think the infelicities of our nature and the calamities of our temporal condition to become criminal so long as they make us not omit a duty or dispose us to the election of a crime or force us to swallow a temptation nor yet to exceed the value of their impulsive cause He that grieves for the loss of friends and yet had rather lose all the friends he hath than lose the love of God hath the sorrow of our Lord for his precedent And he that fears death and trembles at its approximation and yet had rather die again than sin once hath not sinned in his fear Christ hath hallowed it and the necessitous condition of his nature is his excuse But it were highly to be wished that in the midst of our caresses and levities of society in our festivities and triumphal merriments when we laugh at folly and rejoyce in sin we would remember that for those very merriments our Blessed Lord felt a bitter sorrow and not one vain and sinful laughter but cost the Holy Jesus a sharp pang and throe of Passion 4. Now that the Holy Jesus began to taste the bitter Cup he betook him to his great Antidote which himself the great Physician of our Souls prescribed to all the world to cure their calamities and to make them pass from miseries into vertue that so they may arrive at glory he prays to his heavenly Father he kneels down and not only so but falls flat upon the earth and would in humility and fervent adoration have descended low as the centre he prays with an intension great as his sorrow and yet with a dereliction so great and a conformity to the Divine will so ready as if it had been the most indifferent thing in the world for him to be delivered to death or from it for though his nature did decline death as that which hath a natural horrour and contradiction to the present interest of its preservation yet when he looked upon it as his heavenly Father had put it into the order of Redemption of the World it was that Baptism which he was straitned till he had accomplished And now there is not in the world any condition of prayer which is essential to the duty or any circumstances of advantage to its performance but were concentred in this one instance Humility of spirit lowliness of deportment importunity of desire a fervent spirit a lawful matter resignation to the will of God great love the love of a Son to his Father which appellative was the form of his address perseverance he went thrice and prayed the same prayer It was not long and it was so retired as to have the advantages of a sufficient solitude and opportune recollection for he was withdrawn from the most of his Disciples and yet not so alone as to lose the benefit of communion for Peter and the two Boanerges were near him Christ in this prayer which was the most fervent that he ever made on earth intending to transmit to all the world a precedent of Devotion to be transcribed and imitated that we should cast all our cares and empty them in the bosom of God being content to receive such a portion of our trouble back again which he assigns us for our spiritual emolument 5. The Holy Jesus having in a few words poured out torrents of innocent desires was pleased still to interrupt his Prayer that he might visit his charge that little flock which was presently after to be scattered he was careful of them in the midst of his Agonies they in his sufferings were fast asleep He awakens them gives them command to watch and pray that is to be vigilant in the custody of their senses and obervant of all accidents and to pray that they may be strengthened against all incursions of enemies and temptations and then returns to prayer and so a third time his Devotion still encreasing with his sorrow And when his Prayer was full and his sorrow come to a great measure after the third God sent his Angel to comfort him and by that act of grace then only expressed hath taught us to continue our Devotions so long as our needs last It may be God will not send a Comsorter till the third time that is after a long expectation and a patient ãâã and a lasting hope in the interim God supports us with a secret hand and in his own time will refresh the spirit with the visitations of his Angels with the emissions of comfort from the Spirit the Comforter And know this also that the holy Angel and the Lord of all the Angels stands by every holy person when he prays and although he draws before his glories the curtain of a cloud yet in every instant he takes care we shall not perish and in a just season dissolves the cloud and makes it to distill in holy dew and drops sweet as Manna pleasant as Nard and wholsome as the breath of Heaven And such was the consolation which the Holy Jesus received by the ministery of the Angel representing to Christ the Lord of the Angels how necessary it was that he should die for the glory of God that in his Passion his Justice Wisdom Goodness Power and Mercy should shine that unless he died all the World should perish but his bloud should obtain their pardon and that it should open the gates of Heaven repair the ruine of Angels establish a holy Church be ãâã of innumerable adoptive children to his Father whom himself should make heirs of glory and that his Passion should soon pass away his Father hearing and granting his Prayer that the Cup should pass speedily though indeed it should pass through him that it should be attended and followed with a glorious Resurrection with eternal rest and glory of his Humanity with the exaltation of his Name with a supreme dominion over all the world and that his Father should make him King of Kings and Prince of the Catholick Church These or whatsoever other comforts the Angel ministred were such considerations which the Holy Jesus knew and the Angel knew not but by communication from that God to whose assumed Humanity the Angel spake yet he was pleased to receive comfort from his servant just as God receives glory from his creatures and as he rejoyces in his own works even because he is good and gracious and is pleased so to do and because himself had caused a voluntary sadness to be interposed between the habitual knowledge and the actual consideration of these discourses and we feel a pleasure when a friendly hand lays upon our wound the plaister which our selves have made and applies such instruments and considerations of comfort which we have in notion and an ineffective habit but cannot reduce them to act because no man is so apt to be his own comforter which God hath therefore permitted that our needs should be the occasion of a mutual Charity 6. It was a great season for
these impurities and vanities Jesus hath redeemed all his Disciples and not only thrown out of his Temples all the impure rites of Flora and Cybele but also the trifling and unprofitable ceremonies of the more sober Deities not only Vices but useless and unprofitable Speculations and hath consecrated our Head into a Temple our Understanding to Spirit our Reason to Religion our Study to Meditation and this is the first part of the Sanctification of our Spirit 6. And this was the cause Holy Scripture commands the duty of Meditation in proportion still to the excellencies of Piety and a holy life to which it is highly and aptly instrumental Blessed is the man that meditates in the Law of the Lord day and night And the reason of the Proposition and the use of the Duty is expressed to this purpose Thy words have I hid in my heart that I should not sin against thee The placing and fixing those divine Considerations in our understandings and hiding them there are designs of high Christian prudence that they with advantage may come forth in the expresses of a holy life For what in the world is more apt and natural to produce Humility than to meditate upon the low stoopings and descents of the Holy Jesus to the nature of a Man to the weaknesses of a Child to the poverties of a Stable to the ignobleness of a Servant to the shame of the Cross to the pains of Cruelty to the dust of Death to the title of a Sinner and to the wrath of God By this instance Poverty is made honourable and Humility is sanctified and made noble and the contradictions of nature are amiable and ãâã for a wise election Thus hatred of sin shame of our selves confusion at the sense of humane misery the love of God confidence in his Promises desires of Heaven holy resolutions resignation of our own appetites ãâã to Divine will oblations of our selves Repentance and mortification are the proper emanations from Meditation of the sordidness of sin our proneness to it our daily miseries as issues of Divine vengeance the glories of God his infinite unalterable Veracity the satisfactions in the vision of God the rewards of Piety the rectitude of the Laws of God and perfection of his Sanctions God's supreme and paternal Dominion and his certain malediction of sinners and when any one of these Considerations is taken to pieces and so placed in the rooms of application that a piece of duty is conjoyned to a piece of the mystery and the whole office to the purchase of a grace or the extermination of a vice it is like opening our windows to let in the Sun and the Wind and Holiness is as proportioned an effect to this practice as Glory is to a persevering Holiness by way of reward and moral causality 7. For all the Affections that are in Man are either natural or by chance or by the incitation of Reason and discourse Our natural affections are not worthy the entertainments of a Christian they must be supernatural and divine that put us into the hopes of Perfection and Felicities and these other that are good unless they come by Meditation they are but accidental and set with the evening Sun But if they be produced upon the strengths of pious Meditation they are as perpetual as they are reasonable and excellent in proportion to the Piety of the principle A Garden that is watered with short and sudden showrs is more uncertain in its fruits and beauties than if a Rivulet waters it with a perpetual distilling and constant humectation And just such are the short emissions and unpremeditated resolutions of Piety begotten by a dash of holy rain from Heaven whereby God sometimes uses to call the careless but to taste what excellencies of Piety they neglect but if they be not produced by the Reason of Religion and the Philosophy of Meditation they have but the life of a Fly or a tall Gourd they come into the World only to say they had a Being you could scarce know their length but by measuring the ground they cover in their fall 8. For since we are more moved by material and sensible objects than by things merely speculative and intellectual and generals even in spiritual things are less perceived and less motive than particulars Meditation frames the understanding part of Religion to the proportions of our nature and our weakness by making some things more circumstantiate and material and the more spiritual to be particular and therefore the more applicable and the mystery is made like the Gospel to the Apostles Our eyes do see and our ears do hear and our hands do handle thus much of the word of life as is prepared for us in the Meditation 9. First And therefore every wise person that intends to furnish himself with affections of Religion or detestation against a Vice or glorifications of a Mystery still will proportion the Mystery and fit it with such circumstances of fancy and application as by observation of himself he knows aptest to make impression It was a wise design of Mark Antony when he would stir up the people to revenge the death of Caesar he brought his body to the pleading-place he shewed his wounds held up the rent mantle and shewed them the garment that he put on that night in which he beat the Nervii that is in which he won a victory for which his memory was dear to them he shewed them that wound which pierced his heart in which they were placed by so dear a love that he made them his heirs and left to their publick use places of delight and pleasure and then it was natural when he had made those things present to them which had once moved their love and his honour that grief at the loss of so honourable and so lov'd a person should succeed and then they were Lords of all their sorrow and revenge seldom slept in two beds And thus holy Meditation produces the passions and desires it intends it makes the object present and almost sensible it renews the first passions by a fiction of imagination it passes from the Paschal Parlour to Cedron it tells the drops of sweat and measures them and finds them as big as drops of bloud and then conjectures at the greatness of our sins it fears in the midst of Christ's Agonies it hears his groans it spies Judas his Lantern afar off it follows Jesus to Gabbatha and wonders at his innocence and their malice and feels the strokes of the Whip and shrinks the head when the Crown of Thorns is thrust hard upon his holy brows and at last goes step by step with Jesus and carries part of the Cross and is nailed fast with sorrow and compassion and dies with love For if the Soul be principle of its own actions it can produce the same effects by reflex acts of the Understanding when it is assisted by the Imaginative part as when it sees the thing
die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live This first Mortification is the way of life if it continues but its continuance is not fecured till we are advanced towards life by one degree more of this Death For this condition is a state of a daily and dangerous warfare and many inrodes are made by sin and many times hurt is done and booty carried off for he that is but thus far mortified although his dwelling be within the Kingdom of Grace yet it is in the borders of it and hath a dangerous neighbourhood If we mean to be safe we must remove into the heart of the Land or carry the war farther off 6. Secondly We must not only be strangers here but we must be dead too dead unto the World that is we must not only deny our Vices but our Passions not only contradict the direct immediate Perswasion to a sin but also cross the Inclination to it So long as our Appetites are high and full we shall never have peace or safety but the dangers and insecurities of a full War and a potent Enemy we are always disputing the Question ever strugling for life but when our Passions are killed when our desires are little and low then Grace reigns then our life is hid with Christ in God then we have fewer interruptions in the way of Righteousness then we are not so apt to be surprised by sudden eruptions and transportation of Passions and our Piety it self is more prudent and reasonable chosen with a freer election discerned with clearer understanding hath more in it of Judgment than of Fancy and is more spiritual and Angelical He that is apt to be angry though he be habitually careful and full of observation that he sin not may at some time or other be surprised when his guards are undiligent and without actual expectation of an enemy but if his Anger be dead in him and the inclination lessened to the indisferency and gentleness of a Child the man dwells safe because of the impotency of his Enemy or that he is reduced to Obedience or hath taken conditions of peace He that hath refused to consent to actions of Uncleanness to which he was strongly tempted hath won a victory by sine force God hath blessed him well but an opportunity may betray him instantly and the sin may be in upon him unawares unless also his desires be killed he is betrayed by a party within David was a holy person but he was surprised by the sight of Bathsheba for his freer use of permitted beds had kept the fire alive which was apt to be put into a flame when so fair a beauty reflected through his eyes But Joseph was a Virgin and kept under all his inclinations to looser thoughts opportunity and command and violence and beauty did make no breach upon his spirit 7. He that is in the first state of Pilgrimage does not mutiny against his Superiors nor publish their faults nor envy their dignities but he that is dead to the world sees no fault that they have and when he hears an objection he buries it in an excuse and rejoyces in the dignity of their persons Every degree of Mortification endures reproof without murmur but he that is quite dead to the world and to his own will feels no regret against it and hath no secret thoughts of trouble and unwillingness to the suffering save only that he is sorry he deserv'd it For so a dead body resists not your violence changes not its posture you plac'd it in strikes not his striker is not moved by your words nor provoked by your scorn nor is troubled when you shrink with horror at the sight of it only it will hold the head downward in all its situations unless it be hindred by violence And a mortified spirit is such without indignation against scorn without revenge against injuries without murmuring at low offices not impatient in troubles indifferent in all accidents neither transported with joy nor deprest with sorrow and is humble in all his thoughts And thus he that is dead saith the Apostle is justified from sins And this is properly a state of life in which by the grace of Jesus we are restored to a condition of order and interiour beauty in our Faculties our actions are made moderate and humane our spirits are even and our understandings undisturbed 8. For Passions of the sensitive Soul are like an Exnalation hot and dry born up from the earth upon the wings of a cloud and detained by violence out of its place causing thunders and making eruptions into lightning and sudden fires There is a Tempest in the Soul of a passionate man and though every wind does not shake the earth nor rend trees up by the roots yet we call it violent and ill weather if it only makes a ãâã and is harmless And it is an inordination in the spirit of a man when his Passions are tumultuous and mighty though they do not determine directly upon a sin they discompose his peace and disturb his spirit and make it like troubled waters in which no man can see his own figure and just ãâã portions and therefore by being less a man cannot be so much a Christian in the midst ãâã so great indispositions For although the Cause may hallow the Passion and if a man be very angry for God's cause it is Zeal not Fury yet the Cause cannot secure the Person from violence transportation and inconvenience When Elisha was consulted by three Kings concerning the success of their present Expedition he grew so angry against idolatrous soram and was carried on to so great degrees of disturbance that when for Jehosaphat's sake he was content to enquire of the Lord he called for a minstrel who by his harmony might re-compose his disunited and troubled spirit that so he might be apter sor divination And sometimes this zeal goes besides the intention of the man and beyond the degrees of prudent or lawful and ingages in a sin though at first it was Zeal for Religion For so it happened in Moses at the waters of Massah and Meribah he spake foolishly and yet it was when he was zealous for God and extremely careful of the people's interest For his Passion he was hindred from entring into the Land of Promise And we also if we be not moderate and well-tempered even in our ãâã for God may like Moses break the Tables of the Law and throw them out of our hands with zeal to have them preserved for Passion violently snatches at the Conclusion but is inconsiderate and incurious concerning the Premises The summ and purpose of this Discourse is that saying of our Blessed Saviour He that will be my Disciple must deny himself that is not only desires that are sinful but desires that are his own pursuances of his own affections and violent motions though to things not evil or in themselves
under the Gospel is led by the Spirit and walks in the Spirit and brings forth the fruits of the Spirit It is not our excuse but the aggravation of our sin that we fall again in despite of so many resolutions to the contrary And let us not flatter our selves into a confidence of sin by supposing the state of Grace can stand with the Custom of any sin for it is the state either of an animalis homo as the Apostle calls him that is a man in pure naturals without the clarity of divine Revelations who cannot perceive or understand the things of God or else of the carnal man that is a person who though in his mind he is convinced yet he is not yet freed from the dominion of sin but only hath his eyes opened but not his bonds loosed For by the perpetual analogy and frequent expresses in Scripture the spiritual person or the man redeemed by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus is free from the Law and the Dominion and the Kingdom and the Power of all sin For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace 10. But sins of Infirmity in true sence of Scripture signifie nothing but the sins of an unholy and an unsanctified nature when they are taken for actions done against the strength of resolution out of the strength of natural appetite and violence of desire and therefore in Scripture the state of Sin and the state of Infirmity is all one For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly saith the Apostle the condition in which we were when Christ became a sacrifice for us was certainly a condition of sin and enmity with God and yet this he calls a being without strength or in a state of weakness and infirmity which we who believe all our strength to be derived from Christ's death and the assistance of the holy Spirit the fruit of his Ascension may soon apprehend to be the true meaning of the word And in this sence is that saying of our Blessed Saviour The whole have no need of a Physician but they that are weak for therefore Christ came into the world to save sinners those are the persons of Christ's Infirmary whose restitution and reduction to a state of life and health was his great design So that whoever sin habitually that is constantly periodically at the revolution of a temptation or frequently or easily are persons who still remain in the state of sin and death and their intervals of Piety are but preparations to a state of Grace which they may then be when they are not used to countenance or excuse the sin or to flatter the person But if the intermediate resolutions of emendation though they never run beyond the next assault of passion or desire be taken for a state of Grace blended with infirmities of Nature they become destructive of all those purposes through our mistake which they might have promoted if they had been rightly understood observed and cherished Sometimes indeed the greatness of a Temptation may become an instrument to excuse some degrees of the sin and make the man pitiable whose ruine seems almost certain because of the greatness and violence of the enemy meeting with a natural aptness but then the question will be whither and to what actions that strong Temptation carries him whether to a work of a mortal nature or only to a small irregularity that is whether to death or to a wound for whatever the principle be if the effect be death the man's case was therefore to be pitied because his ruine was the more inevitable not so pitied as to excuse him from the state of death For let the Temptation be never so strong every Christian man hath assistances sufficient to support him so as that without his own yielding no Temptation is stronger than that grace which God offers him for if it were it were not so much as a sin of infirmity it were no sin at all This therefore must be certain to us When the violence of our Passions or desires overcomes our resolutions and fairer purposes against the dictate of our Reason that indeed is a state of Infirmity but it is also of sin and death a state of Immortification because the offices of Grace are to crucifie the Old man that is our former aud impurer conversation to subdue the petulancy of our Passions to reduce them to reason and to restore Empire and dominion to the superiour Faculties So that this condition in proper speaking is not so good as the Infirmity of Grace but it is no Grace at all for whoever are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts those other imperfect ineffective resolutions are but the first approaches of the Kingdom of Christ nothing but the clarities of lightning dark as ãâã as light and they therefore cannot be excuses to us because the contrary weaknesses as we call them do not make the sin involuntary but chosen and pursued and in true speaking is the strength of the Lust not the infirmity of a state of Grace 11. But yet there is a condition of Grace which is a state of little and imperfect ones such as are called in Scripture Smoaking flax and bruised reeds which is a state of the first dawning of the Sun of Righteousness when the lights of Grace new rise upon our eyes and then indeed they are weak and have a more dangerous neighbourhood of Temptations and desires but they are not subdued by them they sin not by direct election their actions criminal are but like the slime of Nilus leaving rats half formed they sin but seldom and when they do it is in small instances and then also by surprise by inadvertency and then also they interrupt their own acts and lessen them perpetually and never do an act of sinfulness but the principle is such as makes it to be involuntary in many degrees For when the Understanding is clear and the dictate of Reason undisturbed and determinate whatsoever then produces an irregular action excuses not because the action is not made the less voluntary by it for the action is not made involuntary from any other principle but from some defect of Understanding either in act or habit or faculty For where there is no such defect there is a full deliberation according to the capacity of the man and then the act of election that follows is clear and full and is that proper disposition which makes him truly capable of punishment or reward respectively Now although in the first beginnings of Grace there is not a direct Ignorance to excuse totally yet because a sudden surprise or an inadvertency is not always in our power to prevent these things do lessen the election and freedom of the action and then because they are but seldom and never proceed to any length of time or any great instances of
as many persons and in as many capacities and in the same dispositions as the Promises were applied and did relate in Circumcision to the same they do belong and may be applied in Baptism And let it be remembred That the Covenant which Circumcision did sign was a Covenant of Grace and ãâã the Promises were of the Spirit or spiritual it was made before the Law and could not be rescinded by the Legal Covenant nothing could be added to it or taken from it and we that are partakers of this grace are therefore partakers of it by being Christ's servants united to Christ and so are become Abraham's seed as the Apostle at large and prosessedly proves in divers places but especially in the fourth to the ãâã and the third to the Galatians And therefore if Infants were then admitted to it and consigned to it by a Sacrament which they understood not any more than ours do there is not any reason why ours should not enter in at the ordinary gate and door of grace as well as they Their Children were circumcised the eighth day but were instructed afterwards when they could enquire what these things meant Indeed their Proselytes were first taught then circumcised so are ours baptized but their Infants were consigned first and so must ours 16. Thirdly In Baptism we are born again and this Infants need in the present circumstances and for the same great reason that men of age and reason do For our natural birth is either of it self insufficient or is made so by the Fall of Adam and the consequent evils that Nature alone or our first birth cannot bring us to Heaven which is a supernatural end that is an end above all the power of our Nature as now it is So that if Nature cannot bring us to Heaven Grace must or we can never get thither if the first birth cannot a second must but the second birth spoken of in Scripture is Baptism A man must be born of ãâã and the Spirit And therefore Baptism is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the laver of a new birth Either then Infants cannot go to Heaven any way that we know of or they must be baptized To say they are to be left to God is an excuse and no answer for when God hath opened the door and calls that the entrance into Heaven we do not leave them to God when we will not carry them to him in the way which he hath described and at the door which himself hath opened we leave them indeed but it is but helpless and destitute and though God is better than man yet that is no warrant to us what it will be to the children that we cannot warrant or conjecture And if it be objected that to the New birth are required dispositions of our own which are to be wrought by and in them that have the use of Reason Besides that this is wholly against the Analogy of a New birth in which the person to be born is wholly a passive and hath put into him the principle that in time will produce its proper actions it is certain that they that can receive the new birth are capable of it The effect of it is a possibility of being saved and arriving to a supernatural felicity If Infants can receive this effect then also the New birth without which they cannot receive the effect And if they can receive Salvation the effect of the New birth what hinders them but they may receive that that is in order to that effect and ordained only for it and which is nothing of it self but in its institution and relation and which may be received by the same capacity in which one may be created that is a passivity or a capacity obediential 17. Fourthly Concerning pardon of sins which is one great effect of Baptism it is certain that ãâã have not that benefit which men of sin and age may receive He that hath a sickly stomach drinks wine and it not only refreshes his spirits but cures his stomach He that drinks wine and hath not that disease receives good by his wine though it does not minister to so many needs it refreshes though it does not cure him and when oyl is poured upon a man's head it does not always heal a wound but sometimes makes him a chearful countenance sometimes it consigns him to be a King or a Priest So it is in Baptism it does not heal the wounds of actual sins because they have not committed them but it takes off the evil of Original sin whatsoever is imputed to us by Adam's prevarication is washed off by the death of the second Adam into which we are baptized But concerning original sin because there are so many disputes which may intricate the Question I shall make use only of that which is confessed on both sides and material to our purpose Death came upon all men by Adam's sin and the necessity of it remains upon us as an evil consequent of the Disobedience For though death is natural yet it was kept off from man by God's favour which when he lost the banks were broken and the water reverted to its natural course and our nature became a curse and death a punishment Now that this also relates to Infants so far is certain because they are sick and die This the Pelagians denied not But to whomsoever this evil descended for them also a remedy is provided by the second Adam That as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive that is at the day of Judgment then death shall be destroyed In the mean time Death hath a sting and a bitterness a curse it is and an express of the Divine anger and if this sting be not taken away here we shall have no participation of the final victory over death Either therefore Infants must be for ever without remedy in this evil consequent of their Father's sin or they must be adopted into the participation of Christ's death which is the remedy Now how can they partake of Christ's death but by Baptism into his death For if there be any spiritual way ãâã it will by a stronger argument admit them to Baptism for if they can receive spiritual effects they can also receive the outward Sacrament this being denied only upon pretence they cannot have the other If there be no spiritual way extraordinary then the ordinary way is only left for them If there be an extraordinary let it be shewn and Christians will be at rest concerning their Children One thing only I desire to be observed That Pelagius denied Original Sin but yet denied not the necessity of Infants Baptism and being accused of it in an Epistle to Pope Innocent the First he purged himself of the suspicion and allowed the practice but denied the inducement of it which shews that their arts are weak that think Baptism to be useless to Infants if they be not formally guilty of the prevarication of Adam
with an issue of bloud twelve years without hope of remedy from art or nature and therefore she runs to Jesus thinking without precedent upon the confident perswasions of a holy Faith that if she did but touch the hem of his garment she should be whole She came trembling and full of hope and reverence and touched his garment and immediately the ãâã of her unnatural emanation was stopped and reverted to its natural course and offices S. Ambrose says that this woman was Martha But it is not likely that she was a Jewess but a Gentile because of that return which she made in memory of her cure and honour of Jesus according to the Gentile rites For Eusebius reports that himself saw at Caesarea Philippi a Statue of ãâã representing a woman kneeling at the feet of a goodly personage who held his hand out to her in a posture of granting her request and doing favour to her and the inhabitants said it was erected by the care and cost of this woman adding whether out of truth or easiness is not certain that at the pedestal of this Statue an usual plant did grow which when it was come up to that maturity and height as to arrive at the fringes of the brass monument it was medicinal in many dangerous diseases So far Eusebius Concerning which story I shall make no censure but this that since S. Mark and S. Luke affirm that this woman before her cure had spent all her substance upon Physicians it is not easily imaginable how she should become able to dispend so great a summ of money as would purchase two so great Statues of brass and if she could yet it is still more unlikely that the Gentile Princes and Proconsuls who searched all places publick and private and were curiously diligent to destroy all honorary monuments of Christianity should let this alone and that this should escape not only the diligence of the Persecutors but the fury of such Wars and changes as happened in Palestine and that for three hundred years together it should stand up in defiance of all violences and changeable fate of all things However it be it is certain that the Book against Images published by the command of Charles the Great 850 years ago gave no credit to the story and if it had been true it it more than probable that Justin Martyr who was born and bred in Palestine and Origen who lived many years in Tyre in the neighbourhood of the place where the Statue is said to stand and were highly diligent to heap together all things of advantage and reputation to the Christian cause would not have omitted so notable an instance It is therefore likely that the Statues which Eusebius saw and concerning which he heard such stories were first placed there upon the stock of a heathen story or Ceremony and in process of time for the likeness of the figures and its capacity to be translated to the Christian story was by the Christians in after-Ages attributed by a fiction of fancy and afterwards by credulity confidently applied to the present Narrative 21. When Jesus was come to the Ruler's house he found the minstrels making their funeral noises for the death of Jairus's daughter and his servants had met him and acquainted him of the death of the child yet Jesus turned out the minstrels and entred with the parents of the child into her chamber and taking her by the hand called her and awakened her from her sleep of death and commanded them to give her to eat and enjoyned them not to publish the Miracle But as ãâã suppressed by violent detentions break out and rage with a more impetuous and rapid motion so it happened to Jesus who endeavouring to make the noises and reports of him less popular made them to be ãâã for not only we do that most greedily from which we are most restrained but a great merit enamell'd with humility and restrained with modesty grows more beautious and florid up to the heights of wonder and glories 22. As he came from Jairus's house he cured two blind men upon their petition and confession that they did believe in him and cast out a dumb Devil so much to the wonder and amazement of the people that the Pharisees could hold no longer being ready to burst with envy but said he cast out Devils by help of the Devils Their malice being as usually it is contradictory to its own design by its being unreasonable nothing being more sottish than for the Devil to divide his kingdom upon a plot to ruine his certainties upon hopes future and contingent But this was but the first eruption of their malice all the year last past which was the first year of Jesus's Preaching all was quiet neither the Jews nor the Samaritans nor the Galileans did malign his Doctrine or Person but he preached with much peace on all hands for this was the year which the Prophet Isaiah called in his prediction the acceptable year of the Lord. Ad SECT XII Considerations upon the Entercourse happening between the Holy Jesus and the Woman of Samaria The Woman of Samaria Iohn 4 7. There cemeth a woman of Samaria to draw water Iesus saith unto her giue me to drink 9. Then saith the Woman of Samaria unto him How is it that thou being a Iew askest drink of me which am a woman of Samaria The great draught of Fishes Luk. 5. 4. 5. etc. He said unto Simon Let down your nets for a draught And they enclosed a great multitude of fishes and when Simon Peter saw it he fell down att Jesus knees for he was astonished all that were with him at the draught of the fishes And Jesus said to Simon Fear not from henceforth thou shalt catch men 1. WHen the Holy Jesus perceiving it unsafe to be at Jerusálem returned to Galilee where the largest scene of his Prophetical Office was to be represented he journeyed on foot through Samaria and being weary and faint hungry and thirsty he sate down by a Well and begged water of a Samaritan woman that was a Sinner who at first refused him with some incivility of language But he in stead of returning anger and passion to her rudeness which was commenced upon the interest of a mistaken Religion preached the coming of the Messias to her unlock'd the secrets of her heart and let in his Grace and made a fountain of living water to spring up in her Soul to extinguish the impure flames of Lust which had set her on fire burning like Hell ever since the death of her fifth Husband she then becoming a Concubine to the sixth Thus Jesus transplanted Nature into Grace his hunger and thirst into religious appetites the darkness of the Samaritan into a clear revelation her Sin into Repentance and Charity and so quenched his own thirst by relieving her needs and as it was meat to him to do his Father's will so it was drink to
represented in ceremony by the Immersion appointed to be the Rite of that Sacrament And then it is that God pours forth together with the Sacramental waters a salutary and holy fountain of Grace to wash the Soul from all its stains and impure adherences And therefore this first access to Christ is in the style of Scripture called Regeneration the New Birth Redemption Renovation Expiation or Atonement with God and Justification And these words in the New Testament relate principally and properly to the abolition of sins committed before Baptism For we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation to declare his Rightcousness for the remission of sins that are past To declare I say at this time his righteousness And this is that which S. Paul calls Justification by Faith that boasting might be excluded and the grace of God by Jesus made exceeding glorious For this being the proper work of Christ the first entertainment of a Disciple and manifestation of that state which is first given him as a favour and next intended as a duty is a total abolition of the precedent guilt of sin and leaves nothing remaining that can condemn we then freely receive the intire and perfect effect of that Atonement which Christ made for us we are put into a condition of innocence and favour And this I say is done regularly in Baptism and S. Paul expresses it to this sense after he had enumerated a series of Vices subjected in many he adds and such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified There is nothing of the old guilt remanent when ye were washed ye were sanctified or as the Scripture calls it in another place Ye were redeemed from your vain conversation 5. For this Grace was the formality of the Covenant Repent and believe the Gospel Repent and be converted so it is in S. Peter's Sermon and your sins shall be done away that was the Covenant But that Christ chose Baptism for its signature appears in the Parallel Repent and be baptized and wash away your sins For Christ loved his Church and gave himself for it That he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish The Sanctification is integral the Pardon is universal and immediate 6. But here the process is short no more at first but this Repent and be baptized and wash away your sins which Baptism because it was speedily administred and yet not without the preparatives of Faith and Repentance it is certain those predispositions were but instruments of reception actions of great facility of small employment and such as supposing the person not unapt did confess the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and fulness of the redemption is called by the Apostle a being justified freely 7. Upon this ground it is that by the Doctrine of the Church heathen persons strangers from the ãâã of grace were invited to a confession of Faith and dereliction of false Religions with a promise that at the very first resignation of their persons to the service of Jesus they should obtain full pardon It was S. Cyprian's counsel to old Demetrianus Now in the evening of thy days when thy Soul'is almost expiring repent of thy sins believe in Jesus and turn Christian and although thou art almost in the embraces of death yet thou shalt be comprehended of immortality Baptizatus ad horam securus bine exit saith S. Austin A baptized person dying immediately shall live eternally and gloriously And this was the case of the Thief upon the Cross he confessed Christ and repented of his sins and begged pardon and did acts enough to facilitate his first access to Christ and but to remove the hindrances of God's favour then he was redeemed and reconciled to God by the death of Jesus that is he was pardoned with a full instantaneous integral and clear Pardon with such a pardon which declared the glory of God's mercies and the infiniteness of Christ's merits and such as required a more reception and entertainment on man's part 8. But then we having received so great a favour enter into Covenant to correspond with a proportionable endeavour the benefit of absolute Pardon that is Salvation of our Souls being not to be received till the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord all the intervall we have promised to live a holy life in obedience to the whole Discipline of Jesus That 's the condition on our part And if we prevaricate that the mercy shewn to the blessed Thief is no argument of hope to us because he was saved by the mercies of the first access which corresponds to the Remission of sins we receive in Baptism and we shall perish by breaking our own promises and obligations which Christ passed upon us when he made with us the Covenant of an intire and gracious Pardon 9. For in the precise Covenant there is nothing else described but Pardon so given and ascertained upon an Obedience persevering to the end And this is clear in all those places of Scripture which express a holy and innocent life to have been the purpose and design of Christ's death for us and redemption of us from the former estate Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye are healed Exinde from our being healed from our dying unto sin from our being buried with Christ from our being baptized into his death the end of Christ's dying for us is that we should live unto righteousness Which was also highly and prophetically expressed by S. Zachary in his divine Ecstasie This was the oath which he sware to our Fore-father Abraham That he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies might serve him without fear In holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life And S. Paul discourses to this purpose pertinently and largely For the grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts Hi sunt Angeli quibus in lavacro renunciavimus saith Tertullian Those are the evil Angels the Devil and his works which we deny or renounce in Baptism we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world that is lead a whole life in the pursuit of universal holiness Sobriety Justice and Godlinèss being the proper language to signifie our Religion and respects to God to our neighbours and to our selves And that this was the very end of our dying in Baptism and the design of Christ's manifestation of
her in the midst of her journey Against this David prayed O my God cut me ãâã off in the midst of my days But in this there is some variety For God does it sometimes in mercy sometimes in judgment The righteous die and no man regardeth not considering that they are taken away from the evil to come God takes the righteous man hastily to his Crown lest temptation snatch it from him by interrupting his hopes and sanctity And this was the case of the old World For from Adam to the Floud by the Patriarchs were eleven generations but by Cain's line there were but eight so that Cain's posterity were longer liv'd because God intending to bring the Floud upon the World took delight to rescue his elect from the dangers of the present impurity and the future Deluge Abraham lived five years less than his son Isaac it being say the Doctors of the Jews intended for mercy to him that he might not see the iniquity of his Grandchild ãâã And this the Church for many Ages hath believed in the case of baptized Infants dying before the use of Reason For besides other causes in the order of Divine Providence one kind of mercy is done to them too for although their condition be of a lower form yet it is secured by that timely shall I call it or untimely death But these are cases extraregular ordinarily and by rule God hath revealed his purposes of interruption of the lives of sinners to be in anger and judgment for when men commit any signal and grand impiety God suffers not Nature to take her course but strikes a stroke with his own hand To which purpose I think it a remarkable instance which is reported by ãâã that for 3332 years even to the twentieth Age there was not one example of a Son that died before his Father but the course of Nature was kept that he who was first born in the descending line did die first I speak of natural death and therefore Abel cannot be opposed to this observation till that Terah the father of Abraham taught the People to make Images of clay and worship them and concerning him it was first remarked that Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity God by an unheard-of Judgment and a rare accident punishing his newly-invented crime And when-ever such ãâã of a life happens to a vicious person let all the world acknowledge it for a Judgment and when any man is guilty of evil habits or unrepented sins he may therefore expect it because it is threatned and designed for the lot and curse of such persons This is threatned to Covetousness Injustice and Oppression As a Partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days and at his end shall be a Fool. The same is threatned to Voluptuous persons in the highest caresses of delight and Christ told a parable with the same design The rich man said Soul take thy ease but God answered O fool this night shall thy Soul be required of thee Zimri and Cozbi were slain in the trophies of their Lust and it was a sad story which was told by Thomas Cantipratanus Two Religious persons tempted by each other in the vigour of their youth in their very first pleasures and opportunities of sin were both struck dead in their embraces and posture of entertainment God smote Jeroboam for his Usurpation and Tyranny and he died Saul died for Disobedience against God and asking counsel of a Pythonisse God smote ãâã with a Leprosie for his profaneness and distressed ãâã sorely for his Sacrilege and sent a horrid disease upon Jehoram for his Idolatry These instances represent Voluptuousness and Covetousness Rapine and Injustice Idolatry and Lust Profaneness and Sacrilege as remarked by the signature of exemplary Judgments to be the means of shortening the days of man God himself proving the Executioner of his own fierce wrath I instance no more but in the singular case of Hananiah the false Prophet Thus saith the LORD Behold I will cut thee from off the face of the earth this year thou shalt die because thou hast taught Rebellion against the LORD That is the curse and portion of a false Prophet a short life and a suddén death of God's own particular and more immediate ãâã 23. And thus also the sentence of the Divine anger went forth upon criminal persons in the New Testament Witness the Disease of Herod Judas's Hanging himself the Blindness of ãâã the Sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira the Buffetings with which Satan ãâã the bodies of persons excommunicate Yea the blessed Sacrament of CHRIST's Body and Bloud which is intended for our spiritual life if it be unworthily received proves the cause of a natural death For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many are fallen asleep saith S. Paul to the ãâã Church 24. Thirdly But there is yet another manner of ending man's life by way of Chance or Contingency meaning thereby the manner of God's Providence and event of things which is not produced by the disposition of natural causes nor yet by any particular and special act of God but the event which depends upon accidental causes not so certain and regular as Nature not so conclusive and determined as the acts of decretory Providence but comes by disposition of causes irregular to events rare and accidental This David expresses by entring into battel and in this as in the other we must separate cases extraordinary and rare from the ordinary and common Extraregularly and upon extraordinary reasons and permissions we find that holy persons have miscarried in battel So the ãâã fell before Benjamin and Jonathan and ãâã and many of the Lord's champions fighting against the Philistines but in these deaths as God served other ends of Providence so he kept to the good men that fell all the mercies of the Promise by giving them a greater blessing of event and compensation In the more ordinary course of Divine dispensation they that prevaricate the Laws of God are put out of protection God withdraws his special Providence or their tutelar Angel and leaves them exposed to the influences of Heaven to the power of a Constellation to the accidents of humanity to the chances of a Battel which are so many and various that it is ten thousand to one a man in that case never escapes and in such variety of contingencies there is no probable way to assure our safety but by a holy life to endear the Providence of God to be our Guardian It was a remarkable saying of Deborah The Stars sought in their courses ãâã in their orbs against Sisera Sisera fought when there was an evil Aspect or malignant influence of Heaven upon him For even the smallest thing that is in opposition to us is enough to turn the
our life and he dwells in the body and the spirit of every one that eats Christ's flesh and drinks his bloud Happy is that man that sits at the Table of Angels that puts his hand into the dish with the King of all the Creatures and feeds upon the eternal Son of God joyning things below with things above Heaven with Earth Life with Death that mortality might be swallowed up of life and Sin be destroyed by the inhabitation of its greatest Conqueror And now I need not enumerate any particulars since the Spirit of God hath ascertained us that Christ enters into our hearts and takes possession and abides there that we are made Temples and celestial mansions that we are all one with our Judge and with our Redeemer that our Creator is bound unto his Creature with bonds of charity which nothing can dissolve unless our own hands break them that Man is united with God and our weakness is fortified by his strength and our miseries wrapped up in the golden leaves of glory 2. Hence it follows that the Sacrament is an instrument of reconciling us to God and taking off the remanent guilt and stain and obligations of our sins This is the ãâã that was shed for you for the remission of sins For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus And such are all they who worthily eat the flesh of Christ by receiving him they more and more receive remission of sins redemption sanctification wisdom and certain hopes of glory ãâã as the Soul touching and united to the flesh of Adam contracts the stain of original misery and imperfection so much the ãâã shall the Soul united to the flesh of Christ receive pardon and purity and all those blessed emanations from our union with the Second Adam But this is not to be understood as if the first beginnings of our pardon were in the holy Communion for then a man might come with his impurities along with him and lay them on the holy Table to stain and pollute so bright a presence No first Repentance must ãâã the ways of the Lord and in this holy Rite those words of our Lord are verified He that is justified let him be justified ãâã that is here he may receive the increase of Grace and as it grows so sin dies and we are reconciled by nearer unions and approximations to God 9. Thirdly The holy Sacrament is the pledge of Glory and the earnest of Immortality for when we have received him who hath overcome Death and henceforth dies no more he becomes to us like the Tree of life in Paradise and the consecrated Symbols are like the seeds of an eternal duration springing up in us to eternal life nourishing our spirits with Grace which is but the prologue and the infancy of Glory and differs from it only as a Child from a Man But God first raised up his Son to life and by giving him to us hath also consigned us to the same state for our life is hid with Christ in God When we lay down and cast aside the impurer robes of flesh they are then but preparing for glory and if by the only touch of Christ bodies were redintegrate and restored to natural perfections how shall not we live for ever who eat his flesh and drink his bloud It is the discourse of S. Cyril Whatsoever the Spirit can convey to the body of the Church we may expect ãâã this Sacrament for as the Spirit is the instrument of life and action so the bloud of Christ is the conveyance of his Spirit And let all the mysterious places of holy Scripture concerning the effects of Christ communicated in the blessed Sacrament be drawn together in one Scheme we cannot but observe that although they are so expressed as ãâã their meaning may seem intricate and involved yet they cannot be drawn to any meaning at all but it is as glorious in its sense as it is mysterious in the expression and the more intricate they are the greater is their purpose no words being apt and proportionate to signifie this spiritual secret and excellent effects of the Spirit A veil is drawn before all these testimonies because the people were not able to behold the glory which they cover with their curtain and Christ dwelling in us and giving us his flesh to ãâã and his bloud to drink and the hiding of our life with God and the communication of the body of Christ and Christ being our life are such secret glories that as the fruition of them is the portion of the other world so also is the full perception and understanding of them for therefore God appears to us in a cloud and his glories in a veil that we understanding more of it by its concealment than we can by its open face which is too bright ãâã our weak eyes may with more piety also entertain the greatness by these indefinite and mysterious significations than we can by plain and direct intuitions which like the Sun in a direct ray enlightens the object but confounds the organ 10. I should but in other words describe the same glories if I should add That this holy Sacrament does enlighten the spirit of Man and clarifie it with spiritual discernings and as he was to the two Disciples at ãâã so also to other faithful people Christ is known in the breaking of bread That it is a great defence against the hostilities of our ghostly enemies this Holy Bread being like the Cake in ãâã 's Camp overturning the tents of ãâã That it is the relief of our sorrows the antidote and preservative of Souls the viand of our journey the guard and passe-port of our death the wine of Angels That it is more healthful than Rhubarb more pleasant than Cassia That the Betele and ãâã of the ãâã the Moly or Nepenthe of Pliny the Lirinon of the ãâã the Balsam of ãâã the Manna of Israel the Honey of Jonathan are but weak expressions to tell us that this is excellent above Art and Nature and that nothing is good enough in Philosophy to become its ãâã All these must needs fall very short of those plain words of Christ This is my Body The other may become the ecstasies of Piety the transportation of joy and wonder and are like the discourse of S. ãâã upon mount Tabor he was resolved to say some great thing but he knew not what but when we remember that the Body of our Lord and his Bloud is communicated to us in the Bread and the Chalice of blessing we must sit down and rest our selves for this is the mountain of the Lord and we can go no farther 11. In the next place it will ãâã our enquiry to consider how we are to prepare our selves For at the gate of life a man may meet with death and although this holy Sacrament be like Manna in which the obedient find the relishes of Obedience the chaste of
he bearing them upon his tender body with an even and excellent and dispassionate spirit offered up these beginnings of sufferings to his Father to obtain pardon even for them that injured him and for all the World 6. Judas now seeing that this matter went farther than he intended it repented of his fact For although evil persons are in the progress of their iniquity invited on by new arguments and supported by confidence and a careless spirit yet when iniquity is come to the height or so great a proportion that it is apt to produce Despair or an intolerable condition then the Devil suffers the Conscience to thaw and grow tender but it is the tenderness of a Bile it is soreness rather and a new disease and either it comes when the time of Repentance is past or leads to some act which shall make the pardon to be impossible and so it happened here For Judas either impatient of the shame or of the sting was thrust on to despair of pardon with a violence as hasty and as great as were his needs And Despair is very often used like the bolts and bars of Hell-gates it ãâã upon them that had entred into the suburbs of eternal death by an habitual sin and it secures them against all retreat And the Devil is forward enough to bring a man to Repentance provided it be too late and Esau wept bitterly and repented him and the five foolish Virgins lift up their voice aloud when the gates were shut and in Hell men shall repent to all eternity But I consider the very great folly and infelicity of Judas it was at midnight he received his money in the house of Annas betimes in that morning he repented his bargain he threw the money back again but his sin stuck close and it is thought to a ãâã eternity Such is the purchace of Treason and the reward of Covetousness it is cheap in its offers momentany in its possession unsatisfying in the fruition uncertain in the stay sudden in its ãâã horrid in the remembrance and a ruine a certain and miserable ruine is in the event When Judas came in that sad condition and told his miserable story to them that set him on work they ãâã him go away unpitied he had served their ends in betraying his Lord and those that hire such servants use to leave them in the disaster to shame and to sorrow and so did the Priests but took the money and ãâã to put it into the treasury because it was the price of bloud but they made no scruple to take it from the treasury to buy that bloud Any thing seems lawful that serves the ends of ambitious and bloudy persons and then they are scrupulous in their cases of Conscience when nothing of Interest does intervene for evil men make Religion the servant of Interest and sometimes weak men think that it is the ãâã of ãâã Religion and suspect that all of it is a design because many great Politicks make it so The end of the Tragedy was that Judas died with an ignoble death marked with the circumstances of a horrid Judgment and perished by the most infamous hands in the world that is by his own Which if it be confronted against the excellent spirit of S. Peter who did an act as contradictory to his honour and the grace of God as could be easily imagined yet taking sanctuary in the arms of his Lord he lodged in his heart for ever and became an example to all the world of the excellency of the Divine Mercy and the efficacy of a holy Hope and a hearty timely and an operative Repentance 7. ãâã now all things were ready for the purpose the High Priest and all his Council go along with the Holy Jesus to the house of Pilate hoping he would verifie their Sentence and bring it to execution that they might ãâã be rid of their fears and enjoy their sin and their reputation quietly S. ãâã ãâã that the High Priest caused the Holy Jesus to be led with a cord about his neck and in memory of that the Priests for many Ages ãâã a stole about theirs But the Jews did it according to the custom of the Nation to signifie he was condemned to death they desired Pilate that he would crucifie him they having ãâã him worthy And when Pilate enquired into the particulars they gave him a general and an indefinite answer If he were not guilty we would not have brought him ãâã thee they intended not to make Pilate Judge of the cause but ãâã of their cruelty But Pilate had not learned to be guided by an implicite faith of such persons which he knew to be malicious and violent and therefore still called for instances and arguments of their Accusation And that all the world might see with how great unworthiness they prosecuted the ãâã they chiefly there accused him of such crimes upon which themselves condemned him not and which they knew to be false but yet likely to move Pilate if he had been passionate or inconsiderate in his sentences He offered to make himself a King This ãâã happened at the entry of the Praetorium for the ãâã who made no conscience of killing the King of Heaven made a conscience of the external customs and ceremonies of their Law which had in them no interiour sanctity which were apt to separate them ãâã the Nations and remark them with characters of Religion and abstraction it would defile them to go to a Roman Forum ãâã a capital action was to be judged and yet the effusion of the best bloud in the world was not esteemed against their ãâã so violent and blind is the spirit of malice which turns humanity into ãâã wisdom into craft diligence into subornation and Religion into Superstition 8. Two other articles they alledged against him but the first concerned not Pilate and the second was involved in the third and therefore he chose to examine him upon this only of his being a King To which the Holy Jesus answered that it is true he was ãâã King indeed but not of this world his Throne is Heaven the Angels are his Courtiers and the ãâã Creation are his Subjects His Regiment is spiritual his ãâã are the Courts of Conscience and Church-tribunals and at Dooms-day the Clouds The Tribute which he demands are conformity to his Laws Faith ãâã and Charity no other Gabels but the duties of a holy Spirit and the expresses of a religious Worship and obedient Will and a consenting Understanding And in all this Pilate thought the interest of ãâã was not invaded For certain it is the Discipline of Jesus confirmed it much and supported it by the strongest pillars And here Pilate saw how impertinent and malicious their Accusation was And we who declaim against the unjust proceedings of the Jews against our dearest Lord should do well to take care that we in accusing any of our Brethren either with malicious purpose or with
him honours the Emperour Conrade the Second when he triumphed after the conquest of Italy had a joy bigger than their heart and their phancy swelled it till they burst and died Death can enter in at any door ãâã of Nice died with excessive laughter so did the Poet Philemon being provoked to it only by seeing an Asse eat sigs And the number of persons who have been found suddenly dead in their beds is so great that as it ingages many to a more certain and regular devotion for their Compline so it were well it were pursued to the utmost intention of God that is that all the parts of Religion should with zeal and assiduity be entertained and finished that as it becomes wise men we never be surprised with that we are sure will sometime or other happen A great General in Italy at the sudden death of Alsonsus of Ferrara and Lodovico ãâã at the sight of the sad accident upon Henry II. of France now mentioned turned religious and they did what God intended in those deaths It concerns us to be curious of single actions because even in those shorter periods we may expire and ãâã our Graves But if the state of life be contradictory to our hopes of Heaven it is like affronting of a Cannon ãâã a beleaguer'd Town a month together it is a contempt of safety and a rendring all Reason useless and unprofitable but he only is wise who having made Death familiar to him by expectation and daily apprehension does at all instants go forth to meet it The wise Virgins went forth to meet the Bridegroom for they were ready Excellent therefore is the counsel of the Son of Sirach Use Physick or ever thou be sick ãâã Judgment examine thy self and in the day of visitation thou shalt finde mercy Humble thy self before then be sick and in the time of sins shew Repentance Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy ãâã in due time and defer not until death to be justified 5. Secondly I consider that it osten happens that in those few days of our last visitation which many Men design for their Preparation and Repentance God hath expressed by an exteriour accident that those persons have deceived themselves and neglected their own Salvation S. Gregory reports of Chrysaurius a Gentleman in the Province of ãâã rich vicious and witty lascivious covetous and proud that being cast upon his Death-bed he phansied he saw evil spirits coming to arrest him and drag him to Hell He fell into great agony and trouble shrieked out called for his son who was a very religious person flattered him as willing to have been rescued by any thing but perceiving his danger increase and grown desperate he called loud with repeated clamours Give me respite but till the morrow and with those words he died there being no place left ãâã his Repentance though he sought it carefully with tears and groans The same was the case of a drunken Monk whom Venerable Bede mentions Upon his Death bed he seemed to see Hell opened and a place assigned him near to Caiaphas and those who crucified our dearest Lord. The religious persons that stood about his Bed called on him to repent of his sins to implore the mercies of God and to trust in Christ But he answered with reason enough This is no time to change my life the sentence is passed upon me and it is too late And it is very considerable and sad which Petrus Damianus tells of Gunizo a sactious and ambitious person to whom it is said the Tempter gave notice of his approaching death but when any Man preached Repentance to him out of a strange incuriousness or the spirit of reprobation he seemed like a dead and unconcerned person in all other discourses he was awake and apt to answer For God had shut up the gates of Mercy that no streams should issue forth to quench the flames of Hell or else had shut up the gates of reception and entertainment that it should not enter either God denies to give them pardon when they call or denies to them a power to call they either cannot pray or God will not answer Now since these stories are related by Men learned pious and eminent in their generations and because they served no design but the ends of Piety and have in them nothing dissonant from revelation or the frequent events of Providence we may upon their stock consider that God's Judgements and visible marks being set upon a state of Life although they happen but seldom in the instances yet they are of universal purpose and signfication Upon all Murtherers God hath not thrown a thunder-bolt nor broke all sacrilegious persons upon the wheel of an inconstant and ebbing estate nor spoken to every Oppressor from Heaven in a voice of thunder nor cut off all Rebels in the first attempts of insurrection But because he hath done so to some we are to look upon those Judgments as Divine accents and voices of God threatning all the same crimes with the like events and with the ruines of eternity For though God does not always make the same prologues to death yet by these few accidents happening to single persons we are to understand his purposes concerning all in the same condition it was not the person so much as the estate which God then remarked with so visible characters of his displeasure 6. And it seems to me a wonder that since from all the records of Scripture urging the uncertainty of the day of death the horrour of the day of Judgment the severity of God the dissolution of the world the certainty of our account still from all these premisses the Spirit of God makes no other inference but that we watch and stand in a readiness that we live in all holy conversation and godliness and that there is no one word concerning any other manner of an essentially-necessary Preparation none but this yet that there are Doctrines commenced and Rules prescribed and Offices set down and Suppletories invented by Curates of Souls how to prepare a vicious person and upon his Death-bed to reconcile him to the hopes and promises of Heaven Concerning which I desire that every person would but enquire where any one promise is recorded in Scripture concerning such addresses and what Articles CHRIST hath drawn up between his Father and us concerning a Preparation begun upon our Death-bed and if he shall find none as most certainly from Genesis to the Revelation there is not a word concerning it but very much against it let him first build his hopes upon this proposition that A holy life is the onely Preparation to a happy death and then we can without danger proceed to some other Considerations 7. When a good man or a person concerning whom it is not certain he hath lived in habitual Vices comes to die there are but two general ways of entercourse with him the one to keep him from
their friends and consider not that their friends are bound to accept the trouble as themselves to accept the sickness that to tend the sick is at that time allotted for the portion of their work and that Charity receives it as a duty and makes that duty to be a pleasure And however if our friends account us a burthen let us also accept that circumstance of affliction to our selves with the same resignation and indifferency as we entertain its occasion the Sickness it self and pray to God to enkindle a flame of Charity in their breasts and to make them compensation for the charge and trouble we put them to and then the care is at an end But others excuse their discontent with a more religious colour and call the disease their trouble and affliction because it impedes their other parts of Duty they cannot preach or study or do exteriour assistences of Charity and Alms or acts of Repentance and Mortification But it were well if we could let God proportion out our work and set our task let him chuse what vertues we shall specially exercise and when the will of God determines us it is more excellent to endure afflictions with patience equanimity and thankfulness than to do actions of the most pompous Religion and laborious or expensive Charity not only because there is a deliciousness in actions of Religion and choice which is more agreeable to our spirit than the toleration of sickness can be which hath great reward but no present pleasure but also because our suffering and our imployment is consecrated to us when God chuses it and there is then no mixture of imperfection or secular interest as there may be in other actions even of an excellent Religion when our selves are the chusers And let us also remember that God hath not so much need of thy works as thou hast of Patience Humility and Resignation S. Paul was far a more considerable person than thou canst be and yet it pleased God to shut him in prison for two years and in that intervall God secured and promoted the work of the Gospel and although ãâã was an excellent Minister yet God laid a sickness upon him and even in his disease gave him work enough to do though not of his own chusing And therefore fear it not but the ends of Religion or Duty will well enough proceed without thy health and thy own eternal interest when God so pleases shall better be served by Sickness and the Vertues which it occasions than by the opportunities of Health and an ambulatory active Charity 18. When thou art resigned to God use fair and appointed means for thy Recovery trust not in thy spirit upon any instrument of health as thou art willing to be disposed by God so look ãâã for any event upon the stock of any other cause or principle be ruled by the Physician and the people appointed to tend thee that thou neither become troublesome to them nor give any sign of impatience or a peevish spirit But this advice only means that thou do not disobey them out of any evil principle and yet if Reason be thy guide to chuse any other aid or sollow any other counsel use it temperately prudently and charitably It is not intended for a Duty that thou shouldst drink Oil in stead of Wine if thy Minister reach it to thee as did Saint Bernard nor that thou shouldst accept a Cake tempered with Linseed-oil in stead of Oil of Olives as did F. Stephen mentioned by ãâã but that thou tolerate the defects of thy servants and accept the evil accidents of thy disease or the unsuccessfulness of thy Physician 's care as descending on thee from the hands of God Asa was noted in Scripture that in his sickness he sought not to the Lord but to the Physicians Lewis the XI of France was then the miserablest person in his Kingdom when he made himself their servant courting them with great pensions and rewards attending to their Rules as Oracles and from their mouths waited for the sentence of life or death We are in these great accidents especially to look upon God as the disposer of the events which he very often disposes contrary to the expectation we may have of probable causes and sometimes without Physick we recover and with Physick and excellent applications we grow worse and worse and God it is that makes the remedies unprosperous In all these and all other accidents if we take care that the sickness of the Body derive not it self into the Soul nor the pains of one procure impatience of the other we shall alleviate the burthen and make it supportable and profitable And certain it is if men knew well to bear their sicknesses humbly towards God charitably towards our Ministers and chearfully in themselves there were no greater advantage in the world to be received than upon a sick bed and that alone hath in it the benefits of a Church of a religious Assembly of the works of Charity and labour And since our Soul 's eternal well-being depends upon the Charities and Providence and Veracity of God and we have nothing to show for it but his word and Goodness and that is infinitely enough it is but reason we be not more nice and scrupulous about the usage and accommodation of our Body if we accept at God's hand sadness and driness of affection and spiritual desertion patiently and with indifferency it is unhandsome to express our selves less satisfied in the accidents about our body 19. But if the Sickness proceed to Death it is a new charge upon our spirits and God calls for a final and intire Resignation into his hands And to a person who was of humble affections and in his life-time of a mortified spirit accustomed to bear the yoke of the Lord this is easie because he looks upon Death not only as the certain condition of Nature but as a necessary transition to a state of Blessedness as the determination of his sickness the period of humane inselicities the last change of condition the beginning of a new strange and excellent life a security against sin a freedom from the importunities of a Tempter from the tyranny of an imperious Lust from the rebellion of Concupiscence from the disturbances and tempests of the Irascible faculty and from the fondness and childishness of the Concupiscible and S. Ambrose says well the trouble of this life and the dangers are so many that in respect of them Death is a remedy and a fair proper object of desires And we finde that many Saints have prayed for death that they might not see the Persecutions and great miseries incumbent upon the Church and if the desire be not out of Impatience but of Charity and with resignation there is no reason to reprove it Elias prayed that God would take his life that he might not see the evils of Ahab and Jezebel and their vexatious intendments against the
Prophets of the Lord. And S. Austin upon the Incursion of the Vandals into Africa called his Clergy together and at their Chapter told them he had prayed to God either to deliver his People from the present calamity or grant them patience to bear it or that he would take him out of the world that he might not see the miseries of his Diocese adding that God had granted him the last and he presently fell sick and died in the siege of his own Hippo. And if Death in many cases be desirable and for many reasons it is always to be submitted to when God calls And as it is always a misery to fear death so it is very often a sin or the effect of sin If our love to the world hath fastened our affections here it is a direct sin and this is by the son of Sirach noted to be the case of rich and great personages How bitter O death is thy remembrance to a man that is at rest in his possessions But if it be a fear to perish in the ruines of Eternity they are not to blame for fearing but that their own ill lives have procured the fear And yet there are persons in the state of Grace but because they are in great imperfection have such lawful fears of Death and of entring upon an uncertain Sentence which must stand eternally irreversible be it good or bad that they may with piety and care enough pray David's prayer O spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen But in this and in all other cases Death must be accepted without murmur though without fear it cannot A man may pray to be delivered from it and yet if God will not grant it he must not go as one hal'd to execution but if with all his imperfect fears he shall throw himself upon God and accept his sentence as righteous whether it speak life or death it is an act of so great excellency that it may equal the good actions of many succeeding and surviving days and peradventure a longer life will be yet more imperfect and that God therefore puts a period to it that thou mayest be taken into a condition more certain though less eminent However let not the fears of Nature or the fear of Reason or the fears of Humility become accidentally criminal by a murmur or a pertinacious contesting against the event which we cannot hinder but ought to accept by an election secondary rational and pious and upon supposition that God will not alter the sentence passed upon thy temporal life always remembring that in Christian Philosophy Death hath in it an excellency of which the Angels are not capable For by the necessity of our Nature we are made capable of dying for the Holy Jesus and next to the privilege of that act is our willingness to die at his command which turns necessity into vertue and nature into grace and grace to glory 20. When the sick person is thus disposed let him begin to trim his wedding-garment and dress his Lamp with the repetition of acts of Repentance perpetually praying to God for pardon of his sins representing to himself the horror of them the multitude the obliquity being helped by arguments apt to excite Contrition by repetition of penitential Psalms and holy Prayers and he may by accepting and humbly receiving his sickness at God's hand transmit it into the condition of an act or effect of ãâã acknowledging himself by sin to have deserved and procured it and praying that the punishment of his crimes may be here and not reserved for the state of Separation and for ever 21. But above all single acts of this exercise we are concerned to see that nothing of other mens Goods stick to us but let us shake it off as we would a burning coal ãâã our flesh for it will destroy us it will carry a curse with us and leave a curse behind us Those who by thy means or importunity have become vicious exhort to Repentance and holy life those whom thou hast cozened into crimes restore to a right understanding those who are by violence and interest led captive by thee to any undecency restore to their liberty and encourage to the prosecution of holiness discover and confess thy fraud and unlawful arts cease thy violence and give as many advantages to Vertue as thou hast done to Viciousness Make recompence for bodily wrongs such as are wounds dismembrings and other disabilities restore every man as much as thou canst to that good condition from which thou hast removed him restore his Fame give back his Goods return the Pawn release ãâã and take off all unjust invasions or surprises of his Estate pay Debts satisfie for thy fraud and injustice as far as thou canst and as thou canst and as soon or this alone is weight enough no less than a Mil-stone about thy Neck But if the dying man be of God and in the state of Grace that is if he have lived a holy life repented seasonably and have led a just sober and religious conversation in any acceptable degree it is to be supposed he hath no great account to make for unpretended injuries and unjust detentions for if he had detained the goods of his neighbour fraudulently or violently without amends when it is in his power and opportunity to restore he is not the man we suppose him in this present Question and although in all cases he is bound to restore according to his ability yet the act is less excellent when it is compelled and so it seems to be if he have continued the injustice till he is forced to quit the purchace However if it be not done till then let it be provided for then And that I press this duty to pious persons at this time is only to oblige them to a diligent scrutiny concerning the lesser omissions of this duty in the matter of fame or lesser debts or spiritual restitution or that those unevennesses of account which were but of late transaction may now be regulated and that whatsoever is undone in this matter from what principle soever it proceeds whether of sin or only of forgetfulness or of imperfection may now be made as exact as we can and are obliged and that those excuses which made it reasonable and lawful to defer Restitution as want of opportunity clearness of ability and accidental inconvenience be now laid aside and the action be done or provided for in the midst of all objections and inconvenient circumstances rather than to omit it and hazard to perform it 22. Hither also I reckon resolutions and forward purposes of emendation and greater severity in case God return to us hopes of life which therefore must be re-inforced that we may serve the ends of God and understand all his purposes and make use of every opportunity every sickness laid upon us being with a design of drawing us nearer
spices then begin to consider who shall remove the stone but yet they still go on and their love answers the objection not knowing how it should be done but yet resolving to go through all the difficulties but never remember or take care to pass the guards of Souldiers But when they came to the Sepulchre they found the Guard affrighted and removed and the stone rolled away for there had a little before their arrival been a great Earthquake and an Angel descending from Heaven rolled away the stone and sate upon it and for fear of him the guards about the tomb became astonished with fear and were like dead men and some of them ran to the High Priests and told them what happened But they now resolving to make their iniquity safe and unquestionable by a new crime hire the Souldiers to tell an incredible and a weak fable that his Disciples came by night and stole him away Against which accident the wit of man could give no more security than themselves had made The women entred into the Sepulchre and missing the body of Jesus Mary Magdalen ran to the eleven Apostles complaining that the body of our Lord was not to be found Then Peter and John ran as fast as they could to see for the unexpectedness of the relation the wonder of the story and the sadness of the person moved some affections in them which were kindled by the first principles and sparks of Faith but were not made actual and definite because the Faith was not raised to a flame they looked into the Sepulchre and finding not the body there they returned By this time Mary Magdalen was come back and the women who stayed weeping for their Lord's body saw two Angels sitting in white the one at the head and the other at the ãâã at which unexpected sight they trembled and bowed themselves but an Angel bid them not to fear telling them that Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified was also risen and was not there and called to mind what Jesus had told them in Galilee concerning his Crucifixion and Resurrection the third day 2. And Mary Magdalen turned her self back and saw Jesus but supposing him to be the Gardiner she said to him Sir if thou have born him hence tell me where thou hast laid him and I will take him away But Jesus said unto her Mary Then she knew his voice and with ecstasie of joy and wonder was ready to have crushed his feet with her imbraces but he commanded her not to touch him but go to his Erethren and say I ascend unto my Father and to your Father to my God and your God Mary departed with satisfaction beyond the joys of a victory or a full vintage and told these things to the Apostles but the narration seem'd to them as talk of abused and phantastick persons About the same time Jesus also appeared unto Simon Peter Towards the declining of the day two of his Disciples going to Emmans sad and discoursing of the late occurrences Jesus puts himself into their company and upbraids their incredulity and expounds the Scriptures that Christ ought to suffer and rise again the third day and in the breaking of bread disappeared and so was known to them by vanishing away whom present they knew not And instantly they hasten to Jerusalem and told the Apostles what had happened 3. And while they were there that is the same day at evening when the Apostles were assembled all save Thomas secretly for fear of the Jews the doors being shut Jesus came and stood in the midst of them They were exceedingly troubled supposing it had been a Spirit But Jesus confuted them by the Philosophy of their senses by feeling his ãâã and bones which spirits have not For he gave them his benediction shewing them his hands and his feet At which sight they rejoyced with exceeding joy and began to be restored to their indefinite hopes of some future felicity by the returns of their Lord to life and there he first breathed on them giving them the holy Ghost and performing the promise twice made before his death the promise of the Keys or of binding and loosing saying Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted to them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And that was the second part of Clerical power with which Jesus instructed his Disciples in order to their great Commission of Preaching and Government ãâã These things were told to Thomas but he believed not and resolved against the belief of it unless he might put his finger into his hands and his hand into his side Jesus therefore on the Octaves of his Resurrection appeared again to the Apostles met together and makes demonstration to Thomas in conviction and reproof of his unbelief promising a special benediction to all succeeding Ages of the Church for they are such who saw not and yet have believed 4. But Jesus at his early appearing had sent an order by the women that the Disciples should go into ãâã and they did so after a few days And Simon Peter being there went a fishing and six other of the Apostles with him to the Sea of Tiberias where they laboured all night and caught nothing Towards the morning Jesus appeared to them and bad them cast the net on the right side of the ship which they did and inclosed an hundred and fifty three great fishes by which prodigious draught John the beloved Disciple perceived it was the Lord. At which instant Peter threw himself into the Sea and went to Jesus and when the rest were come to shore they din'd with broiled fish After dinner Jesus taking care for those scattered sheep which were dispersed over the face of the earth that he might gather them into one Sheepfold under one ãâã asked Peter Simon son of Jonas lovest thou me more than these Peter answered Yea Lord thou that knowest all things knowest that I love thee Then Jesus said unto him Feed my Lambs And Jesus asked him the same question and gave him the same Precept the second time and the third time for it was a considerable and a weighty imployment upon which Jesus was willing to spend all his endearments and stock of affections that Peter owed him even upon the care of his little Flock And after the intrusting of this charge to him he told him that the reward he should have in this world should be a sharp and an honourable Martyrdom and withall checks at Peter's curiosity in busying himself about the temporal accidents of other men and enquiring what should become of John the beloved Disciple Jesus answered his question with some sharpness of reprehension and no satisfaction If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee Then they phansied that he should not die But they were mistaken for the intimation was expounded and verified by S. John's surviving the destruction of Jerusalem for after the attempts of persecutors and the miraculous escape
Hell that follows it It was to be celebrated with a Male-lamb without blemish taken out of the Flock to note the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the World who was taken from among men a Lamb without blemish and without spot holy harmless and separate from sinners The Door-posts of the House were to be sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb to signifie our security from the Divine vengeance by the blood of sprinkling The Lamb was to be roasted and eaten whole typifying the great sufferings of our blessed Saviour who was to pass through the fire of Divine wrath and to be wholly embrac'd and entertain'd by us in all his Offices as King Priest and Prophet None but those that were clean and circumcised might eat of it to shew that only true believers holy and good men can be partakers of Christ and the merits of his Death It was to be eaten standing with their Loins girt and their staff in their hand to put them in mind what haste they made out of the house of bondage and to intimate to us what present diligence we should use to get from under the empire and tiranny of sin and Satan under the conduct and assistance of the Captain of our Salvation The eating of it was to be mixed with bitter herbs partly as a memorial of that bitter servitude which they underwent in the Land of Egypt partly as a type of that repentance and bearing of the cross duties difficult and unpleasant which all true Christians must undergo Lastly it was to be eaten with unleavened Bread all manner of leaven being at that time to be banished out of their Houses with the most critical diligence and curiosity to represent what infinite care we should take to cleanse and purifie our hearts to purge ãâã the old leaven that we may be a new lump and that since Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us therefore we should keep the Feast the Festival commemoration of his Death not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth 6. THE Places of their Publick Worship were either the Tabernacle made in the Wilderness or the Temple built by Solomon between which in the main there was no other difference than that the Tabernacle was an ambulatory Temple as the Temple was a standing Tabernacle together with all the rich costly Furniture that was in them The parts of it were three the Holiest of all whither none entred but the High-Priest and that but once a Year this was a type of Heaven the holy place whither the Priests entred every Day to perform their Sacred Ministrations and the outward Court whither the People came to offer up their Prayers and Sacrifices In the Sanctum Sanctorum or Holiest of all there was the Golden Censer typifying the Merits and Intercession of Christ the Ark of the Covenant as a representation of him who is the Mediator of the Covenant between God and man the Golden Pot of Manna a type of our Lord the true Manna the Bread that came down from Heaven the Rod of Aaron that budded signifying the Branch of the Root of Jesse that though our Saviour's Family should be reduced to a state of so much meanness and obscurity as to appear but like the trunk or stump of a Tree yet there should come forth a rod out of this stem of Jesse and a branch grow out of his roots which should stand for an Ensign of the People and in him should the Gentiles trust And within the Ark were the two Tables of the Covenant to denote him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and who is the end and perfection of the Law Over it were the Cherubims of glory shadowing the Mercy-seat who looking towards each other and both to the Mercy-seat denoted the two Testaments or Dispensations of the Church which admirably agree and both direct to Christ the Mediator of the Covenant The Propitiatory or Mercy-seat was the Golden covering to the Ark where God vailing his Majesty was wont to manifest his Presence to give Answers and shew Himself reconciled to the People herein eminently ãâã our Blessed Saviour who interposes between us and the Divine Majesty whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood for the remission of sins so that now we may come boldly to the Throne of Grace and find mercy to help us Within the Sanctuary or the Holy Place was the Golden ãâã with Seven Branches representing Christ who is the Light of the World and who enlightens every one that comes into the World and before whose Throne there are said to be seven Lamps of Fire which are the seven spirits of God The Table compassed about with a Border and a Crown of Gold denoting the Ministry and the Shew-bread set upon it shadowing out Christ the Bread of Life who by the Ministry of the Gospel is offered to the World here also was the Golden Altar of Incense whereon they burnt the sweet ãâã Morning and Evening to signifie to us that our Lord is the true Altar by whom all our Prayers and Services are rendred the odour of a sweet smell acceptable unto God to this the Psalmist refers Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as incense and the ãâã up of my hands as the Evening Sacrifice The third part of the Tabernacle as also of the Temple was the Court of Israel wherein stood the Brazen Altar upon which the Holy Fire was continually preserved by which the Sacrifices were consumed one of the Five great Prerogatives that were wanting in the second Temple Here was the Brazen Laver with its Basis made of the brazen Looking-glasses of the Women that assembled at the Door of the Tabernacle wherein the Priests washed their Hands and their Feet when going into the Sanctuary and both they and the People when about to offer Sacrifice to teach us to purifie our hearts and to cleanse our selves ãâã all filthiness of flesh and spirit especially when we approach to offer up our services to Heaven hereunto David alludes I will wash mine hands in innocency so will I compass thine Altar O Lord. Solomon in building the Temple made an addition of a fourth Court the Court of the Gentiles whereinto the unclean Jewes and Gentiles might enter and in this was the Corban or Treasury and it is sometimes in the New Testament called the Temple To these Laws concerning ãâã Place of Worship we may reduce those that relate to the holy Vessels and Utensils of the Tabernacle and the Temple Candlesticks Snuffers Dishes c. which also had their proper mysteries and significations 7. THE stated times and seasons of their worship are next to be considered and they were either Daily Weekly Monthly or Yearly Their Daily worship was at the time of the Morning and the Evening Sacrifice their Weekly solemnity
Religion and for which they had a far more sacred regard than for the plain and positive commands of God Such were their frequent washings of their Pots and Cups their brazen Vessels and Tables the purifying themselves after they came from Market as if the touching of others had defiled them the washing their hands before every Meal and many other things which they had received to hold In all which they were infinitely nice and scrupulous making the neglect of them of equal guilt with the greatest immorality not sticking to affirm that he who eats Bread with unwashen hands ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is as if he lay with an Harlot This it 's plain they thought a sufficient charge against our Lord's Disciples that they were not zealous observers of these things When they saw some of his Disciples eat Bread with defiled that is to say with unwashen hands they found fault and asked him Why walk not thy Disciples according to the Tradition of the Elders but ãâã Bread with unwashen hands To whom our Saviour smartly answered that they were the Persons of whom the Prophet had spoken who honoured God with their lips but their hearts were far from him that in vain did they worship him while for doctrines they taught the commandments of men laying aside and rejecting the commandments of God that they might hold the Tradition of men For they were not content to make them of equal value and authority with the Word of God but made them a means wholly to evacuate and supersede it Whereof our Lord gives a notorious instance in the case of Parents They could not say but that the Law obliged Children to honour and revere their Parents and to administer to their necessities in all straits and exigencies but then had found out a fine way to evade the force of the command and that under a pious and plausible pretence Moses said Honour thy Father and thy Mother and who so curseth Father or Mother let him die the death But ye say If a man shall say to his Father or Mother It is Corban that is to say a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me ãâã shall be ãâã And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his Father or Mother By which is commonly understood that when their Parents required relief and assistance from their Children they put them off with this excuse that they had consecrated their Estate to God and might not divert it to any other use Though this seems a ãâã and plausible pretence yet it is not reasonable to suppose that either they had or would pretend that they had intirely devoted whatever they had to God and must therefore refer to some other custom Now among the many kinds of oaths and vows that were among the Jews they had one which they called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the vow of interdict whereby a man might restrain himself as to this or that particular person and this or that particular thing as he might vow not to accept of such a courtesie from this friend or that neighbour or that he would not part with this or that thing of his own to such a man to lend him his Horse or give him any thing towards his maintenance c. and then the thing became utterly unlawful and might not be done upon any consideration whatsoever lest the Man became guilty of the violation of his Vow The form of this Vow frequently occurs in the Jewish Writings and even in the very same words wherein our Lord expresses it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Be it ãâã or a gift that is a thing sacred whereby I may be any ways prositable to thee that is be that thing unlawful or prohibited to me wherein I may be helpful and assistant to thee And nothing more common than this way of vowing in the particular case of Parents whereof there are abundant instances in the writings of the Jewish Masters who thus explain the forementioned Vow ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Whatever I shall gain hereafter shall be sacred as to the maintenance of my Father or as Maimonides expresses it That what I provide my Father shall eat nothing of it that is says he he shall receive no profit by it and then as they tell us ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He that had thus vowed might not transgress or make void his Vow So that when indigent Parents craved relief and assistance from their Children and probably wearied them with importunity it was but vowing in a passionate resentment that they should not be better for what they had and then they were safe and might no more dispose any part of their Estate to that use than they might touch the Corban that which was most solemnly consecrated to God By which means they were taught to be unnatural under a pretence of Religion and to suffer their Parents to starve lest themselves should violate a senceless and unlawful Vow So that though they were under the precedent obligations of a natural duty a duty as clearly commanded by God as words could express it yet a blind Tradition a rash and impious Vow made for the most part out of passion or covetousness should cancel and supersede all these obligations it being unlawful hence forth to give them one penny to relieve them ãâã suffer him no more says our Lord to do ought for his Father or his Mother making the word of God of none effect through your tradition which ye have delivered 22. THE last instance that I shall note of the corruption and degeneracy of this Church is the many Sects and divisions that were in it a thing which the Jews themselves in their writings confess would happen in the days of the ãâã whose Kingdom should be overrun with heretical opinions That Church which heretofore like Jerusalem had been at unity within it self was now miserably broken into ãâã and Factions whereof three most considerable Pharisees Sadducees and the Essenes The Pharisees derive their name from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which may admit of a double signification and either not unsuitable to them It may refer to them as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Explainers or Interpreters of the Law which was a peculiar part of their work and for which they were famous and venerable among the Jews or more probably to their separation the most proper and natural importance of the word so called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as ãâã observed of old because separated from all others in their extraordinary pretences of piety the very Jews themselves thus describing a Pharisee he is one ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that separates himself from all uncleanness and from all unclean meats and from the people of the Earth the common rout who accurately observe not the difference of Meats It is not certain when this Sect first thrust up its head into the World probably not long after the times of the Macchabees 't is certain they
thither but yet worshipped God at home and used their own Rites and Ceremonies Every seventh day they publickly met in their Synagogues where the younger seating themselves at the feet of the elder one reads some portions out of a Book which another eminently skilled in the principles of their Sect expounds to the rest their dogmata like the Philosophy of the Ancients being obscurely and enigmatically delivered to them instructing them in the rules of piety and righteousness and all the duties that concerned God others or themselves They industriously tilled and cultivated the ground and lived upon the fruits of their own labours had all their revenues in common there being neither rich nor poor among them Their manners were very harmless and innocent exact observers of the rules of Justice somewhat beyond the practice of other men As for that branch of them that lived in Egypt whose excellent Manners and Institutions are so particularly described and commended by Philo and whom ãâã and others will needs have to have been Christians converted by S. Mark we have taken notice of elsewhere in S. Mark' s Life We find no mention of them in the History of the Gospel probably because living remote from Cities and all places of publick concourse they never concerned themselves in the actions of Christ or his Apostles What their principles were in matters of speculation is not much material to enquire their Institutions mainly referring to practice Out of a great regard to wisdom and vertue they neglected all care of the body renounced all conjugal embraces abstained very much from Meats and Drinks some of them not eating or drinking for three others for five or six days together accounting it unbecoming men of such a Philosophical temper and genius to spend any part of the day upon the necessities of the body Their way they called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã worship and their rules ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã doctrines of wisdom their contemplations were sublime and speculative and of things beyond the ordinary notions of other Sects they traded in the names and mysteries of Angels and in all their carriages bore a great shew of modesty and humility And therefore these in all likelihood were the very persons whom S. Paul primarily designed though not excluding others who espoused the same principles when he charges the ãâã to let no man ãâã them of their reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puffed up by his ãâã mind that being dead to the rudiments of the World they should no longer ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be subject to these dogmata or ordinances such as Touch not taste not handle not the main principles of the Essenian Institution being the commandments and doctrines of men which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honour to the satisfying of the ãâã Besides these three greater there were several other lesser Sects in the Jewish Church such as the Herodians supposed to have been either part of Herod's guard or a combination of men who to ingratiate themselves with the Prince maintained Herod to be the Messiah and at their own charge celebrated his Coronation-days as also the Sabbath when they used to set lighted Candles crowned with Violets in their windows an opinion which S. ãâã justly laughs at as trifling and ridiculous Probably they were a party that had ãâã Herod's interest and endeavoured to support his new-gotten Soveraignty For Herod being a stranger and having by the Roman power usurped the Kingdom was generally hateful and burdensom to the people and therefore beside the assistance of a foreign power needed some to stand by him at home They were peculiarly ãâã in pressing people to pay Tribute to Caesar Herod being obliged as S. Hierom observes by the Charter of his Soveraignty to look after the Tribute due to Caesar and they could not do him a more acceptable service by this means endearing him to his great Patrons at Rome In matters of opinion they seem to have sided with the Sadducees what S. Matthew calls the leaven of the Sadducees S. Mark stiles the leaven of Herod Probable it is that they had drawn Herod to be of their principles that as they asserted his right to the Kingdom he might favour and maintain their impious opinions And 't is likely enough that men of so debauched manners might be easily tempted to take shelter under principles that so directly served the purposes of a bad life Another Sect in that Church were the Samaritans the posterity of those who succeeded in the room of the ten captivated Tribes a mixture of Jews and Gentiles they held that nothing but the ãâã was the Word of God that Mount Gerizim was the true place of publick and solemn worship that they were the descendents of Joseph and heirs of the Aaronical Priesthood and that no dealing or correspondence was to be maintained with strangers nor any unclean thing to be touched The Karraeans were a branch of the Sadducees but rejected afterwards their abominable and unsound opinions they are the true Textualists adhering only to the writings of Moses and the Prophets and expounding the Scripture by it self peremptorily disowning the absurd glosses of the Talmud and the idle Traditions of the Rabbins insomuch that they admit not so much as the Hebrew points into their Bibles accounting them part of the Oral and Traditionary Law for which reason they are greatly hated by the rest of the Jews They are in great numbers about ãâã and in other places at this day There was also the Sect of the Zealots frequently mentioned by Josephus a Generation of men insolent and ungovernable ãâã and savage who under a pretence of extraordinary zeal for God and the honour of his Law committed the most enormous outrages against God and Man but of them we have given an account in the Life of S. Simon the Zealot And yet as if all this had not been enough to render their Church miserable within it self their sins and intestine divisions had brought in the Roman power upon them who set Magistrates and Taskmasters over them depressed their great ãâã put in and out Senators at pleasure made the Temple pay tribute and placed a Garrison at hand to command it abrogated a great part of their Laws and stript them so naked both of Civil and Ecclesiastical Order and Authority that they had not power left so much as to put a man to death All evident demonstrations that Shiloh was come and the Scepter departed that the Sacrifice and Oblation was to cease the Messiah being cut off who came to finish transgression to make an end of sins to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness SECT III. Of the EVANGELICAL Dispensation The gradual revelations concerning the Messiah John the Baptist Christ's forerunner His extraordinary
death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the ãâã extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideons Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jewes themselves ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jewes or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jewes call ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all ãâã and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their ãâã unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined onely to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or
receive Honour but to seek it for desigus of pride and complacency or to make it rest in our hearts But when the hand of Vertue receives the honour and transmits it to God from our own head the desires of Nature are sufficiently satisfied and nothing of Religion contradicted And it is certain by all the experience of the world that in every state and order of men he that is most humble in proportion to that state is if all things else be symbolical the most honoured person For it is very observable that when God designed man to a good and happy life as the natural end of his creation to verifie this God was pleased to give him objects sufficient and apt to satisfie every appetite I say to satisfie it naturally not to satisfie those extravagancies which might be accidental and procured by the irregularity either of Will or Understanding not to answer him in all that his desires could extend to but to satisfie the necessity of every appetite all the desires that God made not all that man should make For we see even in those appetites which are common to men and beasts all the needs of Nature and all the ends of creation are served by the taking such proportions of their objects which are ordinate to their end and which in man we call Temperance not as much as they naturally can such as are mixtures of sexes merely for production of their kind eating and drinking for needs and hunger And yet God permitted our appetites to be able to extend beyond the limits of the mere natural design that God by restraining them and putting the setters of Laws upon them might turn natural desires into Sobriety and Sobriety into Religion they becoming servants of the Commandment And now we must not call all those swellings of appetites Natural inclination nor the satisfaction of such tumours and excrescencies any part of natural felicities but that which does just cooperate to those ends which perfect humane Nature in order to its proper End For the appetites of meat and drink and pleasures are but intermedial and instrumental to the End and are not made for themselves but first for the End and then to serve God in the instances of Obedience And just so is the natural desire of Honour intended to be a spur to Vertue for to Vertue only it is naturally consequent or to natural and political Superiority but to desire it beyond or besides the limit is the swelling and the disease of the desire And we can take no rule for its perfect value but by the strict limits of the natural End or the superinduced End of Religion in positive restraints 35. According to this discourse we may best understand that even the severest precepts of the Christian Law are very consonant to Nature and the first Laws of mankind Such is the Precept of Self-denial which is nothing else but a confining the Appetites within the limits of Nature for there they are permitted except when some greater purpose is to be served than the present answering the particular desire and whatsoever is beyond it is not in the natural order to Felicity it is no better than an itch which must be scratched and satisfied but it is unnatural But for Martyrdom it self quitting our goods losing lands or any temporal interest they are now become as reasonable in the present constitution of the world as taking unpleasant potions and suffering a member to be cauterized in sickness or disease And we see that death is naturally a less evil than a continual torment and by some not so resented as a great disgrace and some persons have chosen it for sanctuary and remedy And therefore much rather shall it be accounted prudent and reasonable and agreeable to the most perfect desires of Nature to exchange a House for a Hundred a Friend for a Patron a short Affliction for a lasting Joy and a temporal Death for an eternal Life For so the question is stated to us by him that understands it best True it is that the suffering of losses afflictions and death is naturally an evil and therefore no part of a natural Precept or prime injunction But when God having commanded instances of Religion Man will not suffer us to obey God or will not suffer us to live then the question is Which is most agreeable to the most perfect and reasonable desires of Nature to obey God or to obey man to fear God or to fear man to preserve our bodies or to preserve our Souls to secure a few years of uncertain and troublesome duration or an eternity of a very glorious condition Some men reasonably enough chuse to die for considerations lower than that of a happy Eternity therefore Death is not such an evil but that it may in some cases be desired and reasonably chosen and in some be recompensed at the highest rate of a natural value And if by accident we happen into an estate in which of necessity one evil or another must be suffered certainly nothing is more naturally reasonable and eligible than to chuse the least evil and when there are two good things propounded to our choice both which cannot be possessed nothing is more certainly the object of a prudent choice than the greater good And therefore when once we understand the question of Suffering and Self-denial and Martyrdom to this sence as all Christians do and all wise men do and all Sects of men do in their several perswasions it is but remembring that to live happily after this life is more intended to us by God and is more perfective of humane nature than to live here with all the prosperity which this state affords and it will evidently follow that when violent men will not let us enter into that condition by the ways of Nature and prime intendment that is of natural Religion Justice and Sobriety it is made in that case and upon that supposition certainly naturally and infallibly reasonable to secure the perfective and principal design of our Felicity though it be by such instruments which are as unpleasant to our senses as are the instruments of our restitution to Health since both one and the other in the present conjunction and state of affairs are most proportionable to Reason because they are so to the present necessity not primarily intended to us by God but superinduced by evil accidents and the violence of men And we not only find that Socrates suffered death in attestation of a God though he flattered and discoursed himself into the belief of an immortal reward De industria consultae aequanimitatis non de fiducia compertae veritatis as Tertullian says of him but we also find that all men that believed the Immortality of the Soul firmly and unmoveably made no scruple of exchanging their life for the preservation of Vertue with the interest of their great hope for Honour sometimes and oftentimes for their Countrey 36. Thus the
his thoughts determinate but stood long in deliberation and longer before he acted it because it was an invidious matter and a rigour He was first to have defam'd and accus'd her publickly and being convicted by the Law she was to die if he had gone the ordinary way but he who was a just man that is according to the style of Scripture and other wise Writers a good a charitable man found that it was more agreeable to Justice to treat an offending person with the easiest sentence than to put things to extremity and render the person desperate and without remedy and provoked by the suffering of the worst of what she could fear No obligation to Justice does force a man to be cruel or to use the sharpest sentence A just man does Justice to every man and to every thing and then if he be also wise he knows there is a debt of mercy and compassion due to the infirmities of a man's nature and that debt is to be paid and he that is cruel and ungentle to a sinning person and does the worst thing to him dies in his debt and is unjust Pity and forbearance and long-suffering and fair interpretation and excusing our brother and taking things in the best sence and passing the gentlest sentence are as certainly our duty and owing to every person that does offend and can repent as calling men to account can be owing to the Law and are first to be paid and he that does not so is an unjust person which because Joseph was not he did not call furiously for Justice or pretend that God required it at his hands presently to undo a suspected person but waved the killing letter of the Law and secured his own interest and his Justice too by intending to dismiss her privately But before the thing was irremediable God ended his Question by a heavenly demonstration and sent an Angel to reveal to him the Innocence of his Spouse and the Divinity of her Son and that he was an immediate derivative from Heaven and the Heir of all the World And in all our doubts we shall have a resolution from Heaven or some of its Ministers if we have recourse thither for a Guide and be not hasty in our discourses or inconsiderate in our purposes or rash in judgment For God loves to give assistances to us when we most fairly and prudently endeavour that Grace be not put to do all our work but to facilitate our labour not creating new faculties but improving those of Nature If we consider warily God will guide us in the determination But a hasty person out-runs his guide prevaricates his rule and very often engages upon error The PRAYER O Holy Jesu Son of the Eternal God thy Glory is far above all Heavens and yet thou didst descend to Earth that thy Descent might be the more gracious by how much thy Glories were admirable and natural and inseparable I adore thy holy Humanity with humble veneration and the thankful addresses of religious joy because thou hast personally united Humane nature to the Eternal Word carrying it above the seats of the highest Cherubim This great and glorious Mystery is the honour and glory of man it was the expectation of our Fathers who saw the mysteriousness of thy Incarnation at great and obscure distances And blessed be thy Name that thou hast caused me to be born after the fulfilling of thy Prophecies and the consummation and exhibition of so great a love so great mysteriousness Holy Jesu though I admire and adore the immensity of thy love and condescension who wert pleased to undergo our burthens and infirmities for us yet I abhor my self and detest my own impurities which were so great and contradictory to the excellency of God that to destroy Sia and save us it became necessary that thou shouldest be sent into the World to die our death for us and to give us of thy Life 2. DEarest Jesu thou didst not breath one sigh nor shed one drop of bloud nor weep one tear nor suffer one stripe nor preach one Sermon for the salvation of the Devils and what sadness and shame is it then that I should cause so many insufferable loads of sorrows to fall upon thy sacred head Thou art wholly given for me wholly spent upon my uses and wholly for every one of the Elect. Thou in the beginning of the work of our Redemption didst suffer nine months imprisonment in the pure Womb of thy Holy Mother to redeem me from the eternal servitude of Sin and its miserable consequents Holy Jesu let me be born anew receive a new birth and a new life imitating thy Graces and Excellencies by which thou art beloved of thy Father and hast obtained for us a favour and atonement Let thy holy will be done by me let all thy will be wrought in me let thy will be wrought concerning me that I may do thy pleasure and submit to the dispensation of thy Providence and conform to thy holy will and may for ever serve thee in the Communion of Saints in the society of thy redeemed ones now and in the glories of Eternity Amen SECT III. The Nativity of our Blessed Saviour JESVS The Birth of LESUS And she brought forth her first borne son and wrapped him in swadling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no roome sor them in the Inne Luk. 2. 7. The Virgin MOTHER S LUKE 11. 27 Blessed is the Womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast Sucked v. 28. Yea rather Blessed are they that heare the word of God and keep it 1. THE Holy Maid longed to be a glad Mother and she who carried a burthen whose proper commensuration is the days of Eternity counted the tedious minutes expecting when the Sun of Righteousness should break forth from his bed where nine months he hid himself as behind a fruitful cloud About the same time God who in his infinite wisdom does concentre and tie together in one end things of disparate and disproportionate natures making things improbable to cooperate to what wonder or to what truth he pleases brought the Holy Virgin to Bethlehem the City of David to be taxed with her Husband Joseph according to a Decree upon all the World issuing from Augustus Caesar. But this happened in this conjunction of time that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet Micah And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the Princes of Judah for out of thee shall come a Governour that shall rule my people Israel This rare act of Providence was highly remarkable because this Taxing seems wholly to have been ordered by God to serve and minister to the circumstances of this Birth For this Taxing was not in order to Tribute Herod was now King and received all the Revenues of the Fiscus and paid to Augustus an appointed Tribute after the manner of other Kings Friends and
to be quitted But it is S. Chrysostom's Simile As a Lamb sucking the breast of its dam and Mother moves the head from one part to another till it hath found a distilling fontinel and then it fixes till it be satisfied or the ãâã cease dropping so should we in Meditation reject such materials as are barren like the tops of hills and six upon such thoughts which nourish and refresh and there dwell till the nourishment be drawn forth or so much of it as we can then temperately digest 14. Fifthly In Meditation strive rather for Graces than for Gifts for affections in the way of Vertue more than the overslowings of sensible Devotion and therefore if thou findest any thing by which thou mayest be better though thy spirit do not actually rejoyce or find any gust or relish in the manducation yet chuse it greedily For although the chief end of Meditation be Affection and not Determinations intellectual yet there is choice to be had of the Affections and care must be taken that the affections be desires of Vertue or repudiations and aversions from something criminal not joys and transportations spiritual comforts and complacencies for they are no part of our duty sometimes they are encouragements and sometimes rewards sometimes they depend upon habitude and disposition of body and seem great matters when they have little in them and are more bodily than spiritual like the gift of tears and yerning of the bowels and sometimes they are illusions and temptations at which if the Soul stoops and be greedy after they may prove like Hippomenes's golden Apples to Atalanta retard our course and possibly do some hazard to the whole race And this will be nearer reduced to practice if we consider the variety of matter which is fitted to the Meditation in several states of men travelling towards Heaven 15. For the first beginners in Religion are imployed in the mastering of their first Appetites casting out their Devils exterminating all evil customs lessening the proclivity of habits and countermanding the too-great forwardness of vicious inclinations and this which Divines call the Purgative way is wholly spent in actions of Repentance Mortification and Self-denial and therefore if a penitent person snatches at Comforts or the tastes of sensible Devotion his Repentance is too delicate it is but a rod of Roses and Jessamine If God sees the spirit broken all in pieces and that it needs a little of the oyl of gladness for its support and restitution to the capacities of its duty he will give it but this is not to be designed nor snatched at in the Meditation Tears of joy are not good expressions nor instruments of Repentance we must not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles no refreshments to be looked for here but such only as are necessary for support and when God sees they are let not us trouble our selves he will provide them But the Meditations which are prompt to this Purgative way and practice of first beginners are not apt to produce delicacies but in the sequel and consequent of it Afterwards it brings forth the pleasant fruit of righteousness but for the present it hath no joy in it no joy of sense though much satisfaction to Reason And such are Meditations of the Fall of Angels and Man the Ejection of them from Heaven of our Parents from Paradise the Horrour and obliquity of Sin the Wrath of God the severity of his Anger Mortification of our body and spirit Self-denial the Cross of Christ Death and Hell and Judgment the terrours of an evil Conscience the insecurities of a Sinner the unreasonableness of Sin the troubles of Repentance the Worm and sting of a burthened spirit the difficulties of rooting out evil Habits and the utter abolition of Sin if these nettles bear honey we may fill our selves but such sweetnesses spoil the operations of these bitter potions Here therefore let your addresses to God and your mental prayers be affectionate desires of Pardon humble considerations of our selves thoughts of revenge against our Crimes designs of Mortification indefatigable solicitations for Mercy expresses of shame and confusion of face and he meditates best in the purgative way that makes these affections most operative and high 16. After our first step is taken and the punitive part of Repentance is resolved on and begun and put forward into good degrees of progress we then enter into the Illuminative way of Religion and set upon the acquist of Vertues and the purchase of spiritual Graces and therefore our Meditations are to be proportioned to the design of that imployment such as are considerations of the Life of Jesus Examples of Saints reasons of Vertue means of acquiring them designations of proper exercises to every pious habit the Eight Beatitudes the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost the Promises of the Gospel the Attributes of God as they are revealed to represent God to be infinite and to make us Religious the Rewards of Heaven excellent and select Sentences of holy persons to be as incentives of Piety These are the proper matter for Proficients in Religion But then the affections producible from these are love of vertue desires to imitate the Holy Jesus affections to Saints and holy persons conformity of choice subordination to God's will election of the ways of Vertue satisfaction of the Understanding in the ways of Religion and resolutions to pursue them in the midst of all discomforts and persecutions and our mental prayers or entercourse with God which are the present emanations of our Meditations must be in order to these affections and productions from those and in all these yet there is safety and piety and no seeking of our selves but designs of Vertue in just reason and duty to God and for his sake that is for his commandment And in all these particulars if there be such a sterility of spirit that there be no end served but of spiritual profit we are never the worse all that God requires of us is that we will live well and repent in just measure and right manner and he that doth so hath meditated well 17. From hence if a pious Soul passes to affections of greater sublimity and intimate and more immediate abstracted and immaterial love it is well only remember that the love God requires of us is an operative material and communicative love If ye love me keep my Commandments so that still a good life is the effect of the sublimest Meditation and if we make our duty sure behind us ascend up as high into the Mountain as you can so your ascent may consist with the securities of your person the condition of infirmity and the interests of your duty According to the saying of ãâã Our empty saying of ãâã and reciting verses in honour of his Name please not God so well as the imitation of him does advantage to us and a devout ãâã pleases the Spouse better than an idle Panegyrick Let your work
connivences there no protections or friendships or consideration or indulgences but Herod caus'd that his own child which was at nurse in the coasts of Bethlehem should bleed to death which made Augustus Caesar to say that in Heroa's house it were better to be a ãâã than a Child because the custome of the Nation did secure a Hog from Heroa's knife but no Religion could secure his Child The sword being thus made sharp by Herod's commission killed 14000 pretty Babes as the Greeks in their Calendar and the ãâã of AEthiopia do commemorate in their offices of Liturgy For Herod crafty and malicious that is perfectly Tyrant had caused all the Children to be gathered together which the credulous Mothers supposing it had been to take account of their age and number in order to some taxing hindred not but unwittingly suffered themselves and their Babes to be betrayed to an irremediable ãâã 4. Then was ãâã that which was spoken by Jeremy the Prophet saying Lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted All the synonyma's of sadness were little enough to express this great weeping when 14000 Mothers in one day saw their pretty Babes pouring forth their blood into that bosome whence not long before they had sucked milk and instead of those pretty smiles which use to entertain the fancy and dear affections of their Mothers nothing but affrighting shrieks and then gastly looks The mourning was great like the mourning in the valley of Hinnom and there was no comforter their sorrow was too big to be cured till it should lie down alone and rest with its own weariness 5. But the malice of Herod went also into the Hill-countrey and hearing that of John the son of Zachary great things were spoken by which he was designed to a great ministery about this young Prince he attempted in him also to rescind the Prophecies and sent a messenger of death towards him but the Mother's care had been early with him and sent him into desart places where he continued till the time appointed of his manifestation unto ãâã But as the Children of Bethlehem died in the place of Christ so did the Father of the Baptist die for his Child For Herod ãâã Zachary between the Temple and the Altar because he refused to betray his son to the fury of that rabid Bear Though some persons very eminent amongst the Stars of the Primitive Church report a Tradition that a place being separated in the Temple for Virgins Zachary suffered the Mother of our Lord to abide there after the Birth of her Holy Son affirming her still to be a Virgin and that for this reason not Herod but the Scribes and Pharisees did kill Zachary 6. Tertullian reports that the bloud of Zachary had so ãâã the stones of the pavement which was the Altar on which the good old Priest was sacrificed that no art or industry could wash the tincture out the dye and guilt being both indeleble as if because God did intend to exact of that Nation all the bloud of righteous persons from Abel to Zacharias who was the last of the Martyrs of the Synagogue he would leave a character of their guilt in their eyes to upbraid their Irreligion Cruelty and ãâã Some there are who affirm these words of our Blessed Saviour not to relate to any Zachary who had been already slain but to be a Prophecy of the last of all the Martyrs of the Jews who should be slain immediately before the destruction of the last Temple and the dissolution of the Nation Certain it is that such a Zachary the son of ãâã if we may believe Josephus was slain in the middle of the Temple a little before it was destroyed and it is agreeable to the nature of the Prophecy and reproof here made by our Blessed Saviour that from Abel to Zachary should take in all the righteous bloud from first to last till the iniquity was complete and it is not imaginable that the bloud of our Blessed Lord and of S. James their Bishop for whose death many of themselves thought God destroyed their City should be left out of the account which yet would certainly be left out if any other Zachary should be ãâã than he whom they last slew and in proportion to this Cyprian de ãâã expounds that which we read in the past tense to signifie the future ye slew i. e. shall slay according to the style often used by Prophets and as the Aorist of an uncertain signification will beat But the first great instance of the Divine vengeance for these Executions was upon Herod who in very few years after was smitten of God with so many plagues and tortures that himself alone seemed like an Hospital of the ãâã For he was tormented with a soft slow fire like that of burning Iron or the cinders of Yew in his body in his bowels with intolerable Colicks and Ulcers in his natural parts with Worms in his feet with Gout in his nerves with Convulsions ãâã of breathing and out of divers parts of his body issued out so impure and ulcerous a steam that the loathsomness pain and indignation made him once to snatch a knife with purpose to have killed himself but that he was prevented by a Nephew of his that stood there in his attendance 7. But as the flesh of Beasts grows callous by stripes and the pressures of the yoak so did the heart of Herod by the loads of Divine vengeance God began his Hell here and the pains of Hell never made any man less impious for Herod perceiving that he must now die first put to death his son Antipater under pretence that he would have poisoned him and that the last scene of his life might for pure malice and exalted spight out-do all the rest because he believed the Jewish nation would rejoyce at his death he assembled all the Nobles of the people and put them in prison giving in charge to his Sister Salome that when he was expiring his last all the Nobility should be slain that his death might be lamented with a perfect and universal sorrow 8. But God that brings to nought the counsels of wicked Princes turned the design against the intendment of Herod for when he was dead and could not call his Sister to account for disobeying his most bloudy and unrighteous commands she released all the imprisoned and despairing Gentlemen and made the day of her Brother's death a perfect Jubilee a day of joy such as was that when the Nation was delivered from the violence of Haman in the days of ãâã 9. And all this while God had provided a Sanctuary for the Holy Child Jesus For God seeing the secret purposes of bloud which Herod had sent his Angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream saying Arise and take the young Child and his Mother and fly into Egypt and be thou there until I bring thee word
all publick Societies of men one word or an intimation from Christ would have sounded an alarm and put us into postures of defence when all Christ's excellent Sermons and rare exemplar actions cannot tie our hands But it is strange now that of all men in the World Christians should be such fighting people or that Christian Subjects should lift up a thought against a Christian Prince when they had no intimation of encouragement from their Master but many from him to endear Obedience and Humility and Patience and Charity and these four make up the whole analogy and represent the chief design and meaning of Christianity in its moral constitution 11. But Jesus when himself was safe could also have secured the poor Babes of Bethlehem with thousands of diversions and avocations of Herod's purposes or by discovering his own Escape in some safe manner not unknown to the Divine wisedom but yet it did not so please God He is Lord of his Creatures and hath absolute dominion over our lives and he had an end of Glory to serve upon these Babes and an end of Justice upon Herod and to the Children he made such compensation that they had no reason to complain that they were so soon made Stars when they shined in their little Orbs and participations of Eternity for so the sense of the Church hath been that they having dyed the death of Martyrs though incapable of making the choice God supplied the defects of their will by his own entertainment of the thing that as the misery and their death so also their glorification might have the same Author in the same manner of causality even by a peremptory and unconditioned determination in these particulars This sense is pious and nothing unreasonable considering that all circumstances of the thing make the case particular but the immature death of other Infants is a sadder story for though I have no warrant or thought that it is ill with them after death and in what manner or degree of well-being it is there is no revelation yet I am not of opinion that the securing of so low a condition as theirs in all reason is like to be will make recompence or is an equal blessing with the possibilities of such an Eternity as is proposed to them who in the use of Reason and a holy life glorifie God with a free Obedience and if it were otherwise it were no blessing to live till the use of Reason and Fools and Babes were in the best because in the securest condition and certain expectation of equal glories 12. As soon as Herod was dead for the Divine Vengeance waited his own time for his arrest the Angel presently brought Joseph word The holy Family was full of content and indifferency not solicitous for return not distrustful of the Divine Providence full of poverty and sanctity and content waiting God's time at the return of which God delayed not to recall them from Exile out of Egypt he called his Son and directed Joseph's fear and course that he should divert to a place in the jurisdiction of Philip where the Heir of Herod's Cruelty Archelaus had nothing to do And this very series of Providence and care God expresses to all his sons by adoption and will determine the time and set bounds to every Persecution and punish the instruments and ease our pains and refresh our sorrows and give quietness to our fears and deliverance from our troubles and sanctifie it all and give a Crown at last and all in his good time if we wait the coming of the Angel and in the mean time do our duty with care and sustain our temporals with indifferency and in all our troubles and displeasing accidents we may call to mind that God by his holy and most reasonable Providence hath so ordered it that the spiritual advantages we may receive from the holy use of such incommodities are of great recompence and interest and that in such accidents the Holy Jesus having gone before us in precedent does go along with us by love and fair assistences and that makes the present condition infinitely more eligible than the greatest splendour of secular fortune The PRAYER O Blessed and Eternal God who didst suffer thy Holy Son to fly from the violence of an enraged Prince and didst chuse to defend him in the ways of his infirmity by hiding himself and a voluntary exile be thou a defence to all thy faithful people when-ever Persecution arises against them send them the ministery of Angels to direct them into ways of security and let thy holy Spirit guide them in the paths of Sanctity and let thy Providence continue in custody over their persons till the times of refreshment and the day of Redemption shall return Give O Lord to thy whole Church Sanctity and Zeal and the confidences of a holy Faith boldness of confession Humility content and resignation of spirit generous contempt of the World and unmingled desires of thy glory and the edification of thy Elect that no secular interests disturb her duty or discompose her charity or depress her hopes or in any unequal degree possess her affections and pollute her spirit but preserve her from the snares of the World and the Devil from the rapine and greedy desires of Sacrilegious persons and in all conditions whether of affluence or want may she still promote the interests of Religion that when plenteousness is within her palaces and peace in her walls that condition may then be best for her and when she is made as naked as Jesus to his Passion then Poverty may be best for her that in all estates she may glorifie thee and in all accidents and changes thou mayest sanctifie and bless her and at last bring her to the eternal riches and abundances of glory where no Persecution shall disturb her rest Grant this for sweet Jesus sake who suffered exile and hard journeys and all the inconveniences of a friendless person in a strange Province to whom with thee and the eternal Spirit be glory for ever and blessing in all generations of the World and for ever and ever Amen SECT VII Of the younger years of JESVS and his Disputation with the Doctors in the Temple The House of Prayer It is written My house shall be called of all Nations the house of prayer Mark 11. 17. If they return confess thy name and pray and make supplication before thee in this House Then hear thou in heaven and forgive 2. Chron 6. 24. 26. IESUS disputing with the Doctors S. LUKE 2. 46. 47. They found him in the Temple sitting in the midst of the Doctors both hearing them and asking them questions And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding answers 1. FRom the return of this holy Family to Judaea and their habitation in Nazareth till the blessed Child Jesus was twelve years of age we have nothing transmitted to us out of any authentick Record but that they went to
Man if they pass through an even and an indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course they are little and within command but if they pass upon an end or aim of difficulty or ambition they duplicate and grow to a ãâã and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of Innocence but the Temptation of busie designs is too great even for the best of dispositions 7. But these Temptations are crasse and material and soon discernible it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial For he hath Apples to cousen Children and Gold for Men the Kingdoms of the World for the Ambition of Princes and the Vanities of the World for the Intemperate he hath Discourses and fair-spoken Principles to abuse the pretenders to Reason and he hath common Prejudices for the more vulgar understandings Amongst these I chuse to consider such as are by way of Principle or Proposition 8. The first great Principle of Temptation I shall note is a general mistake which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of Infirmity calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined though by carelesness and evil customs they are heightned to a habit by the name of Sins of infirmity to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend If when they have committed a crime their Conscience checks them and they are troubled and during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire resolve against it and commit it readily at the next opportunity then they cry out against the weakness of their Nature and think as long as this body of death is about them it must be thus and that this condition may stand with the state of Grace And then the Sins shall return periodically like the revolutions of a Quartan Ague well and ill for ever till Death surprizes the mistaker This is a Patron of sins and makes the Temptation prevalent by an authentick instrument and they pretend the words of S. Paul For the good that I would that I do not but the evil that I would not that I do For there is a law in my members ãâã against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin And thus the ãâã of Sin is mistaken for a state of Grace and the imperfections of the Law are miscalled the affections and necessities of Nature that they might seem to be incurable and the persons apt for an excuse therefore because for Nature there is no absolute cure But that these words of S. Paul may not become a ãâã of death and instruments of a temptation to us it is observable that the Apostle by a siction of person as is usual with him speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but under the ãâã obscurities insufficiencies and imperfections of the Law which indeed he there contends to have been a Rule good and holy apt to remonstrate our misery because by its prohibitions and limits given to natural desires it made actions before indifferent now to be sins it added many curses to the breakers of it and by an ãâã of contrariety it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful but it was a Covenant in which our Nature was restrained but not helped it was provoked but not sweetly assisted our Understandings were instructed but our Wills not sanctified and there were no suppletories of Repentance every greater sin was like the fall of an Angel irreparable by any mystery or express recorded or enjoyned Now of a man under this Govenant he describes the condition to be such that he understands his Duty but by the infirmities of Nature he is certain to fall and by the helps of the Law not strengthened against it nor restored after it and therefore he calls himself under that notion a miserable man sold under sin not doing according to the rules of the Law or the dictates of his Reason but by the unaltered misery of his Nature certain to prevaricate But the person described here is not S. Paul is not any justified person not so much as a Christian but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of Grace as will manifestly appear if we observe the antithesis from S. Paul's own characters For the Man here named is such as in whom sin wrought all concupiscence in whom sin lived and slew him so that he was dead in trespasses and sins and although he did delight in the Law after his inwardman that is his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions which afterwards he calls serving the Law of God with his mind that is in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit yet he could act nothing for the law in his members did inslave him and brought him into captivity to the law of sin so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts he was a slave to sin and dead in trespasses But the state of a regenerate person is such as to have ãâã the flesh with the affections and lusts in whom sin did not reign not only in the mind but even also not in the mortal body over whom sin had no dominion in whom the old man was crucified and the body of sin was destroyed and sin not at all served And to make the antithesis yet clearer in the very beginning of the next Chapter the Apostle saith that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death under which law he complained immediately before he was sold and killed to shew the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments No man in the state of Grace can say The evil that I would not that I do if by evil he means any evil that is habitual or in its own nature deadly 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation though but in a single act it is a condition of Carnality not of spiritual life and those are not the infirmities of Nature but the weaknesses of Grace that make us sin so frequently which the Apostle truly affirms to the same purpose The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot or that ye do not do the things that ye would This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh and weakness of the spirit For he adds But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law saying plainly that the state of such a combate and disability of doing good is a state of a man under the Law or in the flesh which he accounts all one but every man that is sanctified
crime and are every day made still more infrequent because Grace growing stronger the observation and advertency of the spirit and the attendance of the inner man grows more effectual and busie this is a state of the imperfection of Grace but a state of Grace it is And it is more commonly observed to be expressed in the imperfection of our good actions than in the irregularity of bad actions and in this sence are those words of our Blessed Saviour The Spirit ãâã is willing but the flesh is weak which in this instance was not expressed in sin but in a natural imperfection which then was a recession from a civility a not watching with the Lord. And this is the only Infirmity that can consist with the state of Grace 12. So that now we may lay what load we please upon our Nature and call our violent and unmortified desires by the name of an imperfect Grace but then we are dangerously mistaken and flatter our selves into an opinion of Piety when we are in the gall of bitterness so making our misery the more certain and irremediable because we think it needs nothing but a perpetuity and perseverance to bring us to Heaven The violence of Passion and Desires is a misery of Nature but a perfect principle of Sin multiplying and repeating the acts but not lessening the malignity But sins of Infirmity when we mean sins of a less and lower malice are sins of a less and imperfect choice because of the unavoidable imperfection of the Understanding Sins of Infirmity are always infirm sins that is weak and imperfect in their principle and in their nature and in their design that is they are actions incomplete in all their capacities but then Passions and periodical inclinations consisting with a regular and determined and actual understanding must never be their principle for whatsoever proceeds thence is destructive of spiritual life and inconsistent with the state of Grace But sins of infirmity when they pretend to a less degree of malignity and a greater degree of excuse are such as are little more than sins of pure and inculpable ignorance for in that degree in which any other principle is mixt with them in the same degree they are criminal and inexcusable For as a sin of infirmity is pretended to be little in its value and malignity so it is certain if it be great in the instance it is not a sin of infirmity that is it is a state or act of death and absolutely inconsistent with the state of Grace 13. Secondly Another Principle of Temptation pregnant with sin and fruitful of monsters is a weaker pretence which less wary and credulous persons abuse themselves withall pretending as a ground for their confidence and incorrigible pursuance of their courses that they have a Good meaning that they intend sometimes well and sometimes not ill and this shall be sufficient to sanctifie their actions and to hallow their sin And this is of worse malice when Religion is the colour for a War and the preservation of Faith made the warrant for destruction of Charity and a Zeal for God made the false light to lead us to Disobedience to Man and hatred of Idolatry is the usher of Sacriledge and the ãâã of Superstition the introducer of Profaneness and Reformation made the colour for a Schism and Liberty of conscience the way to a ãâã and saucy Heresie for the End may indeed hallow an indifferent action but can never make straight a crooked and irregular It was not enough for Saul to cry for God and the Sacrifice that he spared the fat flocks of Amalek and it would be a strange zeal and forwardness that rather than the Altar of incense should not smoak will burn Assa foetida or the marrow of a man's bones For as God will be honoured by us so also in ways of his own appointment for we are the makers of our Religion if we in our zeal for God do what he hath forbidden us And every sin committed for Religion is just such a violence done to it as it seeks to prevent or remedy 14. And so it is if it be committed for an end or pretence of Charity as well as of Religion We must be curious that no pretence engage us upon an action that is certainly criminal in its own nature Charity may sometimes require our Lives but no obligation can endear a Damnation to us we are not bound to the choice of an eternal ruine to save another Indeed so far as an Option will go it may concern the excrescences of Piety to chuse by a tacite or express act of volition to become Anathema for our brethren that is by putting a case and fiction of Law to suppose it better and wish it rather that I should perish than my Nation Thus far is charitable because it is innocent for as it is great love to our Countrey so it is no uncharitableness to our selves for such Options always are ineffective and produce nothing but rewards of Charity and a greater glory And the Holy Jesus himself who only could be and was effectively accursed to save us got by it an exceeding and mighty glorification and S. Paul did himself advantage by his charitable Devotion for his Countreymen But since God never puts the question to us so that either we or our Nation must be damned he having xt every man's final condition upon his own actions in the vertue and obedience of Christ if we mistake the expresses of Charity and suffer our selves to be damned indeed for God's glory or our Brethrens good we spoil the Duty and ruine our selves when our Option comes to act But it is observable that although Religion is often pretended to justifie a sin yet Charity is but seldom which makes it full of suspicion that Religion is but the cover to the Death's-head and at the best is but an accusing of God that he is not willing or not able to preserve Religion without our irregular and impious cooperations But however though it might concern us to wish our selves rather ãâã than Religion or our Prince or our Country should perish for I find no instances that it is lawful so much as to ãâã it for the preservation of a single friend yet it is against Charity to bring such a ãâã to ãâã and by sin to damn our selves really for a good end either ãâã Religion or Charity 15. Let us therefore serve God as he hath ãâã the way for all our accesses to him being acts of his free concession and grace must be by his ãâã designation and appointment We might as well have chosen what shape our ãâã should be of as of what instances the substance of our Religion should consist 16. Thirdly a third Principle of Temptation is an opinion of prosecuting actions of Civility Compliance and Society to the luxation of a point of Piety and ãâã Duty and good natures persons of humane and sweeter dispositions are
one day doing his devotions kissed his God after the manner of Worshippers and burnt his lips It was not in the power of that false and imaginary Deity to cure the real hurt he had done to his devoutest worshipper Just such a fool is he that kisses a danger though with a design of vertue and hugs an opportunity of sin for an advantage of Piety he burns himself in the neighbourhood of the flame and twenty to one but he may perish in its embraces And he that looks out a danger that he may overcome it does as did the Persian who ãâã the Sun looked upon him when he prayed him to cure his sore eyes The Sun may as well cure a weak eye or a great burthen knit a broken arm as a danger can do him advantage that seeks such a combate which may ruine him and after which he rarely may have this reward that it may be said of him he had the good ãâã not to perish in his folly It is easier to prevent a mischief than to cure it and besides the pain of the wound it is infinitely more full of ãâã to cure a broken leg which a little care and observation would have preserved whole To recover from a sin is none of the ãâã labours that concern the sons of men and therefore it concerns them rather not to enter into such a narrow strait from which they can never draw back their head without leaving their hair and skin and their ears behind If God please to try us he means us no hurt and he does it with great reason and great mercy but if we go to try our selves we may mean well but not wisely For as it is simply unlawful for weak persons to seek a Temptation so for the more perfect it is dangerous We have enemies enough without and one of our own within but we become our own tempter when we run out to meet the World or invite the Devil home that we may throw holy water upon his flames and call the danger nearer that we may run from it And certainly men are more guilty of many of their temptations than the Devil through their incuriousness or ãâã doing as much mischief to themselves as he can For he can but offer and so much we do when we run into danger Such were those Stories of S. Antony provoking the Devil to battel If the Stories had been as true as the actions were rash ridiculous the Story had ãâã a note of indiscretion upon that good man though now I think there is nothing but a mark of ãâã and ãâã on the Writer 26. Secondly Possibly without ãâã we may be engaged in a ãâã but then we must be diligent to resist the first Beginnings For when our strength is yet intire and unabated if we suffer our selves to be overcome and consent to its ãâã and weakest attempts how shall we be able to resist when it hath tired our contestation and wearied our patience when we are weaker and prevailed upon and the Temptation is stronger and triumphant in many degrees of victory By how much a Hectick Feaver is harder to be cured than a Tertian or a Consumption of the Lungs than a little Distillation of Rheum upon the throat by so much is it harder to prevail upon a ãâã Lust than upon its first insinuations But the ways of resisting are of a different consideration proportionably to the nature of the crimes 27. First If the Temptation be to crimes of Pleasure and Sensuality let the resistance be by flight For in case of Lust even to consider the arguments against it is half as great Temptation as to press the arguments for it For all considerations of such allurements make the Soul perceive something of its relish and entertain the fancy Even the pulling pitch from our cloaths defiles the fingers and some adherences of pleasant and carnal sins will be remanent even from those considerations which stay within the circuit of the flames though but with purpose to quench the fire and preserve the house Chastity cannot suffer the least thought of the reproaches of the spirit of impurity and it is necessary to all that will keep their purity and innocence against sensual Temptations to avoid every thing that may prejudice decorum Libanius ãâã Sophister reports that a Painter being one day desirous to paint Apollo upon a Laurelboard the colours would not stick but were rejected out of which his fancy found out this extraction That the ãâã Daphne concerning whom the Poets feign that flying from Apollo who attempted to ãâã her she was turned into a Laurel-tree could not endure him even in painting and rejected him after the loss of her sensitive powers And indeed chaste Souls do even to death resent the least image and offer of impurity whatsoever is like a sin of uncleanness he that means to preserve himself chaste must avoid as he would avoid the sin in this case there being no difference but of degrees between the inward Temptation and the Crime 28. Secondly If the Temptation be to crimes of troublesome and preternatural desires or intellectual nature let the resistance be made ãâã ãâã by a perfect fight by the amassing of such arguments in general and remedies in particular which are apt to become deleteries to the Sin and to abate the Temptation But in both these instances the resistance must at ãâã be as soon as the attempt is lest the violence of the Temptation out-run our powers for if against our full strength it hath prevailed to the first degrees its progress to a complete victory is not so improbable as were its successes at the first beginnings But to serve this and all other ends in the resisting and subduing a Temptation these following Considerations have the best and most universal influence 29. First Consideration of the Presence of God who is witness of all our actions and a revenger of all Impiety This is so great an instrument of fear and Religion that whoever does actually consider God to be present and considers what the first consideration signifies either must be restrained from the present Temptation or must have thrown off all the possibilities and aptnesses for Vertue such as are Modesty and Reverence and holy Fear For if the face of a Man scatters all base machinations and we dare not act our crimes in the Theatre unless we be impudent as well as criminal much more does the sense of a present Deity fill the places of our heart with veneration and the awe of Religion when it is throughly apprehended and actually considered We see not God he is not in our thoughts when we run into darkness to act our impurities For we dare not commit Adultery if a Boy be present behold the Boy is sent off with an excuse and God abides there but yet we commit the crime it is because as Jacob said at Bethel God was in that place and we knew
of Religion And beside that the Presence of God serves to all this it hath also especial influence in the disimprovement of Temptations because it hath in it many things contrariant to the nature and efficacy of Temptations such as are Consideration Reverence Spiritual thoughts and the Fear of God for where-ever this consideration is actual there either God is highly despised or certainly feared In this case we are made to declare for our purposes are concealed only in an incuriousness and inconsideration but whoever considers God as present will in all reason be as religious as in a Temple the Reverence of which place Custom or Religion hath imprinted in the spirits of most men so that as Ahasuerus said of Haman Will he ravish the Queen in my own house aggravating the crime by the incivility of the circumstance God may well say to us whose Religion compells us to believe God every-where present since the Divine Presence hath made all places holy and every place hath a Numen in it even the Eternal God we unhallow the place and desecrate the ground whereon we stand supported by the arm of God placed in his heart and enlightned by his eye when we sin in so sacred a Presence 34. The second great instrument against Temptation is Meditation of Death Raderus reports that a certain Virgin to restrain the inordination of intemperate desires which were like thorns in her flesh and disturbed her spiritual peace shut her self up in a Sepulchre and for twelve years dwelt in that Scene of death It were good we did so too making Tombs and Coffins presential to us by frequent meditation For God hath given us all a definitive arrest in Adam and from it there lies no appeal but it is infallibly and unalterably ãâã for all men once to die or to be changed to pass from hence to a condition of Eternity good or bad Now because this law is certain and the time and the manner of its execution is uncertain and from this moment Eternity depends and that after this life the final sentence is irrevocable that all the pleasures here are sudden transient and unsatisfying and vain he must needs be a ãâã that knows not to distinguish moments from Eternity and since it is a condition of necessity established by Divine decrees and fixt by the indispensable Laws of Nature that we shall after a very little duration pass on to a condition strange not understood then unalterable and yet of great mutation from this even of greater distance from ãâã in which we are here than this is from the state of Beasts this when it is considered must in all reason make the same impression upon our understandings and affections which naturally all strange things and all great considerations are apt to do that is create resolutions and results passing through the heart of man such as are reasonable and prudent in order to our own ãâã that we neglect the vanities of the present Temptation and secure our future condition which will till Eternity it self expires remain such as we make it to be by our deportment in this short transition and passage through the World 35. And that this Discourse is reasonable I am therefore confirmed because I find it to be to the same purpose used by the Spirit of God and the wisest personages in the world My soul is always in my hand therefore do I keep thy Commandments said David he looked upon himself as a dying person and that restrained all his inordinations and so he prayed Lord teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom And therefore the AEgyptians used to serve up a Skeleton to their Feasts that the dissolutions and vapours of wine might be restrained with that bunch of myrrh and the vanities of their eyes chastised by that sad object for they thought it unlikely a man should be transported far with any thing low or vicious that looked long and often into the hollow eye-pits of a Death's head or dwelt in a Charnel-house And such considerations make all the importunity and violence of sensual desires to disband For when a man stands perpetually at the door of Eternity and as did John the Almoner every day is building of his Sepulchre and every night one day of our life is gone and passed into the possession of death it will concern us to take care that the door leading to Hell do not open upon us that we be not crusht to ruine by the stones of our grave and that our death become not a consignation to us to a sad Eternity For all the pleasures of the whole world and in all its duration cannot make recompence for one hour's torment in Hell and yet if wicked persons were to ãâã in Hell for ever without any change of posture or variety of torment beyond that session it were unsufferable beyond the indurance of nature and therefore where little less than infinite misery in an infinite duration shall punish the pleasures of sudden and transient crimes the gain of pleasure and the exchange of banks here for a condition of eternal and miserable death is a permutation ãâã to be made by none but fools and desperate persons who made no use of a reasonable Soul but that they in their perishing might be convinced of unreasonableness and die by their own fault 36. The use that wise men have made when they reduced this consideration to practice is to believe every day to be the last of their life for so it may be and for ought we know it will and then think what you would avoid or what you would do if you were dying or were to day to suffer death by sentence and conviction and that in all reason and in proportion to the strength of your consideration you will do every day For that is the sublimity of Wisdom to do those things living which are to be desired and chosen by dying persons An alarm of death every day renewed and pressed earnestly will watch a man so tame and soft that the precepts of Religion will dwell deep in his spirit But they that make a covenant with the grave and put the ãâã day far ãâã them they are the men that eat spiders and toads for meat greedily and a Temptation to them is as welcome as joy and they seldom dispute the point in behalf of Piety or Mortification for they that look upon Death at distance apprehend it not but in such general lines and great representments that describe it only as future and possible but nothing of its terrors or ãâã or circumstances of advantage are discernible by such an eye that disturbs its ãâã and discomposes the posture that the object may seem another thing than what it is truly and really S. Austin with his Mother Monica was led one day by a Roman Prator to ãâã the tomb of Caesar. Himself thus describes the Corps
It looked of a blew mould the bone of the nose laid bare the flesh of the neather lip quite fallen off his mouth full of worms and in his eye-pits two hungry Toads feasting upon the remanent portion of flesh and moisture and so he dwelt in his house of darkness And if every person tempted by an opportunity of Lust or intemperance would chuse such a room for his privacy that company for his witness that object to allay his appetite he would soon find his spirit more sober and his desires obedient I end this with the counsel of S. Bernard Let every man in the first address to his actions consider whether if he were now to die he might safely and prudently do such an act and whether he would not be infinitely troubled that death should surprise him in the present dispositions and then let him proceed accordingly For since our treasure is in earthen vessels which may be broken in pieces by the collision of ten thousand accidents it were not safe to treasure up wrath in them for if we do we shall certainly drink it in the day of recompence 37. Thirdly Before and in and ãâã all this the Blessed Jesus propounds Prayer as a remedy against Temptations Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation For besides that Prayer is the great instrument of obtaining victory by the grace of God as a fruit of our desires and of God's natural and essential goodness the very praying against a Temptation if it be hearty servent and devout is a denying of it and part of the victory for it is a ãâã the entertainment of it it is a positive rejection of the crime and every consent to it is a ceasing to pray and to desire remedy And we shall observe that whensoever we begin to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit our Prayers against it lessen as the consent increases there being nothing a more direct enemy to the Temptation than Prayer which as it is of it self a professed hostility against the crime so it is a calling in auxiliaries from above to make the victory more certain If Temptation sets upon thee do thou set upon God for he is as soon overcome as thou art as soon moved to good as thou art to evil he is as quickly invited to pity thee as thou to ask him provided thou dost not finally rest in the petition but pass into action and endeavour by all means humane and moral to quench the ãâã newly kindled in thy bowels before it come to devour the marrow of the bones For a strong Prayer and a lazy incurious unobservant walking are contradictions in the discourses of Religion ãâã tells us a story of a young man solicited by the spirit of Uncleanness who came to an old Religious person and begged his prayers It was in that Age when God used to answer Prayers of very holy persons by more clear and familiar significations of his pleasure than he knows now to be necessary But after many earnest prayers sent up to the throne of Grace and the young man not at all bettered upon consideration and enquiry of particulars he found the cause to be because the young man relied so upon the Prayers of the old Eremite that he did nothing at all to discountenance his Lust or contradict the Temptation But then he took another course enjoyned him Austerities and exercises of Devotion gave him rules of prudence and caution tied him to work and to stand upon his guard and then the Prayers returned in triumph and the young man trampled upon his Lust. And so shall I and you by God's grace if we pray earnestly and frequently if we watch carefully that we be not surprised if we be not idle in secret nor talkative in publick if we read Scriptures and consult with a spiritual Guide and make Religion to be our work that serving of God be the business of our life and our designs be to purchase Eternity then we shall walk safely or recover speedily and by doing advantages to ãâã secure a greatness of Religion and spirituality to our spirits and understanding But remember that when Israel fought against Amalek Moses's prayer and Moses's hand secured the victory his Prayer grew ineffectual when his Hands were slack to remonstrate to us that we must cooperate with the grace of God praying devoutly and watching carefully and observing prudently and labouring with diligence and assiduity The PRAYER ETernal God and most merciful Father I adore thy Wisdom Providence and admirable Dispensation of affairs in the spiritual Kingdom of our Lord Jesus that thou who art infinitely good dost permit so many sadnesses and dangers to discompose that order of things and spirits which thou didst create innocent and harmless and dost design to great and spiritual perfections that the emanation of good from evil by thy over-ruling power and excellencies may force glory to thee from our shame and honour to thy Wisdom by these contradictory accidents and events Lord have pity upon me in these sad disorders and with mercy know my infirmities Let me by suffering what thou pleasest cooperate to the glorification of thy Grace and magnifying thy Mercy but never let me consent to sin but with the power of thy Majesty and mightiness of thy prevailing Mercy rescue me from those ãâã of dangers and enemies which daily seck to ãâã that Innocence with which thou didst cloath my Soul in the New birth Behold O God how all the Spirits of Darkness endeavour the extinction of our hopes and the dispersion of all those Graces and the prevention of all those ãâã which the Holy Jesus hath purchased for every loving and obedient Soul Our very ãâã and drink are full of poison our Senses are snares our ãâã is various Temptatio our sins are inlets to more and our good actions made occasions of sins Lord deliver me from the Malice of the Devil from the Fallacies of the World from my own Folly that I be not devoured by the first nor cheated by the second nor betrayed by my self but let thy Grace which is sufficient for me be always present with me let thy Spirit ãâã me in the spiritual ãâã arming my Understanding and securing my Will and ãâã my Spirit with resolutions of Piety and incentives of Religion and deleteries of Sin that the dangers I am encompassed withall may become unto me an occasion of victory and trimph through the aids of the Holy Ghost and by the Cross of the Lord Jesus who hath for himself and all his servants triumphed over Sin and Hell and the Grave even all the powers of Darkness from which by the mercies of Jesus and the merits of his Passion now and ever deliver me and all thy ãâã people Amen DISCOURSE VI. Of Baptism Part I. 1. WHen the Holy Jesus was to begin his Prophetical Office and to lay the foundation of his Church on the Corner-stone he first temper'd the Cement
ages that is washed off quickly in the Holy Font and an eternal debt paid in an instant For so sure as the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea so sure are our Sins washed in this Holy floud for this is a Red Sea too these waters signifie the bloud of Christ These are they that have washed their Robes and made them white in the bloud of the Lamb. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Bloud of Christ cleanseth us the Water cleanseth us the Spirit purifies us the Bloud by the Spirit the Spirit by the Water all in Baptism and in pursuance of that Baptismal state These three are they that bear record in Earth the Spirit the Water and the Bloud ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã these three agree in one or are to one purpose they agree in Baptism and in the whole pursuance of the assistances which a Christian needs all the days of his life And therefore S. Cyrill calls Baptism ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Antitype of the Passions of Christ it does preconsign the death of Christ and does the infancy of the work of Grace but not weakly it brings from death to life and though it brings us but to the birth in the New life yet that is a greater change than is in all the periods of our growth to manhood to a perfect man in Christ Jesus 18. Fifthly Baptism does not only pardon our sins but puts us into a state of Pardon for the time to come For Baptism is the beginning of the New life and an admission of us into the Evangelical Covenant which on our parts consists in a sincere and timely endeavour to glorifie God by Faith and Obedience and on God's part he will pardon what is past assist us for the future and not measure us by grains and scruples or exact our duties by the measure of an Angel but by the span of a man's hand So that by Baptism we are consigned to the mercies of God and the Graces of the Gospel that is that our Pardon be continued and our Piety be a state of Repentance And therefore that Baptism which in the Nicene Creed we ãâã to be for the remission of sins is called in the Jerusalem ãâã The Baptism of Repentance that is it is the entrance of a new life the gate to a perpetual change and reformation all the way continuing our title to and hopes of forgiveness of sins And this excellency is clearly recorded by S. Paul The kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man hath appeared Not by works of righteousness which we have done that 's the formality of the Gospel-Covenant not to be exacted by the strict measures of the Law but according to his mercy he saved us that is by gentleness and remissions by pitying and pardoning us by relieving and supporting us because he remembers that we are but dust and all this mercy we are admitted to and is conveyed to us ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by the laver of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost And this plain evident Doctrine was observed explicated and urged against the Messalians who said that Baptism was like a razor that cuts away all the sins that were past or presently adhering but not the sins of our future life ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã This Sacrament promises more and greater things It is the earnest of future good things the type of the Resurrection the communication of the Lord's Passion the partaking of his Resurrection the robe of Righteousness the garment of Gladness the vestment of Light or rather Light it self And for this reason it is that Baptism is not to be repeated because it does at once all that it can do at an hundred times for it admits us to the condition of Repentance and Evangelical mercy to a state of Pardon for our infirmities and sins which we timely and effectually leave and this is a thing that can be done but once as a man can begin but once he that hath once entred in at this gate of Life is always in possibility of Pardon if he be in a possibility of working and doing after the manner of a man that which he hath promised to the Son of God And this was expresly delivered and observed by S. Austin That which the Apostle says Cleansing him with the washing of water in the word is to be understood that in the same Laver of Regeneration and word of Sanctification all the evils of the regenerate are cleansed and healed not only the sins that are past which are all now remitted in Baptism but also those that are contracted afterwards by humane ignorance and infirmity not that Baptism be repeated as often as we sin but because by this which is once administred is brought to pass that pardon of all sins not only of those that are past but also those which will be committed afterwards is obtained The Messalians denied this and it was part of their Heresie in the undervaluing of Baptism and for it they are most excellently confuted by Isidore Pelusiot in his third Book 195 Epistle to the Count Hermin whither I refer the Reader 19. In proportion to this Doctrine it is that the Holy Scripture calls upon us to live a holy life in pursuance of this grace of Baptism And S. Paul recalls the lapsed Galatians to their Covenant and the grace of God stipulated in Baptism Ye are all children of God by faith in Jesus Christ that is heirs of the promise and Abraham's seed that promise which cannot be disannulled encreased or diminished but is the same to us as it was to Abraham the same before the Law and after Therefore do not you hope to be ãâã by the Law for you are entred into the Covenant of Faith and are to be justified thereby This is all your hope by this you must stand for ever or you cannot stand at all but by this you may for you are God's children by Faith that is not by the Law or the Covenant of Works And that you may remember whence you are going and return again he proves that they are the Children of God by ãâã in Jesus Christ because they have been baptized into Christ and so put on Christ. This makes you Children and such as are to be saved by Faith that is a Covenant not of Works but of Pardon in Jesus Christ the Author and Establisher of this Covenant For this is the Covenant made in Baptism that being justified by his grace we shall be heirs of life eternal for by grace that is by favour remission and forgiveness in Jesus Christ ye are saved This is the only way that we have of being justified and this must remain as long as we are in hopes of Heaven for besides this we have no hopes and all this is stipulated and consigned in Baptism and is of force after our ãâã into sin and risings again In
God at first designed to us And therefore as our Baptism is a separation of us from unbelieving people so the descent of the Holy Spirit upon us in our Baptism is a consigning or marking us for God as the Sheep of his pasture as the Souldiers of his Army as the Servants of his houshold we are so separated from the world that we are appropriated to God so that God expects of us Duty and Obedience and all Sins are acts of Rebellion and Undutifulness Of this nature was the sanctification of Jeremy and John the Baptist from their mothers womb that is God took them to his own service by an early designation and his Spirit marked them to a holy Ministery To this also relates that of S. Paul whom God by a decree separated from his mother's womb to the Ministery of the Gospel the ãâã did antedate the act of the Spirit which did not descend upon him until the day of his Baptism What these persons were in order to exteriour Ministeries that all the faithful are in order to Faith and Obedience consigned in Baptism by the Spirit of God to a perpetual relation to God in a continual service and title to his Promises And in this sence the Spirit of God is called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Seal In whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of Promise ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Water washes the body and the Spirit seals the Soul viz. to a participation of those Promises which he hath made and to which we receive a title by our Baptism 22. Secondly The second effect of the Spirit is Light or Illumination that is the holy Spirit becomes unto us the Author of holy thoughts and firm perswasions and sets to his seal that the Word of God is true into the belief of which we are then baptized and makes Faith to be a Grace and the Understanding resigned and the Will confident and the Assent stronger than the premises and the Propositions to be believed because they are beloved and we are taught the ways of Godliness after a new manner that is we are made to perceive the Secrets of the Kingdom and to love Religion and to long for Heaven and heavenly things and to despise the World and to have new resolutions and new perceptions and new delicacies in order to the establishment of Faith and its increments and perseverance ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God sits in the Soul when it is illuminated in ãâã as if he sate in his Throne that is he rules by a firm perswasion and intire principles of Obedience And therefore Baptism is called in Scripture ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the baptized ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã illuminated Call to mind the former days in which you were illuminated and the same phrase is in the 6. to the Hebrews where the parallel places expound each other For that which S. Paul calls ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã illuminated he calls after ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a receiving the knowledge of the truth and that you may perceive this to be wholly meant of Baptism the ãâã expresses it still by Synonyma's Tasting of the heavenly gift and made partakers of the Holy Ghost sprinkled in our hearts from an evil conscience and washed in our bodies with pure water all which also are a syllabus or collection of the several effects of the graces bestowed in Baptism But we are now instancing in that which relates most properly to the Understanding in which respect the Holy Spirit also is called Anointing or Unction and the mystery is explicated by S. John The Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things 23. Thirdly The Holy Spirit descends upon us in Baptism to become the principle of a new life to become a holy seed springing up to Holiness and is called by S. John ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the ãâã of God and the purpose of it we are taught by him Whosoever is ãâã of God that is he that is regenerated and entred into this New birth doth not ãâã sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God The Spirit of God is the Spirit of life and now that he by the Spirit is born anew he hath in him that principle which if it be cherished will grow up to life to life eternal And this is the Spirit of Sanctification the victory over the World the deletery of Concupiscence the life of the Soul and the perpetual principle of Grace sown in our spirits in the day of our Adoption to be the sons of God and members of Christ's body But take this Mystery in the words of S. Basil. There are two Ends proposed in Baptism to wit to abolish the body of Sin that we may no more bring forth fruit unto death and to live in the Spirit and to have our fruit to Sanctification The Water represents the image of death receiving the body in its bosom as in a Sepulchre but the quickning Spirit sends upon us a vigorous ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã power or ãâã even from the beginning renewing our Souls from the death of sin unto life For as our Mortification is ãâã in the water so the Spirit works life in us To this purpose is the discourse of S. Paul having largely discoursed of our being baptized into the death of ãâã he adds this as the Corollary of all He that is dead is freed from sin that is being mortified and buried in the waters of Baptism we have a new life of Righteousness put into us we are quitted from the dominion of Sin and are planted together in the likeness of Christ's Resurrection that henceforth we should not serve sin 24. Fourthly But all these intermedial Blessings tend to a glorious Conclusion for Baptism does also consign us to a holy Resurrection It takes the sting of death from us by burying us together with Christ and takes ãâã Sin which is the sting of death and then we shall be partakers of a blessed Resurrection This we are taught by S. Paul ãâã ãâã ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his Death For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection That declares the real event in its due season But because Baptism consigns it and admits us to a title to it we are said with S. Paul to be risen with Christ in Baptism Buried with him in Baptism wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God which hath raised him from the dead Which expression I desire to be remembred that by it we may better understand those other
By which I also gather that it was so universal so primitive a practice to baptize Infants that it was greater than all pretences to the contrary for it would much have conduced to the introducing his opinion against Grace and Original Sin if he had destroyed that practice which seemed so very much to have its greatest necessity from the doctrine he denied But against Pelagins and against all that follow the parts of his opinion it is of good use which S. Austin Prosper and Fulgentius argue If Infants are punished for Adam's sin then they are also guilty of it in some sence Nimis enim impium est hoc de Dei sentire ãâã quòd à praevaricatione liberos cum reis ãâã esse ãâã So Prosper Dispendia quae slentes nascendo testantur dicito quo merito sub ãâã ãâã judice ãâã sinullum peccatum ãâã arrogentur said S. Austin For the guilt of it signifies nothing but the obligation to the punishment and he that feels the evil consequent to him the sin is imputed not as to all the same dishonour or moral accounts but to the more material to the natural account and in Holy Scripture the taking off the punishment is the pardon of the sin and in the same degree the punishment is abolished in the same God is appeased and then the person stands upright being reconciled to God by his grace Since therefore Infants have the punishment of sin it is certain the sin is imputed to them and therefore they need being reconciled to God by Christ and if so then when they are baptized into Christ's Death and into his Resurrection their sins are pardoned because the punishment is taken off the sting of natural death is taken away because God's anger is removed and they shall partake of Christ's Resurrection which because Baptism does signifie and consign they also are to be baptized To which also add this appendent Consideration That whatsoever the Sacraments do consign that also they do convey and minister they do it that is God by them does it lest we should think the Sacraments to be mere illusions and abusing us by deceitful ineffective signs and therefore to Infants the grace of a title to a Resurrection and Reconciliation to God by the death of Christ is conveyed because it signifies and consigns this to them more to the life and analogy of resemblance than Circumcision to the Infant sons of Israel I end this Consideration with the words of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Our birth by Baptism does cut off every unclean appendage of our natural birth and leads us to a celestial life And this in Children is therefore more necessary because the evil came upon them without their own act of reason and choice and therefore the grace and remedy ought not to stay the leisure of dull Nature and the formalities of the Civil Law 18. Fifthly The Baptism of Insants does to them the greatest part of that benefit which belongs to the remission of sins For Baptism is a state of Repentance and Pardon for ever This I suppose to be already proved to which I only add this Caution That the Pelagians to undervalue the necessity of Supervening grace affirmed that Baptism did minister to us Grace sufficient to live perfectly and without sin for ever Against this S. Jerome sharply declaims and affirms Baptismum praeterita donare peccata non suturam servare justitiam that is non statim justum facit omni plenum justitiâ as he expounds his meaning in another place Vetera peccata conscindit novas virtutes non tribuit dimittit à carcere dimisso si laboraverit praemia pollicetur Baptism does not so forgive future sins that we may do what we please or so as we need not labour and watch and fear perpetually and make use of God's grace to actuate our endeavours but puts us into a state of Pardon that is in a Covenant of Grace in which so long as we labour and repent and strive to do our duty so long our infirmities are pitied and our sins certain to be pardoned upon their certain conditions that is by virtue of it we are capable of Pardon and must work for it and may hope it And therefore Infants have a most certain capacity and proper disposition to Baptism for sin creeps before it can go and little undecencies are soon learned and malice is before their years and they can do mischief and irregularities betimes and though we know not when nor how far they are imputed in every month of their lives yet it is an admirable art of the Spirit of grace to put them into a state of Pardon that their remedy may at least be as soon as their necessity And therefore Tertullian and Gregory Nazianzen advised the Baptism of Children to be at three or four years of age meaning that they then begin to have little inadvertencies and hasty follies and actions so evil as did need a Lavatory But if Baptism hath an influence upon sins in the succeeding portion of our life then it is certain that their being presently innocent does not hinder and ought not to retard the Sacrament and therefore Tertullian's Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum What need Innocents hasten to the remission of sin is soon answered It is true they need not in respect of any actual sins for so they are innocent but in respect of the evils of their nature derived from their original and in respect of future sins in the whole state of their life it is necessary they be put into a state of Pardon before they sin because some sin early some sin later and therefore unless they be baptized so early as to prevent the first sins they may chance die in a sin to the pardon of which they have âât derived no title from Christ. 19. Sixthly The next great effect of Baptism which Children can have is the Spir it of Sanctification and it they can be baptized with Water and the Spirit it will be sacriledge to rob them of so holy treasures And concerning this although it be with them as S. Paul says of Heirs The Heir so long as he is a child differeth nothing from a Servant though he be Lord of all and Children although they receive the Spirit of Promise and the Spirit of Grace yet in respect of actual exercise they differ not from them that have them not at all yet this hinders not but they may have them For as the reasonable Soul and all its Faculties are in Children Will and Understanding Passions and Powers of Attraction and Propulsion yet these Faculties do not operate or come ahead till time and art observation and experience have drawn them forth into action so may the Spirit of Grace the principle of Christian life be infused and yet lie without action till in its own day it is drawn forth For in every Christian there are three
proof of their earnest and need an earnest of the earnest For all that have the Spirit of God cannot in all instants prove it or certainly know it neither is it defined by how many indices the Spirit 's presence can be proved or figââed And they limit the Spirit too much and understand it too little who take acââunts of his secret workings and measure them by the material lines and methods of natural and animal effects And yet because whatsoever is holy is made so by the Holy Spirit we are certain that the Children of believing that is of Christian Parents are holy S. Paul affirmed it and by it hath distinguished ours from the Children of unbelievers and our Marriages from theirs And because the Children of the Heathen when they come to choice and Reason may enter into Baptism and the Covenant if they will our Children have no priviledge beyond the Children of Turks or Heathens unless it be in the present capacity that is either by receiving the Holy Ghost immediately and the Promises or at least having a title to the Sacrament and entring by that door If they have the Spirit nothing can hinder them from a title to the ãâã ater and if they have only a title to the water of the Sacrament then they shall receive the promise of the Holy Spirit the benefits of the Sacrament else their priviledge is none at all but a dish of cold water which every Village-Nurse can provide for her new-born babe 20. But it is in our case as it was with the Jews Children Our Children are a holy seed for if it were not so with Christianity how could S. Peter move the Jews to Christianity by telling them the Promise was to them and their Children For if our Children be not capable of the Spirit of Promise and Holiness and yet their Children were holy it had been a better Argument to have kept them in the Synagogue than to have called them to the Christian Church Either therefore 1. there is some Holiness in a reasonable nature which is not from the Spirit of Holiness or else 2. our Children do receive the Holy Spirit because they are holy or if they be not holy they are in worse condition under Christ than under Moses or if none of all this be true then our Children are holy by having received the holy Spirit of Promise and consequently nothing can hinder them from being baptized 21. And indeed if the Christian ãâã whose Children are circumcised and made partakers of the same Promises and Title and Inheritance and Sacraments which themselves had at their Conversion to the Faith of Christ had seen their Children now shut out from these new Sacraments it is not to be doubted but they would have raised a strom greater than could easily have been suppressed since about their Circumcisions they ãâã raised such Tragedies and implacable disputations And there had been great reason to look for a storm for their Children were circumcised and if not baptized then they were left under a burthen which their fathers were quit of for S. Paul said Whosoever is circumcised is a debtor to keep the whole Law These Children therefore that were circumcised stood obliged for want of Baptism to perform the Law of Ceremonies to be presented into the Temple to pay their price to be redeemed with silver and gold to be bound by the Law of pollutions and carnal Ordinances and therefore if they had been thus left it would be no wonder if the Jews had complained and made a tumult they used to do it for less matters 22. To which let this be added That the first book of the New Testament was not written till eight years after Christ's Ascension and S. Mark' s Gospel twelve years In the mean time to what Scriptures did they appeal By the Analogy or proportion of what writings did they end their Questions Whence did they prove their Articles They only appealed to the Old Testament and only added what their Lord superadded Now either it must be said that our Blessed Lord commanded that Infants should not be baptized which is no-where pretended and if it were cannot at all be proved or if by the proportion of Scriptures they did serve God and preach the Religion it is plain that by the Analogy of the Old Testament that is of those Scriptures by which they proved Christ to be come and to have suffered they also approved the Baptism of Infants or the admitting them to the society of the faithful Jews of which also the Church did then principally consist 23. Seventhly That Baptism which consigns men and women to a blessed Resurrection doth also equally consign Infants to it hath nothing that I know of pretended against it there being the same signature and the same grace and in this thing all being alike passive and we no way cooperating to the consignation and promise of Grace and Infants have an equal necessity as being liable to sickness and groaning with as sad accents and dying sooner than men and women and less able to complain and more apt to be pitied and broken with the unhappy consequents of a short life and a speedy death infelicitate priscorum hominum with the infelicity and folly of their first Parents and therefore have as great need as any and that is capacity enough to receive a remedy for the evil which was brought upon them by the fault of another 24. Eightly And after all this if Baptism be that means which God hath appointed to save us it were well if we would do our parts towards Infants final interest which whether it depends upon the Sacrament and its proper grace we have nothing to relie upon but those Texts of Scripture which make Baptism the ordinary way of entring into the state of Salvation save only we are to add this that because of this law since Infants are not personally capable but the Church for them as for all others indefinitely we have reason to believe that their friends neglect shall by some way be supplied but Hope hath in it nothing beyond a Probability This we may be certain of that naturally we cannot be heirs of Salvation for by nature we are children of wrath and therefore an eternal separation from God is an infallible consequent to our evil nature either therefore Children must be put into the state of Grace or they shall dwell for ever where God's face does never shine Now there are but two ways of being put into the state of Grace and Salvation the inward by the Spirit and the outward by Water which regularly are together If they be renewed by the Spirit what hinders them to be baptized who receive the Holy Ghost as well as we If they are not capable of the Spirit they are capable of Water and if of neither where is their title to Heaven which is neither internal nor external neither spiritual nor sacramental neither secret nor manifest neither
faults of Parents and Kings and relatives do bring evil upon their Children and subjects and correlatives it is but equal that our children may have benefit also by our charity and ãâã But concerning making an agreement for them we find that God was confident concerning Abraham that he would teach his children and there is no doubt but Parents have great power by strict education and prudent discipline to efform the minds of their children to Vertue ãâã did expresly undertake for his houshold I and my house will serve the Lord and for children we may better do it because till they are of perfect choice no Government in the world is so great as that of Parents over their children in that which can concern the parts of this Question for they rule over their Understandings and children know nothing but what they are told and they believe it infinitely And it is a rare art of the Spirit to engage Parents to bring them up well in the ãâã and admonition of the Lord and they are persons obliged by a superinduced band they are to give them instructions and holy principles as they give them meat And it is certain that Parents may better stipulate for their Children than the Church can for men and women For they may be present Impostors and Hypocrites as the Church story tells of some and consequently are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not really converted and ineffectively baptized and the next day they may change their resolution and grow weary of their Vow and that is the most that Children can do when they come to age and it is very much in the Parents whether the Children shall do any such thing or no. purus insons Ut me collandem si vivo charus amicis Causa fuit Pater his Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnes Circum Doctores aderat quid multa pudicum Qui primus virtutis honos servavit ab omni Non solùm facto verùm opprobrio quoque turpi ob hoc nunc Laus illi debetur à me gratia major For education can introduce a habit and a second nature against which Children cannot kick unless they do some violence to themselves and their inclinations And although it fails too ãâã when-ever it fails yet we pronounce prudently concerning future things when we have a less influence into the event than in the present case and therefore are more unapt persons to stipulate and less reason in the thing it self and therefore have not so much reason to be confident Is not the greatest prudence of Generals instanced in their foreseeing ãâã events and guessing at the designs of their enemies concerning which they have less reason to be confident than Parents of their childrens belief of the Christian Creed To which I add this consideration That Parents or Godfathers may therefore safely and prudently promise that their Children shall be of the Christian Faith because we not only see millions of men and women who not only believe the whole Creed only upon the stock of their education but there are none that ever do renounce the Faith of their Country and breeding unless they be violently tempted by ãâã or weakness antecedent or consequent He that sees all men almost to be Christians because they are bid to be so need not question the fittingness of Godfathers promising in behalf of the Children for whom they answer 29. And however the matter be for Godfathers yet the tradition of baptizing Infants passed through the hands of ãâã Omnem aetatem sanctificans per illam quae ad ãâã ãâã similitudinem Omnes ãâã venit per semetipsum salvare omnes inquam qui per ãâã ãâã in Deum infantes parvulos ãâã juvenes seniores Ideo per ãâã venit ãâã infantibus infans factus sanctificans infantes in parvulis ãâã c. Christ did sanctifie every age by his own susception of it and similitude to it For he came to save all men by himself I say all who by him are born again unto God infants and children and boys and young men and old men He was made an Infant to Infants sanctifying Infants a little one to the little ones c. And Origen is express ãâã traditionem ab Apostolis suscepit ãâã parvulis dare Baptismum The Church hath received a Tradition from the ãâã to give Baptism to Children And S. ãâã in his Epistle to ãâã gives account of this Article for being questioned by some less ãâã persons whether it were lawful to baptize Children before the eighth day he gives account of the whole Question And a whole Council of sixty six Bishops upon very good reason decreed that their Baptism should at no hand be deferred though whether six or eight or ten days was no matter so there be no danger or present necessity The whole Epistle is worth the reading 30. But besides these Authorities of such who writ before the starting of the Pelagian Questions it will not be useless to bring the discourses of them and others I mean the reason upon which the Church did it both before and after 31. ãâã his Argument was this Christ took upon him our Nature to sanctific and to save it and passed through the several periods of it even unto death which is the symbol and effect of old age and therefore it is certain he did sanctifie all the periods of it and why should he be an Infant but that Infants should receive the crown of their age the ãâã of their stained nature the sanctification of their persons and the saving of their ãâã by their Infant Lord and elder Brother 32. Omnis ãâã anima ãâã in Adam censetur ãâã in Christo recenseatur ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Every Soul is accounted in Adam till it be new accounted in Christ and so long as it is accounted in Adam so long it is unclean and we know no unclean thing ãâã enter into Heaven and therefore our Lord hath desined it Unless ãâã be born of Water and the Spirit ye cannot ãâã into the Kingdom of Heaven that is ye cannot be holy It was the argument of ãâã which the rather is to be received because he was one less favourable to the Custom of the Church in his time of baptizing Infants which Custom he noted and acknowledged and hath also in the preceding discourse fairly proved And indeed that S. Cyprian may superadd his symbol God who is no accepter of persons will also be no accepter of ages For if to the greatest delinquents ãâã long before against God remission of sins be given when afterwards they believe and from Baptism and from Grace no man is forbidden how much more ought not an ãâã be forbidden who being new born hath ãâã nothing save only that being in the ãâã born of Adam in his first birth he hath contracted the contagion of an old death who therefore comes the easier to obtain ãâã of sins because
to him are forgiven not his own but the ãâã of another man None ought to be driven from Baptism and the Grace of God who is ãâã ãâã gentle and pious unto all and therefore much less Infants who more ãâã our aid and more need the Divine mercy because in the first beginning of their birth crying and ãâã they can do nothing but call for mercy and relief ãâã this reason it was saith ãâã that they to whom the secrets of the Divine ãâã were committed ãâã ãâã their ãâã because there was born with them the impurities of sin which did need material Ablution as a Sacrament of spiritual purification For that it may appear that our sins have a proper analogy to this Sacrament the Body it self is called the ãâã of ãâã and therefore the washing of the Body is not ineffectual towards the great work of Pardon and abolition Indeed after this Ablution there remains ãâã or the material part of our misery and sin For Christ by his death only took away that which when he did die for us he bare in his own body upon the tree Now Christ only bare the punishment of our sin and therefore we shall not die for it but the material part of the sin Christ bare not Sin could not come so near him it might make him sick and die but not disordered and stained He was pure from Original and Actual sins and therefore that remains in the body though the guilt and ãâã be ãâã off and changed into advantages and grace and the Actual are ãâã by the Spirit of Grace descending afterwards upon the Church and sent by our Lord to the same purpose 33. But it is not rationally to be answered what S. Ambrose says Quia omnis peccato ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã For it were strange that sin and misery should seize upon the innocent and most ãâã persons and that they only should be left without a Sacrament and an instrument of expiation And although they cannot consent to the present susception yet neither do they refuse and yet they consent as much to the grace of the Sacrament as to the prevarication of Adam and because ãâã ãâã under this it were but reason they should be relieved by that And it ãâã ãâã as Gregory ãâã ãâã that they should be consigned and sanctified without their own knowledge than to die without their being sanctified for so it happened to the ãâã ãâã of Israel and if the conspersion and washing the door-posts with the bloud of a Lamb did sacramentally preserve all the first-born of Goshen it cannot ãâã thought impossible or unreasonable that the want of understanding in Children should hinder them from the blessing of a Sacrament and from being redeemed and washed with the bloud of the Holy Lamb who was ãâã for all from the beginning of the world 34. After all this it is not inconsiderable that we say the Church hath great power and authority about the Sacraments which is observable in many instances She appointed what persons she pleased and in equal power made an unequal dispensation and ministery The Apostles first dispensed all things and then they left off exteriour ministeries to attend to the Word of God and Prayer and S. Paul accounted it no part of his office to Baptize when he had been separated by imposition of hands at Antioch to the work of Preaching and greater ministeries and accounted that act of the Church the act of Christ saying Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel They used various forms in the ministration of Baptism sometimes baptizing in the name of Christ sometimes expresly invocating the Holy and ever-Blessed Trinity one while ãâã baptize ãâã as in the Latine Church but in the Greek Let the servant of Christ be baptized And in all Ecclesiastical ministeries the Church invented the forms and in most things hath often changed them as in Absolution Excommunication And sometimes they baptized people under their profession of Repentance and then taught them as it happened to the Goaler and his family in whose case there was no explicit Faith ãâã in the mysteries of Religion so far as appears and yet he and not only he but all his house were baptized at that hour of the night when the Earthquake was terrible and the ãâã was pregnant upon them and this upon their Master's account as it is likely but others were baptized in the conditions of a previous Faith and a new-begun Repentance They baptized in Rivers or in Lavatories by dipping or by sprinkling for so we find that S. Laurence did as he went to martyrdom and so the Church did sometimes to Clinicks and so it is highly convenient to be done in Northern Countries according to the Prophecy of ãâã So shall ãâã sprinkle many Nations according as the typical expiations among the Jews were usually by sprinkling And it is fairly relative to the mystery to the sprinkling with the ãâã of Christ and the watering of the furrows of our Souls with the dew of Heaven to make them to bring forth fruit unto the Spirit and unto Holiness The Church sometimes dipt the Catechumen three times sometimes but once Some Churches use Fire in their Baptisms so do the Ethiopians and the custom was ancient in ãâã places And so in the other Sacrament sometimes they stood and sometimes kneeled and sometimes received it in the mouth and sometimes in the hand one while in ãâã another while in unlevened bread sometimes the wine and water were mingled sometimes they were pure and they admitted some persons to it sometimes which at other times they rejected sometimes the Consecration was made by one form sometimes by another and to conclude sometimes it was given to Infants sometimes not And she had power so to do for in all things where there was not a Commandment of Christ expressed or implied in the nature and in the end of the Institution the Church had power to alter the particulars as was most expedient or conducing to edification And although the after-Ages of the Church which refused to communicate Infants have ãâã some little things against the lawfulness and those Ages that used it found out some pretences for its ãâã yet both the one and the other had liberty to follow their own necessities so in all things they followed Christ. Certainly there is ãâã more reason why Insants may be Communicated than why they may not be Baptized And that this discourse may ãâã to its first intention although there is no record extant of any Church in the world and from the Apostles days inclusively to this very day ever refused to Baptize their Children yet if they had upon any present reason they might also change ãâã practice when the reason should be ãâã and therefore if there were nothing else in it yet the universal practice of all Churches in all Ages is abundantly sufficient to determine us and to
desertions and anguish of spirit expecting all should work together for the best according to the promise if you can strengthen your selves in God when you are weakest believe when you see no hope and entertain no jealousies or suspicions of God though you see nothing to make you confident then and then only you have Faith which in conjunction with its other parts is able to save your Souls For in this precise duty of trusting God there are the rays of hope and great proportions of Charity and Resignation 17. The summ is that pious and most Christian sentence of the Author of the ordinary Gloss To believe in God through Jesus Christ is by believing to love him to adhere to him to be united to him by Charity and Obedience and to be incorporated into Christ ' s mystical body in the Communion of Saints I conclude this with a collation of certain excellent words of S. Paul highly to the present purpose Examine your selves Brethren whether ye be in the Faith prove your own selves Well but how Know you not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates There 's the touchstone of Faith If Jesus Christ dwells in us then we are true Believers if he does not we are Reprobates we have no Faith But how shall we know whether Christ be in us or no Saint Paul tells us that too If Christ be in you the body is dead by reason of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness That 's the Christian's mark and the Characteristick of a true Believer A death unto sin and a living unto righteousness a mortified body and a quickned spirit This is plain enough and by this we see what we must trust to A man of a wicked life does in vain hope to be saved by his Faith for indeed his Faith is but equivocal and dead which as to his purpose is just none at all and therefore let him no more deceive himself For that I may still use the words of S. Paul This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works For such and such only in the great scrutiny for Faith in the day of Doom shall have their portion in the bosom of faithful Abraham The PRAYER I. O Eternal GOD ãâã of all Truth and Holiness in whom to believe is life eternal let thy Grace descend with a mighty power into my Soul beating down every strong hold and vainer imagination and bringing every proud thought and my confident and ignorant understanding into the obedience of Jesus Take from me all disobdience and refractoriness of spirit all ambition and private and baser interests remove from me all prejudice and weakness of perswasion that I may wholly resign my Understanding to the perswasions of Christianity acknowledging Thee to be the principle of Truth and thy Word the measure of Knowledge and thy Laws the rule of my life and thy Promises the satisfaction of my hopes and an union with thee to be the consummation of Charity in the fruition of Glory Amen II. HOly JESUS make me to acknowledge thee to be my Lord and Master and my self a Servant and Disciple of thy holy Discipline and Institution let me love to sit at thy feet and suck in with my ears and heart the sweetness of thy holy Sermons Let my Soul be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace with a peaceable and docile disposition Give me great boldness in the publick Confession of thy Name and the Truth of thy Gospel in despite of all hostilities and temptations And grant I may always remember that thy Name is called upon me and I may so behave my self that I neither give scandal to others nor cause disreputation to the honour of Religion but that thou mayest be glorified in me and I by thy mercies after a strict observance of all the holy Laws of Christianity Amen III. O Holy and ever-Blessed SPIRIT let thy gracious influences be the perpetual guide of my rational Faculties Inspire me with Wisdom and Knowledge spiritual Understanding and a holy Faith and sanctifie my Faith that it may arise up to the confidence of Hope and the adherencies of Charity and be fruitful in a holy Conversation Mortifie in me all peevishness and pride of spirit all heretical dispositions and whatsoever is contrary to sound Doctrine that when the eternal Son of God the Author and Finisher of our Faith shall come to make scrutiny and an inquest for Faith I may receive the Promises laid up for them that believe in the Lord Jesus and wait for his coming in holiness and purity to whom with the Father and thee O Blessed Spirit be all honour and eternal adoration payed with all sanctity and joy and Eucharist now and for ever Amen SECT XI Of CHRIST's going to Jerusalem to the Passeover the first time after his Manifestation and what followed till the expiration of the Office of John the Baptist. The Visitation of the Temple Marke 11. 15. And Iesus went into y e Temple began to cast out them that sold bought in y e Temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers 16. And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the Temple The Conference with Nicodemus Iohn 3. 9. Nicodemus answered said unto him How can these things be 10. Iesus answered and sayd unto him Art thou a Master of Israel and knowest not these things 1. IMmediately after this Miracle Jesus abode a few days in Capernaum but because of the approach of the great Feast of Passeover he ascended to Jerusalem and the first publick act of record that he did was an act of holy Zeal and Religion in behalf of the honour of the Temple For divers Merchants and Exchangers of money made the Temple to be the Market and the Bank and brought Beasts thither to be sold for sacrifice against the great Paschal Solemnity At the sight of which Jesus being moved with zeal and indignation made a whip of cords and drave the Beasts out of the Temple overthrew the accounting Tables and commanded them that sold the Doves to take them from thence For his anger was holy and he would mingle no injury with it and therefore the Doves which if let loose would be detrimental to the owners he caused to be fairly removed and published the Religion of Holy places establishing their Sacredness for ever by his first Gospel-Sermon that he made at Jerusalem Take these things hence Make not my Father's House a house of merchandise for it shall be called a house of Prayer to all Nations And being required to give a sign of his Vocation for this being an action like the Religion of the Zelots among the Jews if it was not attested by something extraordinary might be abused into an excess of liberty he only foretold the
thy ãâã and Glories O Blessed and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE IX Of Repentance 1. THE whole Doctrine of the Gospel is comprehended by the Holy Ghost in these two Summaries Faith and Repentance that those two potent and imperious Faculties which command our lower powers which are the fountain of actions the occasion and capacity of Laws and the title to reward or punishment the Will and the Understanding that is the whole man considered in his superiour Faculties may become subjects of the Kingdom servants of Jesus and heirs of glory Faith supplies our imperfect conceptions and corrects our Ignorance making us to distinguish good from evil not onely by the proportions of Reason and Custome and old Laws but by the new standard of the Gospel it teaches us all those Duties which were enjoyned us in order to a participation of mighty glories it brings our Understanding into subjection making us apt to receive the Spirit for our Guide Christ for our Master the Gospel for our Rule the Laws of Christianity for our measure of good and evil and it supposes us naturally ignorant and comes to supply those defects which in our Understandings were left after the spoils of Innocence and Wisdome made in Paradise upon Adam's prevarication and continued and encreased by our neglect evil customes voluntary deceptions and infinite prejudices And as Faith presupposes our Ignorance so Repentance presupposes our Malice and Iniquity The whole design of Christ's coming and the Doctrines of the Gospel being to recover us from a miserable condition from Ignorance to spiritual Wisdome by the conduct of Faith and from a vicious habitually-depraved life and ungodly manners to the purity of the Sons of God by the instrument of Repentance 2. And this is a loud publication of the excellency and glories of the Gospel and the felicities of man over all the other instances of Creation The Angels who were more excellent Spirits than humane Souls were not comprehended and made safe within a Covenant and Provisions of Repentance Their first act of volition was their whole capacity of a blissful or a miserable Eternity they made their own sentence when they made their first election and having such excellent Knowledge and no weaknesses to prejudge and trouble their choice what they first did was not capable of Repentance because they had at first in their intuition and sight all which could afterward bring them to Repentance But weak Man who knows first by elements and after long study learns a syllable and in good time gets a word could not at first know all those things which were sufficient or apt to determine his choice but as he grew to understand more saw more reasons to rescind his first elections The Angels had a full peremptory Will and a satisfied Understanding at first and therefore were not to mend their first act by a second contradictory But poor Man hath a Will alwayes strongest when his Understanding is weakest and chuseth most when he is least able to determine and therefore is most passionate in his desires and follows his object with greatest earnestness when he is blindest and hath the least reason so to do And therefore God pitying Man begins to reckon his choices to be criminal just in the same degree as he gives him Understanding The violences and unreasonable actions of Childhood are no more remembred by God than they are understood by the Child The levities and passions of Youth are not aggravated by the imputation of Malice but are sins of a lighter dye because Reason is not yet impressed and marked upon them with characters and tincture in grain But he who when he may chuse because he understands shall chuse the evil and reject the good stands marked with a deep guilt and hath no excuse left to him but as his degrees of Ignorance left his choice the more imperfect And because every sinner in the style of Scripture is a fool and hath an election as imperfect as is the action that is as great a declension from Prudence as it is from Piety and the man understands as imperfectly as he practises therefore God sent his Son to take upon him not the nature of Angels but the ãâã of Abraham and to propound Salvation upon such terms as were possible that is upon such a Piety which relies upon experience and trial of good and evil and hath given us leave if we chuse amiss at first to chuse again and chuse better Christ having undertaken to pay for the issues of their first follies to make up the breach made by our first weaknesses and abused understandings 3. But as God gave us this mercy by Christ so he also revealed it by him He first used the Authority of a Lord and a Creator and a Law-giver he required Obedience indeed upon reasonable terms upon the instance of but a few Commandments at first which when he afterwards multiplied he also appointed ways to expiate the smaller irregularities but left them eternally bound without remedy who should do any great violence or a crime But then he bound them but to a Temporal death Only this as an eternal death was also tacitely implied so also a remedy was secretly ministred and Repentance particularly preached by Homilies distinct from the Covenant of Moses's Law The Law allowed no Repentance for greater crimes he that was convicted of Adultery was to die without mercy but God pitied the miseries of man and the inconveniences of the Law and sent Christ to suffer for the one and remedy the other for so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and that Repentance and Remission of sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations And now this is the last and only hope of Man who in his natural condition is imperfect in his customs vicious in his habits impotent and criminal Because Man did not remain innocent it became necessary he should be penitent and that this Penitence should by some means be made acceptable that is become the instrument of his Pardon and restitution of his hope Which because it is an act of favour and depends wholly upon the Divine dignation and was revealed to us by Jesus Christ who was made not onely the Prophet and Preacher but the Mediatour of this New Covenant and mercy it was necessary we should become Disciples of the Holy Jesus and servants of his Institution that is run to him to be made partakers of the mercies of this new Covenant and accept of him such conditions as he should require of us 4. This Covenant is then consigned to us when we first come to Christ that is when we first profess our selves his Disciples and his servants Disciples of his Doctrine and servants of his Institution that is in Baptism in which Christ who died for our sins makes us partakers of his death For we are buried by Baptism into his death saith S. Paul Which was also
our Redemption he adds Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Who gave himself for us to this very purpose that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Purifying a people peculiar to himself is cleansing it in the Laver of Regeneration and appropriating it to himself in the rites of Admission and Profession Which plainly designs the first consignation of our Redemption to be in Baptism and that Christ there cleansing his Church from every spot or wrinkle made a Covenant with us that we should renounce all our sins and he should cleanse them all and then that we should abide in that state Which is also very explicitely set down by the same Apostle in that divine and mysterious Epistle to the Romans How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death Well what then Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life That 's the end and mysteriousness of Baptism it is a consignation into the Death of Christ and we die with him that once that is die to sin that we may for ever after live the life of righteousness Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin that is from the day of our Baptism to the day of our death And therefore God who knows the weaknesses on our part and yet the strictness and necessity of conserving Baptismal grace by the Covenant Evangelical hath appointed the auxiliaries of the Holy Spirit to be ministred to all baptized people in the holy Rite of Confirmation that it might be made possible to be done by Divine aids which is necessary to be done by the Divine Commandments 10. And this might not be improperly said to be the meaning of those words of our Blessed Saviour He that speaks a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him but he that speaks a word against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him That is those sins which were committed in Infidelity before we became Disciples of the Holy Jesus are to be remitted in Baptism and our first profession of the Religion but the sins committed after Baptism and Confirmation in which we receive the Holy Ghost and by which the Holy Spirit is grieved are to be accounted for with more severity And therefore the Primitive Church understanding our obligations according to this discourse admitted not any to holy Orders who had lapsed and fallen into any sin of which she could take cognisance that is such who had not kept the integrity of their Baptism but sins committed before Baptism were no impediments to the susception of Orders because they were absolutely extinguished in Baptism This is the nature of the Covenant we made in Baptism that 's the grace of the Gospel and the effect of Faith and Repentance and it is expected we should so remain For it is nowhere expressed to be the mercy and intention of the Covenant Evangelical that this Redemption should be any more than once or that Repentance which is in order to it can be renewed to the same or so great purposes and present effects 11. But after we are once reconciled in Baptism and put intirely into God's favour when we have once been redeemed if we then fall away into sin we must expect God's dealing with us in another manner and to other purposes Never must we expect to be so again justified and upon such terms as formerly the best days of our Repentance are interrupted not that God will never forgive them that sin after Baptism and recover by Repentance but that Restitution by repentance after Baptism is another thing than the first Redemption No such intire clear and integral determinate and presential effects of Repentance but an imperfect little growing uncertain and hazardous Reconciliation a Repentance that is always in production a Renovation by parts a Pardon that is revocable a Salvation to be wrought by fear and trembling all our remanent life must be in bitterness our hopes allayed with fears our meat attempered with Coloquintida and death is in the pot as our best actions are imperfect so our greatest Graces are but possibilities and aptnesses to a Reconcilement and all our life we are working our selves into that condition we had in Baptism and lost by our relapse As the habit lessens so does the guilt as our Vertues are imperfect so is the Pardon and because our Piety may be interrupted our state is uncertain till our possibilities of sin are ceased till our fight is finished and the victory therefore made sure because there is no more fight And it is remarkable that S. Peter gives counsel to live holily in pursuance of our redemption of our calling and of our escaping from that corruption that is in the world through Lust lest we lose the benefit of our purgation to which by way of antithesis he opposes this Wherefore the rather give diligence to make your calling and election sure And if ye do these things ye shall never fall Meaning by the perpetuating our state of Baptism and first Repentance we shall never fall but be in a sure estate our calling and election shall be sure But not if we fall if we forget we were purged from our old sins if we forfeit our calling we have also made our election unsure movable and disputable 12. So that now the hopes of lapsed sinners relie upon another bottom And as in Moses's Law there was no revelation of Repentance but yet the Jews had hopes in God and were taught the succours of Repentance by the Homilies of the Prophets and other accessory notices So in the Gospel the Covenant was established upon Faith and Repentance but it was consigned in Baptism and was verifiable onely in the integrity of a following holy life according to the measures of a man not perfect but sincere not faultless but heartily endeavoured but yet the mercies of God in pardoning sinners lapsed after Baptism was declared to us by collateral and indirect occasions by the Sermons of the Apostles and the Commentaries of Apostolical persons who understood the meaning of the Spirit and the purposes of the Divine mercy and those other significations of his will which the blessed Jesus left upon record in other parts of his Testament as in Codicills annexed besides the precise Testament it self And it is certain if in the Covenant of Grace there be the same involution of an after-Repentance as there is of present Pardon upon past Repentance and future Sanctity it is impossible to
proportionable reception of his and hath also commanded us to ask pardon all days of our life even in our daily offices and to beg it in the measure and rule of our own Charity and Forgiveness to our Brother And therefore God in his infinite wisdom foreseeing our frequent relapses and considering our infinite infirmities appointed in his Church an ordinary ministery of Pardon designing the Minister to pray for sinners and promising to accept him in that his advocation or that he would open or shut Heaven respectively to his act on earth that is he would hear his prayers and verifie his ministery to whom he hath committed the word of Reconciliation This became a duty to Christian Ministers Spiritual persons that they should restore a person overtaken in a fault that is reduce him to the condition he begins to lose that they should pray over sick persons who are also commanded to confess their sins and God hath promised that the sins they have committed shall be forgiven them Thus S. Paul absolved the incestuous excommunicate Corinthian in the person of Christ he forgave him And this also is the confidence S. John taught the Christian Church upon the stock of the excellent mercy of God and propitiation of Jesus If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all ãâã Which discourse he directs to them who were Christians already initiated into the Institution of Jesus And the Epistles which the Spirit sent to the Seven Asian Churches and were particularly addressed to the Bishops the Angels of those Churches are exhortations some to Perseverance some to Repentance that they may return from whence they are fallen And the case is so with us that it is impossible we should be actually and perpetually free from sin in the long succession of a busie and impotent and a tempted conversation And without these reserves of the Divine grace and after-emanations from the Mercy-seat no man could be saved and the death of Christ would become inconsiderable to most of his greatest purposes for none should have received advantages but newly-baptized persons whose Albs of Baptism served them also for a winding-sheet And therefore our Baptism although it does consign the work of God presently to the baptized person in great certain and intire effect in order to the remission of what is past in case the Catechumen be rightly disposed or hinders not yet it hath also influence upon the following periods of our life and hath admitted us into a lasting state of Pardon to be renewed and actually applied by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and all other Ministeries Evangelical and so long as our Repentance is timely active and affective 18. But now although it is infinitely certain that the gates of Mercy stand open to sinners after Baptism yet it is with some variety and greater difficulty He that renounces Christianity and becomes Apostate from his Religion not by a seeming abjuration under a storm but by a voluntary and hearty dereliction he seems to have quitted all that Grace which he had received when he was illuminated and to have lost the benefits of his Redemption and former expiation And I conceive this is the full meaning of those words of S. Paul which are of highest difficulty and latent sense For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned c. if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance The reason is there subjoyned and more clearly explicated a little after For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more sacrifice for sins For he hath counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace The meaning is divers according to the degrees of apostasie or relapse They who fall away after they were once enlightned in Baptism and felt all those blessed effects of the sanctification and the emanations of the Spirit if it be into a contradictory state of sin and mancipation and obstinate purposes to serve Christ's enemies then there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of Judgment but if the backsliding be but the interruption of the first Sanctity by a single act or an unconformed unresolved unmalicious habit then also it is impossible to renew them unto Repentance viz. as formerly that is they can never be reconciled as before integrally fully and at once during this life For that Redemption and expiation was by Baptism into Christ's death and there are no more deaths of Christ nor any more such sacramental consignations of the benefit of it there is no more sacrifice for sins but the Redemption is one as the Sacrifice is one in whose virtue the Redemption does operate And therefore the Novatians who were zealous men denied to the first sort of persons the peace of the Church and remitted them to the Divine Judgment The Church her self was sometimes almost as zealous against the second sort of persons lapsed into capital crimes granting to them Repentance but once by such disciplines consigning this truth That every recession from the state of Grace in which by Baptism we were established and consigned is a farther step from the possibilities of Heaven and so near a ruine that the Church thought them persons fit to be transmitted to a Judicature immediately Divine as supposing either her power to be too little or the others malice too great or else the danger too violent or the scandal insupportable For concerning such persons who once were pious holy and forgiven for so is every man and woman worthily and aptly baptized and afterwards fell into dissolution of manners extinguishing the Holy Ghost doing despite to the Spirit of Grace crucisying again the Lord of Life that is returning to such a condition from which they were once recovered and could not otherwise be so but by the death of our dearest Lord I say concerning such persons the Scripture speaks very suspiciously and to the sense and signification of an infinite danger For if the speaking a word against the Holy Ghost be not to be pardoned here nor hereafter what can we imagine to be the end of such an impiety which crucifies the Lord of Life and puts him to an open shame which quenches the Spirit doing despite to the Spirit of Grace Certainly that is worse than speaking against him And such is every person who falls into wilful Apostasie from the Faith or does that violence to Holiness which the other does to Faith that is extinguishes the sparks of Illumination quenches the Spirit and is habitually and obstinately criminal in any kind For the same thing that ãâã was in the first period of the world and Idolatry in the second the same is Apostasie in the last it is a state wholly contradictory to all our religious relation to God according to the
nature and manner of the present communication Only this last because it is more malicious and a declension from a greater grace is something like the fall of Angels And of this the Emperour Julian was a sad example 19. But as these are degrees immediately next and a little less so the hopes of pardon are the more visible Simon Magiss spake a word or at least thought against the Holy Ghost he thought he was to be bought with mony Concerning him S. Peter pronounced Thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity Yet repent pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee Here the matter was of great difficulty but yet there was a possibility ãâã at least no impossibility of recovery declared And therefore S. Jude bids us of some to have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the fire meaning that their condition is only not desperate And still in descent retaining the same proportion every lesser sin is easier pardoned as better consisting with the state of Grace the whole Spirit is not destroyed and the body of sin is not introduced Christ is not quite ejected out of possession but like an oppressed Prince still continues his claim and such is his mercy that he will still do so till all be lost or that he is provoked by too much violence or that Antichrist is put in substitution and sin reigns in ãâã mortal body So that I may use the words of Saint John These things I write unto you that ' you sin not But if any man sin we have an Advocate with the ãâã Jesus Christ the Righteous And he is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world That is plainly Although the design of the Gospel be that we should erect a Throne for Christ to reign in our spirits and this doctrine of Innocence be therefore preached that ye sin not yet if one be overtaken in a fault despair not Christ is our Advocate and he is the Propitiation he did propitiate the Father by his death and the benefit of that we receive at our first access to him but then he is our Advocate too and prays perpetually for our perseverance or restitution respectively But his purpose is and he is able so to do to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his Glory 20. This consideration I intend should relate to all Christians of the world And although by the present custom of the Church we are baptized in our infancy and do not actually reap that fruit of present Pardon which persons of a mature age in the primitive Church did for we yet need it not as we shall when we have past the calentures of Youth which was the time in which the wisest of our Fathers in Christ chose for their Baptism as appears in the instance of S. Ambrose S. Austin and divers others yet we must remember that there is a Baptism of the Spirit as well as of water and when-ever this happens whether it be together with that Baptism of water as usually it was when only men and women of years of discretion were baptized or whether it be ministred in the rite of Confirmation which is an admirable suppletory of an early Baptism and intended by the Holy Ghost for a corroborative of Baptismal grace and a defensative against danger or that lastly it be performed by an internal and merely spiritual Ministery when we by acts of our own election verifie the promise made in Baptism and so bring back the Rite by receiving the effect of Baptism that is when-ever the filth of our flesh is washt away and that we have the answer of a pure conscience towards God which S. Peter affirms to be the true Baptism and which by the purpose and design of God it is expected we should not defer longer than a great reason or a great necessity enforces when our sins are first explated and the sacrifice and death of Christ is made ours and we made God's by a more immediate title which at some time or other happens to all Christians that pretend to any hopes of Heaven then let us look to our standing and take heed lest we fall When we once have tasted of the heavenly gift and are made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come that is when we are redeemed by an actual mercy and presential application which every Christian that belongs to God is at some time or other of his life then a fall into a deadly crime is highly dangerous but a relapse into a contrary estate is next to desperate 21. I represent this sad but most true Doctrine in the words of S. Peter If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again entangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto them So that a relapse after a state of Grace into a state of sin into confirmed habits is to us a great sign and possibly in it self it is more than a sign even a state of reprobation and final abscission 22. The summ of all is this There are two states of like opposite terms First Christ redeems us from our vain conversation and reconciles us to God putting us into an intire condition of Pardon Favour Innocence and Acceptance and becomes our Lord and King his Spirit dwelling and reigning in us The opposite state to this is that which in Scripture is called a crucifying the Lord of Life a doing despite to the Spirit of grace a being entangled in the pollutions of the world the Apostasie or falling away an impotency or disability to do good viz. of such who cannot cease from sin who are slaves of sin and in whom sin reigns in their bodies This condition is a full and integral deletery of the first it is such a condition which as it hath no Holiness or remanent affections to Vertue so it hath no hope or revelation of a mercy because all that benefit is lost which they received by the death of Christ and the first being lost there remains no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful expectation of Judgment But between these two states stand all those imperfections and single delinquencies those slips and falls those parts of recession and apostasie those grievings of the Spirit and so long as any thing of the first state is left so long we are within the Covenant of grace so long we are within the ordinary limits of mercy and the Divine compassion we are in possibilities of
fight when we contend earnestly against them and resist them unto bloud if need be that 's being pure as he is pure But besides this positive rejection of all evil and perpetually contesting against sin we must pursue the interests of Vertue and an active Religion 27. And besides this saith S. Peter giving all diligence add to your Faith Vertue to your Vertue Knowlege and to Knowledge Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity All this is an evident prosecution of the first design the holiness and righteousness of a whole life the being clear from all spots and blemishes a being pure and so presented unto Christ for upon this the Covenant being founded to this all industries must endeavour and arrive in their proportions For if these things be in you and abound they shall make that you be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind and hath forgotten he was purged from his old sins that is he hath lost his Baptismal grace and is put from the first state of his Redemption towards that state which is contradictory and destructive of it 28. Now because all these things are in latitude distance and divisibility and only injoyn a sedulity and great endeavour all that we can dwell upon is this That he who endeavours most is most secure and every degree of negligence is a degree of danger and although in the intermedial condition between the two states of Christianity and a full impiety there is a state of recovery and possibility yet there is danger in every part of it and it increases according as the deflection and irregularity comes to its height position state and finality So that we must give all diligence to work out our Salvation and it would ever be with fear and trembling with fear that we do not lose our innocence and with trembling if we have lost it for fear we never recover or never be accepted But Holiness of life and uninterrupted Sanctity being the condition of our Salvation the ingredient of the Covenant we must proportion our degrees of hope and confidence of Heaven according as we have obtained degrees of Innocence or Perseverance or Restitution Only this As it is certain he is in a state of reprobation who lives unto sin that is whose actions are habitually criminal who gives more of his consent to wickedness than to Vertue so it is also certain he is not in the state of God's favour and Sanctification unless he lives unto righteousness that is whose desires and purposes and endeavours and actions and customs are spiritual holy sanctified and obedient When sin is dead and the spirit is life when the Lusts of the flesh are mortified and the heart is purged from an evil conscience and we abound in a whole Systeme of Christian Vertues when our hearts are right to God and with our affections and our wills we love God and keep his Commandments when we do not only cry Lord Lord but also do his will then Christ dwells in us and we in Christ. Now let all this be taken in the lowest sence that can be imagined all I say which out of Scripture I have transcribed casting away every weight laying aside all malice mortifying the deeds of the flesh crucifying the old man with all his affections and lusts and then having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust besides this adding vertue to vertue till all righteousness be fulfilled in us walking in the light putting on the Lord Jesus purifying our selves as God is pure following peace with all men and holiness resisting unto bloud living in the Spirit being holy in all manner of conversation as he is holy being careful and excellent in all conversation and godliness all this being a pursuit of the first design of Christ's death and our reconcilement can mean no less but that 1. We should have in us no affection to a sin of which we can best judge when we never chuse it and never fall under it but by surprise and never lie under it at all but instantly recover judging our selves severely and 2. That we should chuse Vertue with great freedom of spirit and alacrity and pursue it earnestly integrally and make it the business of our lives and that 3. The effect of this be that sin be crucified in us and the desires to it dead flat and useless and that our desires of serving Christ be quick-spirited active and effective inquisitive for opportunities apprehensive of the offer chearful in the action and persevering in the employment 29. Now let a prudent person imagine what infirmities and over-sights can consist with a state thus described and all that does no violence to the Covenant God pities us and calls us not to an account for what morally cannot or certainly will not with great industry be prevented But whatsoever is inconsistent with this condition is an abatement from our hopes as it is a retiring from our duty and is with greater or less difficulty cured as are the degrees of its distance from that condition which Christ stipulated with us when we became his Disciples For we are just so restored to our state of grace and favour as we are restored to our state of purity and holiness Now this redintegration or renewing of us into the first condition is also called Repentance and is permitted to all persons who still remain within the powers and possibilities of the Covenant that is who are not in a state contradictory to the state and portion of Grace but with a difficulty increased by all circumstances and incidences of the crime and person And this I shall best represent in repeating these considerations 1. Some sins are past hopes of Pardon in this life 2. All that are pardoned are pardoned by parts revocably and imperfectly during this life not quickly nor yet manifestly 3. Repentance contains in it many operations parts and imployments its terms and purpose being to redintegrate our lost condition that is in a second and less perfect sence but as much as in such circumstances we can to verifie our first obligations of innocence and holiness in all manner of conversation and godliness 30. Concerning the first it is too sad a consideration to be too dogmatical and conclusive in it and therefore I shall only recall those expresses of Scripture which may without envy decree the article such as are those of S. Paul that there is a certain sort of men whom he twice describes whom it is impossible to renew again unto Repentance or those of S. Peter such whose latter end is worse than the beginning because after they once had escaped the pollutions of the world they are intangled therein such who as our Blessed Saviour threatens shall never be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come
the wicked in a proportionable manner to the contrary purpose he shortens their days and takes a way their possibilities and opportunities when the time of Repentance is past because he will not do violence to their Wills and this lest they should return and be converted and I should heal them so that it is evident some persons are by some acts of God after a vicious life and the frequent rejection of the Divine grace at last prevented from mercy who without such courses and in contrary circumstances might possibly do acts of Repentance and return and then God would healthem 4. Let their purposes and vows be never so sincere in the principle yet since a man who is in the state of Grace may again fail of it and forget he was purged from his old sins and every dying sinner did so if ever he was washed in the laver of Regeneration and sanctified in his spirit then much more may such a sincere purpose fail and then it would be known to what distance of time or state from his purpose will God give his final sentence Whether will he quit him because in the first stage he will correspond with his intention and act his purposes or condemn him because in his second stage he would prevaricate And when a man does fail it is not because his first principle was not good for the Holy Spirit which is certainly the best principle of spiritual actions may be extinguished in a man and a sincere or hearty purpose may be lost or it may again be recovered and be lost again so that it is as unreasonable as it is unrevealed that a sincere purpose on a death-bed shall obtain pardon or pass for a new state of life Few men are at those instants and in such pressures hypocritical and vain and yet to perform such purposes is a new work and a new labour it comes in upon a new stock differing from that principle and will meet with temptations difficulties and impediments and an honest heart is not sure to remain so but may split upon a rock of a violent invitation A promise is made to be faithful or unfaithful ex post ãâã by the event but it was sincere or insincere in the principle only if the person promising did or did not respectively at that time mean what he said A sincere promise many times is not truly performed 42. Concerning all the other acts which it is to be supposed a dying person can do I have only this consideration If they can make up a new Creature become a new state be in any sence a holy life a keeping the Commandments of God a following of peace and holiness a becoming holy in all conversation if they can arrive to the lowest sence of that excellent condition Christ intended to all his Disciples when he made keeping the Commandments to be the condition of entring into life and not crying Lord Lord but doing the will of God if he that hath served the Lusts of the flesh and taken pay under all God's enemies during a long and malicious life can for any thing a dying person can do be said in any sence to have lived holily then his hopes are fairly built if not they rely upon a sand and the ãâã of Death and the Divine displeasure will beat ãâã violently upon them There are no suppletories of the Evangelical Covenant If we walk according to the Rule then shall peace and righteousness kiss each other if we have sinned and prevaricated the Rule Repentance must bring us into the ways of Righteousness and then we must go on upon the old stock but the deeds of the ãâã must be mortified and Christ must dwell in us and the Spirit must reign in us and Vertue must be habitual and the habits must be confirmed and this as we do by the Spirit of Christ so it is hallowed and accepted by the grace of God and we put into a condition of favour and redeemed from sin and reconciled to God But this will not be put off with single acts nor divided parts nor newly-commenced purposes nor fruitless sorrow it is a great folly to venture Eternity upon dreams so that now let me represent the condition of a dying person after a vicious life 43. First He that considers the srailty of humane bodies their incidences and aptness to sickness casualties death sudden or expected the condition of several diseases that some are of too quick a sense and are intolerable some are dull stupid and Lethargical then adds the prodigious Judgments which fall upon many sinners in the act of sin and are marks of our dangers and God's essential justice and severity and that security which possesses such persons whose lives are vicious and that habitual carelesness and groundless confidence or an absolute inconsideration which is generally the condition and constitution of such minds every one whereof is likely enough to confound a persevering sinner in miseries eternal will soon apprehend the danger of a delayed Repentance to be infinite and unmeasurable 44. Secondly But suppose such a person having escaped the antecedent circumstances of the danger is set fairly upon his Death-bed with the just apprehension of his sins about him and his addresses to Repentance consider then the strength of his Lusts that the sins he is to mortifie are inveterate habitual and confirmed having had the growth and stability of a whole life that the liberty of his Will is impaired the Scripture saying of such persons whose eyes are full of lust and that cannot cease from sin and that his servants they are whom they obey that they are slaves to sin and so not sui juris not at their own dispose that his Understanding is blinded his Appetite is mutinous and of a long time used to rebell and prevail that all the inferiour Faculties are in disorder that he wants the helps of Grace proportionable to his necessities for the longer he hath continued in sin the weaker the Grace of God is in him so that in effect at that time the more need he hath the less he shall receive it being God's rule to give to him that hath and from him that hath not to take even what he hath then add the innumerable parts and great burthens of Repentance that it is not a Sorrow nor a Purpose because both these suppose that to be undone which is the only necessary support of all our hopes in Christ when it is done the innumerable difficult cases of Conscience that may then occur particularly in the point of Restitution which among many other necessary parts of Repentance is indispensably required of all persons that are able and in every degree in which they are able the many Temptations of the Devil the strength of Passions the impotency of the Flesh the illusions of the spirits of darkness the tremblings of the heart the incogitancy of the mind the implication and
Churches living under Persecution commenced many pretty opinions concerning the state and special dignity of Martyrs apportioning to them one of the three Coronets which themselves did knit and supposed as pendants to the great Crown of righteousness They made it suppletory of Baptism expiatory of sin satisfactory of publick ãâã they placed them in bliss immediately declared them to need no after-Prayer such as the Devotion of those times used to pour upon the graves of the faithful with great prudence they did endeavour to alleviate this burthen and sweeten the bitter chalice and they did it by such doctrines which did only remonstrate this great truth That since no love was greater than to lay down our lives nothing could be so great but God would indulge to them And indeed whatsoever they said in this had no inconvenience nor would it now unless men should think mere suffering to be sufficient to excuse a wicked life or that they be invited to dishonour an excellent patience with the mixture of an impure action There are many who would die for Christ if they were put to it and yet will not quit a Lust for him those are hardly to be esteemed Christ's Martyrs unless they be dead unto sin their dying for an Article or a good action will not pass the great scrutiny And it may be boldness of spirit or sullenness or an honourable gallantry of mind or something that is excellent in civil and political estimate moves the person and endears the suffering but that love only which keeps the Commandments will teach us to ãâã for love and from love to pass to blessedness through the red Sea of bloud And indeed it is more easie to die for Chastity than to live with it and many women have been found who suffered death under the violence of Tyrants for defence of their holy vows and purity who had they long continued amongst pleasures courtships curiosities and importunities of men might perchance have yielded that to a Lover which they denied to an Executioner S. Cyprian observes that our Blessed Lord in admitting the innocent Babes of Bethlehem first to die for him did to all generations of Christendom consign this Lesson That only persons holy and innocent were fit to be Christ's Martyrs And I remember that the Prince of the Latine Poets over against the region and seats of Infants places in the Shades below persons that suffered death wrongfully but adds that this their death was not enough to place them in such blessed mansions but the Judge first made inquiry into their lives and accordingly designed their station It is certain that such dyings or great sufferings are Heroical actions and of power to make great compensations and redemptions of time and of omissions and imperfections but if the Man be unholy so also are his Sufferings for Hereticks have died and vicious persons have suffered in a good cause and a dog's neck may be cut off in sacrifice and Swine's bloud may ãâã the trench about the Altar but God only accepts the Sacrifice which is pure and spotless first seasoned with salt then seasoned with fire The true Martyr must have all the preceding Graces and then he shall receive all the Beatitudes 19. The acts of this Duty are 1. Boldly to confess the Faith nobly to exercise publick vertues not to be ashamed of any thing that is honest and rather to quit our goods our liberty our health and life it self than to deny what we are bound to affirm or to omit what we are bound to do or to pretend contrary to our present perswasion 2. To rejoyce in Afflictions counting it honourable to be conformable to Christ and to wear the cognizance of Christianity whose certain lot it is to suffer the hostility and violence of enemies visible and invisible 3. Not to revile our Persecutors but to bear the Cross with evenness tranquillity patience and charity 4. To offer our sufferings to the glory of God and to joyn them with the Passions of Christ by doing it in love to God and obedience to his Sanctions and testimony of some part of his Religion and designing it as a part of duty The reward is the Kingdom of Heaven which can be no other but eternal Salvation in case the Martyrdom be consummate and they also shall be made perfect so the words of the reward were read in Clement's time If it be less it keeps its proportion all suffering persons are the combination of Saints they make the Church they are the people of the Kingdom and heirs of the Covenant For if they be but Confessors and confess Christ in prison though they never preach upon the rack or under the axe yet Christ will confess them before his heavenly Father and they shall have a portion where they shall never be persecuted any more The PRAYER O Blessed Jesus who art become to us the Fountain of Peace and Sanctity of Righteousness and Charity of Life and perpetual Benediction imprint in our spirits these glorious characterisms of Christianity that we by such excellent dispositions may be consigned to the infinity of Blessedness which thou camest to reveal and minister and exhibit to mankind Give us great Humility of spirit and deny us not when we beg Sorrow of thee the mourning and sadness of true Penitents that we may imitate thy excellencies and conform to thy sufferings Make us Meek patient indifferent and resigned in all accidents changes and issues of Divine Providence Mortifie all inordinate Anger in us all Wrath Strife Contention Murmurings Malice and Envy and interrupt and then blot out all peevish dispositions and morosities all disturbances and unevenness of spirit ãâã of habit that may hinder us in our duty Oh teach me so to hunger and thirst after the ways of Righteousness that it may be meat and drink to me to do thy Father's will Raise my affections to Heaven and heavenly things fix my heart there and prepare a treasure for me which I may receive in the great diffusions and communications of thy glory And in this sad interval of infirmity and temptations strengthen my hopes and ãâã my Faith by such emissions of light and grace from thy Spirit that I may relish those Blessings which thou preparest for thy Saints with so great appetite that I may despise the world and all its gilded vanities and may desire nothing but the crown of righteousness and the paths that lead thither ãâã graces of thy Kingdom and the glories of it that when I have served thee in holiness and strict obedience I may reign with thee in the glories of Eternity for thou O Holy Jesus art our hope and our life and glory our ãâã great reward Amen II. ãâã Jesu who art infinitely pleased in demonstrations of thy Mercy and didst descend into a state of misery suffering persecution and ãâã that thou mightest give us thy mercy and reconcile us to thy Father and make us
was a Law of Works that is especially and in its first intention But this being less perfect the Holy Jesus inverted the order 1. For very little of Christianity stands upon the outward action Christ having appointed but two Sacraments immediately and 2. a greater restraint is laid upon the passions desires and first motions of the spirit than under the severity of Moses and 3. they are threatned with the same curses of a sad eternity with the acts proceeding from them and 4. because the obedience of the spirit does in many things excuse the want of the outward act God always requiring at our hands what he hath put in our power and no more and 5. lastly because the spirit is the principle of all actions moral and spiritual and certainly productive of them when they are not impeded from without therefore the Holy Jesus hath secured the fountain as knowing that the current must needs be healthful and pure if it proceeds through pure chanels from a limpid and unpolluted principle 4. And certainly it is much for the glory of God to worship him with a Religion whose very design looks upon God as the searcher of our hearts and Lord of our spirits who judges the purposes as a God and does not only take his estimate from the outward action as a man And it is also a great reputation to the Institution it self that it purifies the Soul and secures the secret cogitations of the mind It punishes Covetouiness as it judges Rapine it condemns a Sacrilegious heart as soon as an Irreligious hand it detests hating of our Brother by the same aversation which it expresses against doing him ãâã He that curses in his heart shall die the death of an explicite and bold Blasphemer murmur and repining is against the Laws of Christianity but either by the remissness of Moses's Law or the gentler execution of it or the innovating or lessening glosses of the Pharisees he was esteemed innocent whose actions were according to the letter not whose spirit was conformed to the intention and more secret Sanctity of the Law So that our Righteousness must therefore exceed the Pharisaical standard because our spirits must be pure as our hands and the heart as regular as the action our purposes must be sanctified and our thoughts holy we must love our Neighbour as well as relieve him and chuse Justice with adhesion of the mind as well as carry her upon the palms of our hands And therefore the Prophets foretelling the Kingdom of the Gospel and the state of this Religion call it a writing the Laws of God in our hearts And S. Paul distinguishes the Gospel from the Law by this only measure We are all Israelites of the seed of Abraham heirs of the same inheritance only now we are not to be accounted Jews for the outward consormity to the Law but for the inward consent and obedience to those purities which were secretly signified by the types of Moses They of the Law were Jews outwardly their Circumcision was outward in the flesh their praise was of men We are Jews inwardly our Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter and our praise is of God that is we are not judged by the outward act but by the mind and the intention and though the acts must sollow in all instances where we can and where they are required yet it is the less principal and rather significative than by its own strength and energy operative and accepted 5. S. Clemens of Alexandria saith the Pharisees righteousness consisted in the not doing evil and that Christ superadded this also that we must do the contrary good and so exceed the Pharisaical measure They would not wrong a Jew nor many times relieve him they reckoned their innocence by not giving offence by walking blameless by not being accused before the Judges sitting in the gates of their Cities But the balance in which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Christians is not only the avoiding evil but doing good the following peace with all men and holiness the proceeding from faith to faith the adding vertue to vertue the persevering in all holy conversation and godliness And therefore S. Paul commending the grace of universal Charity says that Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law implying that the prime intention of the Law was that every man's right be secured that no man receive wrong And indeed all the Decalogue consisting of Prohibitions rather than Precepts saving that each Table hath one positive Commandment does not obscurely verifie the doctrine of S. Clement's interpretation Now because the Christian Charity abstains from doing all injury therefore it is the fulfilling of the Law but because it is also patient and liberal that it suffers long and is kind therefore the Charity commanded in Christ's Law exceeds that Charity which the Scribes and Pharisees reckoned as part of their Righteousness But Jesus himself does with great care in the particulars instance in what he would have the Disciples to be eminent above the most strict Sect of the Jewish Religion 1. in practising the moral Precepts of the Decalogue with a stricter interpretation 2. and in quitting the Permissions and licences which for the hardness of their heart Moses gave them as indulgences to their persons and securities against the contempt of too severe Laws 6. The severity of exposition was added but to three Commandments and in three indulgences the permission was taken away But because our great Law-giver repeated also other parts of the Decalogue in his after-Sermons I will represent in this one view all that he made to be Christian by adoption 7. The first Commandment Christ often repeated and enforced as being the basis of all Religion and the first endearment of all that relation whereby we are capable of being the sons of God as being the great Commandment of the Law and comprehensive of all that duty we owe to God in the relations of the vertue of Religion Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Lord and Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength This is the first Commandment that is this comprehends all that which is moral and eternal in the first Table of the ãâã 8. The Duties of this Commandment are 1. To worship God alone with actions proper to him and 2. to love and 3. obey him with all our faculties 1. Concerning Worship The actions proper to the Honour of God are to offer Sacrifice Incense and Oblations making Vows to him Swearing by his Name as the instrument of secret testimony confessing his incommunicable Attributes and Praying to him for those Graces which are essentially annexed to his dispensation as Remission of sins Gifts of the Spirit and the grace of ãâã and Life
and therefore less likely to deceive for which reason it is said that he shall deceive if it were possible the very elect that is therefore not possible because that by which he insinuates himself to others is by the elect the Church and chosen of God understood to be his sign and mark of discovery and a warning And therefore as the Prophecies of Jesus were an infinite verification of his Miracles so also this Prophecy of Christ concerning Antichrist disgraces the reputation and faith of the Miracles he shall act The old Prophets foretold of the Messias and of his Miracles of power and mercy to prepare for his reception and entertainment Christ alone and his Apostles from him foretold of Antichrist and that he should come in all Miracles of deception and lying that is with true or false Miracles to perswade a lie and this was to prejudice his being accepted according to the Law of Moses So that as all that spake of Christ bade us believe him for the Miracles so all that foretold of Antichrist bade us disbelieve him the rather for his and the reason of both is the same because the mighty and surer word of Prophecy as S. Peter calls it being the greatest testimony in the world of a Divine principle gives authority or reprobates with the same power They who are the predestinate of God and they that are the praesciti the foreknown and marked people must needs stand or fall to the Divine sentence and such must this be acknowledged for no enemy of the Cross not the Devil himself ever foretold such a contingency or so rare so personal so voluntary so unnatural an event as this of the great Antichrist 12. And thus the Holy Jesus having shewed forth the treasures of his Father's Wisdom in Revelations and holy Precepts and upon the stock of his Father's greatness having dispended and demonstrated great power in Miracles and these being instanced in acts of Mercy he mingled the glories of Heaven to transmit them to earth to raise us up to the participations of Heaven he was pleased by healing the bodies of infirm persons to invite their spirits to his Discipline and by his power to convey healing and by that mercy to lead us into the treasures of revelation that both Bodies and Souls our Wills and Understandings by Divine instruments might be brought to Divine perfections in the participations of a Divine nature It was a miraculous mercy that God should look upon us in our bloud and a miraculous condescension that his Son should take our nature and even this favour we could not believe without many Miracles and so contrary was our condition to all possibilities of happiness that if Salvation had not marched to us all the way in Miracle we had perished in the ruines of a sad eternity And now it would be but reasonable that since God for our sakes hath rescinded so many laws of natural establishment we also for his and for our own would be content to do violence to those natural inclinations which are also criminal when they derive into action Every man living in the state of Grace is a perpetual Miracle and his Passions are made reasonable as his Reason is turned to Faith and his Soul to Spirit and his Body to a Temple and Earth to Heaven and less than this will not dispose us to such glories which being the portion of Saints and Angels and the nearest communications with God are infinitely above what we see or hear or understand The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu who didst receive great power that by it thou mightest convey thy Father's mercies to us impotent and wretched people give me grace to believe that heavenly Doctrine which thou didst ratifie with arguments from above that I may fully assent to all those mysterious Truths which integrate that Doctrine and Discipline in which the obligations of my duty and the hopes of my felicity are deposited And to all those glorious verifications of thy Goodness and thy Power add also this Miracle that I who am stained with Leprosie of sin may be cleansed and my eyes may be opened that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law and raise thou me up from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that I may for ever walk in the land of the living abhorring the works of death and darkness that as I am by thy miraculous mercy partaker of the first so also I may be accounted worthy of the second Resurrection and as by Faith Hope Charity and Obedience I receive the fruit of thy Miracles in this life so in the other I may partake of thy Glories which is a mercy above all Miracles Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean Lord I believe help mine unbelief and grant that no ãâã or incapacity of mine may hinder the wonderful operations of thy Grace but let it be thy first Miracle to turn my water into wine my barrenness into fruitfulness my aversations from thee into unions and intimate adhesions to thy infinity which is the fountain of mercy and power Grant this for thy mercie 's sake and for the honour of those glorious Attributes in which thou hast revealed thy self and thy Father's excellencies to the world O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The End of the Second Part. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Second Year of his PREACHING until his ASCENSION WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE THIRD PART Seneca apud Lactant. lib. 6. c. 17. Hic est ille homo qui sive toto corpore tormenta patienda sunt sive flamma ore recipienda est sive extendenda per patibulum manus non quaerit quid patiatur sed quà m bene LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675 TO The Right Honourable and Vertuous Lady The LADY FRANCES Countess of CARBERY MADAM SInce the Divine Providence hath been pleased to bind up the great breaches of my little fortune by your Charity and Nobleness of a religious tenderness I account it an excellent circumstance and handsomeness of condition that I have the fortune of S. Athanasius to have my Persecution relieved and comforted by an Honourable and Excellent Lady and I have nothing to return for this honour done to me but to do as the poor Paralyticks and infirm people in the Gospel did when our Blessed Saviour cured them they went and told it to all the Countrey and made the Vicinage full of the report as themselves were of health and joy And although I know the modesty of your person and Religion had rather do favours than own them yet give me leave to draw aside the curtain and retirement of your Charity for I had rather your vertue should blush than my unthankfulness make me ashamed Madam I intended by this Address not onely to return you spirituals for
a perpetual storm within and daily hissings from without 13. Fourthly Holiness and Obedience is an excellent preservative of Life and makes it long and healthful In order to which discourse because it is new material and argumentative apt to perswade men who prefer life before all their other interests I consider many things First In the Old Testament a long and a prosperous life were the great promises of the Covenant their hopes were built upon it and that was made the support of all their duty If thou wilt diligently hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God I will put none of the diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyptians for I am the LORD that healeth thee And more particularly yet that we may not think Piety to be security only against the plagues of Egypt God makes his promise more indefinite and unconfined Ye shall serve the LORD your God and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee and will fulfill the number of thy days that is the period of nature shall be the period of thy person thou shalt live long and die in a seasonable and ripe age And this promise was so verified by a long experience that by David's time it grew up to a rule What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips that they speak no guile And the same argument was pressed by Solomon who was an excellent Philosopher and well skilled in the natural and accidental means of preservation of our lives Fear the LORD and depart from evil and it shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones Length of days is in the right hand of wisdome For she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her Meaning that the Tree of Life and immortality which God had planted in Paradise and which if Man had stood he should have tasted and have lived for ever the fruit of that Tree is offered upon the same conditions if we will keep the Commandments of God our Obedience like the Tree of life shall consign us to Immortality hereafter by a long and a healthful life here And therefore although in Moses's time the days of Man had been shortned till they came to threescore years and ten or fourscore years and then their strength is but labour and sorrow for Moses was Author of that Psalm yet to shew the great privilege of those persons whose Piety was great Moses himself attained to one hundred and twenty years which was almost double to the ordinary and determined period But Enoch and Elias never died and became great examples to us that a spotless and holy life might possibly have been immortal 14. I shall add no more examples but one great conjugation of precedent observed by the Jewish Writers who tell us that in the second Temple there were 300 high Priests I suppose they set down a certain number for an uncertain and by 300 they mean very many and yet that Temple lasted but 420 years the reason of this so rapid and violent abscission of their Priests being their great and scandalous impieties and yet in the first Temple whose abode was within ten years as long as the second there was a succession but of 18 high Priests for they being generally very pious and the preservers of their Rites and Religion against the Schism of ãâã and the Defection of ãâã and the Idolatry and Irreligion of many of the Kings of Judah God took delight to reward it with a long and honourable old age And ãâã knew well enough what he said when in his ãâã and prophetick rapture he made his prayer to God Let my Soul die the death of the righteous It was not a Prayer that his Soul might be saved or that he might repent at last for Repentance and Immortality were revelations of a later date but he in his prophetick ãâã seeing what God had purposed to the Moabites and what blessings he had reserved for Israel prays that he might not die as the Moabites were like to die with an untimely death by the sword of their enemies dispossessed of their Countrey spoiled of their goods in the period and last hour of their Nation but let my soul die the death of the just the death designed for the faithful Israelites such a death which God promised to Abraham that he should return to his Fathers in peace and in a good old age For the death of the righteous is like the descending of ripe and wholsome fruits from a pleasant and florid Tree our senses intire our lims unbroken without horrid tortures after provision made for our children with a blessing entailed upon posterity in the presence of our Friends our dearest relative closing up our eyes and binding our feet leaving a good name behind us O let my soul die such a death for this in whole or in part according as God sees it good is the manner that the righteous die And this was Balaam's prayer And this was the state and condition in the Old Testament 15. In the Gospel the case is nothing altered For besides that those austerities rigours and mortifications which are in the Gospel advised or commanded respectively are more salutary or of less corporal inconvenience than a vicious life of Intemperance or Lust or Carefulness or tyrant Covetousness there is no accident or change to the sufferance of which the Gospel hath engaged us but in the very thing our life is carefully provided for either in kind or by a gainful exchange He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it and he that will save his life shall lose it And although God who promised long life to them that obey did not promise that himself would never call for our life borrowing it of us and repaying it in a glorious and advantagious exchange yet this very promise of giving us a better life in exchange for this when we exposed it in Martyrdome does confirm our title to this this being the instrument of permutation with the other for God obliging himself to give us another in exchange for this when in cases extraordinary he calls for this says plainly that this is our present right by grace and the title of the Divine Promises But the Promises are clear For S. Paul calls children to the observation of the fifth Commandment by the same argument which God used in the first promulgation of it Honour thy Father and thy Mother which is the first Commandment with Promise That it may be well with thee and that thou mayst live long upon the earth For although the Gospel be built upon better Promises than the Law yet it hath the same too not as its foundation but as appendences and adjuncts of grace and supplies of need Godliness hath the promise of this life as well as of the life
that is to come That is plain And although Christ revealed his Father's mercies to us in new expresses and great abundance yet he took nothing from the world which ever did in any sense invite Piety or indear Obedience or cooperate towards Felicity And ãâã the Promises which were made of old are also presupposed in the new and mentioned by intimation and implication within the greater When our Blessed Saviour in seven of the Eight Beatitudes had instanced in new Promises and Rewards as Heaven Seeing of God Life eternal in one of them to which Heaven is as certainly consequent as to any of the rest he did chuse to instance in a temporal blessing and in the very words of the Old Testament to shew that that part of the old Covenant which concerns Morality and the rewards of Obedience remains firm and included within the conditions of the Gospel 16. To this purpose is that saying of our Blessed Saviour Man liveth not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God meaning that besides natural means ordained for the preservation of our lives there are means supernatural and divine God's Blessing does as much as bread nay it is Every word proceeding out of the ãâã of God that is every Precept and Commandment of God is so for our good that it is intended as food and Physick to us a means to make us live long And therefore God hath done in this as in other graces and issues Evangelical which he purposed to continue in his Church for ever He first gave it in miraculous and extraordinary manner and then gave it by way of perpetual ministery The Holy Ghost appeared at first like a prodigy and with Miracle he descended in visible representments expressing himself in revelations and powers extraordinary but it being a Promise intended to descend upon all Ages of the Church there was appointed a perpetual ministery for its conveyance and still though without a sign or miraculous representment it is ministred in Confirmation by imposition of the Bishop's hands And thus also health and long life which by way of ordinary benediction is consequent to Piety Faith and Obedience Evangelical was at first given in a miraculous manner that so the ordinary effects being at first confirmed by miraculous and extraordinary instances and manners of operation might for ever after be confidently expected without any dubitation since it was in the same manner consigned by which all the whole Religion was by a voice from Heaven and a verification of Miracles and extraordinary supernatural effects That the gift of healing and preservation and restitution of life was at first miraculous needs no particular probation All the story of the Gospel is one entire argument to prove it and amongst the fruits of the Spirit S. Paul reckons gifts of healing and government and helps or exteriour assistences and advantages to represent that it was intended the life of Christian people should be happy and healthful for ever Now that this grace also descended afterwards in an ordinary ministery is recorded by S. James Is any man sick amongst you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with oyl in the name of the Lord that was then the ceremony and the blessing and effect is still for the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up For it is observable that the blessing of healing and recovery is not appendent to the Anealing but to the Prayer of the Church to manifest that the ceremony went with the first miraculous and extraordinary manner yet that there was an ordinary ministery appointed for the daily conveyance of the blessing the faithful prayers offices of holy Priests shall obtain life and health to such persons who are receptive of it and in spiritual and apt dispositions And when we see by a continual flux of extraordinary benediction that even some Christian Princes are instruments of the Spirit not only in the government but in the gifts of healing too as a reward for their promoting the just interests of Christianity we may acknowledge our selves convinced that a holy life in the faith and obedience of Jesus Christ may be of great advantage for our health and life by that instance to entertain our present desires and to establish our hopes of life eternal 17. For I consider that the fear of God is therefore the best antidote in the World against sickness and death because it is the direct enemy to sin which brought in sickness and death and besides this that God by spiritual means should produce alterations natural is not hard to be understood by a Christian Philosopher take him in either of the two capacities 2. For there is a rule of proportion and analogy of effects that if sin destroys not only the Soul but the Body also then may Piety preserve both and that much rather for if sin that is the effects and consequents of sin hath abounded then shall grace superabound that is Christ hath done us more benefit than the Fall of Adam hath done us injury and therefore the effects of sin are not greater upon the body than either are to be restored or prevented by a pious life 3. There is so near a conjunction between Soul and Body that it is no wonder if God meaning to glorifie both by the means of a spiritual life suffers spirit and matter to communicate in effects and mutual impresses Thus the waters of Baptism purifie the Soul and the Holy Eucharist not the symbolical but the mysterious and spiritual part of it makes the Body also partaker of the death ãâã Christ and a holy union The flames of Hell whatsoever they are torment accursed Souls and the stings of Conscience vex and disquiet the Body 4. And if we consider that in the glories of Heaven when we shall live a life purely spiritual our Bodies also are so clarified and made spiritual that they also become immortal that state of Glory being nothing else but a perfection of the state of Grace it is not unimaginable but that the Soul may have some proportion of the same operation upon the Body as to conduce to its prolongation as to an antepast of immortality 5. For since the Body hath all its life from its conjunction with the Soul why not also the perfection of life according to its present capacity that is health and duration from the perfection of the Soul I mean from the ornaments of Grace And as the blessedness of the Soul saith the Philosopher consists in the speculation of honest and just things so the perfection of the Body and of the whole Man consists in the practick the exercise and operations of Vertue 18. But this Problem in Christian Philosophy is yet more intelligible and will be reduced to certain experience if we consider good life in union and concretion with particular
material and circumstantiate actions of Piety For these have great powers and influences even in Nature to restore health and preserve our lives Witness the sweet sleeps of temperate persons and their constant appetite which Timotheus the son of Conon observed when he dieted in Plato's Academy with severe and moderated diet They that sup with Plato are well the next day Witness the symmetry of passions in meek men their freedome from the violence of inraged and passionate indispositions the admirable harmony and sweetness of content which dwells in the retirements of a holy Conscience to which if we add those joys which they only understand truly who feel them inwardly the joys of the Holy Ghost the content and joys which are attending upon the lives of holy persons are most likely to make them long and healthful For now we live saith S. Paul if ye stand fast in the Lord. It would prolong S. Paul's life to see his ghostly children persevere in holiness and if we understood the joys of it it would do much greater advantage to our selves But if we consider a spiritual life abstractedly and in it self Piety produces our life not by a natural efficiency but by Divine benediction God gives a healthy and a long life as a reward and blessing to crown our Piety even before the sons of men For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the Earth but they that be cursed of him shall be cut off So that this whole matter is principally to be referred to the act of God either by ways of nature or by instruments of special providence rewarding Piety with a long life And we shall more fully apprehend this if upon the grounds of Scripture Reason and Experience we weigh the contrary Wickedness is the way to shorten our days 19. Sin brought Death in first and yet Man lived almost a thousand years But he sinned more and then Death came nearer to him for when all the World was first drowned in wickedness and then in water God cut him shorter by one half and five hundred years was his ordinary period And Man sinned still and had strange imaginations and built towers in the air and then about Peleg's time God cut him shorter by one half yet two hundred and odd years was his determination And yet the generations of the World returned not unanimously to God and God cut him off another half yet and reduced him to one hundred and twenty years And by Moses's time one half of the final remanent portion was pared away reducing him to threescore years and ten so that unless it be by special dispensation men live not beyond that term or thereabout But if God had gone on still in the same method and shortned our days as we multiplied our sins we should have been but as an Ephemeron Man should have lived the life of a Fly or a Gourd the morning should have seen his birth his life have been the term of a day and the evening must have provided him of a shroud But God seeing Man's thoughts were onely evil continually he was resolved no longer so to strive with him nor destroy the kinde but punish individuals onely and single persons and if they sinned or if they did obey regularly their life should be proportionable This God set down for his rule Evil shall ãâã the wicked person and He that keepeth the Commandments keepeth his own Soul but he that despiseth his own ways shall die 20. But that we may speak more exactly in this Probleme we must observe that in Scripture three general causes of natural death are assigned Nature Providence and Chance By these three I onely mean the several manners of Divine influence and operation For God only predetermines and what is changed in the following events by Divine permission to this God and Man in their several manners do cooperate The saying of David concerning Saul with admirable Philosophy describes the three ways of ending Man's life David said furthermore As the LORD liveth the LORD shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battel and perish The first is special Providence The second means the term of Nature The third is that which in our want of words we call Chance or Accident but is in effect nothing else but another manner of the Divine Providence That in all these Sin does interrupt and retrench our lives is the undertaking of the following periods 21. First In Nature Sin is a cause of dyscrasies and distempers making our bodies healthless and our days few For although God hath prefixed a period to Nature by an universal and antecedent determination and that naturally every man that lives temperately and by no supervening accident is interrupted shall arrive thither yet because the greatest part of our lives is governed by will and understanding and there are temptations to Intemperance and to violations of our health the period of Nature is so distinct a thing from the period of our person that few men attain to that which God had fixed by his first law and ãâã purpose but end their days with folly and in a period which God appointed ãâã with anger and a determination secondary consequent and accidental And therefore says David Health is far from the ãâã for they regard not thy statutes And to this purpose is that saying of Abenezra He that is united to God the Fountain of Life his Soul being improved by Grace communicates to the Body an establishment of its radical moisture and natural heat to make it more healthful that so it may be more instrumental to the spiritual operations and productions of the Soul and it self be preserved in perfect constitution Now how this blessing is contradicted by the impious life of a wicked person is easie to be understood if we consider that from drunken Surfeits come Dissolution of members Head-achs Apoplexies dangerous Falls Fracture of bones Drenchings and dilution of the brain Inslammation of the liver Crudities of the stomach and thousands more which Solomen sums up in general terms Who hath woe who hath sorrow who hath redness of eyes they that tarry long at the ãâã I shall not need to instance in the sad and uncleanly consequents of Lusts the wounds and accidental deaths which are occasioned by Jealousies by Vanity by Peevishness vain Reputation and Animosities by Melancholy and the despair of evil Consciences and yet these are abundant argument that when God so permits a man to run his course of Nature that himself does not intervene by an extraordinary ãâã or any special acts of providence but only gives his ordinary assistence to natural causes a very great part of men make their natural period shorter and by sin make their days miserable and few 22. Secondly Oftentimes Providence intervenes and makes the way shorter God for the iniquity of man not suffering Nature to take her course but stopping
the flames of Hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear and purely for the love of God Whether the Woman were onely imaginative and sad or also zealous I know not But God knows he would have few Disciples if the arguments of invitation were not of greater promise than the labours of Vertue are of trouble And therefore the Spirit of God knowing to what we are inflexible and by what we are made most ductile and malleable hath propounded Vertue clothed and dressed with such advantages as may entertain even our Sensitive part and first desires that those also may be invited to Vertue who understand not what is just and reasonable but what is profitable who are more moved with advantage than justice And because emolument is more felt than innocence and a man may be poor for all his gift of ãâã the Holy Jesus to endear the practices of Religion hath represented Godliness unto us under the notion of gain and sin as unfruitful and yet besides all the natural and reasonable advantages every Vertue hath a supernatural reward a gracious promise attending and every Vice is not only naturally deformed but is made more ugly by a threatning and horrid by an appendent curse Henceforth therefore let no man complain that the Commandments of God are impossible for they are not onely possible but easie and they that say otherwise and do accordingly take more pains to carry the instruments of their own death than would serve to ascertain them of life And if we would do as much for Christ as we have done for Sin we should find the pains less and the pleasure more And therefore such complainers are without excuse for certain it is they that can go in foul ways must not say they cannot walk in fair they that march over rocks in despight of so many impediments can travel the even ways of Religion and Peace when the Holy Jesus is their Guide and the Spirit is their Guardian and infinite felicities are at their journey's end and all the reason of the world political oeconomical and personal do entertain and support them in the travel of the passage The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus who gavest Laws unto the world that man-kind being united to thee by the bands of Obedience might partake of all thy glories and felicities open our understanding give us the spirit of discerning and just apprehension of all the beauties with which thou hast enamelled Vertue to represent it beauteous and amiable in our eyes that by the allurements of exteriour decencies and appendent blessings our present desires may be entertained our hopes promoted our affections satisfied and Love entring in by these doors may dwell in the interiour regions of the Will O make us to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and all the instruments of Religion in order to thy glory and our own felicities Pull off the visors of Sin and discover its deformities by the lantern of thy Word and the light of the Spirit that I may never be bewitched with sottish appetites Be pleased to build up all the contents I expect in this world upon the interests of a vertuous life and the support of Religion that I may be rich in Good works content in the issues of thy Providence my Health may be the result of Temperance and severity my Mirth in spiritual emanations my Rest in Hope my Peace in a good Conscience my Satisfaction and acquiescence in thee that from Content I may pass to an eternal Fulness from Health to Immortality from Grace to Glory walking in the paths of Righteousness by the waters of Comfort to the land of everlasting Rest to feast in the glorious communications of Eternity eternally adoring loving and enjoying the infinity of the ever-Blessed and mysterious Trinity to whom be glory and ãâã and dominion now and for ever Amen DISCOURSE XVI Of Certainty of Salvation 1. WHen the Holy Jesus took an account of the first Legation and voyage of his Apostles he found them rejoycing in priviledges and exteriour powers in their authority over unclean spirits but weighing it in his balance he found the cause too light and therefore diverted it upon the right object Rejoyce that your names are written in Heaven The revelation was confirmed and more personally applied in answer to S. Peter's Question We have for saken all and followed thee what shall we have therefore Their LORD answered Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel Amongst these persons to whom Christ spake Judas was he was one of the Twelve and he had a throne allotted for him his name was described in the book of life and a Scepter and a Crown was deposited for him too For we must not judge of Christ's meaning by the event since he spake these words to produce in them Faith comfort and joy in the best objects it was a Sermon of duty as well as a Homily of comfort and therefore was equally intended to all the Colledge and since the number of Thrones is proportioned to the number of men it is certain there was no exception of any man there included and yet it is as certain Judas never came to sit upon the throne and his name was blotted out of the book of life Now if we put these ends together that in Scripture it was not revealed to any man concerning his final condition but to the dying penitent Thief and to the twelve Apostles that twelve thrones were designed for them and a promise made of their inthronization and yet that no man's final estate is so clearly declared miserable and lost as that of Judas one of the Twelve to whom a throne was promised the result will be that the election of holy persons is a condition allied to duty absolute and infallible in the general and supposing all the dispositions and requisites concurring but fallible in the particular if we fall off from the mercies of the Covenant and prevaricate the conditions But the thing which is most observable is that if in persons so eminent and priviledged and to whom a revelation of their Election was made as a particular grace their condition had one weak leg upon which because it did rely for one half of the interest it could be no stronger than its supporters the condition of lower persons to whom no revelation is made no priviledges are indulged no greatness of spiritual eminency is appendent as they have no greater certainty in the thing so they have less in person and are therefore to work out their salvation with great fears and tremblings of spirit 2. The purpose of this consideration is that we do not judge of our final condition by any discourses of our own relying upon God's secret Counsels and Predestination of Eternity This is a mountain upon which whosoever climbs like Moses to behold the land of Canaan at great distances may please his eyes or
or dearest invitations to Vice and deny our selves lawful things than that lawful things should betray us to unlawful actions And this rule is the measure of Charity our neighbour's Soul ought to be dearer unto us than any temporal priviledge It is lawful for me to eat herbs or fish and to observe an ascetick diet But if by such austerities I lead others to a good opinion of Montanism or the practices of Pythagoras or to believe flesh to be impure I must rather alter my diet than teach him to sin by mistaking me S. Paul gave an instance of eating flesh sold in the shambles from the Idol Temples to eat it in the relation of an Idol-sacrifice is a great sin but when it is sold in the shambles the property is altered to them that understand it so But yet even this Paul would not do if by so doing he should encourage undiscerning people to eat all meat conveyed from the Temple and offered to Devils It is not in every man's head to distinguish formalities and to make abstractions of purpose from exteriour acts and to alter their devotions by new relations and respects depending upon intellectual and Metaphysical notions And therefore it is not safe to do an action which is not lawful but after the making distinctions before ignorant and weaker persons who swallow down the bole and the box that carries it and never ãâã their apple or take the core out If I by the law of Charity must rather quit my own goods than suffer my brother to perish much rather must I quit my priviledge and those superstructures of favour and grace which Christ hath given me beyond my necessities than wound the spirit and destroy the Soul of a weak man for whom Christ died It is an inordinate affection to love my own case and circumstances of pleasure before the soul of a Brother and such a thing are the priviledges of Christian liberty for Christ hath taken off from us the restraints which God had laid upon the Jews in meat and Holy-days but these are but circumstances of grace given us for opportunities and cheap instances of Charity we should ill die for our brother who will not lose a meal to prevent his sin or change a dish to save his Soul And if the thing be indifferent to us yet it ought not to be indifferent to us whether our brother live or die 8. Fourthly And yet we must not to please peevish or froward people betray our liberty which Christ hath given us If any man opposes the lawfulness and licence of indifferent actions or be disturbed at my using my priviledges innocently in the first case I am bound to use them still in the second I am not bound to quit them to please him For in the first instance he that shall cease to use his liberty to please him that says his liberty is unlawful encourages him that says so in his false opinion and by complying with him gives the Scandal and he who is angry with me for making use of it is a person that it may be is crept in to spy out and invade my liberty but not apt to be reduced into sin by that act of mine which he detests for which he despises me and so makes my person unapt to be exemplar to him To be angry with me for doing what Christ hath allowed me and which is part of the liberty he purchased for me when he took upon himself the form of a servant is to judge me and to be uncharitable to me and he that does so is beforehand with me and upon the active part he does the Scandal to me and by offering to deprive me of my liberty he makes my way to Heaven narrower and more encumbred than Christ left it and so places a stumbling-stone in my way I put none in his And if such peevishness and discontent of a Brother engages me to a new and unimposed yoke then it were in the power of my enemy or any malevolent person to make me never to keep Festival or never to observe any private Fast never to be prostrate at my Prayers nor to do any thing but according to his leave and his humour shall become the rule of my actions and then my Charity to him shall be the greatest uncharitableness in the world to my self and his liberty shall be my bondage Add to this that such complying and obeying the peevishness of discontented persons is to no end of Charity for besides that such concessions never satisfie persons who are unreasonably angry because by the same reason they may demand more as they ask this for which they had no reason at all it also incourages them to be peevish and gives fewel to the passion and seeds the wolf and so encourages the sin and prevents none 9. Fifthly For he only gives Scandal who induces his Brother directly or collaterally into sin as appears by all the discourses in Scripture guiding us in this Duty and it is called laying a stumbling-block in our Brother's way a wounding the Conscience of our weak Brother Thus Balaam was said to lay a Scandal before the sons of Israel by tempting them to Fornication with the daughters of Moab Every evil example or imprudent sinful and unwary deportment is a Scandal because it invites others to do the like leading them by the hand taking off the strangeness and insolency of the act which deters many men from entertaining it and it gives some offers of security to others that they shall escape as we have done besides that it is in the nature of all agents natural and moral to assimilate either by proper efficiency or by counsel and moral invitements others to themselves But this is a direct Scandal and such it is to give money to an idle person who you know will be drunk with it or to invite an intemperate person to an opportunity of excess who desires it always but without thee wants it Indirectly and accidentally but very criminally they give Scandal who introduce persons into a state of life from whence probably they pass into a state of sin so did the ãâã who married their daughters to the idolatrous Moabites and so do they who intrust a Pupil to a vicious Guardian For although God can preserve children in the midst of flames without scorching yet if they sindge their hair or scorch their flesh they that put them in are guilty of the burning And yet farther if persons so exposed to danger should escape by miracle yet they escape not who expose them to the danger They who threw the Children of the Captivity into the furnace were burnt to death though the Children were not hurt and the very offering a person in our trust to a certain or probable danger foreseen and understood is a likely way to pass sin upon the person so exposed but a certain way to contract it in our selves it is directly against Charity for no man
and miserable to all eternity It was a sad calamity that fell upon the Man of Judah that returned to eat bread into the Prophet's house contrary to the word of the Lord He was abused into the act by a Prophet and a pretence of a command from God and whether he did violence to his own understanding and believed the man because he was willing or did it in sincerity or in what degree of sin or excuse the action might consist no man there knew and yet a Lion slew him and the lying Prophet that abused him escaped and went to his grave in peace Some persons joyned in society or interest with criminals have perished in the same Judgments and yet it would be hard to call them equally guilty who in the accident were equally miserable and involved And they who are not strangers in the affairs of the world cannot but have heard or seen some persons who have lived well and moderately though not like the ãâã of the Holocaust yet like the ashes of Incense sending up good perfumes and keeping a constant and slow fire of Piety and Justice yet have been surprised in the midst of some unusual unaccustomed irregularity and died in that sin A sudden gayety of fortune a great joy a violent change a friend is come or a marriage-day hath transported some persons to indiscretions and too bold a licence and the indiscretion hath betrayed them to idle company and the company to drink and drink to a fall and that hath hurri'd them to their grave And it were a sad sentence to think God would not repute the untimely death for a punishment great enough to that deflexion from duty and judge the man according to the constant tenor of his former life unless such an act was of malice great enough to outweigh the former habits and interrupt the whole state of acceptation and grace Something like this was the case of ãâã who espying the tottering Ark went to support it with an unhallowed hand God smote him and he died immediately It were too severe to say his zeal and indiscretion carried him beyond a temporal death to the ruines of Eternity Origen and many others have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven and did well after it but those that did so and died of the wound were smitten of God and died in their folly and yet it is rather to be called a sad consequence of their indiscretion than the express of a final anger from God Almighty For as God takes off our sins and punishments by parts remitting to some persons the sentence of death and inflicting the fine of a temporal loss or the gentle scourge of a lesser sickness so also he lays it on by parts and according to the proper proportions of the man and of the crime and every transgression and lesser deviation from our duty does not drag the Soul to death eternal but God suffers our Repentance though imperfect to have an imperfect effect knocking off the fetters by degrees and leading us in some cases to a Council in some to Judgment and in some to Hell-fire but it is not always certain that he who is led to the prison-doors shall there lie entombed and a Man may by a Judgment be brought to the gates of Hell and yet those gates shall not prevail against him This discourse concerns persons whose life is habitually fair and just but are surprised in some unhandsome but less criminal action and ãâã or suffer some great Calamity as the instrument of its expiation or amendment 3. Secondly But if the person upon whom the Judgment falls be habitually vicious or the crime of a clamorous nature or deeper tincture if the man sin a sin unto death and either meets it or some other remarkable calamity not so feared as death provided we pass no farther than the sentence we see then executed it is not against Charity or prudence to say this calamity in its own formality and by the intention of God is a Punishment and Judgment In the favourable cases of honest and just persons our sentence and opinions ought also to be favourable and in such questions to encline ever to the side of charitable construction and read other ends of God in the accidents of our neighbour than Revenge or express Wrath. But when the impiety of a person is scandalous and notorious when it is clamorous and violent when it is habitual and yet corrigible if we find a sadness and calamity dwelling with such a sinner especially if tho punishment be spiritual we read the sentence of God written with his own hand and it is not ãâã of opinion or a pressing into the secrets of Providence to say the same thing which God hath published to all the world in the ãâã of his Spirit In such cases we are to observe the severity of God on them that fall severity and to use those Judgments as instruments of the fear of God arguments to hate sin which we could not well do but that we must look on them as verifications of God's threatning against great and impenitent sinners But then if we descend to particulars we may easily be deceived 4. For some men are diligent to observe the accidents and chances of Providence upon those especially who differ from them in Opinion and whatever ends God can have or whatever sins man can have yet we lay that in fault which we therefore hate because it is most against our interest the contrary Opinion is our enemy and we also think God hates it But such fancies do seldom serve either the ends of Truth or Charity Pierre Calceon died under the Barber's hand there wanted not some who said it was a Judgement upon him for condemning to the fire the famous Pucelle of France who prophesied the expulsion of the English out of the Kingdom They that thought this believed her to be a Prophetess but others that thought her a Witch were willing to ãâã out another conjecture for the sudden death of the Gentleman Garnier Earl of Gretz kept the Patriarch of Jerusalem from his right in David's Tower and the City and died within three days and by Dabert the Patriarch it was called a Judgment upon him for his Sacrilege But the uncertainty of that censure appeared to them who considered that Baldwin who gave commission to Garnier to withstand the Patriarch did not die but Godsrey of ãâã did die immediately after he had passed the right of the Patriarch and yet when Baldwin was beaten at Rhamula some bold People pronounced that then God punished him upon the Patriarch's score and thought his Sacrilege to be the secret cause of his overthrow and yet his own Pride and Rashness was the more visible and the Judgment was but a cloud and passed away quickly into a succeeding Victory But I instance in a trisle Certain it is that God removed the Candlestick from the Levantine Churches because he had
are God's tokens marks upon the body of insected persons and declare the malignity of the disease and bid us all beware of those determined crimes 6. Thirdly But then in these and all other accidents we must first observe from the cause to the effect and then judge from the effect concerning the nature and the degree of the cause We cannot conclude This family is lessened beggered or extinct therefore they are guilty of Sacrilege but thus They are Sacrilegious and God hath blotted out their name from among the posterities therefore this Judgment was an express of God's anger against Sacrilege the Judgment will not conclude a Sin but when a Sin infers the Judgment with a legible character and a prompt signification not to understand God's choice is next to stupidity or carelesness Arius was known to be a seditious heretical and dissembling person and his entrails descended on the earth when he went to cover his feet it was very suspicious that this was the punishment of those sins which were the worst in him But he that shall conclude Arius was an Heretick or Seditious upon no other ground but because his bowels gushed out begins imprudently and proceeds uncharitably But it is considerable that men do not arise to great crimes on the sudden but by degrees of carelesness to lesser impieties and then to clamorous sins And God is therefore said to punish great crimes or actions of highest malignity because they are commonly productions from the spirit of Reprobation they are the highest ascents and suppose a Body of sin And therefore although the Judgment may be intended to punish all our sins yet it is like the Syrian Army it kills all that are its enemies but it hath a special commission to fight against none but the King of Israel because his death would be the dissolution of the Body And if God humbles a man for his great sin that is for those acts which combine and consummate all the rest possibly the Body of sin may separate and be apt to be scattered and subdued by single acts and instruments of mortification and therefore it is but reasonable in our making use of God's Judgments upon others to think that God will rather strike at the greatest crimes not only because they are in themselves of greatest malice and iniquity but because they are the summe total of the rest and by being great progressions in the state of sin suppose all the rest included and we by proportioning and observing the Judgment to the highest acknowledge the whole body of sin to lie under the curse though the greatest only was named and called upon with the voice of thunder And yet because it sometimes happens that upon the violence of a great and new occasion some persons leap into such a sin which in the ordinary course of sinners uses to be the effect of an habitual and growing state then if a Judgment happens it is clearly appropriate to that one great crime which as of it self it is equivalent to a vicious habit and interrupts the acceptation of all its former contraries so it meets with a curse such as usually God chuses for the punishment of a whole body and state of sin However in making observation upon the expresses of God's anger we must be careful that we reflect not with any bitterness or scorn upon the person of our calamitous Brother left we make that to be an evil to him which God intends for his benefit if the Judgment was medicinal or that we increase the load already great enough to sink him beneath his grave if the Judgment was intended for a final abscission 7. Fourthly But if the Judgments descend upon our selves we are to take another course not to enquire into particulars to find out the proportions for that can only be a design to part with just so much as we must needs but to mend all that is amiss for then only we can be secure to remove the Achan when we keep nothing within us or about us that may provoke God to jealousie or wrath And that is the proper product of holy fear which God intended should be the first effect of all his Judgments and of this God is so careful and yet so kind and provident that fear might not be produced always at the expence of a great suffering that God hath provided for us certain prologues of Judgment and keeps us waking with alarms that so he might reconcile his mercies with our duties Of this nature are Epidemical diseases not yet arrived at us prodigious Tempests Thunder and loud noises from Heaven and he that will not fear when God speaks so loud is not yet made soft with the impresses and perpetual droppings of Religion Venerable Bede reports of S. Chad that if a great gust of Wind suddenly arose he presently made some holy ejaculation to beg favour of God for all mankind who might possibly be concerned in the effects of that Wind but if a Storm succeeded he fell prostrate to the earth and grew as violent in Prayer as the Storm was ãâã at Land or Sea But if God added Thunder and Lightning he went to the Church and there spent all his time during the Tempest in reciting Litanies Psalms and other holy Prayers till it pleased God to restore his favour and to seem to forget his anger And the good Bishop added this reason Because these are the extensions and stretchings forth of God's hand and yet he did not strike but he that trembles not when he sees God's arm held forth to strike us understands neither God's mercies nor his own danger he neither knows what those horrours were which the People saw from mount Sinai nor what the glories and amazements shall be at the great day of Judgment And if this Religious man had seen Tullus Hostilius the Roman King and Anastasius a Christian Emperor but a reputed Heretick struck dead with Thunderbolts and their own houses made their urns to keep their ashes in there could have been no posture humble enough no Prayers devout enough no place holy enough nothing sufficiently expressive of his fear and his humility and his adoration and Religion to the almighty and infinite power and glorious mercy of God sending out his Emissaries to denounce war with designs of peace A great Italian General seeing the sudden death of Alfonsus Duke of Ferrara kneeled down instantly saying And shall not this sight make me religious Three and twenty thousand fell in one night in the Assyrian Camp who were all slain for Fornication And this so prodigious a Judgement was recorded in Scripture for our example and affrightment that we should not with such freedom entertain a crime which destroyed so numerous a body of men in the darkness of one evening Fear and Modesty and universal Reformation are the purposes of God's Judgments upon us or in our neighbourhood 8. Fifthly Concerning Judgments happening to a Nation or a Church the
a great calamity within a little while after the Spirit of God had sent them two Epistles by the ministery of S. Paul their Cities were buried in an Earthquake and yet we have reason to think they were Churches beloved of God and Congregations of holy People The PRAYER OEternal and powerful God thou just and righteous Governour of the world who callest all orders of men by Precepts Promises and Threatnings by Mercies and by Judgments teach us to admire and adore all the Wisdome the effects and infinite varieties of thy Providence and make us to dispose our selves so by Obedience by Repentance by all the manners of Holy living that we may never provoke thee to jealousie much less to wrath and indignation against us Keep far from us the Sword of the destroying Angel and let us never perish in the publick expresses of thy wrath in diseases Epidemical with the furies of War with calamitous sudden and horrid Accidents with unusual Diseases unless that our so strange fall be more for thy glory and our eternal benefit and then thy will be done We beg thy grace that we may chearfully conform to thy holy will and pleasure Lord open our understandings that we may know the meaning of thy voice and the signification of thy language when thou speakest ãâã Heaven in signs and Judgments and let a holy fear so soften our spirits and an intense love so ãâã and sanctifie our desires that we may apprehend every intimation of thy pleasure at its first and remotest and most obscure representment that so we may with Repentance go out to meet thee and prevent the expresses of thine anger Let thy restraining grace and the observation of the issues of thy Justice so allay our spirits that we be not severe and forward in condemning others nor backward in passing sentence upon our selves Make us to obey thy voice described in holy Scripture to tremble at thy voice expressed in wonders and great effects of Providence to condemn none but our selves nor to enter into the recesses of thy Sanctuary and search the forbidden records of Predestination but that we may read our duty in the pages of Revelation not in the labels of accidental effects that thy Judgments may confirm thy Word and thy Word teach us our Duty and we by such excellent instruments may enter in and grow up in the ways of Godliness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus untill the Death and Burial of JESVS Bartimeus healed of blindnesse Mark 10. 46. And as he went out of Iericho with his Disciples and a great number of people blind Bartimeus sate by the high way begging 47. And when he heard that it was Iesus of Nazareth he began to cry out and say Iesus thou son of David have mercy on me Lazarus raysed from death Ioh. 11. 44. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with gravecloths and his face was bound about with a napkin Iesus saith unto them Loose him and let him go 45. Then Many of the Iewes which came to Mary and had seen the things which Iesus did believed on him 1. VVHile Jesus was in Galilee messengers came to him from Martha and her Sister Mary that he would hasten into Judaea to Bethany to relieve the sickness and imminent dangers of their Brother Lazarus But he deferred his going till Lazarus was dead purposing to give a great probation of his Divinity Power and Mission by a glorious Miracle and to give God glory and to receive reflexions of the glory upon himself For after he had stayed two days he called his Disciples to go with him into Judaea telling them that Lazarus was dead but he would raise him out of that sleep of death But by that time Jesus was arrived at Bethany he found that Lazarus had been dead four days and now near to putrefaction But when Martha and Mary met him weeping their pious tears for their dead Brother Jesus suffered the passions of piety and humanity and wept distilling that precious liquor into the grave of Lazarus watering the dead plant that it might spring into a new life and raise his head above the ground 2. When Jesus had by his words of comfort and institution strengthened the Faith of the two mourning Sisters and commanded the stone to be removed from the grave he made an address of Adoration and Eucharist to his Father confessing his perpetual propensity to hear him and then cried out Lazarus come forth And he that was dead came forth from his bed of darkness with his night-cloaths on him whom when the Apostles had unloosed at the command of Jesus he went to Bethany and many that were present believed on him but others wondring and malicious went and told the Pharisees the story of the Miracle who upon that advice called their great Council whose great and solemn cognisance was of the greater causes of Prophets of Kings and of the holy Law At this great Assembly it was that Caiaphas the High Priest prophesied that it was expedient one should die for the people And thence they determined the death of Jesus But he knowing they had passed a decretory sentence against him retired to the City ãâã in the Tribe of Judah near the desart where he stayed a few days till the approximation of the Feast of Easter 3. Against which Feast when Jesus with his Disciples was going to Jerusalem he told them the event of the journey would be that the Jews should deliver him to the Gentiles that they should scourge him and mock him and crucifie him and the third day he should rise again After which discourse the Mother of ãâã 's Children begg'd of Jesus for her two Sons that one of them might sit at his right hand the other at the left in his Kingdom For no discourses of his Passion or intimations of the mysteriousness of his Kingdom could yet put them into right understandings of their condition But Jesus whose heart and thoughts were full of phancy and apprehensions of the neighbour Passion gave them answer in proportion to his present conceptions and their future condition For if they desired the honours of his Kingdom such as they were they should have them unless themselves did decline them they should drink of his Cup and dip in his Lavatory and be washed with his baptism and sit in his Kingdom if the heavenly Father had prepared it for them but the donation of that immediately was an issue of Divine election and predestination and was only competent to them who by holy living and patient suffering put themselves into a disposition of becoming vessels of Election 4. But as Jesus in this journey came near Jericho he cures a blind man who sate begging by the way-side and espying Zaccheus the chief of the Publicans upon a tree that he being low of stature might upon that advantage of station see Jesus passing by he invited
after when he heard the cock crow he wept remembring the old instrument of his Conversion and his own unworthiness for which he never ceased to do actions of sorrow and sharp Repentance 24. On the morning the Council was to assemble and whilest Jesus was detained in expectation of it the servants mocked him and did all actions of affront and ignoble despite to his Sacred head and because the question was whether he were a Prophet they covered his eyes and smote him in derision calling on him to prophesie who smote him But in the morning when the high Priests and rulers of the people were assembled they sought false witness against Jesus but found none to purpose they railed boldly and could prove nothing they accused vehemently and the allegations were of such things as were no crimes and the greatest article which the united diligence of all their malice could pretend was that he said he would destroy the Temple and in three days build it up again But Jesus neither answered this nor any other of their vainer allegations for the witnesses destroyed each others testimony by their disagreeing till at last Caiaphas who to verifie his Prophecy and to satisfie his Ambition and to bait his Envy was furiously determined Jesus should die adjures him by the living God to say whether he were the CHRIST the Son of the living God Jesus knew his design to be an inquisition of death not of Piety or curiosity yet because his hour was now come openly affirmed it without any expedient to elude the high Priest's malice or to decline the question 25. When Caiaphas heard the saying he accused Jesus of Blasphemy and pretended an apprehension so tragical that he over-acted his wonder and feigned ãâã for he rent his garments which was the interjection of the Countrey and custom of the Nation but forbidden to the High Priest and called presently to sentence and as it was agreed before-hand they all condemned him as guilty of death and as far as they had power inflicted it for they beat him with their fists smote him with the palms of their hands spit upon him and abused him beyond the licence of enraged ãâã When Judas heard that they had passed the final and decretory sentence of death upon his Lord he who thought not it would have gone so far repented him to have been an instrument of so damnable a machination and came and brought the silver which they gave him for hire threw it in amongst them and said I have sinned in betraying the innocent ãâã But they incurious of those Hell-torments Judas felt within him because their own fires burnt not yet dismissed him and upon consultation bought with the money a field to bury strangers in And Judas went and hanged himself and the Judgment was made more notorious and eminent by an unusual accident at such deaths for he so swelled that he burst and his bowels gushed out But the Greek Scholiast and some others report out of Papias S. John's Scholar that Judas fell from the Fig-tree on which he hanged before he was quite dead and survived his attempt some while being so sad a spectacle of deformity and pain and a prodigious tumour that his plague was deplorable and highly miserable till at last he burst in the very substance of his Trunk as being extended beyond the possibilities and capacities of nature 26. But the High Priests had given Jesus over to the secular power and carried him to Pilate to be put to death by his sentence and military power but coming thither they would not enter into the Judgment-hall because of the Feast but Pilate met them and willing to decline the business bid them judge him according to their own Law They replied it was not lawful for them to put any man to death meaning during the seven days of unlevened bread as appears in the instance of Herod who detained Peter in prison intending after Easter to bring him out to the people And their malice was restless till the Sentence they had passed were put in execution Others thinking that all the right of inflicting capital punishments was taken from the Nation by the Romans and Josephus writes that when Ananias their High Priest had by a Council of the Jews condemned S. James the Brother of our Lord and put him to death without the consent of the Roman President he was deprived of his Priesthood But because Pilate who either by common right or at that time was the Judge of capital inflictions was averse from intermedling in the condemnation of an innocent person they attempted him with excellent craft for knowing that Pilate was a great servant of the Roman Greatness and a hater of the Sect of the Galileans the High Priest accused Jesus that he was of that Sect that he denied paying tribute to ãâã that he called himself King Concerning which when Pilate interrogated Jesus he answered that his Kingdom was not of this world and Pilate thinking he had nothing to do with the other came forth again and gave testimony that he found nothing worthy of death in Jesus But hearing that he was a Galilean and of Herod's jurisdiction Pilate sent him to Herod who was at Jerusalem at the Feast And Herod was glad because he had heard much of him and since his return from Rome had desired to see him but could not by reason of his own avocations and the ambulatory life of Christ and now he hoped to see a Miracle done by him of whom he had heard so many But the event of this was that Jesus did there no Miracle Herod's souldiers set him at nought and mocked him And that day Herod was reconciled to Pilate And Jesus was sent back arrayed in a white and splendid garment which though possibly it might be intended for derision yet was a symbol of Innocence condemned persons usually being arrayed in blacks And when Pilate had again examined him Jesus meek as a lamb and as a sheep before the shearers opened not his mouth insomuch that Pilate wondred perceiving the greatest Innocence of the man by not offering to excuse or lessen any thing for though Pilate had power to release him or crucifie him yet his contempt of death was in just proportion to his Innocence which also Pilate concealed not but published Jesus's Innocence by Herod's and his own sentence to the great regret of the Rulers who like ravening wolves thirsted for a draught of bloud and to devour the morning prey 27. But Pilate hoped to prevail upon the Rulers by making it a favour from them to Jesus and an indulgence from him to the Nation to set him free for oftentimes even Malice it self is driven out by the Devil of Self-love and so we may be acknowledged the authors of a safety we are content to rescue a man even from our own selves Pilate therefore offered that according to the custom of the Nation Jesus should be released for the
he did and the expresses of his power saying He saved others himself he cannot save others saying Let him come down from the Cross if he be the King of the Jews and we will believe in him and others according as their Malice was determined by phancy and occasion added weight and scorn to his pains and of the two Malefactors that were crucified with him one reviled him saying If thou be the CHRIST save thy self and us And thus far the Devil prevailed undoing himself in riddle provoking men to do despite to Christ and to heighten his Passion out of hatred to him and yet doing and promoting that which was the ruine of all his own Kingdom and potent mischiefs like the Jew who in indignation against Mercury threw stones at his Image and yet was by his Superiour judged idolatrous that being the manner of doing honour to the Idol among the Gentiles But then Christ who had upon the Cross prayed for his enemies and was heard of God in all that he desired felt now the beginnings of success For the other Thief whom the present pains and circumstances of Jesus's Passion had softned and made believing reproved his fellow for not fearing God confessed that this death happened to them deservedly but to Jesus causelesly and then prayed to Jesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom Which combination of pious acts and miraculous Conversion Jesus entertained with a speedy promise of a very great felicity promising that upon that very day he should be with him in Paradise 33. Now there were standing by the Cross the Mother of Jesus and her Sister and Mary Magdalen and John And Jesus being upon his Death-bed although he had no temporal estate to bestow yet he would make provision for his Mother who being a Widow and now childless was likely to be exposed to necessity and want and therefore he did arrogate John the beloved Disciple into Marie's kindred making him to be her adopted Son and her to be his Mother by fiction of Law Woman behold thy son and Man behold thy Mother And from that time forward John took her home to his own house which he had near mount Sion after he had sold his inheritance in Galilee to the High Priest 34. While these things were doing the whole frame of Nature seemed to be dissolved and out of order while their LORD and Creator suffered For the Sun was so darkened that the Stars appeared and the Eclipse was prodigious in the manner as well as in degree because the Moon was not then in Conjunction but full and it was noted by Phlegon the freed man of the Emperor Hadrian by Lucian out of the Acts of the Gauls and Dionysius while he was yet a Heathen excellent Scholars all great Historians and Philosophers who also noted the day of the week and hour of the day agreeing with the circumstances of the Cross. For the Sun hid his head from beholding such a prodigy of sin and sadness and provided a veil for the nakedness of Jesus that the women might be present and himself die with modesty 35. The Eclipse and the Passion began at the sixth hour and endured till the ninth about which time Jesus being tormented with the unsufferable load of his Father's wrath due for our sins and wearied with pains and heaviness cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and as it is thought repeated the whole two and twentieth Psalm which is an admirable Narrative of the Passion full of Prayer and sadness and description of his pains at first and of Eucharist and joy and prophecy at the last But these first words which it is certain and recorded that he spake were in a language of it self or else by reason of distance not understood for they thought he had called for Elias to take him down from the Cross. Then Jesus being in the agonies of a high Fever said I thirst And one ran and filled a spunge with vinegar wrapping it with hyssop and put it on a reed that he might drink The Vinegar and the Spunge were in Executions of condemned persons set to stop the too violent issues of bloud and to prolong the death but were exhibited to him in scorn mingled with gall to make the mixture more horrid and ungentle But Jesus tasted it only and refused the draught And now knowing that the Prophecies were fulfilled his Father's wrath appeased and his torments satisfactory he said It is finished and crying with a loud voice Father into thy hands I commend my spirit he bowed his head and yielded up his spirit into the hands of God and died hastning to his Father's glories Thus did this glorious Sun set in a sad and clouded West running speedily to shine in the other world 36. Then was the veil of the Temple which separated the secret Mosaick Rites from the eyes of the people rent in the midst from the top to the bottom and the Angels Presidents of the Temple called to each other to depart from their seats and so great an Earthquake happened that the rocks did rend the mountains trembled the graves opened and the bodies of dead persons arose walking from their coemeteries to the Holy City and appeared unto many and so great apprehensions and amazements happened to them all that stood by that they departed smiting their breasts with sorrow and fear and the Centurion that ministred at the execution said Certainly this was the Son of God and he became a Disciple renouncing his military imployment and died a Martyr 37. But because the next day was the Jews Sabbath and a Paschal Festival besides the Jews hastened that the bodies should be taken from the Cross and therefore sent to ãâã to hasten their death by breaking their legs that before Sun-set they might be taken away according to the Commandment and be buried The souldiers therefore came and brake the legs of the two Thieves but espying and wondring that Jesus was already dead they brake not his legs for the Scripture foretold that a bone of him should not be broken but a souldier with his lance pierced his side and immediately there streamed out two rivulets of Water and Bloud But the Holy Virgin-Mother whose Soul during this whole passion was pierced with a sword and sharper sorrows though she was supported by the comforts of Faith and those holy Predictions of his Resurrection and future glories which Mary had laid up in store against this great day of expence now that she saw her Holy Son had suffered all that our necessities and their malice could require or inflict caused certain ministers with whom she joyned to take her dead Son from the Cross whose Body when she once got free from the nails she kissed and embraced with entertainments of the nearest vicinity that could be expressed by a person that was holy and sad and a Mother weeping for her dead Son 38. But she was highly
little irregularities and so many great imperfections that it will appear the more necessary to repair the breaches and lesser ruines by such acts of Piety and Religion because every Communication is intended to be a nearer approach to God a ãâã step in Grace a progress towards glory and an instrument of perfection and therefore upon the stock of our spiritual interests for the purchase of a greater hope and the advantages of a growing Charity ought to be frequently received I end with the words of a pious and learned person It is a vain fear and an imprudent ãâã that procrastinates and desers going to the Lord that calls them they deny to go to the fire pretending they are cold and refuse Physick because they need it The PRAYER O Blessed and Eternal Jesus who gavest thy self a Sacrifice for our sins thy Body for our spiritual food thy ãâã to nourish our spirits and to quench the flames of Hell and Lust who didst so love us who were thine enemies that thou desiredst to reconcile us to thee and becamest all one with us that we may live the same life think the same thoughts love the same love and be partakers of thy Resurrection and Immortality open every window of my Soul that I may be full of light and may see the excellency of thy Love the merits of thy Sacrifice the bitterness of thy Passion the glories and virtues of the mysterious Sacrament Lord let me ever hunger and thirst after this instrument of Righteousness let me have no gust or relish of the unsatisfying delights of things below but let my Soul dwell in thee let me for ever receive thee spiritually and very frequently communicate with thee sacramentally and imitate thy Vertues pionsly and strictly and dwell in the pleasures of thy house eternally Lord thou hast prepared a table for me against them that trouble me let that holy Sacrament of the Eucharist be to me a defence and shield a nourishment and medicine life and health a means of sanctification and spiritual growth that I receiving the body of my dearest Lord may be one with his mystical body and of the same spirit united with indissoluble bonds of a strong Faith and a holy Hope and a never-failing Charity that from this veil I may pass into the visions of eternal clarity from eating thy Body to beholding thy face in the glories of thy everlasting Kingdom O Blessed and Eternal Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Accidents happening on the Vespers of the Passion The Prayer in the Garden Luk 22. 41. And he was withdrawn from them about a stones cast kneeled down prayed 42 Saying Father if thou be willing remove this Cup from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done 43 And there appeared an Angel from heaven strengthening him Iudas betrayeth Christ Mat 26. 47. And while he yet spake Lo. Iudas one of the twelue came and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief Preists Elders of the people 48. Now he that be trayed him gave them a sign saying whomsoever I shall kiss that same is he hold him fast 49. And forthwith he came to Iesus and said Haile Master and kissed him 1. WHen Jesus had supped and sang a Hymn and prayed and exhorted and comforted his Disciples with a Farewell-Sermon in which he repeated ãâã of his former Precepts which were now apposite to the present condition and re-inforced them with proper and pertinent arguments he went over the brook Cedron and entred into a Garden and into the prologue of his Passion chusing that place for his Agony and satisfactory pains in which the first scene of humane misery was represented and where he might best attend the offices of Devotion preparatory to his Death Besides this he therefore departed from the house that he might give opportunity to his Enemies surprise and yet not incommodate the good man by whose hospitality they had eaten the Paschal Lamb so that he went like a Lamb to the slaughter to the Garden as to a prison as if by an agreement with his persecutors he had expected their arrest and stayed there to prevent their farther enquiry For so great was his desire to pay our Ransom that himself did assist by a forward patience and active opportunity towards the persecution teaching us that by an active zeal and a ready spirit we assist the designs of God's glory though in our own sufferings and secular infelicities 2. When he entred the Garden he left his Disciples at the entrance of it calling with him only Peter James and John he withdrew himself from the rest about a stone 's cast and began to be exceeding heavy He was not sad till he had called them for his sorrow began when he pleased which sorrow he also chose to represent to those three who had seen his Transfiguration the earnest of his future Glory that they might see of how great glory for our sakes he disrobed himself and that they also might by the confronting those contradictory accidents observe that God uses to dispense his comforts the irradiations and emissions of his glory to be preparatives to those sorrows with which our life must be allayed and seasoned that none should refuse to partake of the sufferings of Christ if either they have already felt his comforts or hope hereafter to wear his crown And it is not ill observed that S. Peter being the chief of the Apostles and Doctor of the Circumcision S. John being a Virgin and S. James the first of the Apostles that was martyred were admitted to Christ's greatest retirements and mysterious secrecies as being persons of so singular and eminent dispositions to whom according to the pious opinion of the Church especially Coronets are prepared in Heaven besides the great Crown of rightcousness which in common shall beautifie the heads of all the Saints meaning this that Doctors Virgins and Martyrs shall receive even for their very state of life and accidental Graces more eminent degrees of accidental Glory like as the Sun reflecting upon a limpid fountain receives its rays doubled without any increment of its proper and natural light 3. Jesus began to be exceeding sorrowful to be sore amazed and sad even to death And because he was now to suffer the pains of our sins there began his Passion whence our sins spring From an evil heart and a prevaricating spirit all our sins arise and in the spirit of Christ began his sorrow where he truly felt the full value and demerit of Sin which we think not worthy of a tear or a hearty sigh but he groaned and fell under the burthen But therefore he took upon him this sadness that our imperfect sorrow and contrition might be heightned in his example and accepted in its union and consederacy with his And Jesus still designed a farther mercy for us for he sanctified the passion of Fear and hallowed natural sadnesses that we might not
with purple and crowned him with thorns and put a cane in his hand for a scepter and bowed their knees before him and saluted him with mockery with a Hail King of the Jews and ãâã beat him and spate upon him and then Pilate brought him forth and shewed this sad spectacle to the people hoping this might move them to compassion who never loved to see a man prosperous and are always troubled to see the same man in misery But the Earth which was cursed for Adam's sake and was sowed with thorns and thistles produced the full harvest of them and the Second Adam gathered them all and made garlands of them as ensigns of his Victory which he was now in pursuit of against Sin the Grave and Hell And we also may make our thorns which are in themselves ãâã and dolorous to be a Crown if we bear ãâã patiently and unite them to Christ's Passion and offer them to his honour and bear them in his cause and rejoyce in them for his sake And indeed after such a grove of ãâã growing upon the head of our Lord to see one of Christ's members soft delicate and effeminate is a great indecency next to this of seeing the Jews use the King of glory with the greatest reproach and infamy 12. But nothing prevailing nor the Innocence of Jesus nor his immunity from the sentence of Herod nor the industry and diligence of Pilate nor the misery nor the sight of the afflicted Lamb of God at last for so God decreed to permit it and Christ to ãâã it Pilate gave sentence of death upon him having first washed his hands of which God served his end to declare the Innocence of his Son of which in this whole process he was most curious and suffered not the least probability to adhere to him yet Pilate served no end of his nor preserved any thing of his innocence He that ãâã upon a Prince and cries Saving your honour you are a Tyrant and he that strikes a man upon the face and cries him mercy and undoes him and says it was in jest does just like that person that sins against God and thinks to be excused by saying it was against his Conscience that is washing our hands when they are stained in bloud as if a ceremony of purification were enough to cleanse a soul from the stains of a spiritual impurity So some refuse not to take any Oath in times of Persecution and say it obliges not because it was forced and done against their wills as if the doing of it were washed off by protesting against it whereas the protesting against it declares me criminal if I rather chuse not death than that which I profess to be a sin But all the persons which cooperated in this death were in this life consigned to a fearful judgment after it The Jews took the bloud which Pilate seemed to wash off upon themselves and their children and the bloud of this Paschal Lamb stuck upon their forehead and marked them not to escape but to fall under the sword of the destroying Angel and they perished either by a more hasty death or shortly after in the extirpation and miserable ruine of their Nation And Pilate who had a less share in the crime ãâã ãâã a black character of a secular Judgment for not long after he was by Vitellius the President of Syria sent to Rome to answer to the crimes objected against him by the Jews whom to please he had done so much violence to his Conscience and by ãâã sentence he was banished to Vienna deprived of all his honours where he lived ingloriously till by impatience of his calamity he killed himself with his own hand And thus the bloud of Jesus shed for the Salvation of the world became to them a Curse and that which purifies the Saints stuck to them that shed it and mingled it not with the tears of Repentance to be a leprosie loathsome and incurable So Manna turns to worms and the wine of Angels to Vineger and Lees when it is received into impure vessels or tasted by wanton palats and the Sun himself produces Rats and Serpents when it reflects upon the dirt of Nilus The PRAYER O Holy and immaculate Lamb of God who wert pleased to ãâã shame and sorrow to be brought before tribunals to be accused maliciously betrayed treacherously condemned unjustly and scourged most ãâã suffering the most severe and most unhandsome inflictions which could be procured by potent subtle and extremest malice and didst ãâã this out of love greater than the love of Mothers more affectionate than the tears of joy and pity dropt from the eyes of most passionate women by these fontinels of bloud issuing forth life and health and pardon upon all thine enemies teach me to apprehend the baseness of Sin in proportion to the greatest of those calamities which my sin made it necessary for thee to susfer that I may hate the cause of thy ãâã and adore thy mercy and imitate thy charity and copy ãâã thy patience à nd humility and love thy person to the uttermost extent and degrees of my affections Lord what am I that the eternal Son of God should ãâã one stripe for me But thy Love is infinite and how great a misery is it to provoke by sin so great a mercy and despise so miraculous a goodness and to do fresh despite to the Son of God But our sins are innumerable and our infirmities are mighty Dearest Jesu pity me for I am accused by my own Conscience and am found guilty I am stripped naked of my Innocence and bound fast by Lust and tormented with stripes and wounds of enraged Appetites But let thy Innocence excuse me the robes of thy Righteousness cloath me thy Bondage set me free and thy Stripes heal me that thou being my Advocate my Physician my Patron and my Lord I may be adopted into the union of thy Merits and partake of the efficacy of thy Sufferings and be crowned as thou art having my sins changed to vertues and my thorns to rays of glory under thee our Head in the participations of Eternity O Holy and immaculate Lamb of God Amen DISCOURSE XX. Of Death and the due manner of Preparation to it 1. THE Holy Spirit of God hath in Scripture revealed to us but one way of preparing to Death and that is by a holy life and there is nothing in all the Book of Life concerning this exercise of address to Death but such advices which suppose the dying person in a state of Grace S. James indeed counsels that in sickness we should send for the Ministers Ecclesiastical and that they pray over us and that we confess our sins and they shall be forgiven that is those prayers are of great efficacy for the removing the sickness and taking off that punishment of sin and healing them in a certain degree according to the efficacy of the ministery and the dispositions or capacities of the sick person But
we must know that oftentimes universal effects are attributed to partial causes because by the analogy of Scripture we are taught that all the body of holy actions and ministeries are to unite in production of the event and that without that adunation one thing alone cannot operate but because no one alone does the work but by an united power therefore indefinitely the effect is ascribed sometimes to one sometimes to another meaning that one as much as the other that is all together are to work the Pardon and the Grace But the doctrine of Preparation to Death we are clearest taught in the Parable of the ten Virgins Those who were wise stood waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom their Lamps burning only when the Lord was at hand at the notice of his coming published they trimmed their Lamps and they so disposed went forth and met him and entred with him into his interiour and eternal joys They whose Lamps did not stand ready before-hand expecting the uncertain hour were shut forth and bound in darkness Watch therefore so our Lord applies and expounds the Parable for ye know not the day nor the hour of the coming of the Son of man Whenever the arrest of Death seises us unless before that notice we had Oil in our Vessels that is Grace in our hearts habitual Grace for nothing else can reside or dwell there an act cannot inhabit or be in a Vessel it is too late to make preparation But they who have it may and must prepare that is they must stir the fire trim the vessel make it more actual in its exercise and productions full of ornament advantages and degrees And that is all we know from Scripture concerning Preparation 2. And indeed since all our life we are dying and this minute in which I now write death divides with me and hath got the surer part and more certain possession it is but reasonable that we should always be doing the Offices of Preparation If to day we were not dying and passing on to our grave then we might with more safety defer our work till the morrow But as fewel in a furnace in every degree of its heat and reception of the flame is converting into fire and ashes and the disposing it to the last mutation is the same work with the last instance of its change so is the age of every day a beginning of death and the night composing us to sleep bids us go to our lesser rest because that night which is the end of the preceding day is but a lesser death and whereas now we have died so many days the last day of our life is but the dying so many more and when that last day of dying will come we know not There is nothing then added but the circumstance of Sickness which also happens many times before only men are pleased to call that Death which is the end of dying when we cease to die any more and therefore to put off our Preparation till that which we call Death is to put off the work of all our life till the time comes in which it is to cease and determine 3. But to accelerate our early endeavour besides what hath been formerly considered upon the proper grounds of Repentance I here re-inforce the consideration of Death in such circumstances which are apt to engage us upon an early industry 1. I consider that no man is sure that he shall not die suddenly and therefore if Heaven be worth securing it were fit that we should reckon every day the Vespers of death and therefore that according to the usual rites of Religion it be begun and spent with religious offices And let us consider that those many persons who are remarked in history to have died suddenly either were happy by an early Piety or miserable by a sudden death And if uncertainty of condition be an abatement of felicity and spoils the good we possess no man can be happy but he that hath lived well that is who hath secured his condition by an habitual and living Piety For since God hath not told us we shall not die suddenly is it not certain he intended we should prepare for sudden death as well as against death cloathed in any other circumstances Fabius surnamed Pictor was choaked with a Hair in a mess of Milk Anacreon with a Raisin Cardinal Colonna with Figs crusted with Ice Adrian the fourth with a Flie Drusius Pompeius with a Pear Domitius Afer Quintilian's Tutor with a full Cup Casimire the Second King of Polonia with a Little draught of Wine Amurath with a Full goblet Tarquinius Priscus with a Fish-bone For as soon as a man is born that which in nature only remains to him is to die and if we differ in the way or time of our abode or the manner of our Exit yet we are even at last and since it is not determined by a natural cause which way we shall go or at what age a wise Man will suppose himself always upon his Death-bed and such supposition is like making of his Will he is not the nearer Death for doing it but he is the readier for it when it comes 4. Saint Jerome said well He deserves not the name of a Christian who will live in that state of life in which he will not die And indeed it is a great venture to be in an evil state of life because every minute of it hath a danger and therefore a succession of actions in every one of which he may as well perish as escape is a boldness that hath no mixture of wisdome or probable venture How many persons have died in the midst of an act of sport or at a merry meeting Grimoaldus a Lombard King died with shooting of a Pidgeon Thales the Milesian in the Theatre Lucia the sister of Aurelius the Emperor playing with her little son was wounded in her breast with a Needle and died Benno Bishop of Adelburg with great ceremony and joy consecrating S. Michael's Church was crouded to death by the People so was the Duke of Saxony at the Inauguration of Albert I. The great Lawyer Baldus playing with a little Dog was bitten upon the lip instantly grew mad and perished Charles the Eighth of France seeing certain Gentlemen playing at Tenniscourt swooned and recovered not Henry II. was killed running at Tilt Ludovicus Borgia with riding the great Horse and the old Syracusan Archimedes was slain by a rude Souldier as he was making Diagrams in the sand which was his greatest pleasure How many Men have died laughing or in the ecstasies of a great joy Philippides the Comedian and Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily died with joy at the news of a victory Diagoras of Rhodes and Chilo the Philosopher expired in the embraces of their sons crowned with an Olympick Lawrel Polycrita Naxia being saluted the Saviouress of her Countrey Marcus Juventius when the Senate decreed
though less perfectly it ought not to be denied and they less ought to neglect it 25. But as every man must put himself so also he must put his house in order make his Will if he have an Estate to dispose of and in that he must be careful to do Justice to every man and Charity to the poor according as God hath enabled him and though Charity is then very late if it begins not earlier yet if this be but an act of an ancient habit it is still more perfect as it succeeds in time and superadds to the former stock And among other acts of Duty let it be remembred that it is excellent Charity to leave our Will and desires clear plain and determinate that contention and Law-suits may be prevented by the explicate declaration of the Legacies At last and in all instances and periods of our following days let the former good acts be renewed let God be praised for all his Graces and Blessings of our life let him be intreated for Pardon of our sins let acts of Love and Contrition of Hope of Joy of Humility be the work of every day which God still permits us always remembring to ask remission for those sins we remember not And if the condition of our sickness permits it let our last breath expire with an act of Love that it may begin the Charities of Eternity and like a Taper burnt to its lowest base it may go out with a great emission of light leaving a sweet smell behind us to perfume our Coffin and that these lights newly made brighter or trimmed up in our sickness may shine about our Herse that they may become arguments of a pious sadness to our friends as the charitable Coats which Dorcas made were to the widows and exemplar to all those who observed or shall hear of our holy life and religious death But if it shall happen that the disease be productive of evil accidents as a disturbed phancy a weakned understanding wild discoursings or any deprivation of the use of Reason it concerns the sick persons in the happy intervalls of a quiet untroubled spirit to pray earnestly to God that nothing may pass from him in the rages of a Fever or worse distemper which may less become his duty or give scandal or cause trouble to the persons in attendance and if he shall also renounce and disclaim all such evil words which his disease may speak not himself he shall do the duty of a Christian and a prudent person And after these ãâã he may with Piety and confidence resign his Soul into the hands of God to be deposited in holy receptacles till the day of restitution of all things and in the mean time with a quiet spirit descend into that state which is the lot of Caesars and where all Kings and Conquerours have laid aside their glories The PRAYER O Eternal and Holy Jesus who by Death hast overcome Death and by thy Passion hast taken out its sting and made it to become one of the gates of Heaven and an entrance to Felicity have mercy upon me now and at the hour of my death let thy Grace accompany me all the days of my life that I may by a holy Conversation and an habitual performance of my Duty wait for the coming of our Lord and be ready to enter with thee at whatsoever hour thou shalt come Lord let not my death be in any sence unprovided nor untimely nor hasty but after the common manner of men having in it nothing extraordinary but an extraordinary Piety and the manifestation of a great and miraculous Mercy Let my Senses and Understanding be preserved intire till the last of my days and grant that I may die the death of the righteous having first discharged all my obligations of justice leaving none miserable and unprovided in my departure but be thou the portion of all my friends and relatives and let thy blessing descend upon their heads and abide there till they shall meet me in the bosom of our Lord. Preserve me ever in the communion and peace of the Church and bless my Death bed with the opportunity of a holy and a spiritual Guide with the assistence and guard of Angels with the perception of the holy Sacrament with Patience and dereliction of my own ãâã with a strong Faith and a firm and humble Hope with just measures of Repentance and great treasures of Charity to thee my God and to all the world that my Soul in the arms of the Holy Jesus may be deposited with safety and joy there to expect the revelation of thy Day and then to partake the glories of thy Kingdom O Eternal and Holy Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy JESUS He beareth his Cross Ioh 19. 16. 17. And they took Iesus and lead him away 17. And he bearing his Cross went forth into a place called the place of a Scult which is called in y e Hebrew Golgotha They Erect the Crucifixe Ioh 3. 14. 15. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in y e wilderness even so must y e Son of man be lifted up 15. That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but haue eternall life 1. WHen the Sentence of Death pronounced against the Lord was to be put in execution the Souldiers pulled off the Robe of mockery the scarlet Mantle which in jest they put upon him and put on his own garments But as Origen observes the Evangelist mentioned not that they took off the Crown of thorns what might serve their interest they pursue but nothing of remission or mercy to the afflicted Son of man but so it became the King of Sufferings not to lay aside his Imperial thorns till they were changed into Diadems of Glory But now Abel is led forth by his brother to be slain A gay spectacle to satisfie impious eyes who would not stay behind but attended and waited upon the hangman to see the Catastrophe of this bloudy Tragedy But when Piety looks on she beholds a glorious mystery Sin laughed to see the King of Heaven and Earth and the great lover of Souls in stead of the Scepter of his Kingdom to bear a Tree of ãâã and shame But Plety wept tears of pity and knew they would melt into joy when she should behold that Cross which loaded the shoulders of her Lord afterward sit upon the Scepters and be engraved and signed upon the Foreheads of Kings 2. It cannot be thought but the Ministers of Jewish malice used all the circumstances of affliction which in any case were accustomed towards malefactors and persons to be crucified and therefore it was that in some old Figures we see our Blessed Lord described with a Table appendent to the fringe of his garment set full of nails and pointed iron for so sometimes they afflicted persons condemned to that kind of Death and S. Cyprian affirms that Christ did stick to the wood that he carried being
shame and unworthiness he submitted to the death of the Cross and by his voluntary acceptation and tacite volition of it made it equivalent to as great a punishment of his own susception he shewed an incomparable modesty begging but for a remembrance only he knew himself so sinful he durst ask no more he reproved the other Thief for Blasphemy he confessed the world to come and owned Christ publickly he prayed to him he hoped in him and pitied him shewing an excellent Patience in this sad condition And in this I consider that besides the excellency of some of these acts and the goodness of all the like occasion for so exemplar Faith never can occur and until all these things shall in these circumstances meet in any one man he must not hope for so safe an Exit after an evil life ãâã the confidence of this example But now Christ had the key of Paradise in his hand and God blessed the good Thief with this opportunity of letting him in who at another time might have waited longer and been tied to harder conditions And indeed it is very probable that he was much advantaged by the intervening accident of dying at the same time with Christ there being a natural compassion produced in us towards the partners of our miseries For Christ was not void of humane passions though he had in them no imperfection or irregularity and therefore might be invited by the society of misery the rather to admit him to participate his joys and S. Paul proves him to be a merciful high Priest because he was touched with a feeling of our infirmities the first expression of which was to this blessed Thief Christ and he together sate at the Supper of bitter herbs and Christ payed his symbol promising that he should that day be together with him in Paradise 12. By the Cross of Christ stood the Holy Virgin Mother upon whom old Simeon's Prophecy was now verified for now she felt a sword passing through her very soul she stood without clamour and womanish noises sad silent and with a modest grief deep as the waters of the abysse but smooth as the face of a pool full of Love and Patience and Sorrow and Hope Now she was put to it to make use of all those excellent discourses her Holy Son had used to build up her spirit and fortifie it against this day Now she felt the blessings and strengths of Faith and she passed from the griefs of the Passion to the expectation of the Resurrection and she rested in this Death as in a sad remedy for she knew it reconciled God with all the World But her Hope drew a veil before her Sorrow and though her Grief was great enough to swallow her up yet her Love was greater and did swallow up her grief But the Sun also had a veil upon his face and taught us to draw a curtain before the Passion which would be the most artificial expression of its greatness whilest by silence and wonder we confess it great beyond our expression or which is all one great as the burthen and baseness of our sins And with this veil drawn before the face of Jesus let us suppose him at the gates of Paradise calling with his last words in a loud voice to have them opened that the King of glory might come in The PRAYER O Holy Jesus who for our sakes didst suffer incomparable anguish and pains commensurate to thy Love and our Miseries which were infinite that thou mightest purchase for ãâã blessings upon Earth and an inheritance in Heaven dispose us by Love Thankfulness Humility and Obedience to receive all the benefit of thy Passion granting unto us and thy whole Church remission of all our sins integrity of mind health of body competent maintenance peace in our days a temperate air fruitfulness of the earth unity and integrity of Faith extirpation of Heresies reconcilements of Schisms destruction of all wicked counsels intended against us and bind the hands of Rapine and Sacriledge that they may not destroy the vintage and root up the Vine it self Multiply thy Blessings upon us sweetest Jesus increase in us true Religion sincere and actual devotion in our Prayers Patience in troubles and whatsoever is necessary to our Soul's health or conducing to thy Glory Amen II. O Dearest Saviour I adore thy mercies and thy incomparable love expressed in thy so voluntary susception and affectionate suffering such horrid and sad Tortures which cannot be remembred without a sad compassion the waters of bitterness entred into thy Soul and the storms of Death and thy Father's anger broke thee all in pieces and what shall I do who by my sins have so tormented my dearest Lord what Contrition can be great enough what tears sufficiently expressive what hatred and detestation of my crimes can be equal and commensurate to those sad accidents which they have produced Pity me O Lord pity me dearest God turn those thy merciful eyes towards me O most merciful Redeemer for my sins are great like unto thy Passion full of sorrow and shame and a burthen too great for me to bear Lord who hast done so much for me now only speak the word and thy servant shall be whole Let thy Wounds heal me thy Vertues amend me thy Death quicken me that I in this life suffering the cross of a sad and salutary Repentance in the union and merits of thy ãâã and Passion may die with thee and rest with thee and rise again with thee and live with thee for ever in the possession of thy Glories O dearest Saviour Jesus Amen SECT XVI Of the Resurrection and Ascension of JESUS The Burial of Iesus Mat 27 57 When the even was come there came a rich man of Arimathea named Jo seph who also himself was Jesus Disciple he went to Pilate beggd the body of Jesus Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered And when Ioseph had taken the body he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth layd it in his own new tomb which he had hewen out in y e rock The Resurrection of Iesus Mat 28 2 And behold there was a great earthquake for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven came rolled back y e stone from the doore and sate upon it And for feare of him the keepers did shake became as dead men And the Angel sayd unto the woman Fear not ye for I know that ye seek Iesus that was crucified He is not here for he is Risen as he sayd 1. WHile it was yet early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought sweet spices to the Sepulchre that they might again embalm the Holy Body for the rites of Embalming among the Hebrews used to last forty days and their love was not satisfied with what Joseph had done They therefore hastned to the grave and after they had expended their money and bought the
of prepared torments he died a natural death in a good old age 5. After this Jesus having appointed a solemn meeting for all the Brethren that could be collected from the dispersion and named a certain mountain in ãâã appeared to five hundred Brethren at once and this was his most publick and solemn manifestation and while some doubted Jesus came according to the designation and spake to the eleven sent them to preach to all the world Repentance and Remission of sins in his Name promising to be with them to the end of the world He appeared also unto James but at what time is uncertain save that there is something concerning it in the Gospel of S. Matthew which the Nazarens of ãâã used and which it is likely themselves added out of report for there is nothing of it in our Greek Copies The words are these When the Lord had given the linen in which he was wrapped to the servant of the High Priest he went and appeared unto James For James had vowed after he received the Lord's Supper that he would eat no bread till he saw the Lord risen from the grave Then the Lord called for bread he blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said My Brother eat bread for the Son of man is risen from the sleep of death So that by this it should seem to be done upon the day of the Resurrection But the relation of it by S. Paul puts it between the appearance which he made to the five hundred and that last to the Apostles when he was to ascend into Heaven Last of all when the Apostles were at dinner he appeared to them upbraiding their incredulity and then he opened their understanding that they might discern the sence of Scripture and again commanded them to preach the Gospel to all the world giving them power to do Miracles to cast out Devils to cure ãâã and instituted the Sacrament of Baptism which he commanded should together with the Sermons of the Gospel be administred to all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Then he led them into Judaea and they came to Bethany and from thence to the mount Olivet and he commanded them to stay in Jerusalem till the Holy Ghost the promise of the Father should descend upon them which should be accomplished in few days and then they should know the times and the seasons and all things necessary for their ministration and service and propagation of the Gospel And while he discoursed many things concerning the Kingdom behold a Cloud came and parted Jesus from them and carried him in their sight up into Heaven where he sits at the right hand of God blessed for ever Amen 6. While his Apostles stood gazing up to Heaven two Angels appeared to them and told them that Jesus should come in like manner as he was taken away viz. with glory and majesty and in the clouds and with the ministry of Angels Amen Come Lord JESUS come quickly Ad SECT XVI Considerations upon the Accidents happening in the intervall after the Death of the Holy JESUS untill his Resurrection Jesus and Mary in the Garden Joh. 20. 14. 15. 16. Mary turning about saw Jesus standing knew not y t it was Jesus Jesus saith woman whom seekest thou Shee supposing him to be the garidner saith sir if thou have born him hence tell me etc. Jesus saith unto her Mary she turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is Master Jesus saith unto her touch me not for etc. Mary Magdalen came and told the desciples that she had seen the Lord. Our Lords Ascension Acts. 1. 9. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up a Cloud received him out of their sight 10. And while they stedfastly looked toward heaven behold two men stood by them in white apparell 11. Which also said this same Iesus shall so come as you have seen him go into heaven 1. THE Holy Jesus promised to the blessed Thief that he should that day be with him in Paradise which therefore was certainly a place or state of Blessedness because it was a promise and in the society of Jesus whose penal and afflictive part of his work of Redemption was finished upon the Cross. Our Blessed Lord did not promise he should that day be with him in his Kingdom for that day it was not opened and the everlasting doors of those interiour recesses were to be shut till after the Resurrection that himself was to ascend thither and make way for all his servants to enter in the same method in which he went before us Our Blessed Lord descended into Hell saith the Creed of the Apostles from the Sermon of Saint Peter as he from the words of David that is into the state of Separation and common receptacle of Spirits according to the style of Scripture But the name of Hell is no-where in Scripture an appellative of the Kingdom of Christ of the place of final and supreme Glory But concerning the verification of our Lord's promise to the beatified Thief and his own state of Separation we must take what light we can from Scripture and what we can from the Doctrine of the Primitive Church S. Paul had two great Revelations he was rapt up into Paradise and he was rapt up into the third Heaven and these he calls visions revelations not one but divers for Paradise is distinguished from the Heaven of the blessed being it self a receptacle of holy Souls made illustrious with visitation of Angels and happy by being a repository for such spirits who at the day of Judgment shall go forth into eternal glory In the interim Christ hath trod all the paths before us and this also we must pass through to arrive at the Courts of Heaven Justin Martyr said it was the doctrine of heretical persons to say that the Souls of the Blessed instantly upon the separation from their Bodies enter into the highest Heaven And Irenaeus makes Heaven and the intermediate receptacle of Souls to be distinct places both blessed but hugely differing in degrees Tertullian is dogmatical in the assertion that till the voice of the great Archangel be heard and as long as Christ sits at the right hand of his Father making intercession for the Church so long blessed Souls must expect the assembling of their brethren the great Congregation of the Church that they may all pass from their outer courts into the inward tabernacle the Holy of Holies to the Throne of God And as it is certain that no Soul could enter into glory before our Lord ãâã by whom we hope to have access so it is most agreeable to the proportion ãâã the mysteries of our Redemption that we believe the entrance into Glory to have been made by our Lord at his glorious Ascension and that his Soul went not thither before ãâã to come back again
parent of as great Religion as the good women make their fancy their softness and their passion 12. Our Blessed Lord appeared next to Simon and though he and John ran forthtogether and S. John outran Simon although Simon Peter had denied and forsworn his Lord and S. John never did and followed him to his Passion and his death yet Peter had the savour of seeing Jesus first Which some Spiritual persons understand as a testimony that penitent ãâã have accidental eminences and priviledges sometimes ãâã to them beyond the temporal graces of the just and innocent as being such who not only ãâã ãâã against the remanent and inherent evils even of repented sins and their aptnesses to relapse but also because those who are true Penitents who understand the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and that for a sinner to pass from death to ãâã from the state of sin into pardon and the state of Grace is a greater gift and a more excellent and improbable mutation than for a just man to be taken into glory out of gratitude to God and indearment ãâã so great a change added to a fear of returning to such danger and misery will re-enforce all their industry and double their study and ãâã more diligently and watch more carefully and redeem the ãâã and make amends for their omissions and oppose a good to the former evils beside the duties of the ãâã imployment and then commonly the life of a holy Penitent is more holy active zealous and impatient of Vice and more rapacious of Vertue and holy actions and arises to greater ãâã of Sanctity than the even and moderate affections of just persons who as our Blessed Saviour's expression is ãâã no Repentance that is no change of state nothing but a perseverance and an improvement of degrees There is more joy in heaven before the Angels of God over ãâã ãâã that ãâã than ãâã ninety nine just persons that need it not for where sin hath abounded there doth grace super abound and that makes joy in Heaven 13. The Holy Jesus having received the affections of his most passionate Disciples the women and S. ãâã puts himself upon the way into the company of two good men going to Emmaus with troubled spirits and a reeling faith shaking all its upper building but leaving some of its foundation firm To them the Lord discourses of the necessity of the Death and Resurrection of the ãâã and taught them not to take estimate of the counsels of God by the designs and proportions of man for God by ways contrary to humane judgment brings to pass the purposes of his eternal Providence The glories of Christ were not made pompous by humane circumstances his Kingdom was spiritual he was to enter into Felicities through the gates of Death he refused to do Miracles before ãâã and yet did them before the people he confuted his accusers by silence and did not descend from the Cross when they offered to believe in him if he would but ãâã them to be perswaded by greater arguments of his power the miraculous circumstances of his Death and the glories of his Resurrection and by walking in the secret paths of Divine election hath commanded us to adore his footsteps to admire and revere his Wisdom to be satisfied with all the events of Providence and to rejoyce in him if by Afflictions he makes us holy if by Persecutions he supports and enlarges his Church if by Death he brings us to life so we arrive at the communion of his Felicities we must let him chuse the way it being sufficient that he is our guide and our support and our exceeding great reward For therefore Christ preached to the two Disciples going to ãâã the way of the Cross and the necessity of that passage that the wisdom of God might be glorified and the conjectures of man ashamed But whilest his discourse lasted they knew him not but in the breaking of bread he discovered himself For he turned their meal into a Sacrament and their darkness to light and having to his Sermon added the Sacrament opened all their discerning faculties the eyes of their body and their understanding too to represent to us that when we are blessed with the opportunities of both those instruments we want no exteriour assistence to guide us in the way to the knowing and enjoying of our Lord. 14. But the Apparitions which Jesus made were all upon the design of laying the foundation of all Christian Graces for the begetting and establishing Faith and an active Confidence in their persons and building them up on the great fundamentals of the Religion And therefore he appointed a general meeting upon a mountain in Galilee that the number of witnesses might not only disseminate the same but establish the Article of the Resurrection for upon that are built all the hopes of a Christian and if the dead rise not then are we of all men most miserable in quitting the present possessions and entertaining injuries and affronts without hopes of reparation But we lay two gages in several repositories the Body in the bosome of the earth the Soul in the ãâã of God and as we here live by Faith and lay them down with hope so the ãâã is a restitution of them both and a state of re-union And therefore although the glory of our spirits without the body were joy great enough to make compensation for mere than the troubles of all the world yet because one shall not be glorified without the other they being of themselves incomplete substances and God having revealed nothing clearly concerning actual and complete felicities till the day of Judgment when it is promised our bodies shall rise therefore it is that the Resurrection is the great Article upon which we rely and which Christ took so much care to prove and ascertain to so many persons because if that should be disbelieved with which all our felicities are to be received we have nothing to establish our Faith or entertain our Hope or satisfie our desires or make retribution for that state of secular inconveniences in which by the necessities of our nature and the humility and patience of our Religion we are engaged 15. But I consider that holy Scripture onely instructs us concerning the life of this world and the life of the Resurrection the life of Grace and the life of Glory both in the body that is a life of the whole man and whatsoever is spoken of the Soul considers it as an essential part of man relating to his whole constitution not as it is of it self an intellectual and separate substance for all its actions which are separate and removed from the body are relative and incomplete Now because the Soul is an incomplete substance and created in relation to the Body and is but a part of the whole man if the Body were as eternal and incorruptible as the Soul yet the separation of the one from the other would be
helped by none comforted by none and he makes himself a companion of Devils to everlasting ages but in the judgment of Repentance and Tribunal of the Church the penitent sinner is prayed for by a whole army of militant Saints and causes joy to all the Church triumphant And to establish this Tribunal in the Church and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime and to appoint Physicians and Guardians of the Soul was one of the designs and mercies of the Resurrection of Jesus And let not any Christian man either by false opinion or an unbelieving spirit or an incurious apprehension undervalue or neglect this ministery which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the Church is built that the Church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck and the shivers of the broken heart may re-unite them pouring Oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin and restoring with meekness gentleness care counsel and authority persons overtaken in a fault For that act of Ministery is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in Heaven and that Authority is not contemptible which the Holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his Church the Holy Ghost But Christ intended that those whom he had made Guides of our Souls and Judges of our Consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon should also be used by us in all cases of our Souls and that we go to Heaven the way he hath appointed that is by offices and ministeries Ecclesiastical 17. When our Blessed Lord had so confirmed the Faith of the Church and appointed an Ecclesiastical Ministery he had but one work more to do upon earth and that was the Institution of the holy Sacrament of Baptism which he ordained as a solemn Initiation and mysterious Profession of the Faith upon which the Church is built making it a solemn Publication of our Profession the rite of Stipulation or entring Covenant with our Lord the solemnity of the Paction Evangelical in which we undertake to be Disciples to the Holy Jesus that is to believe his Doctrine to fear his Threatnings to rely upon his Promises and to obey his Commandments all the days of our life and he for his part actually performs much and promises more he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days purging our Souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence promising withall that if we perform our undertaking and remain in the state in which he now puts us he will continually assist us with his Spirit prevent and attend us with his Grace he will deliver us from the power of the Devil he will keep our Souls in merciful joyful and safe custody till the great Day of the Lord he will then raise our Bodies from the Grave he will make them to be spiritual and immortal he will re-unite them to our Souls and beatifie both Bodies and Souls in his own Kingdom admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories All which that he might verifie and prepare respectively in the presence of his Disciples he ascended into the bosome of God and the eternal comprehensions of celestial Glory The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast overcome Death and triumphed over all the powers of Hell Darkness Sin and the Grave manifesting the truth of thy Promises the power of thy Divinity the majesty of thy Person the rewards of thy Glory and the mercies and excellent designs of thy Evangelical Kingdom by thy glorious and powerful Resurrection preserve my Soul from eternal death and make me to rise from the death of Sin and to live the life of Grace loving thy Perfections adoring thy Mercy pursuing the interest of thy Kingdom being united to the Church under thee our Head conforming to thy holy Laws established in Faith entertained and confirmed with a modest humble and certain Hope and sanctified by Charity that I engraving thee in my heart and submitting to thee in my spirit and imitating thee in thy glorious example may be partaker of thy Resurrection which is my hope and my desire the support of my Faith the object of my Joy and the strength of my Confidence In thee Holy Jesus do I trust I confess thy Faith I believe all that thou hast taught I desire to perform all thy injunctions and my own undertaking my Soul is in thy hand do thou support and guide it and pity my infirmities and when thou shalt reveal thy great Day shew to me the mercies and effects of thy Advocation and Intercession and Redemption Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God for in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Thou art just thou ãâã merciful thou art gracious and compassionate thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective but make me capable and receptive of thy Mercies and then I am certain to receive them I am thine O save me thou art mine O Holy Jesus O dwell with me for ever and let me dwell with thee adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THE END ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã THE TABLE OF The Life of CHRIST Where are more Numbers than one the first Number denotes the Page the latter the Number of the Section A. ABsolution of dying Persons of what benefit 407. 23. Whether to be given to all that desire it 408. 24. Acceptable Year of the Lord what it means 186. 22. Actions of Jesus confuted his Accusers 390. 2. Acts of Vertue to be done by sick and dying Persons 405 406. 19 20. Accusation of Criminals not to be aggravated odiously 393. 8. It ought to be onely for purposes of Charity ibid. Accusation of innocent persons ought to be born patiently by the innocent 393. 9. Accusation of Jesus 352. 24. Adam buried in Golgotha 354. 31. Adoption of Sons 316. 7. Advent of our Lord must be entertained with joy 156. 3. Adultery made more criminal under the Gospel than under the Law 249. 37 c. Adultery of the eyes 250. 36. Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in the place of Christ's Birth 14. 6. Agony of Jesus in the Garden 350. 20. Agesilaus was more commended for his modesty and obedience than for his prosperous good Conduct 50. 25. Albes or white garments wore by the Church and why 393. 9 10. Alms intended for a defensative against Covetousness 258. 1. Ordinarily to be according to our ability ibid. Sometimes beyond in what cases ibid. Necessities of all indigent people are the object of our Alms 259. 3. Manner of Alms an office of Christian prudence ibid. The two Altars in Solomon's Temple what they did represent 83. 4. Ambitious seeking Ecclesiastical Dignities very criminal 96. 2. Ambition is
an affliction to him that hath it 69 70. 6. Amorous young man cured of his Vanity by a Stratagem 273. 2. Angels ministred at the Birth of Jesus 14. 4. Angels invited Shepherds to see the new-born Prince 26. 4. Angels multiplied into a Quire to sing Gloria Patri at the Birth of Christ 26. 5. Angels taught the Church the Christian Hymn ibid. That the Star appearing to the Wise men was an Angel the Opinion of the Greeks 27. 8. They rejoyced greatly when Mankind was redeemed 29. 1. They that fell not admitted to Repentance and why 198. 2. Are appointed to observe them that fast piously 274. 3. One of them comforted Jesus 385. 5. In what manner ibid. One of them rolled the Stone from the Grave of Jesus 419. 1. They were Guardians of the Sepulchre 427. 10. Anger forbidden in the 6. Commandment 245. 28. In what cases allowable ibid. Rules and measures of a lawful anger 246. 31. How long to abide 245. 30. That of the Heart forbidden ib. 27. Remedies against it 248. 35. Annas chief of the Sanhedrim 351. 23. He sent Jesus to Caiaphas ibid. Anniversaries of Christ's Nativity Resurrection and Ascension to be religiously observed 243. 24 26. Of Saints ibid. Anna the Prophetess received Christ as a reward to her long Fasting and Prayer 36. 5. 53. 6. Mark Antony to stir the Peoples affections presented the Body of Caesar 56. 9. Antichrist's pretence not furthered but hindred by his Miracles 280. 11. Apostasy from Christianity unpardonable in what sence true 201. 10 11. Apostles chosen by Christ 290. 5. Sent to preach by two and two ibid. Rejoyce at their power over Devils 203. 17. Who saw the Transfiguration saw also the Agony 383. 2. Apocryphal Miracles feigned of Christ's younger years 153. 8. Arsenius sad and troubled upon his Death-bed 402. 11. Arms not to be taken up against our Prince for Religion 492. 11. Ascension of Jesus into Heaven 421. 5. Attention to our Prayers Vid. Prayers S. Augustine entred into the Tomb of Caesar 114. 36. Authority of Ecclesiastical Censures 430. 16. Of the Contempt of Authority in smaller Impositions 46. 20 21. Augustus Caesar refused to be called Lord about the time of Christ's Nativity 25. 2. B. BAlaam's Prophecy of Christ's Star 27. 8. His Prayer explicated 303. 14. Babes of Bethlehem had the Reward of Martyrs 72. 11. Baptism sanctifies the worthy Suscipient 97. 4. Baptism is the only state wherein our sins in this life are declared to be fully and absolutely pardoned 314. 3. In it all our sins are forgiven 199. 7. To it Faith and Repentance are necessary Preparatories ibid. It is necessary before the Reception of the Eucharist 349. 16. 374. 12. Ordained by Christ 431. 17. what it operates and signifies ibid. Vide Disc. of Baptism 106. Baptism not onely pardons for the present but puts into a lasting state of easier pardon for the future 203. 17. S. Barbara to Execution miraculously veil'd 394. 10. Basil recalled from Exile for his reverent and grave saying his Offices 178. 13. Prayed for Head-ach 85. 9. The Baptist's Character of himself 151. 1. His Death and the occasion 169. 5. His Death revenged 169. 6. Beginners in Religion to be ruled by an experienced Guide 109 110. 22. They have a conditional certainty of Salvation 316. 7. Beginnings of Evil to be resisted 111. 26. Birth of Christ illustrated with Miracles 25. 1. It s place turned to a Church 14. 6. Peace universal at his Birth 25. 3. It was signified to Jews and Gentiles in the persons of Shepherds and Wise-men 31. 1. 34. 12. Whether Saints enjoy the Beatifick Vision before the day of Judgment 423. 1. 429. 15. Binding Jesus with Cords with circumstances of cruelty 387. 10. Blasphemy falsly charged upon Jesus 325. 23. Bloudy sweat of Christ what it did then effect and what it did then prefigure 385. 6. Blessings of the Gospel 429. 16. Assurance of Blessing made to them who are or do where or what God commands 68. 3. Breasts that are drie a curse 22. Bramble of Judaea an emblem of Anger 245. 30. Buffeting of Jesus foretold by a Sibyl 389 390. 1. C. CAmbyses sent the AEthiopian King a box of Nard 291. 9. Care for our Families how far to regard the future 258. 2. Ceadwalla's Vow 270. 20. Gentarion of the Iron Legion comes to Christ 291. 7. Charity makes us partake of the Joys and Sufferings of all Christians 29. 2. It is the measure of our own Peace 29 30. 5. Charity of Christians converted Pachomius 79. 2. It is consistent with repeating our own right 256. 9. It is part of the definition of Christian Faith 161. 5 6. Charity of Christians greater than civil Relations 158. 8. Is the last of graces 171. 5. Being exercised toward Christ's Servants is accepted as done to Christ 189. 4. It must increase with our Wealth 258. 2. S. Chad pray'd for others in stormy times 340. 7. Chastity wittily represented by Libanius 111. 27. Easier to die for it than to live with it 230. 15. Chastity of the Mind of the Eyes of all the Members enjoyned 249. 38. It abstains from all undecencies ibid. Caiaphas prophesied and determined the Death of Jesus 345. 2. He rent his Cloaths against the Law 352. 25. Casual and contingent Causes cut off the life of a Sinner 308. 24. Certainty of Salvation 313. per tot Cheap Offering not accepted when a better may be given 177. 12. Christ chose to do all the Ministeries of Religion 96. 1. His Passion in every minute was sufficient for Reconcilement of all the World 1. Exh. 3. The surplusage for example ibid. Christ paid mere for our Obedience than our Pardon 1. Exh. 3. He for himself merited the exaltation of his Humanity his Name his Kingdom c. 413. 5. How and to what purposes he overcame Death 426. 7. He is our Pattern 2. Exh. 7. How far imitable by us 4. Exh. 11. His Sufferings of value infinite 1. Exh. 3. He honoured Virginity and Marriage in the choice of his Mother ibid. He manifested his power in the instances of Mercy 5. Exh. 11. 278. 2. He is to be followed in the like proportion as he followed his Father V. 11. 5. Exh. 11. His Life easie compliant and imitable 9. 4. IV. 8 9. It helps us to its own imitation 3 4. Exh. 8 9. ibid. His Life is imitable by Practice and Religion VI. Exh. 15 16. He is God and Man 16. 6. He was first revealed to poor men 30. 6. By his Humility his Poverty and uneasiness fought against the Lust of the Flesh of the Eyes and the pride of Life 30. 8. He put himself to pain to be reckoned among Sinners 37. 3. He was redeemed at first and sold at last for an ignoble price 52. 3. He is best relished by them who least relish worldly things 53. 5. He is a Physician and a Law-giver 249. 36. His servants are most honourable 253. 5. He did
Praef. n. 40. Recidivation or Relapse into a state of sin unpardonable and how 156. Reproachful Language prohibited 247. Reprehension of evil Persons may be in Language properly expressive of the Crime ibid. Resisting evil in what sence lawful 225. Reverence of posture to be used in Prayer 271. 23. Remedies against Anger 248. 35. Repetition of Prayers 270. Relations secular must be quitted for Religion in what sence 320. They must not hinder Religious Duties 236. Reformation begins ill if it begins with Sacrilege 171. 5. Reward propounded in the beginning and end of Christian Duties 222. It makes the labour easie 295. 1. Restitution to the state of Grace is divisible and by parts 314. Restitution made by Zacchaeus 346. 4. Resurrection proved and described by Jesus 348. 11. All Relations of Kindred or ãâã cease then ibid. Resurrection of Jesus 393. Given for a sign 160. 279. It is the support of Christianity 428. Resignation of himself to be made by a dying or sick person 405. 17. Rich men less disposed for reception of Christianity 29. Riches are surest and to best purposes obtained by Christianity 301. 10. Rites of Burial among the Jewes lasted Fourty days 419. S. SArabaitae great Mortifiers but not obedient 49. 24. Sacrilege a robbing of God 52. Saints to inherit the Earth in what sence 224. 9. Sacraments ineffectual without the conjunction of something moral 97. They operate by way of Prayers ibid. Sacrament of the Lord's Supper instituted 349. 17. It s manner ibid. To be received Fasting 272. Of the Presence of Christ's Body in it 370. 3. Sabbath of the Jewes abolished 327. 28. 243. 25. Primitive Christians kept both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day 243. 24. Second Sabbath after the first what it means 290. 2. Sabbatick pool streamed onely upon the Sabbath 327. 28. Salome presented John Baptist's Head to her Mother 169. She was killed with Ice ibid. Samaritans were Schismaticks 182. 3. They hated the Jewes ibid. They were cast in their Appeal to Ptolemy ibid. Samaritan ãâã a Concubine after the death of her fifth Husband 187. 1. Scandal cannot be given by any thing that is our Duty 328. 334. 13. Sin of Scandal and the indiscretion of Scandal 330. 6. Scandalous persons who 328. 334. 13. No Man can say that himself is scandalized 333. 10. The Rules Measure and Judgement of Scandal 328. Between a Friend and an Enemy how we are to doe in the question of Scandal 334. 12. Scandal how to be avoided in making and executing Laws 334. 14. State of Separation 423. 429. 15. The Pool of Siloam 325. 21. Scorn must not be cast upon our calamitous Brother 339. Secular Persons tied to a frequent Communion 379. 19. Secular and Spiritual Objects their difference 380. 21. Serapion's Reproof of a young proud Monk 366. 7. Sepulchre of Jesus sealed 501. 39. Sermon of Christ upon the Mount 183. 11. His Farewell-Sermon 350. 19. Severity to our selves and Gentleness to others a Duty 324. 17. Sensuality Vide Temptations Simon' s name changed 151. 2. His Wifes Mother cured 184. 12. Simeon Stylites commended for Obedience 49. 24. Simon Magus brought a new Sin into the world 104. 6. Sins of Infirmity Vide ãâã Sins small in themselves are made great when they come by design 44. 12. When they are acted by deliberation ibid. When they are often repeated and not interrupted by Repentance ibid. 13. When they are ãâã 45. 14. Sin pleasant at the first bitter in the end 159. It carries a whip with it 170. They are forgiven when the Punishment is remitted 184. After Pardon they may return in guilt 211. It is more troublesome than Vertue is 297. 4. Not cared for unless it be difficult 299. 6. It shortens our lives naturally 305. 19. It made Jesus weep 359. To be accounted as great Blemishes to our selves as we account them to others 365. 6. Sinners Prayers not heard in what sence 266. 13. Sinners in need are to be relieved 258. Sinners are Fools 310. 28. State of Sin totally opposed to the Mercies of the Covenant 200. Sin against the Holy Ghost what it is 201. 10. Simplicity of Spirit a Christian Duty 157. Shame of Lust more violent to Nature than the Severities of Continence 295. The good Shepherd 325. Shepherds by Night watchful had a Revclation of Christ 29. Spiritual Shepherds must be watchful ibid. Spiritual Sadness is often a Mercy and a Grace 236. When otherwise 160. Spiritual persons apt to be tempted to Pride 86 100. Spiritual Mourning 224. Spiritual Pleasures distinguished from Temporal 191. Spiritual good things how to be prayed for 266. 262. Spiritual ãâã 360. 8. Spirit makes Religion ãâã 295. It is the earnest of Salvation 316. Spirit of Adoption ibid. It is quenched by some ibid. Spirit is ãâã to be offered to God 176. Solemnities of Christ's Kingdom 392. Souldiers plunged Jesus into the Brook Cedron 388. 11. They pierced his Side 355. They mock and beat Him 351. 353. They cover his Face at his Attachment 351. They fell to the ground at the glory of his Person ibid. Sun's Eclipse at the Passion miraculous 354. Stones of the Temple of what bigness 348. 12. Star at Christ's Birth moved irregularly 27. 9. That the Star appearing to the Wise Men was an Angel the Opinion of the Greeks 27. 8. Swine kept by the Jews and why 194 Statue of Brass erected by the Woman cured of her Bloudy issue 185. 20. Success of our endeavours depends on God 196. 5. Sudden Joys are dangerous 196. 7. Schism to be avoided in the Occasions 194. Swearing in common Talk a great Crime 304. By Creatures forbidden ibid. Suits at Law with what Cautions permitted 264. Syrophoenician importunate with Jesus for her Daughter 321. 6. Solomon's Porch a fragment of the first Temple 327. 29. Sweat of Christ in the Agony as great as drops of Bloud 350. 20. 385. 6. T. TAble with Nails fastned to Christ's Garment when he bore the Cross 413. 2. Teachers of others should be exemplary 33. 79. They should learn first of their Superiours 75. Not to make too much haste into the Imployment 79. Teresa à Jesu her Vow 235. 22. Temporal Priviledges inferiour to Spiritual 292. Temporal good things how to be prayed for 261. Temptation not alwayes a sign of immortification 91. Not to be voluntarily entred into 91. 110. Not alwayes an argument of GOD's Disfavour 97. 361. It is every Man's Lot 105. Not alwayes to be removed by Prayer 102. The several manners of Temptation ibid. Remedies against it 112. 29. seq 1. Consideration 1. Of the Presence of God 112. 29. 1. Consideration 2. Of Death 114. 34. 2. Prayer 115. 37. Temple of Jerusalem how many High-Priests it had in Succession 303. 14. Transmigration of Souls maintained by the Pharisees 321. 8. Tribute to be paid 347. Traitor discovered by a Sop 350. Trinity meeting at the ãâã of our Blessed Lord by some manners of exteriour
XLVIII in the sixth year of Claudius if not somewhat sooner for S. Paul's ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã does not necessarily imply that Fourteen years were completely past ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifying circa as well as post but that it was near about that time This being granted and if it be not it is easie to make it good then three things amongst others will follow from it First That whereas according to Bellarmine and Baronius S. Peter after his first coming to Rome which they place Ann. XLIV and the second of Claudius was seven years before he returned thence to the Council at Jerusalem they are strangely out in their story there being but three or at most four years between his going thither and the celebration of that Council Secondly That when they tell us that S. Peter's leaving Rome to come to the Council was upon the occasion of the decree of Claudius banishing all Jews out of the City this can no ways be For Orosius does not onely ãâã but prove it from Josephus that Claudius his Decree was published in the Ninth Year of his Reign or Ann. Chr. LI. Three Years at least after the Celebration of the Council Thirdly That when Baronius tells us that the Reason why Peter went to Rome after the breaking up of the Synod was because Claudius was now dead he not daring to go before for fear of the Decree this can be no reason at all the Council being ended at least Three Years before that Decree took place so that he might ãâã have gone thither without the least danger from it It might further be shewed if it were necessary that the account which even they themselves give us is not very consistent with it self So fatally does a bad cause draw Men whether they will or no into Errours and Mistakes 5. THE truth is the learned Men of that Church are not well agreed among themselves to give in their verdict in this case And indeed how should they when the thing it self affords no solid foundation for it Onuphrius a man of great learning and industry in all matters of antiquity and who as the writer of Baronius his life insorms us designed before Baronius to write the History of the Church goes a way by himself in assigning the time of S. Peter's founding his See both at Antioch and Rome For finding by the account of the sacred story that Peter did not leave ãâã for the Ten first Years after our Lord's Aseension and consequently could not in that time erect his See at Antioch he affirms that he went first to Rome whence returning to the Council at Jerusalem he thence went to Antioch where he remained Seven Years till the Death of Claudius and having spent almost the whole Reign of Nero in several parts of Europe returned in the last of Nero's Reign to Rome and there dyed An opinion for which he is sufficiently chastised by Baronius and others of that Party And here I cannot but remarque the ingenuity for the learning sufficiently commends it self of Monsieur l'alois who freely confesses the mistake of Baronius Petavius c. in making Peter go to Rome Ann. XLIV the Second Year of Claudius when as it is plain says he from the History of the Acts that Peter went not out of Judaea and Syria till the Death of Herod Claudii Ann. IV. Two whole Years after Consonant to which as he observes is what Apollonius a Writer of the Second Century reports from a Tradition current in his time that the Apostles did not depart asunder till the Twelfth Year after Christ's Ascension our Lord himself having so commanded them In confirmation whereof let me add a passage that I meet with in Clemens of Alexandria where from S. Peter he records this Speech of our Saviour to his Apostles spoken probably either a little before his Death or after his Resurrection ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã If any Israelite shall repent and believe in God through my Name his sins shall be forgiven him after twelve years Go ye into the World lest any should say we have not heard This passage as ordinarily pointed in all Editions that I have seen is scarce capable of any tolerable sence for what 's the meaning of a penitent Israelite's being pardoned after twelve years It is therefore probable yea certain with me that the stop ought to be after ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã joyned to the following clause and then the sence will run clear and smooth If any Jew shall repent and believe the Gospel he shall be pardoned but after twelve years go ye into all the World that none may pretend that they have not heard the sound of the Gospel The Apostles were first to Preach the Gospel to the Jews for some considerable time Twelve Years after Christ's Ascension in and about Judaea and then to betake themselves to the Provinces of the Gentile-World to make known to them the glad tidings of Salvation exactly answerable to the Tradition mentioned by Apollonius Besides the Chronicon Alexandrinum tells us that Peter came not to Rome till the Seventh Year of Claudius Ann. Christi XLIX So little certainty can there be of any matter wherein there is no truth Nay the samo excellent Men before mentioned does not stick elsewhere to profess he wonders at Baronius that he should make Peter come from Rome banished thence by Claudius his Edict to the Synod at Jerusalem the same Year viz. Ann. Claudii 9. a thing absolutely inconsistent with that story of the Apostles Acts recorded by S. Luke wherein there is the space of no less than Three Years from the time of that Synod to the Decree of Claudius It being evident what he observes that after the celebration of that Council S. Paul went back to Antioch afterwards into Syria and Cilicia to Preach the Gospel thence into Phrygia Galatia and Mysia from whence he went into Macedonia and first Preached at Philippi then at Thessalonica and Beraea afterwards stay'd some consider time at Athens and last of all went to Corinth where he met with Aquila and Priscilla lately come from Italy banished Rome with the rest of the Jews by the Decree of Claudius all which by an easie and reasonable computation can take up no less than Three Years at least 6. THAT which caused Baronius to split upon so many Rocks was not so much want of seeing them which a Man of his parts and industry could not but in a great measure see as the unhappy necessity of defending those ãâã principles which he had undertaken to maintain For being to make good Peter's five and twenty years presidency over the Church of Rome he was forced to confound times and dislocate stories that he might bring all his ends together What foundation this story of Peter's being five and twenty years Bishop of Rome has in antiquity I find not unless it sprang from
justified upon terms of perfect and intire obedience there is now no other way but this That the promise by the Faith of Christ be given to all them that believe i. e. this Evangelical method of justifying sincere believers Besides the Jewish Oeconomy was deficient in pardoning sin and procuring the grace and favour of God it could only awaken the knowledge of sin not remove the guilt of it It was not possible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin all the ãâã of the Mosaick Law were no further available for the pardon of sin than merely as they were founded in and had respect to that great sacrifice and expiation which was to be made for the sins of mankind by the death of the Son of God The Priests though they daily ministred and oftentimes offered the same sacrifices yet could they never take away sins No that was reserved for a better and a higher sacrifice even that of our Lord himself who after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God having completed that which the repeated sacrifices of the Law could never effect So that all men being under guilt and no justification where there was no remission the Jewish Oeconomy being in it self unable to pardon was incapable to justifie This S. Paul elsewhere declared in an open Assembly before Jews and Gentiles Be it known unto you men and brethren that through this man Christ Jesus is preached unto you forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses 13. FOURTHLY He proves that Justification by the Mosaick Law could not stand with the death of Christ the necessity of whose death and sufferings it did plainly evacuate and take away For if righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain If the Mosaical performances be still necessary to our Justification then certainly it was to very little purpose and altogether unbecoming the wisdom and goodness of God to send his own Son into the World to do so much for us and to suffer such exquisite pains and tortures Nay he tells them that while they persisted in this fond obstinate opinion all that Christ had done and suffered could be of no advantage to them Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not again intangled in the yoke of bondage the bondage and servitude of the Mosaick rites Behold ãâã Paul solemnly say unto you That if you be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing For I testifie again to every man that is Circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace The summ of which argument is That whoever lay the stress of their Justification upon Circumcision and the observances of the Law do thereby declare themselves to be under an obligation of perfect obedience to all that the Law requires of them and accordingly supersede the vertue and efficacy of Christ's death and disclaim all right and title to the grace and favour of the Gospel For since Christ's death is abundantly sufficient to attain its ends whoever takes in another plainly renounces that and rests upon that of his own chusing By these ways of reasoning 't is evident what the Apostle drives at in all his discourses about this matter More might have been observed had I not thought that these are sufficient to render his design especially to the unprejudiced and impartial obvious and plain enough 14. LASTLY That S. Paul's discourses about Justification and Salvation do immediately refer to the controversie between the Orthodox and Judaizing Christians appears hence that there was no other controversie then on foot but concerning the way of Justification whether it was by the observation of the Law of Moses or only of the Gospel and the Law of Christ. For we must needs suppose that the Apostle wrote with a primary respect to the present state of things and so as they whom he had to deal with might and could not but understand him Which yet would have been impossible for them to have done had he intended them for the controversies which have since been bandied with so much zeal and fierceness and to give countenance to those many nice and subtil propositions those curious and elaborate schemes which some men in these later Ages have drawn of these matters 15. FROM the whole discourse two Consectaries especially plainly follow I. Consect That works of Evangelical obedience are not opposed to Faith in Justification By works of Evangelical obedience I mean such Christian duties as are the fruits not of our own power and strength but God's Spirit done by the assistance of his grace And that these are not opposed to Faith is undeniably evident in that as we observed before Faith as including the new nature and the keeping God's commands is made the usual condition of Justification Nor can it be otherwise when other graces and vertues of the Christian life are made the terms of pardon and acceptance with Heaven and of our title to the merits of Christ's death and the great promise of eternal life Thus Repentance which is not so much a single Act as a complex body of Christian duties Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out So Charity and forgiveness of others Forgive if ye have ought against any that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father also will forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive yours Sometimes Evangelical obedience in general God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him If we walk in the light as God is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin What priviledge then has Faith above other graces in this matter are we justified by Faith We are pardoned and accepted with God upon our repentance charity and other acts of Evangelical obedience Is Faith opposed to the works of the Mosaick Law in Justification so are works of Evangelical obedience Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Does Faith give glory to God and set the crown upon his head Works of Evangelical obedience are equally the effects of Divine grace both preventing and assisting of us and indeed are not so much our works as his So that the glory of all must needs be intirely resolved into the grace of God nor can any
he was to undergo to drink of that bitter Cup which he was to drink of and to go through that Baptism wherein he was shortly to be baptized in his own blood Our Apostles were not yet cured of their ambitious humour but either not understanding the force of our Saviour's reasonings or too confidently presuming upon their own strength answered that they could do all this But he the goodness of whose nature ever made him put the best and most candid interpretation upon mens words and actions yea even those of his greatest enemies did not take the advantage of their hasty and inconsiderate reply to treat them with sharp and quick reproofs but mildly owning their forwardness to suffer told them that as for sufferings they should indeed suffer as well as he and so we accordingly find they did S. James after all dying a violent death S. John enduring great miseries and torments and might we believe Chrysostom and Theophylact Martyrdom it self though others nearer to those times assure us he died a natural death but for any peculiar honour or dignity he would not by an absolute and peremptory favour of his own dispose it any otherwise than according to those rules and instructions which he had received of his Father The rest of the Apostles were offended with this ambitious request of the Sons of Zebedee but our Lord to calm their passions discoursed to them of the nature of the Evangelick state that it was not here as in the Kingdoms and seignteuries of this World where the great ones receive homage and fealty from those that are under them but that in his service humility was the way to honour that who ever took most pains and did most good would be the greatest Person pre-eminence being here to be measured by industry and diligence and a ready condescension to the meanest offices that might be subservient to the Souls of Men and that this was no more than what he sufficiently taught them by his own Example being come into the World not to be served himself with any pompous circumstances of state and splendor but to serve others and to lay down his life for the redemption of Mankind With which discourse the storm blew over and their exorbitant passions began on all hands to be allayed and pacified 7. WHAT became of S. James after our Saviour's Ascension we have no certain account either from Sacred or Ecclesiastick stories Sophronius tells us that he preached to the dispersed Jews which surely he means of that dispersion that was made of the Jewish Converts after the death of Stephen The Spanish writers generally contend that having preached the Gospel up and down ãâã and Samaria after the death of Stephen he came to these Western parts and particularly into Spain some add Britain and Ircland where he planted Christianity and appointed some select Disciples to perfect what he had begun and then returned back to Jerusalem Of this are no footsteps in any Ancient writers earlier than the middle Ages of the Church when 't is mentioned by Isidore the Breviary of Toledo an Arabick Book of Anastasius Patriarch of Antioch concerning the Passions of the ãâã and some others after them Nay Baronius himself though endeavouring to render the account as smooth and plausible as he could and to remove what objections lay against it yet after all confesses he did it only to shew that the thing was not impossible nor to be accounted such a monstrous and extravagant Fable as some men made it to be as indeed elsewhere he plainly and peremptorily both denies and disproves it He could not but see that the shortness of this Apostle's Life the Apostles continuing all in one intire body at Jerusalem even after the dispersing of the other Christians probably not going out of the bounds of ãâã for many years after our Lord's Ascension could not comport with so tedious and difficult a voyage and the time which he must necessarily spend in those parts And therefore 't is ãâã to confine his ministry to Judaea and the parts thereabouts and to seek for him at Jerusalem where we are sure to find him 8. HEROD Agrippa son of Aristobulus and Grandchild of Herod the Great under whom Christ was born had been in great favour with the late Emperor Caligula but much more with his successor Claudius who confirmed his predecessors grant with the addition of Judaea Samaria and Abylene the remaining portions of his Grandfathers dominions Claudius being setled in the Empire over comes Herod from Rome to take possession and to manage the affairs of his new acquired Kingdom A Prince noble and generous prudent and politick throughly versed in all the arts of Courtship able to oblige enemies and to ãâã or decline the displeasure of the Emperor witness his subtil and cunning insinuations to Caligula when he commanded the Jews to account him a God he was one that knew let the wind blow which way it would how to gain the point he aimed at of a courteous and affable demeanour but withall ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a mighty zealot for the Jewish Religion and a most accurate observer of the Mosaick Law keeping himself free from all legal impurities and suffering no day to pass over his head in which he himself was not present at sacrifice Being desirous in the entrance upon his sovereignty to insinuate himself into the favour of the populacy and led no less by his own zealous inclination he saw no better way than to fall heavy upon the Christians a sort of men whom he knew the Jews infinitely hated as a novel and an upstart Sect whose Religion proclaimed open desiance to the Mosaick Institutions Hereupon he began to raise a persecution but alas the commonalty were too mean a sacrifice to fall as the only victim to his zeal and popular designs he must have a fatter and more honourable sacrifice It was not long before S. James his stirring and active temper his bold reproving of the Jews and vigorous contending for the truth and excellency of the Christian Religion rendred him a sit object for his turn Him he commands to be apprehended cast into prison and sentence of death to be passed upon him As he was led forth to the place of Martyrdom the Souldier or Officer that had guarded him to the Tribunal or rather his Accuser and so Suidas expresly tells us it was having been convinced by that mighty courage and constancy which S. James shewed at the time of his trial repented of what he done came and fell down at the Apostle's feet and heartily begged pardon for what he said against him The holy man after a little surprise at the thing raised him up embraced and kissed him Peace said he my son peace be to thee and the pardon of thy faults Whereupon before them all he publickly professed himself to be a Christian and so both were
Patmos and returned into Asia his ancient charge but chiefly fixed his Seat at ãâã the care and presidency whereof Timothy their Bishop having been lately martyr'd by the People for perswading them against their Heathen-Feasts and Sports especially one called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã wherein was a mixture of debauchery and idolatry he took upon him and by the assistance of seven Bishops governed that large spacious Diocese Nicephorus adds that he not only managed the affairs of the Church ordered and disposed the Clergy but erected Churches which surely must be meant of Oratories and little places for their solemn conventions building Churches in the modern notion not being consistent with the poverty and persecution of Christians in those early times Here at the request of the Bishops of Asia he wrote his Gospel they are Authors of no credit and value that make it written during his confinement in the Isle of Patmos with very solemn preparation whereof more when we come to consider the Writings which he left behind him 7. HE lived till the time of Trajan about the beginning of whose Reign he departed this Life very Aged about the Ninety-eighth or Ninety-ninth Year of his Life as is generally thought Chrysostome is very positive that he was an Hundred Years old when he wrote his Gospel and that he liv'd full Twenty Years after The same is affirmed by Dorotheus that he lived CXX Years which to me seems altogether improbable seeing by this account he must be Fifty Years of Age when called to be an Apostle a thing directly contrary to the whole consent and testimony of Antiquity which makes him very young at the time of his calling to the Apostolick Office He died says the Arabian in the expectation of his blessedness by which he means his quiet and peaceable departure in opposition to a violent and bloody death Indeed Theophylact and others before him conceive him to have died a Martyr upon no other ground than what our Saviour told him and his Brother that they should drink of the Cup and be baptized with the Baptism wherewith he was baptized which Chrysostom strictly understands of Martyrdom and a bloudy death It was indeed literally verified in his brother James and for him though as S. Hierom observes he was not put to death yet may he be truly stiled a Martyr his being put into a vessel of boiling Oil his many years banishment and other sufferings in the cause of Christ justly challenging that honourable title though he did not actually lay down his life for the testimony of the Gospel it being not want of good will either in him or his enemies but the Divine Providence immediately over-ruling the powers of nature that kept the malice of his enemies from its full execution 8. OTHERS on the contrary are so far from admitting him to die a Martyr that they question nay peremptorily deny that he ever died at all The first Assertor and that but obliquely that I find of this opinion was Hippolytus Bishop of Porto and Scholar to Clemens of Alexandria who ranks him in the same capacity with Enoch and Elias for speaking of the twofold coming of Christ he tells us that his first coming in the flesh had John the Baptist for its forerunner and his second to Judgment shall have Enoch Elias and S. John Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch is more express he tells us there are three persons answerable to the three dispensations of the word yet in the body Enoch Elias and S. John Enoch before the Law Elias under the Law and S. John under the Gospel concerning which last that he never died he confirms both from Scripture and Tradition and quotes S. Cyrill I suppose he means him of Alexandria as of the same opinion The whole foundation upon which this Error is built was that discourse that passed between our Lord and Peter concerning this Apostle For Christ having told Peter what was to be his own fate Peter enquires what should become of S. John knowing him to be the Disciple whom Jesus loved Our Lord rebukes his curiosity by asking him what that concerned him If I will that he ãâã till I come what is that to thee This the Apostles misunderstood and a report presently went out amongst them That that Disciple should not die Though S. John who himself records the passage inserts a caution That Jesus did not say he should not die but only what if I will that he tarry till I come Which doubtless our Lord meant of his coming so often mentioned in the New Testament in Judgment upon the Jews at the ãâã overthrow of Jerusalem which S. John out-lived many years and which our Lord particularly intended when elsewhere he told them Verily I say unto you there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom 9. FROM the same Original sprang the report that he only lay sleeping in his Grave The story was currant in S. Augustines days from whom we receive this account though possibly the Reader will smile at the conceit He tells us 't was commonly reported and believed that S. John was not dead but that he rested like a man asleep in his Grave at Ephesus as plainly appeared from the dust sensibly boiling and bubling up which they accounted to be nothing else but the continual motion of his breath This report S. Augustine seems inclinable to believe having received it as he tells us from very credible hands He further adds out of some Apocryphal writings what was generally known and reported that when S. John then in health had caused his Grave to be dug and prepared he laid himself down in it as in a Bed and as they thought only fell asleep Nicephorus relates the story more at large from whom if it may be any pleasure to entertain the Reader with these things we shall give this account S. John foreseeing his translation into Heaven took the Presbyters and Ministers of the Church of Ephesus and several of the Faithful along with him out of the City carried them unto a Cemetery near at hand whither he himself was wont to retire to prayer and very earnestly recommended the state of the Churches to God in prayer Which being done he commanded a Grave to be immediately dug and having instructed them in the more recondite mysteries of Theologie the most excellent precepts of a good life concerning Faith Hope and especially Charity confirmed them in the ãâã of Religion commended them to the care and blessing of our Saviour and solemnly taking his leave of them he signed himself with the sign of the Cross and before them all went down into the Grave strictly charging them to put on the Grave-stone and to make it fast and the next day to come and open it and take a view of it They did so and having opened the Sepulchre found nothing
S. Thomas dispatched Thaddaeus the Apostle to Abgarus Governour of Edessa where he healed diseases wrought miracles expounded the doctrines of Christianity and converted Abgarus and his people to the Faith For all which pains when the Toparch offered him vast gifts and presents he refused them with a noble scorn telling him they had little reason to receive from others what they had freely relinquished and left themselves A large account of this whole affair is extant in Eusebius translated by him out of Syriack from the Records of the City of Edessa This Thaddaeus S. Hierom expresly makes to be our S. Jude though his bare authority is not in this case sufficient evidence especially since ãâã makes him no more than one of the seventy Disciples which he would scarce have done had he been one of the Twelve He calls him indeed an Apostle but that may imply no more than according to the large acception of the word that he was a Disciple a Companion and an Assistent to them as we know the Seventy eminently were Nor is any thing more common in ancient Ecclesiastick Writers than for the first planters and propagaters of Christian Religion in any Country to be honoured with the name and title of Apostles But however this be at his first setting out to preach the Gospel he went up and down Judaea and ãâã then through Samaria into Idumea and to the Cities of Arabia and the neighbour Countries yea to Syria and Mesopotamia Nicephorus adds that he came at last to Edessa where Abgarus was Governour and where the other Thaddeus one of the Seventy had been before him Here he perfected what the other had begun and having by his Sermons and Miracles established the Religion of our Saviour died a peaceable and a quiet death though Dorotheus makes him slain at Berytus and honourably buried there By the almost general consent of the Writers of the Latin Church he is said to have travelled into Persia where after great success in his Apostolical Ministry for many years he was at last for his free and open reproving the superstitious rites and usages of the Magi cruelly put to death 4. THAT he was one of the married Apostles sufficiently appears from his ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or Grandsons mentioned by ãâã of whom Hegesippus gives this account Domitian the Emperor whose enormous wickednesses had awakened in him the quickest jealousies and made him suspect every one that might look like a corrival in the Empire had heard that there were some of the line of David and Christ's kindred that did yet remain Two Grandchildren of S. Jude the Brother of our Lord were brought before him Having confessed that they were of the Race and posterity of David he asked what possessions and estate they had they told him that they had but a very few acres of land out of the improvement whereof they both paid him Tribute and maintained themselves with their own hard labour as by the hardness and callousness of their hands which they then shewed him did appear He then enquired of them concerning Christ and the state of his Kingdom what kind of Empire it was and when and where it would commence To which they replied That his Kingdom was not of this World nor of the Seigniories and Dominions of it but Heavenly and Angelical and would finally take place in the end of the World when coming with great glory he would judge the quick and the dead and award all men recompences according to their works The issue was that looking upon the meanness and simplicity of the men as below his jealousies and fears he dismissed them without any severity used against them who being now beheld not only as kinsmen but as Martyrs of our Lord were honoured by all preferred to places of authority and government in the Church and lived till the times of Trajan 5. S. Jude left only one Epistle of Catholick and universal concernment inscribed at large to all Christians It was some time before it met with general reception in the Church or was taken notice of The Author indeed stiles not himself an Apostle but no more does S. James S. John nor in some Epistles S. Paul himself And why should he fare the worse for his humility only for calling himself the servant of Christ when he might have added not only Apostle but the Brother of our Lord The best is he has added what was equivalent Jude the Brother of James a character that can belong to none but our Apostle beside that the Title of the Epistle which is of great antiquity runs thus The general Epistle of Jude the Apostle One great argument as S. ãâã informs us against the authority of this Epistle of old was its quoting a passage out of an Apocryphal Book of Enoch This Book called the Apocalypse of Enoch was very early extant in the Church frequently mentioned and passages cited out of it by ãâã Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origen and others some of whom accounted it little less than Canonical But what if our Apostle had it not out of this Apocryphal Book but from some prophecy currant from age to age handed to him by common tradition or immediately revealed to him by the Spirit of God But suppose it taken out of that Book going under Enoch's name this makes nothing against the authority of the Epistle every thing I hope is not presently false that 's contained in an Apocryphal and Uncanonical writing nor does the taking a single testimony out of it any more infer the Apostles approbation of all the rest than S. Paul's quoting a good sentence or two out of Menander Aratus and Epimenides imply that he approved all the rest of the writings of those Heathen Poets And indeed nothing could be more fit and proper than this way if we consider that the Apostle in this Epistle chiesly argues against the Gnosticks who mainly traded in such Traditionary and Apocryphal writings and probably in this very Book of Enoch The same account may be given of that other passage in this Epistle concerning the contention between Michael the Archangel and the Devil about the burial of Moses his Body no where extant in the holy Records supposed to have been taken out of a Jewish writing called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or the Dismission of Moses mentioned by some of the Greek Fathers under the title of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or the Ascension of Moses in which this passage was upon record Nor is it any more a wonder that S. Jude should do this than that S. Paul should put down Jannes and Jambres for the two Magicians of Pharaoh that opposed Moses which he must either derive from Tradition or fetch out of some Uncanonical Author of those times there being no mention of their names in Moses his relation of that matter But be these passages whence they will 't is enough to us that the Spirit of
Macedonia where he spared no pains declined no dangers that he might faithfully discharge the trust committed to him The Ancients are not very well agreed either about the time or manner of his death some affirming him to die in Egypt others in Greece the Roman Martyrologie in Bithynia ãâã at Ephesus some make him die a natural others a violent death Indeed neither Eusebius nor S. Hierom take any notice of it But Nazianzen Paulinus Bishop of Nola and several other expresly assert his Martyrdom whereof Nicephorus gives this particular account that coming into Greece he successfully preached and baptized many Converts into the Christian Faith till a party of Infidels making head against him drew him to execution and in want of a Cross whereon to dispatch him presently hanged him upon an Olive-Tree in the eightieth the eighty fourth says S. Hierom year of his age Kirstenius from an ancient Arabick writer makes him to have suffered Martyrdom at Rome which he thinks might probably be after S. Paul's first imprisonment there and departure thence when S. Luke being left behind as his deputy to supply his place was shortly after put to death the reason says he why he no longer continued his History of the Apostles Acts which surely he would have done had he lived any considerable time after S. Paul's departure His Body afterwards by the command of Constantine or his Son Constantius was solemnly removed to Constantinople and buried in the great Church built to the memory of the Apostles 4. TWO Books he wrote for the use of the Church his Gospel and the History of the Apostles Acts both dedicated to Theophilus which many of the Ancients suppose to be but a feigned name denoting no more than a lover of God a title common to every Christian. While others with better reason conclude it the proper name of a particular person especially since the stile of most excellent is attributed to him the usual title and form of address in those times to Princes and great men Theophylact stiles him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a man of Consular dignity and probably a Prince the Author of the Recognitions makes him a Nobleman of Antioch converted by Peter and who upon his conversion gave his house to the Church for the place of their publick and solemn meetings We may probably suppose him to have been some Magistrate whom S. Luke had converted and baptised to whom he now dedicated these Books not only as a testimony of honourable respect but as a means of giving him further certainty and assurance of those things wherein he had been instructed by him For his Gospel S. Hierom supposes it to have been written in Achaia during his travels with S. Paul in those parts whose help he is generally said to have made use of in the composing of it and that this the Apostle primarily intends when he so often speaks of his Gospel But whatever assistance S. Paul might contribute towards it we are sure the Evangelist himself tells us that he derived his intelligence in these matters from those who from the beginning had been eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word Nor does it in the least detract from the authority of his relations that he himself was not present at the doing of them for if we consider who they were from whom he derived his accounts of things Habuit utique authenticam paraturam as Tertullian speaks he had a stock both of credit and intelligence sufficiently authentick to proceed upon delivering nothing in his whole History but what he had immediately received from persons present at and concerned in the things which he has lest upon record The occasion of his writing it is thought to have been partly to prevent those false and fabulous relations which even then began to be obtruded upon the World partly to supply what seemed wanting in those two Evangelists that wrote before him and the additions or larger explications of things are particularly enumerated by Irenaeus He mainly insists upon what relates to Christ's Priestly Office and though recording other parts of the Evangelical story yet it ever is with a peculiar respect to his Priesthood Upon which account the Ancients in accommodating the four Symbolical representments in the Prophets Vision to the four Evangelists assigned the Oxe or ãâã to S. Luke 5. His History of the Apostolick Acts was written no doubt at Rome at the end of S. Paul's two years imprisonment there with which he concludes his story it contains the Actions and sometimes the sufferings of some principal Apostles especially S. Paul for besides that his activity in the cause of Christ made him bear a greater part both in doing and suffering S. Luke was his constant attendant an eye-witness of the whole carriage of his life and privy to his most intimate transactions and therefore capable of giving a more full and satisfactory account and relation of them seeing no evidence or testimony in matters of fact can be more rational and convictive than his who reports nothing but what he has heard and seen Among other things he gives us a particular account of those great miracles which the Apostles did for the confirmation of their doctrine And this as Chrysostom informs us was the reason why in the Primitive times the Book of the Acts though containing those Actions of the Apostles that were done ãâã Pentecost were yet usually read in the Church before it in the space between that and Easter when as at all other times those parts of the Gospel were read which were proper to the season it was says he because the Apostles miracles being the grand confirmation of the truth of Christ's Resurrection and those Miracles recorded in that Book it was therefore thought most proper to be read next to the feast of the Resurrection In both these Books his way and manner of writing is exact and accurate his stile polite and elegant sublime and lofty and yet clear and perspicuous flowing with an easie and natural grace and sweetness admirably accommodate to an historical design all along expressing himself in a vein of purer Greek than is to be found in the other writers of the holy Story Indeed being born and bred at Antioch than which no place more famous for Oratory and Eloquence he could not but carry away a great share of the native genius of that place though his stile is sometimes allayed with a tang of the Syriack and Hebrew dialect It was observed of old as S. Hierom tells us that his skill was greater in Greek than Hebrew that therefore he always makes use of the Septuagint Translation and refuses sometimes to render words when the propriety of the Greek tongue will not bear it In short as an Historian he was faithful in his relations elegant in his writings as a Minister careful and diligent for the good of Souls as a Christian devout
had bravely discoursed of the happy state of good men in the other Life plainly consessed that he could be content ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and ãâã which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our ãâã state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing ãâã ãâã was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it ãâã uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the insluences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and sloods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit ãâã enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to ãâã in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this ãâã is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods ãâã by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he ãâã down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when out Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so t were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious
it self but in order to certain ends 272. 1. Why Jesus fasted Forty Dayes 128. 9. Vide Disc. of Fasting per tot Fear hallowed by Christ's fear 384. 3. It is the first of Graces 171. 5. Farewell-Sermon made by Jesus 350. 19. Flaminius condemned to Death for wanton Cruelty 168. 5. Fornication against the Law of God in all Ages 249. 37. Permitted to Strangers among the Jews ibid. Forgiving Injuries a Christian duty 252. G. GAdara built by Pompey 184. 15. Full of Sepulchres and Witches ibid. Gabriel ministers to the exaltation of his inferiours 3. 4. Galilaeans why slain by Pilate and what they were 326. 27. Garden why chosen for the place of the Agony 364. 383. 2. Gentleness a duty of Christians 323. 16. Giacchetus of Geneva his Death in the midst of his Lust 338. 5. God his Gifts effects of Predestination 156. 5. Those Gifts how to be prayed for 261 264. Consideration of his Presence a good remedy against Temptations 112. 29. The Vision of God preserveth the Blessed Souls from Sin ibid. 30. GOD's method in bringing us to him and treating us after 32. 4. He gives his Servants more than they look for 155. He gives more Grace to them that use the first well ibid. 32. 6. He rejoyces in his own works of mercy 187. 1. And in ours 227. 13. He requires not always the greatest degree of Vertue 234. 11. He is never wanting in necessaries to us 32. He changeth his purpose of the death of a Man for several reasons 308. 24. He works his ends by unlikely means 427. GOD certainly supports those in their necessities who are doing his work 68. 3. Gold and Frankincense and Myrrhe what signification they had in the gift of the Magi 34. 11. 28. 12. Grace it helps our Faculties but creates no new ones 31. 2. It works severally at several times 32. Being refused it hardens our Hearts 387. 369. Government supported by Christianity 68. 7. Gospel and the Law how they differ 193. 3. 296. 232. 3. H. HAsty persons and actions always unreasonable sometimes criminal 15. 1. Herod mock'd by the Magi 65. 1. 84. 1. His stratagem to surprize all the male children 66. The cause why he slew Zecharias 66. 5. Caesar's saying concerning him 66. 3. He felt the Divine vengeance 67. 6. His Malice near his Death defeated 67. 7. He pretended Religion to his secret design 68. 1. He slew 14000 Infants 66. 4. Fear of the Child Jesus proceeded from his mistake 70. 7. The Tetrarch overthrown by the King of Arabia 169. 6. His reception of Christ 352. 26. Is careless of inquiring after Christ 393. 9. Herodians what they were 290. 3. Herodias Daughter beheaded with Ice 169. 6. She and Herod banished ibid. Heron the Monk abused with an illusion 61. 23. Herminigilda refused to communicate with an Arian Bishop 188. 2. Hereticks served their ends of Heresie upon Women upon whom also they served their Lust 189. 5. Heroical actions of Repentance at our Death-bed more prevalent than any other hope then left 217. 49. Health promised and consigned in the Gospel by Miracles and by an ordinary Ministery 304. 15 16. There were two High-Priests the one President of the Rites of the Temple the other of the great Council 351. 23. Honour done to us to be returned to God 9. 6. It is due to what the Supreme power separates from common usages 172. 3. How it is to be estimated 253. 5. Honourable and Sacred all one 173. S. Hilarion a great Faster 273. 2. S. Hierom's advice concerning Fasting ibid. Holy Ghost descending upon Jesus at his Baptism 94. 3. Holiness of Religious places 172. It is a great preservative of Life 302. 13. Hope of Salvation encreases according to degrees of holy walking 315. Necessary in our Prayers 267. House of John Mark consecrated into a Church 174. 5. Hosanna what it signifies 347. 6. Onely sung to God ibid. Humane Nature by the Incarnation exalted above the Angels 3. Humane infirmity to be pitied not to be upbraided 384. Humility of Jesus 14. The surest way to Heaven 37. Of the Baptist 68. It makes good men more honourable 186. Its excellencies 302. 11 12. 367. Its Properties and Acts 364. seq Humility of the young Mar. of Castilion 367. 9. Hunger after Righteousness 373. 11. Hunger and Thirst spiritual how they differ ibid. Its Acts and Reward ibid. Husbands converted by their Wives 189. 3. J. JAirus begs help of Jesus for his Daughter 185. 20. His Daughter restored to Life 186. 21. Jesus discoursing wonderfully with the Doctors 75. 1. He wrought in the Carpenter's Trade before and after Joseph's death 76. 6. Baptized by John 93. 1. Attended by good Angels in the Wilderness 95. Was angry when the Devil tempted him to dishonour God 95. 8. 101. 15. He slept in a Storm 184. 14. Preached the first Year in peace 186. 22. Appeared several times after his Resurrection 419. He was known in the breaking of Bread ibid. He had but two days of Triumph all his Life 359. 5. And they both allayed with Sorrow ibid. 360. He was used inhospitably at Jerusalem ibid. Infinitely loving 360. He received all his Disciples with a Kiss 386. 8. Civil to his Enemies and beneficial to his Friends ibid. He was stripp'd naked and why 394. 10. He came eating and drinking and why 291. He invites all to him ibid. The Pharisees report him mad 291. He refused to be made a King 319. 1. Transfigured 322. 13. He shamed the Accusers of the Adulteress 324. 20. He teaches his Disciples to pray the second time 326. 26. Refuses to judge a Title of Land ibid. Blesseth ãâã 327. 30. The Price of him 349. 14. All his great Actions in his Life had a mixture of Divinity and Humanity 387. 9. He was not compelled to bear the transverse Beam of the Cross 354. 30. He wept for Lazarus 345. And over Jerusalem 347. 7. Answered the Pharisees concerning Tribute to Caesar 347. 10. Prayed against the bitter Cup 450. 20. Smitten upon the Face 351. Accused of Blasphemy before the High-Priest ibid. Of Treason bëfore Pilate 352. 26. Nailed with Four Nails 354. 31. Provided for his Mother after his Death 355. 33. Recited the two and twentieth Psalm or part of it upon the Cross ibid. He felt the first Recompence of his Sorrows in the state of Separation 426. At the Resurrection he did redintegrate all his Body but the five Wounds ibid. He arose with a glorified Body 427. But veil'd with a Cloud of common Appearance ibid. Jewish Women hoped to be the Mother of the Messias 2. 5. Jews looked to be justified by external Innocence 243. 26. They were scrupulous in Rites careless of Moral Duties 392. 7. Could not put any Man to Death at Easter 352. 26. They eat not till the Solemnities of their Festival is over 272. 1. Jezabel pretended Religion to her design of Murther and Theft 68. 1. Illusions come often in likeness
of Visions 61. 23. Sins of Infirmity explicated 105. 10. seq Intentions though good excuse not evil Actions 107. 13. Incontinence destroys the Spirit of Government 189. 5. Instruments weak and unlikely used by GOD to great purposes 197. Incarnation of Jesus instrumental to God's Glory and our Peace 31. Inevitable Infirmities consistent with a state of Grace 207. Injuries great and little to be forgiven 252. Intention of Spirit how necessary in our Prayers 267. 17. Images their Lawfulness or unlawfulness considered 237. 16. Admitted into the Church with difficulty and by degrees 237. 16. Images of Jupiter and Diana Cyndias did ridiculous and weak Miracles 279. 7. Imprisonment sanctified by the binding of Jesus 387. Ingratitude of Judas 360. 9. John the Baptist his Life and Death 66. 5. 77. 78. and 79. 93. 292. 18. His Baptism 93. Whether the form of it were in the Name of Christ to come ibid. Joyes spiritual increase by communication 156. 3. Joyes of Eternity recompense all our Sorrowes in every instant of their fruition 426. Joyes sudden and violent are to be allayed by reflexion on the vilest of our Sins 196. 7. John Patriarch of Alexandria appeased the anger of Patricius 245. 30. Innocence is security against evil Actions 10. Justice of GOD in punishing Jesus cleared 415. 7 8. Several degrees of Justification answerable to several degrees of Faith 162. 7. Judgment of Life and Death is to be only by the supreme Power or his Deputy 253. A Jew condemned of Idolatry for throwing stones though in detestation at the Idol of Mercury 354. 32. Judging our Brother how far prohibited 260. 5. Judas's name written in Heaven and blotted ãâã again 313. 1. His manner of death 352. 25. Ingrateful 360. 8. He valued the Ointment at the same rate he sold his Lord 361. 11. He enjoyed his Money not Ten Hours 386. 7. Julian desired but could not be a Magician 361. 10. Judgment of GOD upon Sinners their causes and manner 336. 1. seq Judgments National 340. 8. Not easily understood by Men 339. 5. Joseph of Arimath embalmed the Body of Jesus 356. 38. Whether Judas received the Holy Sacrament 375. 13. K. KIng and Church have the same Friends and Enemies 336. Kingdom of Christ not of this World 352. What it is 392. 8. Kingdom of God what 263. 5. Kingdom of Grace and Glory ibid. A King came to Jesus in behalf of his Son 182. 6. Kings specially to be prayed for 365. 13. King's Enemies how to be prayed against ibid. To Kill the assaulting Person in what cases lawful 253. 3. L. LAws evil make a National Sin 341. 10. Law of Nature Vide Pref. per tot 20. 7. Laws of Man to be obeyed but not always to be thought most reasonable 42. 7. 48. 21. Laws of God and Man in respect of the greatness of the subject matter compared 46. 49. Laws of Men bind not to Death or an insufferable Calamity rather than not to break them 48. 21. Laws of Superiours not to be too freely disputed by Subjects 49. 23. Laws of order to be observed even when the first reason ceases 52. 1. It is not safe to do all that is lawful 45. 15 16. Law and Gospel how differ 194. 3. 232. 3. 295. S. Paul often by a Fiction of Person speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but as under the imperfections of the Law 104. 8. Law of Nature perfected by Christianity Pref. Law of Moses a Law of Works how 232. Law of Jesus a Law of the Spirit and not of Works in what sence ibid. Law-Suits to be managed charitably 256. When lawful to be undertaken ibid. Lazarus restored to Life 345. 2. Leonigildus kill'd his Daughter for not communicating with the Arians 188. 2. Leven of Herod what 321. 8. Lepers cured 324. 18. Sent to the Priest ibid. Unthankful ibid. The Levantine Churches afflicted the cause uncertain 338. 4. S. Laurence his Gridiron less hot than his Love 358. 2. 7. ãâã 17. Life of Man cut off for Sin 303. 305. It hath several periods ibid. 274. Good life necessary to make our Prayers acceptable 266. 13. A comparison between a Life in Solitude and in Society 80. 5. Lord's Supper the greatest of Christian Rites 369. It manifests God's Power 371. 4. His Wisdome and his Charity 371. 5 6. It is a Sacrament of Union 371. 5 6. A Sacrament and a Sacrifice in what sence 372. 7. As it is an act of the Ecclesiastical Officer of what efficacy 373. 8. It is expressed in mysterious words when the value is recited 373. Not to be administred to vicious persons 374. 12. Whether persons vicious under suspicion only are to be deprived of it 376. 13. How to be received 377. 15. What deportment to be used after it 378. 17. To be received by dying Persons 407. 23. Of what benefit it is to them ibid. Love and Obedience Duties of the first Commandment 234. 8. Love and Obedience reconciled 427. 9. Love of God its extension 234. 9. It s intension ibid. n. 11. Love the fulfilling of the Law explicated 233. 5. It consists in latitude 236. 13. It must exclude all affection to sin ibid. 14. Signs of true love to God 236. 14. Love to God with all our hearts possible and in what sence ibid. Love of God and love of money compared 361. 11. Lord's Day by what authority to be observed 244. 24. And how ibid. Lucian's Cynick an Hypocrite 366. 7. Likeness to God being desired at first ruined us now restores us 364. 3. Lying in that degree is criminal as it is injurious 250. 40. M. MArriage honoured by Christ's presence and the first Miracle 154. Hallowed to a Mystery 158. 8. Marriage-breakers are more criminal now than under Moses's Law 158. The smaller undecencies must be prevented or deprecated Of Martyrdom 229. 18. Magi at the sight of Christ's Poverty renounce the World and retire into Philosophy 28. 13. Mary a Virgin alwayes 14. 2. An excellent Personage 2 3. 8. She conceived Jesus without Sin and brought him forth without Pain 13. Her joy at the Prophecies concerning her Son attempered with Predictions of his Passion 30. 4. Full of Fears when she lost Jesus 73. 1. She went to the Temple to pray and there found him ibid. Full of Piety in Her countenance and deportment 113. 32. She converted many to thoughts of Chastity by her countenance and aspect ibid. Mary Magdalen's Story 377. 9. 360. 5. 391. 9. 346. 5. 349. 13. Mary's Choice preferred 326. 26. Mark for sook Jesus upon a Scandal taken but was reduced by S. Peter 320. 3. Malchus an Idumaean Slave smote Jesus on the Face 389. 1. Meditation described 54. It turns the understanding into spirit 55. Its Parts Actions manner of Exercise Fruits and Effects Disc. 3. per tot 54. Men ought not to run into the Ministery till they are called 99. 3.