in their Apostleship that all that were commended to their cure should be sufficiently provided for and have enough Nay though immoderate replenishing be naught for the Spirit as well as for the body yet let them abound rather than want and though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is unseasonable is unreasonable yet he shall make a better account before God that hath dropt somewhat out of season by affected supererogation than he that hath done too little in season and hath neglected the gift which was given him by imposition of hands Alexander the Predecessor of St. Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria returning to Alexandria after the Nicene Council was dissolved was so much a Pulpit man that for a long space he would suffer no man to preach in that great City but himself lest the Faith concluded lately at Nice should be mistaken by any other Doctor I think I may say he took too much upon him yet certainly it was a fault on the better hand It pleased our Saviour that his Disciples should feed their Guests rather with superfluity than scarcity Another Parable gives them a character that they were nummularii those that put Gods Talents to the money-changers that he might receive his own with Usury not as if Usurers were countenanced by the similitude but because as that gain is boundless so we should drive Gods trade extensively indefinitely without pause without measure and increase upon increase will require labour upon labour Says Gregory the old Law required of a brother that survived to marry his Relict and to raise up seed unto the Brother that died without issue The Apostles and such as have taken the like Office upon them by their Ordination are the Brethren of our Lord he calls them so himself our Lord departed as it were without issue because they were very few that believed in him when he ascended into heaven The Law therefore calls upon his Brethren to raise up Sons and Daughters unto him And though his heavenly Off-spring be grown innumerous at this day yet his Brethren are tied in as great conscience as ever before to tend the increase because the Church is not yet called at least the number of the Elect is not yet accomplished and if you would eat bread your selves in the kingdom of heaven distribute what ye have received that the people may eat I say what ye have received for beside diligence there must be sincerity The Disciples set of no other before the multitude but that which Christ brake Sic ea tantùm proponamus Ecclesiis que Christus praecepit So propound nothing but that which Christ taught and speak with no other tongue but as the Spirit gives you utterance and thou shalt save thy self and others But if you shall shred the wild Gourds of your own gathering with that which grows in Gods Garden the Children of the Prophets will cry out O thou man of God there is death in the pot Men that obtrude their own Traditions upon the Church are they aware of their high presumption The Prince of the evil Angels went no further Then I will be like the most high and he that says my truth is no less Orthodox than that which is written in the Prophets and Evangelists what difference is there between him and Lucifer Are they aware of the consequent of their new Doctrine that it creeps like a Gangrene and hath such a contagious quality to infect that which was sound that the truth which once they professed will be quite stained with innovation Or are they sensible of the threatnings of God Rev. xxii 18. If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the Plagues that are written in this book It is unspeakable to say what a storm a man raiseth to toss the whole world in that invents a new Article of faith or enforceth the consent of Christians to that which is not indubiously the Word of God Be very choice to examine what it is with which you feed Christs Lambs and see that you take it out of Christs own hand I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you says St. Paul 1 Cor. xi 23. And so Lyrinensis a judicious exploder of all novelties id est proprium Christianae modestiae non sua posteris tradere sed à majoribus accepta servare It is a token of Christian modesty not to vent what we broach out of our own brain but to keep that which was committed of old One thing will cast me back a little before I conclude this Point Shall we look upon the Twelve feeding the multitude with the Loaves and Fishes in the capacity of good Pastors Then belike we must take Judas into the number Yes says Chrisostom Et ille habuit suum cophinum inter reliquos he took up a basket full of that which remained as well as his fellows And as long as he fed the People with the same which he had from Christ it was not to be despised because it came from him Let men be as they will be the sin of man shall not make the power of God to be of none effect It troubles not us therefore that Judas was one that distributed as well as Peter let it trouble them who think their sacred things are all marred or disappointed if the Priest be in a mortal sin An Hypocrite may play his part notably upon such an occasion as if he suspected the validity of the outward work where there is not inward sanctity Thus the Donatists in their first quarrel made head against Caecilius Bishop of Carthage because they pretended that he was ordained by Traditores by such as had delivered the Scriptures to Dioclesians bloud-hounds that they might burn them So the Luciferians fell off from the unity of the Church in opposition to Hereticks who returned again into the right way but those censorious Pharisees would allow of nothing they did in their Priestly Function And this was maintained sundry times by rugged irreconcilable natures and revived again if some say true in the days of Wickliff The stone of offence at which they stumbled was that the Church as we observe it well pronounceth after Christ that Bishops and Priests receive the Holy Ghost in their ordination but such as are spotted with grievous sins heresies have quenched the Holy Ghost Yea but not that Holy Ghost which they received in their holy Orders That is a grace conferred for the dispensation of divine mysteries and no other It is a grace whereby they are become Conduit-pipes of grace to others It is not a grace whereby they save themselves but whereby they save those whom they baptize comfort and teach and absolve in a word not the grace of an holy Life but of an holy Calling Be not therefore shaken with scruples and suspicions what operation the Offices of the Church have when Judas and
produce in Europe When their Wonders are done so far from home it is a sign they would be trusted but not hazard examination 4. Where the Holy Ghost came down from Heaven it was fit that the Soil just under that Zenith should be the Cradle of the Church to receive its infancy Christ commanded his Disciples to tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from above Act. i. 4. He would not send his Souldiers abroad unarm'd to fight his Battels the Spirit of Grace is medulla Ecclesiae the Pith the Marrow of it Our strength without it is but like that of dead bones where it descends plentifully there riseth up a Church to Christ And here the Apostles had it not inchoativè but cumulativè they were abundantly filled with it because they were to empty it out to all Nations Out of these Premises I proceed to the Conclusion Jerusalem was Ecclesia Primitivorum The Church of the First-born the Apostles the eldest Sons of their Mother did teach the first Alphabet of Christianity there and therefore by way of gratitude to so great a Benefactress the Catholick Church by way of Metonymy Causa pro causato will never be ashamed to be called Jerusalem Every Kingdom upon due right must bear a reverend respect to them from whom they received their happy conversion Some had the first knowledge of Salvation from Rome some from Constantinople some from Antioch some from France some from England but all from Jerusalem And yet none of these are to domineer over the faith of their Brethren They that have begotten us in Christ may teach another Gospel in the revolution of Ages than the Gospel of Christ and then are we bound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to labour to reduce them into the right way above all others who were the Parents of Religion It is a blessing sorted out to some whereof David speaks Thou hast made me wiser than my Teachers Jerusalem that drank the luke-warm bloud from Christs side and had the Prerogative of pure Doctrine without all mixture of insincerity it had a Bishop in the whirl of times John the Predecessor of Prailius who was an Origenist and a suspected Pelagian another of its Pastors was Gerontius a confessed Eutychian and divers others it had that were leavened with heretical contagion None would concur with these unless they would put out their eyes to wander for company because they were the chief Fathers of the City of God Imagine therefore that Alcasar the Jesuit had all tâ—at he could ask that the new Jerusalem that came from heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband was the Church of Rome yet his Reader must be very courteous that will admit that Exposition give them this moreover that Isaiah meant it Chap. lx 3. The Gentiles shall come to thy light and Kings to the brightness of thy rising No proper name is specified there But what if it were Rome Although the seventy two and their own Vulgar Latine have added the word Jerusalem unto it Above all suppose it were possible to consist with my Text that it were the Roman Church which was opposed to Hagar the Bond-woman that these were her Epithets to be above and free and the Mother of us all which had it been Tu es Petrus had never been planted in the fore-front of their argument nor had it been their Dromedary ridden and jaded upon all Controversies this had been their Achilles in which they had boasted themselves invincible But if all this garnish had been the true beauty of that Church it would afford us no more than to meditate upon the Prophets question with wonder and commiseration How is the faithful City become an harlot The true Church upon earth is a Tabernacle portable hither and thither easily devolved from place to place When Abraham looked for a City that had foundations he expected it in heaven and not in earth Heb. xi I know what is ready to be caught hold of from hence by some and much good do them with it that the Church is compared here to no ignoble handful of people which a man must grope for in the dark but to an illustrious Commonweal famously known and conspicuous in a glorious manner to all the world Yet with their leave this Jerusalem which St. Paul prefers was in those days like a Pearl in the shell orient in it self but hidden from the world overspread with a multitude of gainsayers ten thousand Adversaries and ten thousand more to one Orthodox believer As the Historian says of C. Marius brought so low in his fortune that he hid himself from pursuers of Sylla in the flags of a fenny ditch Quis eum fuisse tum consulem aut futurum credere Who would have thought he had been Consul or should ever live to be Consul again So when the Apostles and a few persons more met in an upper Chamber at the feast of Pentecost who would have took them to be the Kingdom of God upon earth and none but they Or who would have divined that such as they begot in the truth should spread into all quarters as the Stars for multitude It is the Lords doing and it is marvelous in our eyes The Mountain of the Lord hath been notorious and a clear object unto innumerous eyes upon the top of the Mountains But is there any such promise that her outward splendour should be constant and her felicity perpetual Nay rather are we not threatned with such times when it shall be rare to find faith upon the earth with large Apostacies with flying away into the Wilderness with the Saints dispersed into private Corners Grant that this should be for one hard brunt and no more Dato non concesso yet if the small number of right Believers may be compelled at any time to exercise their Religion in private the reason falls which some do pertinaciously allege that the Church must be always well known over the greatest part of the Earth because her Doctrines and Traditions must be fair and open to all them that will come unto her to seek salvation or else such as continue in ignorance are excusable if sometimes it may be obscured by misery their mouth is stopt for making that objection and we are assured that the conversion of Unbelievers is not so plentifully brought to pass by the populous association of men professing faith and godliness as by the inward impulsion of the spirit where the Labourers pains do hit successfully by the hidden will of God But if the quarrel went no further than that the Church is a Jerusalem always well known and visible in some measure of manifestation it might quickly be compounded a Congregation there hath been ever since the Apostles whose report might come to the ears of natural men though their profession of supernatural verities was known only to spiritual men in this latitude we may believe upon historical faith that the City upon an hill was never
upon their bare knees to procure them that happiness to be readmitted into the union of the body of Christ Rowl those words in your conscience which Christ spake to the Apostles Whatsoever ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and it would gripe you as if the knot were tied about your Heart to be shut out of the Fold of Christs Flock by the Sentence Ecclesiastical They that are set over your soul have not the use of the material Sword but the words of Discipline that proceed out of their mouth are sharper than any two-edged Sword Having in readiness to revenge all disobedience says St. Paul 2 Cor. x. 13. In promptu habentes What so ready upon all occasions as the Tongue If this Mother be offended by the impenitency and contumacy of her degenerous Sons she will suddenly smite them with such a wound as nothing can heal but her own forgiveness and the grace of God But a Mother is soon intreated if the Child seek her with tears and lowliness It is a gentle caution which Bernard gives to them that sway the authority in spiritual censures Discite subditorum matres vos esse non Dominos studete magis amari quà m metui si interdum severitate opus sit materna sit non tyrannica Let not your severity be tyrannical but with the compassion of a Mother Thirdly Forasmuch as the Church is our Mother we must carry that venerable duty towards her that great heed must be had to her determinations of Faith not as if it were the rule of truth that is the prerogative of Sacred Scripture but because it holds out the rule of truth and the Ministry thereof is the condition subordinate under God to find out truth My Son forsake not the teaching of thy Mother says Solomon Prov. vi 10. Means he our natural Parent only Nay says Mercer Potes ad Ecclesiam si velis referre You may refer it to the Church if you will And a good reason why that not only it may be but most aptly it should be applied to our mystical or spiritual Mother for the blessings reckoned up in that place to those that will be taught by the wisdom of their Mother are so many as they are not like to be the fruits of obedience to a natural mother only To make my self way the sooner out of this vast Point by distinctive conclusions First If we call that Jerusalem that Church our Mother which St. Paul doth here the most Primitive Church which includes the Apostles Evangelists it is bootless to dispute in a thing so evident that it is to explain the sense and decide the meaning of all Articles of Faith for the Apostles spake as God did give them utterance who is the Author of all hidden and heavenly truths and we are to rest in him as the fountain of all illumination Secondly Excluding the Apostles Evangelists and others conversant with them who were immediately inspired to know all truth which makes a perfect Christian in their own person take the Vniversal Church from their days unto this time and I conceive that the uniform practice and general judgment of all Gods servants that went before us is a certain and undoubted explication of all those Points contained in Scripture that concern our salvation We are taught in the Articles of our Creed that this Church is a witness which we ought to listen unto I believe the holy Catholick Church It hath the promise that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Also Isa lix 21. This is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy Seed nor out of the mouth of thy Seeds Seed from henceforth and for ever This is a Promise that the Church dispersed in all places and continued in all times shall keep the trust of saving truth inviolably So Tertullian so Vincentius Lir. upon this subject Quod apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum says the former That which is uniformly taught by many much more by all is no lie but a truth delivered by that Church to which God hath entailed his blessing that it shall not forsake it I do not say yet that this Vniversal Church is absolutely free from error but from such error only as would shake the stability of faith Some things that may be unknown without prejudice were ever concealed But the whole Church that is and was is so free from error and ignorance that it knows and possesseth all the truth which Christ hath revealed The Churches are the Golden Candlesticks in the midst whereof the Son of God did walk Rev. i. 12. Thirdly take the Church for all those Christians that are now presently living in the world and among those there will ever be some whom God will preserve from pernicious Error yet those some are not necessarily and always such as are in place of Authority or palpably notorious that we may have recourse unto them In a populous Congregation I have heard a Psalm sung quite out of tune by the greater part and those few that sung tunably could not be heard for a long time till at last their good harmony gained a considerable number to listen unto them and to imitate them So false Doctrine may spread far and the soundest judgments be silenced in the Plurality of opposition If their tunable Notes beget good Musick in others it is the working of God which is stronger than the violence of men But from hence I collect that there is no man living nor any Society of men living which hath such indubitable authority from God that they may pronounce a judicial definitive Sentence to oblige and convince the Consciences of others in Controversies of Religion To relie upon one mans Oracle it were a ready way indeed if it were a certain But that man whom we mean is of such little credit with those that cry him up that he cannot make his Partisans submit unanimously to him in his own cause And for general Councils the great Army of Jesus Christ his pitch'd battel since the former may be corrected by the later and have been corrected their judgment is so awful as may quel the resistance of private men but not so irrefragable upon their decision as to tie their Conscience You will say then hath God provided no certain and external judicial authority to Umpire differences of Religion in this or that present Age I answer First he hath given the complete and perfect Rule of Faith in holy Scripture which hath spoken so plainly in things necessary to be believed that it needs no Gloss to make it plainer As Aristotle says That Laws which are penn'd with the best wisdom do leave but little to the will of the Expounder Secondly We are not Brutes that know not our right hand from
greatest probation of faith but it changeth faith into another species of Religion than it was before St. Austin speaks to some holy people that were ready to die for the testimony which they held Mox aurei eritis nunc argentei estis Now you are Silver that is you are clean and sanctified but if you be tried in the Furnace of Martyrdom ye shall become Gold And as Gold is deposited in the best place of a mans Treasury so those golden Saints I mean those that are slain for the Word they are received into the most precious and costly Cabinets of the Kingdom of God Upon those words of the Psalm xxvii 5. He shall hide me in the secret of his Tabernacle says Bernard Christ is a Tabernacle of protection for all his servants but he reserves the Altar for the Martyrs which is the principal part of the Tabernacle In acknowledgment that they had won the chief Garland which was propounded to them that run the race the bones of the Martyrs anciently were wont to be buried in no common place of the Church but under the Altar So St. Ambrose of the bones of Protasius and Gervasius buried in his Church of Millain under the Altar says he Let these triumphal Sacrifices be brought to that place where Christ is sacrificed I had destined that plot of ground for mine own burial It is meet that the Priest should sleep in peace where he was wont to offer up the Peace-offering Sed cedo sacris victimis dexteram portionem locus ille martyribus debebatur but I resign the right hand of the Altar to them it is due to the Martyrs How their names were read at solemn times out of the Diptyches to renoun their passions how their requests which they made to the Church before they died were granted for the pardon of any delinquent how their reliques were held precious though not exposed superstitiously to veneration these and much to that effect were too long to recite it is measure heaped and running over that Stephen the Captain of the bloudy Army saw the Heavens opened to immortalize his sufferings and that in the first File of all that are blessed St. John saw those that were slain for the Word of God Yet this service is so rough unto our tender nature to part with life for the custody of the truth that all men had rather owe it to God than pay it him O but it is a good thing to put your self to the question secretly between God and your self and do it not easily or hypocritically admit I had supplied the room of Stephen of James of Justin Laurence Cyprian quanta nomina Should I have stood it out to the shedding of my bloud Or should I have fainted If you stick at it and cannot make a constant resolution go to a new scrutiny and that the flesh may not say that you deceive it with a superficial examination make the most that you can of the pains which you shall be put to under the hand of the torturer yet put all things in a right Scale that the pains to be endured are over in a pair of hours at longest for the most part in a pair of minutes that the truth which you defend is ten thousand times dearer than a corruptible body that the passions of this life are not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed solicite your self often with these meditations till you have concluded with a mature judgment as St. Paul did I count not my life dear unto my self so I may finish my course with joy And then I will pronounce you a Martyr in extraordinary for God accepteth the will for the deed But howsoever the preconsiderations of many be stout I fear they would grow effeminate upon the trial You cannot discharge a strict Lenten Fast how would your delicate bodies digest the hunger of an Inquisition The ground is too hard for your knees to pray upon what hope is there that you would hold out to lie upon the bare ground of a prison A throng in hot weather stifles you that you cannot endure the Church how would your flesh endure a flaming fire I believe you think this deaths-head hath been set too long before you And is there no smoother way to be a Martyr than by being slain Yes St. Paul says there is a living Sacrifice as well as a dead And St. Austin Pervenitur non solùm occasu sed contemptu carnis ad coronam You may receive the Crown prepared for them that fight lawfully not only by extinguishing but by mortifying the flesh Mine eyes do persecute my chastity ambition doth persecute my humility revengeful malice doth persecute my charity concupiscence is always persecuting my soul which way can I turn my self but that every thing is a Martyrdom to a Religious Christian But if I mortifie the deeds of the flesh if I abandon covetousness if I repress lust if I bridle malice if I trample upon the world whereas I was a Martyr in affliction before and sin did reign over me I have expulsed it by another Martyrdom by renovation and by crucifying the old man But alas for pitty how many Martyrs have we if they may be believed upon their own testimony How many whining passages in by-corners and Satyrical Sermons touching the persecution of the Saints God shield that Saints should suffer in so Orthodox and so mild a Church Sure they are mistaken Nay but they exclaim over and over that they suffer for their conscience For their conscience That is another thing Do they suffer for the Word of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Complutensian Bibles read my Text I love not to insult over misery with many words let them sift their own case and it will prove they are supprest for contemning Authority But there are others far more obstreperous against our state If Pictures and Almanacks and Martyrologies and Beatifications of Traitors will condemn us we are up to the ears in these Certificates for savage cruelty in killing the Saints Do they not mean Jesuites and Seminaries that were forbidden upon forfeiture of their head not to enter into his Majesties Dominions It is as clear as the light of the Sun then that they were executed for breaking the Statute-Law and not for the Word of God or for the Testimony which they held Every Malefactor will pretend that he dies in a good cause to make his judgment odious in mens nostrils Such as serve in the Gallies will never be known what crimes they are in for but complain that they wear their Chain for Faith and Religion Alass say their Abettors that canonize them that Statute is violated but by accident they come to instruct their own Proselytes and to execute the Function of their Priesthood therefore by consequent they are slain for the Word of God I will match their case with a full place of St. Cyprian and so answer them The Proconsul that
is but dust and ashes Christ did empty himself of his glory and fulfilled all the righteousness of humility The fifth word of consideration is the plurality of persons spoken of in the Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness It was fit indeed for our Lord Jesus to perform all obedience to the Law in every tittle and minim that is commanded because it lay upon his person to undo the curse of the Law Surely Johns name must stand for a cipher in that work for Christ alone trod the Wine-press of his Fathers wrath neither John nor any of the Saints were made co-partner with him in our redemption By his one Oblation of himself once offered he made a full perfect sufficient Sacrifice and Oblation for the sins of the world What means this saying therefore in the Plural Thus it behoveth us Take again what the Spirit hath supplied for exposition of this word in divers manners One way it is satisfied that Christ according to that excellent power which is in him speaks of himself regally as of many Joh. iii. 11. We speak that we know and we testifie what we have seen and yet Christ only spake to Nicodemus Again it is a sweet consolation that after the taking of any Sacrament we are no more one and one and so to be reckoned single by our selves but Baptism and the Lords Supper are the very bonds of perfection and make us all members of one mystical body the Scripture is admirably accurate in this particular as 1 Cor. xii 13. By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body and have been all made to drink into one spirit Here it appears that we are become one spirit by drinking one cup of the Lord and one holy lump because we are sprinkled with one spirit in the water in the name of the Lord so our Saviour phraseth the sentence of my Text according to this mystical union Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness One other Paraphrase is very plain and literal and perhaps therefore the more natural John was loth to put his hand unto the water to cast it upon the head of Christ his Master rectifies his error and tells him it must be done it is expedient for both Obedience is required in the Servant humility in the Lord thus it behoveth us on both sides to fulfil all righteousness Take the last conjecture of the word with you and as I approve it the most useful Christ was made righteousness and sanctification for us by shedding his innocent bloud which is testified in the water of this Sacrament He alone is the meritorious cause of our Salvation But the application of this justice is not to be expected to fall upon our heads without ordinary means and such instruments as God hath appointed Ye are Gods Husbandry says St. Paul to them of Corinth but we are labourers together with God 1 Cor. iii. 9. He regenerates by his word which is committed to the lips of sinful men he cleanseth and sanctifieth his Church by the washing of water whereof we are made dispensers therefore our Saviour hath joyned this Prophet to himself not by way of merit God forbid but by way of instrument and ministry in the work of our redemption thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness Now I shall end this Text in a word that Christ did fulfil all righteousness at this time not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a strict necessary rigour but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for decency sake because it did become him Thus it becometh us c. Many abasements our Saviour did endure and became obedient in many parts of humility which could not be exacted at his hands in strict justice as he took our nature upon him but they were certain voluntary strains of lowliness which were full measure pressed down and running over As for his dolourous Passion of the Cross that could not be escaped it was the cup which he must drink to satisfie for the sins of the world therefore he preacht to his Disciples in this unavoidable expression Nonne oportuit c. Ought not Christ to have suffered and thus to enter into his glory But to stoop like one of the multitude to the Baptism of John was not of absolute necessity but a decency which did well befit his humiliation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus it becometh us c. A comliness in every one is to be observed according to his Christian calling and decency though necessity were set apart will prevail much with tractable and honest dispositions Some will bend to nothing but to that which is clearly exprest in so many words out of the sacred Text. But what if decorum require it to be done though it be not in specialty contained in Scripture but in general Maxims why surely then it cannot be neglected if we will offer up to God a perfect Sacrifice Whatsoever is fitting for an outward sanctification of a sincere heart you cannot omit it without maiming that ingenuous comliness which is required at our hands This is not my own fancy for I observe it frequently in St. Paul that he argues from that which becometh a Christian 1 Cor. xi 13. Judge in your selves is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered 1 Tim. ii 10. Let the women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefastness and sobriety not with broidered hair But as becometh women professing godliness Eph. v. 3. Fornication uncleanness let it not once be named among you as becometh Saints Where is that wrangling excuse now for all your pride and bravery Will you be stiff in your opinion that you may paint and powder and crisp and clip hair and use all those Island dog tricks about your head because the Bible doth in no place by name condemn these things Beloved if the Spirit of God had penn'd a thousand Bibles more they could not have contain'd the Catalogue of all those Peacock fashions into which you transform your selves from time to time therefore one rule stands for all that you must do as becometh women professing godliness and remember that there is a decency to be attended in Christianity I will not say to you as St. Paul did to the women of Corinth Judge in your selves if this be comly We should have wise reformation for all faults if you were made the judges who are quite addicted to vanities Who shall tell you then what is decent for Christians Will you rather believe the handmaid that attires you Or the Waiting-woman that hath wages to flatter you Or those Gallants that call themselves your servants and would have you proud that they may idolize you Will you believe these rather than the Priest of God whose soul must answer for every word he teacheth you Learn from him what it is that becometh you to fulfil righteousness Much might be enforced from hence likewise to commend unto you all the Ceremonies so exactly
appointed by the best of Reformed Churches I mean this of England God be glorified for his grace towards us We do not urge them so peremptorily as to say thus it is necessary to be a Christian but thus it becometh us to serve the Lord and that which is decent in Gods house I say again will ever prevail with tractable and godly dispositions You cannot hear or meditate too much upon that of St. Paul Phil. iv 8. Whatsoever things are just or venerable whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report and let me add whatsoever things become us these things do and the God of peace shall be with you Amen THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 15 16. Then he suffered him And Jesus when he was baptized went up straightway out of the water AT these words John Baptist hath changed his mind you may perceive but not his humility It was his perswasion that it could not behove him to minister the Sacrament to his Saviour But since Christ would have his hand to do that duty he puts himself upon the office and performs it Whether did he refuse at first or come on at last with greater humility Nay the further we go in the actions of the Saints of God they will manifest unto us that they are better and better For is it not more lowliness to obey when he was taught a reason for it than to tremble and to start back at the presence of Christ because he was confounded at his coming to Baptism and was not taught a reason Every vertue is so much the better rooted when it knows the true cause of its own rectitude In this John said very well at verse 14. which I have handled lately I have need to be baptized of thee Though he were a most bright vessel of honour yet he did feel a defect in himself how far he wanted the grace of God to open his eyes a little clearer and his desire was secretly fulfilled the spirit of illumination did slide into his heart and made him to understand about what work of ignominy our Saviour came into the world and would begin from hence to do after the custom of a despicable sinner O glorious God that at the same instant did baptize him of whom he was baptized Quomodo creavit Mariam creatus est à Mariâ sic dedit baptismum Johanni baptizatus est à Johanne As he made the Virgin Mary his mother and was made man of the substance of the Virgin even so he baptized John with the Spirit and was baptized of John in water Nothing was ever done in the Church which was eminently noble and eximious but with an opinion that a Spirit from heaven was sent to reveal it So in old Legends they report that the Angels of God did whisper divine Oracles into St. Ambrose that Doves were sent from heaven to infuse holy wisdom into Basil and Gregory that the soul of Paul was sent to gild over the Writings of Chrysostom with Eloquence nil sine numine So the Spirit before he appeared in a bodily shape upon our Saviour entred by his invisible power into the heart of this great Prophet and he that before denied to baptize his Master because he was humble is now ready to baptize him because he is more humble for after Christ had spoken Then he suffered him And Jesus when he was baptized c. That which is here described in the Baptism of our Saviour comprehends three things 1. As the Naturallists call it here is removens prohibens that which did prohibit the effect is removed away John resists no more Then he suffered him 2. Here is the effect it self Jesus was baptized 3. That this beginning was but a preparatory to greater matters which should follow therefore he went up straightway out of the water First I must insist upon this consideration that the obstacle of Johns doubting is taken away then he suffred him The woman of Samaria because she knew not our Saviour gave him no water to drink John Baptist because he knew him to be God immortal gave him no water to be baptized An ignorance very inoffensive was in them both and so they were easily corrected with a word for they that wander for want of knowledge and not for want of obedience are easily brought into the way when they are taught the truth Moses did soon put off his shooes when he knew the place whereon he stood was holy ground Mary Magdalen took our Saviour for the Gardener when he was risen from the dead but she fell presently at his feet and worshipt him when she knew it was the Lord. Peter did demur and hesitate what to do when the sheet was let down before him with all manner of four footed beasts but straightway learnt that nothing was common or polluted which the Lord had cleansed John was loth to take the honour upon him to pour water upon our Saviours head but you see he need not be bidden twice when the Lord commanded he did wisely consider what was injoyned him by the divine authority rather than what did become his own unworthiness and did as he was bidden without any more repugnancy Vera est humilitas quam non deserit comes obedientia So I think St. Austin there dwells an humble mind you may be sure which is associated with tractable obedience Aristotle falling into the praise of that sententious judgment which in some men is very exhortative that weaker capacities should hearken to such mens opinions without any manner of contradiction for their eye is fixt upon a true ground and principle for whatsoever they deliver therefore where age and experience and prudence meet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you ought to submit to their bare dictates and sayings no less than if they were the most forcible demonstrations This was most wholsom counsel for the ignorant for they will learn more a thousand times by believing their Teachers than by framing their wit to a captious inquisitive course admitting nothing for good unless their own line can fathom it John Baptist was a right Scholar to make a good proficient whose reason was confounded and knew not what Christ did mean yet because it was his Masters will he was obsequious against the grain of his own reason Then he suffered him The praise which S. Chrysostom gives to this holy man is thus in a negative expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he yielded quickly he was not immoderately contentious for the Holy Spirit makes us mild and apt to consent the adverse Spirit makes us unquiet and vexatious to our neighbours As God describes the refractory Israelites who did ever resist their Prophets Isa xlviii 4. I know that thou art obstinate and thy neck is an iron sinew and thy brow is brass This obstinacy you see in the Prophets phrase is a sign of an iron age and I pray God we be not
upon the death of the Testator The Covenant of the old Testament was continued by Sacrifice renewed by Circumcision altogether confirmed by effusion of bloud Well the Covenant of the New Testament is established in Baptism in the Pool of water O what a comely thing is Order God kept it in his very death the Old Law was first drawn drie in the Bloud and the New Law succeeds it in the stream of Water and I like his Meditation well that said our Saviour had first uttered out every drop of bloud from his veins ut nos ad bibendum de aquâ aeternae vitae invitaret to invite us from thenceforth to drink of the water of everlasting life Our Romish Adversaries stand much upon that which I handle now for say they if the two Sacraments had been precisely out of Christs side then St. John would have made his Relation thus A Souldier pierced his side and there came out Water and Bloud for Baptism is our beginning in the Church our first milk and after that when we know how to examin our selves as St. Paul says then we come to the Supper of the Lord just so as they would have it Aquinas a sure man of their own side compares the Sacraments in this wise Baptism is a Sacrament of the greatest necessity of the twain the Supper of the Lord is of more perfection though not of so much necessity Well then since we must aim at perfection as the Apostle says why might not Christ give the first place to that which makes us perfect and the second place to that which is first in time but lag in perfection nay rather than we should make use of this Text for no more than a yoke of Sacraments they will allow it to be a Figure of none but of the Supper of the Lord for their wine is dash'd with water in their Chalice and this Text is the Authority for it bloud and water I am sure the letter of the Scripture is on our side that use pure wine in the Eucharist de fructu geniminis I do not read that Christ gave his Disciples ought but wine to drink I deny not but some of the ancient Fathers concur with them but it is apparent I can make no better excuse they forsake the Letter and build upon an Allegory He that feeds upon the Letter of the Text feeds upon Manna he that lives by the Allegorie feeds upon licious Quails Israel may desire such curious food but God was better pleased when they were contented with Manna I have done with the Order The period of all in a word is the readiness of the Fountain which could not be stopt for a moment Forthwith came thereout bloud and water Love is no delaier no protractor of time ready to do good speedy in execution good deeds did not hang in our Saviours fingers as they do with many of us our hands unclasp to part with any thing like a lock that 's rusty and goes hard you can scarce open it Abrahams forwardness in entertaining the Angels and the dispatch that he made is as much commended as his hospitality Gen. xviii Abraham says the Text hastened to the Tent to Sarah 2. Sarah made ready quickly three measures of fine meal 3. Abraham ran to the Herd for a tender Calf 4. Abrahams young man did hast to dress it nemo piger est in domo caritatis not a slothful person not a protractor of time in all the House of Charity Such expedition did our Saviour make to express his love to the World he yields up his body in the flower of his age not a wrinkle in his brow not a grey hair in his head he made haste to suffer Judas says he what thou doest do it quickly as who should say I know thy heart is against me and that thou wouldest sell me into mine enemies hand yet for old acquaintance sake do me the curtesie to protract no time what thou doest do it quickly There past but a little time from midnight to midday betwixt his Attachment his Arraignment and his Execution This was a Paschal Lamb eaten in haste as God gave Moses in charge for the Lord will hasten you out of Egypt And to come to the instance in my Text his joynts were stiff and cold the moisture of his body congealed long it would be I should have thought before a few drops of liquor could come forth with much violence and chafing the flesh O but the Testator was dead his Sacraments are the Seals of his mercy wherewith he assures his Promises unto us and he would not have the World stay one whit for their Legacies capiat qui capere potest out it gusheth like a torrent and forthwith came thereout bloud and water All you that thirst for the living God be as ready to drink as he was to give else we are magis mortui quà m mortuus as dead as death it self and past recovery Repent you but instantly make restitution of all things wrongfully gotten but instantly be reconciled to your enemies stick not at it but instantly instantly I say but continue those instants unto your lives end Our Saviour compared his love towards Jerusalem to a Hen that gathers her Chickens under her wings let this Comparison be the Pattern of our love to Christ You know the Hen must not sit for a spurt and be gone then her eggs addle and the Brood is spoiled Take the application unto your conscience nourish the good motions of Gods spirit in your heart sit upon them as the Hen doth upon her Brood that they may quicken in you by a lively faith We had need to do it for as Christ was sudden and made haste to express his love so he is sudden and will make haste to judgment Surely I come quickly they are the close of our Bible Even so come Lord Jesus and prepare us for thy second coming that we who drink at thy mystical Wound here may be satisfied with thy goodness as out of a River in thy Kingdom of glory AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE PASSION GEN. xxii 13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a Ram caught in a thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the Ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his Son THe place where this memorable Sacrifice was offered up had a name given unto it by Abraham in the next verse to that which I have read Deus in monte videbatur or Deus in monte apparuit which is interpreted God is seen or God did appear in the Mount from which name Origen raiseth this Meditation Nihil hic corporeum sentias sed quae Scripta sunt in spiritu videas Do not think in the story of this Sacrifice that you see a Ram or that you see Isaac you must apprehend it in Spirit and believe that you see nothing but the Oblation of the Son of God upon the
Cross To this end our Church hath made this Chapter one of the Lessons for this day the first that was read in Morning Service and I have warrant that the practice was ancient because I find it was so in St. Austins days for excusing himself that he had not expounded this Scripture to his Auditors all the time of Lent He gives this reason In Vigiliis Paschae propter Sacramentum dominicae passionis reservatur it was ordained to be handled upon a Good Friday because of the mystery of our Saviours Passion There is a Text John viii 56. which Christ alledgeth to the Pharisees Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it and was glad Which of his days Or when did he see it It is not mentioned I confess and that makes a variance among Expositors St. Austin glosseth upon it that Abraham and all the Prophets had a Revelation of the Incarnation St. Hierom conceives it to be that day when the mystery of the Trinity was opened unto him Gen. xviii Tres vidit unum adoravit He saw three Angels and worshipped but one But divers whom I could name especially St. Ambrose that wrote whole Books upon the story of Abraham say that my Text was the glass wherein he saw that joyful day Vidit diem immolationis in Ariete He saw the day wherein Christ was crucified for our Redemption in this Ram that was burnt upon the wood instead of Isaac and shall not the Children of Abraham look so far into this Type to see the Oblation for our sins which is past and gone already when Father Abraham so many years before did discern the day to come Elevemus oculos as it is specified of him in my Text let us lift up our eyes and look about and we shall find it plainly dividing the whole Text into these three parts 1. Here is Studium sollicitum a careful and a sollicitous heart upon the matter Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked 2. Here is Presens auxilium help at an instant in the best opportunity behold behind him a Ram caught in a Thicket by his horns 3. Here is Sacrificium succedaneum one Sacrifice answering for another or coming in the place of another as it is in the words following and Abraham went and took the Ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his Son Every one of these shall be subdivided as we handle them in order the leading part of the three is Studium sollicitum the carefulness and sollicitousness of Abraham That he lifted up his eyes and looked Isaac was not nearer to be slaughtered when the Sacrificing knife was at his throat than we were to be condemned when God was wrath with all the Posterity of Adam for the disobedience of that one man but the timely voice of mercy was heard from heaven the Angel of the Covenant appeared as if he had said Miserebor cujus miserebor the remnant of the Election are appointed to be spared Isaac shall live God hath spoken it and he shall not see destruction then at the instant when the Angel bad Save the Child and lay no violent hands upon him then Abraham lifted up his eyes So that the first emergent observation is this It was Gestus benedicentis The gesture of him that blessed the Lord because his mercy was revealed Indeed if God had not said that Isaac and in him the promised seed should live our countenances would look like death and be cast down as Cains was guiltiness would not let the sinner look towards heaven for corruption cannot enter into these incorruptible places our transgressing Parents withdrew from the Lord into the thicket of the Garden and could not abide to appear Nuditatem non audebant ostendere talibus oculis quae displicebat suis They durst not shew their shame and nakedness to such glorious eyes which was irksome to themselves Hezekiah turned his face to the wall when his doom was told him that he must die and not live And our Saviour doth insert that passage into the story of the Publican surely afflicted for his sins that he would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven all did not please him that he saw there be it never so glorious a body As St Basil spake like an eloquent Orator in his Homily concerning Paradise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rose was a delightful flower but it made him ashamed to use it because that thorns and pricks grew upon it Gods curse for the sin of man So the firmament of heaven sheweth the chief handy-work of the Maker yet to some it is a dreadful sight because the God of vengeance will shew himself from thence when he comes to judge the earth As David said to Absalon the Son of his displeasure let him turn to his own house and let him not see my face So the severity of God said unto man In terram reverteris turn again into your own place from whence you came into dust and clay but you shall not lift up your head to stand before me in the Kingdom of my glory O but mercy begg'd the life of Isaac Et levavit oculos And Abraham lifted up his eyes Anatomists say that there is one Nerve more descending from the brain to the eye of man than in any beast that it may turn up it seems with greater readiness and facility Now to stand gazing up into heaven a thing which the Angel reproved in the Disciples Acts i. 11. but as if the voice of the tongue and the affection of the heart were encircled in the eye to laud and magnifie his name that remitted vengeance and spared our soul from death I appove the old Philosophy Visus fit intramittendo species but allowing this divinity Visus fit extramittendo gratias if nothing else yet an eflux of thanks goes out of the eye when we look up to heaven At the cxx Psalm begin those Psalms of David which are called the Songs of degree And see by what steps he marcheth up in those degrees to the Mercy Seat of God In the cxx Psal I cryed unto the Lord in my distress there his voice ascended In the cxxi I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills there his eye ascended cxxii Our feet shall stand in the gates of Jerusalem there his feet ascended cxxiii Unto thee lift I up mine eyes O thou that dwellest in the heavens at every other step or degree his eyes are cast up for Christ hath not only opened the Kingdom of heaven but also opened our eyes and put courage into all believers to look up unto the Kingdom of heaven and therefore as I said it is gestus benedicentis the gesture of him that blesseth the name of the Lord. Secondly It is gestus admirantis an expression of wonder and astonishment Abrahams heart was full so overcome with the loving kindness of the Lord that he stood dumb and
as if our charity could be altogether inoffensive No the Spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. viii but it doth not quite take away all infirmity we are not made of the substance of Angels while we travel in this mortal flesh Sanctification will leak out at certain crannies but all is made sure with cupio dissolvi take in sunder the soul and body by death and in the state of our Exaltation Mercy can never get away There is a molting time for these two Wings and the best Christian displumes certain feathers through tentation but O that I had wings like a Dove says David for then would I fly away and be at rest Now the last Point is that which troubles all the world especially our Western world which is in continual combat with our Romish Adversaries wherein the Art lies to preserve Truth that it may not forsake us But some there are clouds without water men unstable in their minds halting between God and Baal that think the whole Church is at a loss for truth and we can stedfastly trust to nothing For it will easily break prison out of the Syllogism of the old Philosophers witness so many busie disputations of late and the success so unprofitable it cannot be bound up in the laborious Tomes of Controversies no Age more industrious to write than ours hath been and none further from Peace To think that the limits of Truth are bound to St. Peters Chair so called is most childish and frivolous The two Testaments indeed are the touchstone of Truth but they are stained with presumptuous glosses and we do not ask now adays Quomodo scriptum est How is it written But Qomodo expositum est What is the intepretation of Expositors Lastly If we say that Truth is the Daughter of Time and that the reverend Antiquity of the Fathers must be her Register What if one say one thing and some another What if they be equally divided What if index expurgatorius spunge out all that should be justly alleadged And hear what Cyprian says Non dixit Christus ego sum consuetudo sed ego sum veritas Surely yet among these many conflicts there is a way to bind truth as a Crown unto us give me leave to unfold it without ornament of Language in a particular declaration In the midst of a froward Generation whose Wits sweat on both sides to win the day who would not take a sure course which cannot be reproved Now all the Law and the Prophets are comprised in these three things 1. In Prayer and Thanksgiving to God 2. In a sincere belief 3. In obedience to his Commandments The absolute form of Prayer is the same which Christ taught us Mat. vi The sum of our Belief is the Apostles Creed And the two Tables of the Law want nothing which should teach Religion and Justice towards God and men What Christianity can be more secure than this How can Truth forsake him that rules himself to the Letter of these holy Institutions and goes no further But whatsoever is more than this is tossed about with every blast of disputation it may be erroneous it may be Will-worship it cannot be the substance of things not seen it impeacheth Gods wisdom as if he would not reveal unto man the explicite way of his salvation When I come into the Temple and see a devout Monk running over the Hierarchy of heaven upon his Beads and filling the Saints with the noise of his complaints and when I see another Christian piercing the highest heavens with zeal and coming boldly to the Throne of Grace to God alone to which part shall he that is unlearned say Amen Beloved if Our Father would not serve the turn it may seem John Baptist did teach his Disciples to pray better than Christ Sweet Jesu they are thine own words therefore I cannot do amiss to turn me from the Angels when I have Christ for my Master but they that make the Elders about the Throne Partners with God in Invocation they cannot be so confident that truth doth not forsake them Again one Church entertains the craft of Demetrius and the Silversmiths even upon Gods own Shrine their eyes are filled with their molten Images when they look unto the hills from whence cometh their salvation But they distinguish that they keep their body to a lesser Religious Worship and not to the highest Adoration and they exalt the Image of the true God not the Idols of the heathen Our Church refuseth no Ornaments of Decency no Histories of Piety no remembrance of eternal Glory But the Law is not in our eye but in our heart and we pray as if it were our Saviour at midnight in the Garden when no resemblance could be before him What should a soul say here disquieted with the rents of Sion Why thus Lord thou hast forbidden all graven Similitudes thy Commandment did not comment upon a petty duty to the Saints a nice Hyperdulia to our Lady and an admirable Latria to thy self thou hast not made me so good a Lapidary to discern in stocks and stones between an Image and an Idol I may be an Idolater with the Inventions of the former I cannot err in the spiritual Worship of the latter Confounded then be all they that worship carved Images I will not let thy Truth forsake me Thirdly Concerning that inquinatissima purgatio that loathsom cleansing of sins after this life in torments which is a kind of Spanish Inquisition Why art thou so vexed O my soul And why do thoughts arise within thee So trust in God not as fearing the scorching Kitchin of Purgatory or the freezing of St. Patricks Lake for a season but as dreading an eternal death for ever not as if my punishment must be mitigated after my death by the Beads and Orizons and Bribery of my forgetful Executors but as if in my life they must be redeemed by the luke-warm bloud of Jesus Christ Then for the thing propounded I know my Saviour descended into Hell to triumph over Satan and bruize his head I know He ascended up into Heaven to make Intercession for us to God the Father this is my Creed I am sure and the third place is Apocrypha my belief is as broad as the holy Apostles made the pattern and if I stop mine ears at the rest I will not let thy truth forsake me Fourthly Concerning the material part of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper I take my Saviours words into the explication of my Faith This is my body this is my bloud But what have I to do to let men interpret Christs meaning when themselves confess it is such a mystery that cannot be comprehended Is it not enough for me to receive these precious gifts with thanksgiving but that I must argue how and after what manner Christ is present at that participation I am sure the outward Elements of Bread and Wine are there for as God gave me an heart to believe so he
gave me not my outward senses to delude me I am sure that Christ is there and I partake the meritorious Passion of his Body crucified and his Bloud shed upon the Cross all that men controvert more than this is to beget sorrow to the Church and laughter to the Devil My soul dwelleth among them that are enemies unto peace but I am content to say this is my Saviour who offered himself up for me therefore I will not let thy truth forsake me Lastly In that great Controversie of Justification there is a way in which the mists of errour cannot arise and there is a way in which the substantial food is lost by striving to comprehend the shadow with it By vertue of the Law I know my duty that I must be a Doer and thereby I discern my infirmity that I must be a Debtor By vertue of the Lords Prayer I find my self arreraged in iniquities that are past my flesh trembling at tentations to come my soul and body gasping for deliverance from evil round about me I find not one line wherein I may obtest unto God by any part of my own Sanctification Thirdly By vertue of my Creed I find that my Saviour was incarnate suffered and rose again to purchase Redemption unto us and Remission of our sins The Angels are not more sure of their incorruptible glory than we may be to say As many as walk in this rule peace be to them and mercy and on the Israel of our God Cogita de Deo quicquid meliùs potes de teipso quod deterius vales says St. Bernard and then thy truth is like Mount Sion which cannot be removed But to go a little further and to creep into the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ there is no likelihood but it should prove an unthankful blasphemy Being rooted in this most holy Faith and in our active Mercy toward the whole body of Christs Church there remains for us a passive mercy which will not forsake us the sure mercies of David in our blessed Redeemer who is called Amen and in whom are all the Promises And there is a truth which will stick to us as fast and answer for us against the slanders of Satan who is the Reviler of the Brethren For he that confesseth me before men there is truth on our part I will confess him before my Father which is in heaven there is truth on Gods part to which God Father c. A SERMON UPON THE RECHABITES JEREM. xxxv 6. But they said we will drink no Wine AT the first hearing of these words I may conjecture that some men thought of no such Scripture and that most men look for a strange construction and you shall have a construction to mollify the Paradox since it was ever safe to decline extremes in all opinions for they are like Jehu in his furious march what have they to do with peace Indeed if you will recount among many who they were that have professed so much austerity as those that say in my Text We will drink no wine you will neither commend them for wisdom nor for piety Lycurgus in the Luxury of his Country cut up every Vine by the roots and destroyed the Vineyards like those inconsiderate men in our dayes superexcessive Reformers of Religion who think there is no way to amend that which is abused but with Hezekias Justice against the Brazen Serpent utterly to consume it The Manichees would not endure to taste the Cup at the holy Communion as if Christ had been too prodigal to bestow Wine at his last Supper upon his Disciples And you know who they are that want not much to be Manichees Tertullian mentions a most harsh Discipline among the Romans that no Woman might know the taste of Wine sed sub Romulo quae vinum tetigerat impunè à marito trucidata est that it was lawful for the Husband to shed his own Wifes bloud if she tasted of the bloud of the Grape So likewise there were certain Christians called Severiani by a nick name that grudged the whole World St. Pauls allowance that Modicum which he granted unto Timothy and Pharaohs Butler with these men had been kept for ever in prison had he pressed a few Grapes into the Kings own Cup. But for all these men who grudg Cato his draught of wine when he is wearied with the affairs of the Common-wealth I say their abstemious life is perverseness and such were not the Rechabites that say in my Text We will drink no wine In which Text barren as it may seem there are many things very Religious and profitable to make up my Treatise at this time And as boldly as Prudentius said by a Catachresis that there were jejuniorum victimae many Sacrifices offered up to God by fasting and abstaining from meats so say I that this Text is abstemiorum racematio there is a fruitful Vintage to be gathered out of non bibemus We will drink no wine This whole Chapter is but of one entire piece like the silver Trumpets of Moses Numb 10. so is the discourse thereof without interruption or almost without full point from the beginning to the end First God is provoked to wrath by the rebellions of Judah False Prophets were crept in that had taught strange Doctrin and the People had itching ears and were worse Disciples Now what instrument should the Lord choose to lay open his indignation whom but Jeremy the Propher and him God knew to be fit for the Errand not as he knew Nathaniel under the shade of his Fig-leaves sed sub carnis umbraculo in his Mothers Womb. Jeremy sets himself to the Task and lays open their sins not by revilings by menacies by zeal as hot as fire and who could do less they made Moses the meekest Soul alive throw stones at them and break the Tables but setting before them the Example of the Rechabites promising their obedience should be had in an everlasting remembrance and Judah his stubborn Son should see their happiness and want it Et spectet nostros jam plebs Romana triumphos Will it not grieve them to see Strangers and Aliens bear the Bell away and themselves look on and be quite neglected Lastly what was the Obligation that kept the Rechabites under such aw and duty for Jeremy spread a Table entreated them courteously and set Flagons of wine before them Why nothing but this their Father Jonadab had made them protest to take this austere life upon them that they would drink no wine A hard case between God and Israel if you mark it What was Jonadab or who was it that gave him wisdom no stedfast faith could be put in his Laws nor certainty in his Statutes nay upon this Text it is Calvins opinion laudatur obsequium filiorum non legi approbatum fuisse consilium paternum 't is true that Jeremy commends the Sons of Jonadab for their obedience but the Holy Ghost did no where commend Jonadab for making such
it is 1 Cor. vi 11. But ye are washed but ye are sanctified In that sacred Laver we are sprinkled with the bloud of Christ and so made Saints Sancti quasi sanguine tincti it is a bloud which purifieth from uncleanness for of old they that desired to be purified did dip some part of their body in the bloud of the Sacrifice Baptism is Pactum vitae purioris cum Deo a Covenant with God to lead a pure and unspotted life a sequestration of that which is holy from all profane abuses it is jus gentium says Tully a national and received Law throughout all the world Vt ne mortales quod Deorum immortalium cultui consecratum est usu capere possint that no man usurp that for common uses which was consecrated to the service of the immortal Gods so that a Saint is as much as one that is washt and made clean in Christ and engaged unto holiness all the days of his life 3. For the confession of the true doctrines sake which flesh and bloud could not reveal unto us but our Father which is in heaven our reward was to be called the faithful the faithful of the circumcision Acts x. 45. and in many places beside This continued our note of distinction more than any other in ancient Liturgies and so remains in some of our own Collects as grant we beseech thee merciful Lord to thy faithful people pardon and peace And it stuck more close to the Church than any title in St. Cyprians days as appears by these words Quid Christiana plebs faceret cui de fide nomen est What should Christian people do in this case whose name is given them from the Faith So I have represented to you that in the earliest days of the Gospel the Disciples were called Brethen from their sincerity of love Saints from the purification of Baptism Faithful from that Orrhodox truth which they professed and hope in Christ which St. Paul hath put all together in one verse To the Saints and faithful Brethren in Christ which are at Colosse chap. i. ver 2. But as St. Paul says By honour and dishonour by evil report and by good report we approve our selves the Ministers of Chrisft And they that scoffed at the way of salvation did load us with contumelious taunts that they might soil our Profession The first bitter arrow that our Enemies shot forth was to call us Nazarens Tertullus the spruce Orator was aware of that and charged St. Paul that he was a ring leader of the Sect of the Nazarens Act. xxiv 5. Surely they delighted the more in this Nickname because of that opprobrious by word can there any good come out of Nazareth St. Hierom says that the spiteful Jews had no other term for the Christians in his days and how in that term they cursed us thrice every day in their Synagogues Now when they thought to gall us both with their curse and their venemous scorn Epiphanius says that the Apostles liked it well enough to be called Nazarens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their intention was to put the name of Nazareth upon him where the Angel Gabriel saluted the Blessed Virgin and where she conceived Christ and they were contented It seems so for because they held it no disgrace Julian the Emperor would not call them Nazarens but Galilaeans and proclaimed it says Nazianzen that they should plead or be empleaded by no other name throughout all his Dominions the name of Christian says the same Father it grated his ear some Divine Majesty was in the syllables that it put horror into his conscience but for his own quiet and their wrongs he thought it better to call them Galilaeans his slanderous intention was all that was ill in it for the appellation it self was not slanderous an Angel of God directed his Message to them in that form Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into heaven Act. i. 11. But here was the secret gibe one Judas of Galilee a Firebrand of sedition had lodged an ill opinion in many of the Jews who were born in that Region that such as paid Tithes to God were not to pay Tribute to Cesar neither ought they to call any one their Lord but him that created Heaven and Earth In plain meaning he and his Consorts of Galilee were errant Rebels and though none were so far from faction and disobedience as these modest Disciples yet to perswade the World that they had an Anti-monarchichal grudg in their bosom this Apostate called them Galilaeans Lastly because the Orthodox Champions of the Church confounded the obstinate Gentiles with certain verses cited out of the Books of the Sibyls therefore in despite they invented the name Sibyllistae and pointed at us for the Disciples of those Prophetesses the Sibyls whereas it was their own doing to make us urge them with those proofs since they would not believe the Old Testament and the Prophets of the Lord. I cannot forget how Albertus Pighius played such a wise part or rather a far worse being the first that called our Reformed Divines Scripturarios Scripture-men because they grounded all their Doctrin upon the written word of the holy Scriptures yet in my judgment Sibyllist was not so ill a scoff as Scripturarian Now you know from that which hath been spoken what good Titles adorned the Primitive Saints and how their Enemies drew their name with a black coal in terms of scurrillity the bad appellations vanished away by the brightness of their vertue the good ones were like a scanty Robe too short to cover all their excellency they bore the Cross of Christ gladly and triumphantly wherefore this eximious Inscription was given them which is here in my Text all other names were but as a trail of golden beams to beautify this which includes them all Christian 'T is very much that no Author is mentioned here who was so lucky to impose this name which will be glorious no doubt in all the World as long as the Sun and Moon endure Carthusian hath his opinion that Infidels were the Inventers in disdain at Christ whom that pious Generation worshipped Comestor imputes it to the converted Greeks and Gentiles to the end that they and the believing Jews might have one common cognizance There are more than enough that think it may proceed from St. Peter whose first Episcopal See was at Antioch and then they think they have engrossed all Christians to be under the Pastoral charge of him and his Successors his Successors at Rome they mean and not at Antioch Turrian the Jesuit is far more reasonable sayiâ—â— that the Nomenclator is not known but that the name was ratified by a Synod of Apostles for he mentions a Synod held at Antioch in which these three Canons passed 1. That none should be circumcised for Baptism was the true Circumcision made without hands 2. That all Nations that believed might be collected into the Catholick
Church 3. That such as were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus should be called Christians I could acquiesce in this conjecture if it ascended higher that the Synod Apostolical confirmed it because it came from God I confess I have neither read nor heard that either Christ did leave the Tradition that it should be so with some of his Disciples or that an Angel proclaimed out of the clouds from Heaven or that it was imparted either by dream or revelation sent to any of the Prophets but since no man can challenge that he was the Founder of it I think it surpâ—sseth mortal Authority and therefore I leave the original of it to God It was only in the right of the Father in those times to give a name to his Child Zachary the Priest when he could not speak called for Writing-tables to give the name to John the Baptist and Christ himself having no Father on earth his Father gave him a name from Heaven Then why should not the Father of all that is called Father give that universal Name which belongs to his Children whom he hath regenerated by the Holy Ghost Put the Prophet Isaiah's authority to this reason and who can gainsay it Isa lxii 2. his scope is to extol Sion or the Church Evangelical says he The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all Kings thy glory and thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name It were endless to rehearse how many Authors apply this to the Nomenclature of Christian And again Isa xliii 1. I have redeemed thee certainly that 's the voice of Christ I have called thee by my name thou art mine Who will doubt now but that I have reduced our Title to the true original Our Godfather is the Lord above Let me reduce it likewise to the exact time when it began it will be no lost labour This is granted at all hands it did not happen so soon as ever Christ ascended up we were not crowned in our Cradle Pamelius takes advantage at a place in Tertullian to hold that the word Christian began to spread abroad in the fifth year after our Saviours Ascension that is in the very latter end of the Reign of Tiberius but I had rather say that his Author Tertullian mentions it too early for this will quite confound the History of the Scripture The Centurion Cornelius was not converted till two years of that there must be a competent space of time for those tidings to come to Antioch and for the work of the Ministry after that to gain a great number of the Gentiles for Barnabas to be sent for to undertake for a better increase it follows after all this the most successful St. Paul was brought thither and he and Barnabas assembled themselves a whole year with the Church this is plain in the Context before and then the Disciples were first called Christians in Antioch I like not Pamelius his supputation then he is too forward Genebrard in his Chronology runs as much backward and allows sixteen years to be run out since the death of our Lord before the faithful had the honor to get this memorable Title he takes his aim at the Synod which Turrian speaks of that the Apostles could be assembled no sooner in a sacred Council at Antioch whereas Turrian claims no more for his Synod but that the Apostles established that which was illustrious long before during the pains that Paul and Barnabas did spend at Antioch Therefore I suppose that the most judicious Baronius is but a little under or over that it fell out in the tenth year after the Ascension the Believers at Antioch being Decimae Domini the Tyth of the Lord those that were gained to the Faith in the tenth year being a selected Portion and a peculiar Benediction fell upon them Yet I am content to let that pass rather than you should think that there is some necessary efficacy in the number I look more sted fastly upon another great occurrency in those days which made this tenth year the fulness of time and the Disciples so ripe to receive this name that it could not well be deferred any longer For when the Gentiles were made partakers of the common salvation as well as the Jews who had been strangers together so many Ages before there was still a distance between them or at least no perfect conjunction and it grew an hard Task to piece them because the Jews either out of weakness did still affect the Ceremonies of Moses or having been so long familiar with them did desire to dismiss them reverently at their parting but the Gentiles loved all inoffensive liberty which was not contrary to nature and chiefly could not endure to refrain from meats which in themselves were lawful This quarrel was not decided till the Apostles at a full Council took a course with it in the fifteenth chapter of this Book Nay Clemens in the 7. lib. Const c. 48. says That they of the Circumcision had one Bishop over them to wit Evodius in this very City of Antioch they of the Uncircumcision in the same place at the same time another Bishop over them Ignatius this is his report though Ignatius himself say no such matter but gives the preeminence to Evodius alone next after the Apostles some variance and unkindness there was that 's certain and the first means to unite both sides in a perfect peace was that the one should not have this name and the other that name but to denominate them all from our Saviour and to call them Christians Quis nominum reatus quae accusatio vocabulorum says Tertullian names are guilty of no crime you cannot accuse them of any harm With the pardon of that Holy Father it is far otherwise for it is never seen but that men are stiff in opposition and almost irreconcilable when they please themselves to be distinguished from others by the names of those Doctors whose opinions they cleave unto If it once grow to a difference of Titles that which was but friendly disquisition of argument at first it turns to Emulation Emulations improve to be Factions and Factions that would soon have broke up like a mist many Ages cannot dissolve them If you know any that have mens persons in admiration and love to be denominated from them as the Captains of the Lords Host they are no better than Felons in Divinity that have set fire on the Becons to put all in tumult and combustion whereas except themselves there are no Enemies in arms within the Church of God That impartiality and indifferency to truth which this happy Church of England hath maintained not turning the Scale either this way or that way for Luther or Calvin's sake or whomsoever else it hath given us the advantage to be most comely in Discipline most retentive of good antiquity most certain of fundamental truth and of all Churches in the World to have least disagreement
hid but shewed its manifest lustre I say was never hid yet nothing repugns to the nature of a true Church but it might disappear and be enclouded from the sight of most men in mists and storms of Heresies and Persecutions Let not the Antagonists dissemble and they know the discord is at another point namely whether the main Principles of saving truth being reteined and taught famously in a Church which is otherwise very corrupt in divers Doctrins whether those that distaste and in heart renounce such over-added Superstitions are always distinct and culled out from the rest so that nominately they may be discerned from the more potent Faction We affirm and are sure of what we affirm by uncontroleable experience that the Israel of God do not always profess their Faith and Religion in Congregations apart but many times they continue in the external Fellowship and common Society of corrupt Believers and these have been so suppressed by the tyranny and subtlety of great ones who have laboured to obscure them that as for the present they have been little set by so they have had small or no reputation in History to commend their name to after Ages Much might be said and invincibly formed for this out of Ecclesiastical Annals I appeal to one Instance above their Monuments which beget nothing but humane faith The Master Builders of Jerusalem about the time of our Saviour's Incarnation reteined the sum of the Law but admixt with it most impure Divinity and partly by their cunning and partly by their supercilious Authority there was no open distinct Assembly of the People which concurred not with them Joseph and Simeon and Zachary men not carried away with their fraud were but here a berry and there a berry upon the top of a bough and if it hapned thus to Jerusalem below where lies the odds who can tell that it may not sometimes be the condition of the Christian Church which is Jerusalem from above Now far be it from this Remonstrance of the paucity and obscurity of the sincere Church as if it inclined to a schismatical disjunction Nay Simeon and Zachary had rather hold communion with the Synagogue of their times which was much departed from the Truth but then they were not compelled to subscribe to the prevailing errors of the Scribes and Pharisees Jerusalem is not Jerusalem if it be not a building well compacted together of them that hold society as much as in them lies with all those that have received the Mark of Christ in their forehead We are called a spiritual Building and living Stones 1 Pet. ii 5. Stones that lie scattered are troublesome to the Passenger and dangerous to stumble at joyn them to others for the erection of a Building and then you have employed them to their most physical property As in a Wall one stone supports another so when we cleave fast together and bear one anothers burdens God will dwell within us Where two or three are gathered together there am I in the midst of them Says Ignatius in his Epistle to the Ephesians we are Stones squared by the Line of the Holy Ghost and raised up by Charity from Earth to Heaven And when the Holy Ghost doth dispose us to supply our fit place in the Structure then we are living stones Lapides mortui nihil possunt per se nisi cadere says Hierom to that of St. Peter a dead stone hath no motion of it self but to drop out of the Wall of the House and to fall down as who should say there is nothing but decay and death in division as on the contrary there is prosperity and life in unity But as Pliny tells of Theophrastus that he taught in his Philosophy that there were some stones that by nature brought forth other stones as it is in Plants and Trees so the stones that build the Walls of this Jerusalem must bring forth that which is fit for the ornament of the Building but if they do very wicked things fitter for the Tower of Babel than for the Temple of Christ they they shall be plucked out of the Building like accursed stones upon which the spot of leprosie appeared and the Priest shall cast them into an unclean place without the City Levit. xiv 40. Jerusalem consists in external communion but they are not worthy of it And so ends the first point It was not enough in St. Pauls Judgment to denominate the Spouse of Christ from the best Habitation for earth is but earth be it never so much a selected portion therefore he carries her aloft in his praise and adds that it is Jerusalem which is above an heavenly City Heb. xii 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it had not its original here but fell down from the starry Firmament A notion fit for the most oratorious style of the Prophet Isaiah says he It shall come to pass in the last dayes that the mountain of the Lords House shall be established on the top of the Mountains To which the Rabbins give a childish interpretation that toward the time when God shall finish all things Mountains shall be piled upon Mountains Thabor upon Sinah Sinah upon Carmel and Sion upon them all as the Poets feign that the Giants threw Pindus and Pelion on the top of Ossa how low they creep in their understanding that do not stretch that description to Heaven Let such Blind-worms lick the dust as the Psalmist says but we must find out certain Raptures rather than Expositions how the Seat of Christ's Kingdom where his Servants do him homage in praise and holiness is not beneath but above First because Christ our Head is ascended into Heaven and governs all things beneath from thence sitting at the right hand of his Father As a King upon whose safety the weal of the Kingdom depends is said to carry the lives of his people with him when he adventures his person into danger so our Souls do hang upon Christ our Redeemer in him we live and move wheresoever he goes he draws us after him if he be lifted up on high so are we also by vertue of concommitancy it is his will and we have his word for it that where he is there should we be also When we pray unto him if our spirit do not issue out from us and prostrate it self before him in Heaven that Petition sollicits faintly and is not like to speed because it comes not nearer to him who is our Advocate with the Father When we come to his holy Supper unless we carry up our heart unto him by strong devotion and presume that we see that very Body which was crucified for us before our eyes we pollute the Sacrament for want of faith There are such joints and bands which knit the body unto the head as mortal reason cannot express but through faith and love we are often with him by invisible ascensions but most assured be we that there he intercedes for us