tremulous and so are the most holy and eminent Religious persons more full of awfulness and fear and modesty and humility so that in true Divinity and right speaking there is no such thing as the Unitive way of Religion save onely in the effects of duty obedience and the expresses of the precise vertue of Religion Meditations in order to a good life let them be as exalted as the capacity of the person and subject will endure up to the height of Contemplation but if Contemplation comes to be a distinct thing and something besides or beyond a distinct degree of vertuous Meditation it is lost to all sense and Religion and prudence Let no man be hasty to eat of the fruits of Paradise before his time 28. And now I shall not need to enumerate the blessed fruits of holy Meditation for it is a Grace that is instrumental to all effects to the production of all Vertues and the extinction of all Vices and by consequence the inhabitation of the Holy Ghost within us is the natural or proper emanation from the frequent exercise of this Duty onely it hath something particularly excellent besides its general influence for Meditation is that part of Prayer which knits the Soul to its right object and confirms and makes actual our intention and Devotion Meditation is the Tongue of the Soul and the language of our spirit and our wandring thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of Meditation and recessions from that Duty and according as we neglect Meditation so are our Prayers imperfect Meditation being the Soul of Prayer and the intention of our spirit But in all other things Meditation is the instrument and conveyance it habituates our affections to Heaven it hath permanent content it produces constancy of purpose despising of things below inflamed desires of Vertue love of God self-denial humility of understanding and universal correction of our life and manners The PRAYER HOly and Eternal Jesus whose whole Life and Doctrine was a perpetual Sermon of Holy life a treasure of Wisedom and a repository of Divine materials for Meditation give me grace to understand diligence and attention to consider care to lay up and carefulness to reduce to practice all those actions discourses and pious lessons and intimations by which thou didst expresly teach or tacitly imply or mysteriously signifie our Duty Let my Understanding become as spiritual in its imployment and purposes as it is immaterial in its nature fill my Memory as a vessel of Election with remembrances and notions highly compunctive and greatly incentive of all the parts of 〈◊〉 Let thy holy Spirit dwell in my Soul instructing my Knowledge sanctifying my Thoughts guiding my Affections directing my Will in the choice of Vertue that it may be the great imployment of my life to meditate in thy Law to study thy preceptive will to understand even the niceties and circumstantials of my Duty that Ignorance may neither occasion a sin nor become a punishment Take from me all vanity of spirit lightness of fancy curiosity and impertinency of inquiry illusions of the Devil and phantastick deceptions Let my thoughts be as my Religion plain honest pious simple prudent and charitable of great imployment and force to the production of Vertues and extermination of Vice but suffering no transportations of sense and vanity nothing greater than the capacities of my Soul nothing that may minister to any intemperances of spirit but let me be wholly inebriated with Love and that love wholly spent in doing such actions as best please thee in the conditions of my infirmity and the securities of Humility till thou shalt please to draw the curtain and reveal thy interiour beauties in the Kingdom of thine eternal Glories which grant for thy mercie 's sake O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The goodly CEDAR of Apostolick Catholick EPISCOPACY compared with the moderne Shoots Slips of divided NOVELTIES in the Church before the Introduction of the Apostles Lives In Rama was there a voice heard lamentation and weeping and great mourning â—â—â—hel weeping for her Children and would not be Comforted because they are not SECT VI. Of the Death of the Holy Innocents or the Babes of Bethlehem and the Flight of JESVS into Egypt The killing the Infants S. MAT. 2. 18 In Rama was there a voice heard Lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and would not be conforted because they are not The flight into Egipt S. MAT. 2. 14. When he arose he took the young Child and his mother by night and departed into egipt 1. ALL this while Herod waited for the return of the Wise men that they might give directions where the Child did lie and his Sword might find him out with a certain and direct execution But when he saw that he was mocked of the Wise men he was exceeding wroth For it now began to deserve his trouble when his purposes which were most secret began to be contradicted and diverted with a prevention as if they were resisted by an all-seeing and almighty Providence He began to suspect the hand of Heaven was in it and saw there was nothing for his purposes to be acted unless he could dissolve the golden chain of Predestination Herod believed the divine Oracles foretelling that a King should be born in Bethlehem and yet his Ambition had made him so stupid that he attempted to cancel the Decree of Heaven For if he did not believe the Prophecies why was he troubled If he did believe them how could he possibly hinder that event which God had foretold himself would certainly bring to pass 2. And therefore since God already had hindered him from the executions of a distinguishing sword he resolved to send a sword of indiscrimination and confusion hoping that if he killed all the Babes of Bethlehem this young King's Reign also should soon determine He therefore sent forth and 〈◊〉 all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coasts thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the Wise men For this Execution was in the beginning of the second year after Christ's Nativity as in all probability we guess not at the two years end as some suppose because as his malice was subtile so he intended it should be secure and though he had been diligent in his inquiry and was near the time in his computation yet he that was never sparing of the lives of others would now to secure his Kingdom rather over-act his severity for some moneths than by doing execution but just to the tittle of his account hazard the escaping of the Messias 3. This Execution was sad cruel and universal no abatements made for the dire shriekings of the Mothers no tender-hearted souldier was imployed no hard-hearted person was softned by the weeping eyes and pity-begging looks of those Mothers that wondred how it was possible any person should hurt their pretty Sucklings no
and unlearned as the elements of our mother-tongue But so are Mathematicks to a Scythian boor and Musick to a Camel 44. But I consider that the wisest persons and those who know how to value and entertain the more noble Faculties of their Soul and their precious hours take more pleasure in reading the productions of those old wise spirits who preserved natural Reason and Religion in the midst of heathen darkness such as are Homer Euripides Orpheus Pindar and Anacreon AEschylus and Menander and all the Greek Poets Plutarch and Polybius Xenophon and all those other excellent persons of both Faculties whose choicest Dictates are collected by Stobaeus Plato and his Scholars Aristotle and after him Porphyrie and all his other Disciples Pythagoras and his especially Hierocles all the old Academies and Stoicks within the Roman Schools more pleasure I say in reading these than the triflings of many of the later School-men who promoted a petty interest of a Family or an unlearned Opinion with great earnestness but added nothing to Christianity but trouble scruple and vexation And from hence I hope that they may the rather be invited to love and consider the rare documents of Christianity which certainly is the great Treasure-house of those excellent moral and perfective discourses which with much pains and greater pleasure we find respersed and thinly scattered in all the Greek and Roman Poets Historians and Philosophers But because I have observed that there are some principles entertained into the perswasions of men which are the seeds of evil life such as are the Doctrine of late Repentance the mistakes of the 〈◊〉 of the sins of 〈◊〉 the evil understanding the consequents and nature of Original sin the sufficiency of Contrition in order to pardon the efficacy of the Rites of 〈◊〉 without the necessity of 〈◊〉 adherencies the nature of Faith and many other I was diligent to remark such Doctrines and to pare off the mistakes so far that they hinder not Piety and yet as near as I could without engaging in any Question in which the very life of Christianity is not concerned Haec sum profatus haud ambagibus Implicita sed quae regulis aequi boni Suffulta rudibus pariter doctis patent My great purpose is to advance the necessity and to declare the manner and parts of a good 〈◊〉 and to invite some persons to the consideration of all the parts of it by intermixing something of pleasure with the use others by such parts which will better entertain their spirits than a Romance I have followed the design of Scripture and have given milk for babes and for stronger men stronger meat and in all I have despised my own reputation by so striving to make it useful that I was less careful to make it strict in retired sences and embossed with unnecessary but graceful ornaments I pray God this may go forth into a blessing to all that shall use it and reflect blessings upon me all the way that my spark may grow greater by kindling my brother's Taper and God may be glorified in us both If the Reader shall receive no benefit yet I intended him one and I have laboured in order to it and I shall receive a great recompence for that intention if he shall please to say this Prayer for me That while I have preached to others I may not become a cast-away AN EXHORTATION To the Imitation of the Life of Christ. HOwever the Person of JESUS CHRIST was depressed with a load of humble accidents and shadowed with the darknesses of Poverty and sad contingencies so that the Jews and the contemporary Ages of the Gentiles and the Apostles themselves could not at first 〈◊〉 the brightest essence of Divinity yet as a Beauty artificially covered with a thin cloud of Cypress transmits its excellency to the eye made more greedy and apprehensive by that imperfect and weak restraint so was the Sanctity and Holiness of the Life of JESUS glorious in its Darknesses and found Confessors and Admirers even in the midst of those despites which were done him upon the contrariant designs of malice and contradictory ambition Thus the wife of Pilate called him that just person Pilate pronounced him guiltless Judas said he was innocent the Devil himself called him the Holy one of God For however it might concern any man's mistaken ends to mislike the purpose of his Preaching and Spiritual Kingdom and those Doctrines which were destructive of their 〈◊〉 and carnal securities yet they could not deny but that he was a man of God of exemplar Sanctity of an Angelical Chastity of a Life sweet affable and complying with humane conversation and as obedient to Government as the most humble children of the Kingdom And yet he was Lord of all the World 2. And certainly very much of this was with a design that he might shine to all the generations and Ages of the World and become a guiding Star and a pillar of fire to us in our journey For we who believe that Jesus was perfect God and perfect Man do also believe that one minute of his intolerable Passion and every action of his might have been satisfactory and enough for the expiation and reconcilement of ten thousand worlds and God might upon a less effusion of bloud and a shorter life of merit if he had pleased have accepted humane nature to pardon and favour but that the Holy Jesus hath added so many excellent instances of Holiness and so many degrees of Passion and so many kinds of Vertues is that he might become an Example to us and reconcile our Wills to him as well as our Persons to his heavenly Father 3. And 〈◊〉 it will prove but a sad consideration that one drop of bloud might be enough to obtain our Pardon and the treasures of his bloud running out till the fountain it self was dry shall not be enough to procure our Conformity to him that the smallest minute of his expence shall be enough to justifie us and the whole Magazine shall not procure our Sanctification that at a smaller expence God might pardon us and at a greater we will not imitate him For therefore Christ hath suffered for us saith the Apostle leaving an Example to us that we might follow his steps The least of our Wills cost Christ as much as the greatest of our Sins And therefore he calls himself the Way the Truth and the Life That as he redeems our Souls from death to life by becoming Life to our Persons so he is the Truth to our Understandings and the Way to our Will and Affections enlightning that and leading these in the paths of a happy Eternity 4. When the King of Moab was pressed hard by the sons of Isaac the Israelites and Edomites he took the King of Edom's eldest Son or as some think his own Son the Heir of his Kingdom and offered him as a Holocaust upon the wall and the Edomites presently raised the siege at
Man if they pass through an even and an indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course they are little and within command but if they pass upon an end or aim of difficulty or ambition they duplicate and grow to a 〈◊〉 and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of Innocence but the Temptation of busie designs is too great even for the best of dispositions 7. But these Temptations are crasse and material and soon discernible it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial For he hath Apples to cousen Children and Gold for Men the Kingdoms of the World for the Ambition of Princes and the Vanities of the World for the Intemperate he hath Discourses and fair-spoken Principles to abuse the pretenders to Reason and he hath common Prejudices for the more vulgar understandings Amongst these I chuse to consider such as are by way of Principle or Proposition 8. The first great Principle of Temptation I shall note is a general mistake which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of Infirmity calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined though by carelesness and evil customs they are heightned to a habit by the name of Sins of infirmity to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend If when they have committed a crime their Conscience checks them and they are troubled and during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire resolve against it and commit it readily at the next opportunity then they cry out against the weakness of their Nature and think as long as this body of death is about them it must be thus and that this condition may stand with the state of Grace And then the Sins shall return periodically like the revolutions of a Quartan Ague well and ill for ever till Death surprizes the mistaker This is a Patron of sins and makes the Temptation prevalent by an authentick instrument and they pretend the words of S. Paul For the good that I would that I do not but the evil that I would not that I do For there is a law in my members 〈◊〉 against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin And thus the 〈◊〉 of Sin is mistaken for a state of Grace and the imperfections of the Law are miscalled the affections and necessities of Nature that they might seem to be incurable and the persons apt for an excuse therefore because for Nature there is no absolute cure But that these words of S. Paul may not become a 〈◊〉 of death and instruments of a temptation to us it is observable that the Apostle by a siction of person as is usual with him speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but under the 〈◊〉 obscurities insufficiencies and imperfections of the Law which indeed he there contends to have been a Rule good and holy apt to remonstrate our misery because by its prohibitions and limits given to natural desires it made actions before indifferent now to be sins it added many curses to the breakers of it and by an 〈◊〉 of contrariety it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful but it was a Covenant in which our Nature was restrained but not helped it was provoked but not sweetly assisted our Understandings were instructed but our Wills not sanctified and there were no suppletories of Repentance every greater sin was like the fall of an Angel irreparable by any mystery or express recorded or enjoyned Now of a man under this Govenant he describes the condition to be such that he understands his Duty but by the infirmities of Nature he is certain to fall and by the helps of the Law not strengthened against it nor restored after it and therefore he calls himself under that notion a miserable man sold under sin not doing according to the rules of the Law or the dictates of his Reason but by the unaltered misery of his Nature certain to prevaricate But the person described here is not S. Paul is not any justified person not so much as a Christian but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of Grace as will manifestly appear if we observe the antithesis from S. Paul's own characters For the Man here named is such as in whom sin wrought all concupiscence in whom sin lived and slew him so that he was dead in trespasses and sins and although he did delight in the Law after his inwardman that is his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions which afterwards he calls serving the Law of God with his mind that is in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit yet he could act nothing for the law in his members did inslave him and brought him into captivity to the law of sin so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts he was a slave to sin and dead in trespasses But the state of a regenerate person is such as to have 〈◊〉 the flesh with the affections and lusts in whom sin did not reign not only in the mind but even also not in the mortal body over whom sin had no dominion in whom the old man was crucified and the body of sin was destroyed and sin not at all served And to make the antithesis yet clearer in the very beginning of the next Chapter the Apostle saith that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death under which law he complained immediately before he was sold and killed to shew the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments No man in the state of Grace can say The evil that I would not that I do if by evil he means any evil that is habitual or in its own nature deadly 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation though but in a single act it is a condition of Carnality not of spiritual life and those are not the infirmities of Nature but the weaknesses of Grace that make us sin so frequently which the Apostle truly affirms to the same purpose The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot or that ye do not do the things that ye would This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh and weakness of the spirit For he adds But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law saying plainly that the state of such a combate and disability of doing good is a state of a man under the Law or in the flesh which he accounts all one but every man that is sanctified
to relinquish the paths of darkness this is the way of the Kingdom and the purpose of the Gospel and the proper work of Faith 6. And if we consider upon what stock Faith it self is instrumental and operative of Salvation we shall find it is in it self acceptable because it is a Duty and commanded and therefore it is an act of Obedience a work of the Gospel a submitting the Understanding a denying the Affections a laying aside all interests and a bringing our thoughts under the obedience of Christ. This the Apostle calls the Obedience of Faith And it is of the same condition and constitution with other Graces all which equally relate to Christ and are as firm instruments of union and are washed by the bloud of Christ and are sanctified by his Death and apprehend him in their capacity and degrees some higher and some not so high but Hope and Charity apprehend Christ in a measure and proportion greater than Faith when it distinguishes from them So that if Faith does the work of Justification as it is a mere relation to Christ 〈◊〉 so also does Hope and Charity or if these are Duties and good works so also is Faith and they all being alike commanded in order to the same end and encouraged by the same reward are also accepted upon the same stock which is that they are acts of Obedience and relation too they obey Christ and lay hold upon Christ's merits and are but several instances of the great duty of a Christian but the actions of several faculties of the 〈◊〉 Creature But 〈◊〉 Faith is the beginning Grace and hath insluence and causality in the production of the other 〈◊〉 all the other as they are united in Duty are also united in their Title and appellative they are all called by the name of Faith because they are parts of Faith as Faith is taken in the larger sence and when it is taken in the strictest and distinguishing sence they are 〈◊〉 and proper products by way of natural emanation 7. That a good life is the genuine and true-born issue of Faith no man questions that knows himself the Disciple of the Holy Jesus but that Obedience is the same thing with Faith and that all Christian Graces are parts of its bulk and constitution is also the doctrine of the Holy Ghost and the Grammar of Scripture making Faith and Obedience to be terms coincident and expressive of each other For Faith is not a single Star but a Constellation a chain of Graces called by S. Paul the power of God unto salvation to every believer that is Faith is all that great instrument by which God intends to bring us to Heaven and he gives this reason In the Gospel the 〈◊〉 cousness of God is revealed from faith to faith for it is written The 〈◊〉 shall live by Faith Which discourse makes Faith to be a course of Sanctity and holy 〈◊〉 a continuation of a Christian's duty such a duty as not only gives the first breath but by which a man lives the life of Grace The just shall live by Faith that is such a Faith as grows from step to step till the whole righteousness of God be fulfilled in it From faith to faith saith the Apostle which S. 〈◊〉 expounds From Faith believing to Faith obeying from imperfect Faith to Faith made perfect by the animation of Charity that he who is justified may be justified still For as there are several degrees and parts of Justification so there are several degrees of Faith answerable to it that in all sences it may be true that by Faith we are justified and by Faith we live and by Faith we are saved For if we proceed from Faith to Faith from believing to obeying from Faith in the Understanding to Faith in the Will from Faith barely assenting to the revelations of God to Faith obeying the Commandments of God from the body of Faith to the soul of Faith that is to Faith sormed and made alive by Charity then we shall proceed from Justification to Justification that is from Remission of Sins to become the Sons of God and at last to an actual possession of those glories to which we were here consigned by the fruits of the Holy Ghost 8. And in this sence the Holy Jesus is called by the Apostle the Author and 〈◊〉 of our Faith he is the principle and he is the promoter he begins our Faith in Revelations and perfects it in Commandments he leads us by the assent of our Understanding and finishes the work of his grace by a holy life which S. Paul there expresses by its several constituent parts as laying aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us and running with patience the race that is set before us resisting unto bloud striving against sin for in these things Jesus is therefore made our example because he is the Author and Finisher of our Faith without these Faith is imperfect But the thing is something plainer yet for S. James says that Faith lives not but by Charity and the life or essence of a thing is certainly the better part of its constitution as the Soul is to a Man And if we mark the manner of his probation it will come home to the main point For he proves that Abraham's saith was therefore imputed to him for Righteousness because he was justified by Works Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works when he offered up his son And the Scripture was fulfilled saying Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness For Faith wrought with his Works and made his Faith perfect It was a dead and an imperfect Faith unless Obedience gave it being and all its integral or essential parts So that Faith and Charity in the sence of a Christian are but one duty as the Understanding and the Will are but one reasonable Soul only they produce several actions in order to one another which are but divers 〈◊〉 and the same spirit 9. Thus S. Paul describing the Faith of the Thessalonians calls it that whereby they turned from Idols and whereby they served the living God and the Faith of the Patriarchs believed the world's Creation received the Promises did Miracles wrought Rightcousness and did and suffered so many things as make up the integrity of a holy life And therefore disobedience and unrighteousness is called want of Faith and Heresie which is opposed to Faith is a work of the flesh because Faith it self is a work of Righteousness And that I may enumerate no more particulars the thing is so known that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in propriety of language signifies 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 is rendred disobedience and the not providing for our families is an act of 〈◊〉 by the same reason and analogy that 〈◊〉 or Charity and a holy life are the duties of a Christian of a justifying
our Redemption he adds Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Who gave himself for us to this very purpose that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Purifying a people peculiar to himself is cleansing it in the Laver of Regeneration and appropriating it to himself in the rites of Admission and Profession Which plainly designs the first consignation of our Redemption to be in Baptism and that Christ there cleansing his Church from every spot or wrinkle made a Covenant with us that we should renounce all our sins and he should cleanse them all and then that we should abide in that state Which is also very explicitely set down by the same Apostle in that divine and mysterious Epistle to the Romans How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death Well what then Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life That 's the end and mysteriousness of Baptism it is a consignation into the Death of Christ and we die with him that once that is die to sin that we may for ever after live the life of righteousness Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin that is from the day of our Baptism to the day of our death And therefore God who knows the weaknesses on our part and yet the strictness and necessity of conserving Baptismal grace by the Covenant Evangelical hath appointed the auxiliaries of the Holy Spirit to be ministred to all baptized people in the holy Rite of Confirmation that it might be made possible to be done by Divine aids which is necessary to be done by the Divine Commandments 10. And this might not be improperly said to be the meaning of those words of our Blessed Saviour He that speaks a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him but he that speaks a word against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him That is those sins which were committed in Infidelity before we became Disciples of the Holy Jesus are to be remitted in Baptism and our first profession of the Religion but the sins committed after Baptism and Confirmation in which we receive the Holy Ghost and by which the Holy Spirit is grieved are to be accounted for with more severity And therefore the Primitive Church understanding our obligations according to this discourse admitted not any to holy Orders who had lapsed and fallen into any sin of which she could take cognisance that is such who had not kept the integrity of their Baptism but sins committed before Baptism were no impediments to the susception of Orders because they were absolutely extinguished in Baptism This is the nature of the Covenant we made in Baptism that 's the grace of the Gospel and the effect of Faith and Repentance and it is expected we should so remain For it is nowhere expressed to be the mercy and intention of the Covenant Evangelical that this Redemption should be any more than once or that Repentance which is in order to it can be renewed to the same or so great purposes and present effects 11. But after we are once reconciled in Baptism and put intirely into God's favour when we have once been redeemed if we then fall away into sin we must expect God's dealing with us in another manner and to other purposes Never must we expect to be so again justified and upon such terms as formerly the best days of our Repentance are interrupted not that God will never forgive them that sin after Baptism and recover by Repentance but that Restitution by repentance after Baptism is another thing than the first Redemption No such intire clear and integral determinate and presential effects of Repentance but an imperfect little growing uncertain and hazardous Reconciliation a Repentance that is always in production a Renovation by parts a Pardon that is revocable a Salvation to be wrought by fear and trembling all our remanent life must be in bitterness our hopes allayed with fears our meat attempered with Coloquintida and death is in the pot as our best actions are imperfect so our greatest Graces are but possibilities and aptnesses to a Reconcilement and all our life we are working our selves into that condition we had in Baptism and lost by our relapse As the habit lessens so does the guilt as our Vertues are imperfect so is the Pardon and because our Piety may be interrupted our state is uncertain till our possibilities of sin are ceased till our fight is finished and the victory therefore made sure because there is no more fight And it is remarkable that S. Peter gives counsel to live holily in pursuance of our redemption of our calling and of our escaping from that corruption that is in the world through Lust lest we lose the benefit of our purgation to which by way of antithesis he opposes this Wherefore the rather give diligence to make your calling and election sure And if ye do these things ye shall never fall Meaning by the perpetuating our state of Baptism and first Repentance we shall never fall but be in a sure estate our calling and election shall be sure But not if we fall if we forget we were purged from our old sins if we forfeit our calling we have also made our election unsure movable and disputable 12. So that now the hopes of lapsed sinners relie upon another bottom And as in Moses's Law there was no revelation of Repentance but yet the Jews had hopes in God and were taught the succours of Repentance by the Homilies of the Prophets and other accessory notices So in the Gospel the Covenant was established upon Faith and Repentance but it was consigned in Baptism and was verifiable onely in the integrity of a following holy life according to the measures of a man not perfect but sincere not faultless but heartily endeavoured but yet the mercies of God in pardoning sinners lapsed after Baptism was declared to us by collateral and indirect occasions by the Sermons of the Apostles and the Commentaries of Apostolical persons who understood the meaning of the Spirit and the purposes of the Divine mercy and those other significations of his will which the blessed Jesus left upon record in other parts of his Testament as in Codicills annexed besides the precise Testament it self And it is certain if in the Covenant of Grace there be the same involution of an after-Repentance as there is of present Pardon upon past Repentance and future Sanctity it is impossible to
Hypocrisie and vanities of the one and the Heresie of the other For Herod's leven was the pretence that he was the Messias which the Sect of the 〈◊〉 did earnestly and spitefully promote And after this 〈◊〉 of themselves by the way they came together to Bethsaida where Jesus cured a blind man with a collyrium of spittle salutary as Balsam or the purest Eyebright when his divine benediction once had hallowed it But Jesus staid not there but departing thence into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi out of Herod's power for it was in Philip's jurisdiction after he had prayed with his Disciples he enquired what opinion the world had of him and whom they reported him to be They answered Some say thou art John the Baptist some that thou art Elias or Jeremias or one of the Prophets for in 〈◊〉 especially the Sect of the Pharisees was mightily disseminated whose opinion it was that the Souls of dead men according to their several merits did transmigrate into other bodies of very perfect and excellent persons And therefore in all this variety none hit upon the right or fansied him to be a distinct person from the ancients but although they differed in the assignation of his name yet generally they agreed it was the Soul of a departed Prophet which had passed into another Body But Jesus asked the Apostles their opinion and Peter in the name of all the rest made an open and confident Confession Thou art CHRIST the Son of the living God 9. This Confession Jesus not only confirmed as true but as revealed by God and of fundamental necessity for after the blessing of Peter's person upon allusion of Peter's name Jesus said that upon this Rock the article of Peter's Confession he would build his Church promising to it assistances even to perpetuity insomuch that the gates of hell that is persecution and death and the grave should never prevail against it adding withall a promise to Peter in behalf of all the rest as he had made a Confession for them all that he would give unto him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven so that whatsoever he should bind on earth should be bound in Heaven and whatsoever he should loose on earth should be loosed in Heaven a power which he never communicated before or since but to their successors greater than the large Charter of Nature and the donative of Creation in which all the creatures under Heaven were made subject to Man's Empire but till now Heaven it self was never subordinate to humane ministration 10. And now the days from hence forward to the Death of Jesus we must reckon to be like the Vigils or Eves of his Passion for now he began and often did ingeminate those sad predictions of his unhandsome usage he should shortly find that he 〈◊〉 be rejected of the Elders and chief Priests and Scribes and suffer many things at Jerusalem and be killed and be raised up the third day But Peter hearing that sad discourse so contrary to his hopes which he had blended with temporal expectances for he had learned the Doctrine of Christ's Advent but not the mystery of the Cross in great and mistaken civility took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee But Jesus full of zeal against so soft and humane admonition that savoured nothing of God or of abstracted immaterial considerations chid Peter bitterly Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me And calling his Disciples to him told them a second part of a sad doctrine that not only himself but all they also must suffer For when the Head was to be crowned with thorns if the Members were wrapped in softnesses it was an unhansome undecency and a disunion too near an antipathy and therefore who ever will be the Disciple of Jesus must take up his Cross deny himself and his own fonder appetites and trace his Master's foot-steps marked out with bloud that he shed for our Redemption and restitution And that there be no escape from the participation of Christ's suffering Jesus added this Dilemma He that will save his life shall lose it and he that will lose it shall save it to eternity Which part soever we chuse there is a life to be lost but as the first are foolish to the extremest misery that will lose their Souls to gain the World so they are most wise and fortunate that will give their lives for him because when the Son of Man shall come in his own glory and his Father's and of his Angels he shall reward every man according to his works This discourse Jesus concluded with a Prophecy that some standing in that presence should not die till they saw the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom 11. Of the greater glories of which in due time to be revealed Jesus after eight days gave a bright and excellent probation For taking with him Peter and James and John he went up into the mountain Tabor to pray and while he prayed he was transfigured before them and his face did shine like the Sun and his garments were white and 〈◊〉 And there appeared talking with him Moses and Elias gloriously speaking of the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem which glory these Apostles after they had awaked from sleep did behold And the Interlocutors with Jesus having finished their embassy of death which they delivered in forms of glory representing the excellencies of the reward together with the sharpness of the passage and interval departed leaving the Apostles full of fear and wonder and 〈◊〉 insomuch that Peter talked he knew not what but nothing amiss something Prophetical saying Master it is good to be here 〈◊〉 us build three tabernacles And some devout persons in memory of the mystery did 〈◊〉 three Churches in the same place in after-Ages But after the departure of those attendent Saints a cloud incircled Jesus and the Disciples and a voice came from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son hear him The cloud quickly disappeared and freed the Disciples from the fear it had put them in So they attended Jesus and descended from the mountain being commanded silence which they observed till the Resurrection 12. The next day came to Jesus a man praying in behalf of his son Lunatick and sore troubled with a Devil who sought oft to destroy him in fire and water that Jesus would be pleased to deliver him For his Apostles tried and could not by reason of the want of Faith for this Grace if it be true though in a less degree is of power to remove mountains to pluck up trees by the roots and to give them solid foundation in the waters And Jesus rebuked the Devil and 〈◊〉 departed out of him from that very hour Thence Jesus departed privately into Galilee and in his journey repeated those sadnesses of his approaching Passion Which so afflicted the spirits of the Disciples that they durst
hand or foot or extinguish the offending eye rather than upon the support of a troublesome soot and by the light of an offending eye walk into ruine and a sad eternity where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched And so Jesus ended this chain of excellent Discourses 18. About this time was the Jews Feast of Tabernacles whither Jesus went up as it were in secret and passing through Samaria he found the inhabitants of a little village so inhospitable as to refuse to give him entertainment which so provoked the intemperate zeal of James and John that they would fain have called for fire to consume them even as Elias did But Jesus rebuked the furies of their anger teaching them to distinguish the spirit of Christianity from the ungentleness of the decretory zeal of Elias For since the Son of man came with a purpose to seek and save what was lost it was but an indiscreet temerity suddenly upon the lightest umbrages of displeasure to destroy a man whose redemption cost the effusion of the dearest bloud from the heart of Jesus But contrariwise Jesus does a Miracle upon the ten Leprous persons which came to him from the neighbourhood crying out with sad exclamations for help But Jesus sent them to the Priest to offer for their cleansing Thither they went and but one only returned to give thanks and he a stranger who with a loud voice glorified God and with humble adoration worshipped and gave thanks to Jesus 19. When Jesus had finished his journey and was now come to Jerusalem for the first days he was undiscerned in publick conventions but heard of the various opinions of men concerning him some saying he was a good man others that he 〈◊〉 the people and the Pharisees sought for him to do him a mischief But when they despaired of finding him in the midst of the Feast and the people he made Sermons openly in the midst of the Temple whom when he had convinced by the variety and divinity of his Miracles and Discourses they gave the greatest testimony in the world of humane weakness and how prevalent a prejudice is above the confidence and conviction of a demonstration For a proverb a mistake an error in matter of circumstance did in their understandings outweigh multitudes of Miracles and arguments and because Christ was of Galilee because they knew whence he was because of the Proverb that 〈◊〉 of Galilee comes no Prophet because the Rulers did not believe in him these outweighed the demonstrations of his mercy and his power and Divinity But yet very many believed on him and no man durst lay hands to take him for as yet his time was not come in which he meant to give himself up to the power of the Jews and therefore when the Pharisees sent Officers to seise him they also became his Disciples being themselves surprised by the excellency of his Doctrine 20. After this Jesus went to the mount of Olivet on the East of Jerusalem and the next day returned again into the Temple where the Scribes and Pharisees brought him a woman taken in the act of Adultery tempting him to give sentence that they might accuse him of severity or intermedling if he condemned her or of remisness and popularity if he did acquit her But Jesus found out an expedient for their difficulty and changed the Scene by bidding the innocent person among them cast the first stone at the Adulteress and then stooping down to give them fair occasion to withdraw he wrote upon the ground with his finger whilest they left the woman and her crime to a more private censure Jesus was left alone and the woman in the midst whom Jesus dismissed charging her to sin no more And a while after Jesus begins again to discourse to them of his Mission from the Father of his Crucifixion and exaltation from the earth of the reward of Believers of the excellency of Truth of spiritual Liberty and Relations who are the sons of Abraham and who the children of the Devil of his own eternal generation of the desire of Abraham to see his day In which Sermon he continued adding still new excellencies and confuting their malicious and vainer calumnies till they that they also might 〈◊〉 him took up stones to cast at him but he went out of the Temple going through the midst of them and so passed by 21. But in his passage he met a man who had been born blind and after he had discoursed cursorily of the cause of that Blindness it being a misery not sent as a punishment to his own or his parents sin but as an occasion to make publick the glory of God he to manifest that himself was the light of the World in all sences said it now and proved it by a Miracle for sitting down he made clay of spittle and anointing the eyes of the blind man bid him go wash in Siloam which was a Pool of limpid water which God sent at the Prayer of Isaiah the Prophet a little before his death to satisfie the necessities of his people oppressed with thirst and a strict siege and it stood at the foot of the mount Sion and gave its water at first by returns and periods always to the Jews but not to the enemies And those intermitted springings were still continued but only a Pool was made from the frequent effluxes The blind man went and washed and returned seeing and was incessantly vexed by the Pharisees to tell them the manner and circumstances of the cure and when the man had averred the truth and named his Physician giving him a pious and charitable testimony the Pharisees because they could not force him to disavow his good opinion of Jesus cast him out of the 〈◊〉 But Jesus meeting him received him into the Church told him he was CHRIST and the man became again enlightned and he believed and worshipped But the Pharisees blasphemed for such was the dispensation of the Divine mysteries that the blind should see and they which think they see clearly should become blind because they had not the excuse of ignorance to lessen or take off the sin but in the midst of light they shut their eyes and doted upon darkness and therefore did their sin remain 22. But Jesus continued his Sermon among the Pharisees insinuating reprehensions in his dogmatical discourses which like light shined and discovered error For by discoursing the properties of a good Shepherd and the lawful way of intromission he proved them to be thieves and robbers because they refused to enter in by Jesus who is the door of the sheep and upon the same ground reproved all those false Christs which before him usurped the title of Messias and proved his own vocation and office by an argument which no other shepherd would use because he laid down his life for his sheep others would take the fleece and eat the flesh but none but himself would die for his sheep but he would first
the Angel's coming because it was a great necessity which was incumbent upon our Lord for his sadness and his Agony was so great mingled and compounded of sorrow and zeal fear and desire innocent nature and perfect grace that he sweat drops as great as if the bloud had started through little undiscerned fontinels and outrun the streams and rivers of his Cross. Euthymius and Theophylact say that the Evangelists use this as a tragical expression of the greatest Agony and an unusual sweat it being usual to call the tears of the greatest sorrow tears of 〈◊〉 But from the beginning of the Church it hath been more generally apprehended literally and that some bloud mingled with the 〈◊〉 substance issued from his veins in so great abundance that they moistened the ground and bedecked his garment which stood like a new firmament studded with stars portending an approaching storm Now he came from Bozrah with his garments red and bloudy And this Agony verified concerning the Holy Jesus those words of David I am poured out like water my bones are dispersed my heart in the midst of my body is like melting wax saith Justin Martyr Venerable Bede saith that the descending of these drops of bloud upon the earth besides the general purpose had also a particular relation to the present infirmities of the Apostles that our Blessed Lord obtained of his Father by the merits of those holy drops mercies and special support for them and that effusion redeemed them from the present participation of death And S. Austin meditates that the Body of our Lord all overspread with drops of bloudy sweat did prefigure the future state of Martyrs and that his Body mystical should be clad in a red garment variegated with the symbols of labour and passion sweat and bloud by which himself was pleased to purifie his Church and present her to God holy and spotless What collateral designs and tacite significations might be designed by this mysterious sweat I know not certainly it was a sad beginning of a most dolorous Passion and such griefs which have so violent permanent and sudden effects upon the body which is not of a nature symbolical to interiour and immaterial causes are proclaimed by such marks to be high and violent We have read of some persons that the grief and fear of one night hath put a cover of snow upon their heads as if the labours of thirty years had been extracted and the quintessence drank off in the passion of that night but if Nature had been capable of a greater or more prodigious impress of passion than a bloudy sweat it must needs have happened in this Agony of the Holy Jesus in which he undertook a grief great enough to make up the imperfect Contrition of all the Saints and to satisfie for the impenitencies of all the world 7. By this time the Traitor Judas was arrived at Gethsemani and being in the vicinage of the Garden Jesus rises from his prayers and first calls his Disciples from their sleep and by an Irony seems to give them leave to sleep on but reproves their drousiness when danger is so near and bids them henceforth take their rest meaning if they could for danger which now was indeed come to the Garden-doors But the Holy Jesus that it might appear he undertook the Passion with choice and a free election not only refused to flie but called his Apostles to rise that they might meet his Murtherers who came to him with swords and staves as if they were to surprise a Prince of armed Out-laws whom without force they could not reduce So also might Butchers do well to go armed when they are pleased to be afraid of Lambs by calling them Lions Judas only discovered his Master's retirements and betrayed him to the opportunities of an armed band for he could not accuse his Master of any word or private action that might render him obnoxious to suspicion or the Law For such are the rewards of innocence and prudence that the one secures against sin the other against suspicion and appearances 8. The Holy Jesus had accustomed to receive every of his Disciples after absence with entertainment of a Kiss which was the endearment of persons and the expression of the oriental civility and Judas was confident that his Lord would not reject him whose feet he had washed at the time when he foretold this event and therefore had agreed to signifie him by this sign and did so beginning war with a Kiss and breaking the peace of his Lord by the symbol of kindness which because Jesus entertained with much evenness and charitable expressions calling him Friend he gave evidence that if he retained civilities to his greatest enemies in the very acts of hostility he hath banquets and crowns and scepters for his friends that adore him with the kisses of Charity and love him with the sincerity of an affectionate spirit But our Blessed Lord besides his essential sweetness and serenity of spirit understood well how great benefits himself and all the World were to receive by occasion of that act of Judas and our greatest enemy does by accident to holy persons the offices of their dearest friends telling us our faults without a cloak to cover their deformities but out of malice laying open the circumstances of aggravation doing us affronts from whence we have an instrument of our Patience and restraining us from scandalous crimes lest we become a scorn and reproof to them that 〈◊〉 us And it is none of God's least mercies that he permits enmities amongst men that animosities and peevishness may reprove more sharply and correct with more severity and simplicity than the gentle hand of friends who are apter to bind our wounds up than to discover them and make them smart but they are to us an excellent probation how friends may best do the offices of friends if they would take the plainness of enemies in accusing and still mingle it with the tenderness and good affections of friends But our Blessed Lord called Judas Friend as being the instrument of bringing him to glory and all the World to pardon if they would 9. Jesus himself begins the enquiry and leads them into their errand and tells them he was JESUS of Nazareth whom they sought But this also which was an answer so gentle had in it a strength greater than the Eastern wind or the voice of thunder for God was in that still voice and it struck them down to the ground And yet they and so do we still persist to persecute our Lord and to provoke the eternal God who can with the breath of his mouth with a word or a sign or a thought reduce us into nothing or into a worse condition even an eternal duration of torments and cohabitation with a never-ending misery And if we cannot bear a soft answer of the merciful God how shall we dare to provoke the wrath of the Almighty Judge But in
had been the excellency and exemplar Piety and prudence of the life of Jesus that if they pretended against him questions of their Law they were not capital in a Roman Court if they affirmed that he had moved the people to sedition and affected the Kingdom they saw that all the world would convince them of 〈◊〉 testimony At last after many attempts they accused him for a figurative speech a trope which they could not understand which if it had been spoken in a literal sence and had been acted too according to the letter had been so far from a fault that it would have been a prodigy of power and it had been easier to raise the Temple of Jerusalem than to raise the temple of his Body In the mean time the Lamb of God left his cause to defend it self under the protection of his heavenly Father not only because himself was determined to die but because if he had not those premisses could never have inferred it But this Silence of the Holy Jesus fulfilled a Prophecy it made his enemies full of murmur and amazement it made them to see that he despised the accusations as certain and apparent calumnies but that himself was fearless of the issue and in the sence of morality and mysteries taught us not to be too apt to excuse our selves when the semblance of a fault lies upon us unless by some other duty we are obliged to our defences since he who was most innocent was most silent and it was expedient that as the first Adam increased his sin by a vain apology the silence and sufferance of the second Adam should expiate and reconcile it 3. But Caiaphas had a reserve which he knew should do the business in that assembly he adjured him by God to tell him if he were the CHRIST The Holy Jesus being adjured by so sacred a Name would not now refuse an answer lest it might not consist with that honour which is due to it and which he always payed and that he might neither despise the authority of the High Priest nor upon so solemn occasion be wanting to that great truth which he came down to earth to perswade to the world And when three such circumstances concur it is enough to open our mouths though we let in death And so did our Lord confessed himself to be the CHRIST the Son of the living God And this the High Priest was pleased as the design was laid to call Blasphemy and there they voted him to die Then it was the High Priest rent his cloaths the veil of the Temple was rent when the Passion was finished the cloaths of the Priests at the beginning of it and as that signified the departing of the Synagogue and laying Religion open so did the rending the garments of Caiaphas prophetically signifie that the Priesthood should be rent from him and from the Nation And thus the personated and theatrical admiration at Jesus became the type of his own punishment and consigned the Nation to delition and usually God so dispenses his Judgments that when men personate the tragedies of others they really act their own 4. Whilest these things were acting concerning the Lord a sad accident happened to his servant Peter for being engaged in strange and evil company in the midst of danger surprised with a question without time to deliberate an answer to find subterfuges or to fortifie himself he denied his Lord shamefully with some boldness at first and this grew to a licencious confidence and then to impudence and denying with perjury that he knew not his Lord who yet was known to him as his own heart and was dearer than his eyes and for whom he professed but a little before he would die but did not do so till many years after But thus he became to us a sad example of humane infirmity and if the Prince of the Apostles fell so 〈◊〉 it is full of pity but not to be upbraided if we see the fall of lesser stars And yet that we may prevent so great a ruine we must not mingle with such company who will provoke or scorn us into sin and if we do yet we must stand upon our guard that a sudden motion do not surprise us or if we be arrested yet let us not enter farther into our sin like wild beasts intricating themselves by their impatience For there are some who being ashamed and impatient to have been engaged take sanctuary in boldness and a shameless abetting it so running into the darkness of Hell to hide their nakedness But he also by returning and rising instantly became to us a rare example of Penitence and his not lying long in the crime did facilitate this restitution For the spirit of God being extinguished by our works of darkness is like a taper which if as soon as the 〈◊〉 is blown out it be brought to the fire it sucks light and without trouble is re-enkindled but if it cools into death and stiffness it requires a longer stay and trouble The Holy Jesus in the midst of his own sufferings forgat not his servant's danger but was pleased to look upon him when the Cock crew and the Cock was the Preacher and the Look of Jesus was the Grace that made the Sermon effectual and because he was but newly fallen and his habitual love of his Master though interrupted yet had suffered no natural abatement he returned with the swiftness of an Eagle to the embraces and primitive affections of his Lord. 5. By this time suppose Sentence given Caiaphas prejudging all the Sanhedrim for he first declared Jesus to have spoken Blasphemy and the fact to be notorious and then asked their votes which whoso then should have denied must have contested the judgment of the High Priest who by the favour of the Romans was advanced Valerius Gratus who was President of Judaea having been his Patron and his Faction potent and his malice great and his heart set upon this business all which inconveniences none of them durst have suffered unless he had had the confidence greater than of an Apostle at that time But this Sentence was but like strong dispositions to an enraged fever he was only declared apt and worthy for death they had no power at that time to inflict it but yet they let loose all the fury of mad-men and insolency of wounded smarting souldiers and although from the time of his being in the house of Annas till the Council met they had used him with studied indignities yet now they renewed and doubled the unmercifulness and their injustice to so great a height that their injuries must needs have been greater than his Patience if his Patience had been less than infinite For thus Man's Redemption grows up as the load swells which the Holy Jesus bare for us for these were our portion and we having turned the flowers of Paradise into thistles should for ever have felt their infelicity had not Jesus paid the debt But
the Opinions of Men about him were various and different that some took him for John the Baptist lately risen from the dead between whose Doctrine Discipline and way of life in the main there was so great a Correspondence That others thought he was Elias probably judging so from the gravity of his Person freedom of his Preaching the fame and reputation of his Miracles especially since the Scriptures assured them he was not dead but taken up into Heaven and had so expresly foretold that he should return back again That others look'd upon him as the Prophet Jeremiah alive again of whose return the Jewes had great expectations in so much that some of them thought the Soul of Jeremias was re-inspired into 〈◊〉 Or if not thus at least that he was one of the more eminent of the ancient Prophets or that the Souls of some of these Persons had been breathed into him The Doctrine of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transmigration of Souls first broached and propagated by Pythagoras being at this time current amongst the Jews and owned by the Pharisees as one of their prime Notions and Principles 2. THIS Account not 〈◊〉 our Lord comes closer and nearer to them tells them It was no wonder if the common People were divided into these wild thoughts concerning him but since they had been always with him had been hearers of his Sermons and Spectators of his Miracles he enquired what they themselves thought of him Peter ever forward to return an Answer and therefore by the Fathers frequently stiled The Mouth of the Apostles told him in the name of the rest That he was the Messiah The Son of the living God promised of old in the Law and the Prophets heartily desired and looked for by all good men anointed and set apart by God to be the King Priest and Prophet of his People To this excellent and comprehensive confession of Peter's Our Lord returns this great Eulogie and Commendation Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven That is this Faith which thou hast now confessed is not humane contrived by Man's wit or built upon his testimony but upon those Notions and Principles which I was sent by God to reveal to the World and those mighty and solemn attestations which he has given from Heaven to the truth both of my Person and my Doctrine And because thou hast so freely made this Confession therefore I also say unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it That is that as thy Name signifies a Stone or Rock such shalt thou thy self be firm solid and immoveable in building of the Church which shall be so orderly erected by thy care and diligence and so firmly founded upon that faith which thou hast now confessed that all the assaults and attempts which the powers of Hell can make against it shall not be able to overturn it Moreover I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven That is thou shalt have that spiritual authority and power within the Church whereby as with Keys thou shalt be able to shut and lock out obstinate and impenitent sinners and upon their repentance to unlock the door and take them in again And what thou shalt thus regularly do shall be own'd in the Court above and ratified by God in Heaven 3. UPON these several passages the Champions of the Church of Rome mainly build the unlimited Supremacy and Infallibility of the Bishops of that See with how much truth and how little reason it is not my present purpose to discuss It may suffice here to remark that though this place does very much tend to exalt the honour of Saint Peter yet is there nothing herein personal and peculiar to him alone as distinct from and preserred above the rest of the Apostles Does he here make confession of Christ's being the Son of God Yet besides that herein he spake but the sence of all the rest this was no more than what others had said as well as he yea besore he was so much as call'd to be a Disciple Thus Nathanael at his first coming to Christ expresly told him Rabbi thou art the Son of God Thou art the King of Israel Does our Lord here stile him a Rock All the Apostles are elsewhere equally called Foundations yea said to be the Twelve Foundations upon which the Wall of the new Jerusalem that is the Evangelical Church is 〈◊〉 and sometimes others of them besides Peter are called Pillars as they have relation to the Church already built Does Christ here promise the Keys to Peter that is Power of Governing and of exercising Church-censures and of absolving penitent sinners The very same is elsewhere promised to all the Apostles and almost in the very same termes and words If thine offending Brother prove obstinate tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And elsewhere when ready to leave the World he tells them As my Father hath sent me even so send I you whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained By all which it is evident that our Lord did not here give any personal prerogative to S. Peter as Universal Pastor and Head of the Christian Church much less to those who were to be his Successors in the See of Rome But that as he made this Confession in the name of the rest of the Apostles so what was here promised unto him was equally intended unto all Nor did the more considering and judicious part of the Fathers however giving a mighty reverence to S. Peter ever understand it in any other sence Sure I am that Origen tells us that every true Christian that makes this confession with the same Spirit and Integrity which S. Peter did shall have the same blessing and commendation from Christ conferr'd upon him 4. THE Holy Jesus knowing the time of his Passion to draw on began to prepare the minds of his Apostles against that fatal Hour telling them what hard and bitter things he should suffer at Jerusalem what affronts and indignities he must undergo and be at last put to death with all the arts of torture and disgrace by the Decree of the Jewish Sanhedrim Peter whom our Lord had infinitely incouraged and indeared to him by the great things which he had lately said concerning him so that his spirits were now afloat and his
Servant-maid that let him in and earnestly looking upon him she charged him with being one of Christ's Disciples which Peter publickly denied before all the Company positively affirming that he knew him not And presently withdrew himself into the Porch where he heard the Cock crow An intimation which one would have thought should have awakened his Conscience into a quick sense of his duty and the promise he had made unto his Master In the Porch another of the Maids set upon him charging him that he also was one of them that had been with Jesus of Nazareth which Peter stoutly denyed saying that he knew not Christ and the better to gain their belief to what he said ratified it with an Oath So natural is it for one sin to draw on another 7. ABOUT an Hour after he was a third time set upon by a Servant of the High Priest Malchus his Kinsman whose Ear Peter had lately cut off By him he was charged to be one of Christ's Disciples Yea that his very speech betrayed him to be a Galilean For the Galileans though they did not speak a different language had yet a different Dialect using a more confused and barbarous a broader and more unpolished way of pronunciation than the rest of the Jews whereby they were easily distinguishable in their speaking from other men abundant instances whereof there are extant in the Talmud at this day Nay not only gave this evidence but added that he himself had seen him with Jesus in the Garden Peter still resolutely denied the matter and to add the highest accomplishment to his sin ratified it not only with an Oath but a solemn Curse and execration that he was not the person that he knew not the man 'T is but a very weak excuse which S. Ambrose and some others make for this Act of Peter's in saying I knew not the Man He did well says he to deny him to be Man whom he knew to be God S. Hierom takes notice of this pious and well-meant excuse made for Peter though out of modesty he conceals the name of its Authors but yet justly censures it as trifling and frivolous and which to excuse Man from folly would charge God with falshood for if he did not deny him then our Lord was out when he said that that Night he should thrice deny him that is his Person and not only his humanity Certainly the best Apology that can be made for Peter is that he quickly repented of this great sin for no sooner had he done it but the Cock crew again at which intimation our Saviour turn'd about and earnestly looked upon him a glance that quickly pierced him to the Heart and brought to his remembrance what our Lord had once and again foretold him of how foully and shamefully he should deny him whereupon not being able to contain his sorrow he ran out of Doors to give it vent and wept bitterly passionately bewailing his folly and the aggravations of his sin thereby indeavouring to make some reparation for his fault and recover himself into the favour of Heaven and to prevent the execution of Divine Justice by taking a severe revenge upon himself by these penitential tears he endeavoured to wash off his guilt as indeed Repentance is the next step to Innocence SECT VI. Of S. Peter from Christ ' s Resurrection till his Ascension Our Lord's care to acquaint Peter with his Resurrection His going to the Sepulchre Christ's appearance to Peter when and the Reasons of it The Apostles Journey into Galilee Christ's appearing to them at the Sea of Tiberias His being discovered by the great draught of Fishes Christ's questioning Peter's love and why Feed my Sheep commended to Peter imports no peculiar supereminent power and soveraignty Peter's death and sufferings foretold Our Lord takes his last leave of the Apostles at Bethany His Ascension into Heaven The Chappel of the Ascension The Apostles joy at their Lord's Exaltation 1. WHAT became of Peter after his late Prevarication whether he followed our Saviour through the several stages of his Trial and personally attended as a Mourner at the Funerals of his Master we have no account left upon Record No doubt he stayed at Jerusalem and probably with S. John together with whom we first find him mentioned when both setting forwards to the Sepulchre which was in this manner Early on that Morning whereon our Lord was to return from the Grave Mary Magdalen and some other devout and pious Women brought Spices and Ointments with a design to Imbalm the Body of our crucified Lord. Coming to the Sepulchre at Sun-rising and finding the Door open they entred in where they were suddainly 〈◊〉 by an Angel who told them that Jesus was risen and bad them go and 〈◊〉 his Apostles and particularly Peter that he was returned from the dead and that he would go before them into Galilee where they should meet with him Hereupon they returned back and acquainted the Apostles with what had passed who beheld the story as the product of a weak frighted fancy But Peter and John presently hastned towards the Garden John being the younger and nimbler out-ran his Companion and came first thither where he only looked but entred not in either out of fear in himself or a great Reverence to our Saviour Peter though behind in space was before in zeal and being elder and more considerate came and resolutely entred in where they found nothing but the Linnen Clothes lying together in one place and the Napkin that was about his Head wrapped together in another which being disposed with so much care and order shewed what was falsly suggested by the Jewes that our Saviour's Body was not taken away by Thieves who are wont more to consult their escape than how to leave things orderly disposed behind them 2. THE same Day about Noon we may suppose it was that our Lord himself appeared alone to Peter being assured of the thing though not so precisely of the time That he did so S. Paul expresly tells us and so did the Apostles the two Disciples that came from Emmaus The Lord is risen and had appeared unto Simon which probably intimates that it was before his appearing to those two Disciples And indeed we cannot but think that our Lord would hasten the manifestation of himself to him as compassionating his case being overwhelmed with sorrow for the late shameful denial of his Master and was therefore willing in the first place to honour him with his presence at once to confirm him in the Article of his Resurrection and to let him see that he was restored to the place which before he had in his grace and favour S. Paul mentioning his several appearances after his Resurrection seems to make this the first of them That he was seen of Cephas Not that it was simply the first for he first appeared to the Women But as 〈◊〉 observes it was the first that
S. Jude speaking of the Scoffers who should come in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts cites this as that which had been before spoken by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ wherein he plainly quotes the words of this Second Epistle of Peter affirming That there should come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts And that this does agree to Peter will further appear by this that he tells us of these Scoffers that should come in the last days that is before the destruction of Jerusalem as that phrase is often used in the New Testament that they should say Where is the promise of his coming Which clearly respects their making light of those threatnings of our Lord whereby he had foretold that he would shortly come in Judgment for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation This he now puts them in mind of as what probably he had before told them of 〈◊〉 vocc when he was amongst them For so we find he did elsewhere Lactantius assuring us That amongst many strange and wonderful things which Peter and Paul preached at Rome and lest upon Record this was one That within a short time God would send a Prince who should destroy the Jews and lay their Cities level with the ground straitly besiege them destroy them with Famine so that they should feed upon one another That their Wives and Daughters should be ravished and their Childrens brains dasht out before their faces that all things should be laid waste by Fire and Sword and themselves perpetually banished from their own Countrey and this for their insolent and merciless usage of the innocent and dear Son of God All which as he observes came to pass soon after their death when 〈◊〉 came upon the Jews and extinguished both their Name and Nation And what Peter here foretold at Rome we need not question but he had done before to those Jews to whom he wrote this Epistle Wherein he especially antidotes them against those corrupt and poisonous principles wherewith many and especially the followers of Simon Magus began to insect the Church of Christ. And this but a little time before his death as appears from that passage in it where he tells them That he knew he must shortly put off his earthly Tabernacle 7. BESIDES these Divine Epistles there were other supposititious writings which in the first Ages were fathered upon S. Peter Such was the Book called his Acts mentioned by Origen Eusebius and others but rejected by them Such was his Gospel which probably at first was nothing else but the Gospel written by S. Mark dictated to him as is generally thought by S. Peter and therefore as S. 〈◊〉 tells us said to be his Though in the next Age there appeared a Book under that Title mentioned by Serapion Bishop of Antioch and by him at 〈◊〉 suffered to be read in the Church but afterwards upon a more careful perusal of it he rejected it as Apocryphal as it was by others after him Another was the Book stiled His Preaching mentioned and quoted both by Clemens Alexandrinus and by Origen but not acknowledged by them to be Genuine Nay expresly said to have been forged by Hereticks by an ancient Author contemporary with S. Cyprian The next was his Apocalypse or Revelation rejected as Sozomen tells us by the 〈◊〉 as Spurious but yet read in some Churches in Palestine in his time The last was the Book called His Judgment which probably was the same with that called Hermes or Pastor a Book of good use and esteem in the first times of Christianity and which as Eusebius tells us was not only frequently cited by the Ancients but also publickly read in Churches 8. WE shall conclude this Section by considering Peter with respect to his several Relations That he was married is unquestionable the Sacred History mentioning his Wives Mother his Wife might we believe Metaphrastes being the Daughter of Aristobulus Brother to Barnabas the Apostle And though S. Hierom would perswade us that he left her behind him together with his Nets when he forsook all to follow Christ yet we know that Father too well to be over-confident upon his word in a case of Marriage or Single life wherein he is not over-scrupulous sometimes to strain a point to make his opinion more fair and plausible The best is we have an infallible Authority which plainly intimates the contrary the testimony of S. Paul who tells us of Cephas that he led about a Wife a Sister along with him who for the most part mutually cohabited lived together for ought that can be proved to the contrary Clemens Alexandrinus gives us this account though he tells us not the time or place That Peter seeing his Wife going towards Martyrdom exceedingly rejoyced that she was called to so great an honour and that she was now returning home encouraging and earnestly exhorting her and calling her by her Name bad her to be mindful of our Lord. Such says he was the Wedlock of that blessed couple and the perfect disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them By her he is said to have had a Daughter called Petronilla Metaphrastes adds a Son how truly I know not This only is certain that S. Clemens of Alexandria reckons Peter for one of the Apostles that was Married and had Children And surely he who was so good a man and so good an Apostle was as good in the relation both of an Husband and a Father SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome Peter's being at Rome granted in general The account of it given by Baronius and the Writers of that Church rejected and disproved No foundation for it in the History of the Apostolick Acts. No mention of it in S. Paul's Epistle to the Romans No news of his being there at S. Paul's coming to Rome nor intimation of any such thing in the several Epistles which S. Paul wrote from thence S. Peter's first being at Rome inconsistent with the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem And with an Ancient Tradition that the Apostles were commanded to stay Twelve years in Judaea after Christ's death Apassage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the 〈◊〉 of the Romish Church in their Accounts Peter's being XXV years Bishop of Rome no solid foundation for it in Antiquity The Planting and Governing that Church equally attributed to Peter and Paul S. Peter when probably came to Rome Different dates of his Martyrdom assigned by the Ancients A probable account given of it 1. THOUGH it be not my purpose to swim against the Stream and Current of Antiquity in denying S. Peter to have been at Rome an Assertion easilier perplexed and intangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there
XLVIII in the sixth year of Claudius if not somewhat sooner for S. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not necessarily imply that Fourteen years were completely past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying circa as well as post but that it was near about that time This being granted and if it be not it is easie to make it good then three things amongst others will follow from it First That whereas according to Bellarmine and Baronius S. Peter after his first coming to Rome which they place Ann. XLIV and the second of Claudius was seven years before he returned thence to the Council at Jerusalem they are strangely out in their story there being but three or at most four years between his going thither and the celebration of that Council Secondly That when they tell us that S. Peter's leaving Rome to come to the Council was upon the occasion of the decree of Claudius banishing all Jews out of the City this can no ways be For Orosius does not onely 〈◊〉 but prove it from Josephus that Claudius his Decree was published in the Ninth Year of his Reign or Ann. Chr. LI. Three Years at least after the Celebration of the Council Thirdly That when Baronius tells us that the Reason why Peter went to Rome after the breaking up of the Synod was because Claudius was now dead he not daring to go before for fear of the Decree this can be no reason at all the Council being ended at least Three Years before that Decree took place so that he might 〈◊〉 have gone thither without the least danger from it It might further be shewed if it were necessary that the account which even they themselves give us is not very consistent with it self So fatally does a bad cause draw Men whether they will or no into Errours and Mistakes 5. THE truth is the learned Men of that Church are not well agreed among themselves to give in their verdict in this case And indeed how should they when the thing it self affords no solid foundation for it Onuphrius a man of great learning and industry in all matters of antiquity and who as the writer of Baronius his life insorms us designed before Baronius to write the History of the Church goes a way by himself in assigning the time of S. Peter's founding his See both at Antioch and Rome For finding by the account of the sacred story that Peter did not leave 〈◊〉 for the Ten first Years after our Lord's Aseension and consequently could not in that time erect his See at Antioch he affirms that he went first to Rome whence returning to the Council at Jerusalem he thence went to Antioch where he remained Seven Years till the Death of Claudius and having spent almost the whole Reign of Nero in several parts of Europe returned in the last of Nero's Reign to Rome and there dyed An opinion for which he is sufficiently chastised by Baronius and others of that Party And here I cannot but remarque the ingenuity for the learning sufficiently commends it self of Monsieur l'alois who freely confesses the mistake of Baronius Petavius c. in making Peter go to Rome Ann. XLIV the Second Year of Claudius when as it is plain says he from the History of the Acts that Peter went not out of Judaea and Syria till the Death of Herod Claudii Ann. IV. Two whole Years after Consonant to which as he observes is what Apollonius a Writer of the Second Century reports from a Tradition current in his time that the Apostles did not depart asunder till the Twelfth Year after Christ's Ascension our Lord himself having so commanded them In confirmation whereof let me add a passage that I meet with in Clemens of Alexandria where from S. Peter he records this Speech of our Saviour to his Apostles spoken probably either a little before his Death or after his Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any Israelite shall repent and believe in God through my Name his sins shall be forgiven him after twelve years Go ye into the World lest any should say we have not heard This passage as ordinarily pointed in all Editions that I have seen is scarce capable of any tolerable sence for what 's the meaning of a penitent Israelite's being pardoned after twelve years It is therefore probable yea certain with me that the stop ought to be after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned to the following clause and then the sence will run clear and smooth If any Jew shall repent and believe the Gospel he shall be pardoned but after twelve years go ye into all the World that none may pretend that they have not heard the sound of the Gospel The Apostles were first to Preach the Gospel to the Jews for some considerable time Twelve Years after Christ's Ascension in and about Judaea and then to betake themselves to the Provinces of the Gentile-World to make known to them the glad tidings of Salvation exactly answerable to the Tradition mentioned by Apollonius Besides the Chronicon Alexandrinum tells us that Peter came not to Rome till the Seventh Year of Claudius Ann. Christi XLIX So little certainty can there be of any matter wherein there is no truth Nay the samo excellent Men before mentioned does not stick elsewhere to profess he wonders at Baronius that he should make Peter come from Rome banished thence by Claudius his Edict to the Synod at Jerusalem the same Year viz. Ann. Claudii 9. a thing absolutely inconsistent with that story of the Apostles Acts recorded by S. Luke wherein there is the space of no less than Three Years from the time of that Synod to the Decree of Claudius It being evident what he observes that after the celebration of that Council S. Paul went back to Antioch afterwards into Syria and Cilicia to Preach the Gospel thence into Phrygia Galatia and Mysia from whence he went into Macedonia and first Preached at Philippi then at Thessalonica and Beraea afterwards stay'd some consider time at Athens and last of all went to Corinth where he met with Aquila and Priscilla lately come from Italy banished Rome with the rest of the Jews by the Decree of Claudius all which by an easie and reasonable computation can take up no less than Three Years at least 6. THAT which caused Baronius to split upon so many Rocks was not so much want of seeing them which a Man of his parts and industry could not but in a great measure see as the unhappy necessity of defending those 〈◊〉 principles which he had undertaken to maintain For being to make good Peter's five and twenty years presidency over the Church of Rome he was forced to confound times and dislocate stories that he might bring all his ends together What foundation this story of Peter's being five and twenty years Bishop of Rome has in antiquity I find not unless it sprang from
hence that 〈◊〉 places Peter's coming to Rome in the Second Year of Claudius and his Martyrdom in the Fourteenth of Nero between which there is the just space of five and twenty years Whence those that came after concluded that he sate Bishop there all that time It cannot be denied but that in S. Hierom's Translation it is expresly said that he continued five and twenty years Bishop of that City But then it is as evident that this was his own addition who probably set things down as the report went in his time no such thing being to be found in the Greek Copy of Eusebius Nor indeed does he ever there or else-where positively affirm S. Peter to have been Bishop of Rome but only that he preached the Gospel there And expresly affirms that he and S. Paul being dead Linus was the first Bishop of Rome To which I may add that when the Ancients speak of the Bishops of Rome and the first Originals of that Church they equally attribute the founding and the Episcopacy and Government of it to Peter and Paul making the one as much concerned in it as the other Thus Epiphanius reckoning up the Bishops of that See places Peter and Paul in the front as the first Bishops of Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peter and Paul Apostles became the first Bishops of Rome then Linus c. And again a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the succession of the Bishops of Rome was in this manner Peter and Paul Linus Cletus c. And Egesippus speaking of their coming to Rome equally says of them that they were Doctores Christianorum sublimes operibus clari magisterio the Instructors of the Christians admirable for miracles and renowned for their authority However granting not only that he was there but that he was Bishop and that for five and twenty years together yet what would this make for the unlimited Soveraignty and Universality of that Church unless a better evidence than Feed my sheep could be produced for its uncontroulable Supremacy and Dominion over the whole Christian World 7. THE summe is this granting what none that has any reverence for Antiquity will deny that S. Peter was at Rome he probably came thither some few Years before his death joyned with and assisted S. Paul in Preaching of the Gospel and then both sealed the Testimony of it with their Bloud The date of his Death is differently assigned by the Ancients Eusebius places it Ann. LXIX in the Fourteenth of Nero Epiphanius in the Twelfth That which seems to me most probable is that it was in the Tenth or the Year LXV which I thus compute Nero's burning of Rome is placed by Tacitus under the Consulship of C. Lecanius and M. Licinius about the Month of July that is Ann. Chr. LXIV This act procured him the infinite hatred and clamours of the People which having in vain endeavoured several ways to remove and pacifie he at last resolved upon this project to derive the Odium upon the Christians whom therefore both to appease the Gods and please the People he condemned as guilty of the fact and caused to be executed with all manner of acute and exquisite Tortures This Persecution we may suppose began about the end of that or the beginning of the following Year And under this Persecution I doubt not it was that S. Peter suffered and changed Earth for Heaven The End of S. Peter's Life THE LIFE OF S. PAUL S. PAUL He was beheaded by the command of Nero the Roman Emperour Place this to the Epistle for the Conversion of S. Paul St. Paul's Conversion Act. 9. 3. 4. And as he journied he came near to Damascus suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven he fell to the earth heard a voice saying unto him Saul Saul c. Ver. 7 And the men which journied with him stood speechless hearing a voice but seeing no man SECT I. Of S. PAUL from his Birth till his Conversion S. Paul why placed next Peter Tarsus the place of his Birth an University and a Roman Corporation His Parents of the old stock of Israel descended of the Tribe of Benjamin Jacob's Prophecy applied to him by the Ancients His Names Saul whence Paul when assumed and why His Education in the Schools of Tarsus and in the Trade of Tent-making The Custom of the Jews in bringing up their Youth to Manual Trades His study of the Law under the Tutorage of Gamaliel This Gamaliel who Why said to have been a Christian. Sitting at the feet of their Masters the posture of learners His joyning himself to the Sect of the Pharisees An Enquiry into the Temper and Manners of that Sect. The fiery Zeal and Activity of his Temper His being engaged in Stephen's Martyrdom His violent persecution of the Church His journey to Damascus His Conversion by the way and the manner of it His blindness His rapture into the third Heaven when probably His sight restored His being Baptized and preaching Christ. THOUGH S. Paul was none of the Twelve Apostles yet had he the honour of being an Apostle extraordinary and to be immediately called in a way peculiar to himself He justly deserves a place next S. Peter for as in their lives they were pleasant and lovely so in their death they were not divided especially if it be true that they both suffered not only for the same cause but at the same time as well as place S. Paul was born at Tarsus the Metropolis of Cilicia a City infinitely rich and populous and what contributed more to the fame and honour of it an Academy furnished with Schools of Learning where the Scholars so closely plied their Studies that as Strabo informs us they excelled in all Arts of polite Learning and Philosophy those of other places yea even of Alexandria and Athens it self and that even Rome was beholden to it for many of its best Professors It was a Roman Municipium or free Corporation invested with many Franchises and Priviledges by Julius Caesar and Augustus who granted to the Inhabitants of it the honours and immunities of Citizens of Rome In which respect S. Paul owned and asserted it as the priviledge of his Birth-right that he was a Roman and thereby free from being bound or beaten True it is that S. Hierom followed herein by one who himself travelled in these parts makes him born at Gischalis a well fortified Town in Judaea which being besieged and taken by the Roman Army his Parents fled away with him and dwelt at Tarsus But besides that this contradicts S. Paul who expresly affirms that he was born at Tarsus there needs no more to confute this opinion than that S. Hierom elsewhere slights it as a fabulous report 2. HIS Parents were Jews and that of the Ancient stock not entering in by the Gate of proselytism but originally descended from that Nation which surely he means when he says
was both his Father and his Master whereof he became a most earnest and zealous professor This being as himself tells us the strictest Sect of their Religion For the understanding whereof it may not be 〈◊〉 a little to enquire into the Temper and Manners of this Sect. Josephus though himself a Pharisee gives this character of them That they were a crafty and subtil generation of men and so perverse even to Princes themselves that they would not fear many times openly to affront and oppose them And so far had they insinuated themselves into the affections and estimations of the populacy that their good or ill word was enough to make or blast any one with the people who would implicitly believe them let their report be never so false or malicious And therefore Alexander 〈◊〉 when he lay a dying wisely advised his Queen by all means to comply with them and to seem to Govern by their counsel and direction affirming that this had been the greatest cause of his fatal miscarriage and that which had derived the odium of the Nation upon him that he had offended this sort of men Certain it is that they were infinitely proud and insolent surly and ill-natured that they hated all mankind but themselves censured whoever would not be of their way as a Villain and a Reprobate greatly zealous to gather 〈◊〉 to their party not to make them more religious but more fierce and cruel more carping and censorious more heady and high-minded in short twofold more the children of the Devil than they were before All Religion and kindness was confined within the bounds of their own party and the first principles wherewith they inspired their new converts were That none but they were the godly party and that all other persons were slaves and sons of the Earth and therefore especially endeavoured to inspire them with a mighty zeal and fierceness against all that differed from them so that if any one did but speak a good word of our Saviour he should be presently excommunicated and cast out persecuted and devoted to the death To this end they were wont not only to separate but 〈◊〉 themselves from the herd and community by some peculiar notes and badges of distinction such as their long Robes broad 〈◊〉 and their large Fringes and Borders of their Garments whereby they made themselves known from the rest of men These dogged and ill-natured principles together with their seditious unnatural unjust unmerciful and uncharitable behaviour which otherwise would have made them stink above-ground in the nostrils of men they sought to palliate and 〈◊〉 over with a more than ordinary pretence and profession of Religion but were especially active and diligent in what cost them little the outward instances of Religion such duties especially as did more immediately refer to God as frequent fasting and praying which they did very often and very long with demure and mortified looks in a whining and an affected tone and this almost in every corner of the streets and indeed so contrived the scheme of their Religion that what they did might appear above ground where they might be seen of men to the best advantage 7. THOUGH this seems to have been the general temper and disposition of the party yet doubtless there were some amongst them of better and honester principles than the rest In which number we have just reason to reckon our Apostle who yet was deeply leavened with the active and fiery genius of the Sect not able to brook any opposite party in Religion especially if late and novel Insomuch that when the Jews were resolved to do execution upon Stephen he stood by and kept the cloaths of them that did it Whether he was any further engaged in the death of this innocent and good man we do not find However this was enough loudly to proclaim his approbation and consent And therefore elsewhere we find him indicting himself for this fact and pleading guilty When the blood of thy Martyr Stephen was shed I also was standing by and consenting unto his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him God chiefly inspects the heart and if the vote be passed there writes the man guilty though he stir no farther 'T is easie to murder another by a silent wish or a passionate desire In all moral actions God values the will for the deed and reckons the man a companion in the sin who though possibly he may never actually joyn in it does yet inwardly applaud and like it The storm thus begun encreased a pace and a violent persecution began to arise which miserably afflicted and dispersed the Christians at Jerusalem In which our Apostle was a prime Agent and Minister raging about in all parts with a mad and ungovernable zeal searching out the Saints beating them in the Synagogues compelling many to blaspheme imprisoning others and procuring them to be put to death Indeed he was a kind of Inquisitor 〈◊〉 pravitatis to the High-Priest by whom he was imployed to hunt and find out these upstart 〈◊〉 who preached against the Law of Moses and the Traditions of the Fathers Accordingly having made strange havock at Jerusalem he addressed himself to the Sanhedrim and there took out a Warrant and Commission to go down and ransack the Synagogues at Damascus How eternally infatiable is fury and a misguided zeal how restless and unwearied in its designs of cruelty it had already 〈◊〉 harassed the poor Christians at Jerusalem but not content to have vexed them there and to have driven them thence it persecuted them unto strange Cities following them even to Damascus it self whither many of these persecuted Christians had 〈◊〉 for shelter resolving to bring up those whom he found there to Jerusalem in order to their punishment and execution For the Jewish Sanhedrim had not only power of seising and scourging offenders against their Law within the bounds of their own Country but by the connivence and favour of the Romans might send into other Countries where there were any Synagogues that acknowledged a dependence in Religious matters upon the Council at Jerusalem to apprehend them as here they sent Paul to Damascus to fetch up what Christians he could find to be arraigned and sentenced at Jerusalem 8. BUT God who had designed him for work of another nature and separated him from his Mothers womb to the preaching of the Gospel stopt him in his journey For while he was together with his company travelling on the Road not far from Damascus on a sudden a gleam of light beyond the splendor and brightness of the Sun was darted from Heaven upon them whereat being strangely amazed and confounded they all fell to the ground a voice calling to him Saul Saul why persecutest thou me To which he replied Lord who art thou Who told him That he was Jesus whom he persecuted that what was done to the members was done to the head that it was hard for
West he taught righteousness to the whole World and went to the utmost bounds of the West Which makes me the more wonder at the confidence of one otherwise a Man of great parts and learning who so peremptorily denies that ever our Apostle preached in the West meerly because there are no Monuments left in Primitive Antiquity of any particular Churches there founded by him As if all the particular passages of his life done at so vast a distance must needs have been recorded or those records have come down to us when it is so notoriously known that almost all the Writings and Monuments of those first Ages of Christianity are long since perished or as if we were not sufficiently assured of the thing in general though not of what particularly he did there Probable it is that he went into Spain a thing which himself tells us he had formerly once and again resolved on Certain it is that the Ancients do generally assert it without seeming in the least to doubt of it Theodoret and others tell us that he preached not only in Spain but that he went to other Nations and brought the Gospel into the Isles of the Sea by which he undoubtedly means Britain and therefore elsewhere reckons the Gauls and Britains among the Nations which the Apostles and particularly the Tent-maker perswaded to embrace the Law of Christ. Nor is he the only Man that has said it others having given in their testimony and suffrage in this case 8. TO what other parts of the World S. Paul preached the Gospel we find no certain foot-steps in Antiquity nor any further mention of him till his return to Rome which probably was about the Eighth or Ninth Year of Nero's Reign Here he met with Peter and was together with him thrown into Prison no doubt in the general Persecution raised against the Christians under the pretence that they had fir'd the City Besides the general we may reasonably suppose there were particular causes of his Imprisonment Some of the Ancients make him engaged with Peter in procuring the fall of Simon Magus and that that derived the Emperor's fury and rage upon him S. Chrysostome gives us this account that having converted one of Nero's Concubines a Woman of whom he was infinitely fond and reduced her to a life of great strictness and chastity so that now she wholly refused to comply with his wanton and impure embraces the Emperor stormed hereat calling the Apostle a Villain and Impostor a wretched perverter and debaucher of others giving order that he should be cast into Prison and when he still persisted to perswade the Lady to continue her chast and pious resolutions commanding him to be put to death 9. HOW long he remained in Prison is not certainly known at last his Execution was resolved on what his preparatory treatment was whether scourged as Malefactors were wont to be in order to their death we find not As a Roman Citizen by the Valerian and the Porcian Law he was exempted from it Though by the Law of the XII Tables notorious Malefactors condemned by the Centuriate Assemblies were first to be scourged and then put to death and Baronius tells us that in the Church of S. Mary beyond the Bridge in Rome the Pillars are yet extant to which both Peter and Paul are said to have been bound and scourged As he was led to Execution he is said to have converted three of the Souldiers that were sent to conduct and guard him who within few days after by the Emperours command became Martyrs for the Faith Being come to the place which was the Aquae Salviae three Miles from Rome after some solemn preparation he chearfully gave his Neck to the fatal stroke As a Roman he might not be put upon the Cross too infamous a Death for any but the worst of Slaves and Malefactors and therefore was beheaded accounted a more noble kind of Death among the Romans fit for Persons of better Quality and more ingenuous Education And from this Instrument of his Execution the custom no doubt first arose that in all Pictures and Images of this Apostle he is constantly represented with a Sword in his right hand Tradition reports justified herein by the suffrage of many of the Fathers that when he was beheaded a Liquor more like Milk than Blood flowed from his Veins and spirted upon the Clothes of his Executioner and had I list or leisure for such things I might entertain the Reader with the little glosses that are made upon it S. Chrysostom adds that it became a means of converting his Executioner and many more to the Faith and that the Apostle suffered in the sixty eighth Year of his Age. Some question there is whether he suffered at the same time with Peter many of the Ancients positively affirm that both suffered on the same Day and Year but others though allowing the same Day tell us that S. Paul suffered not till the Year after nay some interpose the distance of several Years A Manuscript writer of the Lives and Travels of Peter and Paul brought amongst other venerable Monuments of Antiquity out of Greece will have Paul to have suffered no less than five Years after Peter which he justifies by the authority of no less than Justin Martyr and Irenaeus But what credit is to be given to this nameless Author I see not and therefore lay no weight upon it nor think it fit to be put into the balance with the testimonies of the Ancients Certainly if he suffered not at the very same time with Peter it could not be long after not above a Year at most The best is which of them soever started first they both came at last to the same end of the race to those Palms and Crowns which are reserved for all good Men in Heaven but most eminently for the Martyrs of the Christian Faith 10. HE was buried in the Via Ostiensis about two Miles from Rome over whose Grave about the Year CCCXVIII Constantine the Great at the instance of Pope Sylvester built a stately Church within a Farme which Lucina a noble Christian Matron of Rome had long before setled upon that Church He adorned it with an hundred of the best Marble columns and beautified it with the most exquisit workmanship the many rich gifts and endowments which he bestowed upon it being particularly set down in the Life of Sylvester This Church as too narrow and little for the honour of so great an Apostle 〈◊〉 or rather Theodosius the Emperor the one but finishing what the other began by a Rescript directed to Sallustius Praefect of the City caused to be taken down and a larger and more noble Church to be built in the room of it Further beautified as appears from an ancient Inscription by Placidia the Empress at the perswasion of Leo Bishop of Rome What other additions of Wealth Honour or stateliness it has
〈◊〉 compares him to a Bird in the Air that in a few years flew round the World Isidore the Pelusiot to a winged husbandman that flew from place to place to cultivate the World with the most excellent rules and institutions of life And while the other Apostles did as 't were chuse this or that particular Province as the main sphere of their ministry S. Paul over-ran the whole World to its utmost bounds and corners planting all places where he came with the Divine doctrines of the Gospel Nor in this course was he tired out with the dangers and difficulties that he met with the troubles and oppositions that were raised against him All which did but reflect the greater lustre upon his patience whereof indeed as Clement observes he became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most eminent pattern and exemplar enduring the biggest troubles and persecutions with a patience triumphant and unconquerable As will easily appear if we take but a survey of what trials and sufferings he underwent some part whereof are briefly summed up by himself In labours abundant in stripes above measure in prisons frequent in deaths oft thrice beaten with rods once stoned thrice suffered shipwrack a night and a day in the deep In journeyings often in perils of waters in perils of robbers in perils by his own Country-men in perils by the Heathen in perils in the City in perils in the Wilderness in perils in the Sea in perils among false Brethren in weariness in painfulness in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakedness And besides these things that were without that which daily came upon him the care of all the Churches An account though very great yet far short of what he endured and wherein as 〈◊〉 observes he does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 modestly keep himself within his measures for had he taken the liberty fully to have enlarged himself he might have filled hundreds of Martyrologies with his sufferings A thousand times was his life at stake in every suffering he was a Martyr and what fell but in parcels upon others came all upon him while they skirmished only with single parties he had the whole Army of sufferings to contend with All which he generously underwent with a Soul as calm and serene as the morning-Sun no spite or rage no fury or storms could ruffle and discompose his spirit Nay those sufferings which would have broken the back of an ordinary patience did but make him rise up with the greater eagerness and resolution for the doing of his duty 7. HIS patience will yet further appear from the consideration of another the last of those vertues we shall take notice of in him his constancy and fidelity in the discharge of his place and in the profession of Religion Could the powers and policies of Men and Devils spite and oppositions torments and threatnings have been able to baffle him out of that Religion wherein he had engaged himself he must have sunk under them and left his station But his Soul was steel'd with a courage and resolution that was impenetrable and which no temptation either from hopes or fears could make any more impression upon than an arrow can that 's shot against a wall of marble He wanted not solicitation on either hand both from Jews and Gentiles and questionless might in some degree have made his own terms would he have been false to his trust and have quitted that way that was then every-where spoken against But alas these things weighed little with our Apostle who counted not 〈◊〉 life to be dear unto him so that he might finish his course with joy and the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus And therefore when under the sentence of death in his own apprehension could triumphingly say I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith and so indeed he did kept it inviolably undauntedly to the last minute of his life The summ is He was a man in whom the Divine life did eminently manifest and display it self he lived piously and devoutly soberly and temperately justly and righteously carefull alway to keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and Men. This he tells us was his support under suffering this the foundation of his confidence towards God and his firm hopes of happiness in another World This is our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the World 8. IT is not the least instance of his care and fidelity in his office that he did not only preach and plant Christianity in all places whither he came but what he could not personally do he supplied by writing XIV Epistles he 〈◊〉 upon record by which he was not only instrumental in propagating Christian Religion at first but has been useful to the World ever since in all Ages of the Church We have all along in the History of his life taken particular notice of them in their due place and order We shall here only make some general observations and remarks upon them and that as to the stile and way wherein they are written their Order and the Subscriptions that are added to them For the Apostle's stile and manner of writing it is plain and simple and though not set off with the elaborate artifices and affected additionals of humane eloquence yet grave and majestical and that by the confession of his very enemies his Letters say they are weighty and powerful Nor are there wanting in them some strains of Rhetorick which sufficiently testifie his ability that way had he made it any part of his study and design Indeed S. Hierom is sometimes too rude and bold in his censures of S. Paul's stile and character He tells us that being an Hebrew of the Hebrews and admirably skill'd in the Language of his Nation he was greatly defective in the Greek Tongue though a late great Critick is of another mind affirming him to have been as well or better skill'd in Greek than in Hebrew or in Syriac wherein he could not sufficiently express his conceptions in a way becoming the majesty of his sence and the matter he delivered nor transmit the elegancy of his Native Tongue into another Language that hence he became obscure and intricate in his expressions guilty many times of solecisms and scarce tolerable syntax and that therefore 't was not his humility but the truth of the thing that made him say that he came not with the excellency of speech but in the power of God A censure from any other than S. Hierom that would have been justly wondred at but we know the liberty that he takes to censure any though the reverence due to so great an Apostle might one would think have challenged a more modest censure at his hands However elsewhere he cries him up as a great Master of composition
these more special acts of favour than the rest is not easie to determine though surely our Lord who governed all his actions by Principles of the highest prudence and reason did it for wise and proper ends whether it was that he designed these three to be more solemn and peculiar witnesses of some particular passages of his life than the other Apostles or that they would be more eminently useful and serviceable in some parts of the Apostolick Office or that hereby he would the better prepare and encourage them against suffering as intending them for some more eminent kinds of Martyrdom or suffering than the rest were to undergo 4. NOR was it the least instance of that particular honour which our Lord conferr'd upon these three Apostles that at his calling them to the Apostolat he gave them the addition of a new Name and Title A thing not unusual of old for God to impose a new Name upon Persons when designing them for some great and peculiar services and employments thus he did to Abraham and Jacob. Nay the thing was customary among the Gentiles as had we no other instances might appear from those which the Scripture gives us of Pharaoh's giving a new name to Joseph when advancing him to be Vice-Roy of Egypt 〈◊〉 to Daniel c. Thus did our Lord in the Election of these three Apostles Simon he sirnamed Peter James the Son of Zebedee and John his Brother he sirnamed Boanerges which is the Sons of Thunder What our Lord particularly intended in this Title is easier to conjecture than certainly to determine some think it was given them upon the account of their being present in the Mount when a voice came out of the Cloud and said This is my beloved Son c. The like whereto when the People heard at another time they cried out that it Thundred But besides that this account is in it self very slender and inconsiderable if so then the title must equally have belonged to Peter who was then present with them Others think it was upon the account of their loud bold and resolute preaching Christianity to the World fearing no threatnings daunted with no oppositions but going on to thunder in the Ears of the secure sleepy World rouzing and awakening the consciences of Men with the earnestness and vehemency of their Preaching as Thunder which is called God's Voice powerfully shakes the natural World and breaks in pieces the 〈◊〉 of Lebanon Or if it relate to the Doctrines they delivered it may signifie their teaching the great mysteries and speculations of the Gospel in a profounder strain than the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theophylact notes which how true it might be of our S. James the Scripture is wholly silent but was certainly verified of his Brother John whose Gospel is so full of the more sublime notions and mysteries of the Gospel concerning Christ's Deity eternal prae-existence c. that he is generally affirmed by the Ancients not so much to speak as thunder Probably the expression may denote no more than that in general they were to be prime and eminent Ministers in this new scene and state of things the introducing of the Gospel or Evangelical dispensation being called a Voice shaking the Heavens and the Earth and so is exactly correspondent to the native importance of the Word signifying an Earth-quake or a vehement commotion that makes a noise like to Thunder 5. HOWEVER it was our Lord I doubt not herein had respect to the furious and resolute disposition of those two Brothers who seem to have been of a more fierce and fiery temper than the rest of the Apostles whereof we have this memorable instance Our Lord being resolved upon his Journy to Jerusalem sent some of his Disciples as Harbingers to prepare his way who coming to a Village of Samaria were uncivilly rejected and refused entertainment probably because of that old and inveterate quarrel that was between the Samaritans and the Jews and more especially at this time because our Saviour seemed to slight Mount Gerizim where was their staple and solemn place of worship by passing it by to go worship at Jerusalem the reason in all likelihood why they denied him those common courtesies and conveniences due to all Travellers This piece of rudeness and inhumanity was presently so deeply resented by S. James and his Brother that they came to their Master to know whether as Elias did of old they might not pray down Fire from Heaven to consume these barbarous and inhospitable People So apt are Men for every trifle to call upon Heaven to Minister to the extravagancies of their own impotent and unreasonable passions But our Lord rebukes their zeal tells them they quite mistook the case that this was not the frame and temper of his Disciples and Followers the nature and design of that Evangelical dispensation that he was come to set on foot in the World which was a more pure and perfect a more mild and gentle Institution than what was under the Old Testament in the times of Moses and Elias The Son of Man being come not to destroy mens lives but to save them 6. THE Holy Jesus not long after set forwards in his Journy to Jerusalem in order to his crucifixion and the better to prepare the minds of his Apostles for his death and departure from them he told them what he was to suffer and yet that after all he should rise again They whose minds were yet big with expectations of a temporal power and monarchy understood not well the meaning of his discourses to them However S. James and his Brother supposing the Resurrection that he spoke of would be the time when his Power and Greatness would commence prompted their Mother Salome to put up a Petition for them She presuming probably on her relation to Christ and knowing that our Saviour had promised his Apostles that when he was come into his Kingdom they should sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel and that he had already honoured her two Sons with an intimate familiarity after leave modestly asked for her address begg'd of him that when he took possession of his Kingdom her two Sons James and John might have the principal places of honour and dignity next his own Person the one sitting on his right hand and the other on his left as the Heads of Judah and Joseph had the first places among the Rulers of the Tribes in the Jewish Nation Our Lord directing his discourse to the two Apostles at whose suggestion he knew their Mother had made this address told them they quite mistook the nature of his Kingdom which consisted not in external grandeur and soveraignty but in an inward life and power wherein the highest place would be to take the greatest pains and to undergo the heaviest troubles and sufferings that they should do well to consider whether they were able to endure what
suddenly stopt and went no further The Apostle being dead his body was taken down by S. Bartholomew his fellow-sufferer though not finally executed and Mariamne S. Philip's Sister who is said to have been the constant companion of his travels and decently buried after which having confirmed the people in the Faith of Christ they departed from them 6. THAT S. Philip was married is generally affirmed by the Antients Clemens of Alexandria reckons him one of the married Apostles and that he had Daughters whom he disposed in marriage Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus tell us that Philip one of the Twelve Apostles died at 〈◊〉 with two of his Daughters who persevered in their Virginity and that he had a third which died at 〈◊〉 The truth is the not careful distinguishing between Philip the Deacon who lived at Caesarea and of whose four Virgin-daughters we read in the History of the Apostles Acts and our Apostle has bred some confusion among the Ancients in this matter But the account concerning them is greatly different sor as they differed in their Persons and Offices the one a Deacon the other an Apostle so also in the number of their Children four Daughters being ascribed to the one while three only are attributed to the other He was one of the Apostles who left no Sacred writings behind him the greater part of the Apostles as Ensebius observes having little leisure to write Books being imployed in ministeries more immediately useful and subservient to the happiness of mankind Though Epiphanius tells us that the Gnosticks were wont to produce a Gospel forged under S. Philip's name which they abused to the patronage of their horrible principles and more brutish practises The End of S. Philip's Life THE LIFE OF S. BARTHOLOMEW S. BARTHOLOMEW He was flea'd aliue by the command of a Barbarous King Place this to the Collect for St. Bartholomews day St. Bartholomew's Martyrdom Rom. 8. 36 37. For thy sake we are killed all the daylong we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter But in all these things we are more then Conquerours The silence concerning this Apostle in the History of the Gospel That he is the same with Nathanael proved by many probable arguments His title of Bar-Tholmai whence The School of the Tholmaeans An objection against his being Nathanael answered His descent and way of life His first coming to Christ and converse with him In what parts of the world he planted the Christian Faith His preaching in India and leaving S. Matthew's Gospel there His return to Hierapolis and deliverance there from Crucifixion His removal to Albanopolis in Armenia and suffering Martyrdom there for the Faith of Christ. His being first flead alive and then crucified The fabulous Gospel attributed to him 1. THAT S. Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles the Evangelical History is most express and clear though it seems to take no further notice of him than the bare mention of his name Which doubtless gave the first occasion to many both anciently and of later time not without reason to suppose that he lies concealed under some other name and that this can be no other than Nathanael one of the first Disciples that came to Christ. Accordingly we may observe that as S. John never mentions Bartholomew in the number of the Apostles so the other Evangelists never take notice of Nathanael probably because the same person under two several names And as in John Philip and Nathanael are joyned together in their coming to Christ so in the rest of the Evangelists Philip and Bartholomew are constantly put together without the least variation for no other reason I conceive than because as they were joyntly called to the Discipleship so they are joyntly referred in the Apostolick Catalogue as afterwards we find them joynt-companions in the writings of the Church But that which renders the thing most specious and probable is that we find Nathanael particularly reckoned up with the other Apostles to whom our Lord appeared at the Sea of Tiberias after his Resurrection where there were together Simon Peter and Thomas and Nathanael of Gana in Galilee and the two sons of Zebedee and two other of his Disciples who probably were Andrew and Philip. That by Disciples is here meant Apostles is evident partly from the names of those that are reckoned up partly because it is said that this was the third time that Jesus appeared to his Disciples it being plain that the two foregoing appearances were made to none but the Apostles 2. HAD he been no more than an ordinary Disciple I think no tolerable reason can be given why in filling up the vacancy made by the death of Judas he being so eminently qualified for the place should not have been propounded as well as either Barsabas or Matthias but that he was one of the Twelve already Nor indeed is it reasonable to suppose that Bartholomew should be his proper name any more than Bar-Jona the proper name of Peter importing no more than his relative capacity either as a Son or a Scholar As a Son it notes no more than his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the son of Tholmai a name not uncommon amongst the Jews it being customary among them for the son thus to derive his name so Bar-Jona Bartimeus the son of Timeus c. and to be usually called rather by this relative than his own proper name thus Joseph was called Barsabas thus Barnabas constantly so stiled though his right name was Joses Or else it may relate to him as a Disciple of some particular Sect and Institution among the Jews it being a custom for Scholars out of a great reverence for their Masters or first Institutors of that way to adopt their names as Ben-Ezra Benuziel c. And this will be much more evident if the observation which one makes be true which yet I will not contend for that as several Sects in the Jewish Church denominated themselves from some famous person of that Nation the Essenes from Enosh the Sadduces from Sadock so there were others that called themselves Tholmaeans from Thalmai Scholar to Heber the ancient Master of the Hebrews who was of the race or institution of the Enakim who flourished in Debir and Hebron with whom Abraham was confederate that is joyned himself to their society And of this Order and Institution he tells us Nathanael seems to have been hence called Bartholomew the Son or Scholar of the Tholmaeans hence said to be an Israelite indeed that is one of the ancient race of the Schools and Societies of Israel This if so would give us an account of his skill and ability in the Jewish Law wherein he is generally supposed to have been a Doctor or Teacher But which soever of these two accounts of his denomination shall find most favour with the Reader either of them will serve my purpose and reconcile the difference that seems to be between S. John and the other
and to propound no other rewards but the invisible encouragements of another World his change in this case was the more strange and admirable Indeed so admirable that Porphyry and Julian two subtle and acute adversaries of the Christian Religion hence took occasion to charge him either with falshood or with folly either that he gave not a true account of the thing or that it was very weakly done of him so hastily to follow any one that call'd him But the Holy Jesus was no common Person in all his commands there was somewhat more than ordinary Indeed S. Hierom conceives that besides the Divinity that manifested it self in his Miracles there was a Divine brightness and a kind of Majesty in our Saviour's looks that at first sight was attractive enough to draw Persons after him However his miraculous powers that reflected a lustre from every quarter and the efficacy of his Doctrine accompanied with the grace of God made way for the summons that were sent our Apostle and enabled him to conquer all oppositions that stood in the way to hinder him 6. HIS contempt of the World further appeared in his exemplary temperance and abstemiousness from all the delights and pleasures yea the ordinary conveniences and accommodations of it so far from indulging his appetite with nice and delicate curiosities that he refused to gratifie it with lawful and ordinary provisions eating no flesh his usual Diet being nothing but Herbs Roots Seeds and Berries But what appeared most remarkable in him and which though the least vertue in it self is the greatest in a wise Man's esteem and value was his humility mean and modest in his own conceit in honour preferring others before himself Whereas the other Evangelists in describing the Apostles by pairs constantly place him before Thomas he modestly places him before himself The rest of the Evangelists openly mention the honour of his Apostleship but speak of his former sordid dishonest and disgraceful course of life only under the name of Levi while he himself sets it down with all its circumstances under his own proper and common name Which as at once it commends his own candor and ingenuity so it administers to us this not unuseful consideration That the greatest sinners are not excluded the lines of Divine grace nor can any if penitent have just reason to despair when Publicans and sinners are taken in And as S. Matthew himself does freely and impartially record his own vile and dishonourable course of life so the two other Evangelists though setting down the story take notice of him only under another name to teach us to treat a penitent Brother with all modesty and tenderness If a man repent say the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let no man say to him remember thy former works which they explain not only concerning Israelites but even strangers and Proselytes It being against the rules of civility as well as the Laws of Religion when a Man hath repented to upbraid and reproach him with the errors and follies of his past life 7. THE last thing that calls for any remarks in the life of this Apostle is his Gospel written at the intreaty of the Jewish Converts and as Epiphanius tells us at the command of the Apostles while he was yet in Palestine about Eight Years after the death of Christ though Nicephorus will have it to be written Fifteen Years after our Lord's Ascension and 〈◊〉 yet much wider who seems to imply that it was written while Peter and Paul Preached at Rome which was not till near Thirty Years after But most plain it is that it must be written before the dispersion of the Apostles seeing S. Bartholomew as we have noted in his Life took it along with him into India and left it there He wrote it in Hebrew as primarily designing it for the use of his Country-men and strange it is that any should question its being originally written in that Language when the thing is so universally and uncontroulably asserted by all Antiquity not one that I know of after the strictest enquiry I could make dissenting in this matter and who certainly had far greater opportunities of being satisfied in these things than we can have at so great a distance It was no doubt soon after translated into Greek though by whom S. Hierom professes he could not tell Theophylact says it was reported to have been done by S. John but Athanasius more expresly attributes the Translation to S. James the less The best is it matters not much whether it was translated by an Apostle or some Disciple so long as the Apostles approved the Version and that the Church has ever received the Greek Copy for 〈◊〉 and reposed it in the Sacred Canon 8. AFTER the Greek Translation was entertained the Hebrew Copy was chiefly owned and used by the 〈◊〉 a middle Sect of Men between Jews and Christians with the Christians they believed in Christ and embraced his Religion with the Jews they adhered to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Mosaick Law and hence this Gospel came to be stiled the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Nazarens By them it was by degrees interpolated several Passages of the Evangelical History which they had heard either from the Apostles or those who had familiarly conversed with them being inserted which the ancient Fathers frequently refer to in their Writings as by the Ebionites it was mutilated and many things cut off for the same reason for which the followers of Cerinthus though making use of the greatest part of it rejected the rest because it made so much against them This Hebrew Copy though whether exactly the same as it was written by S. Matthew I will not say was found among other Books in the Treasury of the Jews at Tiberias by Joseph a Jew and after his Conversion a Man of great honour and esteem in the time of Constantine another S. Hierom assures us was kept in the Library at Caesarea in his time and another by the Nazarens at Beroea from whom he had the liberty to transcribe it and which he afterwards translated both into Greek and Latin with this particular observation that in quoting the Texts of the Old Testament the Evangelist immediately follows the Hebrew without taking notice of the Translation of the Septuagint A Copy also of this Gospel was Ann. CCCCLXXXV dug up and found in the Grave of Barnabas in Cyprus transcribed with his own hand But these Copies are long since perished and for those that have been since published to the World both by Tile and Munster were there no other argument they too openly betray themselves by their barbarous and improper stile not to be the genuine issue of that less corrupt and better Age. The End of S. Matthew's Life THE LIFE OF S. THOMAS St. Thomas By the command of an Indian King he was thrust through with
see them with his own eyes 3. THE Blessed Jesus being gone to Heaven and having eminently given gifts and miraculous powers to the Apostles S. Thomas moved thereto by some Divine intimation is said to have dispatched 〈◊〉 one of the Seventy Disciples to Abgarus Toparch of Edessa between whom and our Saviour the letters commonly said to have passed are still extant in 〈◊〉 whom he first cured of an inveterate distemper and after converted him and his subjects to the Faith The Apostolical Province assigned to S. Thomas as Origen tells us was Parthia after which Sophronius and others inform us that he preached the Gospel to the Medes Persians Carmans Hyrcani Bactrians and the neighbour Nations In Persia one of the Ancients upon what ground I know not acquaints us that he met with the Magi or Wise men who came that long journey from the East to bring presents to our new-born Saviour whom he baptized and took along with him as his companions and assistents in the propagation of the Gospel Hence he preached in and passed through AEthiopia that is that we may a little clear this by the way the Asian AEthiopia conterminous to if not the same with Chaldaea whence Tacitus does not only make the Jews descendents from the AEthiopians as whose Ancestors came from Ur of the Chaldeans but Hesychius makes the inhabitants of Zagrus a mountain beyond Tygris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a people of the AEthiopians this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by Benjamin the Jew in his 〈◊〉 the land of 〈◊〉 or AEthiopia the inhabitants whereof are stiled by Herodotus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the oriental AEthiopians by way of distinction from those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who lived South of AEgypt and were under the same military Prefecture with the Arabians under the command of Arsames as the other were joyned with the Indians and in the same place are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Asian AEthiopians Having travelled through these Countries he at last came to India We are told by Nicephorus that he was at first unwilling to venture himself into those Countries fearing he should find their manners as rude and intractable as their faces were black and deformed till encouraged by a Vision that assured him of the Divine Presence to assist him He travelled a great way into those Eastern Nations as far as the Island Taprobane since called Sumatra and the Country of the Brachmans preaching every where with all the arts of gentleness and mild perswasives not flying out into tart invectives and surious heats against their idolatrous practises but calmly instructing them in the principles of Christianity by degrees perswading them to renounce their follies knowing that confirmed habits must be cured by patience and long forbearing by slow and gentle methods and by these means he wrought upon the people and brought them over from the grossest errors and superstition to the hearty belief and entertainment of Religion 4. IN want of better evidence from Antiquity it may not be amiss to enquire what account the Portugals in their first discoveries of these Countries received of these matters partly from ancient Monuments and Writings partly from constant and uncontrolled Traditions which the Christians whom they found in those parts preserved amongst them They tell us that S. Thomas came first to Socotora an Island in the Arabian Sea thence to Cranganor where having converted many he travelled further into the East and having successfully preached the Gospel returned back into the Kingdom of Cormandel where at Malipur the Metropolis of the Kingdom not far from the influx of Ganges into the Gulph of Bengala he began to erect a place for Divine worship till prohibited by the Priests and Sagamo Prince of that Country But upon the conviction of several 〈◊〉 the work went on and the Sagamo himself embraced the Christian Faith whose example was soon followed by great numbers of his friends and subjects The Brachmans who plainly perceived that this would certainly spoil their Trade and in time extirpate the Religion of their Country thought it high time to put a stop to this growing Novelism and resolved in Council that some way or other the Apostle must be put to death There was a Tomb not far from the City whither the Apostle was wont to retire to his solitudes and private devotions hither the Brachmans and their armed followers pursue the Apostle and while he was intent at prayer they first load him with darts and stones till one of them coming nearer ran him through with a Lance. His Body was taken up by his Disciples and buried in the Church which he had lately built and which was afterwards improved into a 〈◊〉 of great stateliness and magnificence Gregory of Tours relates many miracles done upon the annual solemnities of his Martyrdom and one standing miracle an account whereof he tells us he received from one Theodorus who had himself been in that place viz. that in the Temple where the Apostle was buried there hung a Lamp before his Tomb which burnt perpetually without Oil or any Fewel to feed and nourish it the light whereof was never diminished nor by wind or any other accident could be extinguished But whether Travellers might not herein be imposed upon by the crafty 〈◊〉 of the Priests or those who did attend the Church or if true whether it might not be performed by art I leave to others to enquire Some will have his Body to have been afterwards translated to Edessa a City in Mesopotamia but the Christians in the East constantly affirm it to have remained in the place of his Martyrdom where if we may believe relations it was after dug up with great cost and care at the command of Don Emmanuel Frea Governour of the Coast of Cormandel and together with it was found the Bones of the Sagamo whom he had converted to the Faith 5. WHILE Don Alsonso 〈◊〉 one of the first Vice-Roys in India under John the Third King of Portugal resided in these parts certain Brass Tables were brought to him whose ancient Inscriptions could scarce be read till at last by the help of a Jew an excellent Antiquary they were found to contain nothing but a donation made to S. Thomas whereby the King who then reign'd granted to him a piece of ground for the building of a Church They tell us also of a famous Cross found in S. Thomas his Chappel at Malipur wherein was an unintelligible Inscription which by a Learned Bramin whom they compelled to read and expound it gave an account to this effect That Thomas a Divine person was sent into those Countries by the Son of God in the time of King Sagamo to instruct them in the knowledge of the true God that he built a Church and performed admirable miracles but at last while upon his knees at prayer was by a Brachman thrust through with a Spear
and that that Cross stained with his bloud had been left as a memorial of these matters An interpretation that was afterwards confirmed by another grave and learned Bramin who expounded the Inscription to the very same effect The judicious Reader will measure his belief of these things by the credit of the Reporters and the rational probability of the things themselves which for my part as I cannot certainly affirm to be true so I will not utterly conclude them to be false 6. FROM these first plantations of Christianity in the Eastern India's by our Apostle there is said to have been a continued series and succession of Christians hence called S. Thomas-Christians in those parts unto this day The Portugals at their first arrival here found them in great numbers in several places no less as some tell us than fifteen or sixteen thousand Families They are very poor and their Churches generally mean and sordid wherein they had no Images of Saints nor any representations but that of the Cross they are governed in Spirituals by an High-Priest whom some make an Armenian Patriarch of the Sect of Nestorius but in truth is no other than the Patriarch of Muzal the remainder as is probable of the ancient 〈◊〉 and by some though erroneously stiled Babylon residing Northward in the Mountains who together with twelve Cardinals two Patriarchs and several Bishops disposes of all affairs referring to Religion and to him all the Christians of the East yield subjection They promiscuously admit all to the Holy Communion which they receive under both kinds of Bread and Wine though instead of Wine which their Country affords not making use of the juice of Raisons steep'd one night in water and then pressed forth Children unless in case of sickness are not baptized till the fortieth day At the death of Friends their kindred and relations keep an eight days feast in memory of the departed Every Lord's-day they have their publick Assemblies for prayer and preaching their devotions being managed with great reverence and solemnity Their Bible at least the New Testament is in the Syriack Language to the study whereof the Preachers earnestly exhort the people They observe the times of Advent and Lent the Festivals of our Lord and many of the Saints those especially that relate to S. Thomas the Dominica in Albis or Sunday after Easter in memory of the famous confession which S. Thomas on that day made of Christ after he had been sensibly cured of his unbelief another on the first of July celebrated not only by Christians but by Moors and Pagans the people who come to his Sepulchre on Pilgrimage carrying away a little of the red Earth of the place where he was interred which they keep as an inestimable treasure and 〈◊〉 it sovereign against diseases They have a kind of Monasteries of the Religious who live in great abstinence and chastity Their Priests are shaven in fashion of a Cross have leave to marry once but denied a second time No marriages to be dissolved but by death These rites and customs they solemnly pretend to have derived from the very time of S. Thomas and with the greatest care and diligence do observe them at this day The End of S. Thomas's Life THE LIFE OF S. JAMES the Less S. IAMES Minor This Apostle being a Kinsman of our Lord and having Sale first Bishop of Hierusalem was cast down from the top of the Temple and after killed with a Fuâ—â—ers club Baron â—â—â— 1 o The Martyrdom of St. James y e lesse Mauh 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets stonest them which are sent unto thee S. James the Less proved to be the same with him that was Bishop of Jerusalem His Kindred and Relations The Son of Joseph by a former Wife The Brethren of our Lord who His Country what Our Lord's appearance to him after his Resurrection Invested in the See of Jerusalem by whom and why His authority in the Synod at Jerusalem His great diligence and fidelity in his Ministry The conspiracy of his Enemies to take away his Life His Discourse with the Scribes and Pharisees about the Messiah His Martyrdom and the manner of it His Burial where His Death resented by the Jews His strictness in Religion His Priesthood whence His singular delight in Prayer and efficacy in it His great love and charity to Men. His admirable Humility His Temperance according to the rules of the Nazarite Order The Love and respect of the People towards him His Death an inlet to the destruction of the Jewish Nation His Epistle when written What the design and purpose of it The Proto-evangelium ascribed to him 1. BEFORE we can enter upon the Life of this Apostle some difficulty must be cleared relating to his Person Doubted it has been by some whether this was the same with that S. James that was Bishop of Jerusalem three of this Name being presented to us S. James the Great this S. James the Less both Apostles and a third sirnamed the Just distinct say they from the former and Bishop of Jerusalem But this however pretending to some little countenance from antiquity is a very great mistake and built upon a sandy bottom For besides that the Scripture mentions no more than two of this Name and both Apostles nothing can be plainer than that that S. James the Apostle whom S. Paul calls our Lord's Brother and reckons with Peter and John one of the Pillars of the Church was the same that presided among the Apostles no doubt by vertue of his place it being his Episcopal Chair and determined in the Synod at Jerusalem Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus or 〈◊〉 out of him mention any more than two S. James put to death by Herod and S. James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem whom they expresly affirm to be the same with him whom S. Paul calls the Brother of our Lord. Once indeed 〈◊〉 makes our S. James one of the Seventy though elsewere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria he numbers him with the Chief of the Apostles and expresly distinguishes him from the Seventy Disciples Nay S. Hierom though when representing the Opinion of others he stiles him the Thirteenth Apostle yet elsewhere when speaking his own sence sufficiently proves that there were but two James the Son of 〈◊〉 and the other the Son of Alphaeus the one sirnamed the Greater the other the Less Besides that the main support of the other Opinion is built upon the authority of Clemens his Recognitions a Book in doubtful cases of no esteem and value 2. This doubt being removed we proceed to the History of his Life He was the Son as we may probably conjecture of Joseph afterwards Husband to the Blessed Virgin and his first Wife whom S. Hierom from Tradition stiles Escha Hippolytus Bishop of Porto calls Salome and further adds that she was the Daughter of Aggi Brother to Zacharias Father
both crowned with Martyrdom which Baronius himself confesses to be founded upon no better authority than the Passions of the Apostles a Book which at every turn he rejects as trifling and impertinent as false and fabulous But however wide is the mistake of those who confound our Apostle with Symeon the son of Cleophas successor to S. James the Just in the See of Jerusalem who was crucified in the hundred and twentieth year of his Age in the persecution under Trajan The different character of their persons and the account both of their Acts and Martyrdoms being sufficiently distinguished in the writings of the Church The End of S. Simon' s Life THE LIFE OF S. JUDE St Jude Maith 15. 55. Is not this the Carpenter's son are not his brethren James Joses Simon JUDAS Luk. 6. 16. Judas the Brother of James His Martyrdom Having preached y e Gospel in Mesopotamia he went into Persia where after he had gained great numbers to Christianity he suffered martyrdom Martyrol Rom. Oct. 28. The several names attributed to him in the Gospel Thaddaeus whence The custom of the Jews to alter their names when bearing affinity with the great name Jehova The name Judas why distasteful to the Apostles Lebbaeus whence derived His Parentage and Relation to our Lord. The Question put by him to Christ. Whether the same with Thaddaeus sent to Edessa In what places he preached His death His married condition The story of his Grandchildren brought before Domitian His Epistle and why questioned of old It s Canonicalness vindicated The Book of Enoch and what its authority The contention between Michael and the Devil about Moses his Body whence borrowed S. Jude proved to be the Author of this Epistle Grotius his conceit of its being written by a younger Jude rejected It s affinity with the second Epistle of S. Peter The design of it 1. THERE are three several names by which this Apostle is described in the History of the Gospel Jude Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus it being usual in the holy Volumes for the same person to have more proper names than one For the first it was a name common amongst the Jews recommended to them as being the name of one of the great Patriarchs of their Nation This name he seems to have changed afterwards for Thaddaeus a word springing from the same root and of the very same import and signification which might arise from a double cause Partly from the superstitious veneration which the Jews had for the name Jehova the Nomen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or name consisting of four letters which they held unlawful to be pronounced by any but the High-Priest and not by him neither but at the most solemn times Hence it was that when any man had a name wherein there was the major part of the letters of this ineffable title and such was Jehudah or Juda they would not rashly pronounce it in common usage but chose rather to mould it into another like it and of the same importance or that which had a near affinity and resemblance with it Partly from a particular dislike of the name of Judas among the Apostles the bloudy and treasonable practises of Judas Iscariot having rendred that name very odious and detestable to them To prevent therefore all possibility of mistake and that they might not confound the righteous with the wicked S. Matthew and Mark never call him by this but by some other name as no question for the same reason he both stiles himself and is frequently called by others Judas the brother of James and that this was one great design of it the Evangelist plainly intimates when speaking of him he says Judas not Iscariot For his name Lebbaeus it seems to have been derived either from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an heart whence S. Hierom renders it Corculum probably to denote his wisdom and prudence or else from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Lion and therein to have respect to old Jacob's prophecy concerning Judah That he should be as a Lion an old Lion and as a Lions whelp which probably might have a main stroke in fastning this name upon S. Jude From this Patriarchal prophecy we are told that one of the Schools or Synagogues of Learned men among the Jews who to avoid confusion were wont to distinguish themselves by different appellations took occasion to denominate themselves Labii as accounting themselves the Scholars and descendents of this Lion-like son of Jacob and that S. Jude was of this society and because of his eminency among them retained the title of Labius or as it was corruptly pronounced Lebbaeus I confess I should have thought the conjecture of a Learned man very probable that he might have derived this name from the place of his nativity as being born at Lebba a Town which he tells us Pliny speaks of in the Province of Galilee not far from Carmel but that it is not Lebba but Jebba in all copies of Pliny that I have seen But let the Reader please himself in which conjecture he likes best 2. FOR his Descent and Parentage he was of our Lord's kindred Nicephorus truly making him the son of Joseph and brother to James Bishop of Jerusalem that there was a Jude one of the number is very evident Are not his brethren James and Joses and Simon and Judas which makes me the more to wonder at Scaliger who so confidently denies that any of the Evangelists ever mention a Jude the brother of our Lord. S. Hierom seems often to confound him with Simon the Zealot whose title he ascribes to him though second thoughts set him right as indeed common advertency could do no less so plain is the account which the Evangelists give of this matter When called to the Discipleship we find not as not meeting with him till we find him enumerated in the Catalogue of Apostles nor is any thing particularly recorded of him afterwards more than one question that he propounded to our Saviour who having told them what great things he and his Father would do and what particular manifestations after his Resurrection he would make of himself to his sincere disciples and followers S. Jude whose thoughts as well as the rest were taken up with the expectations of a temporal Kingdom of the Messiah not knowing how this could consist with the publick solemnity of that glorious state they looked for asked him what was the reason that he would manifest himself to them and not to the World Our Lord replied that the World was not capable of these Divine manifestations as being a stranger and an enemy to what should fit them for fellowship with Heaven that they were only good men persons of a Divine temper of mind and religious observers of his Laws and Will whom God would honour with these familiar converses and admit to such particular acts of grace and favour 3. EUSEBIUS relates that soon after our Lord's Ascension
Saul's seven sons were hanged for breaking the League of Gibeon and Ahab's sin was punished in his posterity he escaping and the evil was brought upon his house in his son's days In all these cases the evil descended upon persons in near relation to the sinner and was a punishment to him and a misery to these and were either chastisements also of their own sins or if they were not they served other ends of Providence and led the afflicted innocent to a condition of recompence accidentally procured by that infliction But if for such relation's sake and oeconomical and political conjunction as between Prince and People the evil may be transmitted from one to another much rather is it just when by contract a competent and conjunct person undertakes to quit his relative Thus when the Hand steals the Back is whipt and an evil Eye is punished with a hungry Belly Treason causes the whole Family to be miserable and a Sacrilegious Grandfather hath sent a Locust to devour the increase of the Nephews 8. But in our case it is a voluntary contract and therefore no Injustice all parties are voluntary God is the supreme Lord and his actions are the measure of Justice we who had deserved the punishment had great reason to desire a Redeemer and yet Christ who was to pay the ransome was more desirous of it than we were for we asked it not before it was promised and undertaken But thus we see that Sureties pay the obligation of the principal Debtor and the Pledges of Contracts have been by the best and wisest Nations slain when the Articles have been broken The Thessalians slew 250 Pledges the Romans 300 of the Volsci and threw the Tarentines from the Tarpeian rock And that it may appear Christ was a person in all sences competent to do this for us himself testifies that he had power over his own life to take it up or lay it down And therefore as there can be nothing against the most exact justice and reason of Laws and punishments so it magnifies the Divine Mercy who removes the punishment from us who of necessity must have sunk under it and yet makes us to adore his Severity who would not forgive us without punishing his Son for us to consign unto us his perfect hatred against Sin to conserve the sacredness of his Laws and to imprint upon us great characters of fear and love The famous Locrian Zaleucus made a Law that all Adulterers should lose both their eyes his son was first unhappily surprised in the crime and his Father to keep a temper between the piety and soft spirit of a Parent and the justice and severity of a Judge put out one of his own eyes and one of his Sons So God did with us he made some abatement that is as to the person with whom he was angry but inflicted his anger upon our Redeemer whom he essentially loved to secure the dignity of his Sanctions and the sacredness of Obedience so marrying Justice and Mercy by the intervening of a commutation Thus David escaped by the death of his Son God chusing that penalty for the expiation and Cimon offered himself to prison to purchase the liberty of his Father Miltiades It was a filial duty in Cimon and yet the Law was satisfied And both these concurred in our great Redeemer For God who was the sole Arbitrator so disposed it and the eternal Son of God submitted to this way of expiating our crimes and became an argument of faith and belief of the great Article of Remission of sins and other its appendent causes and effects and adjuncts it being wrought by a visible and notorious Passion It was made an encouragement of Hope for he that spared not his own Son to reconcile us will with him give all things else to us so reconciled and a great endearment of our Duty and Love as it was a demonstration of his And in all the changes and traverses of our life he is made to us a great example of all excellent actions and all patient sufferings 9. In the midst of two Thieves three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain agony and dishonour all of them so eminent and vast that he who could not but hope whose Soul was enchased with Divinity and dwelt in the bosom of God and in the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity yet had a cloud of misery so thick and black drawn before him that he complained as if God had forsaken him but this was the pillar of cloud which conducted Israel into Canaan And as God behind the Cloud supported the Holy Jesus and stood ready to receive him into the union of his Glories so his Soul in that great desertion had internal comforts proceeding from consideration of all those excellent persons which should be adopted into the fellowship of his Sufferings which should imitate his Graces which should communicate his Glories And we follow this Cloud to our Country having Christ for our Guide and though he trode the way leaning upon the Cross which like the staffe of Egypt pierced his hands yet it is to us a comfort and support pleasant to our spirits as the sweetest Canes strong as the pillars of the earth and made apt for our use by having been born and made smooth by the hands of our Elder Brother 10. In the midst of all his torments Jesus only made one Prayer of sorrow to represent his sad condition to his Father but no accent of murmur no syllable of anger against his enemies In stead of that he sent up a holy charitable and effective Prayer for their forgiveness and by that Prayer obtained of God that within 55 days 8000 of his enemies were converted So potent is the prayer of Charity that it prevails above the malice of men turning the arts of Satan into the designs of God and when malice occasions the Prayer the Prayer becomes an antidote to malice And by this instance our Blessed Lord consigned that Duty to us which in his Sermons he had preached That we should forgive our enemies and pray for them and by so doing our selves are freed from the stings of anger and the storms of a revengeful spirit and we oftentimes procure servants to God friends to our selves and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven 11. Of the two Thieves that were crucified together with our Lord the one blasphemed the other had at that time the greatest Piety in the world except that of the Blessed Virgin and particularly had such a Faith that all the Ages of the Church could never shew the like For when he saw Christ in the same condemnation with himself crucisied by the Romans accused and scorned by the Jews forsaken by his own Apostles a dying distressed Man doing at that time no Miracles to attest his Divinity or Innocence yet then he confesses him to be a Lord and a King and his Saviour He confessed his own
shame and unworthiness he submitted to the death of the Cross and by his voluntary acceptation and tacite volition of it made it equivalent to as great a punishment of his own susception he shewed an incomparable modesty begging but for a remembrance only he knew himself so sinful he durst ask no more he reproved the other Thief for Blasphemy he confessed the world to come and owned Christ publickly he prayed to him he hoped in him and pitied him shewing an excellent Patience in this sad condition And in this I consider that besides the excellency of some of these acts and the goodness of all the like occasion for so exemplar Faith never can occur and until all these things shall in these circumstances meet in any one man he must not hope for so safe an Exit after an evil life 〈◊〉 the confidence of this example But now Christ had the key of Paradise in his hand and God blessed the good Thief with this opportunity of letting him in who at another time might have waited longer and been tied to harder conditions And indeed it is very probable that he was much advantaged by the intervening accident of dying at the same time with Christ there being a natural compassion produced in us towards the partners of our miseries For Christ was not void of humane passions though he had in them no imperfection or irregularity and therefore might be invited by the society of misery the rather to admit him to participate his joys and S. Paul proves him to be a merciful high Priest because he was touched with a feeling of our infirmities the first expression of which was to this blessed Thief Christ and he together sate at the Supper of bitter herbs and Christ payed his symbol promising that he should that day be together with him in Paradise 12. By the Cross of Christ stood the Holy Virgin Mother upon whom old Simeon's Prophecy was now verified for now she felt a sword passing through her very soul she stood without clamour and womanish noises sad silent and with a modest grief deep as the waters of the abysse but smooth as the face of a pool full of Love and Patience and Sorrow and Hope Now she was put to it to make use of all those excellent discourses her Holy Son had used to build up her spirit and fortifie it against this day Now she felt the blessings and strengths of Faith and she passed from the griefs of the Passion to the expectation of the Resurrection and she rested in this Death as in a sad remedy for she knew it reconciled God with all the World But her Hope drew a veil before her Sorrow and though her Grief was great enough to swallow her up yet her Love was greater and did swallow up her grief But the Sun also had a veil upon his face and taught us to draw a curtain before the Passion which would be the most artificial expression of its greatness whilest by silence and wonder we confess it great beyond our expression or which is all one great as the burthen and baseness of our sins And with this veil drawn before the face of Jesus let us suppose him at the gates of Paradise calling with his last words in a loud voice to have them opened that the King of glory might come in The PRAYER O Holy Jesus who for our sakes didst suffer incomparable anguish and pains commensurate to thy Love and our Miseries which were infinite that thou mightest purchase for 〈◊〉 blessings upon Earth and an inheritance in Heaven dispose us by Love Thankfulness Humility and Obedience to receive all the benefit of thy Passion granting unto us and thy whole Church remission of all our sins integrity of mind health of body competent maintenance peace in our days a temperate air fruitfulness of the earth unity and integrity of Faith extirpation of Heresies reconcilements of Schisms destruction of all wicked counsels intended against us and bind the hands of Rapine and Sacriledge that they may not destroy the vintage and root up the Vine it self Multiply thy Blessings upon us sweetest Jesus increase in us true Religion sincere and actual devotion in our Prayers Patience in troubles and whatsoever is necessary to our Soul's health or conducing to thy Glory Amen II. O Dearest Saviour I adore thy mercies and thy incomparable love expressed in thy so voluntary susception and affectionate suffering such horrid and sad Tortures which cannot be remembred without a sad compassion the waters of bitterness entred into thy Soul and the storms of Death and thy Father's anger broke thee all in pieces and what shall I do who by my sins have so tormented my dearest Lord what Contrition can be great enough what tears sufficiently expressive what hatred and detestation of my crimes can be equal and commensurate to those sad accidents which they have produced Pity me O Lord pity me dearest God turn those thy merciful eyes towards me O most merciful Redeemer for my sins are great like unto thy Passion full of sorrow and shame and a burthen too great for me to bear Lord who hast done so much for me now only speak the word and thy servant shall be whole Let thy Wounds heal me thy Vertues amend me thy Death quicken me that I in this life suffering the cross of a sad and salutary Repentance in the union and merits of thy 〈◊〉 and Passion may die with thee and rest with thee and rise again with thee and live with thee for ever in the possession of thy Glories O dearest Saviour Jesus Amen SECT XVI Of the Resurrection and Ascension of JESUS The Burial of Iesus Mat 27 57 When the even was come there came a rich man of Arimathea named Jo seph who also himself was Jesus Disciple he went to Pilate beggd the body of Jesus Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered And when Ioseph had taken the body he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth layd it in his own new tomb which he had hewen out in y e rock The Resurrection of Iesus Mat 28 2 And behold there was a great earthquake for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven came rolled back y e stone from the doore and sate upon it And for feare of him the keepers did shake became as dead men And the Angel sayd unto the woman Fear not ye for I know that ye seek Iesus that was crucified He is not here for he is Risen as he sayd 1. WHile it was yet early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought sweet spices to the Sepulchre that they might again embalm the Holy Body for the rites of Embalming among the Hebrews used to last forty days and their love was not satisfied with what Joseph had done They therefore hastned to the grave and after they had expended their money and bought the