him whose dominion is in the Sea and his right hand in the Flouds From him therefore Satan could not go from the light of his countenance from the comfort of his face he might go Nemo loco sed iniquitate à Deo elongatur No distance of place is remote from him who is with every thing and about all things and in all things He is as much in that place which every Creature takes up as the Creature it self yet without any impediment to the locality of it but our iniquities separate between God and us and where there is the most sin there is the greatest separation But to come to the plainest and most textual answer Christs Manhood is not receptive of Omnipresency so the Devil left his Humane Nature for a season and was not near it he went away to seek out those with whom he might more probably skirmish to get a victory If I should say the Tempter went not far from thence but hovered somewhere about Judaea the conjecture were not altogether without a foundation reason leads me to think he was very inquisitive about our Saviours ways and watchful to espy what miracles he wrought what he said how he might stir up enemies and unbelievers against him and some worse than Parricide to betray him St. Luke says He left him but for a season after these temptations as if he were ever in harms-way to offend him But above all I perceive by another of the Evangelists that the brood of Hell frequented the Land of Jurie in the days of our Saviour more than all other places in the earth a Legion of them in one man many Regiments of them in others that were possessed There was their Theater to play their wicked part where the Gospel might be most offended rather than in all the world beside Therefore St. Mark says one of the Devils which he cast out besought him that he would not send him out of that Country Mar. v. 10. They should want work in unfrequented places Idolatrous Cities though most populous were their own already their quickest trade lay in Judaea at this time here grew the unwillingness to leave that Country But now it is time to leave that question to what place Satan shifted when he was commanded to leave our Saviour Give ear to the next question Whether ever he returned again It is St. Lukes meaning that we should take notice he returned again and infested our Saviour after this bout for he says his departure was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a season and no more It was but for a short truce indeed till he had cast about to rise up against Christ in another fashion not by tempting him to sin but by exercising his patience under rebukes and misery and finally to work his death by treachery He knew him by this time to be his own Lord against whom he had rebelled in whom it was impossible to imprint any blot or blemish of iniquity But because that Humane Nature which Christ had assumed into his Person was of the Seed of Abraham and therefore obnoxious to death the Devil plotted his destruction from time to time and wrought his purpose at last by putting it into the heart of Judas to betray him being not advised out of the Scripture as he might have been by reason if God had not blinded him that our Saviour by death would overcome death and pull down the mighty one from his seat by triumphing on the Cross An ordinary curse ever since upon malicious persons the ruine of those against whom they are bent falls upon their own head and crusheth them to pieces But this was the service for which Satan returned again to vex his body after a season because his soul was spotless to oppose his prosperity because he could not hurt his vertue Thus Bonaventure comprizeth it Tentavit emollire per blanditias sed modicum tempus tentabit frangere per miserias Now he tried our Saviour with fair offers after a while he will thrust at him with foul calamities Now his own hand is in the work but then his Instruments The use of it shall come home to our selves thus The Lord sometimes takes off our foe from us and gives us breathing time after temptations it is but for a season not to flatter our selves with quietness and security but to repair our ruines to keep out the batteries that will ensue It is but a refreshing after the fit of an Ague the sick day is coming again Like a calm upon the Sea while a sweet gale blows what sensible man will not have all things ready for a tempest Remember the Parable Luke xi And what the unclean Spirit said I will return into my house from whence I came Like the Assyrian Souldiers when they had once found the way into the Land of Judaea they could never be dealt withal to forget it Hezekiah or whosoever might hire them to go home again for one year but the next Summer following they were sure to make a new invasion And do not stand too much upon affiance I have conquered these and these tentations often I dare trust my self now upon the brink of these sins and shall never be thrust in to make such security more doubtful and suspicious Cassianus hath a fit similitude says he A Fox will stretch himself for dead that Poultry may come into his reach and never fear him yet if they do stalk towards him they shall find to their cost he is not past doing mischief So the Tempter will give back as if he were fled for ever but he departs only for a more seasonable opportunity and will return again with seven spirits worse than himself when you are worst prepared The holiest Fathers of the Church had flesh and frailty in them and can speak in this point as well by Experience as by Art and Meditation and this is their common verdict Quo valentius vincitur eò ardentius ad insidias instigatur If he be vanquish'd by him that is strong in faith it sharpens his edge the more to make his part good again by Art and subtilty And so much for this last Point upon the first general part Satan departed from Christ but for a season But now he is gone though like a Wolf regardant looking back upon the Flock from which he was beaten And Christ had such company in exchange that my Text bids us mark and see the succession that followed and behold Angels came and ministred unto him This Particle of wonder Behold is a Dial or Index to three things First To note a moral alteration a lewd one is dismiss'd to receive an holy train in his room here was an accursed Spirit parlying with Christ instead of him here is a volly of Angels Whosoever he be that hath taken delight in the company of wicked men and sorted himself with those that have not the fear of God before their eyes let him cast them
miracle was acted It was a waste in the borders of Edom a nameless and a barren piece of ground unprofitable to bring store into the barn but profitable to yield some pious meditations it is the wilderness There was no place that received Israel where some memory or monument of Gods mighty hand was not left behind in Egypt in the Red Sea in Moab in Basan in the Wilderness But this last put them to the greatest trial it was ilium malorum sorrows that met them single elsewhere rusht all upon them in the Wilderness There they suffered war and weariness thirst and hunger plagues and mortality And though they called for redress they had none only they had a cure for the biting of the fiery Serpents So in this Pilgrimage upon earth all manner of offences and afflictions are familiar unto us and though we fast and pray they shall not be taken from us No man must look for comfort or plenty or pleasure in a Wilderness Let it suffice for all that we have a remedy against the venom of the Serpent against the deadly sting of sin For if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is our propitiation not that we should not be afflicted but that we should not perish but have everlasting life I will make one question to the Point that I may give many answers Wherefore was so great a deliverance obscured in the Wilderness where the world could take no notice of it As the Disciples pressed our Saviour to go into Judea that men might see his works If thou do these things shew thy self to the world Joh. vii 4. So had it not been better that the most frequented Cities had been spectators of this wonderful power of healing And was not the Wilderness a little too secret for the fame and publication of it I answer first that is not the vogue and acclamation of the world that the God of sanctity aims at but the faith of the Elect. The fewer that saw these wonders the happier for them that believe and never saw them Many works of the Lord are not necessary to be seen of all but to be believed of all and for the greatest mysteries all must believe though the eye did not nay though it cannot see them Secondly Because the making of this Serpent by Moses had a typical drift in it to set forth Christ we shall not see him more like himself than if we go forth to find him in the Wilderness thither the Spirit led him forth to be tempted and he fought against the Devil so strongly in those Lists that he vanquished him by his innocency Adam in horto superbus Christus in deserto humilis Adam was accommodated with too much pleasure where the Serpent enticed him therefore the second Adam pitch'd his battel in a Desart of a contrary condition It was a Land uncomfortable for solitariness neither fountains nor fruits in it nothing but penury where Satan was overcome but it was a garden drest and delicate filled with all manner of store where he got the victory But is it not better to be humble with Christ in a barren Desart than to be proud with Adam in a delicious Paradise Fight against the Tempter upon the same advantage that our Captain chose Meet him not where pleasures abound meet him not in the Garden but in the Wilderness Come my beloved let us go forth into the field let us lodge in the Villages Cant. vii 11. There is much contagion in the communication with the world therefore the Beloved is invited rather to some harmless privacy Fuge seculi mare naufragium non timebis says St. Ambrose Sail away into some little stream leave the Ocean of ungodliness which is in the most frequented places and you shall not fear shipwrack Our Saviour made himself often a stranger unto this world and retired into a Mountain alone or into the Wilderness Quasi in mundo extra mundum ageret To teach us to live in this world as if we lived without it When we find our selves infected with the conversation of Court or City it is the Wilderness we must fly to a retiring to a private reckoning between God and our selves if we mean to be cured of Serpents We had need of longer Vacations than Terms more rest to pray and repent than stirring days to get wealth that we may ask God forgiveness at leisure for those sins which we did commit in our business Come ye apart into a desart place and rest awhile says our Saviour to his Apostles Mar. vi 31. All cannot receive this saying you will reply all have not the opportunity to come out of the croud some there are whose worth and dignity keeps them always in action To these I say as our Saviour prayed for his Disciples I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil Joh. xvii 15. Says St. Cypriaen Etsi omnes diversorium non capiat loci animi tamen omnino necessaria est solitudo All men cannot must not cast off care the Church and Republick cannot spare their company that they should sequester themselves into remote places O but let not the heart lose that happiness which is denied unto the body I may be vacant to good meditation in the midst of troubles I may stand before men as my Calling requires and be alone with God Pious Meditation which will not mix with any secular thing is like an hermitage to the soul Like a Wilderness wherein I have leisure to look stedfastly upon that Serpent who is the cure of Serpents and the Balm of Gilead Lastly for the time breaks me off that I must conclude there is no place more open or common in the world than a Wilderness There the Image of the Serpent was fixed as a publick benefit which was prohibited to none that would look upon it They that stood nigh they that were far off it was indifferent to both if they beheld it stedfastly So Christ crucified is alike unto all that believe and call upon him to Jew and Gentile to high and low to Rich and Poor to the generations that are passed to us that are further off and to the Generations that are yet to come Let it not trouble you that the Brazen Serpent was lifted up in the midst of the Camp of Israel as if it only served for the Latitude of that Meridian It fell not to their lot in Canaan or in Jerusalem but in the Wilderness which was every mans soil and every mans possession Therefore the root of Jesse is called an Ensign of the people to which the Gentiles shall seek Isa xi 12. All have their part in this Ensign the banner of our Victory Christ exalted that will seek unto him Crux Christi mundi est ara non templi says Leo The Cross of Christ was an Altar yet not a private
was to be feared that he was to be admired for his excellency that he was increate immortal eternal and not like the Idols of the Heathen there was Grace and Religion other Nations knew not him therefore he puts them by as if he knew not them he is the God of Israel Secondly This whole World is made for no other end but that Christ may exalt his Dominion in it and therefore the Nation of whom he was to come according to the Flesh that is spoken of as if it belonged to God alone and all other People were quite forgotten Well therefore might Zachary say O thou God of Israel for upon the Nativity of Christ now it was fulfilled why long since he was called the God of Israel His Incarnation as old Simeon said it was the glory of his people Israel his conversation among them was their temporal protection that their enemies should not devour them while he was with them upon earth his word confirmed it that the children of the Bride-chamber should not mourn while the Bridegroom was with them Finally His appearance among them in the Flesh was their spiritual exaltation for he preacht to none other but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel But Israel doth now no longer stand for those that according to the Flesh descended out of the Loyns of Abraham as St. Paul says he is a Jew that is one inwardly Rom. ii 29. So he is an Israelite that is a true man like Nathanael that hath no guile in him he that believeth in Christ that visited and redeemed Israel And that you may know the term stands now for the Church of the Faithful and Elect St. Paul calls them that walk according to the rule of Jesus Christ the Israel of God Gal. vi 16. You know that Jacob wrestled with an Angel of God at Peniel and thereupon the Angel changed his name and called him Israel because as a Prince he had power with God and men and had prevailed Gen. xxxii 28. he prevailed over men that is over his Persecutors Esau and Laban He prevailed with God by tears and supplications and this is the exact description of all those that belong to the Church of Christ that is of the Israel of God Their outward foes shall be subdued unto them when God shall think it time to put an end to their sufferings they must overcome their spiritual Foes that is get the victory over the passions and lusts of their own flesh vanquish the Devil overcome the attractive delights of the world and then they shall be no more Jacob but Israel they shall prevail with God It is well noted by one that when the Church in holy Scripture speaks of her infirmity she is called Jacob when she speaks of her happiness she is called Israel Isa xli 14. Fear not thou worm Jacob and Amos vii 2. by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small but in a thousand places ye shall find thus saith the Lord God the King of Israel and never was the Church in more prosperity then when Christ came among us in the likeness of man then it was not Jacob the worm but it grew mighty indeed it prevailed with him that sits on high then it was fit the Song should run in the best title Blessed be the Lord God of Israel You have received the first part of the Text entirely in every particle the solemn praise of the Divine goodness now follows the reason in two most glorious acts why the God of Israel deserveth this praise For he hath visited and redeemed his people Blessed be his name for he hath visited blessed be the Lord for he hath done marvellous things We want not many of these fo rs when we ascribe excellency to the King of Heaven Fame is a good companion for Virtue I love to see them fast together let there want no praise if there be a quia visitavit a good reason for it a deserving action to advance it but to spend our good word upon them that have no merit to speak good of the covetous as David saith whom God abhorreth to cry up Absalom among the people for a little out-side formality such praise is most fulsom that 's broacht either by flattery or ignorance When renown is so ill bestowed upon the wicked it makes the righteous that they do not regard it But the object of Zachary's benediction is so gracious so full of perfection that when we say all we can in the honour thereof we shall say too little for he hath visited for he hath redeemed his people The first of these is that which makes this the double double Holy day above all the Feasts of the year visitavit he visited and it is once again repeated in this Hymn of Zachary's the day-spring from on high hath visited us ver 78. Some there be that collect the three capital works of Christs dispensation out of my Text and the verse that follows for that he visited us say they it denotes his Incarnation that he redeemed us it betokens his Death and Passion that the horn of salvation was raised up in the house of his servant David it implies his Resurrection I think these things are minc'd asunder that should not be divided but all agree that to visit is a word so proper to Christmas-day as none more namely to take flesh and to dwell among us Doth the same fountain says S. James send forth sweet waters and bitter why that 's no such marvail for this very word to visit is so diverse in holy Scripture that sometimes it relisheth as sweet as mercy can make it sometimes it is as bitter as the very gall of his anger can temper it Visitat quando flagellat quando miseretur says S. Austin God visiteth when he punisheth and he visits when he pittieth In the first acception nothing is better known than that of the Decalogue Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me And again I will visit their offences with the rod and their sins with scourges and in the Latin Translation Jer. xxvii 8. That Nation will I visit with sword with famine and with pestilence And Psal lix 5. Thou Lord of Hosts awake and visit the Heathen and be not merciful to any wicked transgressors From hence we have drawn it into our common phrase that we call the infliction of the contagious Pestilence the visitation of the Lord. God is ever present with us but when he shews himself to be present by some exterior and notable work bringing his Judgment or his Mercy in a conspicuous manner to our City or even to the doors of our own house then he is said to visit us And if it be a visitation of vengeance yet refrain not to say Blessed be the Lord God of Israel whether he send his Angel with a Sword to smite us or with a Song as at Christs Nativity
cogitando when he finds little good in himself worth his cogitations it will put a discomfortable sadness into his mind to offend the soul But I could retort in this Argument as Tully did in such another case says he to some Idolaters who defended the Deity of Neptune you say many sea-men came safe to Land that called upon Neptune but let me see how many were drown'd for all their calling upon Neptune So some have made a Catalogue of those good despisers of the world that served God excellently in the solitary Wilderness But let me see all their names that took the Hermites Staff and Weeds upon them and fell into a remediless melancholy and lost their wits and their comfort with the delusions of the Devil It may do well with some for a while it is not to be continued if they fancy strange Apparitions to themselves and have hard strugling with the Tempter Aristotle could say a man that is evil is not fit company for himself Some strong working fancies though they could retire where the Devil could not find them out yet they carry their own Tempter about them they carry fire within them therefore it is not solitude that will help such but a commerce with wise and discreet men and such stirring negotiations as will scarce give their fancy leave to be vacant to it self and to be idle Bonaventure hath one distinction full of good matter Mala est solitudo per inopiam dilectionis misera per defectum consolationis honesta per quietem contemplationis To eschew Society for want of brotherly love and charity is very wicked To eschew Society for want of comfort in Christ is very miserable but to take up a solitary retirement sometimes for quiet contemplation is holy and delectable But he that knows himself obnoxious to tentations and affects solitude and privateness is Daemon solitarius as Aquinas calls a Monk that goes abroad without his Mate and his infirmity is much too weak to encounter that great Adversary who sought out Christ in the Wilderness And now I turn to another inquiry why Christ abode in the Wilderness and at this time so immediately before he did first preach the Gospel in Judaea The time was now expired of his subjection to his Parents and it could be no way convenient he should return unto them again when he was now to begin the work of him that sent him to preach the kingdom of heaven throughout all Judaea But had he entred into any City or Village his enemies would have said his message was devised by men some subtil conspiracy had set him on therefore the furthest from all suspicion was to sequester his Person into the Wilderness Moses was forty days in the Mount alone before he brought the Tables from God John the Baptist had abandoned the company of men and lived many years in uncouth places almost like a Savage before he preacht the doctrine of repentance A new form of Religion came forth with more admiration from those unknown solitudes and would be more steadily believed that it came from God and not from man And it is not a thing to be attributed to the blind chance of fortune but to the wisest providence of God that Christ was in solitudine disparted from all other company and left to himself alone when he fought our battels against the Adversary of our Salvation I have trodden the Wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me Isa lxiii 3. In his Transfiguration Moses and Elias did appear in glory with him but shortly they vanisht and he was left alone In his Agony in the Garden he went up to pray apart by himself Peter James and John that were with him were so heavie that they could not choose but sleep And well might they sleep for any thing they had to do in that business the whole work of the Mediatorship lay only upon his shoulders neither Angel nor Saint could sustain the lest part to be his Coadjutor This was a conflict in a place which none frequented that it might be said of some of his noble works all shall believe yet none did see Singulariter inspectorem adjutoremque Deum volunt habere haec certamina says St. Cyprian None but God must behold him none but God did assist him in this Duel There are some works of Christ say the Schoolmen which are not necessary to be seen of all yet it was expedient that some witnesses should be present at them because they were done to make the World believe in him and himself said The works which I do openly they testifie of me Those Miracles which did demonstrate his power had ever some Spectators some saw how he gave up the Ghost upon the Cross how he was risen from the dead how he ascended into heaven therefore St. Luke says he received his Gospel from them that were eye-witnesses of the Word But there are things which especially tend to Moral Doctrine and Instruction as that he prayed all night alone that he was tempted alone in the Wilderness and fasted forty days it concerned not such things to be seen of any but to be barely related by the Evangelists that we might believe them and use them to the information of our life upon fit occasion But I reduce all to this Head The solitude of the Wilderness did best befit him in this work because he began continued and ended the work of the Mediatorship by himself and by no other assistance Where some of the Fathers have given Christs Humility large praise to banish himself as it were for a time into the Wilderness I will follow them likewise in their observation The immediate Miracle which went before was the descending of the Holy Ghost upon him in the shape of a Dove and the voice from heaven This is my beloved Son If Christ would have prosecuted the honour which the people would have given him upon these wonderful Signs he might have rode to Jerusalem in triumph and been received with an universal admiration but he chose rather to decline the Exclamations and Hosanna's of the City and retired into the Wilderness Adam in horto superbus Christus in deserto humilis Much better it is to be humble with Christ in a barren Desart than to be proud with Adam in a delicious Paradise This miserable solitude was not capable of the provocations of those sins that Eden was this was a Land of penury where Satan was overcome that was a garden of abundance where he got the victory And by how much that Paradise was too glorious a dwelling for the Sons of men therefore they were driven out So this desolate Wilderness was too mean a receptacle for the Son of God for St. Mark debaseth it with this description That the wild beasts frequented it And perchance the tamer and more tractable company than the Scribes and Pharisees and the Rulers of the People those beasts proved more innocent
as they were bidden and that bidding made it no intrusion upon their Fathers Providence The Lord also bad Gideon bring his Souldiers down unto the water and he would try them by a sign which of them should go against the Madianites the Lord did say it and therefore it was fit for him to obey that miraculous direction And Divines agree that it was not a fair answer in King Ahaz when God bid him ask a sign either in the depth beneath or in the height above he answered I will not ask neither will I tempt the Lord for the favour was propounded unto him both for his own part to increase his faith and much more for the instruction of all the people therefore he should have ask'd it But sometimes though upon no express command yet holy Prophets upon some divine instinct have tempted God to grant them a sign above the common and ordinary way of nature and yet their asking was laudable as Gen. xv God is very gracious to Abraham in all the passages I and commends him for his faith yet Abraham says Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this Land of Canaan And a miracle was wrought to establish the Promise unto him Thus you must interpret wheresoever in holy Scripture you find such eminent men ask a sign to whom God talkt familiarly or poured Revelations into them or spake unto them in Visions that they had a Prophetical instinct for it which maks their case different from us that walk by ordinary faith Now I pray you mark that many times wicked people undertake things of a strange condition by instinct and bring them to pass but it is not Prophetical for it is an instinct of which themselves are not aware as the Mariners were prompted by instinct no doubt to cast lots and the Lot fell right upon Jonas yet they had no feeling that the hand of the Lord was in it But it is a Prophetical instinct which makes the act warrantable when the party imployed in it by God knows it and understands it to be such and concurreth with God as well in will as in the work Eliezer Abrahams Servant was sent to provide a Wife for Isaac and coming to Mesopotamia to the City of Nahor he makes this Prayer O Lord God of my Master Abraham send me good speed this day Loe I stand by the Well of water grant that the Maid to whom I say bow down thy Pitcher I pray thee that I may drink if she say drink and I will give thy Camels drink also may be she that thou hast ordained for thy Servant Isaac And it was so in the event The Scripture makes no description of this Eliezer for a Prophet yet if he felt a motion from God to try the Marriage this way good and lawful if not howsoever God let it come to pass for Abraham and Isaacs sake the course was not excusable but superstitious The like judgment I pass upon Jonathan for God only knows by what inspiring or revelation he did this he went up against the Philistines with his Armour-bearer and he resolves if they say come up unto us we will go up For the Lord hath delivered them into our hand and this shall be a sign unto us Though some say this was not to doubt of Gods excellency but of their own act yet that distinction avails not to explore the success of your own act by means unordained for that use unless divine instinct do help it is a vicious tentation Yet this I will add Jonathans act may be rescued from being tax'd for a tempting of God and exposing themselves to most doubtful peril in that two of them fought with an whole Host for the place was narrow where they could grapple but one to one and Jonathan had the upper ground and the Promise was ratified in the Book of Moses That one of them should chase an hundred and two of them put a thousand to flight Therefore Gods Command or his Promise or a Prophetical instinct do qualifie those things to be vertuous actions which otherwise were tentations ill adventured to anger the Lord. Thirdly Weighty and extraordinary callings had need of a mighty faith to undergo them and such men of old had a liberty allowed unto them to try their Vocation by some sign or some powerful work of God both for themselves and principally for the people that were committed to their governance As Moses pleaded when he was destined to be the Captain that should bring Israel out of Egypt Loe they will not believe me nor hearken to my voice they will say the Lord hath not appeared unto thee presently he was satisfied God bad him cast forth his Rod and it became a Serpent This the Lord did bear withal and let him require an extraordinary Warrant for an extraordinary Function So Gideon being a poor Thresher was called upon by the Angel to sight for Israel against the Madianites he deprecates that the Angel would take it no offence if he desired the encouragement of a Miracle to raise his faith to an eminent pitch Be not angry with me let me prove thee once again with the Fleece let it now be dry only upon the Fleece and let dew be upon all the ground To a private man this demand had been sin but to Gideon to sustain that excellent person which the Angel imposed on him at least it was tollerable Fourthly and finally there is a speculative inquiry or Antecedent to prove Gods will and power by Signs and Tokens and that is unlawful and there is an experimental or consequent one to enquire after Gods goodness in a mans own self by descending into the effects and enumerations of his mercies and proving our own Spirit and that is lawful So Mal. iii. 10. Bring ye all the Tithes into the store-house and prove me therewith saith the Lord of Hosts if I will not open the windows of heaven unto you It were sinful to pay Tythes to that end as if you would tempt God by that conclusion whether he could open the windows of heaven and help you with store but consecutivè the trial is good do you that and God will do this put it to the success if the Lord do not treble his bounty unto those that pay him his Tythes and Offerings this is to taste and try how gracious he will be to our obedience not to put him to such effects as we imagine in the capreols of our own fancy for that is a culpable tentation So this Point being traversed as much as I intend and the time will give me leave I leave it behind me and proceed to the next What are the general heads of those presumptuous ways wherein the party sins that tempts the Lord And surely one principal and notorious offence is committed when a man exposeth his life to unnecessary dangers upon an ill-grounded confidence that God will bring him off with safety Upon this
in Pompey's company I may say in a better capacity of truth that the three Disciples could not miss their Parents their Children their Friends their Possessions their Countrey no nor the whole World beneath if they could but reserve a Tabernacle in any secret place wherein they might enjoy our Lord Jesus Christ The Prophets who were preserv'd by Obadiah's favour were contented to live in a Cave where they might serve God without Idolatry and Peter would possess a new-found World not inhabited by evil men alter alteri magnum theatrum sumus a few good ones are enough to enjoy one another without a contagion of the multitude Alas when he would needs be making a place for Christ that he could devise no better Structure than a Tabernacle But will God indeed dwell on the earth says Solomon Behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee how much less this House that I have builded Solomon thought so meanly of the goodliest Temple that ever was built for Gods honour what a Building was here then not worthy to be named Let us make three Tabernacles As he was laid in a Manger when he was born so he was never housed richly and sumptuously all the while he lived upon earth never till Joseph of Arimathaea composed his body decently in a fair Sepulcher which is not an excuse that we should make him vile houses now but a provocation to make him amends on our part for that contempt which was offered him when he lived in Judaea As for the instance of my Text that Peter offered him a Tabernacle made of a few sticks it is to be born with both because he knew not what he said and he was able to do no better True love is satisfied that all will be taken in good part which is well intended As Jacob set up a Stone and poured oil upon it and called it the House of God Gen. xxviii 18. what would you have him do that had no better at hand but where the Land abounds with costly and sumptuous materials can ye bestow them better than upon the Church of Christ Do you not perswade your self that there the Lord hath heard you often from Heaven and given you all manner of things that are good and can you suffer those walls to be unadorn'd where you have been prosperous or can any heart be so hardned to suffer that Table to be unfurnisht with Ornaments at which we have often been fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Benediction I charge not this place with any such neglect but I commend and pronounce them blessed especially who have been liberal that Gods honour might be set out among us in the beauty of holiness and I lament it where it is otherwise for it is a mournful sight me-thinks to see any place excel the Church in preeminence and magnificence not as if I thought the Lord did favour us for fair walls and roofs without a fair inside but first it signifies the almightiness of God when we honour him with the best and chiefest of all outward things and secondly it makes our zeal shine before men that we love our Heavenly Father better than all the wealth of the Earth and the Lord loveth a chearful giver The best Temples that we can dedicate to God are our sanctified Souls and Bodies and therefore St. Austin said alluding to this Text Qui Deo vult facere tabernacula praeparet ei penitralia cordis He that will make a Tabernacle for God let him prepare a clean heart this is well said if we play not the hypocrites with this figurative Religion If some men be incited to offer up the Sacrifice of Alms unto Christ they tell you spare them for that and they will offer up the Sacrifice of a contrite heart Are not these two ill divided bid them worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker that they hold superfluous for they will bend the knees of their heart Are not those two ill divided Charge the rich men of the World to repair Gods decayed Churches and make them beautiful that draws money from them too fast therefore they say we will build a Sanctuary to the Lord in our inward heart Be not deceived God cannot be mocked with these metaphorical excuses I had rather offer with St. Peter to build a Tabernacle unadvisedly where there was no cause than be backward to build a Tabernacle for the mighty Lord where there was a cause Because Moses and Elias had preached Christ unto the Disciples they would do something again to requite it not hear the word of God gratis as some do as if they would give no mony for it If you will give nothing for that precious gift which cometh from above take heed the Lord do not say to you at the last day What good service have you done in all your life that I should give any thing to you as some men have their customs not to give so undoubtedly God hath his custom not to reward As David said to Araunah The Lord forbid I should sacrifice unto him of that which cost me nothing so Peter would not hear a Sermon of Christ crucified and do no good thing for it faciamus c. These Tabernacles which he spake of being an allusion to the Church I find them agree very well in this that the Militant Church is but like a Tabernacle portable from one place to another to be taken down in one place and to be set up in another always removing As we see the Gospel began to shine most bright at first in the Eastern Countries and now it hath pleased God that in the most conspicuous purity it is carried into the West From Jerusalem it removed to Antioch from Antioch to divers places of Achaia in Greece further and further every Age till now that the multitude of the Isles do praise the Lord like a Militant Tabernacle or Pavilion pitcht where God pleaseth to fight against the Devil and his Angels and to win ground from him that would destroy the Earth Psal cxxviii 3. The Wife which is spoken of there and likned to a fruitful Vine is an Allegory of the Church Now the Church while it wanders upon earth is vitis in lateribus domus a fruitful Vine upon the walls of the House it stands without the doors of the Palace but when the Church shall be settled quietly in the upper Jerusalem it shall be vitis in penetralibus domus the Vine shall be translated into the midst of Paradice there it shall be a City abiding for ever and no longer a removing Tabernacle Now you have heard St. Peters zeal in the Fabrique which he moved to be built in the progress of this point you shall hear these Tabernacles of his were but wild Chimaera's or as we say Castles in the air for he took Mount Thabor as it was now adorn'd with glory for the Heaven which he desired to enjoy
and Saviour was God from everlasting and by him the worlds were created his hands had made and fashioned every one of these malicious Jews when their substance was yet imperfect in their mothers womb shall he not disdain then as well as Sophocles to contest in judgment with his own Creatures Ask Job if it be fit for God to come in judgment like the Son of Man No let his patience speak for his humility His fasting forty days for his sobriety his miracles and healing the sick for his charity his cleansing of the Temple of buyers and sellers for his zeal to the House of God Let Judas speak before he goes to his own execution let the Wife of Pilate speak and her vision let the Ruler himself speake his conscience and if these be silent the stones shall speak but let Jesus hold his peace and taciturnity it self shall prove him a just person Indeed I have seen a great evil under the Sun I do honour our Courts of Justice for my part and the municipal Laws of the Realm but I cry out shame upon this fault that it is grown an art among pleaders to be a good Accuser He that can aggravate a crime well is in good hope to be a thriving Practiser Alas if Accusers were charitable Innocents should not need to pay so dear for learned Counsel to defend them That which might be dispatch'd by yea and nay is grown a volume and if it be wyre-drawn by Statute upon Statute it will fill five hundred sheets of Paper Brethren this ought not to be so for pity sake let it not be so costly a matter to be a just person The truth of the Lord says David Psal xii Is like Silver purified seven times in a furnace of fire But this custom is grown so chargable that the truth of an honest man must be purified seven times in Silver If we had less eloquence among pleaders and more plain dealing a just person might come before Magistrates either as our Saviour prepared his Apostles Care not what to say The Holy Ghost shall direct you in an answer or else the Judge might find the defendant to be innocent as Pilate did esteem our Saviour when he answered not to his Accusers but stood dumb before him But hear a second reason more forcible than the former from the unanimous consent of all the Fathers Christ held his peace when his just dealing was suspected before Pilate Ne passionem suam impediret Lest upon manifestation of his good life his Passion had been hindred And what would he not suffer suspicions infamies imputations rather than the work of our Redemption should become void Though he went leisurely on foot from one City to another to preach the Gospel yet he would needs ride to Jerusalem to suffer nay rather than his Cross should be left behind or come tardy after he would carry it part of the way upon his own shoulders unto Golgotha There passed but a little time from midnight to mid-day betwixt his Attachment his Arraignment and his Execution as if his feet had stood upon thorns until his head was crowned with them After the manner of men who expect verily to be gathered to their Fathers his Grave was provided before he was dead in Josephs Garden Why did he not take Judas to Mount Olivet Why did he not carry him with Peter and James and John and cast him into a dead slumber in the Garden nay mark the Commission which he had for his Enterprise fac citò do it quickly as if he had been sent like Ahimaaz to outrun the rest of the Servants and to be the first that should betray him I had like to have said Judas was not the only one that did betray him let me speak it with reverence did he not betray himself when he gave up his life saying Whom seek ye I am he Take all the lump together so forward of his journey so mindful of his Cross so hasty to dismiss Judas so well provided of a Grave who would not presume that he would suffer his back-biters to revile him and say nothing David made this Cause both a Psalm and a Prophesie a Psalm of remembrance and a Prophesie of wonder I held my tongue and spake nothing I kept silence yea even from good words but it was pain and grief unto me His heavenly tongue should it have pleased him to touch the string of defence and apologie would have made the Judges to license his life and to fall down and worship him the Servants would have said to their Masters as the High Priests did sometimes to their Servants when they were astonisht at his speech and words What are you also taken to say more than this had he but shed a few tears when they smote him on the head as Moses did in the Ark of Bulrushes some mild spirit as merciful as Pharaohs Daughter would have rescued his life from the power of the Enemy So I have given you two observations warrantable why so just a person should neglect to purge himself of his accusation First the Enditements were grosly slanderous and therefore he would not speak Secondly he would endure such contradiction of sinners as the Apostle speaks rather than purchase deliverance from the Cross to hinder our redemption The consideration hereof will bring forth two Sons more unto Jacob a double speculation arising from the former First that Jesus could have hindred these bloody passions But secondly out of endless compassion he had set us as a Seal upon his hand and as a Signet upon his right arm and love was strong to death Passus est quia voluit He would not hinder them Posse nolle nobile He could have hindered his death The Jews were so far from thinking that such a feeble man in outward appearance could deliver himself that they did not think when He was fast and nailed that God could deliver him He trusted in God let him deliver him if He will have him Insultando quod non fieret non credendo quod factum esset says St. Austin not supposing that God could rescue him but braving him with that which was impossible O fools and slow of heart this was not the unruly Sacrifice impotent to help it self bound with cords to the horns of the Altar but such a Prisoner as St. Paul was Act. xvi who might have sprung out of prison when the doors were opened by the Angel but yet contented himself in bonds without liberty or enlargement Give me leave to forespeak your attention and I will discourse unto you briefly in the conclusions of the Schoolmen how the humanity of our Saviour might have been exempted from death and passion First had it pleased him to discover his Glory as he did at the Transfiguration in Mount Tabor would He but charm the Jews from their furious outrage with one graceful word what Devil durst have laid hands upon him Tun ' homo audes occidere Caium
of obedience but as the way to eternal life As a sick man takes the potions that are prescribed him not out of duty to the Physitian but out of due regard to his own recovery The similitude sorts with our infirmity Obtemperet medico ut surgat qui noluit credere ne aegrotaret says St. Austin Man would not obey the Physitian to prevent his sickness therefore let him use his after-wit and take those Sacramental means that are appointed to make him whole But fourthly there is lex privata a Law imposed upon some particular person in whose transgression neither were justice infringed nor Gods glory violated if his Command were not laid upon it and there is no scope in this but to make the passive humility of our soul that is our obedience more illustrious What was there in it else that the Man of God that came from Judah unto Bethel was charg'd neither to eat nor drink water in that place nor to return by the same way that he came there is no colour of Religious Worship in these observations but God would have him submit to his unquestionable Authority and you know his misery ensued when he was unperswaded to obey it Dominus cur jusserit viderit what profit there is to keep such private Laws as seem to carry no great substance in them let God look to that says the Father but be you obsequious That peremptory denuntiation upon pain of death not to eat of the Tree of knowledg of good and evil called the forbidden fruit no Theological wits could ever pass a ripe mature judgment upon it why it was so laid but that they and all we in them are to stoop under that sweet yoke of the Divine Will with absolute indefinite undiscoursed obedience It was no robbery to eat of it wherein God was defrauded of any thing that He stood in need of then it had been hurtful to him the fruit was not diseaseful or poisonous then it had been hurtful to them it was a pure Edict of Authority to let the best of all bodily Creatures know to what service and homage they were born as the vulgar Latin reads that verse Psal ix ult Constitue legislatorem super eos not as we translate it put them in fear O Lord but set a Lawgiver over them that they may know themselves to be but men Quomodo eris sub Domino nisi fueris sub praecepto so St. Austin upon that very instance of the forbidden fruit How are you under the Lord unless you be under the Law and not that Law which leans upon apparent reason for that Law is within you and therein you obey your self but that Law which flows from absolute Authority that 's without you and therein you stoop lowest under the power of God And this is the very condition of that word which the Angel spoke to Lot and those that were with him Look not behind thee neither stay in all the plain Wherein could it tend to the honour of God that they should set their face one way more than another perhaps you will say it was meant to the greater detestation of the Sodomites whom the Lord would not permit to have commiseration or any respect from good men or to urge them to make haste away with a kind of hyperbolical celerity As our Saviour sent his Disciples to preach in every City of Judaea with this speedy or prefestinating Command Salute no man by the way Luke x. 4. And Elisha imposed that post haste upon Gehazi his servant Gird up thy loyns and go thy way if thou meet any man salute him not and if any man salute thee answer him not again Suppose this or that were the secret drift of this Interdiction look not behind thee yet a little casting of the head on one side had not made their expedition the slower What need we seek a knot in a rush what need we prove her faulty for reasons that are not alleaged this convinceth obliquity enough in her sin that she did not observe the precise command of God in every gesture of her body In a word the thing it self commanded did not in it self bind the conscience but with the Command it did The eye is free to view all the works of the Lord unless something upon which it glanceth doth scandalize it with concupiscence Who suspects the contrary but that the crackling of the fire and the out-cries of them that perisht in those Cities that were consumed did rowze many in the neighbour Villages to look upon those places and lament them Did not Abraham rise up early in the morning and look toward the Land of the Plain and see the smoak of the Country go up as the smoak of a Furnace 't is soon answered Where there was no restraint there was no transgression But above all other Laws those which we may rather call Canons and Constitutions that impose the prestation of adiaphorous duties and prohibit other things that have no moral obliquity in them are most generous ways to heap reward upon the willing and to discover the stiff stomach of rebellion In all Injunctions Ecclesiastical and Political set aside charity edification unity peace of the Church or any other moral respect Put it only upon this that meer authority enforceth them which is just authority derived from Gods Ordinance God forbid we should need any haling or towing to them for he that sees the finger of Authority held up sees reason enough to obey and to recoil as Lots Wife did because the Commandment seem'd not to be weighty and ponderous is blind disobedience O 't is a blessed thing not to have a licentious itch upon a man not to desire scope and random but to submit chearfully to a punctual Discipline in all our actions and every circumstance of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is the praise of an Holy Father as if his soul had been created without a will Alas into what precipices would our fancy carry us if we were left to our selves to be libertines in any thing there would be nothing but confusion Deus servitute nostrâ non eget nos autem sine ejus dominatione esse non possumus nothing truer it is St. Austins God stands in no need of our service but we could not live without his command and governance 'T is hard to confine this point to brevity but I must break off only let me put you in mind that whereas the Jesuits set forth themselves to be the only Obedientiaries in the World so that to neglect the Precept of their Superior in a trifle they brand it for a flagitious crime yet the Jesuit a Lapide says upon my Text that he would not discord with them that hold the trespass of Lots Wife to be no more than venial error for either some sudden clap of thunder might make her start and look back unawares or else she thought not that the Angel gave her that