wherein they shall heare that sentence and that is in the resurrection There were in former times many figures of that matter euen before the light of the Gospell as when Enoch and Elias were assumed vp into heauen and translated to immortalitie to shew that other after them should haue the same vncorruptnesse although by another change and to make proofe of a life which is elsewhere for our bodies but shall not be reuealed vntill that generall rising In like sort when there were shewed vnto the Prophet Ezechiel great heapes of scattered bones which the Lord yet put together and laid sinewes vpon them and made flesh grow thereon and then couered both with skinne and afterward breathed life into them In Iob is an euident testimonie I am sure that my Redeemer liueth and he shall stand the last on the earth And although after my skinne the wormes destroy this bodie yet shall I see God in my flesh So in the end of Daniel Many of them that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall avvake some to euerlasting life and some to shame and perpetuall contempt But how euident is this in the new Testament When the Sonne of man commeth in his glorie and all the holy Angels with him then shall he sit vpon the throne of his glorie And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepheard separateth the sheepe from the goates And in the second to the Corinthians that vve must all appeare before the iudgement seate of Christ that euerie man may receiue the things done in his bodie according as he hath done vvhether it be good or euill But most manifest of all other is that of Iohn in his Reuelation I saw a great white throne and one that sate on it from whose face fled away both the earth and heauen and their place vvas no more found And I saw the dead both great and small stand before God and the bookes vvere opened Then foorthwith And the sea gaue vp her dead which vvere in her and death and hell deliuered vp the dead which vvere in them So oftentimes and so plainely doth God foretell vnto vs this generall resurrection In so much that it is as certaine as that the Lord sitteth in heauen that this shall one day bee 16 As there is in all the faithful an assenting to this doctrine the like might be in very Ethnicks sauing that their eies are closed therfore they cānot see as a sound to a deaf eare is nothing which yet is discerned by another man so the miscreants of all ages belly-gods and beast-like men can in no sort endure it Indeede they haue little reason for that the portion is very small which shall then be allowed vnto them Such were those swinish Epicures falsely termed Philosophers who luxuriating in voluptuousnesse and thinking that to be felicitie to bath themselues in delight did enioy the present with the Asse but vtterly denied the immortalitie of the soule and by a consequent that the bodie shall euer be repaired Like to them was Sardanapalus who had this Epitaph on his graue Drinke and play our life is mortall and our time is short vpon earth but our death is euerlasting if a man once be come to it Pliny the elder was a man most worthy praise for his labours which were inestimable yet that speech of his was impious and vnbeseeming those good partes which were otherwise in Plinie To all men from their last day is the same state as was before their first day neither is there after death any more feeling in the bodie or the soule then was before the birthday Certainely the Saduces were in this beleefe of whom the Euangelist witnesseth that they denied the resurrection And you may put them in this number who in Saint Paules time did vse this by-word Let vs eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye as intending that in death should be a finall end and we should be no more heard of The persecuting Gentiles were plainely of this opinion of some of whom in Fraunce Eusebius witnesseth that they in scorne of the resurrection which the Christians do beleeue did burne many of the Martyrs and afterward threw their ashes into the riuer Rhodanus with this foolish exprobration Let vs see now if their God be able to reuiue them In a word most of the Pagans in all ages of the world and all Atheists among Christians a thing in our time too well knowne do oppugne this truth beyond measure At whose liues I do not maruell if they be like their profession that is such some few ciuill respects excepted as are fit for those men who feare neither God nor Diuell I could wish that since it must needes be that Gods wrath is oftentimes by these plucked downe vpon our land the sword of the ciuill magistrate would with seueritie prouide some remedie for them that there might not be in Israel a man who should once dare to blaspheme the name of the Lord. I remember it is recorded of the Atheniens that in the respect which they caried to their false and fained Gods they so detested Diagoras for talking against their heathenish religion that he standing in feare of his life was glad to flye the countrie But herewith the other not contented did put foorth a proclamation that whosoeuer it were that would kill that Diagoras should haue an honourable reward that was a talent of siluer for his labour 17 But to leaue these lawes vnto the Christian magistrate and to proceed as a Minister the arguments of all these and a thousand more of that sute are but vanitie of all vanities when they come once to be weighed in the ballāce of the Sanctuary and are counterpoised onely with the high Gods omnipotencie For why should we tye his power vnto our foolish wit Suppose that there be dying vpon dying and deuouring vpon deuouring that a man be slaine and his members consumed some by birdes some by beastes some by fishes and imagine that those creatures be taken and eaten againe by men and those men be then burnt and their ashes throwne into the water and if we can go farther let there be as many mutations more what is all this to plunge his abilitie who can do euerie thing whatsoeuer himselfe shall please He can do euery thing and therefore raise this man If nature cannot conceiue it learne to looke a little higher to grace and faith beyond nature Plato an heathen man did much reprooue Anaxagoras because tying himselfe too farre to naturall causes and reasons he omitted to thinke on the efficient cause of all things which is surely God the first moouer This is a monstrous errour of vs also But will we allow that to God the like wherof we do allow vnto men If an image should be made of lead to the proportion of a man and the workman
a traunce we see Gods goodnesse ouer vs but it is like men standing a farre off great things do seeme but smal things to vs. When we come to giue thankes we put all in one grosse summe and if we begin to pray we huddle our needs together In a word our best laying open of our hearts before the Lord which should be with an exquisitenesse and curiousnesse if it might be not of words so much and of forme but of matter and sighes and grones and compunction and contrition is but shuffled and scambled ouer Lord lay not this idlenesse and great negligence to our charge If we come to a Phisitian we lay open our griefe by parts this ach is in the head this distemperature in the stomacke this griping is at the heart In our marchandise or businesse committed to our seruants we examine all from point to point Let vs do so in Gods benefits it shall procure in vs a more ingenuous acknowledgement then we euer did imagine One example or two to teach this 11 This present day doth remember vs of the birth of her by whom vnder God we do receiue a multitude of great blessings as the free course of the Gospell an admirable peace prosperity and abundance He is litle lesse then a brutish creature or at least he is a very ill minded subiect who hauing age and experience doth not giue the Lord thankes for her Yet in this so apparant a chaine of Gods benefits let vs examine it from linke to linke and it shall wring out better motions from him who is best minded That the euerlasting Father should bring her to the crowne and scepter of this kingdome through so many difficulties Her brother as he supposed to preuent a greater mischiefe denying her that prerogatiue her sister comming betweene and matching with that Prince who was then held the chiefe flower of Christendome a certaine expectation of issue being betweene them the Spaniards thereat ioyous as hoping thereupon to tyrannize and dominere at their pleasure Nay yet much more then this The Clergie giuing counsell to take away her life Gardiner thirsting for her bloud as a wearied man would long for water Storie daring to say when some each day were burnt in question of religion that these were but the braunches they should strike at the roote a suspicion of strong treason against her sister being sought to be fastened on her imprisonment of her being procured in rigorous and hard manner yea the very sentence of death as it is thought once being gone out against her Yet that the Lord should deliuer her from all this and aduaunce her to the guiding of this land and people That he should so preserue her being a woman and therefore by nature weake and exceeding fearefull in so many plots layed against her Pope Pius with his Anathema deposing her from the Crowne and absoluing if he could get vs to beleeue him her subiects from their obedience Pope Gregory by the setting vp of his Seminaries inueigling some of her owne to play some trecherous part against her in oft-intended inuasions in a rebellion once plainely attempted in conspiracies of sonnes of Belial more then twenty To bring her yet notwithstanding to such an age of her life to such a yeare of her raigne and if this be too little if we will serue God and honour him to giue vs hope that more shall be added vnto her dayes and by a consequent to our happinesse To carry her who in her selfe is a mortall dying creature apt to be broken like a glasse yet as if she had bene borne in the bosome or hand of Angels so that nothing hath annoyed her This particular Analyzing or scanning of the graces of God vpon her will wrest from vs a true ioy with feeling and vnderstanding And what wee do in her wee may all do in our selues 12 Let vs runne from step to step through Gods fauours shewed vnto vs. Either as Barnard doth God deserueth to be loued by vs because he loued vs first that is something so great a God as he is that is more so feruently as he doth that is yet more and freely vvhereas vve vvere such little ones vvhen as vve vvere such bad ones Or otherwise if you please To create vs when we were not to make vs men not beasts to redeeme vs when we were lost and that with so inestimable a price among men to graunt vs to be Christians and not infidels Turkes or Iewes who are bitter enemies to his sonne to giue vs so long a life as that we may comprehend what pertaineth vnto his seruice to bring vs in place where we may see his Sacraments to be administred and heare his word taught to touch our hearts with faith and an earnest desire of perseuerance to fill our consciences with spirituall ioy and comfort in his promises in sickenesse to stand by vs in aduersitie to vphold vs in temptation to strengthen vs. All this should make our hearts pant and say with Dauid What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefites toward me or with the Patriarke Iacob I am not vvorthie of the least of all thy mercies and all the truth vvhich thou hast shewed vnto thy seruant So to thinke when other begge that we might begge likewise when we see other depriued of their sences or common vnderstanding to remember that the same might bee our portion or banishment or imprisonment or bondage and captiuitie But there is a Lord in heauen who hath dealt otherwise with vs and giuen vnto vs a maintenance from our cradle clothing vnto our backe and bread vnto our belly yea peraduenture to come from state of necessity to such a condition as rather to be able to giue then to take to helpe then to be helped We may go on in these meditations When euill hath beene conspired when mischiefe hath bene contriued then he hath affoorded vs that fauour as to go on the thornes vnpricked to walke in the fire vnburnt When slaunders and defamations haue bene deuised and such complaints made and suggested against vs yet all hath vanished as the smoke and in the vprightnesse of a good conscience we haue gone quite vntouched as if no such thing had befallen vs. What sweete thoughts should this worke what passions of admiration what embracings of Gods mercies He who knoweth this and performeth it doth make true vse of that which befalleth him in crossing ouer the troublesome sea of this world and in passing through this wretched vale of misery 13 I beate this point the more as partly to demonstrate that these words of my text which seeme to vs so barren are not altogether without their fruite yea if nothing else should be gathered from them but that which I haue already taught although I doubt not but another man might find some other doctrine in them as God doth giue diuerse conceipts to diuerse of his seruants So againe to
being handled as Gods spirit shall enable me I wil come to Lords reproofe Life and death is from God 3 This vnpatient Prophet mingling good and bad together layeth it downe in his extasie that it belongeth to God to take away life from man Not I will dye for anger or I will destroy my selfe but Lord take away my life And in their greatest sobrietie the holiest Saints haue and must acknowledge that Iehoua was he who in the first creation breathed into the clay a liuing moouing soule In him sayth Saint Paule we liue and mooue and haue our being And whose it is to build his it is to destroy whose the making is his is the marring This caused Moses speaking plainely in Gods owne person to ioyne them both together Behold novv for I am he and there are no Gods with me I kill and I giue life I wound and I make whole neither is there any who can deliuer out of my hands So Iob that holy man In Gods hand is the soule of euery liuing thing and the breath of all mankind If in his hand then to giue it where he pleaseth to giue it and where he listeth to deny it Salomon the wise doth apparantly aime at this where he sayth Man is not Lord ouer his breath to retaine his spirit neither hath power in the day of death nor deliuerance in the battell Where by an Antithesis it must needs be vnderstood that God thē is Lord ouer it and he doth dispose of it And he hath learned little in the schoole of Christ Iesus who perfectly knoweth not this that his breath in his body as a tenant at will is put into a house whereinto it may not enter but by the good will of the landlord and being once in there it must keepe and hold the building vpright till it haue his discharge to remooue some whither else It must not stay longer then the terme set by the owner neither must it depart till that moment come In the beginning of our being it is God who giueth the barren a power to conceiue who quickeneth that within sometimes sooner sometimes later which he meaneth shall see the Sunne who bringeth it into the world thou art he sayth the Prophet Dauid who tooke me out of my mothers wombe who preserueth from the cradle by thee haue I bene holden vp euer since I was borne and leading vs along he lengtheneth or he shorteneth the race which we shall runne and when we come to the period of the time decreed by himselfe there he biddeth vs stay and fall Our glasse being runne we returne to the earth from whence we were taken 4 And that it might appeare to be onely his prerogatiue to begin and end life howsoeuer he giueth the entrance vnto it but by one way that is by generation as a heathen man noteth yet arbitrarily by innumerable meanes he dissolueth it and destroyeth it And this he doth not at hap-hazard but he ordaineth it before with an immutable decree so that it may not be changed Ieremy the Prophet vseth these words The king of Babel vvhen he commeth shall strike the land of Egypt such as befor death vnto death and such as be appointed for captiuity to captiuity and such as be for the sword to the sword This intimateth that by the prouidence of the Lord who did set that king on worke seuerall persons in their times are determined to their seuerall ends some to the sword some to famine some to the pestilence and some other to the teeth of wild beasts which are the Lords foure great plagues and some other to other deaths The execution of this decree is so various and so manifold that there is no one mans toung which possibly can describe it Abel he is slaine by his brother Abimilechs braines are beaten out by the hand of a woman throwing a peece a mil-stone from a wal Agag is hewed in peeces Iehoram slaine with an arrow Esay cut with a woodden saw Amos slaine with a dore-barre the bloud of other was mingled with the bloud of their owne sacrifices Some there were on whom the towre of Siloah did fall Anacreon the Poet as Pliny telleth was choaked with the kernell of a raisin and Fabius the Senatour was serued so with a haire Pope Adrian the fourth as Cremonensis writeth was choaked with a flye Valentinian the Emperour came to his end by straining himselfe with crying too loud Iouian another Emperour was found dead in his bed And to recite no more of auncient time now in our dayes many come to their graues by Apoplexies and Lethargies and dead palseyes some by falling some by drowning some other as a wasted candle go out naturally What the Lord hath appointed ouer them that euery one partaketh So that it is a thing peculiar to his owne pleasure to withdraw breath from mankind which if at any time he be not pleased to do no deuise of man can bring about the destruction of the least person snares and ambushes layd as against Elizeus shall be frustrated and escaped Lions teeth shall stand still as they did at Daniel fire shall not burne as it was in that ouen where the three children were All policy shall sinke and all complots shall be dissolued as the Lord hath manifestly testified in his annointed handmaid who raigneth ouer vs whom he hath kept hitherto amidst most strange conspiracies because his purpose is that yet longer he will honour her 5 Here it shall be no ill aduise to intersert this word that since the Lord himselfe who forgetteth not his other creatures is notedly especially so carefull ouer man to let his life in into him and to let it out by decree to measure out his sufferings and to moderate his endurings to deliuer when he listeth and to saue when he thinketh good the remembrance of all which and the like benefits made Dauid cry out Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him and the sonne of man that thou doest so visite him we should esteeme of our selues as of Gods speciall workmanship in a degree beyond ordinary My intent is not to puffe vp our hearts with any pride or to thrust into a self-liking for the Lord doth hate pride it goeth before a fall and the humble men are those on whom Christs yoake is layd but to rowze vs vp from that neglect which commonly is in all carnall men I meane a careless estimation and drowsie consideration of the graces of God vpon vs. For do we not see many as if they were onely borne to be somewhat in the world and that so small a somewhat as if it were but nothing go on as forlorne people who make no account of their being and onely eate and drinke and sleepe and walke on idly as if they cared not much whether this or that did fall out to themselues or other men and they were but a
by that knowledge which he yet retained notwithstanding his fall that this punishment was assigned to him by the Lord. This must be the satisfaction for his great disobedience Now againe his faith reuiueth by which he had some foresight of all Gods purpose ouer him This was peculiar to our Ionas by his Propheticall knowledge and may not be followed by vs. It is not any protection for vs to bid any other throw our selues into the sea 27 Besides this I do not doubt but as Samson was a figure of the Sauiour of the world so Ionas also was although not in euerie matter as once before I haue noted yet in this his drowning here Christ himselfe did expound the lying of the Prophet for three dayes in the whales bellye to be a signe of his owne buriall and lying in the earth The death of the Sauiour was to him a meanes of his buriall so here the casting out of Ionas into the sea by the mariners was the meanes whereby he lay three dayes and three nightes in the bellye of the whale Ionas is willingly drowned here Christ also there dyeth willingly he yeelded vp his Ghost no man could take it from him Ionas alone must suffer to saue the rest of the ship Christ alone did treade the wine-presse and Christ doth dye alone to stay his fathers wrath to saue all his elect You see that he is an excellent type of Iesus Christ the righteous But as it is impossible that comparisons should hold in all things and there is none who in euery matter may be likened vnto Christ because he had no fellowes he cannot be tryed by his peeres so there is this one difference that Ionas when he suffered was alone in all the fault and Iesus in his suffering was onely without all fault because he was that immaculate lambe in whose mouth was found no guile When I first looked into this text which I haue now opened vnto you I did thinke to haue said something farther in or concerning the person of Christ whom our Prophet doth represent I meant to haue mentioned his readinesse to dye that he might redeeme vs sinners and so briefly out of the new Testament to haue giuen some comfort amidst all these threates of Ionas But in handling this last question matter hath growne vpon me and I loue not to be tedious I will therefore deferre that till I come to the fifteenth verse where the like occasion is againe fitly offered vnto me In the meane time let vs meditate on the excellent loue of Christ who would dye so willingly for vs the iust for the vniust to bring vs vnto his kingdome To the attaining whereof he alwayes further vs to whom in the perfection of the Trinitie be glorie and prayse for euermore THE VII LECTVRE The chiefe points 1 The vnwillingnesse of the mariners to put Ionas to death 4 Great slownesse should be vsed in taking away life 6. Against killing of men to offer to Idols 7. and other cruell massacrings 9. As that of the Anabaptistes 14. The force of the sea 16. It is some sinne that maketh many not to prosper 20. God reuengeth innocent bloud 22. Enforcement doth not excuse euill 23. We must yeeld to Gods will Ionah 1.13.14 Neuerthelesse the mē rowed to bring it to the land but they could not for the sea wrought and was troublous against thē Wherefore they cried vnto the Lord said We beseech thee ô Lord vve beseech thee let vs not perish for this mans life and lay not vpon vs innocent bloud for thou ô Lord hast done as it pleased thee IOnas being of a Prophet become a sinner of a sinner a prisoner as oft times you haue heard is examined by his companie but condēned by himselfe as a grieuous malefactour worthy to be drowned in the sea So much did his sinne crie for vengeance so vehemently did his God make after him But the miserie of his miserie is that since he must needes suffer for otherwise the fault which his owne mouth hath acknowledged cannot be satisfied for he wanteth some man that may do the deed The place is ready and the person who thinketh euerie thought of time to be verie long before the matter be dispatched but there wanteth an executioner He might not do as Saule did fall on his owne sword point himselfe when his harnesse-bearer would not depriue him of his life This had argued too great dispaire But he might wish with Nero that in the course of iustice he might haue some friend or enemie to helpe him vnto his end But among these blustering mariners he could not finde that fauour Although himselfe accuse himselfe and lay his fault plaine before them although windes and waues did confirme it although the lot throwne did assure it although in wordes he did desire to be cast into the water yet those who should haue done it do so ill like of the matter that if sayles or oares can serue they will backe againe to the land rather leaue their intended iourney then vse any violence toward him They rowed to bring the ship backe vnto the land 2 The word which is vsed here comming of Chathar in the Hebrew doth signifie they did digge either because men do thrust into the water with oares as in digging they do with other instruments on the land like as in Latin Poetry the bottome of the ship is sayd to plow the water sulcare to make things like furrows in it or because as men in digging do turn this way and that way stir moue the ground so they stirred vp their wits did beate their brayns and thoughts to free him from the danger For his sake they vsed all such helpes as they had at sea We know that they be not many either sayling by the wind or rowing by the oare tall ships do know the one the galleys goe with the other But as it may be iudged out of the monuments of antiquitie and partly may be seene in some at this day euerie ship in old time had both the one the other When the wind wanted for their sayling their armes did vse to fall a rowing In this place I doubt not but that the storme had so ouerlayd them that their tackling in generall did serue them to little purpose The shift which then remained was to see if by cleane strength against both wind and water they might winne the land by their rowing backward Forward they could not get therfore they wil retire rather then drown the Prophet Their businesse is forgotten their hast shall stay a while rather then destroy his life 3 When aduisedly I consider how many things here should vrge those mariners to hasten him vnto death their disturbance in their iourney the casting foorth of their wares which goeth against the soule of a wordly minded creature the indangering of their liues the discouery by a lot the confession of himself
that he referreth all his punishment to the hand of the Lord. He speaketh not of the mariners by whose meanes it was done much lesse doth he reuile them as in our time wicked offending persons oft do to the magistrates or Iudges or other officers who do but see that to be done which iust law layeth vpon thē and they wilfully haue deserued But Ionas passing by the instrument and meanes whereby God wrought seeketh vnto the fountaine and originall of the deede He acknowledgeth that his maker was he who was offended that his hand had corrected him that his wrath must be satisfied but by all other he passeth That euill Ioram did not so when his citie of Samaria was oppressed with a famine so grieuous that the mother did eate her owne child which extremity it is likely that the Prophet Elizaeus did foretell should fall vpon them for the greatnesse of their sin But then he in stead of looking vpward to God whom he should haue sought vnto by fasting and by prayer turneth his anger on the Prophet the minister of the Almightie and voweth himselfe to much euill if innocent Elizaeus were not put to death that day Blind man who could not looke higher and see whose messenger the Prophet was How much better was Iobs behauiour for when newes was brought vnto him that the Sabees and Chaldeans by violence and strong hand had taken away his Oxen and robbed him of his Camels he did not straight way curse those sinners and wish much euill on them but not so much as naming them did fasten his thoughts on God and imputed all vnto him saying most patiently The Lord hath giuen and the Lord hath taken it blessed be the name of the Lord. I would that men in our time could carry his resolution When ought amisse doth befall them to haue recourse to the Highest and to suppose that either he doth trie them or doth punish thē for their sinnes or hath some other good purpose But we rather run to any thing then that which most doth vrge vs oft surmising that which is not and suspecting those that be innocents And if we can find the meanes whereby all is brought about we double our force on that this witch hath killed my beasts this wicked man hath vndone me this mightie man hath crossed me I would he were in his graue or some mischiefe else were on him Indeed I do not deny but that the euill are oftentimes the rods of God to chasten good men withall but yet thinke thou euermore that his hand is it which effecteth all that his stroke is in the action Fasten thy eyes on him and with sighing and true repentance seeke to appease his wrath and thē the meanes shall not touch thee no wicked thing shall haue power ouer thee But let this be thy song to vtter foorth with the Prophet thou hadst cast me into the water thou hast layed this crosse vpon me 22 The third circumstance now remaining is that God did heare his prayer I cryed in mine affliction and thou heardest me and againe O Lord thou heardst my voice You see that his woe was exceeding and after the common course of sorrow it droue him vnto his maker it enforced him to pray Where behold the comfort is that he did not loose his labour the Lord did heare his voice This euermore is his propertie to attend to those who sollicite him to respect those who call on him I called on the Lord in trouble saith Dauid and the Lord heard me at large So by Ieremie his seruant God promiseth to the Iewes and in them to all his Saints you shall cry to me and shall go and pray to me and I will heare you And you shall seeke and find me So respectiue is the Lord to those who fly to him which sheweth his great prerogatiue aboue all heathen idols who may be derided with Baal that either they are busie in following of their enemies or asleepe and must be awaked but surely they cannot heare But especially to vs it is comfort in extremity that if sicknesse or pinching pouertie or malice of any man nay if pangs of death do hurt vs or if in the soule which is our better part temptation ouercharge vs and Satans darts hardly driue at vs if we call vnto that Lord who can bind and loose and hath the keyes of hell and of death he can rid vs and deliuer vs. Yea he so yeeldeth to our prayers that they shall not returne in vaine but comfort at the least and patience in our miseries shall be bestowed vpon vs. It is a good speech in Cyprian if that tract be his De caena Domini In the presence of Christ our teares which are neuer superfluous do beg a pardon for vs neither euer doth the sacrifice of a contrite heart take repulse As often as in Gods sight I see thee to be sighing I doubt not but the holy Ghost doth breath vpō thee when I see thee weeping then I perceiue him pardoning This should be a great instigation that when any thing doth oppresse vs be it inward or be it outward we should runne vnto the Lord. So may also be that of Austen The prayer of the righteous is the key of heauen Prayer ascendeth vp and Gods mercie descendeth down Although the earth be low and the heauen high the Lord doth heare the tong of man if he haue a cleane conscience It speaketh with feeling if it be but onely our sigh A showre of the eyes is sufficient for his eares he doth sooner here our weeping then our speaking 23 I doubt not but all the faithfull do find this easily in thēselues that when they do lay open their soules before the Lord as Ezechias did the letters of Sennacherib when they do earnestly pray a deaw of consolation of most blessed consolation is distilled downe vpon them whereby they are assured that they haue to deale with a father who seeth their fraile infirmities and hath compassion on them Yea as a father doth pitie his children so hath the Lord compassion on all that do feare him for he knoweth wherof we be made he remembreth that we are but dust He knoweth vs to be most ignorant most foolish and vnfit for all goodnesse very impotent and vnable to keepe off wrong from our selues He knoweth this considereth it as euermore he supporteth vs keepeth vs to himself as the apple of his eye giuing when we demand not more then we thinke on so if we lift vp our voyces powre out our complaints before him he will neuer faile vs seeking him Onely this he claimeth of vs that we aske that which is fit not vanities or impieties or to bestow vpon our lustes for he denyeth these things to vs and our faith hath no warrant to aske such requests of the Lord. And againe that in those things which are lawfull we
ordaineth to the kingdome he doth teach the way to that kingdome Christ Iesus who is the life is also the way he that giueth the one graunteth the other Where he intendeth to bestow the end there he doth first bestow the meanes which shall leade to that end We are chosen not being holy but that we should be holy God then contemplating in himselfe his counsell which is immutable retaineth still his secret purpose and whom he hath once choâ—en that man he chooseth euer Whome he loueth he loueth to the end neither doth he for euermore cast one of his little ones out of his sight 5 Then it is a wrong opinion either of the Papist teaching or the Prophet here mistrusting that any of Gods faithfull ones can be finally cast away Saule may haue a spirite of Prophecie and Iudas another spirit of doing miracles and both of these may come to naught but where the spirite of adoption that spirite of sanctification hath once made his residence it doth euer inhabite there The child of God shall be brought to repentance and acknowledgement of his fault to confession and contrition and faith and hope and glorie through many seas of temptation and downefals of despaire through Vrias his death with Dauid through denying of Christ with Peter Either youth or age life or death in him that is elected shall apprehend the promises Be it the ninth houre or the eleuenth houre yet there shall be a time The Eternals beneplacitum shall haue his effect vndoubtedly And although that holy man Moses can desire to be razed out of Gods booke rather then his people should perish and Saint Paule wisheth that he might be accursed to saue those which were his countreymen in the flesh yet this shall but shew their great zeale and loue vnto their brethren as also their earnestnesse for Gods glorie which they thought might more appeare by sauing of a multitude then by their priuate safetie but this tainteth not Gods decree who will certainely make vp his worke wheresoeuer he beginneth it And if the Spirit of the Almightie doe in some places of the Scripture speake of blotting out of that booke which is the booke of life this is not by and by to be taken literally but that God therein doth frame himselfe to our capacitie as sometimes in like sort he attributeth a foote or hand or eare or eye to his owne diuine Maiestie In all which other places of the same qualitie the speech of Origene is most true that as the most ciuill man if he were to goe among Barbarians as suppose the Moores or Tartarians had neede to learne the language of that people if he meane to speake vnto them or do any good among them so when the Lord would teach vs in the Scriptures he contempereth his phrases to our capacitie and speaketh to vs in our owne toung And this he doth in the case in question resoluing by the speech of wiping out of Gods booke an assurednesse that they shall neuer haue anie portion in the fellowship of eternitie But if it seemed vnto anie that they were likely to be of the number of the elect yet that seeming should be frustrate Notwithstanding the purpose of his good pleasure in truth is neuer varied 6 Then whosoeuer is once growne vnto that measure of faith that vpon a setled knowledge he can meditate in himselfe of Gods true loue toward him and can satisfie his owne soule not with a foolish lightening or hastie fond perswasion which may befall an hypocrite or temporarie beleeuer but with a resolued confidence that his God is his father also and dareth to cry Abba father that he is sealed vp by his maker against the day of redemption that he is one of that number whome Christ hath bought with his bloud that whether he liue or dye yet euermore he is the Lords that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come no that neither hell nor diuell shall be able to separate him from the loue of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord this man neede not stand in feare of casting out of Gods sight or perishing from his fauour And if that his sinne or Satan sometimes suggest the contrarie or his owne heart do discourage him this is but a temptation which notwithstanding must be strongly resisted with heartie and earnest prayer For the infallible word of God hath taught vs to say with Saint Paule if God be on our side what matter vvho be against vs And God iustifieth vvho shall condemne And with Saint Iohn in his first Epistle I vvrite those things that ye may knovv that ye haue eternall life And vve know that he heareth vs And vve know that vve are of God We doe not rest vpon our selues this full certaine perswasion this assurednesse of hope for that were to build on the sand that were to leane on a reede which breaketh and the splints thereof do run into the hand but we stay it vpon the power of God and on the loue of our Christ from the hands of whom none are able to plucke that away which they haue chosen In confidence of this a man may be bold to say although I be sicke yet God is mighty although I be weake yet Christ is strong looke what is too light in my flesh that his Spirit doth make vp His grace is sufficient for me I dare to say with Saint Bernard and it is an excellent saying Three things I consider vvherein my hope doth consist the loue of his adoption the truth of his promise the power of his performance Novv let my foolish cogitation murmure as long as it vvill saying Who art thou or knowest thou hovv great that glorie is or by vvhat merites thou hopest to obtaine it And I vvill aunswer boldly I knovv vvhom I haue trusted and I am assured that in very great loue he adopted me and that he is true in his promises and able in his performance for he can do vvhat he vvill This is that strong foundation whereon we may build safely this is the stay of a Christian vnto the measure whereof if any shall find that yet he hath not attained let him pray to God to enlarge his knowledge and vnderstanding But let vs most firmely hold this that whom he hath once chosen to a true feeling of his grace he doth neuer vtterly cast them away from his sight and good fauour This then was the fault of our Ionas and argued in him great infirmity when he broke foorth into this passion which sauoured so of desperation And so much of this matter Yet vvill I looke againe toward thy holy Temple 7 You haue now seene him at the worst for worse he could not well be a prisoner in a straunge dungeon without light without company without comfort in a whales belly so disquieted in his
and could not hold when he saw that what he lost his brother Iacob should gaine that the falling of the one was the rising of the other the seruice of the elder was the raigning of the yonger The children of Abraham did contemne the whole world in respect of their prerogatiue in the sanctified seede they could haue bene contented that the very crummes from the table should not haue fallen to the Gentiles If the Prophet had bene sent from the ten tribes to the two or contrariwise from the two vnto the ten from Iuda to Israel or from Israel to Iuda the matter had bene lesse but must Ionas go to Niniue We can conceiue no otherwise but that it was a great griefe to Saul that himselfe must lose the kingdome but that Dauid must haue it his subiect who liued vnder him his seruant that attended him was a mightie vexation euen a griefe to the death There Gods anger was the greater who preferred the seruant before the maister here his displeasure was the hoter that the Prophet must leaue his countrey go to callhome other strangers When old Eli did heare that the Arke of the Lord the presence of his grace was first gone from the Israelites and then taken by the Philistins his whole strength was gone his heart did faint and die 8 The kingdomes nations who haue tasted of the Gospell may bethinke themselues here The benefit is inestimable which God hath affoorded them in giuing them the bread of life and his stewards to breake it his ministers to teach it Now if in recompence thereof in steed of grapes they should bring foorth wild grapes if for figges they should yeeld thistles if their iustice should be but gall their iudgement but wormewood if his word should be neglected and his ministers be despised let them feare least that befall them which hath happened vnto others Those which were but wilde branches and are now graffed into the Oliue can they be dearer vnto God then those branches which by nature appertained to that tree If he spared not his own which by a peculiar calling were appropriated to him for so the Iewes were in comparison will he spare those which in a second place and but onely for default of the former were adopted by him Saint Paule doth let vs know that without doubt he will not The light was great which Gods Churches once had in Asia the lesser when Iohn the Euangelist and Polycarpus and other scholers to the Apostles did liue and die there The same may be sayd of the Cities of Graecia which did heare Saint Paule preaching did reade Saint Paule writing For some hundreds of yeares after him many excellent lampes did burne in those partes which gaue light to their neighbours But for the sinnes of the inhabitants is not their candlesticke since remoued into the West are not their lampes extinguished Yes their Ionasses are dead or sent to other nations Their temples are now made a cage of vncleane birdes filthie spirites do possesse them The Turke with his Curaam and Mahomet with his Alcoran are Lords of those places The Citie Rome was once the eye of the West the sanctuarie of religion the anchor of true pietie This continued many yeares after that Paule had sayd in his time that their faith vvas published throughout the vvhole vvorld But when Rome once proued Babylon the holy City an harlot when idolatry securitie had once poisoned her heart her light was remoued into the Northern parts among them vnto vs where God graunt that it may continue till his Sonne do come to iudgment that the horrible and palpable darknesse of Egypt may neither come on vs nor our seed nor our seeds seed after vs. It were a fearfull curse if Gods glorious Gospel should be taken from vs giuen to the Tartarians a wild people in the North or vnto the Moores profane men in the South Our fathers in their times had experience of the like for after the free passage of Gods word in the dayes of king Edward of blessed memory whose soule doth rest with the Lord for the sins of our natiō the careles abusing of so gracious a benefit there came such a time as that Ionas might not stay in Israelit he would either Ionas must fly or Ionas must dy Then Geneua or Basile or Franckford or some other parts of Germany were thought fitter places to receiue the Lords Prophets then our Englād was 9 That short time of mercy which God had shewed before had but a short time of chastisement succeeding it Since those dayes God hath shewed longer loue and powred it on vs more plentifully If in steed of long lent graces we will not pluck vpon vs long plagues and grieuous punishments let vs esteeme his word as a iewel of price let vs esteeme his messengers as the ministers of God weake men but in great trust who do watch for their soules to whom they do preach and would be glad to see men prease vnto Christ with chearfulnesse It were a thing to be lamented bitterly if by wanting we should know what it were to want that which by enioying we know not Demosthenes perceiuing the true danger of that case could remember the Atheniens that if the dogs were gone by a composition with the wolues the sheep wold soone pay for it the cruel wolues wold rage at pleasure If the Orators were once yeelded Athens wold soone to wrack If the shepheard be once striken ye know what followeth after the sheepe will be soone scattered If the Preachers be remoued mens soules will run to ruine The walles of Hiericho could not be ouerthrowne as Origen saith writing on the booke of Iosua but by the trumpets of the Priests So the fortresses of Satan of iniquitie and sinne cannot be layd along but by the teaching of the Priest the preaching of the Minister Therefore make much of your Ionasses whosoeuer you be and keepe them while you haue them 10 But in Israel at this time it might not be so There cometh a message to the Prophet a commanding iniunction giueth him other instructions The word of the Lord came vnto Ionah This is it whereupon the Prophets should euermore depend for their sitting or for their rising for their mouing or their resting They are not to run vpon a fantacie or humour of their owne and speake they know not what neither care they to whom but for their message which they vtter they are rather to take it then to make it Moses wold not go to Pharao till he had learned his lesson perfectly Ieremy is but a child and knoweth not how to speake till God stretcheth forth his hand putteth his word in his mouth The Lord doth tell Ezechiel that he should heare the word at Gods mouth and giue the people warning from him Nay the true Prophets all in general remembred this
fearefull desolation But what now may we imagine that those sinnes were which are sayd in this place to lye so grieuously vpon them 18 It is likely that such generall sinnes were in Niniue as are sayd by Ezechiel to haue bene in Sodome that is Pride and fulnesse of bread and abundance of idlenesse that she did not strēgthen the hand of the poore and needy but I thinke that in particular some falts may be picked out which were great in that place As first witchcraft and inchantment and sorcery necromancie and diuination by the starres which were exercised beyond measure in all the Easterne parts where Niniue stood When the true wisdome of Salomō is in the scripture compared with mens counterfeit wisdome it is said that his wisdome excelled all the wisdome of the children of the East that is their Philosphers and Diuiners and all of that sort There came to adore Christ wise men as they are called Magi Diuiners or Soothsayers and it is sayd in the text that they came out of the East In the second of Daniel what a rabble of such are reckened vp to be in Babylon a citie not far from Niniue Inchanters Astrologians Chaldeans and Sorcerers how doth God himself deride scoffe at thē by his Prophet Esay for entertaining of such for retaining of so many In one word the censure that is set on the Chaldaeans men not far frō Niniue by Tully in the second of his Diuination and by Cornelius Tacitus in the first of his History where that by his Mathematicians he meaneth Chaldaeans or the scholers of them may be wel gathered from that which elsewhere he hath of Tiberius who as he saith was skilled in their Arts together with the Narration of the Magi in Herodotus who would haue had the kingdom after the death of Cābyses do make this most plaine that in the East country these Arts were vsed much and therfore likely so in Niniue But how odious these sins are in the sight of God whosoeuer doth reade the Scriptures can not be ignorant In the tenth of Ieremy the least of these faults are called the way or customes of the heathen and therefore are they vnfit for Gods people Balaam could say there is no sorcery in Iacob nor soothsaying in Israel God himselfe doth giue charge that among his people should be none that vseth witchcraft or a regarder of time or a marker of the flying of foules or a sorcerer or a charmer or that counselleth with spirits or a soothsayer or that asketh counsell at the dead and the reason is there assigned because all that do such things are an abomination to the Lord. Nay God doth so hate these as that all such who seeke to them are odious to him as by Saule and Ahaziah may most plainly appeare who for seeking vnto such lost their kingdomes and their liues The audaciousnesse of men who are acquainted with these arts may be seene by those enchanters of whom we reade in Exodus who at Pharaos intreatie did dare not only to braue but to resist God and his seruant Moses Plinie himself although he were but a heathen man doth laugh at and deride the vanities of such S. Cyprian doth describe their vnfruitful superstitiō Regulus saith he obserued the flying of birds and yet he was taken by the Carthaginians Mancinus kept their religion yet was he sent vnder the gallowes sub iugum a token of disgrace to him selfe and his armie Paulus had the birds eating lustily which they held as a signe of good lucke yet was he slaine at the battell of Cannae But the execrable custome of some who be of this kind may partly be learned by that wherwith Athanasius sometimes although falsely was charged that he in his Magicke should vse the hand of a dead man which by experience in our time hath bene declared to be a practise of some who vse those trades And partly by the example of Iulian the Apostata who not long before his death going to warre in Persia did cause a woman to be hanged vp by the haire of the head to haue her hands stretched abroad her belly to be ripped open that as the author iesteth at it her liuer perhaps being cut vp he might thereby diuine what should be the end of that his voyage and whether that he should safely returne againe As it may seeme he him selfe was ashamed of that deede for he caused the church or chappell wherein this fact was done not onely to bee locked but to be sealed vp also and watchmen continually toward there that no man might come in Yet afterward it was discouered when report came of his death No maruell if such sinnes did come vp vnto the Lord or any other which draw in this line if they were to be found in Niniue Let Christians still take heed of these most filthy crimes yea and of all curious arts and among them of that too which whatsoeuer be sayd for it by many who are young and delight in experiments is truly sayd by Basil to be nothing else but a busie tickle vanitie 19 A second sin in Niniue was robbery and oppression That in some sort may be gathered from their large and mightie gouernement which could not be maintained but by somewhat indeed was vp-held and born out with the spoiles of other But the Prophet Nahum doth put the case beyond question when he calleth it a bloudy citie full of lyes and robbery from whence the pray departeth not They had then conquered a great part of the inhabited world The tributes and exactions which they had of them whom they conquered could not chuse but be great And for the beautifying of that their City which for a thousand yeares and more was mistresse of the world and chiefe seate of the Empire it may well be supposed that they tooke the selfe same course which afterward was taken vp by the Romanes who to garnish and adorne Rome did take away from all places whither their authority and soueraignty did stretch not onely gold and siluer but images and pictures and painted tables and hangings of tapistrie and plate and armour yea whatsoeuer else was precious in their eyes So did that great Marcellus at the sacking of Syracusa and other in other places who feared not to spoile many townes to make one trim glorious Now God who loueth iustice and in iustice hateth oppression and the robbing of other men can not like of this How sped Pharao with his people for dealing hard with the Israelites If he shall be cast into the fire saith Saint Austen being moued as it seemeth by that place of the 25. of Matthew who did not giue his bread to the hungry where thinke you shall he be put who hath taken away the bread of other men If he shall be throwne into the fire who clothed not the naked whither shall
and hide vs from the presence of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lambe They cannot escape his sight they cannot auoyd his iudgement When Pericles once was sad about yeelding an account of much money to the Atheniens which he possibly could not discharge his nephew Alcibiades did helpe him with this good counsel that he should not beat his braines how he might giue a reckening but he rather should deuise how he might giue no reckening He tooke this course indeed and by plunging the Atheniens into a grieuous warre he did auoyd the account Before the Lord of heauen this will not serue the turne he knoweth all things and seeth all things Ionas could not be so grosse as to run so from his presence 18 But if that thought were in him or if any man wil so take it he went the worst way to worke for himselfe that euer man did For he that would be so blockish as to thinke he might flie from God and would go to sea to do it were worthie to be registred for a man most vnaduised This is as much as if to auoid some heate that commeth by an ague the patient should run into the fire as it is said that Hercules did being troubled with a frenzie or if another to auoide a showre of raine should leape into the riuer for if Gods hand any where do euidently appeare or if any where it be fearefull it is in being at sea where as the Poet speaketh a man is stil within foure or at most seuen inches of his death where stormes that be impetuous do cause them to pray who scant euer prayed before where rockes and sands and gulfes are readie still to deuoure The remembrance of this made Dauid speake so sufficiently They that go dovvne to the sea in ships and occupy by the great vvaters they see the vvorkes of the Lord and his vvonders in the deepe Paule found this by experience when he endured such a storme and wrecke too in the Mediterrane sea He who would see more of this let him reade in Virgil what a tempest is described to haue befallen Aeneas in the Sicilian sea So then if God be present any where to punish or preserue it is in the huge Ocean That if a man would haue wished to be followed as with a furie he should do as Ionas did When Plinie the elder was choked in going to see Vesuuius a hill which burned in Campania as Aetna oftentimes doth in Sicilia the sight thereof was so terrible that the beholders were all amazed at it But there were saith the younger Plinie among them some who were so afrayd of death that they vvished themselues to be dead They so feared that which they feared that they wished for that which they feared If our Prophet did desire to escape away from the Lord he did iust as these other for to flie away from Gods presence he runneth into Gods presence 19 Therefore we will not imagine that Ionas was so ignorant to thinke thus to get from the Lord but his going from Gods presence doth signifie in this place a departing from his dutie and from the execution of his office For they are said in the Scripture to be in the Lords presence or to stand before the Lord who do execute their ministery or functiō as they should So the Lord separated the tribe of Leui to beare the Arke of the couenant of the Lord and to stand before the Lord which is expounded there to minister vnto him and to blesse in his name to this day So as the Lord God of Israel liueth saith Elias before whom I do stand that is whom faithfully I do serue there shall be neither deaw nor raine these yeares but according to my word The verie selfe same phrase doth Elizeus vse in another place to Naaman the Syrian The contrarie of which speech is vttered by that wicked Cain who did neuer serue God From thy face I shall be hid And afterward Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. He was not in his grace he would not be in his seruice Such was our Prophets flight from the presence of the Lord. When he should haue performed his calling vpon occasions continually haue taken direction from the voyce of God speaking to him he did forsake his charge and could haue bene wel contented if God would neuer more haue spoken to him But his maister will not leaue him so This is an excellent comfort to the Ministers of the Gospell that as long as they do their duties they stand before the Lord who doth protect and preserue them from the rage of bloudie tyrants from the tempests of the world from the mischiefe of cruell enemies Neither can the rage of Sathan lay anie thing more vpon them then God giueth them grace to beare And againe in as much as in this life they are spectacles to men in preaching and in liuing they are spectacles to Angels they are spectacles to God they are warned that they discharge their function with sinceritie remembring this good lesson that they be not as many who make marchandise of the word of God but as of sinceritie but as of God in the sight of God speaking in Christ. 20 In these most perillous times wherein Satan fretteth and rageth wherein Papisme is litle weakned but Atheisme waxeth strong and the sinnes of men do crie but on the other side pitie waxeth thin and charitie groweth cold This should be a liuely motion to stirre vp the Spirit of God in vs that with alacritie we may go forward to the building vp of Gods house and not to be wearied in well doing or withdraw our selues frō the work In the fifteenth of the Actes although Barnabas were more mild and did not take the matter so hainously yet Paule did so dislike it in Iohn Marke at Pamphylia that he would not go with them about the Lords seruice that he refused his companie afterward Surely God looketh for much of them whom he hath singled out to be the messengers of his glorie If with Ionas we should leaue him and turne away from his presence when he hath vse for vs in the field let vs feare least a greater iudgement befall vs then did vnto Ionas Which what it was in the next by Gods grace I shall shew In the meane time Iesus send vs due consideration of our calling that not following wordly reasons which often draw men to Tharsus when they should go to Niniue but attending Gods commaundement we may with ioy run our course and so possesse that inestimable crowne of iustice which the righteous Lord hath layed vp for all those that loue his comming To this God be praise for euer THE III. LECTVRE The chiefe points 2. The punishment of the Prophet may well fright other from sinne 4. All tempests depend of God 6. Yet Satan and his instruments by
Gods permission haue sometimes a finger in them 10. How the sinne of one bringeth punishment vpon manie 13. Bad companie is to be auoided 14. The description of the tempest 16. Life is dearer then goods 18. Affliction driueth to deuotion IONAH 1.4.5 But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea and there vvas a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was like to be broken Then the mariners were afrayd and cried euery man vnto his God and cast the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them OVr Prophet as a man who would verie gladly be rid of his maister hath gotten him to the sea the land cannot hold him but his maister not so willing to part with his seruant sendeth such a message after him as will bring him back againe or make him do farre worse He would not haue his messenger run so to his owne ruine and lie obdurate in his sinne he wold not haue his purpose of preaching at Niniue be vtterly relinquished but rather because it hath so long bin deferred he by whom the stay hath bin made shall heare of it with a witnesse Here followeth such a tempest to bid him welcome to the sea that if such should be common it needed not be noted to be the speech of a wise man that he wondred that anie one wold come twise at the sea hauing seene the perill of it wold come at it againe for euerie wise man wold so say The wind doth now so blow the waues do so beate the sea doth so worke the ship is so endangered the sea-men are so afraid Ionas so by a lot is singled out to death that drowning was the least that could befall vnto him We neede make no doubt but all this was done for Ionas his sake For the question is here true which a Prophet elsewhere asketh Was the Lord angry against the riuers or was thine anger against the flouds or was thy vvrath against the sea No it was against the sinne of Ionas that all this came as vengeance and that God so sent his messengers of wrath and of displeasure 2 He desireth that his Prophet should be warned for all the dayes that he was to liue in the world to play no more such parts for what end should the next haue if he sped so ill with this And he would haue other men to take example by him that they run not no not with his owne seruants to grosse notorious crimes least they smart for it with his seruants For if the greene wood so burne what shall become of the drie if a leader do such penance what shall a common man if a Prophet do so pay for it how shall a meane bodie escape By this example the presumptuous heart of such is broken as when they haue sinned wilfully in steed of asking pardon by confession and repentance can sooth themselues in their follies saying that the best men haue offended and whie should it be strange for them to go astray since Gods Saints haue done worse Not onely Ionas here forsaketh his vocation but Noe offendeth in drunkennesse and Lot in worse euen in incest and Dauid in adulterie and Salomon that wise king in marying manie infidels The grosse falles of all which men are not proposed vnto vs in the holy booke of God to incourage vs to transgression for that were a Spiders propertie to sucke such poison from them but rather as S. Austen teacheth vs to put vs in minde of that warning of the Apostle that he who standeth should take heed least he fall to humble vs to obedience not to puffe vs vp to pride But withall if they could remember that although the Lord did couer the infirmities of his children with the skirts of his Sonnes mercie least they should finally perish yet to shew how he hateth sinne euen in the best of his people he sendeth them in this world whipping with temporall rods enough they may verie well find that there is small reason why they should be in loue with the bargaine For was there not a Cham to deride his father so farre to moue the patience of that righteous preacher Noe as in bitternesse to curse him Was there not an Absolon readie so with all kind of contumelie to scourge offending Dauid as to abuse his fathers concubines and to seeke his fathers life Here was a Hadad and there a Rezon and a Ieroboam in the third place to vexe wife-doting Salomon that he could not rest in his old age and afterward his sonne Roboam did lose ten tribes of twelue 3 And as for the Prophet here he bestoweth on himselfe a whole Chapter to shew the fruite of his fall that other might forbeare to offend by the example of that grieuous punishmēt which he sustained If he had bene as nimble to haue excused his fault as these be in our dayes he might haue made some Apologie for himselfe or at least haue concealed his penance which befel him that when no man had bene frighted by his case other might haue walked in his steps and the commonnesse of the fault might haue excused the crime For when multitudes do as we do we thinke that they do ease our burthen as the Emperour Valentinian imagined if Socrates report truth of him when hauing one wife of his owne called Seuera whom he was vnwilling to leaue he was in loue also with another virgin called Iustina and he maried her too And least this fault should seeme most grosse if he alone were noted for so scandalous behauiour by a law of purpose made he giueth leaue to all that would to marrie two wiues a peece thinking that when manie transgressed he should be more free from blame Our Ionas is so charitable as to take another course not to induce men to the like by himselfe but to terrifie them much rather by recording how he sped To fall because the Patriarkes and Prophets haue oft fallen is as much as willingly to tast of poyson because Socrates once drunke poyson which were but a foolish triall His poyson was his death And so had sinne bene death to the holiest if God had not giuen repentaunce to expell the force of iniquitie But what man is he who can promise to himselfe repentaunce or rising when he is fallen Manie hope for it but few haue it manie speake of it but few vse it which maketh that worthie saying of S. Austen to be true Manie will fall vvith Dauid but they will not arise with Dauid No example of falling is in him proposed to thee but of rising if thou haue fallen Take heed thou go not downe Let not the slip of the greater be the delight of the lesser but let the fall of the greater be the trembling of the lesser Thus that holie father speaketh If the greatest fall thou mayest fall therefore do not presume but if the greatest be
punished then feare Gods righteous iudgement You shall heare how Ionas sped The Lord sent out a vvind 4 It is well said by Dauid that God rayneth on the wicked fire and brimstone and stormy tempest But more fitlie to my purpose that fire and haile and snow and vapours and stormie vvind do execute his word For these and other meteors are his creatures made by him his subiects that liue vnder him his messengers sent from him to punish or to helpe to execute his will The voyce of the Lord is vpon the vvaters the God of glorie maketh it to thunder If it do haile in Egypt where it raineth verie few times God sendeth that haile on Pharao If an East wind bring in grashoppers and a West wind driue them out Moses telleth vs in Exodus that both come from the Lord. The wind and the tempest depend not on chaunce or anie blind fortune but on the soueraigne power of the Almightie Creatour If nature be here vsed or the ordinarie course of Sunne and Moone and starres to attract ought or beate it backe againe these are but Gods hand-maidens to worke his designements If Carus the Emperor be blasted to death with lightening it is the Lords doing If Theodosius haue the skie to warre against his enemies and the winds as his sworne seruants to helpe forward his victorie some Claudian must sing that he or his sonne Honorius who was then present with him is much beloued of God O ninimium dilecte Deo If our Spaniards when they are beyond Scotland be brought backe againe by Ireland and when men looke not after them winds and waues do pursue them in miraculous sort in which I feare lest we offend that we speake not of it oftener parents tell it not vnto their childrē if we would do as we should do we must sing with S. Ambrose Te Deum laudamus We praise thee ô God Who so walketh by the land or passeth by the sea if winds promote his businesse or hinder his purpose and disquiet him in his enterprise let him assigne it to his prouidence who ruleth all with power who sent that tempest here to Ionas for from him they do all come 5 Those Ethnickes who knew little or nothing of true pietie did yet ayme at this euen by the verie light of nature when by the glimsing sight of reason they layd it downe that a diuine substaunce did gouerne these creatures although they missed much of his maiestie when Neptune for the sea was Lord of the waues and Aeolus for the aire was maister of the winds People ruder then the Greekes and more barbarous then the Romanes haue gessed at such a thing and had such a like conceit I meane the Westerne Indians the dull people of America who thought that thunder and lightning tempest were sent by the Sunne whom they reputed for a God as Peter Martyr letteth vs know The more absurde the while were the Thurij in my iudgement a people of Italie where both learning and ciuilitie did grow For as Aelian writeth of them when Dionysius the tyrant of Sicilia came vp against them with three hundreth sayle of ships intending to destroy them they being almost oppressed with his violēce yet had this good hap befallen vnto them that a great Northrē wind blew so wracked those ships that they were spilled almost all In remēbrance whereof they by a cōmon consent made this North-wind a God admitted him into their Citie incorporated him among them appointed him an house and goods of his owne and euerie yeare besides did sacrifice vnto him These men looked too low they were too too much base minded when they made the wind a God whom nature and reason had taught other Gentiles to be but a Gods seruant The wind obeyeth and ruleth not it is not at pleasure to do what it would if there were a will in it it hath a maister not Aeolus but one that fitteth farre higher 6 Yet the question is here offred whether that inferiour creatures do not sometimes stirre vp tempests as wind or rayne or thunder for I put them in one degree and consider them as being of like nature concerning this point Whether Satan by him selfe or the ministers of Satan enchaunters or witches or necromancers and coniurers cannot stirre vp such things and if they can how they then are said to be wrought by Gods finger That learned man Seneca did thinke it so plaine that nothing could be plainer that tēpests could not be raised by any inchauntments when he speaketh on this sort Antiquitie being yet rude did beleeue both that rayne could be brought and driuen away too by charmes of vvhich things that neither can be done it is so manifest that for this matters sake no schoole of any Philosopher is euer to be entred No doubt there be many also of the Christians and those very learned men who are altogether of that opinion In that booke which Wierus hath written De Praestigijs Demonum is a sermon which Brentius made by occasion of a great hayle that fell in some parts of Germanie and did much hurt to the corne and vineyards And therein are these words It is the opinion of vvicked men that the diuell and vvitches and sorceresses do stirre vp hayle and therewith do hurt and destroy vvine and corne To these may be added more And yet on the other side that such gracelesse people do chalenge to themselues a power in these cases that they attempt to stirre vp thunders that they trie to raise vp winds to crosse things at sea or to effect things at land and that they affirme that they can do thus may be well knowne to anie who either in experience shall conferre with such offenders or else reade such matters as are written of them To say nothing of the one that is what they assume but to speake to the other I am satisfied that in Poetrie that speech is too much Carmina de caelo possunt deducere Lunam Charmes and inchantments can fetch the verie Moone downe out of heauen and other like in that place for that is a thing impossible and onely deliuered from an old imagination or rather boasting of the Thessalian women who were much addicted to that wickednesse But the saying of Medea in one of the Tragedies of the younger Seneca hath some more reason to confirme it Et euocaui nubibus siccis aquas I haue forced rayne out of the cloudes vvhich before vvere drie The soothsayers of Hetruria as Sozomen doth write would haue made men beleeue that they could raise vp thunderbolts to driue away their enemies The storie is notable which Dion hath of Sidius Geta a Romane leader This Captaine saith he pursuing the Moores in the hote countrie of Affrike had both himselfe and his armie almost perished for want of water One of the confederate Moores commeth in this extremitie vnto
circūstances And of this may be vnderstood that other place of Salomon By this choise may be made of persons to be sent or of things to be accomplished where otherwise by diuersitie of opinions there would be no agreement But to diuine is vtterly vnlawfull as if a man should take a white lot and a blacke lot and if I draw the white lot then I may well go this day if the blacke I will not go I shall haue an vnhappie iourney That of Haman before spoken of doth come within this compasse We hold this for a great abuse 20 Here the lot is consultatorie They tooke it a thing granted that one or other amōg them had committed some wicked offence and because they could not tell who it was that had done the deede they will put it to their Gods This sheweth the mightie feare which did possesse their soules Men can hardly like it in other of their acquaintaunce that they should be culled out to be murthered but that any should consent to throw the dice on himselfe to endaunger his owne life by it is a matter which is not common This is like one of those cases among the Romanes which would make the hearts of all the beholders to quake That was when after some cowardly fearefulnesse or mutinous sedition or stubburne rebellion in the armie the Generall for punishment thereof would tith his souldiers euerie tenth man to the blocke as Appius dealt with his legiōs Or as if in some grieuous famine cuts should be drawne who among a company should be slaine to releeue his fellowes In what a state was Iosephus when his fellowes in a desperate moode enforced him to yeeld to the throwing of lots so to know which of them should be first killed and which of them last but all of them must be slaine Necessitie hath no law it must be done in this place The onely comfort is that euerie mā hath this hope that it wilt rather fall to another then happen to himselfe We can sooth our selues of our selues either in foolish presumption that we are not the worst of all some are more bad then we be or in a weening fancie that we may escape in a multitude we are but one of a manie but so betweene both we wil hope the best for our owne parts let the lots go on other As Tacitus saith of warre This is the miserie of it if any thing fall out well euery one chalengeth that to himselfe but if it fall out ill euery one slippeth his necke out of the collar the blame shall be layd vpō one so in such cases as these happie man he that is farthest off but if the lot be to be drawne for any good thing the better legge shall be set before Why should not we hope to speed as well as the best amongst vs 21 But the lot here is to take one who must die for all his fellowes Why one for all ye mariners what man is there among you that had not deserued to die This is a branch of that roote of hypocrisie which possesseth the hearts of all the sonnes of Adam It was not Adam but the woman who had touched the forbidden fruite When the best of the cattell of the Amalekites was saued it was the people saith Saule which spared thē So here I warrant you the most part of those which were in the ship were so cleane from any such grosse crime as now was in question that there could be but one sinner Dauid was in another mind If thou ô Lord straightly markest iniquities ô Lord who shall stand All these had deserued death and merited to be serued as Ionas was but the Lord indeed vpon a present occasion had singled one out to this strange punishment because as in part he would teach his companions by his example so especially he meant to make that one man know how highly he had offended God expected much more of him then he did of ordinarie persons To whom the most is committed of him most is required Ionas had bene inspired with a Propheticall spirit he had visions and reuelations from his God he should haue bene a light to other But the simple sea-faring men neuer came to any such height of knowledge He was singular in comparison of them he was as a white garment and therefore a litle spot in him would cause a great deformitie But when he did take this precious vesture and with lying downe in it did soile it euerie whit God in his iustice cannot endure that in him 22 The lots therefore are cast and the daunger falleth vpon Ionas That Lord who ruleth ouer all his creatures great and small so disposed it that the sinner should be deprehended and the more innocent should go free His state was like to Achan he cannot escape the iudgement which is coming toward him The lot fell surely on him It is not vnlikely but that they threw it diuerse times and still it proued that he was the man For they who were so carefull not to drowne him after that they had discouered him would not hastily be induced to single out a straunger who neuer immediatly had offended them to make him die for all Being drawne then once or often it fell vndoubtedly vpon Ionas It was not possible for him to escape where such a one had the handling of it as is Lord both of heauen and earth Tully doth tell of Verres sometimes deputie for the Romanes in Sicilia that as otherwise he was excellent to bring about to his purpose all things which might yeeld credit or commoditie so verie earnestly desiring to haue his friend Theomnastus to be chosen Iupiters priest an office of some moment in that countrey he wrought a pretie feate for him For whereas by the order of the election three men should be named to the place and three seuerall lots be appointed with the names of the three competitors written vpon the lots and he whose lot should be first drawne should haue the priesthood Verres to make sure worke made three lots indeed to be appointed but he wrote vpon euerie one of them the name of his friend Theomnastus and so being sure to hit he sped his man of the priesthood for it could not be otherwise This was a tricke of fraud and fit for such a deceiuer as Verres shewed himselfe in Sicilia He that would haue Ionas taken needeth not to vse anie such leger-demaine his creatures be at commandement they do as himselfe inioyneth So Ionas did finde it here so the wicked shall find it euer 23 An instruction hence may be gathered for all persons that they looke vnto their wayes and plunge not into vngodlinesse vnder hope not to be disclosed For nothing is so secret but it shall be opened He that curseth the king although it be in his most priuate chamber shall be discouered by the fowles of heauen and one dead thing
mistake your selfe in vs we are not men so expert the law the testimony is vnto vs as a sealed booke You should rather maruell at vs if we should do any thing otherwise then ill I shold iudge that this answer wold well fit those Priests Prelates of whom Iohannes Auentinus speaketh that they are so base and rude that if they had bene lay men they should scant haue bene counted fit to keepe swine which notwithstanding in his time both throughout Germany and all Christendome had Churches and soules of men committed to their charge and custody I am sure it had very well agreed to those Scottish Priests who as Buchanan their owne countrey man reporteth of them in the late reformation of religion in that kingdome were so blockish so blind that the very name of the New Testament was much offensiue to them they thought it to be new deuised and inuented by Martin Luther and asked for the old againe Which is the more likely in their ordinary Curates when we reade of a Bishop of theirs called the Bishop of Dunkelden who replied on a Minister which sayd that he had read the Old and New Testament I thanke God I neuer knew what the Old and the New Testament was The very selfe same doth Bobert Stephanus auouch of the Sorbonistes in Paris who take vpon them to be men of more admirable learning and to be Diuines of the deepest He aduoucheth that when himselfe had many conflicts and disputations with them they would tell him that they knew not what the new Testament was It is no sin to imagine that the life of such was like their learning And if in their often ouersights it should haue bene asked of them And why do you this being teachers disputers or at least Pastors ouer others therefore men of knowledge of likelyhood these good creatures would haue shaped some worthy answer I hope that we haue none in England so buried in filthy ignorance yet my heart oft times doth ake and my very soule doth tremble to thinke what guides be ouer soules yet in many places I say ouer the soules of men which are the most precious substances that God hath made vnder the heauen for the ransoming of which Christ Iesus came downe from his glory Sinne hath not yet worne out that vnkind brood which the Papacy did hatch vp to our nation and since those dayes Ieroboams Priests the basest of the people so contrary to our good lawes haue filled not their heads with knowledge but their haÌ„ds with mony so haue crept into Gods teÌ„ple 11 But I will not pursue this argument These words here of the sea-men which to some do seeme a maruell how a Prophet could fall so fowlly seeme to other to be an increpation or rebuke vnto our Ionas Wherefore hast thou done this an Hebrew and a Prophet and flye away from thy maister what maruell if vengeance follow thee what wonder if wrath pursue thee If it were no more but so this were a gawling speech to an ingenuous mind that men of so base behauiour should come ouer him in this manner with a true and iust rebuke It was a shame to Sara the text sayth that she was reprooued and no great praise to Abraham when Abimelech king of Gerar a man that knew not the Lord did iustly blame the coÌ„cealing of Sara to be his wife by which meanes he had like ignorantly to haue fallen into adultery But when sin apparantly is committed how impudent is that person which blusheth not to be reproched for it by a multitude Those in whom the loue of vertue and the sound feare of the Lord is will neuer cease to pray that God will so guide and direct their steppes perpetually that they may not giue a iust occasion to the enemies of the Gospell or to the haters of their persons to insultouer their falles for the malice of spitefull hearts would be glad to see the slippes of them whome God doth blesse Therefore the faithfull do pray so much the more against it as Dauid doth many times But the carelesse and disobedient because they litle feare it do suddenly fall into it and so by open wickednesse draw vpon themselues open shame not onely to haue as Ionas had his companions to checke him but passengers to deride them and children to nodde their heades at them yea sometimes taunting Rimes and broken Ballads on them peraduenture the executioner the vilest among ten thousands with his Rhetoricke for to scorne them 12 God appoynteth this as a iudgment for such as are ouer-growne with a hard skinne ouer their hearts so that they feare not the pricke of sinne Yea sometimes he suffereth this rod to fall on his owne children to whippe them here with shame so to saue their soules by the bargaine Perhaps the Iudge hee shaketh them and ratleth them vp in austeritie it may be that penaunce is done and the wicked triumph vpon them At least they with whome they liue or else they are exceeding happie men will haue this one cast at them which these ship-men had at Ionas Why haue you done such a deede what carelesnesse or forgetfulnesse or vnthankefulnesse brought you to it But a greater wo then this doth oftentimes fall on the wilfull sort of sinners which indeede feare not the Lord as vpon great persecutours or rebellious bloudy traytours Their fame is turned into infamie and they are registred to posterity as a by-word of the people The iudgement which doth follow them euen after they be in graue is that songs of defaâ—ation be as Epitaphes on their deathes Let Bonner and Story and Parrhy be witnesses in this cause A good conscience which doth walke with sinceritie in that calling wherein the Lord hath placed him doth litle feare these matters And if slaunders should arise yet to him this is the comfort of it that as fire without wood doth dye so doth ill speech without iust matter I note this from the reproofe vsed by these mariners What shall we do vnto thee that the sea may be calme 13 The third thing which now followeth is the question which they put to him or the counsell which they aske of him The raging of the sea is not slaked all this time while the Prophet both slept and waked while the lot was throwne vpon him while that he was examined and made all his confession the sea wrought and was troublous The sea wrought and was troublous Those words because they be againe in the thirteenth verse I do deferre them thither But these persons which were in danger and had their mind on the poynt that is to saue their liues would willingly know the way how to escape the perill What shall we do vnto thee This is the doubt saith Hierome Shall we kill thee but thou art the seruaunt of the Lord. Shall we saue thee but thou art a runne-away from thy maister Thou hast shewed vs thy
his willingnes to dy besides such stubburne qualities as of likelyhood were fast rooted in mariners and idolaters and yet how by no meanes they would take his life away from him I cannot but obserue their maruellous of-wardnesse and vnwillingnesse in very high sort to the shedding of bloud which affection of theirs is amplifyed in all my text Because he should not dy they wold go back to land and when they see that there must be no nay but God would haue them to throw him into the sea they cry forth with great vehemency that in as much as it was the Lords owne doing and not any desire of theirs they were but as his instruments ministers of his iustice the bloud of this dying passenger might not be imputed to theÌ„ Although I be not before Iudges and lurours who haue to do with mens deaths nor before any Martiall warriours whose speare sometimes eateth flesh and whose sword oftentimes drinketh bloud yet because I speake to men whome this cannot but concerne for life belongeth vnto all because my text doth inforce it giue me leaue men brethren to discourse this argument vnto you in the first place that afterward I may go forward to some other doctrine 4 Then I feare not to say that the lawes of God and men of nature and of nations of Gentiles and of Iewes of ciuill men and Barbarians haue commaunded that a great regard should be borne to the life of a man the most excellent of all Gods creatures that go vpon the ground the beauty of the world the glory of the workman the coÌ„fluence of all honor which mortality can afford the resemblaÌ„ce of the Sauiour while he liued vpoÌ„ the earth the image of God himselfe vntill that time that Adam lost it to whose absolute frame nothing wanteth but onely a consideration that God hath so graced him as that nothing is wanting to him I neede not speake to all these but vrge that which is the greatest The Lord hath said I wil require your bloud wherein your liues are at the hand of euery beast will I require it and at the hand of man euen at the hand of a mans brother will I require the life of man Who so sheadeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed for in the image of God hath he made man The often ingemination of requiring and requiring doth inforce the greater charge He that smiteth a maÌ„ he dye shal dye the death Doth not the bloud of Abell cry for vengeance vnto the Lord How doth God take the shedding of Vriah his bloud at Dauids hand How doth he threaten a punishment and that in bitter sort vnto the men of Babylon for their murthering of many persons The killing of a maÌ„ the murthering of thy neighbor is such a matter as for the which can be made no satisfaction A kingdome can make no ransome for it the whole world cannot make a recompence if we will take things aright It is in one to marre it but it is not in all Gods creatures to make the life of a man The Creatour himselfe doth giue it he willeth vs to preserue it that none should dare to destroy it either in our selues or other 5 How doth he seeme to tender it when he expressely commandeth the Israelies to set battelmeÌ„ts vpon the roofes of their houses whereupon they vsed oftentimes to walke because they were flat least if any should fall downe from thence bloud should lye vpon the house In like sort when he giueth charge else-where that the beast which killeth any should be stoned to death with stones How doth he detest bloud-spilling in wilfull sort when Christ giueth to the diuell the title of a murtherer as being most fit for him So that they who are killers and manquellers do seeme to fight vnder the diuels banner to haue put off humane nature which should excell for mildnesse and to be turned into beasts nay to grow into the quality of foule and loathsome spirites The impression of this thought both that it is vnseemely among men and odious before God as it hath possessed the heart of Scythians and Barbarians of Egyptians Greekes and Romanes so these ship-men doubt not of it but with all their power they do flye from it as froÌ„ the gates of hell They row they cry they pray rather any thing then be guilty of the sheading of Ionas his bloud Nay the more they see him yeeld the more their heart doth melt their affection giueth vpon him They know it to be naturall to spare the life of a suppliant to saue the life of a man No custome against that ground no prescription against that principle Life should be deare if any thing It neuer can be recouered 6 They then are monsters in nature and not only irreligious and impious toward God but verily inhumane who do cut off the life of other either in superstition or in any bloud-thirsty humour Be they the Carthaginians who did vse to offer men in sacrifice to their Gods Or be it the king of Moab who being distressed in battell did take his eldest son who should haue raigned in his stead and made a burnt offering of him vpon the top of the wal before the face of the Israelites by that meanes thinking to appease the wrath of his idols For thus some vnderstand it although there be that take it of the son of the king of Edom which is also bad inough Or be they among other or aboue other if you will the people of God himselfe who as Dauid doth say of them if that be Dauids Psalme were so besotted on their follies and so doated on their idolatry that they offered vp their sonnes and daughters vnto diuels This was it which the Scripture calleth the making of their children to go through the fâ—re as did Ahaz the king of Israel Vnto this the story of Iosias alludeth where he speaketh of the valley of Hinnom in which their little ones were enforced as the Hebrewes themselues do write to walke betweene great fires vntil that they sunke down dead with the heate their parents or the consecrators looking on but not hearing the pitifull skreeches and squealings of their children by reason of the great noyse of tabrets and other instruments of musicke which did dull their eares that they might not heare the sound Blind men who supposed that they had done great seruice to the Lord when in truth they did that which was execrable and abhominable in his eyes So farre off they were from the rules of religion that they also slipped from the very grounds of common reason 7 The like may be said of such who not for any superstitious deuotion or idolatrous opinion but in a wooluish rauennousnesse would see the bloud of many shed Be it Haman who to ease his stomacke vpon Mardocheus did cast plots and deuises how to haue the whole people of the
Theodoricke king of the Gothes who slue Boētius and Symmachus two both noble and innocent persons But afterward the guilt of that sinne sticking fast in his conscience he grew to an imagination that the head of a certaine fish that was set vpon his table was the head of Symmachus which gaped yawned vpon him Vpon which conceit he trembling and quaking fell into a sharpe sicknesse and quickly thereof dyed Some other times it is deferred but yet the punishment neuer resting commeth tumbling on at last as Euagrius in the fifth of his Ecclesiasticall storie doth tell of one Addaeus which in his time was reputed one of the speciall friends of the Emperour Iustinian This man when he had escaped the law for one murther yet was afterward put to death for a fact wherewith he was charged but in truth had neuer done it So the Lord did change the matter and the Lord did change the time but the punishment was not changed He escaped for that which he did and dyed for that which he did not Sometime God doth punish the fathers sinne vpon the children as he did Dauids murther vpon Vriah on his owne sonnes Absolon and Ammon These mariners might heare of such examples among the Gentiles For Gods finger is euery where he is Lord ouer all the earth and therefore they might well feare least that themselues should perish for the bloud of this dying Prophet 22 The second thing which I note is that although they were enforced against their will to destroy him yet because the deed it self was in his own quality vnlawful they cannot satisfie themselues but still make scruple of it Althogh there were a kind of commandement from God that it should be done for they had signes to that purpose yet they doubt at it grieue to do it Oh how far doth the cōscience of these weake ones exceed the mindes of many now who thinke that they may do vnlawfull things if they be enforced to it by any temporall reason not hauing for their warrant a notice from God as these men here had but all piety cleane against them Such are they who wil not refuse to go to the seruice of an idoll if their Prince shold cōmand them This was the great perswasiō which was vsed by Magnus a noble man toward diuerse Christiās that they shold embrace the faith opinions of the Arrians because Valens the Emperour had made lawes to that purpose Suppose saith he to them that your religion be very good yet if you be enforced to turne vnto another your God will forgiue it to you And much more of that matter Such are they who being vrged by nothing but the concupiscence of their own affections will do things most vngodly Steale to maintaine their brauerie they cannot else liue like men Ly for to match their enemie they may reach him so in pollicie In like sort wrastle against their cōscience in oppugning of the righteous in slaundering of the innocent because he is not for thē he standeth somtimes in their light although they know that they do amisse that they shall answer for it This is a small necessity my idlenesse or my wantonnesse my engrocing of filthie gaine to make me do that which mine owne hart knoweth that Gods booke daily forbiddeth to me Although they were deepely persuaded that it was the Lords determinatiō yet what doubting is in these seamen to do a thing vnlawfull for so it is in it self but Gods wil doth make it lawful To this wil they thē yeld 23 And this is the third point which I obserued in them thou hast done as it pleaseth thee They do not accuse God here and lay the fault on him as men commonly vse to do We all haue learned that of Adā The woman which thou gauest me she gaue me of the tree and I did eat Not the womā simply saith S. Austē but the woman which thou didst giue me For nothing is so familiar as for sinners to lay vpon God that whereof they be accused These do not so in this place but assume that to be righteous which God will haue to be done because they see him will it that he will take no nay therfore they know it is iust accordingly yeeld vnto it This is a sound direction for man to submit his will to the will of his maker that as we are taught to pray O Lord thy vvill be done so we yeeld vnto it in mildnesse He is wiser then wee be and therefore let him leade Not my vvill in my manhoode but thy vvill in thy Godheade be done saith Christ our Sauiour Let the Lord saith old Eli doe as seemeth good in his owne eyes Although therfore any thing be vnlawfull seem vnto vs to be vnnaturall yet if God do cōmand it we ought not to resist It was vnlawfull for Abraham to kill but more vnnaturall to kill his onely sonne and that with his owne hands yet when the Lord commanded he was ready to do thē both Let other learne this lesson thence that if their friends or children be as deare to them as Isaac was vnto his father Abraham yet if God take them hence they say in all obedience the will of the Lord be done or with these shipmen here thou hast done as it pleaseth thee The like we shold say of sicknesse banishment losse of goods or whatsoeuer else in this world Although it go as much against vs as it did against these men to drown the Prophet Ionas yet if God do require it let vs do as it pleaseth him And so let vs pray vnto him first that he will keepe vs alwaies from bloud-guiltinesse and from murther and then that he will giue vs grace to make conscience of such deedes as are against his word but that euermore we may learne to submit our selues to his pleasure that walking here as deare children we may be brought along to the inheritance of his glorie Vnto the which ô Father bring vs for thine owne sonne Christ his sake to whome with thee and the holy Spirite be laud and praise for euer THE VIII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 2. Reuerence to the Prophet euen in his death 4. Such reuerēce is not borne to our Preachers 8. Gods creatures are all at his becke 9. The magistrate punishing sinne turneth away Gods plagues 10. Christs death appeaseth the Fathers wrath 11. Cōfort to vs by Christs death 13. The punishment of others should make vs tremble 16. The vowes of seamen 17. The temporary faith of the mariners 19. Hypocrites can make shew of religion 20. We must perseuere in good things Ionah 1.15.16 So they tooke vp Ionah and cast him into the sea and the sea ceassed from her raging Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vowes YOu haue oftentimes heard of our Prophet on the sea now his turne is to be in the sea
yeelding them dry footing as if it had bene on the land when they were so pursued and made after by the chariots and horsemen of the Egyptians How fitly vnto my purpose was the daughter of king Pharao brought forth and put in mind to pity poore drowning Moses How was the iaw-bone of the asse made ready to be as a sword for Samson wherewith he slue so many Philistines and how was one of the teeth thereof prepared to yeeld him drinke when he fainted So admirable is the Lord in the assistance of his Saints that one thing or another shall be borne to do them good in their bitter extremitie as if it were made onely for that purpose There be few which haue liued many yeares and in Christian meditation contemplated in themselues on the kindnesse of their God who know not this ouer and ouer Such comforts and such stayes arising by such meanes as themselues could not conceiue of vntill they see things done Oh the loue of God inestimable oh his straunge wayes for our good The wicked on the one side may feare his hand who can raise such meanes to perplexe them and the faithfull on the other side may embrace his mercy who hath such helpes at need and both of them may stand amased and wonder at his power who hath his instruments euermore so ready 5 I know not whether in our Prophet is more to be respected Gods punishment or his protection If we thinke vpon his drowning he doth fauour him since he had at hand a great fish to receiue him so that he did not perish If we thinke of the time and place where he lay and how long that is in the dungeon of that fishes belly for three dayes and three nights it doth double and often multiply Gods angry wrath vpon him The euent doth giue this testimony that since Ionas howsoeuer at the first he fell was appointed and predestinated to good and not to euill his deliuerance was as readie as his chastisement was for him one hand to cast him downe another to helpe him vp when the ship might not any longer containe him the fishes bellie was in steede of a sea-vessell to bring him on toward Niniue But in the meane while his lying was such in so many dreades and horrours and anguishes for his life nay for doubte of the life eternall because wrath was vpon him which endangered his best part euen his inward man and his soule that many deaths had bene easier then a languishing in that prison where now he had his best repose So sowre a thing is sinne and disobedience to the Lord. It may be sweete in the mouth but it is bitter in the belly like a cup of deadly poyson Certainely it is a daughter of those Locustes which haue faces faire as men but killing stings in their tailes It is pleasure with too much paine sweete meate with too sharpe sauce And therefore it may well be likened to that herbe Sardonia in Sardinia of the which Solinus writeth that it maketh the eaters thereof to looke as if they laughed but in their laughing they dye Thus Ionas is preserued but to testifie Gods displeasure in the meanes of his preseruation he endureth full many sorowes Let vs now see if you please what that was whereby God so wrought for him The Lord prepared a great fish to swallow 6 In the Hebrew it is a great fish but it is not added of what kinde or species this fish was Our Sauiour Christ doth briefly touch this storie and there the Euangelist in the Greeke doth vse the word Ketos which although sometimes like to the Latine Cete it be applied to diuerse sorts of great fishes yet properly it noteth that one who is the king of fishes and ruler of the sea Balaena the great whale and it is euermore so Englished in that text A fish which in diuerse seas is of seuerall shapes and fashions as in the Indian Oceane in the red sea neare Arabia in the Northren waters toward Island and in our English Oceane but euery where verie huge and euery where very mighty And so this had neede to be who had so wide a mouth as to receiue the Prophet who had so large a throate as to swallow him and not hurt him who had so vaste a paunch as to lodge him there and not stifle him A matter to some men incredible that among all liuing creatures should be any so capacious but so vndoubtedly a knowne truth to men that liue neare the sea or that haue trauelled much by ship and a verity so confirmed so consented vpon by all who haue read the writers either olde or new vpon that argument that he were a man much absurde who would make question of it They all agree that at sea there are fishes farre exceeding the greatest beast on land And thereof particularly Olaus Magnus doth assigne these reasons the abundance of the moysture which is fit to dilate and increase any liuing creature and the very great depth vvhere is both store of foode and safe meanes to escape such other fishes as are ready to hurt them They farther adde that the Elephant is but little when he is compared with these water-monsters That the bellies and mouthes and throtes of some fishes are so spacious that a man may well be receiued in by them Gulielmus Rondeletius who hath taken great paines in displaying the proportions and qualities of fishes as appeareth in that excellent worke of Gesner De Aquatilibus for those two are oft ioyned together reporteth of a little small fish in comparison of a whale which he calleth by the name of Lamia that in the Mediterrane sea some of those haue oftentimes bene found hauing a whole man swallowed into each of their bellies Yea he telleth that neare vnto Marseilles an auncient city oâ— Fraunce there haue bene found of them which haue had within them virum loricatum a man in some kind of armour So huge-bellied is this fish which commeth not neare to the great ones 7 But for the whale it selfe if any list to reade of the bignesse of it and should esteeme that too much Pliny speaketh positiuely that in the Indian seas there are some of two hundred cubites in length and the same Pliny out of the bookes of Iuba that in the seas neare Arabia haue bene seene some of foure hundred cubites for so much is sixe hundred feete which also Munster deliuereth to vs in the fifth of his Cosmography then let him heare what Dion a good Historien doth lay downe of certainty in his fifty and fourth booke and that is that in the dayes of Augustus sometimes Emperour of Rome a whale leaped to the land out of the Germane Ocean full twenty foote in breadth and threescore foote in length This was so bigge a body as might well receiue the Prophet But adde to this what I find in Gesner taken
which did make it remaining still aliue should retaine the mould or remember the fashion of it with his best obseruation although this image were now broken into peeces and some of the lead thereof did perchance in a wall ioyne some stones vnto other or iron to stones in windows or if some were framed into bullets or put to other vses be they neuer so different yet afterward the artificer hauing these fragments brought together can refound them and renew the image in that resemblance wherein they were before That which man can do in his trade can mans maker do much more in new framing man himselfe 18 I haue borowed this reason from the maister of the Sentences whereunto if anie reply that the comparison is much different because here the substance remaineth in the selfe same nature as before whereas it is oftentimes altered in the corruption of the flesh and bones in man I might answere that it is recompenced by the greatnesse and the power and the skilfulnesse of this framer which so farre doth exceede the abilitie of all workers But I rather will strengthen it with that argumēt of Tertullian who speaketh to this purpose We were alreadie once made of nothing when our matter went not before and is it not as easie that we should be againe made when we haue bene before If after our corruption our substance should be little yea very nothing at all yet can we thinke it lesse then it was before our breeding The authour of the first can as well do the latter This reason seemed strong vnto Gregory the great where he speaketh in this sort If a man who hath bene dead shold be raised vp all men breake foorth into admiration and yet daily is man borne who neuer was before and no man wondreth at that whereas without doubt it may appeare vnto all men that it is a greater worke when that is made which neuer was then when that shall be but repaired and new made which was before To follow this a little farther which of vs doth remember what we were before that we were borne where was our forme or our matter Yet we are growne to this quantitie and come vp to this fashion If we will speake as Philosophers the sonne is said to be in potentia of the father so of the grandfather and great grandfather although much more remooued If we will speake as the Spirite of God doth speake Leui the sonne of Iacob who was the sonne of Isaac who was the heire of Abraham is said to be in the loines of Abraham his great grandfather The line by this proportiō may be reached a great deale higher Now how many alterations corruptions dissolutions in nutriment and in food within men and without of necessitie must there be within ten generations before that he be produced who is the tenth successor Where shall we say was the seed or what shall we thinke was the matter from whence he was deriued Yet God hath so disposed that by order of propagation it should be so and no otherwise and a thousand alterations cannot hinder the course thereof and a million of corruptions shall not crosse his purpose afterward but that from earth and sea and stones and rockes and ashes chaunged ouer and ouer againe he can rowze vs and reuiue vs. The perpetuated order of his actions here among vs doth shew that he can doe things which are as farre vnlikely To adde somewhat more of man of how small a thing doth he make him euen that which hath no proportion how doth he bring out the limmes and members of the infant where were his bones and his sinewes his arteryes and his veynes where was his head and his feete his countenance and his visage how were these things distinguished in his first generation We may haue the same consideration of the kernell of any fruite which being small in quantitie and in resemblance very different from that whereunto it spreadeth is put into the ground From this there groweth a roote with many things sprowting from it from thence a stemme ariseth a barke percase without a pith perhaps within here a branch and there a bough here a blossome and there a fruit A graine of wheat is put by the husbandman into the ground and then it is but a small thing and in respect as nothing Yet from thence commeth roote and blade and stalke and eare and corne yea when the originall of all was dead and euen dissolued From these things God each day doth raise such sensible matters and maketh the earth and raine whereof much commeth from the sea to depart with their owne nature and to be turned into them Why then should it be impossible or why should it be straunge that he should bring this to passe in man the best of his creatures that is to fetch him out of the dust or from the middest of the water Why not one daye that in generall when this in speciall euery daye why not all which to each Reuolue these things aduisedly and ioyne faith with thy sence and thy externall feeling and we shall haue a resurrection 19 Remember how that euerie winter the glorie of the trees and all woods is decayed their leaues lye in the dust their cheerefull greene is but blacknesse the sap and life is hid in the roote within the ground all the tree doth seeme as dead But when the Sunne commeth forward with his warming aspect they resume their former beautie So it is with the medowes so it is with the floures and most delightfull gardens Their winter is as our death their spring like our resurrection The putting of our clothes off should remember vs of mortalitie that we must put our flesh off and yeeld it to corruption When we put them on in the morning and go forth as before we represent to our selues the receiuing of our flesh againe in the day of iudgement What is our bed but a graue what is our sleepe but a death wherein we are to our selues as if we had neuer bene without sence and in darknesse what is our hastie awaking at the sound of bell or other noise but as our starting vp at the sound of the last trumpet to appeare before Christs throne Herein indeed is the difference that the graue doth hold vs longer the bed a lesser while Thus hath the Lord euery way put remembrancers in our actions daily obseruations that certainly we shall dy certainly rise againe certainly be then iudged The veritie of which matter euen by the light of nature hath appeared vnto some who neuer did know the Lord. The heathen man Zoroastres did fore-prophecie of a time wherein there should be a rising of all that euer had liued They were not farre from this who beleeued an immortalitie of our souls after death So did Plato aboue all other of the auncient Philosophers who both saith that the soule liueth
separated from the bodie and that it commeth to an account and if it haue so deserued suffereth punishment and great torment yea he mentioneth such a iudgement as wherein the good are set on the right hand and the euill on the left as if he had perused the bookes of the sacred Bible The French Prophets those Druides as Pomponius Mela noteth did both beleeue and teach the immortalitie of the soule which was a good inducement to inferre the resurrection For when they held this vndoubtedly that the better part doth not die and by a consequent that the soules of them which had done well for their good life in this place should come vnto felicitie they might haue easily bene perswaded that by a good congruitie the instrument and copartner and sister of the soule I meane this flesh of ours being ioyned in all actions should in vprightnesse of iustice be ioyned in the reward whether it be good or euill 20 How much to blame are the Atheists and Epicures of our time who come not so farre as this but as they depriue our bodies of all future reuiuing so they teach that our soules in nothing are different from the beasts but that in the dissolution the spirit shall be dissolued as well as the exteriour man in which thoughts they shew thēselues to be worse then many Ethnicks They little conceiue the dignity and simplicity of that spirit the single in compoundnesse of that self-moouing soule for so I may well call it in comparison of the flesh For as Chrysostome maketh his argument If the soule can giue such life and beautie vnto the bodie with what a life and fairenesse doth it liue in it selfe And if it can hold together the bodie which is so stinking and so deformed a carcasse as appeareth euidently after death how much more shall it conserue and preserue it selfe in his owne being So pregnant is this reason that an infidell may conceiue it and very well apprehend it but we which are Christian men may remember a farther lesson That our Sauiour hath dyed for vs and payed a price very great his owne most precious bloud For whom or what was this for our body which liueth and dieth and rotteth and neuer returneth againe for our soule which is here this day and too morrow spilt and corrupted How vnworthy were this of him to endure so much for so little Shall we thinke him so vnwise or repute him so vnaduised No he knew that this soule of ours must stand before his throne and this rottennesse must come foorth by a fearefull resurrection And if this should not be so if there should be no accompt no recompence for ill deedes no retribution for the good to what end should men serue the Lord or what difference should there be betweene the iust and the vniust the holy and the profane nay betweene man the best creature that mooueth vpon the ground and the basest and vilest beast which hath little sence and no reason Because it were impiety to think this of our iust Lord that so slenderly he disposeth things let vs with an assured faith conceiue our immortality and the hope of a resurrection 21 As this hath bene deduced from the example of our Prophet by this or the like sort Ionas was in the fishes belly so was Christ in the graue Ionas came forth from thence so did Christ rise againe his rising doth bring our rising his resurrection ours because he was the first fruits of all those that do sleep So to cōclude this doctrine by making vse of it very briefly if this be determined ouer vs the houre shal one day come that all that is in the graue shall arise heare Gods voice neither the mountains nor the rocks can couer vs frō the presence of the Lambe what ones then how perfect shold we study to be how shold we prepare our selues against that day of reckning that our iudg may acknowledge vs to be his friends his brethren vnspotted vndefiled that so we might not trēble to see him heare his iudgement But alas how far are we from it indeed frō thinking of it For as Chrysostome speaketh some do say that they beleeue that there shal be a resurrectiō a recōpēce to come But I listen not to thy words but rather to that which is done euery day For if thou expect the resurrectiō a recōpence why art thou so giuē to the glory of this present life why doest thou daily vexe thy self gathering more mony then the sand I may go a little farther applying it to our time why do we bath our selues in folly as in the water why do we drinke in iniquitie bitternesse in such measure why hunt we after gifts and thirst after rewards why seeke we more to please men then labour to please the Lord Briefly why doth security in inward sort so possesse vs as if with Hyminaeus Philetus we did think the resurrection past Why do we as that man of whome Saint Bernard speaketh that is eate and drinke and sleepe carelesse as if we had now escaped the day of death and iudgement and the very torments of hell So play and laugh and delight as if we had passed the pikes and vvere now in Gods kingdome Who seeth not this to be so although he could wish it to be farre otherwise 22 The remembrance of this accompt should be as a snaffle to vs or as a bridle to keepe vs backward from profanenesse enormitie And in these euils let them take their portiō who are incredulous and vnbeleeuers of whome it is no maruell that they do hotely embrace them and egerly follow after them For take away an opinion of rising vnto iudgement and all obseruance of pietie falleth presently to the ground and men will striue to be filthie in impietie and in sinne But because we professe Christ Iesus and the hope of immortalitie let vs liue as men that expect it And since that it is appointed that all men shall die once and after it commeth the iudgement and since the day of death is as vncertaine to vs as it euer was to Isaac let vs furnish our selues before hand that with the oyle of faith and of good life in our lampes we may go to meete the bridegroome If Christ as our head be risen from the dead let vs arise from the vanities and follies of this earth which are not worth the comparing with eternitie in the heauens If he as the chiefe of his Church be ascended and gone before let vs who wish to be members wrestle to follow after him Let it be enough that hitherto with Ionas we haue fled from our dutie which we owe to our maker and that we haue lyen not dayes but yeares oft three times and three ouer not in the fishes belly but in the belly of sin And let vs beseech the Lord that since
booke of God prayer is both commended and commanded to vs and not any way for his profit who is to be sought too but for ours who are to cry Aske and it shall be giuen you knocke and it shall be opened to you Watch and pray saith our Sauiour Christ. Continue sayth Paule in prayer Is any of you afflicted let him pray sayth Saint Iames for the prayer of a righteous man preuaileth much if it be feruent The faithfull euermore haue had recourse to this in their necessity as when Iacob feared Esau he called on the name of the Lord that he would send him safety When the Israelites were driuen to that extremity that nothing in mans reason but present death did remaine for them behind them being Pharao and their enemies to slay them before them the red sea a fit place to drowne them then Moses being troubled in his spirit although he sayd neuer a word hauing his heart as bleeding within him cried vnto the Lord. When it went hard with that people fighting against the Amalekites what did Moses but pray for them when he held vp his hands from which when by wearinesse he did cease they sped ill but while he continued it they did conquer What are the Psalmes of Dauid but recourses in his passions vnto the highest God Did not Ieremy in the pit and bottome of the dungeon fall to calling vpon the Lord And our Prophet in worse case then euer was any of these had nothing else to comfort him but to addresse himselfe to his prayers When all other helpes do faile yet this is neare at hand we neede not runne farre to seeke it And blessed is the reward which oftentimes doth follow these requests either the hauing of that which we desire or a contententednesse to leaue it 5 The Church of God and the faithfull haue euermore retained the vse hereof somtimes men which haue bene infidels haue bene glad to seeke to them for it When the Emperor Marcus Aurelius had almost lost his army in Germany for want of water a legion of the Christians which were then in his seruice had recourse vnto this remedy and by vehement inuocation did begge raine at Gods hands which he sent them in great abundance to the amazing of the Emperour but the safety of all his army That noble and mighty Constantine knowing that one in heauen is the true Lord of hostes and all victory commeth of him that the ioyning of a battell is the loosing of a kingdome vnlesse he do assist would neuer enter fight but that first himselfe and his forces with knees bended vpon the ground would desire the Lord to blesse them When his enemies on the other side and Licinius aboue other would begin with incantation and seeking to the Diuell But the good Emperour hauing many things of great waight still vpon him which he knew not how to weild without the helpe of the Highest and that was to be had for asking did so delight in prayer that in memory thereof not as the dissembling Pharisee but in true feare to his God and the better to instruct his people in it by his owne example he ordained that his image which we know that Princes do vse to coine vpon their money should be stamped with the resemblance of him praying The example of Theodosius is in this case not vnfit Being in a battell which was hardly fought on both parts but at length his men being put to the worse and now apparantly ready to flye he throweth himselfe on the ground and with all the powers of his soule he desireth the Lord to pity him and to prosper him in that daunger God heard the voice of his seruant and in miraculous manner did graunt to him the victory To this comfort he found that of Origene to be true One holy man preuaileth more in praying then innumerable sinners do with their fighting For the prayer of a holy man doth pierce vp to the heauen I need not vrge other examples of other in latter ages who haue euermore made this their refuge in daungers and extremities to flye with speede vnto the Lord. For Diuinity buildeth vpon it Christianity doth enforce it no faithfull man maketh doubt of it very Ethnickes in their seruices to their Gods continually did frequent it and openly did practise it 6 In the meane while the supine security of our age shall I say cannot be inough rebuked nay cannot be inough lamented of which it may be sayd as one speaketh of the Monkes that their fasts are very fat but their prayers exceeding leane for if we will compare matters that be in secret with such things as are open and iudge the one by the other how cold are all our prayers If we looke into our Churches we shall find many of our Pastours to go through their common prayers with very small deuotion little mooued and little moouing The people that is not onely young ones who are of-ward inough from God and whose feeling is not so passionate as the Lord in time may make it but the elder sort very slowly do repaire vnto the tabernacle euery light occasion doth keepe them away halfe-seruice doth serue the turne and for that which is it were as good to be neuer a whit as not to be the better they sit there as in a giddinesse neither minding God nor the Minister but rather obseruing any thing then that for which they come thither If it be thus in publicke what may be thought of those prayers which in secret are powred forth betweene God and our selues in our closets or our studies when we rise vp or lye downe It is to be feared that they are few and those which be are very sleepy rather perfunctory and customary then warmed with zeale of affection And how shall God know what we say when we our selues do not know how shall he heare that prayer which we our selues do not heare Let vs brethren stirre vp our selues and be feruent in this if in any thing and the tutour for his scholers the parents for his children the maister for his family the Magistrate for his people the Minister for his flocke pray euery day that the Lord will blesse them in their inward man and their outward in their businesses and their studies in their piety and their safety Remember how holy Iob did sacrifice for his children least in vanity of their youth they should forget the Lord. 7 And let euery man for himselfe giue no rest to his God but begge of him oftentimes to double and multiply his gracious spirite on him For how dangerous are these wayes wherein we here do walke What perils and great hazards are euery day about vs What drawings on are there to sinne what entisements to iniquity How is the Diuell more ready to swallow vs into hell then the fish was to swallow Ionas What Atheisme doth increase what worldly lusts
long felt the sweetnesse of the Lords distilling grace prosperitie peace and plentie which maketh men forget the authour of their felicitie They with the Oxe haue tasted the fodder that lieth before thē but they haue not thought of the giuer Oh the blockishnesse of our nature who returne to God little loue for his great loue vnto vs. Our neighbours of Fraunce and Flaunders haue drunke of another cuppe and haue taken another course Some yeares now past religion and true faith hath bene oppugned in France Edicts haue bene made that the Protestants or Huguenots as they call them should get them out of that countrie within such a time or such a space vnder perill of their liues Thousands of them haue fled and left their natiue countrie but not the care of their countrie for although they were elsewhere wishing still good to Sion they haue harkened after the aduentures of that Church and commonwealth and haue found both to be in hazard Many inuasions and great slaughters and ciuill warres in that land wherein those that haue bene the pillars of religion in that countrey haue bene oftentimes shrewdly shaken This hath caused them as London doth well know to assemble thēselues together in their Churches with solemne fasts and prayers which of likelyhood they had not done but that they saw themselues to be fallen into most perillous times These assemblies and these fasts being many more then we haue had did argue that more affliction was on them then on vs which made them so to cry I would that we might learne by their example to be wise before that we be stricken But if peace do lull vs asleepe the rod it is which can awake vs. That we find by our Prophets case in whome the next thing which I obserued is the greatnesse of his calamitie The greatnesse of his misery 19 In the last place I haue noted that misery mindeth God vnto vs. Then the greater our miserie is the more is our mind on our maker If this be true our Ionas might well cry to the Lord for great and exceeding troubles were at this time shewed vnto him He saith that he was in hell yea in the belly and midst of hell and in the third verse plainer that he was throwne into the bottome in the very heart of the sea for so it is in the Hebrew that all the flouds had passed ouer him all the surges and all the waues What can be expressed more horrible then this was vnto Ionas The word which is vsed here is Sheol which sometimes doth note the graue vnto vs and other some times hell and that double signification together with the like in some few other words doth cause that question so oft handled of the manner of Christs descending into hell But partly because I loue not to extrauagate from my text although occasion be here well offered by the nature of the word bearing so plaine a difference but especially in a desire of vnitie in our Church least some by contradiction should gainesay whatsoeuer is vttered in this argument so apt are we to be iarring which I wish were otherwise I passe ouer that point in silence onely obseruing vnto the weake that we all do hold the Article of Christs descense into hell but the disagreement is in the manner of his descending and how that should be expounded The Prophets words here import that he was in the fishes belly as a mā might be in his graue without light without sight in darknesse and discomfort neuer hoping more to liue then a man who was dead and buried Or else that he felt in himselfe such anguish of his conscience because Gods wrath did follow him and because he knew that himselfe had deserued euerlasting torment that now he was so tortured with an Hyperbole speaking of it as if he had bin in hell The Chaldee Paraphrase here hath a word signifying a bottomelesse pit which intendeth to vs that the sea was very deepe wherein he was as if he had bene drowned And this may be an argument that the sea was very deep there that the whale which deuoured him was there whose greatnesse was such and so huge that it would require much water The whale swimmeth not in the shallowes neither can remaine in the foords 20 The greatnesse of this danger so amplified by the Prophet in many parts of his song first could not chuse but much dismay him and fright him home for the present for what could he thinke of himselfe that drowned he was and not drowned eaten vp and not deuoured and yet for euery moment in case to come to his end besides the pangs of his soulefearing eternall death Secondly when afterward he had by the mercie of God escaped from destruction it might be a great remembrance and testimonie to him of the fauour of the Lord. For the greater was his daunger the greater was his deliuerance Neither doth that man euer know what it is to be freed from miserie who was neuer like to feele it To be brought to the pits brinke and then and there to be stayed nay to be in the midst of death and there to be kept from dying must needes vrge in the patient a meditation of thankfulnesse That consideration of Ammianus Marcellinus in his storie is very good that although it be a matter exceedingly to be wished for that fortune would continue in flourishing state vnto vs yet that quality of life hath not that feeling with it as whē frō a desperate very hard estate we are recalled to a better fortune We better know what health is when sicknesse hath much broken vs. We know what it is to haue store of clothing and competent foode if hunger and thirst and nakednesse do for a time assaile vs. It is a prety reason although the practise thereof were bad which Herodotus saith that the Samian tyrant Polycrates did vse to make He very much exercised piracie and robberie as well by land as sea and his custome was to spoile his friends as much as his enemies whereof he assigned that cause that when he shold vnderstand afterward that his friend was robbed of any thing he might gratifie that friend more in restoring what he had lost then if he had taken nothing from him I do not commend his thieuing but his reason had wit meaning God knoweth that whē himselfe taketh from vs such things as are not ours we are but his disposers or as tenants at will vnto him he maketh vs so much the more embrace his mercie who hath sent grace in wretchednesse and present comfort in extremitie Our Prophet in his suffering had good experience of these things which maketh him the rather breake forth into a song of thankesgiuing 21 Thou hadst cast me into the bottome in the very midst of the sea as if he should haue said now it is otherwise and the more am I beholding to thee Where also obserue his speech
sorrow shall not vpbraide vs that wee haue feared men more then the eternall God that we haue for the pleasure of any made shippe-wracke of a good conscience or very farre aduentured toward it Take heede then by the Prophet that in seeking to flye such harme as is but imaginarie or little in comparison we do not runne our selues by offending of the Lord into daunger which is ineuitable Now goe we a little forward Yet thou hast brought my life from the pit 16 The common translation hath in the future tense thou wilt lift vp my life The Septuagint let my life ascend from corruption The Chaldee Paraphrase it is readie or but a small thing vnto thee to bring me from corruption The best do translate it by the time that is past thou hast brought my life from the pit or corruption He ascribeth all to God as moouing in him and liuing in him and in him hauing his being So the faithfull do euermore I wayted saith Dauid patiently for the Lord and he enclined vnto me and heard my crye He brought me also out of the horrible pitte out of the mire and clay and set my feete vpon the rocke and ordered my goings A gracious God who can strike vs and can heale vs can foile vs can raise vs. He whippeth vs by number scourgeth vs by measure and when we turne vnto him he will quicken vs and reuiue vs from death and the gates of hell Ionas sinning is punished Ionas crying is helped While stubburnnesse is on him downe must his proud heart but when feare and faith possesse him he is hoyssed vp againe Let vs then chaunge our heart and God will change his hand in the middest of his roughnesse toward vs. Saint Austen in those eight questions which were proposed to him by Dulcitius speaketh fitly to this matter When the woman came to Christ from Syro Phaenicia he said vnto her the childrens bread is not to be throwne to dogges but afterward not O dogge great is thy faith but O woman great is thy faith He chaungeth his word because he saw her affection chaunged and he vnderstood that the same reproofe of his was growne vp to good fruite So it is with this patient when his faith once breaketh foorth he shall come from corruption 17 But what may be the matter that he so much reioyceth that he should liue againe The words which go before from the beginning of the chapter do shew a fast hold to be layed on Gods fauour by faith howsoeuer for some little time it was dismayed a remission of sinnes and a hope of life eternal although he had very much transgressed Then since his life was sealed vp against another world why should he desire to be here againe Why should he so reioyce that he should be deliuered Very shame might haue enforced him to hate the light The report of the mariners who would freely speake wheresoeuer they came might spread the name of him as of a most infamous person He might be poynted at with the finger by children and vile folkes as he went in the streete Howsoeuer Gods children should thirst to be aboue should long to be dissolued and be at home with their father So did Saint Paule in the new Testament when he desired to be loosed so did Elias in the old when he cryed It is now enough ô Lord take my soule for I am no better then my fathers And who would be in his pilgrimage when he might be in his countrey who would be in the sea when he might be in the hauen who would be warring when a crowne might then be giuen him for his victorie who would be in the way when he might be at home in rest It seemeth then at the first sight that the Prophet doth take ioy in his losse and desireth that for a benefite which was a harme vnto him But when all these things are scanned as they should bee it will appeare farre otherwise 18 Now it was no time to feare the shame of the world he was rather to seeke to please one and that was his old maister yea if he displeased all other by it It was a good resolution of him who did write the eigth of those Epistles which be in the end of Saint Hieromes workes Let euerie one say what himselfe will In the meane time according to my small vnderstanding I haue iudged it better for my selfe to blush before sinners vpon earth then before the holy Angels in heauen or wheresoeuer the Lord will shew his iudgement And to wish as Elias wished were but to be impatient wherein Ionas is not behind as appeareth in the fourth chapter And his case was not like Saint Paules who might yeeld vp his soule in quietnesse of conscience as hauing in his heart a testimonie of the Lords good accepatnce of his labours in this world Now he who is setled in such an opinion neede not feare to depart from this transitorie habitation nay he may well long to dye But with Ionas it is otherwise he standeth yet in a mammering and knoweth not which way to turne him Yet he is not quite exempted from that conflict of his betweene hope and despaire yet although his faith be not extinguished he is not assured how the Lord will take his sinne at his hands This maketh him wish for more time to testifie his obedience to make a recompence if it might be for his sinfull rebellion or at the least to wash away his iniquitie with many teares And hauing this purpose in him to aske pardon with sighes and sobbes he ioyeth with all his heart that time is permitted him to performe the vowes of his soule and to remooue away from the Church of God that scandale which he had offered 19 Moreouer if he had dyed in the sea and the belly of the fish his departure had bene violent and layed vpon him for his sinne as a grieuous punishment for vngodlinesse and such a kind of death the faithfull seruants of the Lord haue no desire to dye It may well be gathered out of the thirtieth Psalme that the sicknesse of Dauid there insinuated for that Psalme may best be vnderstoode of sickenesse was layed vpon him for one fault or other perhaps for presumption he thought that he was too strong But when for that cause he felt the hand of the Lord sharpely chastising him he beggeth that he might not in such a sort go downe to the graue What profite is there in my bloud vvhen I goe downe to the pit shall the dust giue thankes vnto thee or shall it declare thy truth For some one reason or other which the Spirit of God hath concealed Hezechias was not readie when the Prophet Esay came vnto him and told him that he must dye This did make him turne himselfe to the wall and weepe and pray to the Lord that if it might stand with his good pleasure that sentence might
be reuersed Then it is not our best safetie at euery time and in euerie case to be remooued hence but vpon some occasion we may ioye with Ionas that longer time is affoorded vs to bethinke our selues This is his exceeding comfort that though the pangs of death were vpon him yet that God once againe brought his life from corruption O Lord my God 20 The onely thing now remaining is the confident appellation which he vseth to the Lord Iehouah ô my God This sheweth a faith beyond faith and a hope beyond hope when he knew that the Lord was angrie and extremely wrathfull at him yet to cling in so to his mercie as to appropriate to himselfe a portion in his maker For what greater insinuation of confidence can there be then by particular application to apprehend Gods mercie to lay hold vpon him as on a father and that not as we say with a reference to the Communion of Saints Our father vvhich art in heauen but my father and my God This hath bene the perfect trust of the faithfull in all ages which hath encouraged them to approch with boldnesse vnto the throne of grace My God my God saith Dauid And thou that art the God of my saluation And Iob I am sure that my Redeemer liueth My spirit saith the Virgin Marie doth reioyce in God my Sauiour My Lord and my God saith Thomas Paule saith of himselfe I liue by faith in the Sonne of God who hath loued me and giuen himselfe for me This true faith doth close with God and incorporateth it selfe into the bodie of the Redeemer 21 And this is it which bringeth comfort vnto the wounded soule and afflicted conscience not that Christ is a Sauiour for what am I the better for that but a Sauiour vnto me That I am one of the adoption reconciled and brought into fauour sealed vp against that day when the quicke and dead shall be iudged my portion is with the Highest mine inheritance with the Saints How could flesh and bloud euer beare the heate of strong temptation without this firme perswasion What is it to my belly that bread is prepared for other vnlesse I be assured that my part is therein What is it to my soule that Christ hath dyed for other vnlesse I know that my sins are washed away in his bloud It may be good for Moses it may be good for Paule or Peter or Iames or Stephen but what is it vnto me It is Meus then and Tuus as Luther did well teach it is my God and thy Sauiour which doth satisfie thirstie consciences There is the ioy of the Spirit when men come to that measure Then it is a blessed doctrine which instilleth that faith into vs and in that if in any thing doth appeare the fruit of the Gospell which is preached in our dayes that people sicke and dying being taught before in their health can giue most diuine words and right admirable speeches in this behalfe whereof I speake sayings full of holy trust and assurance which as it is a thing most comfortable to themselues beyond all gold and treasure which are but as dung and drosse to a man yeelding vp the ghost so it bringeth good meditations vnto the standers by in causing them to acknowledge very euident an plaine arguments of election in the other whom they see to be so possessed with ioy in the holy Ghost and so rapt vp as if they had alreadie one foote within the heauen 22 But it is otherwise with the ignorant they lye groueling vpon the ground and cannot mount vp with the Eagle So is it in that doctrine which the Church of Rome doth maintaine when their people are taught that they must beleeue in generall that some shall go to heauen that some belong to God but to say or thinke that themselues shall be certainely of that number or constantly to hope it that is boldnesse ouermuch that is ouer-weening presumption They are to wish and pray that it may be so with them but yet it appertaineth to thē euermore to doubt because they know not the worthinesse of their merits a most vncomfortable opinion which cannot chuse but distract the heart of a dying man that he must not dare to beleeue with confidence that he shall go to God that Iesus is his Sauiour the pardoner of his faults No maruell if the life and death of such who hearken vnto them be full of sighs and sobs grones and feares and doubts since quietnesse and setled rest cannot be in their hearts They haue a way to walke but what is the end they know not They are sure of their departure but whither they cannot tell A lamentable taking and wherein of necessitie must be small ioy How contrarie hereunto doth Saint Paule speak being iustified by faith we haue peace toward God through our Lord Iesus Christ. How contrarie to this doth Saint Iohn speake in the name of the faithfull we know that we are of God How doth deiected Ionas yet keepe him fast to this tackling when he crieth ô Lord my God 23 And this is the surest anker whereunto a Christian man may possibly know how to trust This is it which in the blastes of aduersity will keepe him fast at the roote which in the waues of temptation will hold him fast by the chinne which in the greatest discomforts and very pangs of death will bring him to life againe To ground himselfe vpon this as on a rocke assured that his God is his father that Iesus is his redeemer that the holy Ghost doth sanctifie him that although he sinne oft-times yet euermore he is forgiuen and albeit he do transgresse dayly yet it is still forgotten that whether he liue or dye yet euer he is the Lords Good father leade vs so by thy most blessed Spirite that we neuer do fall from this But although sinne hange vpon vs as it did vpon the Prophet yet raise vs so by thy loue that laying hold on thy promises and the sweetenesse of thy fauour we may reape eternall life to the which ô blessed Lord bring vs for thine owne Sonne Christ his sake to whom with thee and thy Spirit be laude for euermore THE XIII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 3. Gods election is sure 4. One argument thereof is to remember the Lord after affliction 6. That cogitation is very comfortable 7. The good and bad do differently remember God 8. The wicked do it with a murmuring 10. Especially in death God is to be thought on 11. Therefore it is good to thinke on him in health 12. Else we shall not be willing to dye 14. Churches are to be vsed reuerently 15. God heareth the prayers of his seruants 17. By vanity is signified euill 19 as Adams fall may therein be comprehended 20. or idolatry 21. or curious crafts and studies 22. or adultery and carnall sinne 23. and ill gotten goods 24. and ambition Ionah 2.7.8 When my soule fainted within
giuen ouer to heare any thing of my prayers Among the old Romane historians which haue written who was wiser then Cornelius Tacitus men do now study him for policy Yet in the first of his history recounting those great grieuances which befell Rome by the ciuill warres vnder Galba and Vitellius he vseth this desperate speech Neuer by greater slaughters on the Romane people or by more iust iudgements vvas it approoued vnto vs that the Gods do not at all respect our safety and security but to take vengeance on vs they are ready inough Here policy hath forgotten the very first grounds of piety which are patience and humility Liuie a graue writer although otherwise superstitious inough as appeareth by his Prodigia and yearely monsters yet tasteth of these dregs when in his fourth booke he writeth thus Here followeth a yeare which for slaughters and ciuill vprores and famine was very famous Onely forreine warre was vvanting wherewithall if our state had bene laded things could hardly haue bene stayed by the helpe of all the Gods but that they had run to ruine 9. Thus the wisedome of this world is nothing else but foolishnesse nothing but doting folly when it commeth indeed to the crosse or to the fiery triall The knowledge of God is wanting or at least the laying hold aright by faith is wanting And where faith is not to be found there is neither hope nor patience which are two infallible notes of a iust and Christian man There is nothing sayth Saint Cyprian which putteth more difference betweene the iust and the vniust then this that the euill man in his aduersity doth complaine and impatiently blaspheme but the good doth suffer quietly The iust hath trust in his Sauior but the other hath no part in him What maruell then is it if the wicked do fret and rage without comfort since he hath no share in him who is the God of comfort What maruell is it if he perish Plutarch telleth that this is the quality of Tigres that if drums or tabours sound about them they will grow madde and then they teare their owne flesh and rent themselues in peeces If the vnbeleeuing reprobate do heare the noyse of affliction he is ready to rent himselfe but by cursing and by swearing he will teare the body of Christ from top to toe in peeces As Ionas did remember God so the reprobate will not forget him but it is not to pray vnto him not to beleeue vpon him for he harh not so much grace but to ban him and blaspheme him I could wish that such prophanenesse as this might neuer be heard off in earnest or in play in the life or death of any man We should thinke of him with a reuerence we should mind him with a feare in prosperity with a trembling in aduersity with a hope There should be no fretting against his prouidence no grudging against his punishment When my soule did faint within me I remembred the Lord sayth Ionas I remembred him to beseech him I remembred him to intreate him I remembred him to embrace him to trust in him as a deliuerer to beleeue in him as a father I called to him and doubted not and he afterward heard my voyce 10 Saint Hierome doth giue this note vpon this place taking it out of the Septuagint That because he thought vpon the Lord when his soule did faint and he was ready to dye we by his example should aboue all things mind our maker when we are in the fits and pangs of death A very needefull doctrine if any thing may be needefull that when we must dislodge and be remooued hence when our glasse is so farre runne that immediatly a change must follow and that not to a trifle or toye which is to bee contemned but either to heauen or hell either to perpetuall ioy or to euerlasting torment we haue him in our meditations who is to see our iudge who is to scanne our actions and to peruse our conscience and giue the last sentence on vs that then with our best remembrance we thinke vpon his mercy and contemplate on his great loue in the redemption of his sonne and desire him for his blouds sake to take vs into his fauour That this lesson might the better be taught vnto vs Iesus the sonne of God and fore-runner of our faith when he was ready to yeeld vp his spirit did commend his vnspotted soule to his most righteous father Father into thy hands I commend my spirit Good Steuen the eldest martyr did tread these steps right after him when at the time of his death he cried Lord Iesus receiue my spirit And euery Christian man should struggle and striue to do so to shake off as much as may be the heauinesse of his sicknesse and as hauing that one prize that last great prize to play should stirre vp his spirit in him and should then pray to God to comfort him to conduct him vnto heauen to leade him along to glorie It is a good thing to liue well but because death is the vp-shot which maketh or marreth the rest it is the best thing to dye well He who hath begun aright hath halfe that whereat he aimeth but to begin is our hurt it shall bee a witnesse against our conscience vnlesse we do perseuere The man who shall bee blessed must continue to the ende 11 Then may the dangerous state of such be iustly deplored who in their life time haue so fondly doated vpon the world that when death which is Gods baylife doth summon them to appeare before the iudgement seate they do least of all other things know wherewith he should be furnished who commeth there but as before in the time of their health so in their despaired sicknesse do thinke only vpon their Mammon admiring it and embracing it and kissing it in their thought as if they were wedded to it But neither of themselues nor by the instigation of the Minister who is a remembrancer for the Lord can they be any way vrged to speake of celestiall things to call on God for mercy or to professe their faith and confidence in their Sauiour And this wordly imagination first ministreth hope of life they not dreaming that death will take them till on the sudden both body and soule do eternally dye together Next if they do conceiue that it must be so and there is no way with them but the graue then is their heart oppressed with sorrow and a huge waight of griefe that there must be a separation from their beloued treasure And lastly if their memory do serue there must be an vnsetled and vnresolued disposing with disquietnesse and much vexing of that which hath bene ill gotten to this child or to that friend and much stirre there must be about the pompe of a funerall by which meanes all good motions are so stifled and choaked that there is scant one word of him who made all
and must iudge all See what it is in our life time to thirst after this trash to repose our full contentment and blessednesse in this drosse When the heart should be lifted vp to celestiall contemplation this hangeth so about it that it cannot but lye groueling vpon the the rotten ground 12 Vaine glory or any sinister passion which doth possesse the mind hath the same effect and so hath ignorance of the true God which ignorance and vaine glory as I suppose were the reasons wherfore Titus the Romaine Emperor who was amōg the heathen a mirrour of men was so loath to depart from this earth when knowing that he must dye being caried as he was in his horse-litter he looketh vp toward heauen most bitterly maketh complaint that his life should so be taken away from him not deseruing so ill How vaine are all the shewes of vertue without the knowledge of Christ Iesus Yet the end of Saint Ambrose was in a more holy maner when he being spoke vnto by his friends to pray that yet he might not dye made his answer as he lay at the very dore of death I haue not liued so ill among you that I am ashamed to liue any longer neither am I afraid to dye because we haue a good Lord vpon whom he then did trust There can be no better meditation to any man at that time of departure then to thinke on that good Lord. It causeth a willing and safe leauing of this world a perfecting and completing of all that hath bene here begun which is more to be desired then all the land or treasure which euer the Sunne did see When the time of receiuing the reward commeth it is good to be ready It is best to be aduised of our standing but most of all of our falling He that for a long time runneth nimbly but stumbleth immediatly before the marke hath lost his former labour and is depriued of the price If at any time then at that time when our soule doth faint within vs and is leauing her habitation together with our Prophet let vs thinke vpon our God Now let vs come to the next circumstance and that is how he did speed And my prayer came vnto thee into thy holy Temple 13 Ionas in great misery and expectation of his end hath his mind vpon his maister with faith he remembred him and he remembred him to pray to him Now his prayer was not vnfruitfull as that which is made to idols or vnto hard hearted men but by the fauour of the Iudge it hath audience to the full It came to God in his Temple which is not to be intended as taken of the heauen the chiefe seate of his maiesty and residence of his power although in generall all the prayers of his elect and chosen do ascend and go vp thither but in more speciall manner it is meant of the Temple which Salomon did erect where together with the Arke of the couenant and the Cherubims and the mercy-seate the presence of Gods grace was in most peculiar sort And this house was to the Iewes a visible signe and Sacrament thereof so that according to the request which Salomon made to God they repaired thither when any thing did oppresse them as appeareth by Hezechias who layd open the letter of Senacherib in the Temple before the Lord. Yea when soeuer the Israelites were in a strange land in bondage or captiuity and called vpon the Lord earnestly they did turne themselues to that coast which way this house did stand as I then made plaine vnto you by the example of Daniel when I handled the fourth verse of this present Chapter Then to say no more of that point his prayer was directed to him who sate in this Temple 14 But obserue withall with what reuerence he speaketh here of Gods house the Temple of thy holinesse for so it is in the Hebrew or into thy holy Temple as we commonly do translate it If we referre the appellation of holinesse to the Lord who is so holy as he whose sacred goodnesse and sanctitie doth exceede the thought of all creatures In Leuiticus he speaketh thus be you holy for I the Lord your God am holy So in Exodus it was written in that plate which was in Aarons forehead Holinesse to the Lord. If we take it of the Temple this also was a holy place consecrated vnto piety and dedicated to religion whose inner part by an excellencie was called Sanctum Sanctorum the holy of holies as implying that the rest was also of good qualitie From hence all profaned persons and polluted things were precisely bid to be kept The violating of this house did much offend the Lord as may be seene many times in the Prophets and Iosephus is of opinion that nothing sooner brought destruction to Ierusalem then the execrable deedes committed in the Temple The place was made for all kind of goodnesse and deuotion to the Lord but it was so farre abused as any thing which is most filthie These are warnings to vs that since in our age Churches are as much to the Christians as that Temple was to the Israelites or at least they are sequestred houses to serue God truely in that we vse them with all reuerence for his sake to whom they belong that as we repute them to be consecrated matters so in truth we do vse them as Gods most holie Temple Which whether men do or no let the chopping and the changing in symoniacall sort the buying and the selling of these Churches as of most profane things witnesse vnto the world If we should be silent yet let the preassing in of the vilest right Ieroboams Priests proclaime the truth herein Let the carelesnesse of those Pastours whom God hath blessed with skill make open declaration who do mind that field or barne whence corne or wooll commeth to them oftener in one moneth then the pulpit in a yeare They can enquire for a Curate where one may be had best cheape not respecting whether he be able to teach or what payments be to the Prince or impositions to the state but how the people shall be instructed they do not regard at all And on the other side let the generall behauiour of men throughout the land speake whether those that be of the congregation do vse these houses as sanctified things or no. Looke into their cold coming on the weeke daies in such places where Lectures are continued their talking and gazing about when their soule should be instructed their reuoluing of their worldly businesse their obseruing rather of eloquence in the minister or preacher or in some what may be carped at then how their owne life may be bettered or their conscience informed their perfunctorie praying and formall inuocation of him who requireth the heart These matters shew that it is made vnholy by vs which in it selfe is ordained to be holy Of likelyhood the temple at
Saint Austen thought another matter fit to be recorded of that Cato and that was this that when one asked counsell of him in sober earnest what harme he supposed was aboded him because rats had eate his hose he aunswered that partie with a iest that it was no very straunge thing to see that but it had bene much more maruellous if his hose had eat vp the rats In Tullies disputation concerning such arguments when one to enforce the veritie of Diuination had said that a victorie which fell to the Thebanes was foreshewed by some extraordinarie crowing of Cockes Tully could aunswere that with a smooth flowte but very significant that it was no miracle that Cockes should crow but if fishes had done it that had bene straunge indeed Those Ethniks could see that these things were falshood and exceeding lying vanities worthy to be but laughed at yet how did some of their greatest men attend and wait vpon them I may call these foolish Arts for I thinke that they come not so farre as curious crafts extend which are named in the Acts of the Apostles But to speake mine opinion I imagine that figure-casting for such things as are lost or to iudge of Natiuities is fully within that kind and is a lying vanity as that which is most lying Yet although by the Prophets it be sharpely rebuked although condemned by Philosophers although ill spoken of by Historians although by good lawes forbidden in well gouerned common wealths although no Principle therein haue approoued veritie neither may there be any good argument or conclusion made for it yet how do some waite vpon it and in no sort will go from it Of whom I may also say as Cato said of the Aruspices that I maruell when they meete one another how they can forbeare to laugh to see how they get monie From the number of these I may not seclude superstitious obseruations of ominous or vnfortunate things vpon which some men do so dote that they beleeue such vanities as a man should beleeue the Gospell All fearefull iudgements sent from God are to be regarded by vs but friuolous superstitions and traditions from old tales are rather to be contemned He that obserueth the wind shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reape Take heed of such lying vanities 22 Fourthly ordinarie transgressions may very well be taxed hence and adulterie among other wherein although Satan the more to inflame it do buzze a tale into want on flesh that great men haue sinned so that God will not call such natural faults as those be to reckening that there is time inough to repent in old age and it is best in the meane while to satisfie concupiscence yet when these things come to be weighed in the ballance of Gods iustice they prooue both light and lying For the wrath of the Lord is oftentimes kindled against such wilfull crimes and he hath threatned that whore mongers shall be shut out from the new Hierusalem They then do forsake their owne mercie who pollute themselues in such sort and withall are a cause for other to be filthie Yet how some wait vpon this it is lamentable to thinke seeking to hurt themselues by euery kind of wantonnesse Good Iob in his confession held this for a grosse sinne and disclaimed it from himselfe If my heart haue bene deceiued saith he by a woman or if I haue layed waite at the dore of my neighbour obserue that adulterers do wayt vpō their sinne let my wife grind vnto another man and let other men bow downe vpon her that is let my wife also be false to me for this is a wickednesse and iniquitie to be condemned But many do not feare this and so plucke Gods iudgement on them 23 Fiftly they who in desire to enrich themselues or theirs do set their heart vpon mony and care not how they gaine it by robberie or oppression by briberie or extortion so that it come in vnto them do wayt vpon lying vanitie Which may easily be gathered from the very words of Dauid whom I cited before trust not in oppression nor in robberie be not vaine or giue not your selues vnto vanitie if riches encrease set not your heart vpon them If any then this is a vaine conceit to thinke that a mans purse is the best friend which he hath that riches can preserue in the day of greatest trouble that God accepteth mony that ill gotten goods can long prosper Oftentimes mony is kept to the hurt and death of the owner and children are so farre off from being blessed with goods which are ill gotten that fretting and consuming and a curse is ioyned with them Then what folly is it to force and straine our consciences and so to aduenture on Gods displeasure and the losse of his best mercie for the gaining of that which is but a fugitiue seruant and cannot helpe at neede And yet it is straunge to see how the world lyeth open to vnlawfull and filthie gaine what wringing there is from all sortes what griping of the poore what thirsting after gifts and hunting after rewards Are there not which wayt vpon this and make a studie of it as a man would studie heauen deuising and contriuing by what fine sleight and skill this money may be soked out and this cheate may be gotten and that gift may be had and then like to the hypocrite whereof Zacharie speaketh in his time they can crye blessed be God for I am rich and liue well seeming to giue the Lord thankes for that which they haue spoyled and robbed from their brethren whom as there the Prophet speaketh they slay and sell for money It is great thankes which we returne to God for the wit and reason which he hath bestowed vpon vs to employ it in that sort as to offend his diuine Maiestie to abuse those with whom we liue to helpe our selues so farrefoorth as is in our owne power to infamie in this life with all such as be vertuous to destruction in another Better it is to haue cleane hands here with a little then much profite by false vanitie 24 The same application may be made concerning ambition and other sinnes in all which we may take this for a warning that our sight is so dimme and our vnderstanding so darke and such are the false shewes of many things in this life that we may quickly pursue a lye in steede of truth and vanitie for sound veritie and so purchase Gods wrath vnlesse with a single eye we looke on things aright and euer take the iudgement of Scripture for our triall and withall pray that our heart and intellectuall powers may be lightned in that behalfe that so hauing will and strength by the mercie of the Lord we may walke as we ought and as it beseemeth our calling And here I end Holy Father we beseech thee to direct our steps in thy paths that renouncing all
kindly esteeming it aboue all other presents and returned him loue accordingly The gracious disposition of our eternall father taketh in farre better part then any man can take it the laying downe of our soules and prostrating of our selues to the fulfilling of his will He accounteth that the best sacrifice because it is spirituall Externall things do well but inward gifts do better I haue noted this vnto you from out of the word of sacrificing where the Prophet doth not stay but particularizeth specially what it is that he will offer I will sacrifice vnto thee with the voyce of thankesgiuing 8 This voyce doth imply an open and manifest declaration of the mercies of the Lord that he meant not to conceale his wilfull disobedience nor his punishment for the same but euery man should know how he had bene in the sea fast closed vp in the whale in pangs of death and extremity and yet the Lord had brought his soule out of the pit He thought it not inough to ruminate in his owne mind and chew vpon this mercy but others shall be aduertised of it that so by his example they may learne to know their Creator they may learne to dread their maker This was a custome of Dauid who vppon great things obtained doth vse to make solemne professiō that he will praise his God in the great congregation It is but a small thing to thinke it but he will speake of Gods glory And thus euery one should do yeelding vnto the world a testimony of his faith and honour vnto him whom he chiefly doth honor that such as yet are not called by that meanes may be prouoked to harken to true religion pricked forward by that comfort which they see in Gods children The speech of Miltiades which was in the mouth of euery man and his victorious acts set Themistocles on fire to attempt to do the like The fame that was of Alexander gaue heart to Iulius Caesar to become the more noble warriour And shall not our speaking of God the reporting of his acts his iustice in correcting his mercy in defending his prouidence in disposing his willingnesse in redeeming his readinesse in forgiuing vttered by Christian mē incite others to be Christiās God did know that to be a great meanes of bringing mē vnto him whē he gaue charge that the Israelites should recount vnto their children his glorious facts and the workes which he had shewed in Egypt It is a fault in our dayes that parents are not carefull to instill into their children the remembrance of such things as they haue read or knowne to come obseruably from the Almighty It is a fault in others that if they come in place where religion is not respected as among Papists or Atheists they thinke best to conceale the profession of true piety lest they should be scorned or derided or pointed at with the finger and so by a pollicy stopping the course of their zeale in time they quench their zeale and make themselues as key-cold as those with whom they do liue They should discharge a good conscience by acknowledging of their hope peraduenture they might by the blessing of the Lord draw on other which were backward before for the hart of him who heareth is not in the power of himselfe but God doth rule guide it the meanes whereby he worketh is the hearing of good things Let the voyce then go to serue the Lord and let him blesse and prosper it as seemeth good to himselfe But thou hast discharged thy duty he hath giuen thee a tongue to praise him and with it thou doest honour him 9 The voyce of Ionas goeth and it is in giuing thankes vnto which the name of sacrifice is oft giuen in the Psalmes as namely in the fiftieth Offer to God praise or thankesgiuing where the word offer doth plainly import a sacrifice And in the hundred and seuenth Psalme Let them offer sacrifices of praise and declare his workes with reioycing This gratefulnesse is maruellously acceptable to the Lord when he bestoweth not his benefits as vpon the oxe or asse who haue them and forget them but on those which are mindfull who is the authour of them And that is the sole reward and onely retribution which we can render to him and if he haue not that then he reapeth nothing for all his blessings but if he may haue that many good things of necessity will be ioyned therewithall Therefore he straightly requireth it of all that belong vnto him In the eighth Chapter of Deuteronomy he speaketh thus to the Israelites When being come into the land of Canaan thou hast eaten and filled thy selfe thou shalt blesse the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath giuen vnto thee In the thirtieth of Ieremy he sayth in this manner Thus sayth the Lord Behold I vvill bring againe the captiuity of Iacobs tents and haue compassion on his dwelling places and the city shall be builded vpon her owne heape and the pallace shall remaine after the maner thereof But immediatly he addeth And out of them shall proceede thankesgiuing and the voyce of them that are ioyous The precepts are diuerse which be in the New Testament to this purpose Let there be in you no filthinesse neither foolish talking nor iesting but rather giuing of thankes And againe What soeuer you shall do in vvord or deed do all in the name of the Lord Iesus giuing thanks to God euen the father by him The Patriarkes and the Prophets and the faithfull of all times had euer this in their memory How did Moses and the people with timbrels and with daunces sing and reioyce to God when Pharao and his chariots were drowned in the red sea How did Barack and Deborah sing vpon the fall of Sisara There is no end of examples what hath bene done in this case but the rule may generally be giuen so many as haue bene faithfull so many haue bene thankfull 10 It causeth a continuance of the loue of God vnto men and an adding of further graces when he seeth them to be mindfull of that which is bestowed But on the other side vnthankfulnesse is the meane to stay his hand from bounty for as Bernard hath well obserued he is vnworthy of things to be receiued vvho shall be vnthankefull for such as he hath receiued Here euery one of vs may examine his owne heart whether he do rightly discharge his duty We do all long for perpetuating and augmenting the fauours of God vpon vs but see whether we requite those which are already come vnto vs. As Ionas was in daunger to be drowned by the sea and deuoured quite by the whale so was mankind in generall by reason of Adams transgression euen as in the pit of hell and very iawes of Satan apparant heires of damnation fewell for eternall fire forlorne men and past hope Yet by the death of our Sauiour we
pleasure to be so detained there but when he began to stirre it felt it selfe ouercharged and could last out no longer And in my iudgement the Metaphore which is vsed here in the type doth expresse this in Christ Iesus for the Originall hath it Vajake eth-Ionah which Vajake comming of Ko with Aleph in the end signifying Vomere is as much as if it were said the fish did vomite vp Ionas the qualitie of which word Vomite doth imply that which I haue spoken For when the stomake of any liuing thing hath receiued that which either for the weaknesse of it selfe or by reason of the strength of the meat it hath no power to digest it doth cast it vp and vomite The hardnesse for digestion of that which is the ingredient or the weaknesse of the part receiuing more then it ought doth cause that euacuation The case was so with death and the graue when they receiued Christ. 8 It was no common meat which it had taken into it but that which it was impossible should be concocted by it not an ordinarie man but one who had no fellowes His body was but a bait to entise the graue to swallow him but vnderneath was the hooke of eternitie and that Godhead which caught both graue and death and made them glad to put vp such a one out of their bowels Faine they were to be rid of him because he did ouerbeare them The Godhead raised him vp loosed the sorrowes of death because it was impossible that he should be holden by them When Samson was disposed he brake the cordes and ropes wherewith he was tyed they fittered and dissolued euen as the flaxe which is burnt with the fire he rent off the gates of Azzah and postes and barres and all and putting them on his shoulders he caried them whither he pleased So when Christ was disposed be shooke off the graue-clothes from him and bore vp all before him the rocke which was about him and the stone which was vpon him resigned their strength vnto him and he commeth foorth victorious as a Champion who had slept or a Giaunt refreshed with wine As a tamed Lyon he had suffered death and Satan and the infernall spirits for a time to play with him and disgrace him and haue some hand vpon him but when it seemed good vnto him he rowzed vp his bodie and roaring in his might this he renteth and that he teareth he knappeth their chaines in sunder and maketh them glad to fly happie he who could get farthest The whale was not so glad to part here with our Ionas as the earth was with our Iesus Here the drowned man is restored there the dead man is reuiued being the first fruite of the resurrection 9 As he dyed so we shall dy and as he rose againe so we also need not doubt but we shall rise againe Onely he did it by his owne power but we not by our owne force but by the power of him The head is gone before the members shall follow after Many of them that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall awake some to euerlasting life and some to shame and perpetuall contempt Gods children shall be translated into a better state recouering the same puritie which was giuen to Adam in Paradise where he was after the image of God in innocencie and integritie But first by death they must be beate in sunder and knocked in peeces that so they may be remoulded and new cast by the workeman not onely to their old figure but to a better forme in the day of the resurrection But as their captaine was so must they first by death be dissolued and separated that their bodies may be refined and made a great deale better When we plucke downe a house this is Saint Chrysostomes comparison meaning to build it new or repaire the ruines of it we withdraw such from the house as inhabited it before lest they should be soyled with the dust or offended with the noise and bid them for a time to rest in some other place but when we haue new trimmed and dressed it wee bring them backe againe to a better habitation So God when he ouer-turneth the rotten roome of our flesh calleth out the soule for a little and lodgeth it with himselfe in some corner of his kingdome but repaireth the brackes of our bodie against the resurrection and then hauing made it decent yea glorions and incorruptible hee doth put the soule backe againe into her acquainted mansion He hath determined this concerning vs that dust shall recouer breath and rottennesse shall haue life against all Atheists and Epicures there shall be a resurrection But I pursue this no farther because in the end of the first Chapter I handled it at large 10 If in another sence we will turne the present example to the benefite of our selues this giueth great consolation to the deiected conscience which groneth vnder the waight of her sinnes Such things as are written are written for our learning This wretched suffering man had displeased the Lord most grieuously For the haynousnesse of his fault wrath was gone out against him The Lord would not be satisfied but with drowning and deuouring in the belly of such a monster where the feare of death and almost the paines of hell were vpon him The passions of his heart had bene desperate and distrustfull if faith had not come to the rescue Yet we see that he did not perish but when his woe was passed ouer him he came to good againe God did but giue signification as small a thing as might be as if a man should nodde or winke vpon another and his sorrowes are shaked off from him he is set aliue on the land If griefe do assault our minds that we thinke our hearts will breake if temptation haue so rent vs that we suppose wee are all to shiuers if pangs of desperation with remembraunce of sinnes past haue beate faith so out of countenance that wee see no way but our soules must be a pray to Sathan yet there is hope with God and mercie with the Highest He bringeth men to the doore of death but he doth not turne them in Or he putteth them into the pit that they are halfe way downe to the bottome but his hand goeth along with them and suddenly in a trice he draweth them backe againe If we be within the iawes of Sathan he putteth a gagge in his mouth that it shall not close vpon vs. It is neuer too late for him to helpe while life and soule hang together He who bid the dust become Adam and Adam was made of dust he who spake to the graue and bad Lazarus come foorth from it and Lazarus came out of the graue he who commaunded the fish to loose Ionas and Ionas was loosed in a moment This Lord if he speake to hell or diuell or all the feends of darknesse they shall not dare once to
may afterward fight againe as Demosthenes once could say And as Eusebius sheweth many Christians which renounced Christ for the feare of cruell torment returned to him againe and made a good confession Oftentimes saith Cypâ—ian both adulterers and murtherers and drunkards and those vvho are guiltie of all vvickednesse finding occasion of a fight and being conuerted haue deserued to come to a palme of martyrdome How much more then may a weake brother The example of Bishop Cranmer is very well knowne vnto vs who was a great pillar of Gods Church a great light of the Gospell but yet first denied but afterward repented and purged it with teares But as the scholers do oftentimes say more then their maisters so the Cathari and Nouatians who were the Disciples of Nouatus did giue a more bloudy sentence then euer their teacher did For they held that not onely to deny Christ was so haynous but whosoeuer after Baptisme had done any mortall sinne such as we find in the Scripture that death is threatned to was cut off from the Church and hee might haue no portion in the Eucharist or Communion howsoeuer afterward he did behaue himselfe He must stand a man sequestred and excommunicate to the death 9 A hard saying to all men for who is he that sinneth not in that sort since euerie â—â—nne is deadly vnlesse the Lord do pardon it Circumcision was to the Israelites as Baptisme is to the Christians an admission into the flocke and a testification to the conscience of euery beleeuer that he was in Gods fauour but Dauid circumcised was an adulterer and a murtherer yet vpon his true repentance both the Lord and the congregation receiued him to mercy The righteous man sayth Saloman falleth seuen times and riseth againe Whereof although Hierome doth aske if he be iust then hovv falleth he if he fall hovv is he righteous yet he aunswereth himselfe that he looseth not the name of a righteous man because he riseth by repentance And this is the hope of the best for who otherwise should not perish When Acesius a Bishop of the Nouatians at the Nicene Councell did shew Constantine that holy and blessed Emperour the strictnesse of their opinions and how precisely a man must liue without sinne after Baptisme if he would attaine saluation the Emperour maketh him aunswer If this be so Acesius then get thy selfe a ladder and clime alone into heauen giuing his censure of it so that scant any man should be saued if that ground were maintained No maruell if for the comfort of wounded consciences at the first Saint Cyprian and Cornelius Bishop of Rome and Dionysius of Alexandria so hotely did impugne this heresie and after them Chrysostome who so farre did dislike this hard lacing of Nouatus that he spake thus against it If thou haue fallen a thousand times and dost repent thee of it enter into the Church that is if thy repentance bee true I will not seclude thee from the fellowship of Gods children We do teach the selfe same doctrine not to stirre men vp to sinne for that were to fall of presumption vnto which many times God denieth the benefite of repentance but that we may seeke out that which is lost and bind vp that which is broken and raise vp that which is fallen and saue some out of the fire Gods Church is made of sinners Christ Iesus did dye for sinners Our verie Creede doth teach vs that the Communion of Saints and the forgiuenesse of sinnes must be ioyned and go together He who will haue part in the one must haue his fellowship in the other He cannot come to the first but he must tast of the latter We cry to the man lamenting his iniquities as Ambrose writing vpon Luke crieth Let no man distrust let no man being priuie to his old faults despaire of a reward from God God knoweth how to chaunge his sentence if thou know how to change thy fault We testifie with Saint Bernard It seemeth vnto God that he doth more slowly giue pardon to the sinner then it doth vnto the other that he doth receiue it For the mercifull God doth so hasten to acquite the guiltie man from the torment of his conscience as if the suffering of the wretch did more grieue the pitifull God then his owne suffering did the man which is in miserie For he who truly repenteth and earnestly sorroweth without doubt without delay shall receiue a pardon Let the weake then raise vp his heart and strengthen his feeble knees Sinners which call for grace do belong to the adoption Noe swarued and yet he was a Patriarke Lot fell yet he is said by Saint Peter to haue had a righteous soule Peter himselfe had a guiltie conscience and yet was a great Apostle Ionas became a mightie trespasser and yet still remained the Lords Prophet It was Gods gracious bountie whose fauour originally euer commeth for nothing but being once setled it is not lost for a little And thus haue you his loue both to Niniue and to Ionas 10 There is yet another matter which in this former verse is worthie of consideration that the word of the Lord is said here to come to Ionas The Creatour of all things might haue vsed many other wayes to reclaime that offending citie In old time he did call and warne men by visions and by dreames as it is in Iob or his benefits might haue allured or if those had but choked and pampered them vp with fatnesse his rods might haue beat them to it famine might breede remorse or the sword of the enemie or some deuouring pestilence Or if he would saue all their liues such iudgements might haue frighted them as were shewed at Hierusalem at the last destruction of it For as we find in Iosephus a Comete like to a sword did long hang ouer the citie and troupes of armed men were seene to fight in the aire What terrour would this haue wrought what heart would not this haue rented and driuen it into mourning and calling to God for pardon But the great Lord who in his wisedome hath ordained another way as the ordinarie course to winne men to himselfe that is by his most precious word and his ministerie doth here commend this his ordinance for the instrument of their good He hath made this word more sharpe then is any two edged sword This is it which doth pierce the marrow and breake the bones in sunder which entreth into the diuision of the soule and of the spirit of the heart and of the reines which wresteth sighs from the mind and wringeth teares from the eyes and maketh a whole man as it were to melt and dissolue into water This is it to which especially he hath promised to giue a blessing that it shall not returne in vaine but as the rayne commeth downe and the snow from heauen and returneth not thither but
from his maister All the Prophets were so tyed this onely commeth from them Thus or thus saith the Lord. Yea Balaam that false Prophet had catched this by the end If Balac vvould giue me his house full of siluer and gold I cannot go beyond the vvord of the Lord my God to do lesse or more Saint Paule had learned this lesson as the first in all his booke He sheweth it in nothing more plainly then in the case of the Sacrament I receiued from the Lord that vvhich I also haue deliuered vnto you So in the first to the Galathians If an Angell from heauen preach vnto you otherwise then that vvhich vve haue preached vnto you he had called himselfe before an Apostle from Iesus Christ let him be accursed It is a rule inuariable that in cases of saluation we looke to God the oracle of wisedome and truth not to our owne inuentions or to confirme our doctrine from this or that of our owne brayne but if we haue our warrant from the old or the new Testament then we may safely speake it Origene proposeth Saint Paule for an example in this case Paule saith he as his custome is vvill affirme that vvhich he teacheth out of the holie Scriptures and he doth giue an example to the Doctours of the Church that they should produce those things vvhich they speake to the people not grounded vpon their owne opinions but strengthened with the testimonies of God For if he so great and such an Apostle did not thinke that the authoritie of his words might suffice vnlesse he did know that those things were written in the law and the Prophets which he said how much more should we little ones obserue this that when we teach we vtter not our owne but the meanings of the holy Ghost 19 If the teachers and preachers of the Antichristian faith had kept this for a lawe there had neuer so absurd and filthie points of doctrine bene taught to their people visions and reuelations and messages from the dead dreames customes and such follies as are besides the word Purgatorie and limbus Patrum pilgrimages vnto Reliques and Transubstantiation of the bread into Christs bodie being contrarie to the Scriptures and many other things of this qualitie the later euer adding to the inuention of the former such a Canon or such a ceremonie These men are bold beyond the authoritie which was committed to them for theirs was but as this of Ionas thou must preach to them that preaching which I shall shew vnto thee Their charge was but as Timothies was and Paules words to Timothie were O Timothie keepe thy charge Keepe and hold fast that which by the Scriptures is committed to thee from the Lord and from me by his direction And there is not the greatest Minister not the most learned or acute but must obserue this rule Not Iames not Iohn not Peter not all the troupe of the Apostles may once varie from this He who shall bring other doctrine let him be accursed by vs. He who speaketh of himselfe let him be refused by vs. Howsoeuer godly or holy he do pretend himselfe yet if he decline that word which should be his direction let him be declined by vs. Whosoeuer shall say otherwise then that which is appointed saith Ignatius he meaneth otherwise then God hath appointed although he be a man of credit although he fast and keepe virginitie although he do miracles although he prophecie let him be thought by thee to be a wolfe who vnder a sheepes skinne doth intend the marring of the sheepe Thus shold the hearers be carefull that they receiue no doctrine but that which is approoued and the Preachers be aduised that they neuer teach any thing but what God hath commaunded Our Barhoisticall separations and absentments from the Sacraments had not crept so farre in the land if this had bene well practised 20 I need not giue farther exhortation in this place to retaine this as a ground in as much as all of vs do lay it downe as a principle that the written word of God is the onely guide to saluation and that fancies and traditions are to be exiled from vs. I therefore will here end desiring the Almightie that such doctrine as is oftentimes taught vnto vs from this place may bring foorth such plenteous fruit that in this congregation the name of God may be honoured and glorified in great measure and our soules may be so strengthened that they may soundly perseuere to euerlasting life To the which God the Father bring vs for his owne Sonne Christs sake to both whom and the holy Spirit be glorie euermore THE XVII LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 2. Carnall reasons why Ionas might yet haue refused to go 3. But affliction hath schooled him 4. and that not onely while it was on him 5. Affliction worketh otherwise in the good 6. and in the bad 7. A reproofe of the present time 9. Obedience requireth euen circumstances to be regarded 10. God must be obeyed without debating 11. The greatnesse of Niniue 12. Ionas feareth not that he is alone 14. A great auditorie giueth more courage to a wise Preacher 15. Ionas speaketh not fearefully 16. The difference of opinions for the daies of repentance allowed to Niniue 17. Iudgement concerning Luther in the matter of the Sacrament 18. The Hebrew toung is not to be neglected by a Diuine Ionah 3.3.4 So Ionah arose and went vnto Niniue according to the word of the Lord Now Niniue was a great and excellent citie of three dayes iourney And Ionah began to enter into the citie a dayes iourney and he cried and sayd Yet fortie dayes and Niniue shall be ouerthrowne THe Prophet Ionas who should haue gone in the businesse of his maister but vpon some supposals had no mind vnto it and therefore starting aside like a broken bow was well beaten for his labour hath now a second time his commission drawne and his instructions giuen him to go as an Ambassadour from the Almightie king of heauen to a great Prince vpon earth The message which he bringeth is of more fearefull qualitie then if all the Princes adioyning had sent him their defiance by their Heralds that they would immediatly inuade him with fire and sword and irreconcilable hatred For he might haue made some shift against all their powers and standing vpon his gard in the defensiue part he might haue repelled them with such multitude of people as were vnder his gouernement and a citie so fortified as his was at that time Or if he and his people must needes end their dayes by the outrage of their enemie who would be much encouraged by prosperitie and desired successe yet that might be his comfort which is the last comfort in death to men in his case that hee went not awaye vnreuenged but hee had ridde some of those who came to ridde him and slayne some of the murtherers before that his last
the same fountaine of sorrow teares that with many grones of heart and much weeping of the eyes and many hands lift vp the long suffering God might be mooued to compassion And if this did not suffice then his farther desire was that the emptinesse of the reasonable creatures and hunger of the vnreasonable ones euen the oxen and sheepe and cattell which should breake foorth into bellowing bleating and out-crying might extort and wring foorth commiseration For I may well vse that speech in the same sence that the kingdome of heauen is said to suffer violence And therefore taking counsell of his most honorable Nobles and Princes and Senatours he putteth foorth an Edict and most solemne Proclamation through the streetes of the citie that euery mothers child be it male or be it female young or old or bond or free should enter into abstinence and put on sackcloth and pray but especially with a hatred should turne away from sinne And to make the stronger out-cry in the eares of the Almightie reuenger the brute beastes should be vrged by the pinching of their bellies to make a rufull noyse that these conioyned complaints might preuaile and work out mercie A good consideration of a heathen man which as a glasse may be set before vs who be Christians by profession and may also teach vs something which is very well worth the learning Which that we may vnderstand with better facilitie may it please you to consider with me first the induction to the Proclamation which is here proposed by the Spirit of God that is by a double circumstance one that he proclaimed through Niniue the other that he did it by consent of his Nobles And secondly the Edict or Proclamation it selfe These I am now to lay open to you as the Lord shall inable me He proclaymed 3 It is for no small matters that Princes and mightie rulers are set ouer people and countries and cities not alone to braue it in pompous apparell or by externall helpes to make shew of maiestie for the most coward the veriest foole yea an image may in great sort performe this But there is required of them a superuising care and diligent respect that their people should do well By doing well I meane haue welfare and prosperitiâ— and be free from plagues and punishments So Moyses being in the wildernesse did exceedingly desire that the Lords blessing might abound vpon his people and so also did Dauid when in the time of the deuouring pestilence he said vnto his maker I haue sinned yeâ— I haue done wickedly but these sheepe what haue â—hey done But principally I vnderstand by doing well that they should do their dutie walke in feare of their maker serue him with their heart be informed in true religion pursue that which is vertuous flye from idolatrie and sinne See how great the care of Iosuah was that the children of Israel euen after his death should sticke fast to the Lord and not do as the Gentiles but keepe their faith entirely So Dauid by his owne example stirreth vp his subiects to offer part of their riches to the building of the Temple yea calleth on them by plaine words and when he seeth it willingly done he taketh much comfort in it And which is most of all he prayeth the God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel still to keepe that deuotion in the minds of his people and to prepare their hearts vnto him In another place the deuout mind of Iehosaphat is liuely expressed who sent abrode his Princes and his Leuites ioyned with them that first they might teach the men of Iuda the law of Moyses and the Scripture that so they might know the way to walke vprightly and holily and then afterward his Iudges to see whether they liued according to their knowledge And there was neuer King who was commended in the Scripture or by iust and true desert in Christian common-wealth but he did take such a course They who failed in this may be thought to faile in all for this is the very scope wherefore Kings are ordained 4 It is no question in holy Writ but that the Lord requireth â—hat euery man should embrace and frame himselfe to his commaundement but he hath solemnely appointed the Monarkes of the earth to see this to be done He hath committed the charge of their inferiours to them and doth expect from theÌ„ such executions and accomplishments as may bring the neckes of their subiects vnder the yoke of Christ. Therfore he hath armed them with the highest authoritie therefore he hath giuen them the helpe of wise aduisers therefore oftentimes he enricheth theÌ„ with graces extraordinarie partly being carefully infused by education and partly immediatly inspired by his goodnessed that so they may be able to foresee with wisedome what the common sort do not thinke of and to discerne with iudgement and to preuent with diligence and with violence to restraine from enormities and obliquities And to remember them thereof he giueth them titles accordingly as rulers that they may rule them with a faithfull and true heart which cannot be done but by teaching them obedience to the highest ruler So fathers of the people that as parents are bound to traine vp their children in the feare of the Lord and by naturall affection to worke them all happinesse that may be and intend them all good so these should do to their subiects who are placed vnder their gouernment In like sort they are called shepheards â—o watch ouer them to keepe them from the wolues and foxes of heresie of idolatrie and schisme of Satanicall resolutions and to better their pasture as conueniencie may yeeld The heathen Poet did vse this name to Agamemnon his King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Agamemnon the shepheard of the people But they are put in mind of their duâ—ie by nothing more significantly then by calling them heads whereby he letteth them know not so much that they are placed vppermost in the bodie but how they are placed why they are placed that is with eares to heare what is good for all the bodie with smelling and tasting to choose what is wholesome with the toung to speake what will helpe or what will hurt but especially with the eyes to see a great way off which way the feete should walke the stomacke should be releeued the bodie should be cherished and euer to thinke that the rest of the parts are so vnited to it that all make but one in the coniunction of the whole God doth require this of the heads of lands and nations that in the middest of daunger they should not be winking with drowsie eyes but see what is comming and withdrawing themselues withdraw their people also And there is no one thing which he will so seuerely exact of them in the day of iudgement as an accompt for this For albeit there must be a reckening for the actions of themselues
I would not haue any man distrustfully to doubt yet flie from sinne and do morall vertues and that at least shall ease some part of the extremity of those torments which thou shalt haue in hell fire Although thou gaine no ioy by it yet thou shalt escape much euill Thy paine shall be the lesse not because thou hast done well but because thou hast lesse declined from vertue as Austen speaketh making difference betweene Catiline and Fabricius Fabricius shall be lesse punished then Catiline not because he was good but because the other was more bad and Fabricius was lesse vvicked then Catiline was not in that he had true vertues but because he did not as farre as might be stray from true vertues But be it the one or the other take all thy sinnes vpon thy selfe and seeke not to excuse the nocent by accusing the innocent who is free from the smallest blemish In a lesser matter then eternall life or death is it was a fault in our Prophet that he would assume the better and God must haue the worse he will be cleare and the Lord shall be culpable And let this be sayd of his excuse The mercy of God 10 The third note is the reason whereon he groundeth his defence that is the Lords procliuity and propensenesse vnto mercy And here howsoeuer the former matters may trouble vs by a remēbrāce that they may be our own case yet this maketh amends for al that we haue to do with a Lord whose goodnesse is so great whose graciousnesse so plētiful that we need words to vtter it Ionas therein walking right howsoeuer else he tread ill goeth as farre as may be A gracious God and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindnesse and repentest thee of the euill such a one is ready euery way to take pity but commeth to vengeance and fury with heauy and leaden feete Our man doth so well at this that we need not doubt but he had a good schoolemaister to direct him and that is the Lord himselfe who appearing vnto Moses doth cry thus of his maiesty The Lord the Lord strong and mercifull gracious and slow to anger aboundant in goodnesse and truth reseruing mercy for thousands forgiuing iniquity transgression and sinne in which place of Exodus although afterward there follow a little of his iustice which he may not forget yet we see the maine streame runneth concerning mildnesse and kindnesse and compassion That is it wherein the Lord may be sayd to delight ioying to be a Sauiour a deliuerer a preseruer a redeemer a pardoner rather thē to be a Iudge He hath one skale of iustice but the other doth prooue the heauier mercy doth ouerway He who is euer iust is mercifull more then euer if possibly that may be And it seemeth that euery day as his Gospell was growing on so his pity came also forward He who for one transgression thrust the Angels out of heauen and for his first slipping awry turned Adam out of Paradise his fury breaking foorth against both them now in the dayes of grace beareth with vs yeares and yeares from our cradle to our graue after a thousand and a thousand fals of weaknesse and wilfulnesse by word by thought by deed Yea he came to this soone not long after the creation giuing in the dayes of Noe a hundred and twenty yeares of repentance before the floud Our Niniue from the mouth of this present Prophet had forty dayes before it should be destroyed But Hierusalem being growne to the height of all iniquity so that both the seruants and Sonne of God were slaine by them the Sabaoth polluted the Sanctuary profaned yea a horrible sinke of filth being now among them yet was spared fortie yeares before that God sent vp Vespasian and Titus See whether this be not tollerancie which we with amazednesse may admire Indeede when nothing would serue but the member being quite vncurable must needs be cut off by him when their sinne extorted and wrung downe vēgeance he payd them for all together that they who would none of his loue might haue full heapes of his hatred His arme being lift vp the higher did fall so much the heauier the water-course stopped the longer did breake out the more fiercely according to the custome of God who as Bernard sometimes spake By how much the longer he expecteth that we should amend so much the more strictly he will iudge vs if we neglect The Iewes felt this to the full but how slow was he to his anger 11 Christ Iesus who is the image and engrauen forme of his father was not behind hand in this propertie while he liued here vpon earth He taught it by the figge-tree which bearing no fruite was not by and by cut downe but first for one or two yeares it should be dunged and trimmed to see what good would come of it He sustained many ignorances vntowardnesses in the Apostles and yet did not reiect them yea his patience was so great that it shewed it selfe to Iudas No maruell sayth Saint Cyprian that he shewed himselfe patient toward his obedient disciples who could with long suffering endure very Iudas to the last could take his meate in company of his enemie knew a foe to be in his house and did not openly descry him yea refused not the kisse of a traytour He might rightly be called a lambe yea that innocent Lambe of God by an excellency aboue all other who could see such a one and suffer him so often and so neare him and scant say a word against him This did no good on Iudas but as the same Cyprian obserueth the like tollerance was effectuall to saluation in other men If those who did shed the bloud of Christ had bene taken presently after they had perished euerlastingly but God so graciously disposed for their good that they were pricked in their hearts and so brought home to the sheepfold of enemies being now made friends Which made that father say He who shed the bloud of Christ vvas quickened by the bloud of Christ such and so great vvas Christs patience vvhich if it had not bene such and so great the Church should not haue had Saint Paule for an Apostle Thus the holy and blessed Trinity dealeth with men in this present age in great mercy after yeares and twenty yeares before they come to the graue respecting such as haue bene men audacious and impudent in vngodlinesse such as haue bene superstitious and Popish euen vnto idolatry such as in a conceited fancie were so fastened to Antichrist that to lose their liues for the beast they thought to be to do God good seruice Those persons who had lyen fried in hell as fire-brands to be burnt remedilesse and euerlastingly if they had departed in that mind to the graue the place where is no redemption by compassion from the mightie one whose bowels are made of mercy are
sorowes and afflictions which fall on vs or because by one or other we are thwarted in our designements then in wishing for death we prooue plainely to be offenders for want of submitting our will vnto the Lords will for lacke of waiting with patience and attending the leysure of the Almightie If Elias that powerfull Prophet be ouertaken thus to cry novv it is enough O Lord take away my soule for I am no better then my fathers because Iezabel pursued him to destroy him if she could take him he may not be excused 12 But for our man it is euident that he was in this bracke it was no earnest motion to be with God which did stirre him for now he was angrie with him neither was it because he loathed sinne for he heaped that as fast on him as possibly he could but because in a testie peeuishnesse and vnbeseeming curstnesse he could not see that effected which he so hotely desired that was to see all Niniue brought to vtter desolation And in this fury the man would be nothing else but dead He had neuer bin dead before and therefore did not know what it was to come vnprouided and vnfurnished yea indeed clothed with frowardnesse before so high a Iudge If it then had bene remooued when it was in that fury with what comfort could his soule approch before the tribunall Whereby it appeareth how mercifully the Eternall dealeth with vs who oftentimes in his loue denieth to vs those things for which we wish which if we should euermore enioy we were better be without them Theseus as Tully saith by obtaining the thing which he desired gained this that his only sonne Hippolytus was lost and torne in peeces The same which that fable reporteth of those wishes which Neptune graunted to him that they did hurt and not helpe Theseus is true of Gods part toward vs if he should euermore graunt that which we wish on our selues or other it would ouerturne our bodies and make our soules to perish Do we not many times vnaduisedly wish our selues in our graue as Ionas did in this place when I wis we little thinke it And if then there should come any who would take vs at our word should we not make twentie pauses yea a hundred exceptions before we would be readie It is but Aesopsfable but the morall thereof is true that a poore and desolate old man turning home from the wood with a burthen of stickes vpon him threw them downe and in remembrance of the miserie which he sustained called oftentimes for death to come to him as if he would liue no longer But when Death came to him in earnest and asked what he should do the old man presently chaunged his mind and sayd that his request vnto him was that he would helpe him vp with his wood This most commonly is our case we would find some other businesse to set Death about if he should come to vs when vainly we haue wished for him And it is not much vnlikely that our Prophet in this place would haue played such a pranke when he prayed to God with such vehemency to take away his soule But be that as it will be let this stand good betweene vs that with anger and with chasing at that which the Lord decreed and with wishing death in his rage the Prophet highly offended Which being so largely discoursed now come we in the second place to see how the Lord taketh this which I shall passe as briefly ouer as I haue bene long in the former And the Lord sayd Doest thou vvell to be angry 13 That which Ionas had witnessed in the second verse of this Chapter that the Lord is very mercifull and slow to anger is in this place experimented for when the pot-sheard so grossely had ouerseene it selfe to grudge against the potter the creature against his maker the hote spirite of man would easily haue imagined that he to whom the wrong was done to the end that he might preserue his greatnesse entire would haue let him knowne his owne and receiued all roughnesse from him How would a land-lord here haue ruffled vp his tenaunt but the Prince would haue rung such a lesson to his subiect that he should well haue remembred with whom he had to deale Nay may we not iustly thinke that the mighty Iehoua who is couered with the thunder and clothed with the lightening who speaketh and the earth doth tremble who mooueth and the heauen doth quake who blasted Nadab and Abihu dead in the instant who stroke Vzzah in a moment that he neuer spake againe who made the body of Gehazi and the face of King Vzziah to be couered with a leaprosie who so disgraced Herode that in the ruffe of his maiestie he was eaten vp with wormes would haue shaken vp Ionas so with tauntings and reproches that he should neuer haue forgotten it But the Lord to giue a token of his infinite moderation and vnconceiuable softnesse maketh no answer but this Doest thou vvell to be angry Wherein as he doth shew that Ionas was to blame and therein ouerturneth the excuse of Saint Hierome who most willingly would couer all as if there were no fault and therefore goeth not right since the text is to the contrarie so he beareth with the infirmity of the distracted Prophet and doth rather warne him kindly then intreate him very roughly Doest thou vvell to be angry as if he should haue sayd Thou frettest when thou shouldest not wilt thou be the Iudge Ionas to decide what is most for my glorie thou takest on thee to preiudice my wisedome or my will that either my discretion is not such as it should be or when I know the best yet I will follow the contrary This is not aright Ionas for if any haue occasiō to be angrie it is I who must be ruled now and not rule be directed and not gouerne This mild increpation would haue mooued any man but him who was steeped in anger as Ionas was I do not here any farther pursue Gods patience in his owne person because I haue oftentimes touched it 14 My lesson which I gather here is rather for our selues that when we haue to do with passionate persons that is to say brethren which are weake but not desperately euill and see them ouertaken with affections of anger of sorrow or displeasure we by our mild behauiour seeke to win them from that fault When rage is repelled with rage it increaseth farther fury and so oyle is put to flame and contention to strife A soft answer appeaseth vvrath but grieuous vvords stirre vp anger Although to equals this may fitly be applied and to superiours yet the saying is generall and hath place toward inferiours also The bending yeelding spirit is most likely to preuaile with the most robustious persons but a good man will haue an eye that he yeeld not in things vnlawfull The Apostle dealeth thus with the Corinthians I
out Kings make Samgar with an Oxe-goade destroy sixe hundred Philistines and Samson a thousand of them with the iaw-bone of an Asse What could more sound out his honour then the ouerturning of Hierico with trumpets made of rammes hornes and the victorie of Gedeon vpon the Madianites or the slaying of Goliah with a sling and a stone It had bene lesse fame to haue brought great things about with great and mightie meanes In like sort it demonstrateth his powerfull abilitie that he can so dispose of his creatures as that a Cocke should fright a Lion a mouse trouble an Elephant an Ichneumon a little serpent destroy a huge and bigge Crocodile Euen so in the course of the Gospell it declared Gods owne finger when fishers conuerted Oratours and poore men perswaded Kings And so it singeth out his saluation that sinners should bring home sinners and faultie persons men blame-worthie As it was answered to Paule complaining of his weaknesse My grace is sufficient for thee for my power is made perfect by weaknesse so where the grace and strength of God do accompanie the toungs of sinners in proclaiming forth his word they shall preuaile and prosper albeit not for the commers cause yet for the senders sake Though it be but an earthen vessell which containeth that which is brought yet because there is treasure in it some there be which shall receiue it This is no protection for sinne for all faults are worthie blame but especially in the Minister in whome all things are conspicuous like spots in the fairest garment If the eye be darke what shall see if the guide be blind who shall leade if he who should shine for puritie be impure beyond other men who shall profite by good example You are a citie set on an hill Yet this is a iust defence against our runagates Seminarie priests of Rome who take occasion by reason of some slippes in our Cleargie defects in our ministerie which yet may easily be demonstrated to be greater at this time in their Papacie and in the highest of their Hierarchie their owne stories resound them to haue bene exceeding filthie to vnder-mine any good opinion of our religion in the simple But this is practised most of all to the ignorant and to silly women into whose houses they creepe and leade them captiue being laden with sinnes and led with diuerse lustes In like sort it is an answere to Atheists and hypocrites liuing among vs who to couer their oppression their auarice and extortion pretend it to be no fault to detaine and hold away any thing from men so culpable by that meanes requiring that their brethren the Preachers of the word should be no lesse theÌ„ Saints when they themselues who require it are most farre off from all sanctified and good things God hath made his Pastours and Ministers of like mould with other men he expecteth it not neither can it be that they should liue here like Angels for this is the way and not the countrie yet by his Spirit he keepeth his seruants from delighting and persisting in grosse sinnes and he couereth their errours and imputeth them not vnto them But he pinneth not the veritie of his doctrine vpon men As Moses chaire was Moses chaire when the Pharisees did sit in as Christs faith was the assured faith although the traitour Iudas might preach it and the Prophecie was Gods message when weake Ionas did carie it so the Gospell is the Gospell when ignorant men and young men and sinfull men do deliuer it Blessed be the God of our hope who will not haue vs depend on flesh or bloud or man but on his assured truth and his ouer-ruling Spirit God guide vs so by his grace that by the good we may learne good and by the euill to flye from euill that so we may be fit members of that body whereof his Sonne is the true and liuing head to both whom and to the holy Ghost the Trinitie in Vnitie be honour for euermore THE XXX LECTVRE The chiefe poynts 3. Parables may be vsed 4. and all good eloquence by the Minister 6. Ionahs words returned vpon himselfe 7. The comparison betweene God and Ionah 8. The multitude of inhabitants in Niniue 9. with whom the gourd was not to be ballanced 10. God prouideth blessings for man without his labour 11. Gods care ouer infants and all beasts 12. Therefore parents should not be too carefull 13. Ionas at length yeeldeth 14. The conclusion of the Prophecie ioyned with exhortation Ionah 4.10.11 Then said the Lord thou hast had pittie on the gourd for the which thou hast not laboured neither madest it grow which came vp in a night and perished in a night And should not I spare Niniue that great city wherein are sixe score thousand persons that cannot discerne betweene their right hand and their left hand and also much cattâ—ll IN that which goeth before the intemperate furie and vnaduised rashnesse of the Prophet hath bene such that he is readie to take an occasion of chiding with the Lord vpon a most trifling cause euen the withering of a gourd And being reprooued for it not by his fellow seruant but by his maisters owne mouth he standeth on his owne iustification that he did well to be angry yea if it were to the death In which moode if he had departed his iudgement now was so peruerted that he would haue thought that he had had a great hand vpon God that he himselfe had bene in the right and the Lord had bene to blame because he had not fitted his fancie But the inconceiuable wisedome of the euerlasting Father doth so farre ouermatch him that where he expected victorie although it were but in words and thoughts he is taken at that aduantage that he is for euer put to silence in this matter For his owne speech is so fitly returned vpon himselfe and he is so caught and entangled in the words of his owne mouth that he is enforced to yeeld a greater thing then that whereof the present question was and that is concerning Niniue that since iustice was pleased to turne it selfe into mercie and seueritie into clemencie nothing was done vniustly or vnbeseeming him who is the rule of truth For that was it which the Prophets maister in this place especially did ayme at that his seruant shold be satisfied and thereby all the world be aduertised to the full that the holy one of Israel is delighted to shew pittie vpon the sonnes of men that where repentance ascendeth from the earth to the heauen there a pardon will come downe from the Highest vpon his creatures that Niniue it selfe whose sinnes did crye for vengeance vpon submission and conuersion should be spared from destruction So that mankind in generall taking notice of such grace and propensenesse vnto clemencie might confesse that the Lord is gracious and that his mercie endureth for euer 2 But to make this the more
eloquence If in my cause I were sure to haue the Iudges wise and wise men to my auditours that enuie might beare no sway nor fauour nor fore-conceit nor false witnesses might hurt then the vse of eloquence were small and it should serue onely for delight but if the minds of the hearers be so moueable and inconstant and truth be subiect to iniuries we are to contend by art to vse any thing which may profite For one who is out of the way cannot be brought in againe but by another turning This is as true of the Preacher as it euer was of the Oratour If we had none to heare vs but Lidia or Cornelius persons right deuout and affected with religious attention we needed not be very carefull but because among such as come to vs some are weake and must be comforted some rude and must be informed some drousie and must be awaked some hard and must be suppled some peruerse and with full streame of power must be ouerwhelmed to please the tastes of so many and to helpe on those which hang backward all good meanes are to be vsed that God himselfe may be glorified and our brethren may be bettered See whether Paule writing to the Corinthians do not thus when handling the resurrection he prooueth and illustrateth it by naturall similitudes of seede sowne in the ground of difference of flesh of the starres in heauen and the like Such libertie for comparisons for Parables for Examples is left to vs in time and place to be vsed in Gods businesse Prouided euermore that it be not for oftentation of the vanitie of mans wit but onely for edification and to the benefite of the hearers that we turne not all into Allegories to make plaine things obscure and to destroy the letter as Origene sometimes did that we alwaies keepe the maiestie of the sacred word of God and not giue other men occasion to thinke vnfitly and vnreuerently of so high a mysterie by bringing that which pleaseth vs but no bodie besides euen ridiculous and base stuffe As we must euer speake those things which sauour of sound doctrine so we must euermore handle them as the pure and chast word of God 6 As this may most generally be said of Parables that they haue an vse in diuine things so to speake a little more specially we find some of these in the Scripture which in particular cases go exceedingly to the quicke of that which is in question and being personally applied do very much confound the guiltie Such a one was that which Iotham vttered to the Sichemites where the trees would choose a king and the Bramble must be he by the which he doth reproch vnto them their vnthankfulnesse toward him and his fathers house Such a one was that of Nathan to Dauid of him who had many sheepe yet tooke one from his poore neighbour whom when Dauid had condemned the Prophet so turned all vpon him that as Dauid sometimes killed Goliah with his owne sword so Nathan tooke him in his owne word That is the wisedome of God that he can deprehend another man as in the Gospell he caught the bad seruant in his owne talke and replied From thine owne mouth I shall iudge thee That which was said in the person of a stranger if another will apply to his owne person he will then amend his iudgement This was the case of Ionas to whom the Lord vsed a Parable but rather reall then verball He had a gourd and enioyed it then he loosing it raged at it but knew not what all this meant The Lord then to bring him forward and make him see his hard heart toward that great citie Niniue asked if he did well to be angrie Ionas balketh him not at all but forth with replieth that he did well to be angrie yea if it had bene to the death Here indeede the Lord doth come on him Thou hast pittie vpon this trifle and shall not I vpon Niniue Thus with his owne rod he beat him and with his owne net he caught him After the battell of Cannae when Mago being sent from his brother Hannibal had in the Carthaginian Senate much boasted of the victorie how many armies and Generals of the Romanes they had ouerthrowne and withall for the finishing of that conquest desired a new supply of souldiers and monie It is written that one Himilco a friend to Hannibal tooke occasion to insult ouer Hanno another noble man who was of the aduerse factiō and who euermore had disswaded their making warre with the Romaines That he was a proper counseller who had sought to hinder that which had brought them such aduantage such a victorie and such honour But it was the wisedome and art of Hanno being thus prouoked to retort the matter vpon him ex tempore as he did You speake of a glorious victorie but what gaine we thereby for if you had lost the field what could you haue asked more then now ye do that is fresh men and monie Haue the Romanes yeelded vnto you or haue they sued for peace If they haue not then their stomacke is as great as it was before and if their force be diminished so is yours as well as theirs so that peize the one with the other you are as farre from your purpose as you were at the beginning It was there the praise of Hanno that he turned their owne tale vpon them In this place God being so much wiser as infinite and vnlimited may be beyond dust and ashes turneth both matter and words vpon the head of our Ionas and doth teach him such a lesson that what the Prophet thought made most for him he shewed made most against him By his anger for the gourd he condemned his former anger If he would grieue that the greene thing should be marred because he liked it how vniustly did he fret that Niniue should be spared when the Lord had a liking to it So step by step and by degrees God is faine to teach him to know himselfe and that wherein he thought himselfe very cunning Yet at length by a demonstration plainely gathered from the precedents he euicteth what he desireth Now let vs see what that was 7 The second thing which I note is the forme or expression of the Parable by entring a comparison betweene the Lord and Ionas There is a great Antithesis betweene the persons cōpared and the things whereabout they stroue and the end of their intention Of the persons one was a man whose breath was in his nostrels who had neither wisedome to iudge what was fittest to be done nor power to bring about what he fondly had imagined whose pleasure if it were amisse must be censured by a iudge if right then it must depend vpon the becke of another The one was he who was fancifull and mutable and humorous and inconstant in all his waies who would doate on a greene bough and be spitefull to a
answer these things first disclaimeth them from being Martyrs They who liue not the liues of Christians cannot dye the death of Martyrs And he also vseth that maxime of Cyprian Not the punishment but the cause doth make the Martyr Secondly he sheweth out of the Scripture that a man in no case should kill himselfe Thirdly he doth so handle the example of this Razias that he maketh it to be no warrant to attempt any such like deede Heare his reasons 24 First the Iewes do giue no credit vnto the bookes of the Machabees they expugne them out of their Canon Thus Austen himselfe can say who for want of the Hebrew toung is sometimes more then an ordinarie friend to the Apocriphall Scripture Secondly the authour there giueth such testimonie to that deede as is not sufficient to allow it for currant He vvas a louer of the Citie and a man of good report and therefore was commonly called a father of the Ievves But heathen men saith Saint Austen haue gone as farre as this He offered to spend his bodie for the Religion of the Ievves So vvould other saith Saint Austen who had a zeale as Saint Paule speaketh but not according to knowledge Such men as vvere earnest holders of the traditions of the Ievves but did not accept the Messias He desired that his bovvels might be restored in the resurrection But that shall be common to the vvicked as vvell as to the iust He dyed noblie saith the authour but better saith Saint Austen if it had bene reported that he dyed humblie He dyed manfully sayth the authour and I do not say quoth Saint Austen that he did dye vvomanly Thus he scanneth all the wordes of that narration Thirdly he addeth If he had done vvell he should haue done like the seuen brethren of vvhom vve reade in that booke He should not haue thrust himselfe vpon death but whatsoeuer had bene imposed by the persecuting tyrant he should haue endured that vvith patience and humilitie Wherefore since he could not suffer his humbling amongst his enemies he shewed himselfe an example not of wisedome but of folly not to be imitated of Christs martyrs but of Donatist circumcellions This is the round and apparant christian iudgement of that most learned Father He doth aunswere the place of Samson as anon I shall shew vnto you For he also killed himselfe In the meane time I may with him lay downe this generall doctrine that none should spill the bloud or destroy the life of himselfe for any cause whatsoeuer because that is a deed most vnchristian most damnable and most wicked 25 I cannot deny but Gods mercie wherein he is exceedingly rich doth sometimes shew it selfe in the very pangs of death That betweene the bridge and the water betweene the knife and the dying betweene the rocke and the ground repentaunce may be suggested to the heart in a moment or twinckling of an eye but especially where poyson being taken doth not kill vpon the sudden or where death doth not follow presently there may be some remembrance Notwithstanding who is he that dareth to presume vpon such mercy God is louing but he is iust he is kind but he is dreadfull he liketh not to be tempted It were folly to breake thy necke to trie the skill of a bone-setter to trie the wil of a surgeon It is monstrous in Diuinity to preasse vpon such iniquitie with hope of that wherein thou hast such threatnings to the contrary God would haue vs to lay downe our liues if need be for his sake if a tyrant will take them frō vs but we must not leape out of thē for any thing of our owne Nay we should be so carefull that we shold not rashly hazard them or bring them into perill In forbidding sinne God vseth to forbid all the inducements which leade vnto that sinne I would that such could remember this who think that they are not men vnlesse they make a braule or enter into a combat for euery fond word or speech By that meanes they prouoke the Lord and if they happen to be slaine they are accessaries to their owne deaths That which S. Bernard speaketh of iniust warre is not vnfit to be rehearsed in this place If in thy fighting thou haue a mind to kill another man and then art slayne thy selfe thou dyest a murtherer if thou preuaile and kill the other then thou liuest a murtherer But whether thou liue or dye be a conquerour or conquered it is not good to be a murtherer Theodoret doth commend the good minde of Honorius sometimes Emperour of Rome because he tooke quite away out of that Citie the fightes of the Gladiatores or sword-players in Rome wherein to shew sport to other men and make triall of their manhood oftentimes they killed one another I pursue this matter no further but onely adde this that howsoeuer an opinion hath preuailed to the cōtrarie true manhood is not in quarrelling and brabling for priuate iniuries but in maintenance of Gods honor in preseruing thy alleageance to thy Prince in safegarding of thy countrey in defending thy selfe from theeues and such other iust occasions 26 I forget not my Ionas here from whom as the originall this question of doing violence to our selues did arise Neither do I forget Samson whome I reserued to this place because there is some similitude betweene him and our Prophet In that place which I named before Saint Austen briefly but yet notably doth determine this deede of Samson When he plucked downe the house on himselfe he slue himselfe and his enemies But the reason of it was that since he could not escape because they meant to slay him he would destroy them also with him euen the Princes of the Philistines Neither did he this of himselfe marke the words of the learned father but by direction of Gods spirite vvhich vsed him to do that which otherwise without the strength of that spirit he could neuer haue bene able to do that was plucke downe the house The commaundement of that spirite made this deede to be lawfull as the offering vp of Isaac was a lawfull deede in Abraham That vvhich had bene nothing else but madnesse if God had not commaunded it when God did bid it was obedience So he holdeth this a particular deede precisely cōmaunded to him which we may imitate by no meanes because we haue no such warrant But Hierome in his Cōmentarie on the sixe and fortieth of Ezechiel doth go a little farther saying that Samson in that deede was a figure of Iesus Christ. As Samson slue more at his death then he did in all his life time so Christ although while he liued he gaue many a wound to Satan by his miracles and his doctrine yet it was his death and his suffering that broke the backe of hell and the verie heart of Satan These matters may in good sort be applyed to our Prophet He was assured