rather thus If we live as wicked men do we are scarce men but rather beasts and they that are scarce men by reason of their sins they are utterly lost I am sure for being Christians O if you have not Christ within you let your forehead blush that was sealed wâ—th his Cross without you How much better would it be for Hypocrites that they had been Pagans that never abused this Name than to have been outside Disciples no further than the name dealbati nomine Christiano says St. Austin not anointed with the oil of Christ the unction of the Spirit but parjeted over with the name of Christian like whited walls The Athenians forbad that any Bondman should be called by the name of Harmodius and Aristogeiton men that had jeoparded their lives to free their Country from servitude they held it dishonorable that those names that were devoted to the publick liberty should be polluted with servile contagion Domitian who was tyrannical in all his actions put one Metius a man of good condition to death for calling an inferior Vassal of his by the victorious name of Hannibal The Title of Philosopher O how the true Philosophers would storm when Caterpillars usurped it that had no affinity with true Philosophy it is a sickness and a very fever to me says one of them quod istiusmodi spurca animalia nomen usurpent sanctissimum that these unclean animals should steal such a sacred appellation If these men were so tender to preserve Civil and Academical honors from defamation will not God be much more incensed at pseudo-Christians and say why dost thou take the name of my well-beloved Son upon thee to pollute it Quid est dignitas in indigno nisi ornamentum in luctu says Salvian this glory with which you invest your selves shall be your utter shame you blot this Name with whoredoms and oppressions here therefore shall your names be blotted out of the book of life My invention will not serve me to conclude this point better than St. Austin hath done Vt nomen Christianum non ad judicium sed ad remedium habeamus convertamus nos ad bona opera that we may assume this name as a soveraign remedy against the Devil and not unto condemnation let us bring forth works worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ for whose sake we are called Christians And thou Antioch in the Land of Syria art not the least among those places that were holy ground thou wert like a new Hierusalem to us that are called Gentiles for in thee the sound was first heard which filled the earth with thy Majesty And the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch A place not long after the first foundation of it bruited abroad for much infelicity so frequently was it shattered with strong Earthquakes a place polluted with no small Idolatry for Apollo had his Shrine and Diana had hers within the Circuit of it Of a sudden when she was scandalous and forlorn those evils and calamities were redrest because God had a delight in a new Off-spring which was grown up within her walls and all the Inhabitants of the Earth did look upon her as a Star that was shot from Heaven Now began all the honors that the times would permit to be heaped upon it Some say that this being the best City wherein the Gospel had got ground St. Peter the chief Apostle was made the Bishop of it To make no brable of it lest I go beyond the allowance of my time this is all I will say if St. Peter were the Bishop of it then Ignatius was but a bad remembrancer that wrote so many Epistles and never spake of it then St. Chrysostom likewise who was a famous Pulpit-man in that City and made the best Sermons in Antioch that ever he made he were much overseen that he should never call it to mind in so many commemorations which he made concerning their dignity This is surely upon Record St. Peter afforded it his blessed presence and so did St. Paul his likewise a brave building of faith was erected there when the Covering was laid upon two such Pillars And a Bishoprick was founded there by those two great Apostles whose succession was happy in painful Prelates and constant Martyrs all Syria was subject to it as the Metropolis the Arabick Canons which Turrian hath set forth as constituted by the great Council of Nice say that all the Churches in Persia obeyed it as a Patriarchical See Justinian the Emperor because we had our best name imposed there gave it a better name and called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is being interpreted the City of God You may be sure their brave Presbyter St. Chrysostom hath often run over this string and made musick upon it In one place thus If any contention for priority ariseth you Antiochians may claim it before all the World illo scilicet privilegio vobis blandientes bearing up your selves upon that privilege that you were the first fruits of them that are called Christians this is your victory over your enemies this is your Diadem above your friends What a pudder some would have made of it if they could have boasted of this Prerogative O how the chief Pontif of Rome would have been hoisted up for an Oecumeniacal Bishop And out of the word Christian what a flourish Cardinal Bellarmin would have made for an Antichristian Supremacy God hath provided better things for us than that we should not be pelted with such a paper Bullet The Antiochians behaved themselves reverently and modestly and did not abuse the Grace of God unto wantonness They were not called Christianissimi more Christian than their Brethren for this verbal priority They did not arrogate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief Patriarchical Primacy before all other Prelates but were contented with the third rank to follow rome and Alexandria And in my slender opinion Baronius is never more to be commended in any thing than for rendring the true reason 〈◊〉 Says he in giving honorable place to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch regard was had to follow the steps of the Roman Magistrate and to settle Ecclesiastical Precedency just as he did distribute his principal Civil Dignities Now among all the Oriental Praefectures the Proconsul of Antioch was the most chief and honorable hence Antioch was established to be the Oriental Metropolis But because the temporal glory of Alexandria was greater and the chief Roman Praefecture of all others called Augustalis praefectura therefore though it was the younger Church in order of time yet her Patriarch preceded Antioch in order of dignity And if he had not wilfully shut his eyes against the light would he not have subscribed that this was the very cause that the Praelacy of Rome was preposed before them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom we yield it priority because it is the chief Imperial City or in Baronius his own
had often heard from credible Witnesses it was too usual with the discontented at their Meetings to charge the Church of England with those consequences which they did terminis terminantibus deny as the making of indifferent Ceremonies to be Sacraments and in kneeling at Sacrament to worship the Bread and thereupon be so furious against that reverend posture as though Kneeling were Popery and Sitting Protestancy when the Pope himself ever Communicates sitting These things were only spoken to make our Church odious to ignorant people and being permitted must needs in time destroy our Foundations again and therefore he wished that as of old all Kings and other Christians subscribed to the Conciliary Decrees so now a Law might pass that all Justices of Peace should do so in England and then they would be more careful to punish the depravers of Church Orders In matter of Doctrine he embraced no private and singular opinions as many great men delight to do in vetere viâ novam semitam quaerentes says the Father but was in all points a perfect Protestant according to the Articles of the Church of England always accounting it a spice of pride and vanity to affect singularity in any opinions or Expositions of Scripture without great cause and withal very dangerous to affect precipices as Goats use when they may walk in plain paths In the Quinquarticular Controversie he was ever very moderate but being bred under Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward in Cambridge was addicted to their Sentiments Bishop Vsher would say Davenant understood those Controversies better than ever any man did since St. Austin but He used to say he was sure he had three excellent men of his mind in this Controversie 1. Padre Paulo whose Letter is extant to Heinsius Anno 1604. 2. Thomas Aquinas 3. St. Austin but besides and above them all he believed in his conscience St. Paul was of the same mind likewise yet would profess withal he disliked no Arminian but such a one as reviled and defamed every one that was not so and would often commend Arminius himself for his excellent wit and parts but only tax his want of reading and knowledg in Antiquity and ever held it was the foolishest thing in the world to say the Arminians were Papists when so many Dominicans and Jansenists were no Arminians and so again to say the Anti-Arminians were Puritans or Presbyterians when Ward and Davenant and Prideaux and Brownrig were Anti-Arminians and also stout Champions for Episcopacy and Arminius himself was ever a Presbyterian and therefore much commended the moderation of our Church which made not any of these nice and doubtful Opinions the resolved Doctrin of the Church this he judg'd was the great fault of the Tridentine and late Westminster Assemblies But our Church was more ingenuous and left these dark and curious points to the several apprehensions of learned men and extended equal Communion to both There is another Controversie that hath been much vexed in our times concerning the case of Divorce and Marriage afterwards in which it is confessed our Bishop did dislike all those Churches or Polities that were facile to allow separation in Marriage and much more Marriage after yet allowed the question was intricate and such a one as the Pharisees sought to entangle our Saviour withal and that the Church of England had doctrinally determined neither way but for practice only judg'd it better that neither party should marry again after Divorce while the other liv'd and therefore in the Canons of Queen Elizabeth Anno 97 and in 107 Canon of King James Anno 1604. required Caution by sufficient Sureties to that purpose He condemned not other Churches that allowed it otherwise but prefer'd our own Caution before them and for this he wanted not many more reasons than were wrot in a hasty Letter to a Gentleman his Neighbour and published without leave after his death together with his own Answer but it is no credit to conquer the dead says the old Proverb While living He would urge for the indissolubleness of Wedlock the Authority of Divine Institution how God was pleased to make them Male and Female and first one and then two out of one and then again two to become one by a Divine Institution saying Whom God hath once joyned let no man put asunder 2. The Dignity of Marriage which represents the mystical Union that is betwixt Christ and his Church and His Union with our humane nature both which are indissoluble and perpetual 3. The excellency of that love that one ought to bear to the other in Marriage For this cause shall a man leave his Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife therefore it is a stronger relation then between Father and Son but the Son while his Father lives can never cease to be a Son much more while the Wife lives can the Husband cease to be an Husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall cleave to his Wife signifying a glutinous conjunction that will sooner break any where than be parted there 4. The manner of the conjunction one flesh that is according to the Hebrew Idiom one Man which supposes the Woman to be the Body and the Man to be the Soul so that none can part these but He alone that can part Soul and Body 5. And therefore though he conceived Eve did Adam a far greater injury than when a loathed Strumpet does defile the Bed of Marriage yet God nor Adam thought of no rupture in the case but God only pronounced her future sorrow in Conception indeed Paludanus and Navar Roman Casuists maintain if one party be indangered to be drawn into mortal sin by the other it is sufficient occasion to separate and therefore probably would have cited Eve into their Courts and proceeded accordingly against her but from the beginning it was not so 6. In the New Testament he observ'd our Saviour's answer seem'd strange to his own Disciples insomuch that they replied If the case were so it were better not marry at all which shews how they understood him 7. To be sure St. Paul would not allow it in a Bishop but strictly required him to be the Husband of one Wife that is having repudiated one to take no other without exception of any case 8. He was sure he had in the New Testament six places of his side to one against him one only carrying an outward face for it Matth. 19.9 Whosoever shall put away his Wife except it be for fornication and marrieth another committeth adultery But Matth. 5. 32. Mark 10.11 Luke 16.18 all sound another way Whosoever putteth away his Wife and marrieth another committeth adultery Rom. 7.2 The Woman that hath an Husband is bound as long as her Husband lives 1 Cor. 7.10 Let not the Wife depart from her Husband and if she depart let her remain unmarried and again the 27. verse Art thou bound to a Wife seek not to be loosed he held it safer
therefore you shall find him thus speaking to the people in Josephus Country-men says he you know the Law and are not ignorant that God is in every place as well at Dan and Bethel as at Hierusalem Vbique vota exaudit ubique cultores suos respicit his ear is every where to hear your Prayers his eye is every where to see your Worship and therefore there is no such necessity as the Priests talk of to go up yearly to the Temple at Hierusalem This is Jeroboams Divinity in one act both an Heretick and a Traitor he took away the Crown from Gods anointed by violence and would take away the throne dedicated to God himself by fraudulence Beloved every Religion knew this that one house or more as the worship required was to be built unto the God before whom they prayed and in whose name they took an Oath before the Altar Dagon the Idol of the Philistins had his Temples and so had the rest and shall the Assemblies gathered in the name of Christ shall they only worship in the Mountains and in desart places The Angel hovered from above over the fields where the Shepherds abode because he was a Messenger of Heaven and therefore proclaim'd the Christ under the open heaven but men that have their habitation upon earth must not so preach Christ as if they had dropt out of the skies the presence of an Angel did consecrate the waste plains upon which the flocks were feeding any place was holy for that time where an Angel spoke but corruptible and sinful man must not think that it is his priviledge to do the like unless the place be set apart for Gods service by a lawful solemnity of dedication Philo the Jew makes mention of some that worshipt God with most fervent devotion in Egypt and the parts of Alexandria frequent in Prayers and Watchings and it appears to some they were Christians and they says Philo had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 religious buildings full of reverence and Majesty to praise the Lord. This that Philo speaks of was in the reign of Claudius the Emperour twelve years and no more after our Saviours Ascension into Heaven The Primitive Church flourishing the Apostles all living these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Oratories and Chappels were built so ancient is the practice to call upon God in such stately buildings as were appropriated to be the houses of Prayer and the Reverend Council of Gangra past this Canon against Eustachius an enemy to Church buildings If any man shall say the house of God is contemptible and the Assemblies vain let him be an Anathema And of the two circumstances of the place that the Angel appeared in the field before the Shepherds so much and no more Thirdly I observed for the time that it was night when the Angel came unto them I dispute not what time of the night it was The night was distributed into four watches assigning the space of three hours to a Watch to this end that he who could not endure the tediousness of a whole night to lie abroad under the open air might be relieved at the end of a watch by him that took his place and it is not improbable that this occasion fell out towards the last watch of the night For to Premonstrate that Christ came to bring light to enlighten every man that came into the world he was annunciated by the Angel both at the increase of the year and at the increase of the day Oriente Salvatore non solum humani generis salus sed etiam solis ipsius claritas innovatur says St. Ambrose at this day Salvation shin'd upon the soul of man which had been in the darkness of condemnation even as our Saviour was born toward the dawning of the morning when the Sun was peeping out of the darkness of the night Nay the same Father goes further You would think his phancy were Rhetorical or rather Poetical but he delivers it for a Doctrine which he did verily believe that it was late at night when the Angel came into the field Cum sol festinans ob dominicae nativitatis obsequium c. When the Sun in homage to our Saviours Nativity posted as it were and before the Stars had run their courses cut short the night shined upon the world many hours before the day expected him and thus he reasons if the Sun stood still in the day for the Prayers of Josuah why might not he shorten the night to behold our Saviours Nativity Wherefore at night this Babe of Glory was born that he might turn the night into day A meditation of St. Gregories may supply us with another reason the Sun-shine of the day is the great Oracle of manifestation the smallest Atoms then appear and whatsoever lay in obscurity is clearly discerned now we have no clear apprehension of the mysteries of faith in this life as if they lay naked before us Sancti quamdiu in hác vitâ sunt divinae naturae Secreta quasi sub quadam imaginatione conspiciunt The Saints in this world behold the secrets of the Divine Nature as if it were in the imagination of a dream as men think they see Visions when they sleep in the night I do not go about therefore to span those things which cannot be measured how that which is infinite and finite are one in personal Union how he was conceived by the Holy Ghost What perfection of knowledge and grace there was in his Infancy if you look into the Ark with the Bethlemites you may forfeit your eyes It is modesty to say these things are incomprehensible for the Angel did reveal them in the night They that raise questions and dispute about those depths concerning our Saviour which cannot be sounded look for thanks because they are industrious whereas their curiosity seems to me to use him no better than if they crowned him with thorns We must believe without appoizing the Articles of our Faith to the balance of reason and then though we see darkly in a glass we are children of the day But if we will scan the secrets of God by the scruples of humane wisdome then is our day turned into night One day telleth another and one night certifieth another Psal 19.2 That is says Bernard the day told unto the day when the Angel came unto the modest Virgin Mary the night certified the night that is the Serpent conferred with Eve when she was fond and curious I am yet under this pillar of Cloud I mean under this circumstance of time that the Angel Gabriel addrest unto the Shepherds by night Captivities that be famous in Scripture are three Under Pharaoh in Egypt under Cyrus in Babylon and under the Devil in the thraldom of sin Mark what issue every one of these had to obtain liberty 1. The Children of Israel arose at midnight and departed out of Egypt 2. Nehemiah and those few the first that
keep this Fast And let me tell you we do not keep the same time that our Saviour did The learnedst Calculators of time ascribe his Baptism to the sixth of January immediately he began his fast which continued to the middle of February For the most part we begin our Lent where he ended but many times later Ecclesiae consuetudo roboravit that is the answer the custom of the Church hath so confirmed it So the observation hath descended to us from hand to hand and our own Church treading in the steps of pure antiquity hath admitted it Beloved the days of the year which are of especial observance are either days of joy or days of fasting and sorrow The chief day of joy is that wherein Christ rose from the dead and it appears that the Apostles appointed it for the solemnity of Christian meetings weekly and called it the Lords day but God left it indifferent to the Church to appoint themselves their own days of fasting and mourning and repentance for we owe all our gladness to God but we owe all our griefs and sorrow to our selves And indeed Fasts are things to be dispensed with to sundry persons and upon divers occasions therefore Almighty God left these things to the discretion of Authority in particular places A great tyranny is exercised in this matter when the Roman Church which is but one particular of the whole will prescribe Laws of abstinence from meats to all other Churches The lesser Churches indeed for uniformity sake were wont to have a respectful regard to the Ceremonies and Adiaphorous Rites which Imperial Cities and Patriarchal Sees did follow Not I say as if the richer and mightier Church did or could bind the smaller to the prestation of her customs but because in things honest and without exception it was meet that the noblest places should be rather imitated than descend to imitate others But O the advantages that Pride will take courtesie in a while was turn'd to necessity and the Roman Bishops did dare to challenge all Churches for Heretical that do not profess uniformity with them in all Fasts and Ceremonies But all the Inke in Italy is not enough to blot out the Canon of the Council of Chalcedon consisting of six hundred Bishops that the Churches of Constantinople because the Emperours kept their chief Palace there should have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal Priviledges with the Church of Rome And it is a Story known to all Divines when Monacha St. Austins Mother came to Millain St. Ambrose kept Institutions of Fasts divers from the Church of Rome and was never quarrelled for it Look among all the reasons of the Fathers which perswaded the fast of forty days I find not one that says itwas expedient to be kept because so it seemed good to the Roman Pontifical Authority The Institution depends upon a custom received from one to another in particular Churches A Constitution it is then propagated unto us from age to age The next quaere is whether it be a lawful Constitution That is whether the Church hath power to make Laws for appointed times and qualities of Fasting That the Magistrate may bid a Fast according to the convenience of some seasonable occasion it finds no contradiction unless perhaps some Anabaptistical fury doth oppose it So did Ezra so did Esther so did the King of Nineveh so says Joel Proclaime a Fast call a solemn assembly and in all occasions of woe and calamity to forget our food for a time and to intend nothing but spiritual exercise I know no Christian Church in the world but doth practice it But admit there be no extraordinary woe apparently like to fall upon us either by Sword Famine or Pestilence may not certain times and revolutions of the year challenge an abstinence and parsimony in our diet if the Church will have it so as Friday in every week some Saints Eves in every Month the Ember Fast as we call it every Quarter the Lenten abstinence and prohibition of some meats every year I have said enough before the Primitive Antiquity was very constant and regular in these observations de facto now I will refer you to the proofs of holy Scripture that it may be done de jure Zach. vii 5. There it appears that for the space of seventy years while the Children of Israel were in Captivity in all that space as the year turn'd about they did solemnize Fasts in the Fifth and in the Seventh Month not by Gods Law we find no such Precept but by their own Ecclesiastical Ordinances When ye fasted in the fifth and seventh month even those seventy years did ye at all fast unto me even unto me Their hypocrisie is blamed because they did not humble themselves before the Lord as they ought but the Ordinance was irreprovable The next stone that I will move is that Text Luk. v. 33. The Disciples of John complain that they fasted and the Pharisees fasted but the Disciples of Christ did not fast What Fast is this which they object unto him For it can be no Statute of Gods Laws Who would have kept it sooner than Christ and his Disciples For he came to fulfil the Law and not to break it It could be no Fast of private devotion for it had been most injurious to cavil with Christ for pretermitting their private Fasts it follows therefore that they were Fasts publickly kept enacted by the Synagogue observed not only by the Pharisees but by godly men Johns Disciples Only Christ did dispense with his train because the Children of the Bride-chamber were not to mourn while the Bridegroom was with them and to shew that he was above the Synagogue Moreover it is very strongly probable that all the Jews were bound by their own rules and by no other to fast upon every Sabbath until the sixth hour of the day Josephus their own Historian testifies so much the Gentiles among whom they lived did deride them for it and the Scripture gives us some light for it Neh. viii 3. The ears of all the people were attentive to the Law from morning until noon-day and at the twelfth verse they were dismissed and went to meat But our judicious Hooker argues very learnedly upon Mat. xii 1. Christ walking through the fields the Disciples pluckt the Ears of Corn The Pharisees challenge them for doing that which was not lawful to be done on the Sabbath day The bodily labour to rub the Corn was no such great trespass that it should offend them wherefore nothing could displease them but the breaking of the Fast before the sixth hour and our Saviours answer doth apologize not for their bodily labour not for making bold with another mans Corn it was no theft for the detriment was not valuable but he defends them that they satisfied their hunger by the example of David when he eat the holy bread And thus the Scripture approves the Doctrine which I teach that it is lawful for the
beginning of the Reign of Charles I. upon complaint of the Common Council-men of his Parish that they wanted room to bury their dead he purchased for that end the new Church-yard in Shooe-Lane and because in that sickly time it could not be Consecrated he obtained under the Bishop of London's hand and Seal a leave Provisional to read his Lordships indulgence Instrument only upon the ground with promise of procuring Consecration when the Plague ceased At the same time with the consent of the Bishop and his Vestry in Holbourn he composed a Table wherein were set the Rates of burial in Church or Church-yard New or Old and was able to prove that the like was done in elder times and therefore the Learned Author was deceived who thought all Church-yards were freely given for the use of the dead And he found by experience unless you would allow Fees for Funeral Attendances the Tythes would be too small in great Parishes to find Officers who must wait upon such occasions both day and night Likewise unless you make distinction of Prices for burial all people will be buried in one place in the very Church yea and Chancel it self if it might be allowed Nor in a Plague time can you get the Poor born to the Grave but it will cost dear and he was of opinion the Profits got by the Rich ought to pay for the Poor and that there was no more Simony in a Divines payment for some hours attendance upon a Funeral than in the Clerk's or Sexton's payment for ringing of Bells or the Heralds for their Escucheons and other Insignia funebria now of late grown customary yet most of these were at first mere Oblations and Free-will Offerings though now due secundum legem Terrae But to come to the most afflicted part of his Life and our never to be forgotten Calamities in the late days of darkness and gloominess He hath often protested that a long time before he foresaw our troubles gathering in the Clouds of discontents and would bewail that Charles the First the most Religious and best of Princes met with so bad Parliaments generally factious discontented and levened with Puritans Whereas Queen Elizabeth ever had calm Parliaments and that made her Reign glorious although She assumed more Prerogative than either King James or King Charles yet then no body cried Stand to the Liberties of the People but nothing destroyed Liberty more than the affectation of too much Liberty Besides he observed it was the design of Parliaments to put that mild King upon Wars and then refuse to give him moderate supplies to serve his just necessities unless he would part with his Court and his Church in exchange whereby He was constrained to supply himself by way of Loan which whosoever paid much more whosoever of the Kings Divines perswaded others to pay incurred the fury of the opposite Party Then were the Seeds of the future Sedition sown with an evil report brought upon Davids Government that all the People might loath it and after rise up to pluck it down Libels and licentious discourses were scattered ever portending future Mutinies as hollow blasts and secret murmurings in the Air go before dangerous Tempests at Sea These things he discoursed not onely from his own observation but from the prediction of many holy and learned men and wondred that Cardinal Bellarmin Mr. Hooker and Mr. Mead after both should all agree that the Establishment of the Church of England was not like to continue above seventy or eighty years the Age of a Man and he would tell how the late Bishop of Chichester hath said unto him his Father foretold the same and Bishop Wren said the same from Bishop Andrews but above all Mr. John Shearman Register to my Lord of Canterbury told him that he heard Archbishop Abbot before his death at a solemn Meeting before many friends with many tears foretel the same and it was our Bishops opinion that the Spirit of Prophesie was not quite dried up but sometimes pro hic nunc God gave Mankind still a knowledg of future Events In the Convocation of 1640 was composed a Book of Canons which he well approved always using to call Church Canons so many Buttresses to the House of God raised up without the walls to support the building within Yet considering the swinge of the times he once presumed to request my Lord of Canterbury not to proceed but to indulge to the hardness of the peoples hearts for he was well assured if his Grace could make another Epistle to the Romans the people then would not receive it and therefore often wished those Books had never been made in England nor the Liturgie sent into Scotland which he would often bewail in the words of his learned Friend Liturgia infoelicissimè ad Scotiam missa where the Secular Arm was too weak to protect the Loyal party in their Ecclesiastical obedience He accounted it no good Omen to have the Sun Eclipsed that very hour the Long Parliament began in November Anno 1640 though not visible here save in the disastrous effects From the beginning thereof all things were managed with Uproars and Tumults However some hope there was that upon moderation shewn matters might be peaceably composed whereupon the House of Lords appointed a Committee out of their own Members for setling peace in the Church in March following at the same time the Lords appointed a sub-Committee to prepare matters for their Cognizance the Bishop of Lincoln had the Chair in both and was authorised to call together divers Bishops and other Divines to consult for correction of what was amiss and to settle peace of the sub-Committee those that appeared and consulted together in Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster some others were named were these onely the Bishop of Lincoln Primat of Armach Bishop of Durham Bishop Hall then of Exeter Dr. Ward Dr. Prideaux Dr. Twiss Dr. Sanderson Dr. Featly Dr. Brownrig Dr. Holdsworth Dr. Hacket Dr. Burgess Mr. Marshall Mr. Calamy Mr. Hill Many things for six several Meetings were propounded but in the midst of May while in order to settlement divers things were upon the Loom the Bill call'd Root and Branch was brought into the House of Commons and that like Atropos cut off all the threds of this proceeding to that the whole matter proved abortive and came to nothing After this appeared nothing but tumultuous Concourses of raging people seeking to manage all Affairs by the whirwind of their own ignorant clamours and to remedy grievances without consulting Religion or Justice He much wondred that any men could think it possible that the God of Order would ever mend any thing by their means who take them one by one were most ignorant and illitterate take them all together were most bloudy and violent and no man preached more boldly against the licentiousness of those times than he challenging the Boutefeus to shew wherever the Scripture gave countenance to Uproars and
to beg the Kings leave to let him go home before the end of the Session sometimes in frosty Winter weather to be like the good Pastor among his Sheep where they might hear his voice at Christmas and the other great Feasts and accounted silence a Womans vertue but not a Bishops who if sickness and great Affairs molested not was still bound to labour in the Word and Doctrine and held it a mistake to prefer Governing before Preaching whereas it was ever contrary as appeared by 1 Tim. 15.17 Let the Elders that rule well be accounted worthy of double honour especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine and therefore the Bishop alwayes preached and the Presbyter never before him but when deputed or in his absence so that when he was sometimes told by his friends that he was now Miles emeritus and might lawfully lay aside his Preaching pains in his extreme old age he would by no means consent but still lay-by his other Studies upon Saturday afternoon and retire to his preaching Meditations and for the most part preacht once upon Sunday mornings both to profit others and to warm himself Three Sundays at least every Month he would preach up and down his Diocess and not only in his chief City of Lichfield or near to his own Cathedral but like to a benign Star would irradiate all places within his Orb He would often take Coach and go more than seven miles sometimes nine or ten upon Sunday morning and yet be at Church before most of the Parish and go home again to dinner and yet alwayes have the full Service of the Church before Sermon and many times afterwards rectify disorders in Churches and sometimes differences about Seats or Pews This Custom he continued till he died often mentioning the words of Bishop Andrews who was wont to institute all his Ministers in curam meam tuam and therefore thought he must no more hide his Talent in a Rochet than they might theirs under a Cassock Thus was his diligence equal to any of the Ancients and his success answerable reducing multitudes in all places to piety and conformity with the Church of England almost like another Gregorius Thaumaturgus Bishop of Neocaesarea a great and populous City who when he came thither found but seventeen Christians and when he died gave God thanks he left but seventeen Pagans This great success did owe it self not only to his frequent preaching and diligent study but to his eximious piety and perpetual prayer Formerly he had taken great pains in the Study of Antiquity and for Ecclesiastical History especially he was inferior to very few no man could give a better account of the Travels of the Apostles after the day of Pentecost and the Conversion of the World by the Primitive Christians and for the History of the Reformation after the second Pentecost no man I think could give the like Narrative how miraculously in all places it was effected In our own Church there was nothing whereof he was ignorant all the Councils and passages of the Reformation from the first beginning or Matrix thereof he perfectly understood But of late years he would say his Studies were not to be more wise and learned but more holy and good and therefore laid aside Polemical Divinity wholly and his principal study were Cases of Conscience Canon Law and the Liturgies of the Antient Church in which he was very skilful yet would often complain he found this last an unlearned study and much against his own nature who was a lover of Philology and Rationality But he much wondred that any learned men could contrary to the practice of the whole Church lay aside all use of Liturgies even against the sense of Calvin himself who wishes there might be in every Church an uniform Liturgy for preservation of Unity and prevention of Vainglory and other inconveniencies from which it should be unlawful for Ministers to depart but especially in our Church where so many young men are ordain'd he wondred any wise man would be against a set Liturgie and refer all the Service of God to free Prayer and would assert that it was more easie to marr than to mend the Book of Common-Prayer and therefore we ought not to adventure the one for the other but in regard the Minister of the Parish was permitted to compose a Prayer of his own before his Sermon he thought no Sectary had cause to complain Bidding of Prayer before Sermon he never practised and said no more did Dr. Ravis and Dr. Fletcher Archbishop Whitgift's Chaplains afterwards Bishops who drew up the 55. Canon whom he knew very well and often heard preach and always used a Form of their own and no Bishops Articles ever examined or found fault with it and was certainly used by St. Ambrose in Antiquity and therefore in the Convocation 1640 it was carried for a Form And although it was his mind that all Students were not to be tied up to Canonical hours but such only whose Devotion need not be interrupted by necessary study and employment yet he would rarely intermit them himself unless want of health or very extraordinary business constrained him In a morning he would rarely permit any to visit or disturb him but held that time was made for God rather than for men as the Historian says of Charles the fifth Manè frequentior cum Deo quà m cum hominibus sermo therefore the first thing after his sleep was his private Devotion with reading of the holy Bible Psalms and Chapters then gentle walking for health then Study then Publick Prayer then Private Prayers again before Dinner presently after Dinner to his Private Prayers again and then to his Study unless Ecclesiastical Affairs or sutable Company prevented him for an hour or so and of all sorts of Prayer he would especially abound in thanksgiving using St. Paul's words often In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God and wish that our Common Prayer had more Forms to that purpose and would sometimes wonder that when the world had been so cloyed with Religious Orders Predicants Humiliats Oratorians Mendicants and many other titles yet there was never any called Eucharistici a Congregation appointed to give God thanks for all the good things wherewith this World is replenished In the Evening of every day Recount thy own actions and the divine preservations was his rule to others and customary to himself and to pray for the pardon of the one and praise God for the receit of the other And in all his Prayers day and night he was a continual sollicitor for the peace of the Catholick Church All his counsels like Melanchton's were ever moderate and he often wished such a Form of Prayer were composed that all Christians might joyn in being a great Enemy to sharpness and violence in the matters of Religion and would often use Erasmus his words Mihi adeò est invisa discordia ut
as well as zealous intention of inward reverence Behold the creatures of bread and wine non quà sunt sed quà significant not as they are elementary food but as they are significant of greater things And for that significancy we bend our knees in the receiving to our Lord Jesus Christ not to do honour to the Elements let none be so simple or so uncharitable to say it nor to any visible thing present but to the Immortal God who hath saved us by the blood of his Son as of a lamb undefiled Now upon the taking of the bread and wine not absolute necessity but decency and order call for the duty of our knee The visible Sacrament is objectum adorationis à quo non ad quod upon occasion of seeing those things we do worship but the worship is not terminated to those things The people of Israel for certain worshipped before the Ark was the Ark any better sign of Gods presence than the Bread and Wine are of the Body and Blood of Christ The Ark was called Jehovah so those Elements are called his Body and Blood for the representation and Sacramental relation Throughout all the Old Testament wheresoever the people of God had notice of the divine presence and grace in signs ordinary and extraordinary they have with free conscience bowed down and worshipped Moses fell down to God when he saw the fire in the Bush Joshuah worshipped not the Angel but Jehovah at the sight of the Angel Josh v. The people fell down and worshipped when they saw the fire from heaven fall on the Sacrifice 2 Chron. vii 3. Nay Ezra cast himself down before the House of God when there was no House standing but the remembrance of the place What if a devout man walking through goodly Fields of standing corn and marking those plentiful blessings should uncover his head yea and kneel to give God thanks were not this well done much more though not any worship is done to the bread when he sees that bread in which by faith he receives Christ and all his benefits I will follow this point no further happy is he that believes and doth neither commit Idolatry to the outward Elements nor grudg at due and devout reverence to be done at the most Holy Supper of the Lord. Me-thinks now our last business of all touching the worshipping of Images should be but sport to skirmish with Babies and Puppies like the fray that is spoken of between the Cranes and the Pigmies O strong delusions in the hearts of men that there should be any cause to contest with Christians in such a Controversie Blasphemy Witchcraft Murder are not more plainly condemn'd in Scripture than to set up an Image for adoration and if Gods own words utter'd with his own mouth from Mount Sinai in thunder and lightning will not serve the turn to what end is it to dispute or preach against it but for Sions sake I will not hold my peace and for Jerusalems sake I will not rest The worshipping of Images is accounted no slender Ceremony among the Romanists but a branch of Religion wherein they shew great zeal to God and the Saints The Tridentine Catechism provides that the catechized in their childhood should learn this for Catechisms are principally for youth that it is not only lawful to have Pictures and Images in Churches wherein they see we assent so far but to exhibit honor and worship unto them Parochus sanctorum imagines in templis positas demonstrabit ut colantur left the people should think the Images stand in the wall for a cypher or for bare ornament the Parish Priest shall admonish his Flock that they stand there to be worshipped So Cajetan those stand not for fashion sake only in the Church like the Cherubins in Solomons Temple meerly to be lookt upon but to be adored and this is upheld with so much vehemency that they accurse all such as oppose it and with so much cruelty that we learn out of their own storie that Balthasar Hinâ—marus was burnt at Vienna and Aegidius Hispanus at Sevil for denying that Religious Adoration was due to Images Beside what Panegyricks Praises and Poems have been made in honor of those Statues before which many miracles have been wrought though nothing truly done but by imposture and delusion What injunctions given to Penitentiaries to creep unto them What offerings of Plate and Coin and Jewels bestowed upon them and by the bounty of fools they are made richer than the givers and the living are defrauded of the works of mercy to deck an Idol with sumptuous bravery And after all this madness and cost to uphold the credit of their golden Gods Cardinal Bellarmine's voluntary confession is worthy to be noted nihil periret de fide aut religione si nulla ficta vel picta esset imago Faith and Religion should suffer no loss though there were no Image in the world This is even such another lightning as came from him in his Controversies upon Justification for after all his arguments to make the good works of the faithful have a merit of condignity he concludes tutissimum est yet it is the safest way to hope to be saved by Christ alone so after all his sophistry for Images this is plain dealing nihil periret de fide religione it were not the worse for Faith and Religion if there were no Images at all Lend your ear now to the stir that is made among their Writers what portion of Religious Worship is allowed to their Pictures and Statues that stand for Christ especially and likewise for the Saints That infamous second Nicene Synod whose Canons are precious in the eye of the Church of Rome to this day that pack of Idol-mongers condemned all such as said their use went no further than to put us in mind of Christ nay Tharasius the busiest man in that ill work said all that confessed they did esteem venerably of sacred Images and would not adore them were hypocrites It was there defined they should have Religious Salutation and Adoration but not latriam the most Religious Worship which is proper only to God The Tridenâ—ine Council leaves men to pick what they can out of indefinite words and says only such Images are to have Veneration made to them and Holy Worship There are three Sects of opinions among their learned men who differently state the case Durandus says that Images are not adored but improperly and by abuse of the word quia ad praesentiam earum fit rememoratio exemplarium tunc adorantur in praesentia imaginum they being at hand do make men remind Christ and think upon him and then Christ is adored in the presence of the Image but not the Image at all Such remembrances sometimes might be spared because of the danger and scandal yet this opinion is moderate I only dislike that he says he would not have the people so taught for Christ bad his doctrin should be
I would confess it impossible but to instance in the principal parts I will divide them into four quarters that you may see how the punishment of the Jews is proportionable to the injuries which they did unto out Lord 1. He was bound like a Malefactor and are not the Jews made Bond-slaves and Captives for ever 2. He was blinded that he might be buffeted and what is so blind as the heart of that Nation 3. He was spat upon and reviled they hated him without a cause And no people under the Sun every where more hated and disaffected Lastly He was murdered with the death of the Cross the death of malediction And according to their stubbornness and infidelity we can scarce say less in charity than that the death of malediction is faln upon them As the Prophet Amos said For three transgressions and for four I will not turn away my punishments from Israel because they sold the righteous for Silver and the poor for a pair of Shooes To be enthralled without Liberty to be blind without Light to be hated without Love to be condemned without Mercy thus I have quartered out the dismal sorrows of that Nation which spilt his bloud and speaking a word briefly of each part I will conclude this exercise First They bound the Messias and they themselves are Captives That Caesar whom they stood so much for before Pilate even he did pervert the Nation and destroy the Temple In Mount Olivet they did first lay hands upon Christ in Mount Olivet says Josephus the Roman Souldiers did first entrench themselves to besiege Hierusalem The unutterable misery of their City how it was taken and defaced is so common a story that I will not spend the time to rehearse it As the punishment of the Deluge was fifteen Cubits higher than the tallest Mountains of the earth so the punishment of that City was fifteen times greater than that mighty City Within the Walls the Famine was so great that it parched their bodies and dried up their living moisture that Children had not tears to weep over their dead Parents Nay the living had not strength enough to dig a grave to bury the dead Without the Walls their Prisoners were so paid with the same coin which they dealt unto our Saviour Ut spatium crucibus deesset corporibus cruces That the field did not afford room enough to set up so many Crosses or had there been space in the field there was not wood in the Mountains to make so many And do they not think the Cross of Christ did work in this affliction As Tertullian said to the Heathen you have sent offerings heretofore to the Temple you have bestowed gifts upon Jerusalem Nunquam nunc dominaturi nisi Deo in Christum deliquissent Nay says Josephus if the Sword of Titus had not cut them short their crimes were so unnatural and so desperate that the wrath of Sodom and Gomorrha had rained down upon them When that desolation shall come says the great Prophet whom they hanged on a tree you will call upon the Hills to cover you and the Mountains to fall upon you Sic in cavernis collibus se abscondiderunt says Beda they did lurk in Groats and Caves of the Rocks to avoid the Romans and so fulfilled the Prophesie ever since that black day O populus natus ad servitutem They have lost the remembrance of liberty They cannot say of any parcel of ground in the earth this is our field and our possession Of all the men upon the earth they are the only Nation under heaven that have neither portion in earth nor in heaven When the City was lost Adrian would never suffer them to return to see it unless it were to mourn and sorrow and then they must pay for it Sic qui sanguinem Christi vendunt jam suas lachrymas emunt They bargained for Christs bloud and they pay for their own tears Non est tutus Judaeus ad Ecclesiam confugiens says the Canon Law They only have no safety though they betake them to the protection of a Church Other men are Lords of that wealth which God hath bestowed upon them but they are Tributaries ad placitum spung'd every year as the necessity of the Prince requires Money can never prosper with them since they bought our Lord. Indeed Judas sold him the Jews did buy him and they gave him to Pilate and so the Gentile hath purchased him Other men can be avenged of the insolencies of their Adversaries and so every man lives in peace under his own Vine and under his own Fig-tree but they are never quiet for violence and outrages committed against their person Ideo Judaei pacem habere non possunt quia seditionum principem eligere maluerunt says Isidor How can they hope for rest who refused the Prince of peace and chose Barrabas the Prince of seditions The next Viol of vengeance is the gross darkness of their heart ever since they blinded our Saviour If Samson be blinded and put to scorn shall he not pluck down the Theater upon the Princes and upon the People If Elisha be scoft at shall he not call for Bears to devour the Children The Disciples forsook Christ and ran away at midnight this night you shall be offended at me In nocte scandalizantur says Origen and Peter plunged himself into that fearful denial ante gallicinium before the crowing of the Cock this betokened that they sinned out of ignorance and therefore were received into favour upon repentance But for the High Priests and Elders Mane facto consilium capiunt when it was morning they took counsel against Jesus Hoc est scientes peccant in lumine says that Author They sinned by broad day-light as it were against their own conscience and they that did so much abuse the light are cast into a long darkness for ever The miraculous Eclipse of the Sun says St. Hierom an Emblem of that blindness which should possess them was not over the whole Hemisphere of the world but only in Jury For neither Graecian Astronomer nor Arabian do speak of it Wanderers they were in the Wilderness about forty years wanderers they have been in their vain imaginations almost two thousand Then they were directed as the clouds went before them now they are guided by Vapours and Pillars of smoak After our Saviours Ascension eight years were spent when St. Matthew wrote his Gospel and yet even to that day they did report and believe that his Disciples stole him away by night What when the Souldiers slept If they were broad awake says St. Austin why would they suffer the body to be so conveyed If they were fast asleep which way came they to know the conveyance Beda takes this to be not a story but a Prophesie in the Gospel that the Jews shall be so hardened in unbelief that they shall give credence to that report for ever This it is to curse themselves with such an
everlasting curse His bloud be upon us and upon our Children Sanguis ille veniat super nos sed in ablutionem Let his bloud come upon us all I beseech God but to wash away our sins in the Laver of Regeneration But upon whom it comes for vengeance it must needs put out their eyes and make them stark blind A bloudshed eye can never see well A man never fares worse than when he is his own carver No greater infelicity can betide us than when we have our own wishes Inter vota imprecantium senescimus says Seneca No marvel if we do not thrive in this world What by our own prayers what by the prayers of our friends who shoot wide of the true good we spend our age in imprecations The Jews here did ask such a thing that they never had the reason more to ask any thing that was good They see no more than if a beam were in their eyes a beam as big as the tree of the Cross of Christ And so much for the second punishment the blindness of the Nation But thirdly A just reward is faln upon these murderers that the haters of the Lord should be despised in the eyes of all men Canes facti sunt filii filii facti sunt canes says Theodoret long since Those who were called dogs in the person of the Syrophaenician woman are beloved like the Children and those that were Children are spurned at like Dogs under the Table If we meet a Jew our phancy makes us believe that we see our enemy Nay the most part of men presage no better luck after their sight than if some dismal beast had been in the way which our superstition is afraid of Truly we may say of their dejected countenance and that malignant Mark of Cain in their face as Caesar did of Cassius Quid Cassius sibi vult mihi pallor ejus non placet Cassius did dart treason in his eyes and they dart murder I will not report it upon tradition because fame is but the Post-master to carry lies that the savour of death is in their bodies to this day or that their Children are born with knots of bloud in their hands This I may be bold to say it is an heavy vengeance and the great judgment of God if these things be true But true or false the anger of God is broke out upon them that the whole world with one consent should speak such things unto their infamy as their Conquerours thought them not worthy to be Freemen So as if they had been worse than beasts and not fit to make good bondslaves thirty of them have been sold at a baser price than an Ass head was sold in Samaria or than they sold our Saviour Alas they that find none to love to regard to pity them to prize them at an honest rate they are in Hell already but God forbid that I should teach you to hate a Jew Every living soul for which Christ died is the object of a Christians charity This is the very day wherein we offer up our prayers both at Morning and Evening Sacrifice for the salvation of Jews and Paynims according to our Church Liturgie I come now to end this long discourse with the fourth malediction to wit that we may well fear that they and their Children die an accursed death who crucified our Saviour They that were so nice as to deny to come into Pilates house in the days of the Passeover lest they should be defiled with bloud What will become of their poor souls when they shall be thrust into the Valley of Hinnon Into the Tophet of damnation Timent contaminari habitaculo alieno non timent contaminari scelere proprio says the Gloss It was a perillous thing to set foot in Pilates doors that would defile them But what destruction will it be to take the mystical house of Pilate I mean the Kingdom of darkness over their head for ever They that ignominiously bad our Saviour come down from the Cross the greatest Cross in the world is come down upon them says Nazianzen Forty years did the Lord prove them in the Wilderness seventy years in Babilon But as Christ said unto Peter Thou shalt forgive thy brother unto seventy times seven times Even just so many years were there by true computation between the return from Babylon and the destruction of the Temple Now they have endured almost one thousand seven hundred years of desolation O that the anger of the Lord would go no further then they might sing a Jubilee for ever But the Prophet Isaiah doth threaten them Though you lift up your hands I will not hear your Prayers because they are defiled with bloud Their Mothers were fruitful for nothing but to bring forth abundance of them who might be slaughtered Beside the number as great as the sand upon the Sea-shore that perished under Titus in the Wars of Adrian when they gathered themselves under Barcosdau their Pseudomessias twice as many say our Histories were slain with the Sword as came out of Egypt Assyria and Babylon have known their Captivity Vespasian drove them into Italy Adrian from thence into Spain They have been cast out into Brittany and cashiered Into France and banished Out of Spain by Emanuel and Ferdinand expulsed O where shall they rest at last But where there is no rest for ease no Christ for Redemption no pity for consolation Yet believe it Brethren the Lord hasten the day of his merciful visitation the time will come when a Remnant shall be saved The Holy Ghost did dip the Pen of St. Paul into Prophesie and he cannot deceive us Wherefore one glosseth thus upon my Text Vestrum peccatum vestra poena vestra ut omnium redemptio Your sin it is O Israel your punishment it must be and see to it further for if his Persecutors do repent your redemption it shall be But to construe the words of the Prophets touching a visible Kingdom of the Jews to come a new Jerusalem another Temple a potent Monarchy over all the World Let this fancy prevail with other men for my part I will say to it as one did in the like case His victoribus herbam porrigo sed elleborum Two things says St. Hierom are of great obscurity in the New Testament the Kingdom of Antichrist and the restauration of the Jews We know all about what hour Christ gave up the Ghost so we shall be able in some conjecture to trace the steps of Antichrist but at what hour Christ arose from the dead we cannot tell Ita majus est mysterium quando Judaei restituentur quia est quaedam resurrectio says the Father So it is a more intricate mystery when the Jews shall be restored because it is a kind of resurrection But O Lord we call upon thee and beseech thee to begin thy Kingdom of grace in our hearts upon earth Also to call home thine ancient people the Jews and to hasten thy Kingdom of
Enoch for our Lesson that is his Text Letter upon which he flourisheth Enoch is his Antesignanus his Standard-bearer that leads Noah and Abraham and many others after him and the same that he offers to the Corinthians I commend to you Such a Patriarch that the Holy Ghost hath made a great difference between him and other men For it is the method of the Scripture to record the lives and deaths of the Saints but upon this Person the stile alters he was a priviledged man from death which is the common condition of all that are born of woman and Moses speaks of his double life he could not speak of his death his life of grace and his life of glory Ambulavit cum Deo or coram Deo he walked with God that is the Summary Collection how he lived the life of grace And Non apparuit coram hominibus He was not for God took him there is the Miracle how he was wrapt up into glory In the dividing of the parts I will put no more upon my text than it was made to bear and two Points I am sure upon which only I will insist are the very bowels of it First the Integrity of Enoch Secondly his Immortality First how uncorrupt he was in his ways and Enoch walked with God Secondly that he suffered no corruption in the body He was not for God took him In the one member is how he used this world the other how he enjoy'd a better The one of faith the other of fruition The one for our imitation the other for our consolation And first your patient attention how uncorrupt he was in his ways And Enoch walked with God In a good Picture every Limb nay every shadow of it is worthy to be looked upon and in the story of such a Patriarch as Enoch was every word that breaths upon his name is sweet and memorable Now in holy Scripture or in those books which are contiguous to holy Scripture four things are remembred of him which will make him better understood in both parts of this Verse St. Jude in the fourteenth verse of his Epistle sets two marks upon him first in his Genealogy he was the seventh from Adam Secondly in his divine knowledge he Prophesied The Son of Syrach also in his rehearsal of famous men hath given him two additions more the one that his vertue was most communicable He was an example of repentance to all Generations Eccl. xliv 16. The other that his vertue was most unparallel'd or inimitable Vpon the earth was no man created like Enoch Chap. xlix 14. I will dispatch these with a running hand First to be the seventh from Adam what if that was no more than to be the fourth or fifth or any other number For it is a general Rule there is no prerogative to be born after the flesh But God rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had made and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work therefore some Writers must needs fall upon this observation as indeed divers have noted it that Enoch the man of the seventh Generation was taken away to rest with God which bids us labour in the works of mercy and repentance all the six days of this life and after those days like Enoch the seventh from Adam we shall be translated into peace and tranquility for ever Some others go farther a little more curiously than certainly the Patriarchs for six descents all died and were turned into earth again Enoch the seventh from Adam was carried away from the world and saw not death So death shall reign through six Ages of the world Septimâ immortalitas vigebit in the seventh Age corruption shall be done away and immortality shall take place for ever Such mysteries as these are but Speculations that tangle us but plainly and directly this priviledge came to Enoch because he was the seventh from Adam that he lived most happily in a brave society of wise men it was no rude or barbarous Age as if he alone had pleased God for five of his Forefathers in a right line were then living five the brightest Lamps of the Church when the Lord translated him A happy thing it is to be well taught by any single wisdom but there is more affiance in a number of Counsellors Enoch the seventh from Adam had no less than six renowned Patriarchs to go in and out before him in the fear of the Lord. 2. To be born in such a descent is an accidental thing a contingency But the next note upon him is that he had a Prophetical illumination Enoch the seventh from Adam Prophesied All the Sons of Adam in the good Race of Seth whose names are filed in this Chapter were Heads of the People Lawgivers Priests of the most high God Noah more eminently than the rest a Preacher of righteousness in St. Peters phrase yet Enoch stands by himself alone for a Prophet And no marvel if we hear no tidings of his Prophesie till St. Jude divulged it in the last Epistle but one of all the Scripture it seems to me that it stands there in the fittest place because it is a Prophesie that concerns neither the first nor the middle Age but the very end of the world Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that were ungodly The heavens and earth were but in their first beginnings men and women did but begin to multiply yet that divinity was preached in those early days Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of Saints to judge the world the expectation of that coming draws nearer to us than it did to them how much more should we prepare to see that with our eyes which they did but hear with their ears And to double our watchfulness and attention as much as the Ages of the world since Enochs time have passed on and multiplied Enoch prophesied that which Jude hath made Canonical Scripture This hath troubled some to dispute it whether ever he wrote such books as were once in the Canon of the Scripture I hold the Negative for though he were a Prophet and had inspirations yet Scripture is not only given by inspiration of God but such inspiration as is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction of righteousness Such Oracles were deposited by God with his Church and never suffered to perish How will it appear but St. Jude received those words by tradition Or quoted them as he found them cited in some other Author It were shame such antiquity should scape both Josephus and Philo who never mention it But at last some falsary no man can guess him authored a most vain Book upon Enoch Origen who perused it gives us a taste of it in his last Homily upon Numbers that it was stuft with secrets of Philosophy about the motions of the Heavens
and his Conspiracy against King David And so much hath been spoken for the four just Conditions of the Vow of the Rechabites 1. It was a thing indifferent but reducible to the fulfilling of the Law 2. Let it be possible in the Sphere of our own ability 3. Let it be just and lawful 4. Let it be full of weight and moment to draw us to the fear of the Lord. The third part of my Text I have destined out to shew unto you that the Romish Monks whose strictness and devotion is so famous among our Adversaries that their Canons are not built upon the imitation of the Rechabites That any particular Church may have Religious Orders and Votaries I grant it That point shall break no peace between us In points not fundamental our Saviours rule must hold He that is not against us is with us But Vows undertaken wherein they do neither consult with the strength of man if they can be done nor with conscience if they may be profitably done nor with the Text of Scripture if they may be lawfully done this cannot but break out into a quarrel And in Essential points it is also a Maxim from our Saviours mouth He that is not with us is against us Whatsoever is in the world says St. John it is either the concupiscence of the flesh the concupiscence of the eye or the pride of life For the correcting of these three Tentations the Friers have propounded three Vows The Concupiscence of the Eye is remedied by Monastical Poverty say they and why not as well by a contented mind The Concupiscence of the Flesh is remedied by the Vow of Chastity says the Romanist I am sure experience doth tell us that Gods Remedy is the surest the Bed of Marriage The Pride of Life is remedied by Blind Obedience says the Papist and why not as well by humility and acknowledgment of our own unworthiness Wonder you so much that so many should retire themselves into Voluntary Poverty is this such news abroad when you cannot walk the Streets at home but swarms of Canters meet you who will not live by the hope of their labour but by alms and charity The poor Artisan the painful Plowman who cannot make his long days labour feed him and refresh him at night doth this man I pray you look like one who deserves relief or an obstinat Mendicant a Rechabite that watcheth night and day to feed his Flock or a Capuchin that trudgeth night and noon about the City to feed his belly Did Christ descend of the seed of Jonadab and Lazarus no but of Abraham a mighty Prince Crates and Antisthenes may cast their Silver from them and retain their vices true Christians give up themselves to God and with themselves they give up all things Cosmus and Damianus who grudged a Monk his Christian Burial because he had laid up a little Silver in his Study were too prodigal of their zeal and mist our Saviours meaning To leave Lands and Houses for his Names same was to beget an exercised mind for patience to prepare Worldlings to be ready to cast away their Burdens for the flight of persecution It is good for a man in some sort to depend upon Gods temporal blessings lest we grow careless of Prayer In Egypt where the River Nilus waters the earth and fats the ground without rain nemo oratorum coelos aspicit Pray who will they trust in Nilus Then I may contest against the Sectaries of St. Francis and the like that Voluntary Poverty is not built upon the foundation of the Rechabites and those idle swarms of the Cloisters have not left the World but civility But for the Covenant of perpetual Virginity there they think to bear the Bell away and that they only shall be the men who carry Palm Branches before the Lamb among the Virgins Rev. 7. It is in weak man to afford God as much chastity as he pleaseth Can our frail will cast anchor in the depth of concupiscence and say unto the surging waves of lust as Christ did to the Sea Peace be still So Xerxes threw chains into the Ocean to bind it but trow you the Tide was the calmer St. Paul durst not do so He would admit no Widows into the strict Orders of the Primitive Church under sixty years of age Yea says Leo the first of that name rather than want a College full I will entertain them at fourty nay says Pius the first what if they profess Virginity at five and twenty And now the Canons have opened the Market a little more every Girl may enter into a Cloyster at fifteen if she like them As Elias set the Sacrifice on fire when the Trenches were filled with cold water round about so unchast acts may get predominance of the will notwithstanding all the spiritual Scleragogie and exercise to tame the body Fasting humbleth Prayer is powerful honest Communication apparelleth the mind with good thoughts Watching tameth the flesh All this is spiritual but I am carnal Quoque magis premitur tanto magis aestuat ignis Is it not usual in the Court of Rome to grant Dispensations to supply the decay of Noble Families but they are never granted to entangle an ensnared conscience And do they love Virginity In the Council of Chalcedon it was decreed that there should be reserved for the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the absolute authority of Indulgence to pardon a distressed Maid who disaccording to her Vow had married But such a Marriage by the Romish Doctrin now adays is esteemed worse than Adultery and do they love Chastity Finally it was the Discipline of Numa against a Vestal Virgin who had committed folly to bury her alive Such a fault in the Roman Monasteries is passed by either with a full connivance or with the smallest penance For wot you why it may be every mans case and do they love Virginity I am sure the Rechabites did honour Marriage and propagated a good Generation to the World They knew that the gift of perpetual continence is not a Grace of common course and extraordinary Dispensations are not presumptuously to be arrogated to the use of every regenerate Christian no nor for the command of any Prophet Why should St. Paul leave Trophimus sick at Miletum Why was Bishop Timothy his stomach weak Paul could not help it Grace allotted for extraordinary operations is not every mans portion nor always at hand for them who at some seasons have a taste of it and such is the Rose of the Garland the gift of Chastity Finally Obedience which in our Voyage in this World is like a sweet gale that fills the sails and makes our Vessel fly swift upon the wings of the wind yet as it is blind and Monastical it is like a Serena such a calm whereby the Bark can go neither backward nor forward and it is not built upon the foundation of the Rechabites not upon obedience to their own Father but upon the
it had been dried before the fire now that and bread made of Barley had need to be washed down But what said the Roman Captain to his Army Nilum habetis vinum quaeritis they that had the whole River of Nile before them need not complain of thirst so they that were near to the Sea of Tiberias took no thought for any other Beverage it was a Lake of wholsom and fresh water which after the custom of the Jews is called a Sea if it be large and spacious and with that they were contented to quench their thirst Our Saviour furnished them once with wine at the joyful Solemnity of Marriage they lookt not for the like at every occasion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a pleasant liquor says the Poet but it is the Milk of Venus They declined all incentives of lust and lived almost after Daniels rate with pulse and water When Christians lived among the Heathen they were detected by their parsimony and moderation of diet though it were to save their lives they could not gurmandize like Epicures Nos oleris comas nos siliqua faeta legumine paverit innocuis epulis says Prudentius by temperance and fasting they got the mastery of the concupiscence of the flesh But above all Christians especially sobriety descended from the Apostles upon Ecclesiasticks it deserved a censure in them to exceed in delicious fare the Canons are extant and the proofs are authentique that the great and solemn Fasts of the Church well known to us were observed by them a good while before they were admitted by the People None know better than we says St. Austin that when temperance directs us to deny our selves those things that are lawful we are the better instructed to shun the sinful works of the Devil which are altogether unlawful The Apostles are our Forerunners in this frugality or rather austerity of food and yet to see that for all this they were scandalized for riotous libertines The imputation against them according to St. Matthew is this that they did not fast when the Disciples of John did In St. Luke more palpably spiteful they tell our Saviour that his Disciples did eat and drink why not would they have them macerate themselves with wilful famishment but could envy it self lay excess or intemperance to their charge I would we were as clear from the fault as they we that abuse the fertilness of our Land to rankness of gluttony we that pay more to the belly than we owe to the whole body who almost is not an Apicius that can maintain it what sin did ever grow up in any State to a more prodigious extremity but if the droughts of three years successively threatening dearth and scarcity will not affrighten this sin from our Table it is not a piece of a Sermon that will beat it down Yet I pray you remember that sharp Epiphonema of the Parable These three years have I come and found no fruit cut it down Nay God defend Why then expiate your surfeitings with Apostolical abstinence and forget not what a thrifty pittance they had in store even five barley loaves and two fishes And was this all and were they pleased that Christ should take that little from them and give it away to strangers yes it appears by Andrews answer they did not grudg it We have no more it is as good as nothing to feed such a multitude This implies as if he spoke the rest they shall have it all and much good do them if that will content them And was he so willing to part with that which was necessary for his own sustenance he had no more And will not we bestow our superfluities upon them that want Every luxuriant Vine must be largely pruned and he that hath much must scatter bountifully The Vine doth not miss the redundant branch and a rich mans Purse is like a River that doth not fall for a spoonful of contribution But when a poor man conjects heartily to any pious use his faith is proved as well as his charity is exercised for it is a sign that he believes that God will sustein him though he have emptied himself of all his substance in a small Oblation There are three things says Gregory that are most holy Sacrifices castitas in juventute sobrietas in ubertate liberalitas in paupertate liberality in poverty chastity in youth moderation in plenty And St. Chrysostom infers it from the readiness of the Disciples to part with all their homely Viands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maunder not that you are scanted and have but little he that hath any thing hath somewhat to spare to lend to the needy When the poor Widow had conferr'd two Mites no less than all her living unto the godly uses of the Temple Christ avouched it in her praise it was more than all the rich ones had bestowed That is not by absolute but by proportionable quantity as Aquinas states it not measuring the magnitude of the Gift but the sincereness of the Charity Non perpendit quantum sed ex quanto proferatur says Bede God doth not estimate how much was given but out of how much it was taken It was more for her to give two mites than for Zacheus to give a talent So it was more for these Disciples to surrender up their five loaves and two fishes than for another to keep open house for all the poor in Jerusalem And these shall be the limits of the first point our Saviours bodily preparation to the ensuing Miracle accepit he took the loaves And what more beside accepit For the Miracle came not off without another preparation and that is Ghostly Postquam gratias egisset after he had given thanks Best take it with the full allowance as the other Evangelists have enlarged it that beside giving thanks he looked up to heaven and blessed So then before he brought the sign to pass he glorified his Father three ways with his Eye he looked up to heaven with his Tongue he gave thanks and with his Spirit he blessed If you will scan the value of an action by the rarity of it in holy Scripture and by the incidency upon none but great occasions then both these do concur in this that Christ looked up to heaven I call it to mind that it hapned three times that is not often now at this instant when he was about the miracle of the Loaves Once again when he raised Lazarus to life Joh. xi 41. And once more when he began his Prayer to his Father but a few minutes before he was apprehended to be crucified Joh. xvii 1. And the Tradition is of long continuance that he lifted up his eyes to heaven the fourth time when he consecrated the Elements at his Last Supper The Liturgies ascribed to St. James and St. Mark do remember it and upon the credulity of the example the Canon of the Mass in the Church of Rome commands it At all times you
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