Antiquitates Christianae OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS AS ALSO THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF HIS APOSTLES IN TWO PARTS The First Part containing the Life of CHRIST Written by JER TAYLOR late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor The Second containing the Lives of the APOSTLES with an Enumeration and some Brief Remarks upon their first Successors in the Five Great APOSTOLICAL CHURCHES By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY By whom also is added an APPARATUS or Discourse Introductory to the whole Work concerning the Three Great Dispensations of the Church Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical Orig. câ—ntr Cels. lib. 1. dâ— Prâ—â—â—â— p. 1 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner M DC LXXV THE ANNUNTIATION Ave gratiâ plena Dominus tecum Benedicta tu inter mulieres Hail thou full of grace y e Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women Luke 1. 28. Will Fathorne sculp ANTIQUITATES CHRISTIANAE OR The Life and Death of the Holy JESUS AS ALSO The Lives Acts and Martyrdoms of his Apostles London Printed for R Royston at the Angell in Amen Corner 1675. TO THE Right Honourable and Right Reverend Father in God NATHANAEL Lord BISHOP of DURHAM And Clerk of the Closet to His MAJESTY MY LORD NOTHING but a great experience of Your Lordships Candor could warrant the laying what concernment I have in these Papers at Your Lordships feet Not but that the subject is in it self Great and Venemble and a considerable part of it built upon that Authority that needs no Patronage to defend it But to prefix Your Lordships Name to a subject so thinly and meanly manag'd may perhaps deserve a bigger Apologie than I can make I have only brought some few scattered handfuls of Primitive Story contenting my self to Glean where I could not Reap And I am well assur'd that Your Lordships wisdom and love to Truth would neither allow me to make my Materials nor to trade in Legends and Fabulous reports And yet alas how little solid Foundation is left to Build upon in these matters So fatally mischievous was the carelessness of those who ought to have been the Guardians of Books and Learning in their several Ages in suffering the Records of the Ancient Church to perish Vnfaithful Trustees to look no better after such Divine and inestimable Treasures committed to them Not to mention those infinite Devastations that in all Ages have been made by Wars and Flames which certainly have prov'd the most severe and merciless Plagues and Enemies to Books By such unhappy accidents as these we have been robb'd of the Treasures of the wiser and better Ages of the World and especially the Records of the first times of Christianity whereof scarce any footsteps do remain So that in this Enquiry I have been forc'd to traverse remote and desert paths ways that afford little fruit to the weary Passenger but the consideration that it was Primitive and Apostolical sweetned my journey and rendred it pleasant and delightful Our inbred thirst after knowledge naturally obliges us to pursue the notices of former times which are recommended to us with this peculiar advantage that the Stream must needs be purer and clearer the nearer it comes to the Fountain for the Ancients as Plato speaks were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better than we and dwelt nearer to the Gods And though'tis true the 〈◊〉 of those times is very obscure and dark and truth oft covered over with heaps of idle and improbable Traditions yet may it be worth our labour to seek for a few Jewels though under a whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heap of Rubbish Is not the Gleaning of the Ancients say the Jews better than the Vintage of later times The very fragments of Antiquity are Venerable and at once instruct our minds and gratifie our curiosity Besides I was somewhat the more inclinable to retire again into these studies that I might get as far as I could from the crowd and the noise of a quarrelsome and contentious Age. MY LORD We live in times wherein Religion is almost wholly disputed into talk and clamour men wrangle eternally about useless and insignificant Notions and which have no tendency to make a man either wiser or better And in these quarrels the Laws of Charity are violated and men persecute one another with hard names and characters of reproach and after all consecrate their fierceness with the honourable title of Zeal for Truth And what is yet a much sorer evil the Peace and Order of an excellent Church incomparably the best that ever was since the first Ages of the Gospel is broken down her holy Offices derided her solemn Assemblies deserted her Laws and Constitutions slighted the Guides and Ministers of Religion despised and reduc'd to their Primitive Character The Scum and Off-scouring of the World How much these evils have contributed to the 〈◊〉 and Impiety of the present Age I shall not take upon me to determine Sure I am the thing it self is too sadly visible men are not content to be modest and retired Atheists and with the Fool to say only in their hearts there is no God but 〈◊〉 appears with an open forehead and disputes its place in every company and without any regard to the Voice of Nature the Dictates of Conscience and the common sence of Mankind men peremptorily determine against a Supreme Being account it a pleasant divertisement to Droll upon Religion and a piece of Wit to plead for Atheism To avoid the 〈◊〉 and troublesome importunity of such uncomfortable Reflections I find no better way than to retire into those Primitive and better times those first and purest Ages of the Gospel when men really were what they pretended to be when a solid Piety and Devotion a strict Temperance and Sobriety a Catholick and unbounded Charity an exemplary Honesty and Integrity a great reverence for every thing that was Divine and Sacred rendred Christianity Venerable to the World and led not only the Rude and the Barbarous but the Learned and Politer part of Mankind in triumph after it But My Lord I must remember that the Minutes of great Men are Sacred and not to be invaded by every tedious impertinent address I have done when I have begg'd leave to acquaint Your Lordship that had it not been more through other mens fault than my own these Papers had many Months since waited upon You in the number of those Publick Congratulations which gave You joy of that great Place which You worthily sustain in the Church Which that You may long and prosperously enjoy happily adorn and successfully discharge to the honour of God the benefit of the Church and the endearing Your Lordships Memory to Posterity is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships faithfully devoted Servant WILLIAM CAVE TO THE READER THE design of the
connivences there no protections or friendships or consideration or indulgences but Herod caus'd that his own child which was at nurse in the coasts of Bethlehem should bleed to death which made Augustus Caesar to say that in Heroa's house it were better to be a 〈◊〉 than a Child because the custome of the Nation did secure a Hog from Heroa's knife but no Religion could secure his Child The sword being thus made sharp by Herod's commission killed 14000 pretty Babes as the Greeks in their Calendar and the 〈◊〉 of AEthiopia do commemorate in their offices of Liturgy For Herod crafty and malicious that is perfectly Tyrant had caused all the Children to be gathered together which the credulous Mothers supposing it had been to take account of their age and number in order to some taxing hindred not but unwittingly suffered themselves and their Babes to be betrayed to an irremediable 〈◊〉 4. Then was 〈◊〉 that which was spoken by Jeremy the Prophet saying Lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted All the synonyma's of sadness were little enough to express this great weeping when 14000 Mothers in one day saw their pretty Babes pouring forth their blood into that bosome whence not long before they had sucked milk and instead of those pretty smiles which use to entertain the fancy and dear affections of their Mothers nothing but affrighting shrieks and then gastly looks The mourning was great like the mourning in the valley of Hinnom and there was no comforter their sorrow was too big to be cured till it should lie down alone and rest with its own weariness 5. But the malice of Herod went also into the Hill-countrey and hearing that of John the son of Zachary great things were spoken by which he was designed to a great ministery about this young Prince he attempted in him also to rescind the Prophecies and sent a messenger of death towards him but the Mother's care had been early with him and sent him into desart places where he continued till the time appointed of his manifestation unto 〈◊〉 But as the Children of Bethlehem died in the place of Christ so did the Father of the Baptist die for his Child For Herod 〈◊〉 Zachary between the Temple and the Altar because he refused to betray his son to the fury of that rabid Bear Though some persons very eminent amongst the Stars of the Primitive Church report a Tradition that a place being separated in the Temple for Virgins Zachary suffered the Mother of our Lord to abide there after the Birth of her Holy Son affirming her still to be a Virgin and that for this reason not Herod but the Scribes and Pharisees did kill Zachary 6. Tertullian reports that the bloud of Zachary had so 〈◊〉 the stones of the pavement which was the Altar on which the good old Priest was sacrificed that no art or industry could wash the tincture out the dye and guilt being both indeleble as if because God did intend to exact of that Nation all the bloud of righteous persons from Abel to Zacharias who was the last of the Martyrs of the Synagogue he would leave a character of their guilt in their eyes to upbraid their Irreligion Cruelty and 〈◊〉 Some there are who affirm these words of our Blessed Saviour not to relate to any Zachary who had been already slain but to be a Prophecy of the last of all the Martyrs of the Jews who should be slain immediately before the destruction of the last Temple and the dissolution of the Nation Certain it is that such a Zachary the son of 〈◊〉 if we may believe Josephus was slain in the middle of the Temple a little before it was destroyed and it is agreeable to the nature of the Prophecy and reproof here made by our Blessed Saviour that from Abel to Zachary should take in all the righteous bloud from first to last till the iniquity was complete and it is not imaginable that the bloud of our Blessed Lord and of S. James their Bishop for whose death many of themselves thought God destroyed their City should be left out of the account which yet would certainly be left out if any other Zachary should be 〈◊〉 than he whom they last slew and in proportion to this Cyprian de 〈◊〉 expounds that which we read in the past tense to signifie the future ye slew i. e. shall slay according to the style often used by Prophets and as the Aorist of an uncertain signification will beat But the first great instance of the Divine vengeance for these Executions was upon Herod who in very few years after was smitten of God with so many plagues and tortures that himself alone seemed like an Hospital of the 〈◊〉 For he was tormented with a soft slow fire like that of burning Iron or the cinders of Yew in his body in his bowels with intolerable Colicks and Ulcers in his natural parts with Worms in his feet with Gout in his nerves with Convulsions 〈◊〉 of breathing and out of divers parts of his body issued out so impure and ulcerous a steam that the loathsomness pain and indignation made him once to snatch a knife with purpose to have killed himself but that he was prevented by a Nephew of his that stood there in his attendance 7. But as the flesh of Beasts grows callous by stripes and the pressures of the yoak so did the heart of Herod by the loads of Divine vengeance God began his Hell here and the pains of Hell never made any man less impious for Herod perceiving that he must now die first put to death his son Antipater under pretence that he would have poisoned him and that the last scene of his life might for pure malice and exalted spight out-do all the rest because he believed the Jewish nation would rejoyce at his death he assembled all the Nobles of the people and put them in prison giving in charge to his Sister Salome that when he was expiring his last all the Nobility should be slain that his death might be lamented with a perfect and universal sorrow 8. But God that brings to nought the counsels of wicked Princes turned the design against the intendment of Herod for when he was dead and could not call his Sister to account for disobeying his most bloudy and unrighteous commands she released all the imprisoned and despairing Gentlemen and made the day of her Brother's death a perfect Jubilee a day of joy such as was that when the Nation was delivered from the violence of Haman in the days of 〈◊〉 9. And all this while God had provided a Sanctuary for the Holy Child Jesus For God seeing the secret purposes of bloud which Herod had sent his Angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream saying Arise and take the young Child and his Mother and fly into Egypt and be thou there until I bring thee word
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
though less perfectly it ought not to be denied and they less ought to neglect it 25. But as every man must put himself so also he must put his house in order make his Will if he have an Estate to dispose of and in that he must be careful to do Justice to every man and Charity to the poor according as God hath enabled him and though Charity is then very late if it begins not earlier yet if this be but an act of an ancient habit it is still more perfect as it succeeds in time and superadds to the former stock And among other acts of Duty let it be remembred that it is excellent Charity to leave our Will and desires clear plain and determinate that contention and Law-suits may be prevented by the explicate declaration of the Legacies At last and in all instances and periods of our following days let the former good acts be renewed let God be praised for all his Graces and Blessings of our life let him be intreated for Pardon of our sins let acts of Love and Contrition of Hope of Joy of Humility be the work of every day which God still permits us always remembring to ask remission for those sins we remember not And if the condition of our sickness permits it let our last breath expire with an act of Love that it may begin the Charities of Eternity and like a Taper burnt to its lowest base it may go out with a great emission of light leaving a sweet smell behind us to perfume our Coffin and that these lights newly made brighter or trimmed up in our sickness may shine about our Herse that they may become arguments of a pious sadness to our friends as the charitable Coats which Dorcas made were to the widows and exemplar to all those who observed or shall hear of our holy life and religious death But if it shall happen that the disease be productive of evil accidents as a disturbed phancy a weakned understanding wild discoursings or any deprivation of the use of Reason it concerns the sick persons in the happy intervalls of a quiet untroubled spirit to pray earnestly to God that nothing may pass from him in the rages of a Fever or worse distemper which may less become his duty or give scandal or cause trouble to the persons in attendance and if he shall also renounce and disclaim all such evil words which his disease may speak not himself he shall do the duty of a Christian and a prudent person And after these 〈◊〉 he may with Piety and confidence resign his Soul into the hands of God to be deposited in holy receptacles till the day of restitution of all things and in the mean time with a quiet spirit descend into that state which is the lot of Caesars and where all Kings and Conquerours have laid aside their glories The PRAYER O Eternal and Holy Jesus who by Death hast overcome Death and by thy Passion hast taken out its sting and made it to become one of the gates of Heaven and an entrance to Felicity have mercy upon me now and at the hour of my death let thy Grace accompany me all the days of my life that I may by a holy Conversation and an habitual performance of my Duty wait for the coming of our Lord and be ready to enter with thee at whatsoever hour thou shalt come Lord let not my death be in any sence unprovided nor untimely nor hasty but after the common manner of men having in it nothing extraordinary but an extraordinary Piety and the manifestation of a great and miraculous Mercy Let my Senses and Understanding be preserved intire till the last of my days and grant that I may die the death of the righteous having first discharged all my obligations of justice leaving none miserable and unprovided in my departure but be thou the portion of all my friends and relatives and let thy blessing descend upon their heads and abide there till they shall meet me in the bosom of our Lord. Preserve me ever in the communion and peace of the Church and bless my Death bed with the opportunity of a holy and a spiritual Guide with the assistence and guard of Angels with the perception of the holy Sacrament with Patience and dereliction of my own 〈◊〉 with a strong Faith and a firm and humble Hope with just measures of Repentance and great treasures of Charity to thee my God and to all the world that my Soul in the arms of the Holy Jesus may be deposited with safety and joy there to expect the revelation of thy Day and then to partake the glories of thy Kingdom O Eternal and Holy Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy JESUS He beareth his Cross Ioh 19. 16. 17. And they took Iesus and lead him away 17. And he bearing his Cross went forth into a place called the place of a Scult which is called in y e Hebrew Golgotha They Erect the Crucifixe Ioh 3. 14. 15. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in y e wilderness even so must y e Son of man be lifted up 15. That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but haue eternall life 1. WHen the Sentence of Death pronounced against the Lord was to be put in execution the Souldiers pulled off the Robe of mockery the scarlet Mantle which in jest they put upon him and put on his own garments But as Origen observes the Evangelist mentioned not that they took off the Crown of thorns what might serve their interest they pursue but nothing of remission or mercy to the afflicted Son of man but so it became the King of Sufferings not to lay aside his Imperial thorns till they were changed into Diadems of Glory But now Abel is led forth by his brother to be slain A gay spectacle to satisfie impious eyes who would not stay behind but attended and waited upon the hangman to see the Catastrophe of this bloudy Tragedy But when Piety looks on she beholds a glorious mystery Sin laughed to see the King of Heaven and Earth and the great lover of Souls in stead of the Scepter of his Kingdom to bear a Tree of 〈◊〉 and shame But Plety wept tears of pity and knew they would melt into joy when she should behold that Cross which loaded the shoulders of her Lord afterward sit upon the Scepters and be engraved and signed upon the Foreheads of Kings 2. It cannot be thought but the Ministers of Jewish malice used all the circumstances of affliction which in any case were accustomed towards malefactors and persons to be crucified and therefore it was that in some old Figures we see our Blessed Lord described with a Table appendent to the fringe of his garment set full of nails and pointed iron for so sometimes they afflicted persons condemned to that kind of Death and S. Cyprian affirms that Christ did stick to the wood that he carried being
galled with the iron at his heels and nailed even before his Crucifixion But this and the other accidents of his journey and their malice so crushed his wounded tender and virginal body that they were forced to lay the load upon a Cyrenian fearing that he should die with less shame and smart than they intended him But so he was pleased to take man unto his aid not only to represent his own need and the dolorousness of his Passion but to consign the duty unto man that we must enter into a 〈◊〉 of Christ's sufferings taking up the Cross of Martyrdom when God requires us enduring affronts being patient under affliction loving them that hate us and being benefactors to our enemies abstaining from sensual and intemperate delight forbidding to our selves lawful festivities and recreations of our weariness when we have an end of the spirit to serve upon the ruines of the bodie 's strength mortifying our desires breaking our own will not seeking our selves being entirely resigned to God These are the Cross and the Nails and the Spear and the Whip and all the instruments of a Christian's Passion And we may consider that every man in this world shall in some sence or other bear a Cross few men escape it and it is not well with them that do but they only bear it well that 〈◊〉 Christ and tread in his steps and bear it for his sake and walk as he walked and he that follows his own desires when he meets with a cross there as it is certain enough he will bears the cross of his Concupiscence and that hath no fellowship with the Cross of Christ. By the Precept of bearing the Cross we are not tied to pull evil upon our selves that we may imitate our Lord in nothing but in being afflicted or to personate the punitive exercises of Mortification and severe Abstinencies which were eminent in some Saints and to which they had special assistances as others had the gift of Chastity and for which they had special reason and as they apprehended some great necessities but it is required that we bear our own Cross so said our dearest Lord. For when the Cross of Christ is laid upon us and we are called to Martyrdom then it is our own because God made it to be our portion and when by the necessities of our spirit and the rebellion of our body we need exteriour mortifications and acts of self-denial then also it is our own cross because our needs have made it so and so it is when God sends us sickness or any other calamity what-ever is either an effect of our ghostly needs or the condition of our temporal estate it calls for our sufferance and patience and equanimity for therefore Christ hath suffered for us saith S. Peter leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who bore his Cross as long as he could and when he could no longer he murmured not but sank under it and then he was content to receive such aid not which he chose himself but such as was assigned him 3. Jesus was led out of the gates of Jerusalem that he might become the sacrifice for persons without the pale even for all the world And the daughters of Jerusalem followed him with pious tears till they came to Calvary a place difficult in the ascent eminent and apt for the publication of shame a hill of death and dead bones polluted and impure and there beheld him stript naked who cloaths the field with flowers and all the world with robes and the whole globe with the canopy of Heaven and so dress'd that now every circumstance was a triumph By his Disgrace he trampled upon our Pride by his Poverty and nakedness he triumphed over our Covetousness and love of riches and by his Pains chastised the Delicacies of our flesh and broke in pieces the fetters of Concupiscence For as soon as Adam was clothed he quitted Paradise and Jesus was made naked that he might bring us in again And we also must be despoil'd of all our exteriour adherencies that we may pass through the regions of duty and divine love to a society of blessed spirits and a clarified immortal and beatified estate 4. There they nailed Jesus with four nails fixed his Cross in the ground which with its fall into the place of its station gave infinite torture by so violent a concussion of the body of our Lord which rested upon nothing but four great wounds where he was designed to suffer a long and lingring torment For Crucifixion as it was an excellent pain sharp and passionate so it was not of quick effect towards taking away the life S. Andrew was two whole days upon the Cross and some Martyrs have upon the Cross been rather starved and devoured with birds than killed with the proper torment of the tree But Jesus took all his Passion with a voluntary susception God heightning it to the great degrees of torment supernaturally and he laid down his life voluntarily when his Father's wrath was totally appeased towards mankind 5. Some have phansied that Christ was pleased to take something from every condition of which Man ever was or shall be possessed taking Immunity from sin from Adam's state of Innocence Punishment and misery from the state of Adam fallen the fulness of Grace from the state of Renovation and perfect Contemplation of the Divinity and beatifick joys from the state of Comprehension and the blessedness of Heaven meaning that the Humanity of our Blessed Saviour did in the sharpest agony of his Passion behold the face of God and communicate in glory But I consider that although the two Natures of Christ were knit by a mysterious union into one Person yet the Natures still retain their incommunicable properties Christ as God is not subject to sufferings as a man he is the subject of miseries as God he is eternal as man mortal and commensurable by time as God the supreme Law-giver as man most humble and obedient to the Law and therefore that the Humane nature was united to the Divine it does not infer that it must in all instances partake of the Divine felicities which in God are essential to man communicated without necessity and by an arbitrary dispensation Add to this that some vertues and excellencies were in the Soul of Christ which could not consist with the state of glorified and beatified persons such as are Humility Poverty of spirit Hope Holy desires all which having their seat in the Soul suppose even in the supremest 〈◊〉 a state of pilgrimage that is a condition which is imperfect and in order to something beyond its present For therefore Christ ought to suffer saith our Blessed Lord himself and so enter into his glory And S. Paul affirms that we see Jesus made a little lower than the Angels for the suffering of death 〈◊〉 with glory and honour And again Christ humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every name Thus his present life was a state of merit and work and as a reward of it he was crowned with glory and immortality his Name was exalted his Kingdom glorified he was made the Lord of
parent of as great Religion as the good women make their fancy their softness and their passion 12. Our Blessed Lord appeared next to Simon and though he and John ran forthtogether and S. John outran Simon although Simon Peter had denied and forsworn his Lord and S. John never did and followed him to his Passion and his death yet Peter had the savour of seeing Jesus first Which some Spiritual persons understand as a testimony that penitent 〈◊〉 have accidental eminences and priviledges sometimes 〈◊〉 to them beyond the temporal graces of the just and innocent as being such who not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the remanent and inherent evils even of repented sins and their aptnesses to relapse but also because those who are true Penitents who understand the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and that for a sinner to pass from death to 〈◊〉 from the state of sin into pardon and the state of Grace is a greater gift and a more excellent and improbable mutation than for a just man to be taken into glory out of gratitude to God and indearment 〈◊〉 so great a change added to a fear of returning to such danger and misery will re-enforce all their industry and double their study and 〈◊〉 more diligently and watch more carefully and redeem the 〈◊〉 and make amends for their omissions and oppose a good to the former evils beside the duties of the 〈◊〉 imployment and then commonly the life of a holy Penitent is more holy active zealous and impatient of Vice and more rapacious of Vertue and holy actions and arises to greater 〈◊〉 of Sanctity than the even and moderate affections of just persons who as our Blessed Saviour's expression is 〈◊〉 no Repentance that is no change of state nothing but a perseverance and an improvement of degrees There is more joy in heaven before the Angels of God over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 ninety nine just persons that need it not for where sin hath abounded there doth grace super abound and that makes joy in Heaven 13. The Holy Jesus having received the affections of his most passionate Disciples the women and S. 〈◊〉 puts himself upon the way into the company of two good men going to Emmaus with troubled spirits and a reeling faith shaking all its upper building but leaving some of its foundation firm To them the Lord discourses of the necessity of the Death and Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 and taught them not to take estimate of the counsels of God by the designs and proportions of man for God by ways contrary to humane judgment brings to pass the purposes of his eternal Providence The glories of Christ were not made pompous by humane circumstances his Kingdom was spiritual he was to enter into Felicities through the gates of Death he refused to do Miracles before 〈◊〉 and yet did them before the people he confuted his accusers by silence and did not descend from the Cross when they offered to believe in him if he would but 〈◊〉 them to be perswaded by greater arguments of his power the miraculous circumstances of his Death and the glories of his Resurrection and by walking in the secret paths of Divine election hath commanded us to adore his footsteps to admire and revere his Wisdom to be satisfied with all the events of Providence and to rejoyce in him if by Afflictions he makes us holy if by Persecutions he supports and enlarges his Church if by Death he brings us to life so we arrive at the communion of his Felicities we must let him chuse the way it being sufficient that he is our guide and our support and our exceeding great reward For therefore Christ preached to the two Disciples going to 〈◊〉 the way of the Cross and the necessity of that passage that the wisdom of God might be glorified and the conjectures of man ashamed But whilest his discourse lasted they knew him not but in the breaking of bread he discovered himself For he turned their meal into a Sacrament and their darkness to light and having to his Sermon added the Sacrament opened all their discerning faculties the eyes of their body and their understanding too to represent to us that when we are blessed with the opportunities of both those instruments we want no exteriour assistence to guide us in the way to the knowing and enjoying of our Lord. 14. But the Apparitions which Jesus made were all upon the design of laying the foundation of all Christian Graces for the begetting and establishing Faith and an active Confidence in their persons and building them up on the great fundamentals of the Religion And therefore he appointed a general meeting upon a mountain in Galilee that the number of witnesses might not only disseminate the same but establish the Article of the Resurrection for upon that are built all the hopes of a Christian and if the dead rise not then are we of all men most miserable in quitting the present possessions and entertaining injuries and affronts without hopes of reparation But we lay two gages in several repositories the Body in the bosome of the earth the Soul in the 〈◊〉 of God and as we here live by Faith and lay them down with hope so the 〈◊〉 is a restitution of them both and a state of re-union And therefore although the glory of our spirits without the body were joy great enough to make compensation for mere than the troubles of all the world yet because one shall not be glorified without the other they being of themselves incomplete substances and God having revealed nothing clearly concerning actual and complete felicities till the day of Judgment when it is promised our bodies shall rise therefore it is that the Resurrection is the great Article upon which we rely and which Christ took so much care to prove and ascertain to so many persons because if that should be disbelieved with which all our felicities are to be received we have nothing to establish our Faith or entertain our Hope or satisfie our desires or make retribution for that state of secular inconveniences in which by the necessities of our nature and the humility and patience of our Religion we are engaged 15. But I consider that holy Scripture onely instructs us concerning the life of this world and the life of the Resurrection the life of Grace and the life of Glory both in the body that is a life of the whole man and whatsoever is spoken of the Soul considers it as an essential part of man relating to his whole constitution not as it is of it self an intellectual and separate substance for all its actions which are separate and removed from the body are relative and incomplete Now because the Soul is an incomplete substance and created in relation to the Body and is but a part of the whole man if the Body were as eternal and incorruptible as the Soul yet the separation of the one from the other would be
particular respect and kindness to S. John than to commit his own Mother whom of all earthly Relations he held most dear and valuable to his trust and care and to substitute him to supply that duty which he himself paid her while he was here below 3. AT the first news of our Lord's return from the dead he accompanied with Peter presently hasted to the Sepulchre Indeed there seems to have been a mutual intimacy between these two Apostles more than the rest 'T was to Peter that S. John gave the notice of Christ's appearing when he came to them at the Sea of 〈◊〉 in the habit of a stranger and it was for John that Peter was so sollicitously inquisitive to know what should become of him After Christ's Ascension we find these two going up to the Temple at the Hour of Prayer and miraculously healing the poor impotent Cripple both Preaching to the People and both apprehended together by the Priests and 〈◊〉 and thrown into Prison and the next Day brought forth to plead their cause before the 〈◊〉 These were the two chosen by the Apostles to send down to Samaria to settle and confirm the Plantations which Philip had made in those Parts where they confounded and baffled Simon the Magician and set him in an hopeful way to repentance To these S. Paul addressed himself as those that seemed to be Pillars among the rest who accordingly gave him the right hand of fellowship and confirmed his mission to the Gentiles 4. IN the division of Provinces which the Apostles made among themselves Asia fell to his share though he did not presently enter upon his charge otherwise we must needs have heard of him in the account which S. Luke gives of S. Paul's several Journies into and residence in those parts Probable therefore it is that he dwelt still in his own House at Jerusalem at least till the death of the Blessed Virgin and this is plainly asserted by Nicephorus from the account of those Historians that were before him whose death says 〈◊〉 hapned Ann. Chr. XLVIII about Fifteen Years after our Lord's Ascension Some time probably Years after her death he took his Journy into Asia and industriously applied himself to the propagating Christianity Preaching where the Gospel had not yet taken place and confirming it where it was already planted Many Churches of note and eminency were of his foundation Smyrna Pergamus Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia Laodicea and others but his chief place of residence was at Ephesus where S. Paul had many Years before setled a Church and constituted Timothy Bishop of it Nor can we suppose that he confined his Ministry meerly to Asia Minor but that he Preached in other Parts of the East probably in Parthia his first Epistle being anciently intitled to them and the Jesuits in the relation of their success in those Parts assure us that the Bassorae a People of India constantly affirm from a Tradition received from their Ancestors that S. John Planted the Christian Faith there 5. HAVING spent many Years in this imployment he was at length accused to Domitian who had begun a Persecution against the Christians as an eminent assertor of Atheism and impiety and a publick subverter of the Religion of the Empire By his command the Proconsul of Asia sent him bound to Rome where his treatment was what might be expected from so bloody and barbarous a Prince he was cast into a Cauldron of boyling Oyl or rather Oyl set on Fire But that Divine Providence that secured the three Hebrew Captives in the flames of a burning Furnace brought this 〈◊〉 Man safe out of this one would have thought unavoidable destruction An instance of so signal preservation as had been enough to perswade a considering Man that there must be a Divinity in that Religion that had such mighty and solemn attestations But Miracles themselves will not convince him that 's fallen under an hard heart and an injudicious mind The cruel Emperor was not satisfied with this but presently orders him to be banished and transported into an Island This was accounted a kind of capital punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Pachymer speaking of this very instance where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not to be understood as extending to life but loss of priviledge Therefore this punishment in the Roman Laws is called Capitis 〈◊〉 and it was the second sort of it because the Person thus banished was disfranchised and the City thereby lost an head It succeeded in the room of that ancient punishment Aqua igni interdicere to interdict a Person the use of Fire and Water the two great and necessary conveniences of Man's life whereby was tacitly implied that he must for his own defence betake himself into banishment it being unlawful for any to accommodate him with Lodging or Diet or any thing necessary to the support of life This banishing into Islands was properly called Deportatio and was the worst and severest kind of exile whereby the criminal forfeited his Estate and being bound and put on Ship-board was by publick Officers transported into some certain Island which none but the Emperor himself might assign there to be confined to perpetual banishment The place of our S. John's banishment was not Ephesus as Chrysostome by a great mistake makes it but Patmos a disconsolate Island in the Archipelago where he remained several Years instructing the Inhabitants in the Faith of Christ. Here it was about the latter end of Domitian's Reign as 〈◊〉 tells us that he wrote his Apocalypse or Book of Revelations wherein by frequent Visions and Prophetical representments he had a clear Scheme and Prospect of the state and condition of Christianity in the future Periods and Ages of the Church Which certainly was not the least instance of that kindness and favour which our Lord particularly shew'd to this Apostle and it seemed very suitable at this time that the goodness of God should over-power the malice of Men and that he should be entertained with the more 〈◊〉 converses of Heaven who was now cut off from all ordinary conversation and society with Men. In a Monastery of Caloires or Greek Monks in this Island they shew a dead Man's hand at this day the Nails of whose Fingers grow again as oft as they are paired which the Turks will have to be the hand of one of their Prophets while the Greeks constantly affirm it to have been the hand of S. John wherewith he wrote the Revelations 6. DOMITIAN whose prodigious wickednesses had rendred him infamous and burdensome to the World being taken out of the way Cocceius Nerva succeeded in the Empire a prudent Man and of a milder and more sober temper He rescinded the odious Acts of his Predecessor and by publick Edict recalled those from banishment whom the fury of Domitian had sent thither S. John taking the advantage of this general Indulgence left
the Apostle says He that is in Christ walks as he also walked But thus the actions of our life relate to him by way of Worship and Religion but the use is admirable and effectual when our actions refer to him as to our Copy and we transcribe the Original to the life He that considers with what affections and lancinations of spirit with what effusions of love Jesus prayed what fervors and assiduity what innocency of wish what modesty of posture what subordination to his Father and conformity to the Divine Pleasure were in all his Devotions is taught and excited to holy and religious Prayer The rare sweetness of his deportment in all Temptations and violences of his Passion his Charity to his enemies his sharp Reprehensions to the Scribes and Pharisees his Ingenuity toward all men are living and effectual Sermons to teach us Patience and Humility and Zeal and candid Simplicity and Justice in all our actions I add no more instances because all the following Discourses will be prosecutions of this intendment And the Life of Jesus is not described to be like a Picture in a chamber of Pleasure only for beauty and entertainment of the eye but like the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks whose every feature is a Precept and the Images converse with men by sense and signification of excellent 〈◊〉 16. It was not without great reason advised that every man should propound the example of a wise and vertuous personage as Cato or Socrates or Brutus and by a fiction of imagination to suppose him present as a witness and really to take his life as the direction of all our actions The best and most excellent of the old Law-givers and Philosophers among the Greeks had an allay of Viciousness and could not be exemplary all over Some were noted for Flatterers as Plato and Aristippus some for Incontinency as Aristotle Epicurus Zeno Theognis Plato and Aristippus again and Socrates whom their Oracle affirmed to be the wisest and most perfect man yet was by Porphyry noted for extreme intemperance of Anger both in words and actions And those Romans who were offered to them for Examples although they were great in reputation yet they had also great Vices Brutus dipt his hand in the bloud of Caesar his Prince and his Father by love endearments and adoption and Cato was but a wise man all day at night he was used to drink too liberally and both he and Socrates did give their Wives unto their friends the Philosopher and the Censor were procurers of their Wives Unchastity and yet these were the best among the Gentiles But how happy and richly furnished are Christians with precedents of Saints whose Faith and Revelations have been productive of more spiritual Graces and greater degrees of moral perfections And this I call the priviledge of a very great assistance that I might advance the reputation and account of the Life of the Glorious Jesu which is not abated by the imperfections of humane Nature as they were but receives great heightnings and perfection from the Divinity of his Person of which they were never capable 17. Let us therefore press after Jesus as 〈◊〉 did after his Master with an inseparable prosecution even whithersoever he goes that according to the reasonableness and proportion expressed in S. Paul's advice As we have born the image of the earthly we may also bear the image of the heavenly For in vain are we called Christians if we live not according to the example and discipline of Christ the Father of the Institution When S. Laurence was in the midst of the torments of the Grid-iron he made this to be the matter of his joy and Eucharist that he was admitted to the Gates through which Jesus had entred and therefore thrice happy are they who walk in his Courts all their days And it is yet a nearer union and vicinity to imprint his Life in our Souls and express it in our exterior converse and this is done by him only who as S. Prosper describes the duty despises all those gilded vanities which he despised that fears none of those sadnesses which he suffered that practises or also teaches those Doctrines which he taught and hopes for the accomplishment of all his Promises And this is truest Religion and the most solemn Adoration The PRAYER OEternal Holy and most glorious Jesu who hast united two Natures of distance infinite descending to the lownesses of Humane nature that thou mightest exalt Humane nature to a participation of the Divinity we thy people that sate in darkness and in the shadows of death have seen great light to entertain our Understandings and enlighten our Souls with its excellent influences for the excellency of thy Sanctity shining gloriously in every part of thy Life is like thy Angel the Pillar of Fire which called thy children from the darknesses of Egypt Lord open mine eyes and give me power to behold thy righteous Glories and let my Soul be so entertained with affections and holy ardours that I may never look back upon the flames of 〈◊〉 but may follow thy Light which recreates and enlightens and guides us to the mountains of Safety and Sanctuaries of Holiness Holy Jesu since thy 〈◊〉 is imprinted on our Nature by Creation let me also express thy Image by all the parts of a holy life 〈◊〉 my Will and Affections to thy holy Precepts submitting my Understanding to thy Dictates and Lessons of perfection imitating thy sweetnesses and Excellencies of Society thy Devotion in Prayer thy Conformity to God thy Zeal tempered with Meekness thy Patience heightned with Charity that Heart and Hands and Eyes and all my Faculties may grow up with the increase of God till I come to the full measure of the 〈◊〉 of Christ even to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus that at last in thy light I may see light and reap the fruits of Glory from the seeds of Sanctity in the 〈◊〉 of thy holy Life O Blessed and Holy Saviour Jesus Amen THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin MARY until his Baptism and Temptation inclusively WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE FIRST PART Qui sequitur me non ambulat in Tenebris LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675. THE LIFE Of our Blessed Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST The Evangelical Prophet Behold a Virgin shall conceive beare a son and shall call his name Immanuel Isa 7 14. Mat 1 22 23 The Annunciation S. LUKE 1. 28 Haile thou that art highly favoured the Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women SECT I. The History of the Conception of JESVS 1. WHen the fulness of time was come after the frequent repetition of Promises the expectation of the Jewish Nation the longings and tedious waitings of all holy persons the departure of the
God at first designed to us And therefore as our Baptism is a separation of us from unbelieving people so the descent of the Holy Spirit upon us in our Baptism is a consigning or marking us for God as the Sheep of his pasture as the Souldiers of his Army as the Servants of his houshold we are so separated from the world that we are appropriated to God so that God expects of us Duty and Obedience and all Sins are acts of Rebellion and Undutifulness Of this nature was the sanctification of Jeremy and John the Baptist from their mothers womb that is God took them to his own service by an early designation and his Spirit marked them to a holy Ministery To this also relates that of S. Paul whom God by a decree separated from his mother's womb to the Ministery of the Gospel the 〈◊〉 did antedate the act of the Spirit which did not descend upon him until the day of his Baptism What these persons were in order to exteriour Ministeries that all the faithful are in order to Faith and Obedience consigned in Baptism by the Spirit of God to a perpetual relation to God in a continual service and title to his Promises And in this sence the Spirit of God is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Seal In whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of Promise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Water washes the body and the Spirit seals the Soul viz. to a participation of those Promises which he hath made and to which we receive a title by our Baptism 22. Secondly The second effect of the Spirit is Light or Illumination that is the holy Spirit becomes unto us the Author of holy thoughts and firm perswasions and sets to his seal that the Word of God is true into the belief of which we are then baptized and makes Faith to be a Grace and the Understanding resigned and the Will confident and the Assent stronger than the premises and the Propositions to be believed because they are beloved and we are taught the ways of Godliness after a new manner that is we are made to perceive the Secrets of the Kingdom and to love Religion and to long for Heaven and heavenly things and to despise the World and to have new resolutions and new perceptions and new delicacies in order to the establishment of Faith and its increments and perseverance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God sits in the Soul when it is illuminated in 〈◊〉 as if he sate in his Throne that is he rules by a firm perswasion and intire principles of Obedience And therefore Baptism is called in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illuminated Call to mind the former days in which you were illuminated and the same phrase is in the 6. to the Hebrews where the parallel places expound each other For that which S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illuminated he calls after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a receiving the knowledge of the truth and that you may perceive this to be wholly meant of Baptism the 〈◊〉 expresses it still by Synonyma's Tasting of the heavenly gift and made partakers of the Holy Ghost sprinkled in our hearts from an evil conscience and washed in our bodies with pure water all which also are a syllabus or collection of the several effects of the graces bestowed in Baptism But we are now instancing in that which relates most properly to the Understanding in which respect the Holy Spirit also is called Anointing or Unction and the mystery is explicated by S. John The Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things 23. Thirdly The Holy Spirit descends upon us in Baptism to become the principle of a new life to become a holy seed springing up to Holiness and is called by S. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of God and the purpose of it we are taught by him Whosoever is 〈◊〉 of God that is he that is regenerated and entred into this New birth doth not 〈◊〉 sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God The Spirit of God is the Spirit of life and now that he by the Spirit is born anew he hath in him that principle which if it be cherished will grow up to life to life eternal And this is the Spirit of Sanctification the victory over the World the deletery of Concupiscence the life of the Soul and the perpetual principle of Grace sown in our spirits in the day of our Adoption to be the sons of God and members of Christ's body But take this Mystery in the words of S. Basil. There are two Ends proposed in Baptism to wit to abolish the body of Sin that we may no more bring forth fruit unto death and to live in the Spirit and to have our fruit to Sanctification The Water represents the image of death receiving the body in its bosom as in a Sepulchre but the quickning Spirit sends upon us a vigorous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power or 〈◊〉 even from the beginning renewing our Souls from the death of sin unto life For as our Mortification is 〈◊〉 in the water so the Spirit works life in us To this purpose is the discourse of S. Paul having largely discoursed of our being baptized into the death of 〈◊〉 he adds this as the Corollary of all He that is dead is freed from sin that is being mortified and buried in the waters of Baptism we have a new life of Righteousness put into us we are quitted from the dominion of Sin and are planted together in the likeness of Christ's Resurrection that henceforth we should not serve sin 24. Fourthly But all these intermedial Blessings tend to a glorious Conclusion for Baptism does also consign us to a holy Resurrection It takes the sting of death from us by burying us together with Christ and takes 〈◊〉 Sin which is the sting of death and then we shall be partakers of a blessed Resurrection This we are taught by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his Death For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection That declares the real event in its due season But because Baptism consigns it and admits us to a title to it we are said with S. Paul to be risen with Christ in Baptism Buried with him in Baptism wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God which hath raised him from the dead Which expression I desire to be remembred that by it we may better understand those other
her in the midst of her journey Against this David prayed O my God cut me 〈◊〉 off in the midst of my days But in this there is some variety For God does it sometimes in mercy sometimes in judgment The righteous die and no man regardeth not considering that they are taken away from the evil to come God takes the righteous man hastily to his Crown lest temptation snatch it from him by interrupting his hopes and sanctity And this was the case of the old World For from Adam to the Floud by the Patriarchs were eleven generations but by Cain's line there were but eight so that Cain's posterity were longer liv'd because God intending to bring the Floud upon the World took delight to rescue his elect from the dangers of the present impurity and the future Deluge Abraham lived five years less than his son Isaac it being say the Doctors of the Jews intended for mercy to him that he might not see the iniquity of his Grandchild 〈◊〉 And this the Church for many Ages hath believed in the case of baptized Infants dying before the use of Reason For besides other causes in the order of Divine Providence one kind of mercy is done to them too for although their condition be of a lower form yet it is secured by that timely shall I call it or untimely death But these are cases extraregular ordinarily and by rule God hath revealed his purposes of interruption of the lives of sinners to be in anger and judgment for when men commit any signal and grand impiety God suffers not Nature to take her course but strikes a stroke with his own hand To which purpose I think it a remarkable instance which is reported by 〈◊〉 that for 3332 years even to the twentieth Age there was not one example of a Son that died before his Father but the course of Nature was kept that he who was first born in the descending line did die first I speak of natural death and therefore Abel cannot be opposed to this observation till that Terah the father of Abraham taught the People to make Images of clay and worship them and concerning him it was first remarked that Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity God by an unheard-of Judgment and a rare accident punishing his newly-invented crime And when-ever such 〈◊〉 of a life happens to a vicious person let all the world acknowledge it for a Judgment and when any man is guilty of evil habits or unrepented sins he may therefore expect it because it is threatned and designed for the lot and curse of such persons This is threatned to Covetousness Injustice and Oppression As a Partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days and at his end shall be a Fool. The same is threatned to Voluptuous persons in the highest caresses of delight and Christ told a parable with the same design The rich man said Soul take thy ease but God answered O fool this night shall thy Soul be required of thee Zimri and Cozbi were slain in the trophies of their Lust and it was a sad story which was told by Thomas Cantipratanus Two Religious persons tempted by each other in the vigour of their youth in their very first pleasures and opportunities of sin were both struck dead in their embraces and posture of entertainment God smote Jeroboam for his Usurpation and Tyranny and he died Saul died for Disobedience against God and asking counsel of a Pythonisse God smote 〈◊〉 with a Leprosie for his profaneness and distressed 〈◊〉 sorely for his Sacrilege and sent a horrid disease upon Jehoram for his Idolatry These instances represent Voluptuousness and Covetousness Rapine and Injustice Idolatry and Lust Profaneness and Sacrilege as remarked by the signature of exemplary Judgments to be the means of shortening the days of man God himself proving the Executioner of his own fierce wrath I instance no more but in the singular case of Hananiah the false Prophet Thus saith the LORD Behold I will cut thee from off the face of the earth this year thou shalt die because thou hast taught Rebellion against the LORD That is the curse and portion of a false Prophet a short life and a suddén death of God's own particular and more immediate 〈◊〉 23. And thus also the sentence of the Divine anger went forth upon criminal persons in the New Testament Witness the Disease of Herod Judas's Hanging himself the Blindness of 〈◊〉 the Sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira the Buffetings with which Satan 〈◊〉 the bodies of persons excommunicate Yea the blessed Sacrament of CHRIST's Body and Bloud which is intended for our spiritual life if it be unworthily received proves the cause of a natural death For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many are fallen asleep saith S. Paul to the 〈◊〉 Church 24. Thirdly But there is yet another manner of ending man's life by way of Chance or Contingency meaning thereby the manner of God's Providence and event of things which is not produced by the disposition of natural causes nor yet by any particular and special act of God but the event which depends upon accidental causes not so certain and regular as Nature not so conclusive and determined as the acts of decretory Providence but comes by disposition of causes irregular to events rare and accidental This David expresses by entring into battel and in this as in the other we must separate cases extraordinary and rare from the ordinary and common Extraregularly and upon extraordinary reasons and permissions we find that holy persons have miscarried in battel So the 〈◊〉 fell before Benjamin and Jonathan and 〈◊〉 and many of the Lord's champions fighting against the Philistines but in these deaths as God served other ends of Providence so he kept to the good men that fell all the mercies of the Promise by giving them a greater blessing of event and compensation In the more ordinary course of Divine dispensation they that prevaricate the Laws of God are put out of protection God withdraws his special Providence or their tutelar Angel and leaves them exposed to the influences of Heaven to the power of a Constellation to the accidents of humanity to the chances of a Battel which are so many and various that it is ten thousand to one a man in that case never escapes and in such variety of contingencies there is no probable way to assure our safety but by a holy life to endear the Providence of God to be our Guardian It was a remarkable saying of Deborah The Stars sought in their courses 〈◊〉 in their orbs against Sisera Sisera fought when there was an evil Aspect or malignant influence of Heaven upon him For even the smallest thing that is in opposition to us is enough to turn the
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
darkness 4. HERE it was that the Blessed Jesus laboured under the bitterest Agony that could fall upon humane Nature which the holy Story describes by words sufficiently expressive of the higest grief and sorrow he was afraid sorrowful and very heavy yea his Soul was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceeding sorrowful and that even unto death he was fore amazed and very heavy he was troubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Soul was shaken with a vehement commotion yea he was in an Agony a word by which the Greeks are wont to represent the greatest conflicts and anxieties The effect of all which was that he prayed more earnestly offering up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears as the Apostle expounds it and sweat as it were great drops of bloud falling to the ground What this bloudy sweat was and how far natural or extraordinary I am not now concerned to enquire Certain it is it was a plain evidence of the most intense grief and sadness for if an extreme fear or trouble will many times cast us into a cold sweat how great must be the commotion and conflict of our Saviour's mind which could force open the pores of his body lock'd up by the coldness of the night and make not drops of sweat but great drops or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies clods of bloud to issue from them While our Lord was thus contending with these Ante-Passions the three Apostles whom he had left at some distance from him being tired out with watching and disposed by the silence of the Night were fallen fast asleep Our Lord who had made three several addresses unto Heaven that if it might consist with his Father's will this bitter Cup might pass from him expressing herein the harmless and innocent desires of humane Nature which always studies its own preservation between each of them came to visit the Apostles and calling to Peter asked him Whether they could not watch with him one hour advising them to watch and pray that they enter'd not into temptation adding this Argument That the spirit indeed was willing but that the flesh was weak and that therefore there was the more need that they should stand upon their guard Observe here the incomparable sweetness the generous candor of our blessed Saviour to pass so charitable a censure upon an action from whence malice and ill-nature might have drawn monsters and prodigies and have represented it black as the shades of darkness The request which our Lord made to these Apostles was infinitely reasonable to watch with him in this bitter Agony their company at least being some refreshment to one under such sad fatal circumstances and this but for a little time one hour it would soon be over and then they might freely consult their own ease and safety 'T was their dear Lord and Master whom they now were to attend upon ready to lay down his life for them sweating already under the first skirmishes of his sufferings and expecting every moment when all the powers of darkness would fall upon him But all these considerations were drown'd in a profound security the men were fast asleep and though often awakened and told of it regarded it not as if nothing but ease and softness had been then to be dream'd of An action that look'd like the most prodigious ingratitude and the highest unconcernedness for their Lord and Master and which one would have thought had argued a very great coldness and indifferency of affection towards him But he would not set it upon the Tenters nor stretch it to what it might easily have been drawn to he imputes it not to their unthankfulness or want of affection nor to their carelesness of what became of him but merely to their infirmity and the weakness of their bodily temper himself making the excuse when they could make none for themselves the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Hereby teaching us to put the most candid and favourable construction upon those actions of others which are capable of various interpretations and rather with the Bee to suck honey than with the Spider to draw poison from them His last Prayer being ended he came to them and told them with a gentle rebuke That now they might sleep on if they pleased that the hour was at hand that he should be betrayed and delivered into the hands of men 5. WHILE he was thus discoursing to them a Band of Souldiers sent from the High Priests with the Traitor Judas to conduct and direct them rush'd into the Garden and seised upon him which when the Apostles saw they asked him whether they should attempt his rescue Peter whose ungovernable zeal put him upon all dangerous undertakings without staying for an answer drew his Sword and espying one more busie than the rest in laying hold upon our Saviour which was Malchus who though carrying Kingship in his name was but Servant to the High Priest struck at him with an intention to dispatch him but God over-ruling the stroak it only cut off his right Ear. Our Lord liked not this wild and unwarrantable zeal and therefore intreated their patience whilest he miraculously healed the Wound And turning to Peter bad him put up his Sword again told him that they who unwarrantably use the Sword should themselves perish by it that there was no need of these violent and extravagant courses that if he had a mind to be rid of his Keepers he could ask his Father who would presently send more than twelve Legions of Angels to his rescue and deliverance But he must drink the Cup which his Father had put into his hand for how else should the Scriptures be fulfilled which had expresly foretold That these things must be Whereupon all the Apostles forsook him and fled from him and they who before in their promises were as bold as Lions now it came to it like fearful and timorous Hares ran away from him Peter and John though staying last with him yet followed the same way with the rest preferring their own safety before the concernments of their Master 6. NO sooner was he apprehended by the Souldiers and brought out of the Garden but he was immediately posted from one Tribunal to another brought first to Annas then carried to Caiaphas where the Jewish Sanhedrim met together in order to his Trial and Condemnation Peter having a little recovered himself and gotten loose from his fears probably encouraged by his Companion S. John returns back to seek his Master And finding them leading him to the High Priest's Hall followed afar off to see what would be the event and issue But coming to the Door could get no admittance till one of the Disciples who was acquainted there went out and perswaded the Servant who kept the Door to let him in Being let into the Hall where the Servants and Officers stood round the Fire Peter also came thither to warm himself where being espied by the