deadly condition As ye love your Souls give no sleep to your eyes nor peace to your hearts till ye find the sensible effects of the Death and Passion of Christ your Saviour within you mortifying all your corrupt affections and sinful actions that ye may truly say with S. Paul I am crucified with Christ Six several times do we find that Christ shed blood in his Circumcision in his Agonie in his Crowning in his Scourging in his Affixion in his Transfixion The instrument of the first was the Knife of the second vehemence of Passion of the third the Thorns of the fourth the Whips of the fifth the Nails of the last the Spear In all these we are we must be Partners with our Saviour In his Circumcision when we draw blood of our selves by cutting off the foreskin of our filthy if pleasing Corruptions Col. 2. 11. In his Agony when we are deeply affected with the sense of God's displeasure for sin and terrified with the frowns of an angry Father In his Crowning with thorns when we smart and bleed with reproches for the name of Christ when that which the world counts Honour is a pain to us for his sake when our guilty thoughts punish us and wound our restless heads with the sad remembrance of our sins In his Scourging when we tame our wanton and rebellious flesh with wise rigor and holy severity In his Affixion when all the powers of our Souls and parts of our body are strictly hampered and unremovably fastened upon the Royal Commandements of our Maker and Redeemer In his Transfixion when our hearts are wounded with Divine love with the Spouse in the Canticles or our Consciences with deep sorrow In all these we bleed with Christ and all these save the first onely belong to his Crucifying Surely as it was in the Old Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without bloodshed there was no remission Heb. 9. 22. so it is still and ever in the New If Christ had not thus bled for us no remission if we do not thus bleed with Christ no remission There is no benefit where is no partnership If Christ therefore bled with his Agony with his Thorns with his Whips with his Nails with his Spear in so many thousand passages as Tradition is bold to define and we never bleed either with the Agony of our sorrow for sin or the Thorns of holy cares for displeasure or the Scourges of severe Christian rigour or the Nails of holy constraint or the Spear of deep remorse how do we how can we for shame say we are crucified with Christ Divine S. Austin in his Epistle or Book rather to Honoratus gives us all the dimensions of the Cross of Christ The Latitude he makes in the transverse this saith he pertains to good Works because on this his hands were stretched The Length was from the ground to the transverse this is attributed to his longanimity and persistance for on that his Body was stayed and fixed The Height was in the head of the Cross above the transverse signifying the exspectation of supernal things The Depth of it was in that part which was pitcht below within the earth importing the profoundness of his free Grace which is the ground of all his beneficence In all these must we have our part with Christ In the Transverse of his Cross by the ready extension of our hands to all good Works of Piety Justice Charity in the Arrectary or beam of his Cross by continuance and uninterrupted perseverance in good in the Head of his Cross by an high elevated hope and looking for of Glory in the Foot of his Cross by a lively and firm Faith fastening our Souls upon the affiance of his free Grace and Mercy And thus shall we be crucified with Christ upon his own Cross Yet lastly we must goe further then this from his Cross to his Person So did S. Paul and every Believer die with Christ that he died in Christ For as in the first Adam we all lived and sinned so in the second all Believers died that they might live The first Adam brought in death to all mankind but at last actually died for none but himself the second Adam died for mankind and brought life to all Believers Seest thou thy Saviour therefore hanging upon the Cross all mankind hangs there with him as a Knight or Burgess of Parliament voices his whole Burrough or Country What speak I of this The arms and legs take the same lot with the head Every Believer is a lim of that body how can he therefore but die with him and in him That real union then which is betwixt Christ and us makes the Cross and Passion of Christ ours so as the thorns pierced our heads the scourages blooded our backs the nails wounded our hands and feet and the spear gored our sides and hearts by virtue whereof we receive justification from our sins and true mortification of our corruptions Every Believer therefore is dead already for his sins in his Saviour he needs not fear that he shall die again God is too just to punish twice for one fault to recover the summe both of the surety principal All the score of our arrerages is fully struck off by the infinite satisfaction of our Blessed Redeemer Comfort thy self therefore thou penitent and faithful Soul in the confidence of thy safety thou shalt not die but live since thou art already crucified with thy Saviour he died for thee thou diedst in him Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifies Who shall condemn It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again and lives gloriously at the right hand of God making intercession for us To thee O Blessed Jesu together with thy Coeternal Father and Holy Spirit three Persons in one infinite and incomprehensible Deity be all Praise Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen ONE OF THE SERMONS Preached to the LORDS OF THE High Court of Parliament In their solemn Fast held on Ashwednesday Feb. 18. And by their Appointment published by the B. of EXCESTER Acts 2. 37 38 40. 37. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their hearts and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and brethren what shall we doe 38. Then said Peter unto them Repent and be baptized c. 40. And with many other words did he testifie and exhort them saying Save your selves from this untoward generation WHO knows not that Simon Peter was a Fisher That was his trade both by Sea and Land if we may not rather say that as Simon he was a Fisher-man but as Peter he was a Fisher of men he that call'd him so made him so And surely his first draught of Fishes which as Simon he made at our Saviours Command might well be a trade Type of the first draught of men which as Peter he made in this place for as then the nets were ready to
as Hulda tels him but that his eyes might not see all the evil which should come upon Jerusalem We cannot have a better Commenter then S. Augustine If saith he the Souls of the dead could be present at the affairs of the living c. surely my good Mother would no night forsake me whom whiles she lived she followed both by land and sea Far be it from me to think that an happier life hath made her cruel c. But certainly that which the holy Psalmist tels us is true My Father and my Mother have forsaken me but the Lord took me up If therefore our Parents have left us how are they present or do interesse themselves in our cares or businesses And if our Parents do not who else among the dead know what we doe or what we suffer Esay the Prophet saith Thou art our Father for Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel knows us not If so great Patriarchs were ignorant what became of that people which came from their loyns and which upon their belief was promised to descend from their stock how shall the dead have ought to doe either in the knowledge or aide of the affaires or actions of their dearest survivers How do we say that God provides mercifully for them who die before the evils come if even after their death they are sensible of the calamities of humane life c. How is it then that God promised to good King Josiah for a great blessing that he should die beforehand that he might not see the evils which he threatned to that place and people Thus that divine Father With whom agrees Saint Hierome Nec enim possumus c. Neither can we saith he when this life shall once be dissolved either enjoy our own labours or know what shall be done in the World afterwards But could the Saints of Heaven know our actions yet our hearts they cannot This is the peculiar skill of their Maker Thou art the searcher of the hearts and reines O righteous God God only knows abscondita animi the hidden secrets of the soul Now the Heart is the seat of our Prayers the Lips do but vent them to the eares of men Moses said nothing when God said Let me alone Moses Solomon's argument is irrefragable Hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling place and doe and give to every man according to his wayes whose heart thou knowest For thou even thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men He onely should be implored that can hear he onely can hear the Prayer that knows the heart Yet could they know our secretest desires it is an Honour that God challengeth as proper to himself to be invoked in our prayers Call upon me in the day of thy trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me There is one God and one mediator betwixt God and man the man Jesus Christ One and no more not only of redemption but of intercession also for through him onely we have accesse by one Spirit unto the Father and he hath invited us to himself Come to me all ye that labour and are heavy laden Sect. 3. Against Reason HOw absurd therefore is it in Reason when the King of Heaven cals us to him to run with our Petitions to the Guard or Pages of the Court Had we to doe with a finite Prince whose eares must be his best informers or whose will to help us were justly questionable we might have reason to present our suits by second hands But since it is an Omnipresent and Omniscious God with whom we deal from whom the Saints and Angels receive all their light and love to his Church how extreme folly is it to sue to those Courtiers of Heaven and not to come immediatly to the Throne of Grace That one Mediator is able and willing also to save them to the utmost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them Besides how uncertain must our Devotions needs be when we can have no possible assurance of their audience for who can know that a Saint hears him That God ever hears us we are as sure as we are unsure to be heard of Saints Nay we are sure we cannot be all heard of them for what finite nature can divide it self betwixt ten thousand Suppliants at one instant in severall regions of the world much lesse impart it self whole to each Either therefore we must turn the Saints into so many Deities or we must yield that some of our prayers are unheard And whatsoever is not of faith is sin As for that heavenly glasse of Saint Gregorie's wherein the Saints see us and our suits confuted long since by Hugo de S. Victore it is as pleasing a fiction as if we imagined therefore to see all the corners of the earth because we see that Sun which sees them And the same eyes that see in God the particular necessities of his Saints below see in the same God such infinite Grace and Mercy for their relief as may save the labour of their reflecting upon that Divine mirrour in their speciall intercessions The Doctrine therefore and Practice of the Romish Invocation of Saints both as new and erroneous against Scripture and Reason we have justly rejected and are thereupon ejected as unjustly CHAP. XV. The Newnesse of Seven Sacraments THE late Councill of Florence indeed insinuates this number of Seven Sacraments as Suarez contends but the later Council of Trent determines it Si quis dixerit aut plura c. If any man shall say that there are either more or fewer sacraments then seven viz. Baptisme Confirmation c. or that any of these is not truly and properly a Sacrament let him be Anathema It is not more plain that in Scripture there is no mention of Sacraments then that in the Fathers there is no mention of Seven Cardinall Bellarmine's evasion that the Scripture and Fathers wrote no Catechisme is poor and ridiculous no more did the Councils of Florence and Trent and yet there the number is reckoned and defined So as the word Sacrament may be taken for any holy significant rite there may be as well seventy as seven so strictly as it may be and is taken by us there can no more be seven then seventy This determination of the number is so late that Cassander is forced to confesse Nec temerè c. You shall not easily find any man before Peter Lombard Which hath set down any certain and definite number of Sacraments And this observation is so just that upon the challenges of our Writers no one Author hath been produced by the Roman Doctors for the disproof of it elder then Hugo and the said Master of Sentences But numbers are ceremonies Both Luther and Philip Melanchthon professe they stand not much upon them It is the number numbred which is the thing it self mis-related
A tyrannous guiltinesse never thinks it self safe but ever seeks to assure it self in the excesse of cruelty Doubtlesse he which so privily inquired for Christ did as secretly brew this massacre The mothers were set with their children on their laps feeding them with the breast or talking to them in the familiar language of their love when suddenly the Executioner rushes in and snatches them from their armes and at once pulling forth his Commission and his knife without regard to shrieks or teares murthers the innocent Babe and leaves the passionate mother in a mean between madnesse and death What cursing of Herod what wringing of hands what condoling what exclaiming was now in the streets of Bethleem O bloody Herod that couldst sacrifice so many harmlesse lives to thine ambition What could those Infants have done If it were thy person whereof thou wert afraid what likelihood was it thou couldst live till those sucklings might endanger thee This news might affect thy Successors it could not concern thee if the heat of an impotent and furious envy had not made thee thirsty of blood It is not long that thou shalt enjoy this cruelty After a few hatefull years thy soul shall feel the weight of so many Innocents of so many just curses He for whose sake thou killedst so many shall strike thee with death and then what wouldest thou have given to have been as one of those Infants whom thou murtheredst In the mean time when thine executioners returned and told thee of their unpartial dispatch thou smiledst to think how thou hadst defeated thy rivall and beguiled the Starre and deluded the Prophecies whiles God in Heaven and his Son on earth laugh thee to scorn and make thy rage an occasion of further glory to him whom thou meantest to suppresse He that could take away the lives of other cannot protract his own Herod is now sent home The coast is clear for the return of that holy Family now God calls them from their exile Christ and his Mother had not stayed so long out of the confines of the reputed visible Church but to teach us continuance under the Crosse Sometimes God sees it good for us not to sip of the cup of affliction but to make a diet-drink of it for constant and common use If he allow us no other liquor for many yeares we must take it off chearfully and know that it is but the measure of our betters Joseph and Mary stir not without a command their departure stay removall is ordered by the voice of God If Egypt had been more tedious unto them they durst not move their foot till they were bidden It is good in our own businesse to follow reason or custome but in God's businesse if we have any other guide but himself we presume and cannot expect a blessing O the wonderful dispensation of God in concealing 〈◊〉 himself from men Christ was now some five years old he bears 〈◊〉 as an infant and knowing all things neither takes nor gives notice of ought concerning his removall and disposing but appoints that to be done by his Angel which the Angel could not have done but by him Since he would take our nature he would be a perfect child suppressing the manifestation and exercise of that Godhead whereto that infant-nature was conjoyned Even so O Saviour the humility of thine infancy was answerable to that of thy birth The more thou hidest and abasest thy self for us the more should we magnifie thee the more should we deject our selves for thee Unto thee with the Father and the holy Ghost he all honour and glory now for ever Amen Contemplations THE SECOND BOOK Containing Christ among the Doctors Christ Baptized Christ Tempted Simon Called The Marriage in Cana. The good Centurion To the Honourable General Sir EDWARD CECILL Knight all Honour and Happiness Most Honoured Sir THE store of a good Scribe is according to our Saviour both old new I would if I durst be ambitious of this only honour Having therefore drawn forth those not frivolous thoughts out of the Old Testament I fetch these following from the New God is the same in both as the body differs not with the age of the sute with the change of robes The old and new wine of holy Truth came both out of one vineyard yet here may we safely say to the Word of his Father as was said to the Bridegroom of Cana Thou hast kept the best wine till the last The authority of both is equally sacred the use admits no lesse difference then is betwixt a Saviour fore shadowed and come The intermission of those military imployments which have wone you just honour both in forrain nations and at home is in this onely gainfull that it yields you leisure to these happy thoughts which shall more fully acquaint you with him that is at once the God of Hosts and the Prince of Peace To the furtherance whereof these my poor labours shall doe no thankless offices In lieu of your noble favours to me both at home and where you have merited command nothing can be returned but humble acknowledgments and hearty prayers for the increase of your Honour and all Happiness to your self and your thrice-worthy and vertuous Lady by him that is deeply obliged and truly devoted to you both JOS. HALL Christ among the Doctors EVen the Spring shews us what we may hope for of the tree in Summer In his nonage therefore would our Saviour give us a tast of his future proof lest if his perfection should have shewed it self without warning to the world it should have been entertained with more wonder then belief Now this act of his Childhood shall prepare the faith of men by fore-exspectation Notwithstanding all this early demonstration of his Divine graces the incredulous Jews could afterwards say Whence hath this man his wisdome and great works What would they have said if he had suddenly leapt forth into the clear light of the world The Sun would dazle all eyes if he should break forth at his first rising into his full strength now he hath both the day-star to goe before him and to bid men look for that glorious body and the lively colours of the day to publish his approach the eye is comforted not hurt by his appearance The Parents of Christ went up yearly to Jerusalem at the Feast of the Passeover the Law was only for the males I do not finde the Blessed Virgin bound to this voiage the weaker sex received indulgence from God Yet she knowing the spiritual profit of that journey takes pains voluntarily to measure that long way every year Piety regards not any distinction of sexes or degrees neither yet doth God's acceptation rather doth it please the mercy of the Highest more to reward that service which though he like in all yet out of favour he will not impose upon all It could not be but that she whom the holy Ghost over-shadowed should be zealous of God's
heart He could not change his blood he could over-rule his affections He loved that Nation which was chosen of God and if he were not of the Synagogue yet he built a Synagogue where he might not be a partie he would be a Benefactor Next to being good is a favouring of goodnesse We could not love Religion if we utterly want it How many true Jews were not so zealous Either will or ability lacked in them whom duty more obliged Good affections do many times more then supply Nature Neither doth God regard whence but what we are I do not see this Centurion come to Christ as the Israelitish Captain came to Elias in Carmel but with his Cap in his hand with much suit much submission by others by himself he sends first the Elders of the Jews whom he might hope that their Nation and place might make gracious then left the imployment of others might argue neglect he seconds them in person Cold and fruitlesse are the motions of friends where we do wilfully shut up our own lips Importunity cannot but speed well in both Could we but speak for our selves as this Captain did for his servant what could we possibly want What marvel is it if God be not forward to give where we care not to ask or ask as if we cared not to receive Shall we yet call this a suit or a complaint I hear no one word of entreaty The lesse is said the more is concealed it is enough to lay open his want He knew well that he had to deal with so wise and merciful a Physician as that the opening of the malady was a craving of cure If our spiritual miseries be but confessed they cannot fail of redress Great variety of Suitors resorted to Christ one comes to him for a Son another for a Daughter a third for himself I see none come for his Servant but this one Centurion Neither was he a better man then a Master His Servant is sick he doth not drive him out of doors but laies him at home neither doth he stand gazing by his beds-side but seeks forth He seeks forth not to Witches or Charmers but to Christ he seeks to Christ not with a fashionable relation but with a vehement aggravation of the disease Had the Master been sick the faithfullest Servant could have done no more He is unworthy to be well served that will not sometimes wait upon his followers Conceits of inferiority may not breed in us a neglect of charitable offices So must we look down upon our Servants here on earth as that we must still look up to our Master which is in Heaven But why didst thou not O Centurion rather bring thy Servant to Christ for cure then sue for him absent There was a Paralytick whom Faith and Charity brought to our Saviour let down through the uncovered roof in his Bed why was not thine so carried so presented Was it out of the strength of thy faith which assured thee thou neededst not shew thy Servant to him that saw all things One and the same grace may yield contrary effects They because they believed brought the Patient to Christ thou broughtest not thine to him because thou believedst Their act argued no lesse desire thine more confidence Thy labour was lesse because thy Faith was more Oh that I could come thus to my Saviour and make such mone to him for my self Lord my soul is sick of unbelief sick of self-love sick of inordinate desires I should not need to say more Thy mercy O Saviour would not then stay by for my suit but would prevent me as here with a gracious ingagement I will come and heal thee I did not hear the Centurion say either Come or Heal him The one he meant though he said not the other he neither said nor meant Christ over-gives both his words intentions It is the manner of that Divine munificence where he meets with a faithful Suitor to give more then is requested to give when he is not requested The very insinuations of our necessities are no lesse violent then successefull We think the measure of humane bountie runs over when we obtain but what we ask with importunity that infinite Goodnesse keeps within bounds when it overflows the desires of our hearts As he said so he did The Word of Christ either is his act or concurs with it He did not stand still when he said I will come but he went as he spake When the Ruler intreated him for his son Come down ere he dye our Saviour stir'd not a foot the Centurion did but complain of the sicknesse of his servant and Christ unasked sayes I will come and heal him That he might be farre from so much as seeming to honour wealth and despise meannesse he that came in the shape of a Servant would goe down to the sick Servants pallet would not goe to the Bed of the rich Rulers Son It is the basest motive of respect that ariseth merely from outward Greatnesse Either more Grace or more Need may justly challenge our favourable regards no lesse then private Obligations Even so O Saviour that which thou offeredst to doe for the Centurion's Servant hast thou done for us We were sick unto death so farre had the dead palsie of sin overtaken us that there was no life of Grace left in us when thou wert not content to sit still in Heaven and say I will cure them but addedst also I will come and cure them Thy self camest down accordingly to this miserable World and hast personally healed us so as now we shall not die but live and declare thy works O Lord. And oh that we could enough praise that love and mercy which hath so graciously abased thee and could be but so low dejected before thee as thou hast stooped low unto us that we could be but as lowly subjects of thy goodnesse as we are unworthy O admirable return of Humility Christ will goe down to visit the sick Servant The Master of that Servant saies Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof the Jewish Elders that went before to mediate for him could say He is worthy that thou shouldest doe this for him but the Centurion when he comes to speak for himself I am not worthy They said He was worthy of Christ's Miracle he sayes he is unworthy of Christ's presence There is great difference betwixt others valuations and our own Sometimes the world under-rates him that findes reason to set an high price upon himself Sometimes again it overvalues a man that knows just cause of his own humiliation If others mistake us this can be no warrant for our errour We cannot be wise unlesse we receive the knowledge of our selves by direct beams not by reflection unlesse we have learned to contemn unjust applauses and scorning the flattery of the World to frown upon our own vilenesse Lord I am not worthy Many a one if he had been in the Centurion's
miserable and not feel it to feel and not regard it to regard and yet to smother it Concealment doth not remedy but aggravate sorrow That with the counsel of not weeping therefore she might see cause of not weeping his Hand seconds his Tongue He arrests the Coffin and frees the Prisoner Young man I say unto thee Arise The Lord of life and death speaks with command No finite power could have said so without presumption or with success That is the voice that shall one day call up our vanished bodies from those Elements into which they are resolved and raise them out of their dust Neither sea nor death nor hell can offer to detain their dead when he charges them to be delivered Incredulous nature what dost thou shrink at the possibility of a Resurrection when the God of Nature undertakes it It is no more hard for that almighty Word which gave being unto all things to say Let them be repaired then Let them be made I do not see our Saviour stretching himself upon the dead corps as Elias and Elisha upon the sons of the Sunamite and Sareptan nor kneeling down and praying by the Bier as Peter did to Dorcas but I hear him so speaking to the dead as if he were alive and so speaking to the dead that by the word he makes him alive I say unto thee Arise Death hath no power to bid that man lye still whom the Son of God bids Arise Immediatly he that was dead sate up So at the sound of the last Trumpet by the power of the same voice we shall arise out of the dust and stand up glorious This mortall shall put on immortality this corruptible incorruption This body shall not be buried but sown and at our day shall therefore spring up with a plentiful increase of glory How comfortless how desperate should be our lying down if it were not for this assurance of rising And now behold lest our weak faith should stagger at the assent to so great a difficulty he hath already by what he hath done given us tastes of what he will do The power that can raise one man can raise a thousand a million a world no power can raise one man but that which is infinite and that which is infinite admits of no limitation Under the Old Testament God raised one by Elias another by Elisha living a third by Elisha dead By the hand of the Mediator of the New Testament he raised here the son of the Widow the daughter of Jairus Lazarus and in attendance of his own Resurrection he made a gaol-delivery of holy prisoners at Jerusalem He raises the daughter of Jairus from her bed this Widows son from his Coffin Lazarus from his grave the dead Saints of Jerusalem from their rottenness that it might appear no degree of death can hinder the efficacie of his overruling command He that keeps the keys of Death cannot onely make way for himself through the common Hall and outer-rooms but through the inwardest and most reserved closets of darkness Methinks I see this young man who was thus miraculously awaked from his deadly sleep wiping and rubbing those eyes that had been shut up in death and descending from the Bier wrapping his winding-sheet about his loyns cast himself down in a passionate thankfulness at the feet of his Almighty restorer adoring that Divine power which had commanded his Soul back again to her forsaken lodging and though I hear not what he said yet I dare say they were words of praise and wonder which his returned Soul first uttered It was the mother whom our Saviour pittied in this act not the son who now forced from his quiet rest must twice pass through the gates of death As for her sake therefore he was raised so to her hands was he delivered that she might acknowledge that soul given to her not to the possessor Who cannot feel the amazement and ecstasie of joy that was in this revived mother when her son now salutes her from out of another world and both receives and gives gratulations of his new life How suddenly were all the tears of that mournful train dried up with a joyful astonishment How soon is that funeral banquet turned into a new Birth-day feast What striving was here to salute the late carcase of their returned neighbour What awful and admiring looks were cast upon that Lord of life who seeming homely was approved Omnipotent How gladly did every tongue celebrate both the work and the Author A great Prophet is raised up amongst us and God hath visited his people A Prophet was the highest name they could find for him whom they saw like themselves in shape above themselves in power They were not yet acquainted with God manifested in the flesh This Miracle might well have assured them of more then a Prophet but he that raised the dead man from the Bier would not suddenly raise these dead hearts from the grave of Infidelity They shall see reason enough to know that the Prophet who was raised up to them was the God that now visited them and at last should doe as much for them as he had done for the young man raise them from death to life from dust to glory The Rulers Son cured THe bounty of God so exceedeth man's that there is a contrarietie in the exercise of it We shut our hands because we opened them God therefore opens his because he hath opened them God's mercies are as comfortable in their issue as in themselves Seldom ever do blessings go alone where our Saviour supplied the Bridegroom's wine there he heals the Rulers son He had not in all these coasts of Galilee done any Miracle but here To him that hath shall be given We do not finde Christ oft attended with Nobilitie here he is It was some great Peer or some noted Courtier that was now a suitor to him for his dying son Earthly Greatness is no defence against Afflictions We men forbear the Mightie Disease and Death know no faces of Lords or Monarchs Could these be bribed they would be too rich Why should we grudge not to be privileged when we see there is no spare of the greatest This Noble Ruler listens after Christ's return into Galilee The most eminent amongst men will be glad to hearken after Christ in their necessity Happy was it for him that his son was sick he had not else been acquainted with his Saviour his Soul had continued sick of ignorance and unbelief Why else doth our good God send us pain losses opposition but that he may be sought to Are we afflicted whither should we goe but to Cana to seek Christ whither but to the Cana of Heaven where our water of sorrow is turned to the wine of gladness to that omnipotent Physician who healeth all our infirmities that we may once say It is good for me that I was afflicted It was about a dayes journey from Capernaum to Cana Thence hither did this Courtier come for
be insensible of so great an evil Where death hath once seized who can but doubt he will keep his hold No lesse hard was it not to grieve for the losse of an only Childe then not to fear the continuance of the cause of that grief In a perfect Faith there is no Fear by how much more we fear by so much lesse we believe Well are these two then coupled Fear not believe only O Saviour if thou didst not command us somewhat beyond Nature it were no thank to us to obey thee While the childe was alive to believe that it might recover it was no hard task but now that she was fully dead to believe she should live again was a work not easie for Jairus to apprehend though easie for thee to effect yet must that be believed else there is no capacity of so great a Mercy As Love so Faith is stronger then death making those bonds no other then as Sampson did his withes like threds of tow How much naturall impossibility is there in the return of these Bodies from the dust of their earth into which through many degrees of corruption they are at the last mouldred Fear not O my Soul believe onely it must it shall be done The sum of Jairus his first suit was for the Health not for the Resuscitation of his Daughter now that she was dead he would if he durst have been glad to have asked her Life And now behold our Saviour bids him expect both her Life and her Health Thy daughter shall be made whole alive from her death whole from her disease Thou didst not O Jairus thou daredst not ask so much as thou receivest How glad wouldest thou have been since this last news to have had thy Daughter alive though weak and sickly Now thou shalt receive her not living only but sound and vigorous Thou dost not O Saviour measure thy gifts by our petitions but by our wants and thine own mercies This work might have been as easily done by an absent command the Power of Christ was there whiles himself was away but he will goe personally to the place that he might be confessed the Author of so great a Miracle O Saviour thou lovest to goe to the house of mourning thy chief pleasure is the comfort of the afflicted What a confusion there is in worldly sorrow The mother shreeks the servants crie out the people make lamentation the minstrels howl and strike dolefully so as the eare might question whether the Ditty or the Instrument were more heavy If ever expressions of sorrow sound well it is when Death leads the quire Soon doth our Saviour charm this noise and turns these unseasonable mourners whether formal or serious out of doors Not that he dislikes Musick whether to condole or comfort but that he had life in his eye and would have them know that he held these Funeral ceremonies to be too early and long before their time Give place for the maid is not dead but sleepeth Had she been dead she had but slept now she was not dead but asleep because he meant this nap of death should be so short and her awakening so speedy Death and Sleep are alike to him who can cast whom he will into the sleep of Death and awake when and whom he pleaseth out of that deadly sleep Before the people and domesticks of Jairus held Jesus for a Prophet now they took him for a Dreamer Not dead but asleep They that came to mourn cannot now forbear to laugh Have we piped at so many Funerals and seen and lamented so many Corpses and cannot we distinguish betwixt Sleep and Death The eyes are set the breath is gone the limmes are stiffe and cold Who ever died if she do but sleep How easily may our Reason or Sense befool us in Divine matters Those that are competent Judges in natural things are ready to laugh God to scorn when he speaks beyond their compasse and are by him justly laughed to scorn for their unbelief Vain and faithlesse men as if that unlimited power of the Almighty could not make good his own word and turn either Sleep into Death or Death into Sleep at pleasure Ere many minutes they shall be ashamed of their errour and incredulity There were witnesses enough of her death there shall not be many of her restoring Three choice Disciples and the two Parents are only admitted to the view and testimony of this miraculous work The eyes of those incredulous scoffers were not worthy of this honour Our infidelity makes us incapable of the secret favours and the highest counsels of the Almighty What did these scorners think and say when they saw him putting the minstrels and people out of doors Doubtlesse the maid is but asleep the man fears lest the noise shall awake her we must speak and tread softly that we disquiet her not What will he and his Disciples doe the while Is it not to be feared they will startle her out of her rest Those that are shut out from the participation of God's counsels think all his words and projects no better then foolishnesse But art thou O Saviour ever the more discouraged by the derision and censure of these scornfull unbelievers Because fools jear thee dost thou forbear thy work Surely I do not perceive that thou heedest them save for contempt or carest more for their words then their silence It is enough that thine act shall soon honour thee and convince them He took her by the hand and called saying Maid arise and her spirit came again and she arose straightway How could that touch that Call be other then effectual He who made that hand touched it and he who shall once say Arise ye dead said now Maid arise Death cannot but obey him who is the Lord of life The Soul is ever equally in his hand who is the God of Spirits it cannot but goe and come at his command When he saies Maid arise the now-dissolved spirit knows his office his place and instantly reassumes that room which by his appointment it had left O Saviour if thou do but bid my Soul to arise from the death of Sin it cannot lie still if thou bid my Body to arise from the grave my Soul cannot but glance down from her Heaven and animate it In vain shall my sin or my grave offer to withhold me from thee The Maid revives not now to languish for a time upon her sick-bed and by some faint degrees to gather an insensible strength but at once she arises from her death and from her couch at once she puts off her fever with her dissolution she findes her life and her feet at once at once she findes her feet and her stomack He commanded to give her meat Omnipotency doth not use to goe the pace of Nature All God's immediate works are like himself perfect He that raised her supernaturally could have so fed her It was never the purpose of his Power to put ordinary
his O Saviour when we look into those sacred Acts and monuments of thine we finde many a life which thou preservedst from perishing some that had perished by thee recalled never any by thee destroyed Only one poor fig-tree as the reall Emblem of thy severity to the unfruitfull was blasted and withered by thy curse But to man how ever favourable and indulgent wert thou So repelled as thou wert so reviled so persecuted laid for sold betrayed apprehended arraigned condemned crucified yet what one man didst thou strike dead for these hainous indignities Yea when one of thine enemies lost but an eare in that ill quarrell thou gavest that eare to him who came to take life from thee I finde some whom thou didst scourge and correct as the sacrilegious money-changers none whom thou killedst Not that thou either lovest not or requirest not the duly-severe execution of justice Whose sword is it that Princes bear but thine Offenders must smart and bleed This is a just sequel but not the intention of thy coming thy will not thy drift Good Princes make wholesome Laws for the well-ordering of their people there is no authority without due coercion The violation of these good Laws is followed with death whose end was preservation life order and this not so much for revenge of an offence past as for prevention of future mischief How can we then enough love and praise thy mercy O thou preserver of men How should we imitate thy saving and beneficent disposition towards mankinde as knowing the more we can help to save the nearer we come to thee that camest to save all and the more destructive we are the more we resemble him who is Abaddon a murtherer from the beginning The Ten Lepers THE Samaritanes were tainted not with Schism but Heresie but Paganism our Saviour yet blaks them not but makes use of the way as it lies and bestows upon them the curtesie of some Miracles Some kind of commerce is lawfull even with those without Terms of intirenesse and leagues of inward amity are here unfit unwarrantable dangerous but civil respects and wise uses of them for our convenience or necessity need not must not be forborn Ten Lepers are here met those that are excluded from all other society seek the company of each other Fellowship is that we all naturally affct though even in Leprosie Ever Lepers will flock to their fellows where shall we finde one spiritual Leper alone Drunkards profane persons Hereticks will be sure to consort with their matches Why should not Gods Saints delight in an holy communion Why is it not our chief joy to assemble in good Jews and Samaritanes could not abide one another yet here in Leprosie they accord here was one Samaritane Leper with the Jewish community of passion hath made them friends whom even Religion disjoyned What virtue there is in misery that can unite even the most estranged hearts I seek not mystery in the number These Ten are met together and all meet Christ not casually but upon due deliberation they purposely waited for this opportunity No marvell if they thought no attendance long to be delivered from so loathsome and miserable a disease Great Naaman could be glad to come from Syria to Judaea in hope of leaving that hatefull guest behinde him We are all sensible enough of our bodily infirmities Oh that we could be equally weary of the sicknesses and deformities of our better part Surely our spiritual maladies are no lesse then mortal if they be not healed neither can they heal alone These men had died Lepers if they had not met with Christ Oh Saviour give us grace to seek thee and patience to wait for thee and then we know thou wilt finde us and we remedy Where do these Lepers attend for Christ but in a village and that not in the street of it but in the entrance in the passage to it The Cities the Towns were not for them the Law of God had shut them out from all frequence from all conversation Care of safety and fear of infection was motive enough to make their neighbours observant of this piece of the Law It is not the body only that is herein respected by the God of Spirits Those that are spiritually contagious must be still and ever avoided they must be separated from us we must be separated from them they from us by just censures or if that be neglected we from them by a voluntary declination of their familiar conversation Besides the benefit of our safety wickednesse would soon be ashamed of it self if it were not for the incouragement of companions Solitarinesse is the fittest antidote for spiritual infection It were happy for the wicked man if he could be separated from himself These Lepers that came to seek Christ yet finding him they stand afar off whether for reverence or for security God had enacted this distance It was their charge if they were occasioned to passe through the streets to cry out I am unclean It was no lesse then their duty to proclaim their own infectiousnesse there was not danger only but sin in their approach How happy were it if in those wherein there is more peril there were more remotenesse lesse silence O God we are all Lepers to thee overspred with the loathsome scurf of our own corruptions It becomes us well in the conscience of our shame and vileness to stand afar off We cannot be too awfull of thee too much ashamed of our selves Yet these men though they be far off in the distance of place yet they are near in respect of the acceptance of their Prayer The Lord is near unto all that call upon him in truth O Saviour whiles we are far off from thee thou art near unto us Never dost thou come so close to us as when in an holy bashfulnesse we stand furthest off Justly dost thou exspect we should be at once bold and bashfull How boldly should we come to the throne of Grace in respect of the grace of that throne how fearfully in respect of the awfulness of the Majesty of that throne and that unworthiness which we bring with us into that dreadfull presence He that stands near may whisper but he that stands afar off must cry aloud so did these Lepers Yet not so much distance as passion strained their throats That which can give voice to the Dumb can much more give loudness to the Vocal All cried together these ten voices were united in one sound that their conjoined forces might expugn that Gracious eare Had every man spoken singly for himself this had made no noise neither yet any shew of a servent importunity Now as they were all affected with one common disease so they all set out their throats together and though Jews and Samaritanes agree in one joynt supplication Even where there are ten tongues the word is but one that the condescent may be universal When we would obtain common favours we may not content our selves
be the inculcation of Gods merciful promises of their relief and supportation O God if thou hast said it I dare believe I dare cast my Soul upon the belief of every word of thine Faithfull art thou which hast promised who wilt also doe it In spight of all the unjust discouragements of Nature we must obey Christ's command Whatever Martha suggests they remove the stone and may now see and smell him dead whom they shall soon see revived The sent of the corps is not so unpleasing to them as the perfume of their obedience is sweet to Christ And now when all impediments are removed and all hearts ready for the work our Saviour addresses to the Miracle His eyes begin they are lift up to Heaven It was the malicious mis-suggestion of his enemies that he lookt down to Beelzebub the beholders shall now see whence he exspects and derives his power and shall by him learn whence to exspect and hope for all success The heart and the eye must goe together he that would have ought to doe with God must be sequestred and lifted up from earth His Tongue seconds his Eye Father Nothing more stuck in the stomack of the Jews then that Christ called himself the Son of God this was imputed to him for a Blasphemy worthy of stones How seasonably is this word spoken in the hearing of these Jews in whose sight he will be presently approved so How can ye now O ye cavillers except at that title which ye shall see irrefragably justified Well may he call God Father that can raise the dead out of the grave In vain shall ye snarle at the style when ye are convinced of the effect I hear of no Prayer but a Thanks for hearing Whiles thou saidst nothing O Saviour how doth thy Father hear thee Was it not with thy Father and thee as it was with thee and Moses Thou saidst Let me alone Moses when he spake not Thy will was thy Prayer Words express our hearts to men Thoughts to God Well didst thou know out of the self-fameness of thy will with thy Fathers that if thou didst but think in thine heart that Lazarus should rise he was now raised It was not for thee to pray vocally and audibly lest those captious hearers should say thou didst all by intreaty nothing by power Thy thanks overtake thy desires ours require time and distance our thanks arise from the Echo of our prayers resounding from Heaven to our hearts Thou because thou art at once in earth and Heaven and knowst the grant to be of equal paces with the request most justly thankest in praying Now ye cavilling Jews are thinking straight Is there such distance betwixt the Father and the Son is it so rare a thing for the Son to be heard that he pours out his thanks for it as a blessing unusual Do ye not now see that he who made your heart knows it and anticipates your fond thoughts with the same breath I knew that thou hearest me alwaies but I said this for their sakes that they might believe Merciful Saviour how can we enough admire thy goodness who makest our belief the scope and drift of thy doctrine and actions Alas what wert thou the better if they believed thee sent from God what wert thou the worse if they believed it not Thy perfection and glory stands not upon the slippery terms of our approbation or dislike but is real in thy self and that infinite without possibility of our increase or diminution We we onely are they that have either the gain or loss in thy receit or rejection yet so dost thou affect our belief as if it were more thine advantage then ours O Saviour whiles thou spak'st to thy Father thou liftedst up thine eyes now thou art to speak unto dead Lazarus thou liftedst up thy voice and criedst aloud Lazarus come forth Was it that the strength of the voice might answer to the strength of the affection since we faintly require what we care not to obtain and vehemently utter what we earnestly desire Was it that the greatness of the voice might answer to the greatness of the work Was it that the hearers might be witnesses of what words were used in so miraculous an act no magical incantations but authoritative and Divine commands Was it to signifie that Lazarus his Soule was called from farre the speech must be loud that shall be heard in another world Was it in relation to the estate of the body of Lazarus whom thou hadst reported to sleep since those that are in a deep and dead sleep cannot be awaked without a loud call Or was it in a representation of that loud voice of the last Trumpet which shall sound into all graves and raise all flesh from their dust Even so still Lord when thou wouldst raise a Soul from the death of sin and grave of corruption no easie voice will serve Thy strongest commands thy loudest denunciations of Judgements the shrillest and sweetest promulgations of thy Mercies are but enough How familiar a word is this Lazarus come forth no other then he was wont to use whiles they lived together Neither doth he say Lazarus revive but as if he supposed him already living Lazarus come forth To let them know that those who are dead to us are to and with him alive yea in a more entire and feeling society then whiles they carried their clay about them Why do I fear that separation which shall more unite me to my Saviour Neither was the word more familiar then commanding Lazarus come forth Here is no suit to his Father no adjuration to the deceased but a flat and absolute injunction Come forth O Saviour that is the voice that I shall once hear sounding into the bottome of my grave and raising me up out of my dust that is the voice that shall pierce the rocks and divide the mountains and fetch up the dead out of the lowest deeps Thy word made all thy word shall repair all Hence all ye diffident fears he whom I trust is Omnipotent It was the Jewish fashion to enwrap the corps in linen to tye the hands and feet and to cover the face of the dead The Fall of man besides weakness brought shame upon him ever since even whiles he lives the whole Body is covered but the Face because some sparks of that extinct Majesty remain there is wont to be left open In death all those poor remainders being gone and leaving deformity and gastliness in the room of them the Face is covered also There lies Lazarus bound in double fetters One Almighty word hath loosed both and now he that was bound came forth He whose power could not be hindred by the chains of death cannot be hindred by linen bonds He that gave life gave motion gave direction He that guided the Soul of Lazarus into the body guided the body of Lazarus without his eyes moved the feet without the full liberty of his regular paces no doubt
the same power slackned those swathing-bands of death that the feet might have some little scope to move though not with that freedome that followed after Thou didst not onely O Saviour raise the body of Lazarus but the Faith of the beholders They cannot deny him dead whom they saw rising they see the signes of death with the proofs of life Those very swathes convinced him to be the man that was raised Thy less Miracle confirms the greater both confirm the Faith of the beholders O clear and irrefragable example of our resuscitation Say now ye shameless Sadducees with what face can ye deny the Resurrection of the body when ye see Lazarus after four-days death rising up out of his grave And if Lazarus did thus start up at the bleating of this Lamb of God that was now every day preparing for the slaughter-house how shall the dead be rouzed up out of their graves by the roaring of that glorious and immortal Lion whose voice shall shake the powers of Heaven and move the very foundations of the earth With what strange amazedness do we think that Martha and Mary the Jews and the Disciples lookt to see Lazarus come forth in his winding-sheet shackled with his linen fetters and walk towards them Doubtless fear and horrour strove in them whether should be for the time more predominant We love our friends dearly but to see them again after their known death and that in the very robes of the grave must needs set up the hair in a kinde of uncouth rigour And now though it had been most easie for him that brake the adamantine fetters of death to have broke in pieces those linen ligaments wherewith his raised Lazarus was encumbred yet he will not doe it but by their hands He that said Remove the stone said Loose Lazarus He will not have us exspect his immediate help in that we can doe for our selves It is both a laziness and a presumptuous tempting of God to look for and extraordinary and supernatural help from God where he hath inabled us with common aid What strange salutations do we think there were betwixt Lazarus and Christ that had raised him betwixt Lazarus and his Sisters and neighbors and friends what amazed looks what unusual complements For Lazarus was himself at once here was no leisure of degrees to reduce him to his wonted perfection neither did he stay to rub his eyes and stretch his benummed lims nor take time to put off that dead sleep wherewith he had been seized but instantly he is both alive and fresh and vigorous if they do but let him goe he walks so as if he had ailed nothing and receives and gives mutual gratulations I leave them entertaining each other with glad embraces with discourses of reciprocal admiration with praises and adorations of that God and Saviour that had fetched him into life Christ's Procession to the Temple NEver did our Saviour take so much state upon him as now that he was going towards his Passion other journies he measured on foot without noise or train this with a Princely equipage and loud acclamation Wherein yet O Saviour whether shall I more wonder at thy Majesty or thine Humility that Divine Majesty which lay hid under so humble appearance or that sincere Humility which veiled so great a glory Thou O Lord whose chariots are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels wouldst make choice of the silliest of beasts to carry thee in thy last and Royal Progress How well is thy birth suited with thy triumph Even that very Ass whereon thou rodest was prophesied of neither couldst thou have made up those vaticall Predictions without this conveyance O glorious and yet homely pomp Thou wouldst not lose ought of thy right thou that wast a King wouldst be proclaimed so but that it might appear thy Kingdome was not of this world thou that couldst have commanded all worldly magnificence thoughtest fit to abandon it In stead of the Kings of the earth who reigning by thee might have been imployed in thine attendance the people are thine heralds their homely garments are thy foot-cloth and carpets their green boughs the strewings of thy way those Palms which were wont to be born in the hands of them that triumph are strewed under the feet of thy beast It was thy greatness and honour to contemn those glories which worldly hearts were wont to admire Justly did thy Followers hold the best ornaments of the earth worthy of no better then thy treading upon neither could they ever account their garments so rich as when they had been trampled upon by thy carriage How happily did they think their backs disrobed for thy way How gladly did they spend their breath in acclaming thee Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Where now are the great Masters of the Synagogue that had enacted the ejection of whosoever should confess Jesus to be the Christ Lo here bold and undaunted clients of the Messiah that dare proclaim him in the publick road in the open streets In vain shall the impotent enemies of Christ hope to suppress his glory as soon shall they with their hand hide the face of the Sun from shining to the world as withhold the beams of his Divine truth from the eyes of men by their envious opposition In spight of all Jewish malignity his Kingdome is confessed applauded blessed O thou fairer then the children of men in thy Majesty ride on prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things In this Princely and yet poor and despicable pomp doth our Saviour enter into the famous City of Jerusalem Jerusalem noted of old for the seat of Kings Priests Prophets of Kings for there was the throne of David of Priests for there was the Temple of Prophets for there they delivered their errands and left their blood Neither know I whether it were more wonder for a Prophet to perish out of Jerusalem or to be safe there Thither would Jesus come as a King as a Priest as a Prophet acclamed as a King teaching the people and foretelling the wofull vastation of it as a Prophet and as a Priest taking possession of his Temple and vindicating it from the foul profanations of Jewish Sacriledge Oft before had he come to Jerusalem without any remarkable change because without any semblance of State now that he gives some little glimpse of his Royalty the whole City was moved When the Sages of the East brought the first news of the King of the Jewes Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him and now that the King of the Jews comes himself though in so mean a port there is a new commotion The silence and obscurity of Christ never troubles the world he may be an underling without any stir but if he do but put forth himself never so little to bear the least sway amongst men now their blood
that all this while stopped that Gracious mouth thou speakest to him that cannot fear those faces he hath made he that hath charged us to confesse him cannot but confesse himself Jesus saith unto him Thou hast said There is a time to speak and a time to keep silence He that is the Wisdome of his Father hath here given us a pattern of both We may not so speak as to give advantage to cavils we may not be so silent as to betray the Truth Thou shalt have no more cause proud and insulting Caiaphas to complain of a speechlesse prisoner now thou shalt hear more then thou demandedst Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of Heaven There spake my Saviour the voice of God and not of man Hear now insolent High Priest and be confounded That Son of man whom thou seest is the Son of God whom thou canst not see That Son of man that Son of God that God and man whom thou now seest standing despicably before thy Consistorial seat in a base dejectednesse him shalt thou once with horrour and trembling see majestically sitting on the Throne of Heaven attended with thousand thousands of Angels and coming in the clouds to that dreadfull Judgment wherein thy self amongst other damned malefactors shalt be presented before that glorious tribunal of his and adjudged to thy just torments Goe now wretched Hypocrite and rend thy garments whiles in the mean time thou art worthy to have thy Soul rent from thy body for thy spightfull Blasphemy against the Son of God Onwards thy pretence is fair and such as cannot but receive applause from thy compacted crue What need have we of witnesses behold now ye have heard his Blasphemy What think ye And they answered and said He is guilty of death What heed is to be taken of mens judgment So light are they upon the balance that one dram of prejudice or forestalment turns the scales Who were these but the grave Benchers of Jerusalem the Synod of the choice Rabbies of Israel yet these passe sentence against the Lord of Life sentence of that death of his whereby if ever they shall be redeemed from the murder of their sentence O Saviour this is not the last time wherein thou hast received cruel dooms from them that professe Learning and Holiness What wonder is it if thy weak members suffer that which was indured by so perfect an head What care we to be judged by man's day when thou who art the Righteous Judge of the world wert thus misjudged by men Now is the fury of thy malignant enemies let loose upon thee what measure can be too hard for him that is denounced worthy of death Now those foul mouths defile thy Blessed Face with their impure spittle the venemous froth of their malice now those cruell hands are lifted up to buffet thy Sacred Cheeks now scorn and insultation triumphs over thine humble Patience Prophesie unto us thou Christ who it is that smote thee O dear Jesu what a beginning is here of a Passion There thou standst bound condemned spat upon buffetted derided by malicious sinners Thou art bound who camest to loose the bands of death thou art condemned whose sentence must acquit the world thou art spat upon that art fairer then the sons of men thou art buffeted in whose mouth was no guile thou art derided who art clothed with Glory and Majesty In the mean while how can I enough wonder at thy infinite Mercy who in the midst of all these wofull indignities couldst finde a time to cast thine eyes back upon thy frail and ingratefull Disciple and in whose gracious eare Peter's Cock sounded louder then all these reproaches O Saviour thou who in thine apprehension couldst forget all thy danger to correct and heal his over-lashing now in the heat of thy arraignment and condemnation canst forget thy own misery to reclaim his errour and by that seasonable glance of thine eye to strike his heart with a needfull remorse He that was lately so valiant to fight for thee now the next morning is so cowardly as to deny thee He shrinks at the voice of a Maid who was not daunted with the sight of a Band. O Peter had thy slip been sudden thy fall had been more easie Premonition aggravates thy offence that stone was foreshewed thee whereat thou stumbledst neither did thy warning more adde to thy guilt then thine own fore-resolution How didst thou vow though thou shouldst die with thy Master not to deny him Hadst thou said nothing but answered with a trembling silence thy shame had been the lesse Good purposes when they are not held do so far turn enemies to the entertainer of them as that they help to double both his sin and punishment Yet a single denial had been but easie thine I fear to speak it was lined with swearing and execration Whence then oh whence was this so vehement and peremptory disclamation of so gracious a Master What such danger had attended thy profession of his attendance One of thy fellows was known to the high-priest for a Follower of Jesus yet he not onely came himself into that open Hall in view of the Bench but treated with the Maid that kept the door to let thee in also She knew him what he was and could therefore speak to thee as brought in by his mediation Art not thou also one of this mans Disciples Thou also supposes the first acknowledged such yet what crime what danger was urged upon that noted Disciple What could have been more to thee Was it that thy heart misgave thee thou mightest be called to account for Malchus It was no thank to thee that that eare was healed neither did there want those that would think how near that eare was to the head Doubtlesse that busie fellow himself was not far off and his fellows and kinsmen would have been apt enough to follow thee besides thy Discipleship upon a bloodshed a riot a rescue Thy conscience hath made thee thus unduly timorous and now to be sure to avoid the imputation of that affray thou renouncest all knowledge of him in whose cause thou foughtest Howsoever the sin was hainous I tremble at such a Fall of so great an Apostle It was thou O Peter that buffetedst thy Master more then those Jews it was to thee that he turned the cheek from them as to view him by whom he most smarted he felt thee afar off and answered thee with a look such a look as was able to kill and revive at once Thou hast wounded me maiest thou now say O my Saviour thou hast wounded my heart with one of thine eyes that one Eye of thy Mercy hath wounded my heart with a deep remorse for my grievous sin with an indignation at my unthankfulnesse that one glance of thine hath resolved me into the tears of sorrow and contrition Oh that mine eyes were fountains and my cheeks channels that
or of a Disciple Give me leave O Saviour to borrow thine own words Verily I have not found so great faith no not in all Israel He saw thee hanging miserably by him and yet styles thee Lord he saw thee dying yet talks of thy Kingdome he felt himself dying yet talks of a future remembrance O Faith stronger then death that can look beyond the Crosse at a Crown beyond dissolution at a remembrance of Life and Glory Which of thine eleven were heard to speak so gracious a word to thee in these thy last pangs After thy Resurrection and knowledge of thine impassible condition it was not strange for them to talk of thy Kingdome but in the midst of thy shamefull death for a dying malefactor to speak of thy reigning and to implore thy remembrance of himself in thy Kingdome it is such an improvement of Faith as ravisheth my Soul with admiration O blessed Thief that hast thus happily stolne Heaven How worthy hath thy Saviour made thee to be a partner of his sufferings a pattern of undauntable belief a spectacle of unspeakable mercy This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Before I wondred at thy Faith now I envy at thy Felicity Thou cravedst a remembrance thy Saviour speaks of a present possession This day thou suedst for remembrance as a favour to the absent thy Saviour speaks of thy presence with him thou spakest of a Kingdome thy Saviour of Paradise As no Disciple could be more faithfull so no Saint could be happier O Saviour what a precedent is this of thy free and powerfull grace Where thou wilt give what unworthinesse can barre us from Mercy when thou wilt give what time can prejudice our vocation who can despair of thy goodnesse when he that in the morning was posting towards Hell is in the evening with thee in Paradise Lord he could not have spoken this to thee but by thee and from thee What possibility was there for a thief to think of thy Kingdome without thy Spirit That good Spirit of thine breathed upon this man breathed not upon his fellow their trade was alike their sin was alike their state alike their crosse alike only thy Mercy makes them unlike One is taken the other is refused Blessed be thy Mercy in taking one blessed be thy Justice in leaving the other Who can despair of that Mercy who cannot but tremble at that Justice Now O ye cruell Priests and Elders of the Jews ye have full leisure to feed your eyes with the sight ye so much longed for there is the blood ye purchased and is not your malice yet glutted Is not all this enough without your taunts and scoffs and sports at so exquisite a misery The people the passengers are taught to insult where they should pity Every man hath a scorn ready to cast at a dying innocent A generous nature is more wounded with the tongue then with the hand O Saviour thine eare was more painfully pierced then thy brows or hands or feet It could not but goe deep into thy Soul to hear these bitter and girding reproaches from them thou camest to save But alas what sleabitings were these in comparison of those inward torments which thy Soul felt in the sense and apprehension of thy Fathers wrath for the sins of the whole world which now lay heavy upon thee for satisfaction This oh this was it that pressed thy Soul as it were to the nethermost hell Whiles thine eternall Father lookt lovingly upon thee what didst thou what neededst thou to care for the frowns of men or Devils but when he once turn'd his face from thee or bent his brows upon thee this this was worse then death It is no marvel now if darkness were upon the face of the whole earth when thy Fathers face was eclipsed from thee by the interposition of our sins How should there be light in the world without when the God of the world the Father of lights complains of the want of light within That word of thine O Saviour was enough to fetch the Sun down out of Heaven and to dissolve the whole frame of Nature when thou criedst My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh what pangs were these dear Jesu that drew from thee this complaint Thou well knewest nothing could be more cordial to thine enemies then to hear this sad language from thee they could see but the outside of thy sufferings never could they have conceived so deep an anguish of thy Soul if thy own lips had not expressed it Yet as not regarding their triumph thou thus powrest out thy sorrow and when so much is uttered who can conceive what is felt How is it then with thee O Saviour that thou thus astonishest men and Angels with so woful a quiritation Had thy God left thee Thou not long since saidst I and my Father are One Are ye now severed Let this thought be as farre from my Soul as my Soul from Hell No more can thy Blessed Father be separated from thee then from his own Essence His Union with thee is eternal his Vision was intercepted He could not withdraw his Presence he would withdraw the influence of his comfort Thou the Second Adam stoodst for mankind upon this Tree of the Cross as the First Adam stood and fell for mankind under the Tree of Offence Thou barest our sins thy Father saw us in thee and would punish us in thee thee for us how could he but withhold comfort where he intended chastisement Herein therefore he seems to forsake thee for the present in that he would not deliver thee from that bitter Passion which thou wouldst undergoe for us O Saviour hadst thou not been thus forsaken we had perished thy dereliction is our safety and however our narrow Souls are not capable of the conceit of thy pain and horror yet we know there can be no danger in the forsaking whiles thou canst say My God He is so thy God as he cannot be ours all our right is by Adoption thine by Nature thou art one with him in eternal Essence we come in by Grace and merciful election yet whiles thou shalt inable me to say My God I shall hope never to sink under thy desertions But whiles I am transported with the sense of thy Sufferings O Saviour let me not forget to admire those sweet Mercies of thine which thou powredst out upon thy Persecutors They rejoyce in thy death and triumph in thy misery and scoff at thee in both In stead of calling down fire from Heaven upon them thou heapest coals of fire upon their heads Father forgive them for they know not what they doe They blaspheme thee thou prayest for them they scorn thou pitiest they sin aganst thee thou prayest for their forgiveness they profess their malice thou pleadest their ignorance O compassion without example without measure fit for the Son of God the Saviour of men Wicked and foolish Jewes ye would be miserable he will not
oh when in the height of his pain and misery thou heardst him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me what a cold horrour possessed thy Soul I cannot now wonder at thy qualms and swoonings I could rather wonder that thou survivedst so sad an hour But when recollecting thy self thou sawest the Heavens to bear a part with thee in thy mourning and feltest the earth to tremble no less then thy self and foundst that the dreadful concussion of the whole frame of Nature proclaimed the Deity of him that would thus suffer and dye and remembredst his frequent predictions of drinking this bitter cup and of being baptized thus in blood thou beganst to take heart and to comfort thy self with the assured exspectation of the glorious issue More then once had he foretold thee his victorious Resurrection He who had openly professed Jonas for his type and had fore-promised in three daies to raise up the ruined Temple of his Body had doubtless given more full intimation unto thee who hadst so great a share in that sacred body of his The just shall live by Faith Lo that Faith of thine in his ensuing Resurrection and in his triumph over death gives thee life and chears up thy drouping Soul and bids it in an holy confidence to triumph over all thy fears and sorrows and him whom thou now seest dead and despised represents unto thee living immortal glorious The Resurrection GRace doth not ever make show where it is There is much secret riches both in the earth and sea which never eye saw I never heard any news till now of Joseph of Arimathea yet was he eminently both rich and wise and good a worthy though close Disciple of our Saviour True Faith may be wisely reserved but will not be cowardly Now he puts forth himself and dares beg the Body of Jesus Death is wont to end all quarrels Pilate's heart tells him he hath done too much already in sentencing an innocent to death no doubt that Centurion had related unto him the miraculous symptoms of that Passion He that so unwillingly condemned Innocence could rather have wished that just man alive then have denied him dead The body is yielded and taken down and now that which hung naked upon the Cross is wrapped in fine linen that which was soiled with sweat and blood is curiously washed and embalmed Now even Nicodemus comes in for a part and fears not the envie of a good profession Death hath let that man loose whom the Law formerly over-awed with restraint He hates to be a night-bird any longer but boldly flies forth and looks upon the face of the Sun and will be now as liberal in his Odors as he was before niggardly in his Confession O Saviour the earth was thine and the fulness of it yet as thou hadst not an house of thine own whiles thou livedst so thou hadst not a grave when thou wert dead Joseph that rich Councellor lent thee his lent it so as it should never be restored thou took'st it but for a while but that little touch of that Sacred Corps of thine made it too good for the owner O happy Joseph that hadst the honour to be Landlord of the Lord of life how well is thy house-room repai'd with a mansion not made with hands eternall in the heavens Thy Garden and thy Tombe were hard by Calvary where thou couldst not fail of many monitions of thy frailty How oft hadst thou seasoned that new Tombe with sad and savory meditations and hadst oft said within thy self Here I shall once lye down to my last rest and wait for my Resurrection Little didst thou then think to have been disappointed by so Blessed a guest or that thy grave should be again so soon empty and in that emptiness uncapable of any mortal in-dweller How gladly dost thou now resign thy grave to him in whom thou livest and who liveth for ever whose Soul is in Paradise whose Godhead every where Hadst thou not been rich before this gift had enriched thee alone and more ennobled thee then all thine earthly Honour Now great Princes envie thy bounty and have thought themselves happy to kiss the stones of that rock which thou thus hewedst thus bestowedst Thus purely wrapped and sweetly embalmed lyes the precious body of our Saviour in Joseph's new vault Are ye now also at rest O ye Jewish Rulers Is your malice dead and buried with him Hath Pilate enough served your envie and revenge Surely it is but a common hostility that can die yours surviveth death and puts you upon a further project The chief Priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate saying Sir we remember that this Deceiver said whiles he was yet alive After three daies I will rise again Command therefore that the Sepulcher be made sure till the third day lest his Disciples come by night and steal him away and say to the people he is risen How full of terrors and inevitable perplexities is guiltiness These men were not more troubled with envie at Christ alive then now with fear of his Resurrection And what can now secure them Pilate had helpt to kill him but who shall keep him from rising Wicked and foolish Jewes how fain would ye fight against God and your own hearts How gladly would ye deceive your selves in believing him to be a Deceiver whom your consciences knew to be no less true then powerful Lazarus was still in your ey That man was no phantasme his death his reviving was undeniable the so fresh resuscitation of that dead body after four daies dissolution was a manifest conviction of Omnipotence How do ye vainly wish that he could deceive you in the fore-reporting of his own Resurrection Without a Divine power he could have raised neither Lazarus nor himself with and by it he could as well raise himself as Lazarus What need we other witnesses then your own mouths That which he would doe ye confess he foretold that the truth of his word might answer the power of this deed and both of them might argue him the God of Truth and Power and your selves enemies to both And now what must be done The Sepulcher must be secured and you with it An huge stone a strong guard must doe the deed and that stone must be sealed that guard of your own designing Methinks I hear the Souldiers and busy Officers when they were rolling that other weighty stone for such we probably conceive to the mouth of the vault with much toile and sweat and breathlesness how they brag'd of the sureness of the place and unremovableness of that load and when that so choice a Watch was set how they boasted of their valour and vigilance and said they would make him safe from either rising or stealing Oh the madness of impotent men that think by either wile or force to frustrate the will and designs of the Almighty How justly doth that wise and powerful Arbiter of the world laugh them to scorn in
of darknesse Heaven is high and hard to reach Hell is steep and slipperie our Flesh is earthy and impotent Satan strong rancorous Sin subtle the World alluring all these yet God is the God of our Salvation Let those infernal Lions roar and ramp upon us let the gates of Hell doe their worst let the World be a cheater our Flesh a traitor the Devil a tyrant Faithfull is he that hath promised who will also doe it God is the God of our Salvation How much more then in these outward temporal occasions when we have to doe with an arm of flesh Do the enemies of the Church rage and snuffe and breath nothing but threats and death Make sure of our God he shall be sure to make them lick our dust Great Benhadad of the Syrians shall come with his hempen collar to the King of Israel The very windes and waves shall undertake those Mahumetan or Marian powers that shall rise up against the inheritance of the God of Salvation Salvation is rateable according to the danger from which we are delivered Since Death therefore is the utmost of all terribles needs must it be the highest improvement of Salvation that to our God belong the issues from death Death hath here a double latitude of kinde of extent The kinde is either temporal or eternal the extent reaches not only to the last compleat act of dissolution but to all the passages that lead towards it Thus the issues from death belong to our God whether by way of preservation or by way of rescue How gladly do I meet in my Text with the dear and sweet name of our Jesus who conquered Death by dying and triumphed over Hell by suffering and carries the keyes both of death and hell Revel 1. 18 He is the God the Author and Finisher of our Salvation to whom belong the issues from death Look first at the temporary he keeps it from us he fetches us from it It is true there is a Statutum est upon it die we must Death knocks equally at the hatch of a Cottage and gate of a Palace but our times are in God's hand the Lord of life hath set us our period whose Omnipotence so contrives all events that neither enemy nor casualty nor disease can prevent his hour Were death suffered to run loose and wild what boot were it to live now it is tether'd up short by that Almighty hand what can we fear If envy repine and villany plot against Sacred Soveraignty God hath well proved upon all the Poisons and Pistols and Poniards and Gun-powders of the two late memorable successions that to him alone belong the issues from death Goe on then blessed Soveraign goe on couragiously in the waies of your God the invisible guard of Heaven shall secure your Royal head the God of our Salvation shall make you a third glorious instance to all posterities that unto him belong the issues from death Thus God keeps death from us it is more comfort yet that he fetches us from it Even the best head must at last lie down in the dust and sleep in death Oh vain cracks of valour thou bragst thy self able to kill a man a worm hath done it a flie hath done it Every thing can finde the way down unto death none but the Omnipotent can finde the way up out of it He findes he makes these issues for all his As it was with our Head so it is with the Members Death might seize it cannot hold Gustavit non deglutivit It may nibble at us it shall not devour us Behold the only Soveraign Antidote against the sorrows the frights of death Who can fear to lay himself down and take a nap in the bed of death when his heart is assured that he shall awake glorious in the morning of his resurrection Certainly it is only our infidelity that makes death fearfull Rejoice not over me O my last enemy though I fall I shall rise again O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory Cast ye one glance of your eyes upon the second and eternal death the issues wherefrom belong to our God not by way of rescue as in the former but of preservation Ex inferno nulla redemptio is as true as if it were Canonical Father Abraham tells the damned Glutton in the Parable there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great gulf that bars all return Those black gates of Hell are barred without by the irreversible Decree of the Almighty Those bold Fabulists therefore whose impious Legends have devised Trajan fetcht thence by the prayers of Gregory and Falconella by Tecla's suspending the finall sentence upon a secundum praesentem injustitiam take a course to cast themselves into that pit whence they have presumptuously feigned the deliverance of others The rescue is not more hopelesse then the prevention is comfortable There is none of us but is naturally walking down to these chambers of death every sin is a pace thitherwards only the gracious hand of our God staies us In our selves in our sins we are already no better then brands of that Hell Blessed be the God of our Salvation that hath found happy issues from this death What issues Even those bloody issues that were made in the hands and feet and side of our Blessed Saviour that invaluably-precious blood of the Son of God is that whereby we are redeemed whereby we are justified whereby we are saved Oh that our Souls might have had leisure to dwell a while upon the meditation of those dreadfull torments we are freed from of that infinite goodnesse that hath freed us of that happy exchange of a glorious condition to which we are freed But the publick occasion of this day calls off my speech and invites me to the celebration of the sensible mercy of God in our late Temporal deliverance Wherein let me first blesse the God of our Salvation that hath put it into the heart of his chosen Servant to set up an Altar in this sacred threshing-floor and to offer up this daies Sacrifice to his name for the stay of our late mortal contagion How well it becomes our Gideon to be personally exemplary as in the beating of this Earthen pitcher in the first publick act of Humiliation so in the lighting of this Torch of publick joy and sounding the Trumpet of a thankfull jubilation and how well will it become us to follow so pious so gracious an example Come therefore all ye that fear the Lord and let us recount what he hath done for our Souls Come let us blesse the Lord the God of our Salvation that loadeth us daily with benefits the God to whom belong the issues of death Let us blesse him in his infinite Essence and Power blesse him in his unbounded and just Soveraignty blesse him in his marvellous Beneficence large continual undeserved blesse him in his Preservations blesse him in his Deliverances We may but touch at the two last How is
desire to save the labour of Transcriptions I found it not unfit the World should see what Preparative was given for so stirring a Potion neither can there be so much need in these languishing times of any discourse as that which serves to quicken our Mortification wherein I so much rejoyce to have so happily met with those Reverend Bishops who led the way and followed me in this Holy Service The God of Heaven make all our endeavours effectuall to the saving of the Souls of his people Amen A SERMON PREACHED To his Majestie on the Sunday before the Fast being March 30. at White-hall In way of preparation for that holy Exercise By the B. of EXCESTER Galat. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ Neverthelesse I live c. HE that was once tossed in the confluence of two Seas Acts 27. 41. was once no lesse streightned in his resolutions betwixt life and death Phil. 1. 23. Neither doth my Text argue him in any other case here As there he knew not whether he should chuse so here he knew not whether he had I am crucified there he is dead yet I live there he is alive again yet not I there he lives not but Christ in me there he more then lives This holy correction makes my Text full of wonders full of sacred riddles 1. The living God is dead upon the Crosse Christ crucified 2. S. Paul who died by the sword dies on the Cross 3. S. Paul who was not Paul till after Christ's death is yet crucified with Christ 4. S. Paul thus crucified yet lives 5. S. Paul lives not himself whiles he lives 6. Christ who is crucified lives in Paul who was crucified with him See then here both a Lent and an Easter A Lent of Mortification I am crucified with Christ an Easter of Resurrection and life I live yet not I but Christ lives in me The Lent of my Text will be sufficient as proper for this season wherein my speech shall passe through three long stages of discourse Christ crucified S. Paul crucified S. Paul crucified with Christ In all which your Honourable and Christian patience shall as much shorten my way as my care shall shorten the way to your patience Christ's Cross is the first lesson of our infancy worthy to be our last and all The great Doctor of the Gentiles affected not to flie any higher pitch Grande crucis Sacramentum as Ambrose This is the greatest wonder that ever earth or heaven yielded God incarnate was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but God suffering and dying was so much more as Death is more penal then Birth The God-head of man and the blood of God are two such Miracles as the Angels of Heaven can never enough look into never admire enough Ruffin tells us that among the Sacred Characters of the Egyptians the Cross was antiently one which was said to signifie eternal life hence their Learneder sort were converted to and confirmed in the Faith Surely we know that in God's Hieroglyphicks Eternal Life is both represented and exhibited to us by the Crosse That the Crosse of Christ was made of the Tree of Life a slip whereof the Angels gave to Adam's son out of Paradise is but a Jewish Legend Galatine may believe it not we but that it is made the Tree of Life to all believers we are sure This is the only scale of Heaven never man ascended thither but by it By this Christ himself climb'd up to his own glory Dominus regnavit à ligno as Tertullian translates that of the Psalm Father glorifie thy name that is saith he Duc me ad crucem Lift me up to the tree not of my shame but of my triumph Behold we preach Christ crucified saith Saint Paul to the Jews a stumbling-block to the Greeks foolishnesse but to them which are called Christ the power of God and the wisdome of God 1 Cor. 1. 23. Foolish men that stumble at power and deride wisdome Upbraid us now ye fond Jews and Pagans with a Crucified Saviour It is our glory it is our happinesse which ye make our reproach Had not our Saviour died he could have been no Saviour for us had not our Saviour died we could not have lived See now the flag of our dear Redeemer this Cross shining eminently in loco pudoris in our foreheads and if we had any place more high more conspicuous more honourable there we would advance it O blessed Jesu when thou art thus lifted up on thy Cross thou drawest all hearts unto thee there thou leadest captivity captive and givest gifts unto men Ye are deceived O ye blinde Jews and Painims ye are deceived it is not a Gibbet it is a Throne of Honour to which our Saviour is raised a Throne of such Honour as to which Heaven and earth and hell do and must vail The Sun hides his awfull head the earth trembles the rocks rend the graves open and all the frame of Nature doth homage to their Lord in this secret but Divine pomp of Crucifixion And whiles ye think his feet and hands despicably fixed behold he is powerfully trampling upon Hell and Death and setting up trophees of his most glorious Victory and scattering everlasting Crowns and Scepters unto all Believers O Saviour I do rather more adore thee on the Calvary of thy Passion then on the Tabor of thy Transsiguration or the Olivet of thine Ascension and cannot so effectuously blesse thee for Pater clarifica Father glorifie me as for My God my God why hast thou forsaken me sith it is no news for God to be great and glorious but for the Eternal and ever-living God to be abased to be abased unto death to the death of the Cross is that which could not but amaze the Angels and confound Devils and so much more magnifies thine infinite Mercy by how much an infinite person would become more ignominious All Hosannas of men all Allellujahs of Saints and Angels come short of this Majestick humiliation Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sits upon the throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever Revel 5. 13. And ye Honourable and beloved as ever ye hope to make musick in Heaven learn to tune your harps to the note and ditty of these Heavenly Elders Rejoice in this and rejoice in nothing but this Cross not in your transitory Honours Titles Treasures which will at the last leave you inconsolately sorrowfull but in this Cross of Christ whereby the world is crucified to you and you to the world Oh clip and embrace this pretious Cross with both your arms and say with that blessed Martyr Amor meus crucifixus est My Love is crucified Those that have searched into the monuments of Jerusalem write that our Saviour was crucified with his face to the West which howsoever spightfully meant of the Jews as not allowing him worthy to look on the Holy City and Temple yet was not without a mysterie Oculi ejus super Gentes respiciunt
His eyes look to the Gentiles c. saith the Psalmist As Christ therefore on his Cross looked towards us sinners of the Gentiles so let us look up to him Let our eyes be lift up to this Brazen Serpent for the cure of the deadly stings of that old Serpent See him O all ye beholders see him hanging upon the Tree of shame of curse to rescue you from curse and confusion and to feoâ—â—e you in everlasting Blessednesse See him stretching out his arms to receive and embrace you hanging down his head to take view of your misery opening his precious side to receive you into his bosome opening his very heart to take you in thither pouring out thence water to wash you and blood to redeem you O all ye Nazarites that passe by out of this dead Lion seek and finde the true honey of unspeakable and endlesse comfort And ye great Masters of Israel whose lips professe to preserve knowledge leave all curious and needlesie disquisitions and with that Divine and extatical Doctor of the Gentiles care only to know to preach Christ and him crucified But this though the sum of the Gospel is not the main drift of my Text I may not dwell in it though I am loth to part with so sweet a meditation From Christ crucified turn your eyes to Paul crucified you have read him dying by the Sword hear him dying by the Cross and see his moral spiritual living Crucifixion Our Apostle is two men Saul and Paul the old man and the new in respect of the Old man he is crucified and dead to the law of sin so as that sin is dead in him neither is it otherwise with every regenerate Sin hath a body as well as the man hath Who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7. 24. a body that hath lims and parts Mortifie your earthly members saith our Apostle Colos 3. 5. Not the lims of our humane body which are made of earth so should we be hosles naturae as Bernard but the sinfull lims that are made of corruption Fornication uncleanness inordinate affection c. The 〈◊〉 of sin is wicked devices the heart of sin wicked desires the hands and 〈◊〉 wicked executions the tongue of sin wicked words the eyes of sin 〈◊〉 apprehensions the forehead of sin impudent profession of evil the back of sin a strong supportation and maintenance of evil all this body of sin is not only put to death but to shame too so as it is dead with disgrace I am crucified S. Paul speaks not this singularly of himself but in the person of the Renewed sin doth not cannot live a vital and vigorous life in the Regenerate Wherefore then say you was the Apostles complaint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Mark I beseech you it was the body of sin not the life of sin a body of death not the life of that body or if this body had yet some life it was such a life as is left in the lims when the head is struck off some dying quiverings rather as the remainders of a life that was then any act of a life that is or if a further life such a one as in swowns and fits of Epilepsie which yields breath but not sense or if some kinde of sense yet no motion or if it have some kinde of motion in us yet no manner of dominion over us What power motion sense relicks of life are in a fully-crucified man Such a one may waft up and down with the winde but cannot move out of any internal principle Sin and Grace cannot more stand together in their strength then life and death In remisse degrees all contraries may be lodged together under one roof S. Paul swears that he dies daily yet he lives so the best man sins hourly even whiles he obeys but the powerfull and over-ruling sway of sin is incompatible with the truth of Regeneration Every Esau would be carrying away a Blessing no man is willing to sit out Ye shall have strong drinkers as Esay calls them Esay 5. 22. neighing stallions of lust as Jeremy calls them Jer. 5. 8. mighty hunters in oppression as Nimrod Gen. 10. 9. rotten talkers Ephes 4. 29. which yet will be challenging as deep a share in Grace as the conscionablest Alas how many millions do miserably delude themselves with a mere pretence of Christianity Aliter vivunt aliter loquuntur as he said of the Philosophers Vain Hypocrites they must know that every Christian is a crucified man How are they dead to their fins that walk in their sins how are their sins dead in them in whom they stir reign flourish Who doth not smile to hear of a dead man that walks Who derides not the solecism of that Actor which exprest himself fully dead by saying so What a mockery is this eyes full of lust itching ears scurrilous tongues bloody hands hearts full of wickedness and yet dead Deceive not your Souls dear Christians if ye love them This false death is the way to the true eternal incomprehensibly-wofull death of body and Soul If ye will needs doe so walk on ye falsly-dead in the waies of your old sins be sure these paths shall lead you down to the chambers of everlasting death If this be the hanging up of your corruptions fear to hang in hell Away with this hateful simulation God is not mocked Ye must either kill or die Kill your sins or else they will be sure to kill your Souls apprehend arraign condemn them fasten them to the tree of shame and if they be not dead already break their legs and arms disable them to all offensive actions as was done to the Thieves in the Gospel so shall you say with our Blessed Apostle I am crucified Neither is it thus onely in matter of notorious crime and grosse wickednesse but thus it must be in the universal carriage of our lives and the whole habitual frame of our dispositions in both these we are we must be crucified Be not deceived my Brethren it is a sad and austere thing to be a Christian This work is not frolick jovial plausible there is a certain thing call'd true Mortification required to this businesse and whoever heard but there was pain in death but among all deaths in crucifying What a torture must there needs be in this act of violence what a distention of the body whose weight is rack enough to it self what straining of the joynts what nailing of hands and feet Never make account to be Christians without the hard tasks of Penitence It will cost you tears sighs watchings self-restraints self-struglings self-denials This word is not more harsh then true Ye delicate Hypocrites what do you talk of Christian profession when ye will not abate a dish from your belly nor spare an hours sleep from your eyes nor cast off an offensive rag from your backs for your
but dead in sin Colos 2. 13. yea with Lazarus quatriduani and ill-senting yea if that will adde any thing as St. Jude's trees or as they say of acute Scotus twice dead Would ye arise It is only Godliness that can doe it Ye are risen up through the faith in the operation of God Col. 2. 12. This only can call us out of the grave of our sins Arise thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and christ shall give thee life Christ is the Author Godliness is the means All ye that hear me this day either ye are alive or would be Life is sweet every one challenges it Do ye live willingly in your sins Let me tell you ye are dead in your sins This life is a death If you wish to live comfortably here and gloriously hereafter it is Godliness that must mortifie this life in sin that must quicken you from this death in sin Flatter your selves how you please ye great Gallants of both Sexes ye think your selves goodly pieces without Godliness ye are the worst kinde of carkasses for as death or not-being is the worst condition that can befall a creature so death in sin is so much the worst kind of death by how much Grace is better then Nature A living Dog or Toad is better then a thus-dead sinner Would ye rise out of this loathsome and woful plight it is Godliness that must breath Grace into your dead lims and that must give you the motions of holy Obedience Is it not a wonder to cast out Devils I tell you the corporal possession of ill spirits is not so rare as the spiritual is rise No natural man is free One hath the spirit of errour 1 Tim. 4. 1. another the spirit of fornications Ose 4. 12. another the spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. 7. another the spirit of slumber another the spirit of giddiness another the spirit of pride all have spiritum mundi the spirit of the world 1 Cor. 2. 12. Our story in Guliel Neubrigensis tells us of a Countryman of ours one Kettle of Farnham in King Henry the Second's time that had the faculty to see spirits by the same token that he saw the Devils spitting over the Drunkards shoulders into their pots the same faculty is recorded of Antony the Eremite and Sulpitius reports the same of Saint Martin Surely there need none of these eyes to discern every natural mans Soul haunted with these evil Angels Let me assure you all ye that have not yet felt the power of Godliness ye are as truely though spiritually carried by evil spirits into the deeps of your known wickedness as ever the Gadarene hogs were carried by them down the precipice into the Sea Would you be free from this hellish tyranny only the power of Godliness can doe it 2 Tim. 2. 26 27. Is peradventure God will give them repentance that they may recover themselves out of the snares of the Devil and Repentance is you know a main part of Godliness If ever therefore ye be dispossessed of that Evil one it is the power of Godliness that must doe it What speak I of power I had like to have ascribed to it the acts of Omnipotencie And if I had done so it had not been much amiss for what is Godliness but one of those rayes that beams forth from that Almighty Deity what but that same Dextra Excelsi whereby he works mightily upon the Soul Now when I say the man is strong is it any derogation to say his arme is strong Faith and Prayer are no small pieces of Godliness and what is it that God can doe which Prayer and Faith cannot doe Will ye see some instances of the further acts of Godliness Is it not an act of Omnipotence to change Nature Jannes and Jambres the Aegyptian Sorcerers may juggle away the Staffe and bring a Serpent into the room of it none but a Divine power which Moses wrought by could change the Rod into a Serpent or the Serpent into a Rod. Nothing is above Nature but the God of Nature nothing can change Nature but that which is above it for Nature is regular in her proceedings and will not be crost by a finite power since all finite Agents are within her command Is it not a manifest change of the nature of the Wolf to dwell quietly with the Lamb of the Leopard to dwell with the Kid of the Lion to eat straw with the Oxe of the Aspe to play with the child How shall this be It is an idle conceit of the Hebrews that savage beasts shall forgo their hurtful natures under the Messias No but rational beasts shall alter their dispositions The ravenous Oppressor is the Wolf the tyrannical Persecutor is the Leopard the venemous Heretick is the Aspe these shall turn innocent and useful by the power of Godliness for then the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord Esay 11. 6 c. Is it not a manifest change of nature for the Ethiopian to turn white for the Leopard to turn spotless This is done when those doe good which are accustomed to evil Jer. 13. 23. And this Godliness can doe Is it not a manifest change of nature for the Camel to pass through a needles eye this is done when through the power of Godliness ye Great and rich men get to Heaven Lastly it is an easie thing to turn men into beasts a cup too much can doe it but to turn beasts into men men into Saints Devils into Angels it is no less then a work of Omnipotencie And this Godliness can doe But to rise higher then a change Is it not an act of Omnipotencie to create Nature can go on in her track whether of continuing what she actually finds to be or of producing what she finds to be potentially in pre-existing Causes but to make new matter transcends her power This Godliness can doe here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new Creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. There is in Nature no predisposition to Grace the man must be no less new then when he was made first of the dust of the earth and that earth of nothing Novus homo Eph. 4. 24. How is this done by Creation and how is he created in righteousness and holiness Holiness to God Righteousness to men both make up Godliness A Regeneration is here a Creation Progenuit is expressed by Creavit Jam. 1. 18. and this by the word of truth Old things are passed saith the Apostle all must be new If we will have ought to doe with God our bodies must be renewed by a glorious Resurrection ere they can enjoy Heaven our Souls must be renewed by Grace ere we can enjoy God on earth Are there any of us pained with our heart of stone We may be well enough the stone of the reines or bladder is a woful pain but the stone of the heart is more deadly He can by this power take it out and give us an
Jesus Christ the Righteous to whom c. St. PAULS COMBAT IN TWO SERMONS Preached at the Court to his MAJESTIE in Ordinary Attendance By J. H. 1 Cor. 15. 32. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OUR Saviour foretold us that these last days should be quarrelsome all the world doth either act or talk of fighting Give me leave therefore to fall upon the common Theme of the times and to tell you of an holy Combat Saint Peter tels us there are many knots in S. Paul's Epistles this may well go for one of them which is the relation of his Conflict at Ephesus There are that have held it literal and those not mean nor onely modern Authors Nicephorus tels us a sound tale of S. Paul's commitment to prison by Hieronymus the Governour of Ephesus his miraculous deliverance for the Christening of Eubula and Artemilla his voluntary return to his Gaole his casting to the Lion of the beast couching at the feet of the Saint of the hail-storm sending away the beholders with broken heads and the Governour with one ear shorn off of the Lions escape to the mountains It is a wonder in what mint he had it There was indeed a Theatre at Ephesus for such purposes and Christianos ad leonem was a common word as we find in Tertullian Ignatius Tecla Prisca and many other blessed Martyrs were corn allotted to this mill But what is this to S. Paul's Combat It is one thing to be cast to the beasts as an offender another thing to fight with beasts as a Champion a difference which I wonder the sharp eyes of Erasmus saw not Those were forced by the sentence of condemnation these Voluntaries as in the Jogo de toros those were brought to suffer these came to kill those naked these armed Can any man be so senseless as to think that S. Paul tricubitalis ille as Chrysostome cals him would put himself into the Theatre with his sword and target to maintain a duel with the Lion Thus he must doe else he did not according to the Letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if it be pleaded that some bloody sentence might cast him into the Theatre to be devoured and his will and natural care of self-preservation incited him to his own defence is it possible that so faithful an Historian as S. Luke should in his Acts omit this passage more memorable then all the rest that he hath recorded Indeed S. Paul who had reason to keep the best register of his own life hath reported some things of himself which S. Luke hath not particularized he tels us of five scourgings three whippings three shipwracks whereas S. Luke tels us but of one shipwrack Act. 27. of one scourging Act. 16. 23. But so eminent an occurrence as this could not have passed in silence at least amongst that catalogue of less dangers his own Pen would not have smothered it Yea let me be bold to say that this not onely was not done but could not be Paul was a Citizen of Rome if that priviledge saved him from lashes Act. 22. 25. much more from the beasts their contemptible jaws were no death for a Roman I am with those Fathers Tertullian Chrysostome Jerome Theophylact others who take this metaphorically of men in shape beasts in condition paralleling it with 2 Tim. 4. 17. I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lion that is Nero and with that of the Psalmist Ne tradas bestiis animas confitentes tibi Give not unto the beasts the souls that confess thee as the Vulgar reads Psal 74. 19. Who then were these beasts at Ephesus Many and great Authors take it of Demetrius his Faction and their busie tumult Acts 19. Neither will I strictly examine with S. Chrysostome whether S. Paul sent away this former Epistle from Ephesus before those broils of their Diana and her Silver-smiths as may seem to be gathered by conferring of S. Luke's journal with S. Paul's Epistle Others take it of those Ephesian Conjurers Acts 19. Tertullian hits it home whiles in a generality he construes it of those beasts of the Asiatick pressure whereof S. Paul speaks 2 Cor. 1. 8. That text glosses upon this at large turn your eyes to that Commentary of S. Paul For we would not have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia that we were pressed out of measare above strength insomuch as that we despaired of life But we had the sentence of death in our selves Lo here the Beasts lo here the Combat Ephesus was the mother-City of Asia there S. Paul spent three years with such perpetual and hot bickerings that his very life was hopeless As some great Conquerour therefore desires to have his prime and most famous victory ingraven in his last Monument so doth our Apostle single out this Ephesian I fought with beasts at Ephesus My Text then shall be this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But as this word is a compound so it compounds my Text and discourse of two parts the first comprehends the Beasts wherewith S. Paul conslicts the latter the conflicts that he had with those Beasts Both of them worthy of your most careful attention My first subjects is harsh and therefore will need a fair construction The world is a wide Wilderness wherein we converse with wild and savage creatures we think them men they are beasts It is contrary to the delusions of Lycanthropy there he that is a man thinks himself a beast here he that is a beast thinks himself a man and draws others eyes into the same errour Let no man misconstrue me as if in a Timon-like or Cynick humour I were fallen out with our creation I know what the Psalmist saies Thou hast made man little lower then the Angels Psal 8. 5. there is but paulò minùs I know some of whom it is said sicut Angeli as the Angels of God yea yet more there are those of whom it is said Dii estis ye are Gods besides these every renewed man is a Saint his Regeneration advances him above the sphere of mere Humanity but let him be but a very man that is a man corrupted I dare say though he be set in honour he is more then compared to the beast that perisheth Far be it from us then to cast mire into the face of our Creator God never made man such as he is it is our sin that made our Soul to grovel and if the mercy of our Maker have not condemned our hands to fore-legs how can that excuse us from bestiality Neither let us be thought to strike Grace through the sides of Nature when it pleaseth God to breath upon us again in our Renovation we cease to be what we made our selves then do we uncase the beast and put on an Angel It is with depraved man in his impure naturals that we must maintain this quarrel we cannot
it For as that Father elsewhere In thy sight shall none living be justified He said not no man but none living not Evangelists not Angels not Thrones not Dominions If thou shalt mark the iniquities even of thine Elect saith S. Bernard Who shall abide it To say now that our actual Justice which is imperfect through the admixtion of venial sins ceaseth not to be both true and in a sort perfect Justice is to say there may be an unjust Justice or a just Injustice that even muddie water is clear or a leprous face beautiful Besides all experience evinceth our wants For as it is S. Austin's true observation He that is renewed from day to day is not all renewed so much he must needs be in his old corruption And as he speaks to his Hierome of the degrees of Charity There is in some more in some less in some none at all but the fullest measure which can receive no encrease is not to be found in any man while he lives here and so long as it may be encreased surely that which is less then it ought is faulty from which faultiness it must needs follow that there is no just man upon earth which doeth good and sinneth not and thence in Gods sight shall none living be justified Thus he To the very last hour our Prayer must be Forgive us our trespasses Our very daily endeavour therefore of increasing our Renovation convinceth us sufficiently of Imperfection and the imperfection of our Regeneration convinceth the impossibility of Justification by such Inherent Righteousness In short therefore since this Doctrine of the Roman Church is both new and erroneous against Scripture and Reason we have justly refused to receive it into our Belief and for such refusal are unjustly ejected CHAP. VI. The Newness of the Doctrine of Merit MErit is next wherein the Council of Trent is no less peremptory If any man shall say that the good works of a man justified do not truely merit eternal life let him be Anathema It is easie for Errour to shroud it self under the ambiguitie of words The word Merit hath been of large use with the Ancients who would have abhorred the present sense with them it sounded no other then Obtaining or Impetration not as now earning in the way of condign wages as if there were an equalitie of due proportion betwixt our Works and Heaven without all respects of pact promise favour according to the bold Comment of Scotus Tolet Pererius Costerus Weston and the rest of that strain Far far was the gracious humility of the Ancient Saints from this so high a presumption Let S. Basil speak for his fellows Eternal rest remains for those who in this life have lawfully striven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not for the Merits of their deeds but of the grace of that most munificent God in which they have trusted Why did I name one when they all with full consent as Cassander witnesseth profess to repose themselves wholy upon the mere Mercie of God and Merit of Christ with an humble renunciation of all worthiness in their own works Yea that unpartial Author derives this Doctrine even through the lower Ages of the Schoolmen and later Writers Thomas of Aquine Durand Adrian de Trajecto afterwards Pope Clictoveus and delivers it for the voice of the then present Church And before him Thomas Waldensis the great Champion of Pope Martine against the miscalled Hereticks of his own name professes him the sounder Divine and truer Catholick which simply denies any such Merit and ascribes all to the mere Grace of God and the will of the giver What should I need to darken the aire with a cloud of witnesses their Gregory Ariminensis their Brugensis Marsilius Pighius Eckius Ferus Stella Faber Stapulensis Let their famous Preacher Royard shut up all Quid igitur is qui Merita praetendit c. Whosoever he be that pretends his Merits what doth he else but deserve hell by his Works Let Bellarmine's Tutissimum est c. ground it self upon S. Bernard's experimental resolution Periculosa habitatio est Perilous is their dwelling-place who trust in their own Merits perilous because ruinous All these and many more teach this not as their own Doctrine but as the Churches Either they and the Church whose voice they are are Hereticks with us or we Orthodox with them and they and we with the Ancients The Noveltie of this Romane Doctrine is accompanied with Errour against Scripture against Reason Sect. 2. Against Scripture THat God doth graciously accept and munificently recompence our good Works even with an incomprehensible Glory we doubt not we deny not but this either out of the riches of his Mercy or the justice of his Promise But that we can earn this at his hands out of the intrinsecal worthiness of our acts is a challenge too high for flesh and blood yea for the Angels of Heaven How direct is our Saviours instance of the servant come out of the field and commanded by his Master to attendance Doth he thank that Servant because he did the things that were commanded him I trow not So likewise ye when ye shall have done all things which are commanded you say We are unprofitable servants Unprofitable perhaps you will say in respect of meriting thanks not unprofitable in respect of meriting wages For to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt True therefore herein our case differeth from servants that we may not look for God's reward as of Debt but as of Grace By Grace are ye saved through Faith neither is it our earning but God's gift Both it cannot be For if by Grace then it is no more of Works even of the most Renewed otherwise Grace is no more Grace but if it be of Works then it is no more Grace otherwise Work should be no more Work Now not by works of Righteousness which we have done at our best but according to his Mercy he saveth us Were our Salvation of Works then should Eternal life be our wages but now The wages of sin is Death but the gift of God is Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Sect. 3. Against Reason IN very Reason where all is of mere Duty there can be no Merit for how can we deserve reward by doing that which if we did not we should offend It is enough for him that is obliged to his task that his work is well taken Now all that we can possibly doe and more is most justly due unto God by the bond of our Creation of our Redemption by the charge of his Royal Law and that sweet Law of his Gospel Nay alas we are far from being able to compass so much as our duty In many things we sin all It is enough that in our Glory we cannot sin though their Faber Stapulensis would not yield so much and taxeth
future Errours in blowing up the very grounds of these humane devices The First and main ground of both is the remainders of some temporal punishments to be pay'd after the guilt and eternal punishment remitted the driblets of Venial sins to be reckon'd for when the Mortal are defraied Hear what God saith I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins Loe can the Letter be read that is blotted out Can there be a back-reckoning for that which shall not be remembred I have done away thy transgressions as a Cloud What sins can be lesse then transgressions What can be more clearly dispersed then a Cloud Wash me and I shall be whiter then snow Who can tell where the spot was when the skin is rinsed If we confesse our sins he is faithfull to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse Loe he cleanseth us from the guilt and forgives the punishment What are our sins but debts What is the infliction of punishment but an exaction of payment What is our remission but a striking off that score And when the score is struck off what remains to pay Remitte debita Forgive our debts is our daily Prayer Our Saviour tells the Paralitick Thy sins are forgiven thee in the same words implying the removing of his Disease If the sin be gone the punishment cannot stay behinde We may smart by way of chastisement after the freest remission not by way of revenge for our amendment not for God's satisfaction The Second ground is a middle condition betwixt the state of eternal life and death of no lesse torment for the time then Hell it self whose flames may burn off the rust of our remaining sins the issues wherefrom are in the power of the great Pastor of the Church How did this escape the notice of our Saviour Verily verily I say unto you he that heareth my Word and believeth in him that sent me hath everlasting life and comes not into judgment as the Vulgar it self terms it but is passed from death unto life Behold a present possession and immediate passage no judgement intervening no torment How was this hid from the great Doctor of the Gentiles who putting himself into the common case of the believing Corinthians professes We know that if once our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved we have a building of God not made with hands eternall in the Heavens The dissolution of the one is the possession of the other here is no interposition of time of estate The Wise man of old could say The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them Upon their very going from us they are in peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. John heard from the heavenly voice From their very dying in the Lord is their blessedness Sect. 3. Indulgences against Reason IT is absurd in Reason to think that God should forgive our Talents and arrest us for the odde Farthings Neither is it lesse absurd to think that any living soul can have superfluities of Satisfaction whenas all that man is capable to suffer cannot be sufficient for one and that the least sin of his own the wages whereof is eternall death or that those superfluities of humane satisfaction should piece up the infinite and perfectly-meritorious superabundance of the Son of God or that this supposed treasure of Divine and humane satisfactions should be kept under the key of some one sinfull man or that this one man who cannot deliver his own Soul from Purgatory no not from Hell it self should have power to free what others he pleaseth from those fearfull flames to the full Gaol-delivery of that direfull prison which though his great power can doe yet his no lesse charity will not doth not or that the same Pardon which cannot acquit a man from one hours tooth-ach should be of force to give his Soul ease from the temporary pains of another world Lastly Guilt and Punishment are Relatives and can no more be severed then a perfect forgivenesse and a remaining compensation can stand together This Doctrine therefore of Papal Indulgences as it led the way to the further discovery of the corruptions of the degenerated Church of Rome so it still continues justly branded with Noveltie and Errour and may not be admitted into our belief and we for rejecting it are unjustly refused CHAP. XII The Newness of Divine Service in an unknown tongue THat Prayers and other Divine offices should be done in a known tongue understood of the people is not more available to edification as their Cajetan liberally confesseth then consonant to the practice of all Antiquity insomuch as Lyranus freely In the Primitive Church blessings and all other services were done in the vulgar tongue What need we look back so far when even the Lateran Council which was but in the year 1215. under Innocent the third makes this Decree Quoniam in plerisque Because in many parts within the same City and Diocese people are mixed of divers languages having under one Faith divers Rites and fashions we strictly command that the Bishops of the said Cities or Dioceses provide fit and able men who according to the diversities of their Rites and Languages may celebrate Divine Services and administer the Sacraments of the Church to them instructing them both in word and example Cardinall Bellarmine's evasion is very grosse That in that place Innocentius and the Council speak only of the Greek and Latine tongue For then saith he Constantinople was newly taken by the Romanes by reason whereof there was in Greece a mixture of Greeks and Latines insomuch as they desired that in such places of frequence two Bishops might be allowed for the ordering of those several Nations Whereupon it was concluded that since it were no other then monstrous to appoint two Bishops unto one See it should be the charge of that one Bishop to provide such under him as should administer all holy things to the Grecians in Greek and in Latine to the Latines For who sees not that the Constitution is general Plerisque partibus for very many parts of the Christian world and Populi diversarum linguarum People of sundry languages not as Bellarmine cunningly diversae linguae of a diverse language And if these two only Languages had been meant why had it not been as easie to specifie them as to intimate them by so large a circumlocution The Synod is said to be universal comprehending all the Patriarchs seventy seven Metropolitans and the most eminent Divines of both East and West Churches to the number of at least 2212 persons or as some others 2285. besides the Embassadors of all Christian Princes of several Languages Now shall we think that there were in all their Territories and Jurisdictions no mixtures of inhabitants but only of Grecians and Romans or
into that sacred order that we stick at There we finde that none but Christ can make a Sacrament for none but he who can give Grace can ordain a Signe and Seal of Grace Now it is evident enough that these adscititious Sacraments were never of Christs institution So was not Confirmation as our Alexander of Hales and Holcot so was not Matrimony as Durand so was not Extreme Unction as Hugo Lombard Bonaventure Halensis Altissiodore by the confession of their Suarez These were ancient Rites but they are new Sacraments All of them have their allowed and profitable use in Gods Church though not in so high a nature except that of Extreme Unction which as it is an apish mis-imitation of that extraordinary course which the Apostolick times used in their cures of the sick so it is grosly mis-applied to other purposes then were intended in the first institution Then it was Ungebant sanabant the oyle miraculously conferring bodily recovery but now Non nisi in mortis articulo adhibetur it is not used but upon the very point of death as Cajetan and Cassander confesse and all experience manifests and by Felix the Fourth drawn to a necessity of addresse to eternall life Sect 2. Seven Sacraments beside Scripture NOT to scan particulars which all yield ample exceptions but to wind them all up in one bottome Whosoever shall look into the Scripture shall finde it apparent that as in the time of mans Innocency there were but Two Sacraments the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge so before and under the Law however they had infinite Rites yet in the proper sense they had but Two Sacraments the same in effect with those under the Gospel the one the Sacrament of Initiation which was their Circumcision parallel'd by that Baptisme which succeeded it the other the Sacrament of our holy Confirmation that spirituall meat and drink which was their Paschall Lambe and Manna and water from the rock prefiguring the true Lambe of God and bread of life and blood of our Redemption The great Apostle of the Gentiles that well knew the Analogy hath compared both Moreover brethren I would not have you ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized in the cloud and in the sea and all did eat the same spirituall meat and all did drink the same spirituall drink for they drank of that spirituall Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ What is this in any just construction but that the same two Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper which we celebrate under the Gospel were the very same with those which were celebrated by Gods ancient people under the Law they two and no more Hoc facite Doe this is our warrant for the one and Ite baptizate c. Goe teach and Baptize for the other There is deep silence in the rest Sect. 3. Against Reason IN Reason it must be yielded that no man hath power to set to a seal but he whose the writing is Sacraments then being the seals of Gods gracious evidences whereby he hath conveyed to us eternall life can be instituted by no other then the same power that can assure and perform life to his creature In every Sacrament therefore must be a Divine institution and command of an Element that signifies of a Grace that is signified of a word adjoyned to that element of an holy act adjoyned to that word Where these concur not there can be no true Sacrament and they are palpably missing in these five Adjections of the Church of Rome Lastly The Sacraments of the new Law as Saint Austin often flowed out of the side of Christ None flowed thence but the Sacrament of water which is Baptisme and the Sacrament of blood in the Supper whereof the Author saith This cup is the new Testament in my blood which is shed for you The rest never flowing either from the side or from the lips of Christ are as new and mis-named Sacraments justly rejected by us and we thereupon as unjustly censured CHAP. XVI The Newnesse of the Doctrine of Tradition THE chief ground of these and all other Errours in the Church of Rome is the over-valuing of Traditions which the Tridentine Synod professes to receive and reverence with no lesse pious affection then the Books of the Old and New Testament and that not in matter of Rite and History onely but of Faith and Manners also wherein as they are not unwilling to cast a kinde of imputation of imperfection upon the written Word so they make up the defects of it by the supply of unwritten Traditions to which indeed they are more beholden for the warrant of the greater part of their superadded Articles then to the Scriptures of God Both which are Points so dangerously envious as that Antiquity would have abhorred their mention Neither is any thing more common with the holy Fathers of the Church then the magnifying the compleat perfection of Scripture in all things needfull either to be believed or done What can be more full and clear then that of Saint Austine In his quae apertè c. In these things which are openly laid forth in Scripture are found all matters that contain either Faith or Manners Cardinall Bellarmine's elusion is not a little prejudicial to his own Cause He tells us that Saint Austin speaks of those Points which are simply necessary to Salvation for all men all which he acknowledges to be written by the Apostles But besides these there are many other things saith he which we have only by Tradition Will it not therefore hence follow that the common sort of Christians need not look at his Traditions that commonly men may be saved without them that Heaven may be attained though there were no Traditions Who will not now say Let me come to Heaven by Scripture goe you whither you will by Traditions To which adde that agreat yea the greater part if we may believe some of their own of that which they call Religion is grounded upon onely Tradition If then Tradition be onely of such things as are not simply necessary to Salvation then the greater part of their mis-named Religion must needs be yielded for simply unnecessary to all men And if we may be saved without them and be made Citizens of Heaven how much more may we without them be members of the true Church on Earth As for this place S. Augustine's words are full and comprehensive expressing all those things which contain either Faith or Manners whether concerning Governours or people If now they can finde out any thing that belongs not either to belief or action we do willingly give it up to their Traditions but all things which pertain to either of those are openly comprized in Scripture What can be more direct then that of holy Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the two other Books and seconds that so I might return my payment cum foenore In that your Lordships Tractate I could not but observe the lively Image of your self that is according to the generall interpretation of all sound Professours of the Gospel of christ of a most Orthodox Divine And now remembring the Accordance your Lordship hath with others touching the Argument of your Book I must needs reflect upon my self who have long since defended the same Point in the defence of many others I do therefore much blame the Petulcity of whatsoever Author that should dare to impute a Popish affection to him whom besides his excellent Writings and Sermons God's visible eminent and resplendent Graces of Illumination Zeal Piety and Eloquence have made truely Honourable and glorious in the Church of Christ Let me say no more I suffer in your suffering not more in consonancy of Judgement then in the sympathy of my Affection Goe on dear Brother with your deserved Honour in God's Church with holy courage knowing that the dirty feet of an adversary the more they tread and rub the more lustre they give the figure graven in Gold Our Lord Jesus preserve us to the glory of his saving Grace Your Lordships unanimous friend and Brother THO. Covent and Litchfield TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN LORD Bishop of SALISBURY MY Lord I send you this little Pamphlet for your censure It is not credible how strangely I have been traduced every where for that which I conceive to be the common Opinion of Reformed Divines yea of reasonable men that is for affirming the true Being and Visibility of the Roman Church You see how clearly I have endeavoured to explicate this harmless Position yet I perceive some tough misunderstandings will not be satisfied Your Lordship hath with great reputation spent many years in the Divinity-Chair of the famous University of Cambridge Let me therefore beseech you whose Learning and Sincerity is so throughly approved in God's Church that you would freely how shortly soever express your self in this Point and if you finde that I have deviated but one hairs breadth from the Truth correct me if not free me by your just Sentence What need I to intreat you to pity those whose desires of faithful offices to the Church of God are unthankfully repaied with Suspicion and Slander whose may not this case be I had thought I had sufficiently in all my Writings and in this very last Book of mine whence this quarrell is picked shewed my fervent zeal for God's Truth against that Antichristian Faction of Rome and yet I doubt not but your own ears can witness what I have suffered Yea as if this calumny were not enough there want not those whose secret whisperings cast upon me the foul aspersions of another Sect whose name is as much hated as little understood My Lord you know I had a place with you though unworthy in that famous Synod of Dort where howsoever sickness bereaved me of the houres of a conclusive Subscription yet your Lordship heard me with equall vehemency to the rest crying down the unreasonableness of that way God so love me as I do the tranquillity and happiness of his Church yet can I not so overaffect it that I would sacrifice one dram of Truth to it To that good God do I appeal as the witness of my sincere heart to his whole Truth and no-less-then-ever-zealous detestation of all Popery and Pelagianisme Your Lordship will be pleased to pardon this importunity and to vouchsafe your speedy Answer to Your much devoted and faithfull Brother JOS. EXON TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JOSEPH Lord Bishop of EXON these My LORD YOU desire my Opinion concerning an Assertion of yours whereat some have taken offence The Proposition was this That the Roman Church remains yet a True Visible Church The occasion which makes this an ill-sounding Proposition in the ears of Protestants especially such as are not throughly acquainted with School Distinctions is the usuall acception of the word True in our English Tongue For though men skilled in Metaphysicks hold it for a Maxime Ens Verum Bonum convertuntur yet with us he which shall affirm such a one is a true Christian a true Gentleman a true Scholar or the like he is conceived not onely to adscribe Trueness of Being unto all these but those due Qualities or requisite Actions whereby they are made commendable or praise-worthy in their severall kinds In this sense the Roman Church is no more a True Church in respect of Christ or those due Qualities and proper Actions which Christ requires then an arrant Whore is a true and loyall Wife unto her Husband I durst upon mine oath be one of your Compurgators that you never intended to adorn that Strumpet with the title of a true Church in this meaning But your own Writings have so fully cleared you herein that suspicion it self cannot reasonably suspect you in this Point I therefore can say no more concerning your mistaken Proposition then this If in that Treatise wherein it was delivered the Antecedents or Consequents were such as served fitly to lead the Reader into that Sense which under the word True comprehendeth onely Truth of Being or Existencie and not the due Qualities of the thing or Subject you have been causelesly traduced But on the other side if that Proposition comes in ex abrupto or stands solitarie in your Discourse you cannot marvell though by taking the word True according to the more ordinarie acception your true meaning was mistaken In brief your Proposition admits a true sense and in that sense is by the best Learned in our Reformed Church not disallowed For the Being of a Church does principally stand upon the gracious action of God calling men out of Darkness and Death unto the Participation of Light and Life in Christ Jesus So long as God continues this Calling unto any people though they as much as in them lies darken this Light and corrupt the means which should bring them to Life and Salvation in Christ yet where God calls men unto the Participation of Life in Christ by the Word and by the Sacraments there is the true Being of a Christian Church let men be never so false in their Expositions of God's Word or never so untrustie in mingling their own Traditions with God's Ordinances Thus the Church of the Jews lost not her Being of a Church when she became an Idolatrous Church And thus under the government of the Scribes and Pharisees who voided the Commandements of God by their own Traditions there was yet standing a true Church in which Zacharias Elizabeth the Virgin Mary and our Saviour himself was born who were members of that Church and yet participated not in the Corruptions thereof Thus to grant that the Romane was and is a True Visible Christian Church though in Doctrine a False and in Practice an Idolatrous Church is a true Assertion and of greater
of muck but beaten down and burned with the fire of Gods Word the walls of Wood Hay Stubble which the Babylonian builders had raised upon the old Foundation which is Christ Jesus and edified upon it a fair Palace of Silver Gold precious Stones This same is the Opinion also of my Collegues of the French Church of this City of London If any self-conceited Christian thinketh this an advantage rather then a disparagement and disgrace to that punk the Roman Church and taketh thereby occasion to persevere to be her Bawd or Stallion and to run a whoring with her I say with the Psalmist The wicked hath left off to be wise and to doe good and with the Angel He that is unjust let him be unjust still and he which is filthy let him be filthy still For neither must an honest heart speak a lie for the good that may come of it nor conceal in time and place a necessary Truth for any evil that may insue of it If it harden more and more the flinty hearts of some unto death it will soften and melt the iron hearts of others unto life that seeing among us the mud and dirt of humane Traditions wherewith the Pope and his Clergy had furred and soiled the bright-shining glasse of the Gospel wiped away from this heavenly mirror of God's favour they may come unto us and beholding with open face as in a glasse the glory of the Lord may be changed with us into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Which last effect I pray with my heart your Reconciler may have with those that are children of Peace And so recommending your Lordship with all your learned eloquent sound and usefull Labours to Gods most powerfull blessing and my self to the continuance of your godly Prayers and old Friendship I remain for ever Your Lordships most humble and affectionate Servant GILBERT PRIMROSE From London the 26. of February 1629. To my Worthy and much respected Friend Mr. H. CHOLMLEY MAster Cholmley I have perused your Learned and full Reply to Master Burton's Answer wherein you have in a judicious eye abundantly righted your self and cleared a just Cause so as the Reader would wonder where an Adversary might finde ground to raise an opposition But let me tell you were iâ— a Book written by the Pen of an Angel from Heaven in this Subject I should doubt whether to wish it publick How true how just soever the plea be I finde such is the self-love and partiality of our corrupt nature the quarrell is inlarged by multiplying of words When I see a Fire quenched with Oyle I will expect to see a Controversie of this nature stinted by publick altercation New matter still rises in the agitation gives hint to a fore-resolved Opposite of a fresh disquisition So as we may sooner see an end of the common Peace then of an unkindly jarre in the Church especially such a one as is fomented with a mistaken Zeal on the one side and with a confidence of Knowledge on the other Silence hath sometimes quieted such like mis-raised brabbles never interchange of words This very Question was on foot some forty years agoe in the hote chace of great Authors but whether through the ingenuity of the parties or some over-ruling act of Divine Providence it soon died without noise so I wish it may now doe Rather let the weaker Title goe away with the last word then the Church shall be distracted For that Position of mine which occasioned your Vindication you see it sufficiently abetted and determined by so Reverend Authority as admits no exception I dare say no Learned Divine of our own Church or the forain can but subscribe in this our sense to the Judgement of these Worthies To draw forth therefore this cord of contention to any further length were no lesse needlesse then prejudiciall to the publick peace He is not worthy to be satisfied that will yet wrangle As for those Personall aspersions that are cast upon you by Malice be perswaded to despise them These Western parts where your reputation is deservedly pretious know your zeal for Gods Truth no lesse fervent though better governed then the most fiery of your Censurers No man more hateth Popish Superstition onely your fault is that you do not more hate Errour then Injustice and cannot abide wrong measure offered to the worst enemy Neither be you troubled with that idle exprobration of a Prebendary retribution who would care for a contumely so void of truth God knows that worthlesse gift was conferred upon you ere this task came into either of our thoughts and whoso knows the entire respects betwixt us from our very Cradles till this day may well think that a Prebend of three pounds by the year need not goe for a Fee where there is so much and so ancient cause of dearness I am sorry to see such rancour under the coat of Zeal Surely nothing but mere Malice can be guilty of this charge no lesse then of that other envious challenge of your decay of Graces of falling from your first Love from industry to ease from a weekly to a monethly preaching when those that know the state of your Tiverton the four-parted division of that charge and your forced confinement to your own day by publick authority both Spirituall and Temporall must needs acquit you and cry down the wrong of an accuser As for the vigour of Gods good Graces in you both common and sanctifying all the Country are your ample witnesses I that have interknown you from our childhood cannot but professe to finde the entrance of your age no lesse above the best of your youth in abilities then in time and still no lesse fruitfull in promises of increase then in eminent performances What need I urge this your Adversaries do enough feel your worth So as to speak seriously I cannot sufficiently wonder at the liberty of those men who professing a strict conscience of their wayes dare let their Pens or Tongues loose to so injurious and uncharitable a detraction whereof they know the just avenger is in Heaven It should not be thus betwixt Brethren no not with Enemies For the main business there wants not confidence on either side I am appealed to by both an unmeet Judge considering my so deep ingagements But if my umpierage may stand I award an eternall silence to both parts Sit down in peace then you and your worthy Second whose young ripeness and modest and learned discourse is worthy of better entertainment then contempt and let your zealous Opponents say that you have overcome your selves in a resolved cessation of Pens and them in a love of Peace Farewell from Your loving Friend and ancient Collegue JOS. EXON OCCASIONALL MEDITATIONS BY JOS. EXON Set forth by R. H. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE My very good Lord JAMES Lord Viscount Doncaster Right Honourable FInding these Papers amongst others lying aside
they there is no cause why his greater gift should make me mutinous and malecontent I will thank my God for what I am for what I have and never quarrell with him for what I want CII Upon the sight of a fantasticall Zelot IT is not the intent of Grace to mould our Bodies anew but to make use of them as it findes us The Disposition of men much follows the temper of their bodily Humors This mixture of Humors wrought upon by Grace causeth that strange variety which we see in professions pretendedly Religious When Grace lights upon a sad Melancholick Spirit nothing is affected but Sullennesse and extreme Mortification and dislike even of lawfull Freedome nothing but Positions and Practices of severe Austerity when contrarily upon the Chearefull and lively all draws towards Liberty and Joy those thoughts do now please best which enlarge the heart to Mirth and contentation It is the greatest improvement of Christian wisdome to distinguish in all professions betwixt Grace and Humour to give God his own Glory and men their own Infirmities CIII Upon the sight of a Scavenger working in the Canell THE wise Providence of God hath fitted men with spirits answerable to their condition If mean men should bear the minds of great Lords no servile works would be done all would be Commanders and none could live If contrarily Great persons had the low spirits of drudges there could be no order no obedience because there should be none to command Now out of this discord of dispositions God hath contrived an excellent harmony of Government and Peace since the use which each sort must needs have of other bindes them to maintain the quality of their own ranks and to doe those offices which are requisite for the preservation of themselves and the publick As Inferiours then must blesse God for the Graces and Authority of their betters so must Superiours no lesse blesse him for the Humility and Serviceablenesse of the meaner and those which are of the mid rank must blesse him for both CIV Upon a pair of Spectacles I Look upon these not as Objects but as Helps as not meaning that my Sight should rest in them but passe through them and by their aide discern some other things which I desire to see Many such glasses my Soul hath and useth I look through the glasse of the Creatures at the power and wisdome of their Maker I look through the glasse of the Scriptures at the great Mystery of Redemption and the glory of an Heavenly inheritance I look through Gods Favours at his infinite Mercy through his Judgements at his incomprehensible Justice But as these Spectacles of mine presuppose a faculty in the Eye and cannot give me Sight when I want it but only clear that sight which I have no more can these glasses of the Creatures of Scriptures of Favours and Judgements inable me to apprehend those blessed Objects except I have an eye of Faith whereto they may be presented These helps to an unbelieving man are but as Spectacles to the blinde As the Natural Eyes so the Spirituall have their degrees of dimnesse But I have ill improved my Age if as my Naturall eyes decay my Spirituall eye be not cleared and confirmed but at my best I shall never but need Spectacles till I come to see as I am seen CV Upon Moats in the Sun HOW these little Moats move up and down in the Sun and never rest whereas the great Mountains stand ever still and move not but with an Earthquake Even so light and busie spirits are in continuall agitation to little purpose whiles great deep wits sit still and stir not but upon extreme occasions Were the motion of these little Atomes as usefull as it is restlesse I had rather be a Moat then a Mountain CVI. Upon the sight of a Bladder EVery thing must be taken in his meet time let this Bladder alone till it be dry and all the winde in the world cannot raise it up whereas now it is new and moist the least breath fills and enlarges it It is no otherwise in Ages and Dispositions inform the Childe in Precepts of Learning and Vertue whiles years make him capable how pliably he yieldeth how happily is he replenished with Knowledge and Goodnesse let him alone till time and ill example have hardned him till he be setled in an Habit of Evil and contracted and clung together with Sensuall delights now he becomes utterly indocible Sooner may that Bladder be broken then distended CVII Upon a man Sleeping I Do not more wonder at any mans Art then at his who professes to think of nothing to doe nothing And I do not a little marvell at that man who sayes he can sleep without a Dream for the Mind of man is a restlesse thing and though it give the Body leave to repose it self as knowing it is a mortal and earthly piece yet it self being a Spirit and therefore active and indefatigable is ever in motion Give me a Sea that moves not a Sun that shines not an open Eye that sees not and I shall yield there may be a Reasonable Soul that works not It is possible that through a naturall or accidentall stupidity a man may not perceive his owne Thoughts as sometimes the Eye or Eare may be distracted not to discern his own Objects but in the mean time he thinks that whereof he cannot give an account like as we many times dream when we cannot report our fancy I should more easily put my self to school unto that man who undertakes the profession of thinking many things at once Instantany motions are more proper for a Spirit then a dull rest Since my Minde will needs be ever working it shall be my care that it may alwaies be well imploy'd CVIII Upon the sight of a Deaths-head I Wonder at the practice of the ancient both Greeks and Romans whose use was to bring up a Deaths-head in the mids of their Feasts on purpose to stir up their Guests to drink harder and to frolick more the sight whereof one would think should have rather abated their courage and have tempered their jollity But however it was with them who believed there was nothing after death that the consideration of the short time of their pleasures and being spurred them on to a free and full fruition of that mirth and excesse which they should not long live to enjoy yet to us that are Christians and therefore know that this short life doth but make way for an eternity of Joy or Torment afterwards and that after the Feast we must account of a Reckoning there cannot be a greater cooler for the heat of our intemperate desires and rage of our Appetites then the meditation of the Shortness of Life and the Certainty of Death Who would over-pamper a body for the worms Who would be so mad as to let himself loose to that momentany pleasure of Sin which ere long must cost him everlasting pain and misery
For me methinks this Head speaks no other language then this Lose no time thou art dying Doe thy best thou maiest doe good but a while and shalt fare well for ever CIX Upon the sight of a Left-handed man IT is both an old and easie observation that however the Senses are alike strong and active on the right side and on the left yet that the lims on the right side are stronger then those of the left because they are more exercised then the other upon which self-same reason it must follow that a Left-handed man hath more strength in his left Arme then in his right Neither is it otherwise in the Soul our Intellectuall parts grow vigorous with imployment and languish with disuse I have known excellent Preachers and pregnant Disputants that have lost these Faculties with lack of action and others but meanly qualified with Naturall gifts that have attained to a laudable measure of abilities by improvement of their little I had rather lack good Parts then that good Parts should lack me Not to have great Gifts is no fault of mine it is my fault not to use them CX Upon the sight of an old unthatched Cottage THere cannot be a truer Embleme of crazie Old age Moldred and clay Walls a thin uncovered Roof bending Studds dark and broken Windows in short an House ready to fall on the head of the indweller The best Body is but a Cottage if newer and better timbered yet such as Age will equally impair and make thus ragged and ruinous or before that perhaps casualty of Fire or Tempest or violence of an Enemy One of the chief cares of men is to dwell well Some build for themselves fair but not strong others build for Posterity strong but not fair not high but happy is that man that builds for Eternity as strong as fair as high as the glorious contignations of Heaven CXI Upon the sight of a faire Pearl WHat a pure and precious creature is this which yet is taken out of the med of the sea Who can complain of a base Originall when he sees such Excellencies so descended These Shel-fishes that have no Sexes and therefore are made out of corruption what glorious things they yield to adorn and make proud the greatest Princesses Gods great works goe not by likelihoods how easily can he fetch glory out of obscurity who brought all out of nothing CXII Upon a Screen MEthinks this Screen that stands betwixt me the fire is like some good Friend at the Court which keeps from me the heat of the unjust Displeasure of the Great wherewith I might perhaps otherwise be causlesly scorched But how happy am I if the interposition of my Saviour my best Friend in Heaven may screen me from the deserved Wrath of that great God who is a consuming fire CXIII Upon a Burre-leaf NEither the Vine nor the Oak nor the Cedar nor any Tree that I know within our Climate yields so great a leaf as this Weed which yet after all expectation brings forth nothing but a Burre unprofitable troublesome So have I seen none make greater Profession of Religion then an Ignorant man whose indiscreet forwardnesse yields no fruit but a factious disturbance to the Church wherein he lives Too much Shew is not so much better then none at all as an ill Fruit is worse then none at all CXIV Upon the Singing of a Bird. IT is probable that none of those creatures that want Reason delight so much in pleasant Sounds as a Bird whence it is that both it spends so much time in singing and is more apt to imitate those modulations which it hears from men Frequent practice if it be voluntary argues a delight in that which we doe and delight makes us more apt to practise and more capable of perfection in that we practise O God if I take pleasure in thy Law I shall meditate of it with comfort speak of it with boldnesse and practise it with chearfulnesse CXV Upon the sight of a man Yawning IT is a marvellous thing to see the reall effects and strong operation of Consent or Sympathy even where there is no bodily touch so one sad man puts the whole company into dumps so one mans Yawning affects and stretches the jaws of many beholders so the looking upon blear eyes taints the eye with blearenesse From hence it is easie to see the ground of our Saviours expostulation with his persecutor Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The Church is persecuted below he feels it above and complains So much as the person is more apprehensive must he needs be more affected O Saviour thou canst not but be deeply sensible of all our miseries and necessities If we do not feel thy wrongs and the wants of our Brethren we have no part in thee CXVI Upon the sight of a Tree lopped IN the lopping of these Trees Experience and good Husbandry hath taught men to leave one bough still growing in the top the better to draw up the sap from the root The like wisdome is fit to be observed in Censures which are intended altogether for reformation not for destruction So must they be inflicted that the Patient be not utterly discouraged and stript of hope and comfort but that whiles he suffereth he may feel his good tendered and his amendment both aimed at and expected O God if thou shouldest deal with me as I deserve thou shouldest not only shred my boughs but cut down my stock and stock up my root and yet thou dost but prune my superfluous branches and cherishest the rest How unworthy am I of this mercy if whiles thou art thus indulgent unto me I be severe and cruell to others perhaps lesse ill-deserving then my self CXVII Upon a Scholar that offered Violence to himself HAD this man lyen long under some eminent discontentment it had been easie to finde out the motive of his miscarriage Weak Nature is easily over-laid with Impatience it must be only the power of Grace that can grapple with vehement evils and master them But here the world cannot say what could be guilty of occasioning this Violence this mans hand was full his Fame untainted his body no burden his disposition for ought we saw fair his Life guiltlesse yet something did the Tempter finde to aggravate unto his feeble thoughts and to represent worthy of a dispatch What a poor thing is Life whereof so slight occasions can make us weary What impotent wretches are we when we are not sustained One would think this the most impossible of all motions naturally every man loves himself and Life is sweet Death abhorred What is it that Satan can despair to perswade men unto if he can draw them to an unnaturall abandoning of life and pursuit of death Why should I doubt of prevailing with my own heart by the powerfull over-ruling of Gods Spirit to contemn life and to affect death for the sake of my Saviour in exchange of a few miserable moments for eternity
we brought with us and carry about us and there can be no safety unlesse we be transformed by renovation Behold God saies I make all things new a new Heaven and a new earth Esay 65. 17. The year renews and to morrow we say is a new day we renew our clothes when they are worn our leases when they grow towards expiring only our hearts we care not to renew If all the rest were old so that our Heart were new it were nothing Nothing but the main of all is neglected What should I need any other motives to you then the view of the estate of both these Look first at the old Put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitfull lusts Ephes 4. 22. Lo the old man is corrupt this is enough to cashier him what man can abide to carry rotten flesh about him If but a wound fester and gather dead flesh we draw it we corrode it till it be clear at the bottome Those that make much of their old man do like that monstrous twin willingly carry about a dead half of themselves whose noisomnesse doth torment and kill the living Look at the new Being freed from sin and made servants to God ye have your fruit in holiness and the end everlasting life Rom. 6. 22. Holiness is a lovely thing of it self there is a beauty of Holiness Gloria Sanctitatis as the Vulgar turns it Psal 144. and goodness doth amply reward it self Yet this Holiness hath besides infinite recompence attending it Holiness is life begun eternal life is the consummation of Holiness Holiness is but the way the end whereto it leads is everlasting life As therefore we would avoid the annoiance and danger of our sinful corruptions as we would ever aspire to true and endless blessedness Oh let us be transformed by renewing But how is this renewing wrought and wherein doth it consist Surely as there are three ways whereby we receive a new being by Creation by Generation by Resuscitation so according to all these is our spiritual renewing it is by Creation Whosoever is in Christ is a new Creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. it is by Regeneration Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdome of God Joh. 3. 3. it is by Resuscitation Even when we were dead in sins hath he quickened us together with Christ Ephes 2. 5. From whence arises this double Corollary 1. That we can give of our selves no active power to the first act of our Conversion no more then Adam did to his first Creation no more then the child doth to his own Conception no more then the dead man to his raising from the grave 2. That there must be a Privation of our old corrupt forms and a reducing us from our either nothing or worse to an estate of Holiness and new Obedience This is that which is every where set forth unto us by the Mortification of our earthly members and putting off the old man on the one part and by the first resurrection and putting on the new on the other Nothing is more familiar then these resemblances But of all Similes none doth so fitly methinks express the manner of this renewing as that of the Snake which by leaving his old slough in the streights of the Rock glides forth glib and nimble I remember Holcot urges the Similitude thus To turn off the Snakes skin saith he two things are requisite The first is foraminis angustia the streightness of the passage else he must needs draw the old skin through with him the latter is stabilitas saxi the firmness of the stone else in stead of leaving the skin he shall draw the stone away with him So must it be in the business of our renovation First we must pass through the streight way of due Penitence secondly we must hold the firm and stable purpose of our perseverance in good True sorrow and contrition of heart must begin the work and then an unmoved constancy of endeavour must finish it Whosoever thou art therefore if thy heart have not been toucht yea torn and rent in pieces with a sound Humiliation for thy sins the old slough is still upon thy back thou art not yet come within the ken of true Renovation Or if thou be gone so farre as that the skin begins to reave up a little in a serious grief for thy sins yet if thy resolutions be not steadily setled and thine endeavours bent to go through with that holy work thou comest short of thy renewing thine old loose filme of corruption shall so cumber thee that thou shalt never be able to pass on smoothly in the ways of God But because now we have a conceit that man as we say of fish unless he be new is naught every man is ready to challenge this honour of being renewed and certainly there may be much deceit this way We have seen plate or other vessels that have look'd like new when they have been but new guilded or burnish'd we have seen old faces that have counterfeited a youthly smoothness and vigorous complexion we have seen Hypocrites act every part of renovation as if they had falne from Heaven Let us therefore take a trial by those proofs of examination that cannot fail us And they shall be fetcht from those three ways of our renewing which we have formerly specified If we be renewed by Creation here must be a clean Heart Cor mundum crea saith the Psalmist Psal 51. 10. For as at the first God look'd on all his works and found them very good so still no work of his can be other then like himself holy and perfect If thy heart therefore be still full of unclean thoughts wanton desires covetousness ambition profaneness it is thine old heart of Satans marring it is no new heart of God's making for nothing but clean can come from under his hands But if we plead the closeness of the heart which may therefore seem impervious even to our own eyes see what the Apostle saith Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created unto good works The cleanness of the heart will shew it self in the goodness of the Hands But if our hands may deceive us as nothing is more easily counterfeited then a good action yet our Feet will not I mean the trade of our wayes That therefore from our Creation we may look to our Regeneration if we be the sons of God we are renewed and how shall it appear whether we be the sons of God It is a golden Rule Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 8. 14. Yet if in both of these life could be counterfeited death cannot That therefore from our Creation and Regeneration we may look to our Resuscitation and from thence back to our grave Mortifie your members which are on earth Col. 3. 5. There is a death of this body of sin and what manner of death Those that
are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Lo as impossible as it is for a dead man to come down from his gibbet or up from his coffin and to doe the works of his former life so impossible it is that a renewed man should doe the old works of his unregeneration If therefore you find your Hearts unclean your Hands idle and unprofitable your Ways crooked and unholy your Corruptions alive and lively never pretend any renewing you are the old men still and however ye may go for Christains yet ye have denied the power of Christianity in your lives and if ye so continue the fire of Hell shall have so much more power over you for that it finds the Baptismal water upon your faces Our last head is the subject of this Renewing The Minde There are that would have this Renovation proper to the inferiour which is the affective part of the Soul as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they call it the supreme powers of that Divine part needed it no◠These are met with here by out-Apostle who placeth this renewing upon the Mind There are contrarily that so appropriate this renewing to the Mind which is the highest lost of the Soul as that they diffuse it not to the lower rooms nor to the our houses of the body as if onely the Soul were capable as of Sin so of Regeneration Both these shoot too short and must know that as the Mind so not the Mind only must be renewed That part is mentioned not by way of exclusion but of principality It is the man that must be renewed not one piece of him Except ye please to say according to that old Philosophical Adage The Mind is the man and the Body as the wisest Ethnick had wont to say nothing but the Case of that rich Jewel To say as it is the most Saint-like Philosophy was somewhat injurious in disparaging the outward man Whatever they thought this Body is not the hung-by but the partner of the Soul no less interessed in the man then that Spirit that animates it no less open to the inhabitation of God's Spirit no less free of Heaven Man therefore that is made of two parts must be renewed in both but as in the first birth whole man is born onely the Body is seen so in the second whole man is renewed onely the Soul is instanced in Our Apostle puts both together 1 Thes 5. 23. The God of peace sanctifie you wholly that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Why then is the Mind thus specified Because it is the best part because as it enlivens and moves so it leads the rest If the Mind therefore be renewed it boots not to urge the renovation of the body For as in Nature we are wont to say that the Soul follows the temperature of the Body so in Spiritual things we say rather more truly that the Body follows the temper and guidance of the Soul These two companions as they shall be once inseparable in their final condition so they are now in their present dispositions Be renewed therefore in your Minds and if you can hold off your earthly parts No more can the Body live without the Soul then the Soul can be renewed without the Body First then the Mind then the Body All defilement is by an extramission as our Saviour tels us That which goeth into the body defileth not the man so as the spring of corruption is within That must be first cleansed else in vain do we scour the channels Ye shall have some Hypocrites that pretend to begin their renewing from without On foul hands they will wear white Gloves on foul hearts clean hands and then all is well Away with these Pharisaical dishes filthy within clean without fit onely for the service of unclean Devils To what purpose is it to lick over the skin with precious oyle if the Liver be corrupted the Lungs rotten To what purpose is it to crop the top of the weeds when the root and stalk remains in the earth Pretend what you will all is old all is naught till the Mind be renewed Neither is the Body more renewed without the Mind then the renewing of the Mind can keep it self from appearing in the renewing of the Body The Soul lies close and takes advantage of the secrecy of that Cabinet whereof none but God keeps the Key and therefore may pretend anything we see the man the Soul we cannot see but by that we see we can judge of that we see not He is no Christian that is not renewed and he is worse then a beast that is no Christian Every man therefore lays claim to that renovation whereof he cannot be convinced yea there want not those who though they have a ribaldish tongue and a bloody hand yet will challenge as good a Soul as the best Hypocrite when the Conduit-head is walled in how shall we judge of the spring but by the water that comes out of the pipes Corrupt nature hath taught us so much craft as to set the best side outward If therefore thou have obscene lips if bribing and oppressing hands if a gluttonous tooth a drunken gullet a lewd conversation certainly the Soul can be no other then abominably filthy It may be worse then it appears better it cannot lightly be The Mind then leads the Body the Body descries the Mind both of them at once are old or both at once new For us as we bear the face of Christians and profess to have received both Souls and Bodies from the same hand and look that both Bodies and Souls shall once meet in the same Glory let it be the top of all our care that we may be transformed in the renewing of our minds and let the renewing of our Minds bewray it self in the renewing of our Bodies Wherefore have we had the powerful Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ so long amongst us if we be still our selves What hath it wrought upon us if we be not changed Never tell me of a Popish Transubstantiation of men of an invisible insensible unfeisible change of the person whiles the species of his outward life and carriage are still the same These are but false Hypocritical juglings to mock fools withall If we be transformed and renewed let it be so done that not onely our own eyes and hands may see and feel it but others too that the by-standers may say How is this man changed from himself He was a blasphemous Swearer a profane Scoffer at goodness now he speaks with an awful reverence of God and holy things He was a Luxurious wanton now he possesseth his vessel in Holiness and honour He was an unconscionable Briber and abettor of unjust causes now the world cannot see him to speak for wrong He was a wild roaring Swaggerer now he is a sober Student He was a Devil now he is
of joy when I see men upon an unreasonable suggestion of that evil Spirit cast away their lives for nothing and so hastening their temporall death that they hazard an eternall CXVIII Upon the coming in of the Judge THE construction of men and their actions is altogether according to the disposition of the lookers on The same face of the Judge without any inward alteration is seen with terror by the guilty with joy and confidence by the oppressed innocent like as the same lips of the Bride-groom drop both myrrhe and hony at once hony to the well-disposed heart myrrhe to the rebellious and the same Cup relishes well to the healthfull and distasts the feverous the same word is though a sweet yet a contrary favour to the different receivers and the same Sun comforts the strong sight dazles the weak For a man to affect either to doe or speak that which may be pleasing to all men is but a weak and idle ambition when we see him that is infinitely Good appear terrible to more then he appears lovely Goodnesse is it self with whatever eyes it is look'd upon There can be no safety for that man that regards more the censure of men then the truth of being He that seeks to win all hearts hath lost his owne CXIX Upon the sight of an Heap of stones UNder such a pile it was that the first Martyr was buried none of all the antient Kings had so glorious a Tomb here were many stones and every one pretious Jacob leaned his head upon a stone and saw that Heavenly vision of Angels ascending and descending Many stones light upon Steven's head in the instant of his seeing the Heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God Lo Jacob resting upon that one stone saw but the Angels Steven being to rest for once under those many stones saw the Lord of the Angels Jacob saw the Angels moving Steven saw Jesus standing As Jacob therefore afterwards according to his Vow made there an altar to God so Steven now in the present gathers these stones together of which he erected an holy altar whereon he offered up himself a blessed Sacrifice unto God And if there be a time of gathering stones and a time of casting them away this was the time wherein the Jews cast and Steven gathered up these stones for a monument of eternall Glory O blessed Saint thou didst not so clearly see Heaven opened as Heaven saw thee covered thou didst not so perfectly see thy Jesus standing as he saw thee lying patiently courageously under that fatall heap Do I mistake it or are those stones not Flints and Pebbles but Diamonds Rubies and Carbuncles to set upon thy Crown of Glory CXX Upon sight of a Bat and Owle THese Night-birds are glad to hide their heads all and if by some violence they be unseasonably forced our of their secrecy how are they followed and beaten by the birds of the day With us men it is contrary the Sons of Darknesse do with all eagernesse of maâ—ice pursue the children of the Light and drive them into corners and make a prey of them the opposition is alike but the advantage lies on the worse side Is it for that the Spirituall Light is no lesse hatefull to those Children of Darknesse then the naturall night is to those chearfull Birds of the day Or is it for that the Sons of Darknesse challenging no lesse propriety in the world then the Foul do in the lightsome aire abhorre and wonder at the conscionanable as strange and uncouth Howsoever as these Bats and Owls were made for the night being accordingly shaped foul and ill-favoured so we know these vicious men however they may please themselves have in them a true deformity fit to be shrowded in Darknesse and as they delight in the works of Darknesse so they are justly reserved to a state of Darknesse CXXI Upon the sight of a Well-fleeced Sheep WHat a warm Winter-coat hath God provided for this quiet innocent creature as indeed how wonderfull is his Wisdome and Goodness in all his purveiances Those creatures which are apter for motion and withall most fearfull by nature hath he clad somewhat thinner and hath allotted them safe and warm boroughs within the earth those that are fit for labour and use hath he furnished with a strong hide and for Man whom he hath thought good to bring forth naked tender helplesse he hath indued his Parents and himself with that noble faculty of Reason whereby he may provide all manner of helps for himself Yet again so bountifull is God in his provisions that he is not lavish so distributing his gifts that there is no more superfluity then want Those creatures that have beaks have no teeth and those that have shells without have no bones within All have enough nothing hath all Neither is it otherwise in that one kinde of Man whom he meant for the Lord of all Variety of gifts is here mixed with a frugall dispensation None hath cause to boast none to complain Every man is as free from an absolute defect as from perfection I desire not to comprehend O Lord teach me to doe nothing but wonder CXXII Upon the hearing of Thunder THere is no Grace whereof I finde so generall a want in my self and others as an awfull fear of the infinite Majesty of God Men are ready to affect and professe a kinde of Familiarity with God out of a pretence of love whereas if they knew him aright they could not think of him without dread nor name him without trembling their narrow hearts strive to conceive of him according to the scantling of their own streight and ignorant apprehension whereas they should only desire to have their thoughts swallowed up with an adoring wonder of his Divine incomprehensiblenesse Though he thunder not alwaies he is alwayes equally dreadfull there is none of his works which doth not bewray Omnipotency I blush at the sawcinesse of vain men that will be circumscribing the powerfull acts of the Almighty within the compasse of Naturall Causes forbearing to wonder at what they professe to know Nothing but Ignorance can be guilty of this Boldnesse There is no Divinity but in an humble fear no Philosophy but a silent admiration CXXIII Upon the sight of an Hedge-hog I Marvelled at the first reading what the Greeks meant by that Proverb of theirs The Fox knows many pretty wiles but the Hedg-hog knows one great one But when I considered the Nature and practice of this creature I easily found the reason of that speech grounded upon the care and shift that it makes for its own preservation Whiles it is under covert it knows how to bar the fore-dore against the cold Northern and Eastern blasts and to open the back-dore for quieter and calmer aire When it is pursued it knows how to roll up it self round within those thorns with which Nature hath environed it so as the Dog in stead of a beast findes