conclude either of these kissing or dancing simply and absolutely in themselves unlawfull For for the one St. Paul often woos his friends to salute one another with a holy kisse and it was frequently used all along in the primitive times as St. Augustine tells us in reconciliationis charitas laetitia catholicae veritatis signum as a testimony of reconcilement of our charity and love of our joy at a meeting after long absence and of our unity in religion And for dancing if we use it moderately for exercise c. there is no fault nor danger in it though I know it is accounted by some of our straight laced brethren in its best intention no better then the Divels procession as they call it but unbyassed persons know that many holy men and women practised it in scripture without reproof Solomon allows us a time for it there is a time to dance saith he Eccle. 3. nay King David says we may praise God in a dance 149. Psalm Sect. II. Of idlenesse the danger thereof St. Anthonies Axiome and Theodorets exposition on Gen. 1. Idlenesse is the high road to lust it is pulvinar libidinis as St. Hierome Of Idlenesse calls it the pillow whereon the unclean spirit delights to rest him and wantonnesse never thrives so kindly nor takes root so deeply as in a field that lieth fallow King David rising from his afternoons nap walking idlely on his Tarras immediately fell into Adultery with Vriahs wise lust having never so great an advantage over us as when it finds us sitting still or doing nothing Cupid may more easily hit us then then when we are in motion Otia si tollas periere Cupidinis Arcus Take away Idlenesse and never doubt But Cupids bow breaks all his lamps go out Labour is Loves strongest antidote so that it is ridiculous for a slothfull lazie man to say if he commit fully that he was enticed and tempted by the Devils suggestion or the allurements of the flesh he is rather the Devils tempter then the Devil his and doth A sloth full man the Devils Tempter as much as in him lies tempt a Temptation to seize upon him Idleness saith the wise son of Sirach teacheth much evil And therefore S. Anthony was wont to say He had never so much need of good mens prayers for A remarkable saying of St. Anthonies him as when he was going about nothing And Theodoret raising a Quere in his questions upon Genesis why God should sanctifie and hallow the seventh day onely and not any other of the six working days amongst other reasons he gives this for one It was saith he to intimate unto us that the seventh Theodorets opinion why God sanctified the seventh day day being a day wherein we are to sit still and not labor was a day whereon we were more subject and liable to temptation then on other days and so that day in more danger of prophanation then any working day and so had more need of a more special benediction then the rest from him that is Lord of all days SECT III. The Eye the grand Incendiary to Lust Eliah 's flight Alexanders continence Zeleucus his Law explained Numbers 15. 39. explicated The eye if it be fixed long on a beautifull object like a burning glasse collects the rays of it so strongly that it sets the soul on fire with the flames of Lust St. Ambrose in his Tract De fuga saeculi observes that The Prophet Eliah feared not to meet speak face to face with cruel Ahab 1 Kin. 18. 2. but fled from the face of Jezabel And the Father saith there It was for fear lest by the sight of such a tempting woman his eye might convey some loose thoughti into his heart And to prevent this treachery of the eye Alexander the Great as Plutarch relates when he had conquered Persia would not by any perswasions be drawn to look upon the beautifull daughters of Darius lest after his conquest over so many men he should be brought into the slavery of a woman by his own lust If the eye be full of adultery the heart will not be long empty Mors intrat per fenestras this way by the windows of the eye sin entred into the world and by sin death Eve first saw the forbidden fruit that it was beautifull pleasant and good for food and then her desire was tempted to eat of it When David saw Vriah's wife he was but one step from the enjoying her And upon this ground was it that Zelencus made his Law That Adulterers should lose both their eys that having lost their Zeleucus his Law sight they might for the future the better keep their chastity or rather to shew that since the eye of any of the bodies members is the first incendiary to lust and the chiefest Pander to uncleanness that that should be first in the punishment that was both first and chiefest in the fault Almighty God therefore took a care of the Israelites that they should have embroydered Fringes on their garments to fix their wandring eys on that they might not gaze and stare about in Numb 15. the reason is set down in these express words v. 39. That you seek not after your own eys after which you go a whoring SECT IIII. Obscean talk obnoxius that it is possible for an Authour to write lasciviously yet live temperately The mischief of wanton talk we have a good Embleme of in Venus birds the Doves which some Naturalists say engender at their mouths it is a sign the pot is hot within if there come such steams from it the tongue speaks not but from the abundance of the heart let the Poet plead in desence of his loose verses of his ribald talk or his reading or singing lascivious songs and vainly think his life nevertheless may be thought modest he will find but few to beleeve him he shall never perswade the world but that they must needs be ulcered Lungs from whence comes such putrid Spittle Yet I dare not conclude it impossible for in so doing I should sin against the clear and destinate light of knowledge and my own experience that a Poet may write lasciviously and that at the height and yet his thoughts remain spotless and his actions proclaim him truly chast so exactly can man play the Pretens and so facilcly practise a disguise CHAP. V. Pride in whom and how far tollerable the plainness of the Spartan women c. IF Lot will avoid the sin of Sodom he must not depart from the City onely but the Region round about it too the over curious dresling and adorning the body when we rake our brains and wrack our wits and grow old in the search of a new fashion the pleating the hair and painting the face as it were laying an ambush in our locks to catch our lovers are but as so many baits for lust to nibble at in women scarce tollerable in men monstrous or although we
the Ree◠dashed against thy head shews thy sufferings to be the doings of thy own Scepter In this variety of torments I find no women save onely one whom the Devil to preserve his old slight of tempting had set on Peter Eve the cause of all had done enough already and such hands were to weak for the Jews hate which required the utmost vigour of bloody souldiers but out Saviour having tyred them also Pilate who thought it mercy to use him thus cruelly presents him in his wofull formalities to move compassion Behold the man alas alas the King is this a Competitioner for a Caesar they like hounds having fastened upon the prey and comming again to full gaze yell out with full cries Crucifie him Crucifie him Since then Iustice is turned to a cry Esay 3. I appeal to you behold the man a man so torn in all his parts that no part can be known by it self but by the property of its torture Behold his head tented with thorns his cheeks macerated with buffets his face chequered with blood and spittle his hand behold with a Reed his back plowed over with stripes O that ye would behold what words hath stounded his ears what swords have passed through his soul shall yet the spear rip up his side shall yet the nail pierce his feet shall this man be crucified Behold him again and then behold your selves how many Jews are in each of you since each of you have procured al these outrages hear the cry of your selves Crucifie him Crucifie him well if he must die if the same Judge having thrice pronounced him innocent must in the same breath condemn Christ and himself his willingnesse is as ready as the necessity is urgent let him become obedient unto Death Phillip 2. 8. But could the Creatot die and be brought himself so near that nothing out of which he breathed all things No Death being onely a Divorce of the natural parts could not separate the Godhead the man onely died the person was but in a sound the commerce and influence of the whole Divinity like the Spirits in a falling Disease did not vanish but retire that astonishing voice My God my God why hast thou for saken me infers no more For how should God and Man be accorded by him who suffered a dis-union of God and Man in himself all this was but a sharp pull of his former Agony where an Augel did then chear him but now he is forsaken of all induring the height of Anguish in the end of Life that we might receive the greater comfort in the point of Death And hereby he gives his enemy the fiercest blow at last while he stretcheth himself and roars over the prey as it became the Lion of the Tribe of Juda. But what had Death to do to punish when Baptism had nothing to wash 〈◊〉 his seeming ☞ contradiction is the main thing of our Salvation For if Death be the wages of sin and sin be not in Christ it remains that our sins put him to death which he discharges as a Surety not as a Debter Adams Disobedience in the easiest Command is recompenced by Christs Obedience in the hardest Injunction for Obedience consisting in the renowning our selves is most eminent in Death There is a Death in Death which makes it more then Death the Jews malice and our Saviours obedience are well met to entertain it both which emulate each other So habituate and obdurate themselves that they forgetting their Splcen may now beleeve they do justice and Christ were he any besides himself might think he died deservedly Could any Tyranny have startled his Obedience the Crosse had done it whose gripes are implyed to be infinite while their Eury is here matched as an even measure with the Patience of God Behold yee that passe by Was ever sorrow like this sarrow Jer. 1. 21. A sorrow that might be felt by looking on felt by that which had no feeling The Earth was moved at his constancy it fell a shaking when his hands were Why the Earth shook at our Saviours Passion fastened it reeled and staggered when it missed his feet whose touch supported it One timely wound at the heart had been a friendly murther But when all the extream parts are beset with distinct killings yet none so kind as to dispatch him when the nail onely tortures not destroying the part but deading the sense making Death live the Crosse it self must needs be the onely Pulpit to expresse Anguish But why all these stations Tardiora sunt remedia quem mala It is easier to spill then to gather to marre then to mend In mans creation and fall God and Divels were quick at work but when it comes to redemption how many premises how many ages of expectance what growth what preparation what lingring execution must joyn to finish the Sacrifice for should our Saviour have made hast in his task it would have filled us with wonder rather then thanks and would have relished more of power then love but great must his love be when he dwels on his pain when he delights in sorrow and huggs it instead of them he loves Whilest his body was thus afflicted the Jews took care that his soul should not be idle who provided a punishment mixed with as much shame as smart for although the Crosse had never been made infamous by the communion of Slaves yet how shamefull it was might be read in his own countenance the seat of shame he enjoyed not here the priviledg of others Death the face was covered with nothing but shame and to its greater confusion it beheld the bodies nakedness the first object of shame not in secret as our first Parents did but before a cloud of insulting scorners such as durst mock him when he was clad in purple it is true our Saviour had no cause of shame in himself yet Innocency may be dipt in a blush as well as guilt not for any conscions ground in its own bosome but a timerous suspition of sinister thoughts in others which made the Sun remember its duty in cloaking him from shame who cloathed it with light seasonably denying his beams in a time unseasonable The Statists of the Synagogue well knew what they ask'd when they they ask'd for a crucifying in death they stroke at his life in the death of the Crosse they aimed at his name they that hated his Doctrine more then his person slew him but to come at his memory in murthering which they might ever raise a continuall slaughter not onely on him but on all those that should follow so vile a master this wooden engine was a stumbling block to the Jew and Gentile to whom it seemed incredible that the author of life should die so base a death again that such a death should be the spring of life it appeared a greater riddle then that the honey should be hived in a carkass but we know how the disgrace of this
conflict O how was the soul preserved when the body was forced to rain blood when every Pore gasped as if the soul meant to follow and he to die as often as it had places to expire at Indeed well it might for this single Death was conceived as a multitude of Deaths a Death for those that died before and after Behold a ghastly sight for he that never committed one sin to be charged with so many heaps of sin whose load could not chuse but be the heavier because Innoccency lay under and came so near to Guilt as to be punished the Cup of sower Grapes mixed with those thoughts burst out into billows of Sweat so that Floods ran over him Psal 69. Oh what bleeding was within when it streamed so without never was such a Sweat because never such a Cause no such heat but that of Hell Sin being the Fewel of both by whose vehemency each Pore became an Eye and each Member wept that by the tears of his whole body the whole body of his Church might be cleansed and yet his sufferance swells to the largest extent of Obedience exercised in sundry torments by all persons upon his parts Friend and Foe Jew and Gentile King Priest and People all joyn against him in the Front of which conspiracy comes Judas a Wolf trained up in the school of a Lamb with a Kisse Was ever such a salutation between God the Devil with a kisse doth this courteous blood-sucker kil his Masters Traytor Dost thou so kisse the Son lest he be angry Well take thy leave Judas never shalt thou come so near again this hanging about Christs neck shall cost thine own a worser hanging whilest Heaven and Earth for betraying him that came from both shall with vengeance thrust thee from them and leave thy Carcasse to thy new Master the Prince of the Aire It could not chuse but make his Enemies bold to see his Disciple so cruel who now prepare to kill the true Passeover though not for their own but our eating the seed of Abraham came out with Bills and Staves to take him who came down from Heaven to take the seed of Abraham and violently attach him with their hands whom they could not apphehend with their hearts They take him but as Sampson was taken by the Philistines to the losse and ruine of themselves both felt the God of Israel when they held him in bondage both smarted under their prisoner By tying his hands which might have loosed theirs they tied themselves in a double knot but that hindred not his proceeding who through Adams captivity through a rash freedome regained us liberty with a deliberate captivity Thus with bonds of liberty he travelled to Caiphas a man that went for a High Priest but first Murther must call in Annas his reverend Father-in-Law that so the generation of Vipers might be more allied in bloud After Annas Caiphas with good manners may be avillain a zealous counterfeit who having with deep conjuration wrung out the truth accuseth God himself of Blasphemie The watch word being given the servants are diligent in reviling him that never spake amiss they blind his eys challenge a Prophesie that so they might prove him a Seer by making him not to see they pluck off his hair Esay 5. 6. that no hair of us might perish threshing his cheeks with buffets wherein our offences have a hand Yet to all these reproaches he sets his face at a flint Esa 5. 6. as flint indeed from whence those smiters smore fire for their own Damnation The night being spent with those hellish Pastimes they benight the Day with Actions of Darknesse their fury hurries him to Pilate where the Scribes ommitting Blasphemie as an idle brangling before a secular Judge object him a Traytor against the God Caesar this killing Plea they keep till last and make it the first Argument of his guilt that They brought him as if their infallible Chair could neither erre nor slander whereas affectors of credit are most commonly Liars these holy Murtherers though by no meanes they will enter the Judgement Hall because of the Passeover nor be defiled with a place of bloud yet with a clear Conscience they prosecute that deed which defiles the place Pilate espying their malice makes a friend of a bad office shifts him over to Herod This King was more like a Courtier then himself a most Herod his Character curious piece of Vanity who after some discourse of stately impertinency would fain have God recreate his Highnesse with a Miracle Behold a Miracle of Patience Our Saviour returns him and his scoffs not so much as a word Silence is the best reply to a A speaking silence Babler which both secretly darts at the Conscience of the Adversary and retains the station of Meeknesse Our Saviour was often dumb as a Lamb his dumbnesse now hath made him white as a Lamb for Herod mocking him with a white Robe as a Candidate or suitor onely for a Kingdome unwillingly deciphers his integrity in its true colours thus attired he is tosled back again like a Tennis-ball to Pilate where death is little unlesse an odious comparison with Barrabas kill him double this of the two is the Goat which to the utter pollution of the Dismissers is set at liberty Gen. 16. and the destroyer of the living is thought more worthy of life then he that raised their dead Pilate being weary of being just against the stream delivers him to the place of crucifying to be scourged by souldiers a punishment ordained by the Romanes for small offences as the Axe for capital But Christ who suffered for our slips as well as for our crimes endured not onely the Crosse but scourging a punishment most suitable to the nature of sin whereof any Act though never so little makes as many breaches in the Law is the lash imprints in the body When the whip had launced our Saviours flesh their own humour bad Commands are still over-done proceeds to scorn him in state and inviting the multitude to their pettulant fury they repeat what was done last night with advantage with thorns they crown his head not remembring the Parable of Jotham that fire might come out of the Bramble All Crowns are thornie and the Heathenish Sacrifices used to be crowned but when this Sacifice of Jew and Gentile is crowned with thorns when his head is tyed in the thickets is not this the Oblation that was slain for Isaac and all the flock of the Faithfull Next in ridiculous honour they invest him in a Purple garment Why should their spight be at such charges the white Robe now clapt on his bleeding Members would soon take the dye of a better Purple But to make him a compleat mock-Emperour with bended knees they gave him a Reed for a Scepter Innocent King herein thy obedience is most remarkable for whereas other members were meerly passive here the hand was made an instrument of its own shame
Altar made our sacrifice the more acceptable Iudg. 14. and know the stench of the place gave it a sweeter savour and how all our glory is founded on this dishonour why then should it be strange that Christ died the death of a slave since he died for the slaves of sin Had not a thief therefore the first handsel of Redemption happy life who quitted his reckoning for death to come while here at once he was twice crucified in himself Christ It was necessary that Christ should hang naked on the Tree to free us from the Trees malediction which first shewed us to be naked nor ought his death to be private as his birth but exposed to publick view that so paying ransom for the world he might take a whole nation to witness But is their fury yet sated and their rancour glutted no Christs bones should be broken did not a Prophesie keep them whole but lo the flints and the bones of the earth are broken for them his garments should be tortured did not mystery dispose of the souldiers Avarice but lo the vail of the Temple is rent for 't and the Holy of Holies is taught to suffer with the more Holy The death of the Crosse was attended not onely with the worst of shames but the greatest of pains our Saviours life went from him like water out of a little mouth'd vessel where a speedy mortal wound had been a meritorious courtesie to be betrayed by his own servant to have that face defiled with spittle which Angels could not look on and yet cannot look off from to be tossed about like a Tennis ball from Annas to Caiphas from Caiphas to Pilate from Pilate to Herod and from Herod back to Pilate to be accused of blasphemy against God whose will he came to fulfill of treason against Caesar whom he was so carefull that he should have his due that rather then not pay tribute a fish should bring it in his mouth then for the Prince of Peace to have Barabas a mover of sedition preferred before him nay a murtherer the destroyer of life thought to be more worthy of life then he that so often raised their dead to be mocked with innocency clad in a white garment the mystical robe of purity to have the knee bowed to him in scorn to whose name every knee should bow in devotion to be delivered over to the souldiers to buffet and play with who being men of bloud their very sport is cruelty and then to have those hands barbarously nailed through that had made the whole world and had been instruments in so many pious and charitable deeds those feet that trode the way of Gods commands to a thread to suffer as if they had been swift to shed bloud c. What now remains but having surveyed this bitter Passion I turn it to a definition of our Salvation the Prophet hath done it for me Esay 53. 5. Hee was wounded for our Transgressions He was bruised for our Iniquities The chastisement of Peace was upon him and by his stripes are we healed The Lord is my Shield saith the Psalmist Psal 28. 8. For like a Shield hee hath warded off the blow from us What sin is there for which the Lord Jesus hath not suffered He sweat Bloud for the Idlers was Mocked for the Scorners Blasphemed for the Swearer Spit on for the Malicious Falsely accused for the Liar Buffetted for the Violent man Tosled up and down for the Troublesome did Pennance in white for the Adulterer he was Scourged for the Stealer Crowned with Thorns for the Ambitious Burned in the Feet for the Stragler in the Hand for the corrupt Receiver Gall and Vinegar to drink for the Riotous for all he died for the Secresie of all he died Openly with shame on the Crosse LEt the Blood therefore from which Pilate washed his hands wash us all over and grant good Lord that wee may safely passe through this Red Sea of thy Passion wherein though the spiritual Pharaoh and his Hoste though the Israelites themselves bee drowned yet let it open a way for us Gentiles into that Kingdome which thou hast promised Quod faxit Deus AMEN FINIS ERRATA PAge 26. line 17. for piantiphrasin read per Antiphrasin Page 38. line 17. for adjunt read ad sunt