follow which I propound by way of question and thus first An bonum sit Christum non crucifigi If it could be good for them that Christ should entrench himself in Mount Thabor and never go to Jerusalem to be crucified Lord grant us not our own wishes when we desire evil unto our selves for this Apostle unwittingly desired as much mischief to fall upon his own head as the Devil could wish Peter was well strucken in years his person of grave authority his affections full of well-meaning love to Christ therefore this was but one of three times that he made bold to resist his Masters passion and disswade it Mat. xvi 22. Be propitious unto thy self Lord thou shalt not be killed by the Scribes and High Priests At another time he cut off Malchus ear in the Garden to save his Saviour And though he durst not openly dehort him now for he was check'd before and called Satan for that fault yet the same meaning is closely conveyed in these words Master it is good for us to be here What should I say It was not his opinion alone but it seems all his brethren were of the same mind they knew not the Scriptures and thought the Church might do well enough though Christ did never die upon the Cross for when Peter alone did speak in this cause St. Mark says Christ turned about and looked upon all his Disciples Mar. viii 33. And then rebuked Peter Get thee behind me Satan Peter gives him the title of Master if he would stay there and not die but St. Paul shews that even by death he won himself the Mastership Col. 2.18 He is the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the pre-eminence His deceived Servants thought that it was inglorious for him to die whereas it was an honour to the Lamb of God to be brought unto that Altar So it behaved Christ to suffer and to enter into his glory I have met with one who delivered his opinion very eloquently how fit it was for our Saviour to remove from this place where his Disciple would have fixed him Says He this is not the Mount where our Lord must end his days but the fatal Calvary His face shall not shine with light but be disgraced with Spittle and smeared with bloud His Garments shall not be white to honour him but in scorn and derision He shall not stand between Moses and Elias but hang between two Thieves Thou Peter shalt not think it good to be with him but run away and deny him The Father shall not call unto him from heaven Thou art my well-beloved Son but the Son shall cry out that he is forsaken of the Father There shall not be a bright cloud over the place but darkness over the face of the earth Finally no other Tabernacle shall be built for him but a Cross of malediction 2. And might not Peter counsel him without offence against this ignominious death No my Beloved For it is not to be excused how he knew not the Scriptures that this was the course appointed for the redemption of the world the hungry could not eat their bread until it was broken We could not quench our thirst with the water of life till it was poured out of his wounds We could not be healed of the sting of death till the brazen Serpent was lifted up Jonas must be cast out of the belly of the Whale before he preach to the Ninivites Christ must die and rise again before the Disciples be sent to preach to all Nations The lxx Psalm hath this title A remembrance to the chief Musician and the first words of the Psalm are these Haste thee O Lord to deliver me make haste to help me O Lord. As who should say Thou that art the chief Musician unto whom all the Angels of heaven sing their Alelujah haste thee to redeem us by thy precious bloud Go up to thy Cross and suffer for it is time that thou have mercy upon us yea the time is come But you will say Had it not been most barbarous in Peter according to the tenure of that Psalm in the Exposition which I have given to wish the death of Christ First it might become his own Apostle that did tenderly love him neither to urge him nor disswade him but to say The will of the Lord be done Next I must tell you it is no such horrid thing as a weak Christian may imagine to have pray'd unto the Father that his Son might die upon the Cross for our Redemption Even so Father because thou wilt have it Yet this distinction must mollifie it Intuitu nostrae redemptionis non ipsius cruciatus says Lombard Rejoycing for the benefit of our Salvation but sorrowing for the bitterness of his Passion grieving for his sorrows but giving thanks with gladness for our own deliverance Therefore in no wise did Peter give right counsel when to decline the issue of that dismal Passion he said Master it is good c. But Ne quicquam sapit qui sibi non sapit How should he be a good Counsellor for his Master that was not wise for himself For I ask in the next place An bonum non videre mortem If it could be good for Peter and the two Disciples not to see death No surely there is a gain and advantage to be made by death Phil. i. 21. Then when we languish as we think of our last sickness then we begin to call our sins to remembrance then we look over the Covenant of the Law which we have so often broken then we breath out our soul in Prayer and fill our eyes and our heart with repentance the sense of imminent death takes away the sting of death by contrition and a most consciencious examination of the days that are past one hour well imployed about that time is better than a year in diebus illis when we were remiss and careless Even Balaam the Sorcerer did perceive what Soveraign Physick of Salvation God did administer to his Saints upon their sick bed and therefore he cries out O let me die the death of the righteous A righteous mans death is like the Cherubin standing before the Garden of Eden that with one blow lets him into Paradise and would Peter stay in the Mountain and want the best Schoolmaster of Repentance and Mortification Besides it is a good thing to be weary of every thing even of life it self till we come to heaven I know a man may desire to die out of frowardness I praise not that As Elias and Jonas were fretful because they were cross'd and in that vexation of mind they desired to die This is rudeness and impatiency to desire to die because they would not live as God would have them But there is earning to get above the desires of frail nature and to desire to put off the body that we may put on Christ So Nazianzen begins an Epistle to Nyssen out of
of nothing doth it not appear much easier to him to joyn them together again in one substance when they are separated Finemque potentia coeli non habet superi quicquid voluere peractum est To expound that Heathen Poet by our Heavenly Poet Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven in earth in the sea and in all deep places He that will consider how every day is renewed after the night hath overcast it by the dawning of a new morning how every year is renewed after the cold and darkness of Winter by the return and advancement of the Sun how the naked Trees reflourish by the Vegetative vertue of the Spring how Flies and Moths and the brood of the Silk-worm have no motion no quickness no token of life in them for many months together and yet instantly quicken again when the warmth of the Sun beams do cherish them Finally to end in that chief instance for the Scripture hath made it so how the seed of Corn falls into the ground and dies and then revives again and brings forth much fruit he that puts all this together rationally will more easily consent that it is not improbable that God will shew more wonderful signs of his workmanship in man being next under the Angels the beauty of all his Creatures An unwise man doth not mark this as the Psalmist said and a fool doth not understand it St. Austin says that Tully in his 3. lib. de Repub. disputed against the reuniting of soul and body His Argument was To what end Where should they remain together For a body cannot be assumed into heaven I believe God caused those famous monuments of his Wit to perish because of such impious opinions wherewith they were farced But to his slender Argument the body raised up shall have shaken off all malignancy of flesh and bloud which made it unfit for heaven And when it is become a glorious body why not a body inhabit heaven as well as a spiritual coelestial soul converse upon earth But Plato was more Theological than Tully and he taught very truly that souls could not remain separated for ever without their bodies And though he put not a reason to his opinion there is a very sufficient one Posse perficere materiam est animae hominis essentiale It is the essential difference for ought we know between the Spirit of a man and an Angel who is a spiritual substance that mans soul hath an aptitude a desire a natural reference to inform and actuate a body and so hath not an Angel Therefore it cannot be that this natural aptitude to dwell in flesh should be in it unto all eternity when it is separated from the body and never be satisfied Perhaps some will think that this labour may be spared to shew the possibility of a body to be raised from the dead for here is that power in act it is done it is manifested in Christ it cannot be controuled Whom God hath raised up Some have wondred at our Saviour for his Birth his obedience to his Parents his Poverty his Passion that he should humble himself so far but no man can take hold of any occasion to wonder why he should be raised from the dead and glorified so far It was conformable to the eternal justice of his Father to exalt him that had humbled himself so much Lowliness shall not always be left in the dust to be despised Therefore some of the ancient Writers make those words by Analogy to suit with Christ Psal cxxxix 2. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising And that of Micah in the same Key Chap. vii 8. Rejoyce not against me O mine enemy when I fall I shall arise Obedience and patience shall not be forgotten at last Every Valley that subjecteth it self under the mighty hand of God shall be exalted Jesus Christ though he was crucified through weakness yet he liveth by the power of God 2 Cor. xiii 4. Secondly Satan must make this restitution for the wrong that he had done to an innocent Death had dominion no further than sin did reign so that it was a most unjust usurpation in death to seize upon him who knew no sin the Devil set on his Instruments to kill our Lord and prevailed but Hell and the Grave must needs regorge that which they had so unjustly received That eternal Law which hath destined most several retributions to the pure and impure would not suffer that he should continue in death whose soul was pure and his body undefiled The Resurrection of us sinners is out of grace and mercy the Resurrection of Christ is out of merit and justice Both shall arise alike as St. Austin says Similiter surgent corpora quae dissimiliter orta sunt Christi Adami nostrum Bodies that were diversly framed and made as Christs and Adams and ours shall not rise after a divers manner but have the same kind of Resurrection Yet the excellency of the head is above the members for though the head and members are conformable in nature yet they are not in vertue Therefore I bring it home to my second reason that God is pleased in his loving kindness that we should overcome death but he consented to his own justice that Christ should overcome death for Satan must make restitution again because he had slain an innocent That is the second reason upon the main whom God hath raised up Thirdly As God hath turned the sting of death to our benefit so much more out of the Resurrection of his Son he hath given us a salve of consolation For if his humility and reproach were our blessing how much more his glory Death is two ways abolished first by the pardoning of our sins for it is now become the passage to heaven for all penitent sinners which before was the gate of hell for all transgressors Secondly It is much more abolished by the Resurrection evacuating all that mortality had caused by the restauration of soul and body into an integral composition We have three grand enemies combined together against us Sin and Death and Hell But through the happy victory of Christ of all these Enemies Death doth least harm and therefore of all our Enemies he is last destroyed Among the Heathen death was their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most amating terror that could be set before a man the reason for they knew neither how that loss should ever be repaired nor what entertainment their Spirit should find in another world when it was departed But God hath provided better things for us not to let us fluctuate in these fears and uncertainties Nay we are enlightened to know that the malediction which was in death is extinguished how that which was at first inflicted as an entrance into perpetual pain is now a rest from all our labours Rev. xiv Furthermore that it is a rest from sin for while we draw in our breath we suck in iniquity grace doth
the same end to make us magnifie God for his Wisdom Goodness and Justice Nay I add compare the Law of Works imposed upon Adam and the Law of Faith imposed upon Christians and both of them are possible to be done For the first man according to the integrity wherein he was created and by the virtue of supernatural Grace bestowed upon him might have obeyed the Commandement given if he had not turned to disobedience and by the Divine help of the same grace we to whom God hath preached the glad tidings of his Son are endewed with power to believe that we may be saved Now in a word let us lay the difference of these two one against another God gave the Law in Paradise as a King in his Justice but he gave the Gospel in Sion as a Father of Grace and Mercy according to that Law the reward had been given ex debito by debt and due say the Schoolmen but to him that believes the reward is given by mere Grace which excludes boasting He that disobey'd that Law was to look for the most strict severity of Justice so condemnation belongs likewise to the unbeliever according to Justice but perhaps it shall be temper'd with some moderation for Christs sake Finally this is the main disagreement the first Covenant made with Adam did exclude all hope of remission of sins but the second Covenant made in Christ runs in this tenour to them that live by Faith your sins shall be blotted out and your iniquities forgotten After you have understood the first point how there was a Law imposed upon Adam when he was created and endewed with original Justice you must now give ear to the next thing in order what heavy and astonishing matter is contained in that Law which was given by Moses to the Children of Israel and remember that I consider the Law deliver'd in the two Tables at Mount Sinai Seorsim and by it self separated from all the promises contained in the Prophets and in the Psalms of David These then are the remarkable differences between the Covenant written in Tables of stone and this Covenant of the New Testament in the Blood of Christ First God gave the Law at Sinai being wrath with our sins for whereas we had lost both the wisdom of our understanding and the loyal obedience of our will by the transgression of our first parent yet God impos'd his Commandement upon us and exacts such measure of holiness which we are not able to perform Therefore that Law was given in the barren Wilderness because it is not able to bring one soul unto God likewise it was delivered with signs full of wrath thunder and lightning and a dreadful noise to shew that God was full of indignation when he laid it upon us On the contrary he made the new Covenant of peace being reconciled to them that were lost or at least proffering reconciliation in his beloved Son Read this Doctrine Heb. xii from the 18. to the 24. verse Ye are not come to the Mount that might not be touched and that burnt with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words which they that heard entreated they might hear it no more They could not endure that which was commanded And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake but ye are come to Mount Sion and to the City of the living God c. Wherefore the Gospel was presented with manifest tokens of love and benevolence Ecce Evangelizo behold I bring you good tidings 2. There 's a difference arising between the first Testament and the last from the several Mediators that came between God and the people Moses was a servant faithful in the Family and he was the Mediator of the Old Testament Christ is the Son and Heir of all he was the Mediator of the New The Law was given by Moses Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ 3. The old Covenant was ratified with the blood of Beasts but loe the New Covenant doth much surpass it which was ratified with the precious Blood of that immaculate Lamb which took away the sins of the world which is therefore called the Blood of the New Testament 4. The old Law in St. Paul's phrase contained poor and beggerly rudiments not able to bring to life It was a killing letter the ministry of death and condemnation it worketh wrath it entred that sin might abound it is like Hagar which gendreth children unto bondage Gal. iv 24. The Gospel is the power of salvation to every one that believeth a quickening Spirit it purgeth us from our sins it speaketh better things than the blood of Abel 5. That which Moses brought was an heavy burden which neither the Fathers nor the Children could bear but of the Gospel Christ saith his yoke is easie and his burden is light and in it you shall find rest for your souls Lastly the Old Testament endured unto Christ and no longer wherefore because it passed away it is called the Old the New Testament remaineth for ever so says St. Paul of our Blessed Saviour taking flesh who is not made after the Law of a carnal Commandment but after the power of an endless life No passage or comparison can be made between them but the Law given at Mount Sinai will appear to be an harsh and most unwelcome injunction and that which doth clear us from the curse thereof is Evangelium the best tidings that ever arriv'd at the ear of man Hitherto I have consider'd the Old Testament in no respect but as it contains the killing letter of the Law but you must not mistake that the Holy Spirit hath interlaced many fast-holdings of Faith and promises Evangelical almost every where in the Prophets and in the Psalms of David Nay the Old Testament is rather Promise than Law yet it was fit the rigour of the Law should be repeated that it might more appear how necessary the promise of Grace was that we could not live without it and that every man being convicted in his conscience by the sentence of the Law we might more ardently fly to Grace for the end of the Moral Law is double to set us a rule what we should endeavour to do and to discover our own impotency unto us what we are not able to do that we may seek a remedy in the satisfaction of Christ But this I say that the darkness and obscurity of the Old Testament was enlightned with many excellent promises that the believing Israelites might be partakers of Faith and of everlasting life they had the same Gospel which we have the same Christ the same Faith the same Spirit sealing the truth of promise unto them Where is then the priviledge you will say that the tidings are better to us then unto them or far surpassing on our side every way Israel that believed in the promised seed was an heir but under age
for the profit of my Soul rather than upon all the eloquence and wit in the world There is more to be learnt by meditating upon his Passion seriously and devoutly one day than by ripping up all other needless questions through the whole year Si Christum discis satis est si caetera nescis Si Christum nescis nihil est si caetera discis Says the Old Verse If you have learnt Christ crucified for thy sins do not bewail thy ignorance simple Soul though thou knowest no more if thou hast not learnt his sufferings and that with his stripes thou art healed bewail thy knowledg great Master of Arts and Sciences though except that one thing thou hast learned all And what though you fix your speculations upon Christ himself yet all is in vain that you can preach of Christ until you set your notions afloat upon his blood and sail down to this out of all that he was crucified for our transgressions If you be not enemies to his Cross you will easily agree with the truth of the whole Gospel if you do not agree with his Cross as with the only cause by which we obtain salvation you will be an enemy to all the truth of the Gospel Turn this key right that we are justified from our sins by his blood shedding and all is open wrench the door with any other key as if we would pick open the lock of Heaven gates with our own sufferings and righteousness and all is shut Surely St. Paul did pattern his preaching by this Copy of Moses and Elias 1 Cor. ii 2. I determined not to know any thing among you saving Jesus Christ and him crucified Secondly Yes indeed this was fit communication for Paul to impart nothing else to the Corinthians who did abound with the Greek Philosophy and eloquence and it sorted the better to speak of nothing but the sorrows of our Lord while fears and persecutions and death did daily environ them but in my next Observation it shall appear that this discourse was well chosen rather than any other at the Transfiguration of glory here was nothing upon the Mountain but celestial joy and in the height of this joy no other talk to entertain the time but about a Cross and about a woful tribulation If our sorrow be not enlightned with some joy it will turn to a melancholick desperation so if our joy be not dampt with the sadness and seriousness of some sorrow it will fly out into excess and presumption The Graecians did not allow their frisking Lydian Musick to be playd without the gravity of the Dorique Instruments which they called in one name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So David tun'd this mixture upon his Harp Psal ii 11. Serve the Lord in fear and rejoyce unto him with reverence Surely Peter and the other Apostles thought they were past all the bitter storms and frowns of the world where the place whereon they stood was more bedeckt with beauty than ever they had read of Paradice as if God had rained down Heaven upon Earth their mind was filled with this saying and their lips in the next verse spake nothing less Give us the Kingdom which is prepared for us give us the fruition of thy glory Nay hold and take this before Priùs de calice cogitate quà m de regno Drink of my cup before you reign in my Kingdom hear Moses and Elias preach of my Cross before you be enthronized among the Elders to sing praises unto the Lamb for evermore But was this a gratulatory Oration fit for the Prophets to make to Christ in the brightness of his Excellency did He love to hear of this above any thing that He should die an ignominious death at Jerusalem yes it was as the most pleasant thing to our Saviour and none so acceptable to be spoken of When a poor woman annointed his head with ointment in the house of Simon the Leper he defends her for it against the indignation of his Disciples says He In that she poured this ointment on my body she did it for my Burial I have a Baptism to be baptized with and how I am straitned till it be accomplished Luke xii 50. never was such haste made to any place as he made to Mount Calvarie there past but a little time from midnight to midday betwixt his Attachment his Arraignment and his Execution as if his feet had stood upon thorns until his head were crowned with them The content he took in those torments is thus laid forth in St. Paul who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. A certain Author makes an elegant comparison between that triumph when Christ rode upon an Ass to Jerusalem and between this triumph of the Transfiguration on Mount Thabor Infesto palmarum illacrymat considerans mala nostra in hoc festo mirabiliter exultat recolens mala sua Though he was then received with Palm branches and shoutings yet he wept upon Jerusalem to consider their sins at this Feast he is all glorious and rejoyceth for our sakes to hear the commemoration of his own sorrows And thirdly it must not be forgotten how Moses and Elias were those chosen Orators which spake of his decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem all that was mystical in the Types and Shadows of Moses Law all that was darkly delivered in the deep style of the Prophets concerning this passion is explained against the teeth of the Jews Moses and Elias came to interpret themselves Moses say the Fathers saw what medicine and healing was in the cross when he lift up the brazen Serpent in the Wilderness to cure the people that were stung and wounded and Prudentius in a sweet versifying way that Moses learnt how all spiritual foes Death Satan Sin and Hell should be vanquisht by the Cross when by the stretching out of his hands the Amalekites were destroyed in Battel by the Children of Israel Passis in altum brachiis sublimis Amalech premit crucis quod instar tum fuit Again they make the same Commentation upon Elias that he laid his body upon the Childs body his hands upon the Childs hands which he brought to life again even as Christ did stretch himself out upon the Cross and hath quickned us being dead in our sins having forgiven us all our trespasses Colos ii 13. and not us only who have been born since the time that his blood was actually shed but all those who lived with the Fathers under the Law and from the beginning of the world who did believe to escape eternal death by the blood of that Sacrifice which should be offered up upon the Tree of malediction A strange Medicament that the drops of this sacred bloud should cure so many millions before it self was extant If an Herbalast say he will make a Panacaea a rare juice of salutiferous roots the next year can it cure this Spring yet the Remedy of the Cross
which came to pass in after ages did as well cure the faithful in the former as in the latter world 't is never too soon to believe and seek after Christ never too late to believe and repent Moses and Elias are Proxies for all those who died before the coming of Christ that it was beneficial and pleasant to them to have this communication that He should die at Jerusalem Libenter exules de reditu in patriam loquuntur by our own just demerits and by the sin contracted in our first Parents Moses and Elias and all the Sons of Adam were justly exiled from the joys of Paradise but do thou suffer O Lamb of God and thou wilt open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers Tell me if it were not joyful to banished men to speak of those means which should restore them to a Kingdom This was the last thing that their Soul did meditate upon earth upon the meditation of his passion they as we also ought to do did shut up their last breath and this is the first thing which they have to say when God did grant them tongues to speak in the Resurrection Discamus ea in terris quorum scientia nobis perseveret in coelis says St. Hierom Let us learn such good lessons here upon earth whose knowledg may remain with us hereafter in the Kingdom of Heaven Here it is remorseful fit it should be so to think of his agony and passion because our sins are before us those very Judasses which betrayed him in the society of Angels the case is altered there it is no sad discourse to speak of it for the guiltiness of our sins doth no more infest our memory every thing that the Lord willeth is pleasant and acceptable to us therefore in my fourth Notation Moses and Elias speak of Christs sufferings in no disconsolatory phrase but much to our comfort that it was a decease and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem Fourthly A mitigating word to lenify a harsh sound of a most dreadful thing The Heathen men did love to do and to speak couragiously and yet they who know no worse by death than that it was the cessation of our being or the dissolution of Soul and Body did describe it by the most judicious Pen that ever wrote among them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of terrors the most terrible what if they had known the Scriptures that God spake in his anger that it is the wages of sin and unless mercy prevent judgment that it is a departure into endless misery But get up courage again O frail mortality the Son of God through death hath overcome death the Serpent hath lost his sting As willingly as a Passenger deceaseth or departeth from a strange place to his own home with such quietness and composed satisfaction of mind we go from hence for ever where we shall have an abiding City Be not unfurnisht for a sudden journey if God call but say with Simeon Lord I am ready to depart in peace Tully said that a worthy man in a good old age made no more than an exit or a decease out of a Theater with a plaudite The Scripture varies the name of death in good words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tranquil rest Blessed are they that die in the Lord they rest from their labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sound sleep our brother Lazarus sleepeth Jo. xi Sometimes it hath the title of an exaltation As Moses lifted up the brazen Serpent in the wilderness so shall the Son of man be lifted up And my Text names it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a decease as the Prophet hath called that Book which entreats of the Children of Israel's departure out of Egypt Exodus their decease out of that Country of captivity and slavery so if your soul cleave not too much to the dust of the earth death is no Bugbear no quivering meditation but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as joyful a decease to us as that was to them a departure out of bondage and misery O what death can be dreaded since Moses and Elias spake so mildly of the death of Christ Had his daies been cut off without all pain sorrow or ignominy take the Proposition thus barely without amplification of his wounds and sufferings mortuus est pro peccatoribus he died for sinners the just for the unjust who could sufficiently estimate the dear price of his payment or the miserable contract of our debt Mortiferum fuit quod non nisi morte Christi sanari potuit the wound of sin in our Soul was very mortal which made the Immortal die to cure it Lord it is not one Soul in every man nor ten thousand understandings and cogitations in that Soul which can cast up the estimation of that matchless benefit How much more when Christs death is dispread into a full description of all circumstances the longest Gospels by seven parts in all the Church Service are read upon the Passion and yet more must be conceiv'd than can be wrote of it in the largest Folio Yet I will print that Breviary of St. Paul in my memory to read it day and night Galat. iii. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree But that eternal life which he purchased to us thereby hath candied over the bitterness of death and it is called by a soft gentle word a decease and spake of his decease which he should accomplish c. Fifthly If as I intend to speak in the fifth place all the circumstances of his death were opened Peter and the rest did hear what manner of decease it was There were many Pikes to be passed through a complete order of afflictions to be undergon and accomplisht Fat Bulls of Basan have compassed me on every side His miseries stood round about him and Gods predeterminate counsel was the circle there was no moving out till every enemy had spent his spight upon him so many stripes and wounds foretold in several Psalms so many sharp pangs and doleances commemorated in several Chapters and he could not give up the ghost till all these things were come about and every jot of the Scripture fulfilled St. John hath set this down with the accurate wisdom of the Holy Ghost to be admired Joh. xx 28. Christ hanging upon the Cross had power to lay down his life at any minute at the first twitch of pain and though weariness and the agony of sweat and the torments he sustained made him very dry yet he could have died in that thirst and never call'd for drink But after all things in the Scripture were fulfilled one verse of David was unsatisfied They gave me vinegar to drink Psal lxix 2. therefore He cries out I thirst and having received no better than vinegar he bears testimony that then all Prophecies about his Passion were
thee When good works sue to be called merits they are like the ambitious men of the World that spend their whole Revenue to buy some gaudy Title of Honour and when they have it they want substance to maintain it Vitia Caetera in peccatis superbia etiam in rectè factis estimanda est says St. Austin Compute your vices amongst sins which do transgress the Law compute Pride to be the mischief which doth transgress against your vertue As Eleazar in the Macchabees slew the Elephant and was renowned for his valour but the Carkass of the beast fell upon him and opprest him to death so the very vertues which proud men commit crush themselves into ruine like the corps of the Elephant and be assured that he who subscribes merit to the Gifts of God is not the man that gives God the glory The third Transgression is cum despectis caeteris singulariter appetunt videri quod habent a lofty stomach that will seem to be no less than inter vtburna cupressus to be conspicuous and have no equals and like Saul higher by the head than any other Israelite Upon the Prayer of the Prophet David Deliver me from the horns of the Vnicorns in Vnicornibus superbi intelliguntur says St. Austin qui soli cupiunt eminere The proud man is deciphered by that single horn of the Vnicorn who would be solitary in all Gods Graces and without a Companion Whereas the Congregation of the Militant Church is compared to a Field of Wheat where all the ears of the Field are of an equal growth and if any stalk over-top the rest it is lank and without fructification Brethren they that are not contented to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal with the common condition of men shall never be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal with the glorious condition of Angels and he that despiseth the Gifts of God in his fellow Servants be assured he is not the man that gives God the glory Fourthly There is one feather more in the tail of pride and full as long as the rest cum jactant se habere quod non habent when they arrogate to themselves that which indeed they have not Christ hath said we cannot add one cubit to our stature no nor make one hair of our head black or white Why do ye practise it then O ye gaudy Beauties to bring that about which Christ told you was impossible Why did God say we are but dust if we attempt to outface his judgment and make our selves as beautiful as the Pearls of the Sea or the Gold of the Mountains can set us out Why did the Prophet say we do all speak vanity to our neighbour if it be death unto our neighbour to call us liers I have seen books of Meditations whose subject was to let all men know that they are vain and sinful and ignorant and yet the very Title should confute all the Doctrin of the Book a flattering Preface to some great man of most vertuous and most religious Presume not to take false Titles upon you as Herod encroached upon the name of God himself you are puffed up you are canonized yet we give not God the glory But that we may strike upon him a little whom the Angel hath smote before us upon the pride of Herod it is a Monster that riseth up into two heads by St. Chrysostom's observation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the tongue actively in the ear passively 1. a tongue full of vain and insolent speach 2. an ear obnoxious to the flattery of the people Of both them in their order and for your edification It was Epaminondas his praise that he seldom met with a man that knew more than himself or spake less and so the least doers inch out their poor works with much talk and publication We have stories and we have conjectures that Herods Oration did chiefly tend to put the terror of his Majesty upon the popr fearful men of Caesarea and to amplifie his own clemency when he had received them into favour Did this deserve to be blown with a trumpet in a publick Solemnity As the artificial prospective to the eye so is the tongue unto the ear an hollow instrument to make every thing seem bigger and fairer than it is The Beasts the Birds the Serpents may be sooner tamed says St. James than the tongue of man Some are said in Scripture to whet their tongues like a sword they are the Apostles Beasts some have exalted their tongues above heaven they are unclean birds some have the poison of Asps under their lips and they are Serpents Yea but worse than these head-strong creatures is the tongue of man bestiis ferocitate volucribus levitate serpentibus virulentiâ praecellit fiercer than the Beasts more flitting than the Birds more poisonous than the Serpents It is a member of the body that can taste every thing but it self and knows how all things relish but it s own pride and bitterness How often trips it in swearing in boasting above measure in pride most lofty in anger furious in perjuries blasphemous in curses bitter in vain talking never quiet as glib as honey in hypocrisie suttle in lying smooth in deceiving impudent in flattery How will you excuse all this Beloved before the judgment of God Can you say that these things come from the wickedness of your flesh Or from the Law of our Members that cannot be resisted God will never be answered with this excuse Heaven knows that all these iniquities of a slippery tongue come from nothing but evil custom Nothing was so scorched in Hell as the proud tongue of Dives which had insulted over Lazarus and like an uncharitable member it spake only for it self to be cooled with water And as we are taught from hence to set a watch before our lips not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hedg of our teeth but to empale it about with lowliness and humility so in the second place let us learn from Herods example to circumcise our ears to renounce the flatteries of evil men for he suffered them to beatifie his eloquence to cry out it was the voice of God and he perished miserably that gave not God the glory The Tyrians and Sidonians had done a trespass against Herod before and all this Solemnity was kept that they might be reconciled to his mercy but what offence could they commit before so great as this open flattery And shall Herod be pacified with them for adding a greater evil to their former injury It is a policy of evil Magistrates says Pliny that they take delight to make evil Subjects patientiores servitutis arbitrantur quos non deceret esse nisi servos for such men will submit themselves to all baseness who deserve no better life by their condition than slavery here were such exclamations such outcries in the praise of Herod that we had never known his insolencies and his faults unless St.
dishonoured nor declining bad occasions nor intending renovation of life this hath not a grudging of true Religion in it it is no more than the trembling of an unregenerate mans conscience who hath not tasted of the heavenly gift But if you say that man hath a servile fear who dares not but do his Masters will lest he be beaten with many stripes be not ashamed of this fear Our Saviour goes it over and over and commends it again and again Luke xii 4. Fear him which hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him The fear of the Lord says the Wiseman is the beginning of wisdom How is it the beginning Why Faith is the first cause of Religion and fear is the first effect as the foundation is the beginning or an house so after true conversion it begins to go on from vertue to vertue and this is the first ground work that it lays Stand in aw and sin not Psal iv It is such a beginning that I will say this it is impossible to come to a true consolation in Christ without it Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling Psal ii 11. Timor Domini est fidei fundamentum firmamentum says St. Cyprian Faith which includes our hope in Christ had no firmness nor sure footing but that it knows in it self it fears the Lord Love fell asleep with her beloved in her arms Cant. iii. i And her beloved was gone in the mean time So if their be not a mixture of fear with our love it falleth asleep it waxeth secure and loseth her Beloved If the comfort of our joy be not allayed with some fear 't is madness and presumption Again if our fear be not intermixt with the comfort of some joy 't is sullenness and desperation As the Earth cannot be without Summer and Winter to make it fruitful the pleasure of the one and the austerity of the other make up the revolution of a good year so Faith is the Parent both of a cloudy fear and a smiling hope Faith begets fear in us in regard of our own weakness and hope in regard of the goodness of God hope ariseth out of the faith of the Gospel and fear out of the faith of the Law These cannot be parted Indeed servile fear is an unpleasing word because it grates our memory with this remembrance that our nature is in bondage and that we are Thralls and Captives to death and punishment and therefore the words of Aquinas are very weighty Timor servilis bonus est sed servilitas ejus est mala That bondage which makes us liable to judgment is naught but the fear which issues from a conscientiousness of that bondage flying to God that it may fly from judgment is holy and good Briefly let them thus be compared together a filial fear which loves God for his own goodness is like a bright day which hath not a cloud to disfigure it A servile fear that dreads God because it dreads the wrath to come is like a day that is overcast with clouds but it is clearer than the fairest moon-shine night It is good to have the spirit of Adoption but it is better to have the spirit of bondage than the spirit of slumber it is good to be in Canaan but it is better to be in the Wilderness than in Egypt it is good to be a Child but it is better to be a servant than a stranger to the Lord. David most sweetly puts them together Psal xxxiii Behold the eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear him and that put their trust in his mercy So I conclude this Point that the Angels Nolite timere fear not doth neither cry down filial fear which is the modest bashfulness nor yet servile fear which is the sharp spur of true Religion Hitherto we have spoken of fear quà donum as it is a gift of the holy Spirit Now that I may make my discourse complete I must speak of it quà passio as it is a sensitive passion and so when it is moderate it is tolerable when it exceeds and will not hearken to the governance of reason it is condemnable I will speak but a few words of the first Nature is excusable when it shrinks from those things that would offend it and desires to save it from harm by fair and direct means for in such a case our conscience pleads that there is a reasonable cause and occasion These are Aristotles words upon the Point that a man were stupid or mad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is neither dismay'd at violent tempests on the Sea nor at earthquakes on firm Land like the fool-hardy and confident Celts in Scythia But the day doth admonish me to take my instances from our blessed Saviour and so I can no example so fit for Allegation For why did Christ and his Mother fly into Egypt soon after he was born when Herod was in a fuming chase Why did the Angel admonish Joseph to do so in a dream The Lord could have saved him as he did Elisha the Prophet in the midst of his enemies whose eyes he blinded that they could not see him And again says the Text when he returned out of Egypt he went aside to dwell in the Coasts of Galilee for fear of Archilaus that reigned in Judea in his Father Herod's stead Great caution as might be and yet all this needed not but because our Saviour would allow a circumspect fear in time of persecution to shift for life Moreover you must not think that Christ did fear as we do will nill we upon the compulsion of necessity for he had all passions and humane infirmities under subjection so that he could be cast into no consternation but when his own will did consent and accord unto it yet he chose a fit time to cast himself into a great agony of fear when he sweat drops of bloud in the Garden lest we should think it a sin at all times to be afraid upon just occasion This then is another fear which belongs to our allowance but there is a fear which hath a Nolite set before it an immoderate horror of heart a symptome of desperation or at least of infidelity and diffidence this is that quivering with which God strikes his enemies as a tree is shaken by the wind to unfasten it from the root That mark which he set upon Cain was a continual trembling at the sight of man and beast Pharaoh was never at rest in his mind lest the Children of Israel should grow too fast and multiply so much that they would be too potent for the Tyrant that opprest them He sent darkness to astonish the Egyptians and they were troubled with strange Apparitions Wisd xvii 3. He sent such a Panick fear among the Syrians that they verily believed they heard the noise of an Host and Chariot wheels when there was no such thing so they fled and left to besiege
it in his wrath that the mothers womb should bring forth children in sorrow yet he never recalled his former Sentence of grace but that fecundity should be a benediction As a rich harvest is joyfully received when the Valleys stand thick with Corn and a rich Autumn is most welcom when the trees bow down their arms to reach us fruit So Children and the fruit of the womb are a most desired Heritage that cometh of the Lord. Old Jacob anon before he departed out of the world poured out the strength of his prayers upon Joseph and this benefit he did impropriate to him Gen. xlix 25. The God of thy fathers shall bless thee with the blessings of the breasts and of the womb But it had been better for us that all women had been barren if the Saviour of mankind had not been inclosed in the womb of Mary All fruitfulness is to be congratulated but hers especially Blessed is the womb c. Thirdly I make no scruple to affirm it that this was the very thought and fancy of the woman that uttered these words that the Mother was most honoured full of fame and glory who had a Son that spake so divinely and wrought such heavenly Miracles It is a great recompence which God gives to careful Parents upon earth when their off-spring live soberly and temperately to be their comfort and honour Do you question it but that Rebeckah was pleased above all contents which the earth could afford when Jacob whom she tendered as her hearts darling was so just and diligent in the fear of the Lord Do you suppose that Bathsheba knew not how many eyes of favour were upon her how many tongues did congratulate her when her Solomon was the wisest of all the Kings of the earth that sate upon a Throne With what exultation did Olimpia speak often of her Son Alexander and his Monarchy How did Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi please her self when certain strangers noted her for a plain Matron that wore no rich or gaudy dressings as the fashion of the Roman Ladies was in those days but when her hopeful Sons came home she told her Guests those were her Cabinet of Jewels Hi sunt mei torques haec mea monilia And this is the reward on earth of all Paternal care and anxiety Spes surgentis Iuli that solace which you take in the ingenuous obedience of children as we call it towardliness And the neglect of their breeding a mischief which is seldom recovered if the Plant be marred in the first setting and tendance I say that neglect is a manifest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a plain want of natural affection which is a denying of the faith But the fear of the Lord which is instilled into Children from their Infancy is not only the Childrens but even the Parents happiness The rare endowments that appeared in Christ made a certain woman here cast the praise of it upon the Mother Blessed c. And thus far in the Litteral sense as far as flesh and bloud could reveal unto her But if she could have seen into the Scriptures as the holy Spirit hath enabled us to see into them there are other grounds of more Evangelical observation And first let it be noted that the blessedness which is attributed to the womb that bore our Saviour redounds to all the members of his mystical body Even as upon that saying of our Saviour to St. Peter Blessed art thou c. Mat. xvi St. Austin says that the words should not have a full and illustrious sense unless they were referred to the whole Church So this saying in my Text were maimed and imperfect unless we enlarged it thus to all Believers blessed and thrice blessed are all the Sons and Daughters of God through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ who was he that came down into this wretched world to make it almost equal with heaven it self Let the Earth be glad and let the Hills rejoyce let the Sea make a noise and all that is therein What a flower of Jessai did the earth bring forth instead of thorns and briars What a Day-star did shine upon our Hemisphere which was justly threatned with eternal darkness What Prince of peace was this which visited us when we were at war and defiance with God and our selves and with all the Powers of Heaven What purity was this which mixt with our uncleanness What Omnipotent that descended to our weakness What Immortal that would be dishonoured with our corruption and mortality All treasures of Wisdom are hid in his age of nonage all Strength in his infant infirmity all Riches in his state of poverty all Righteousness in him that was accused of iniquity all Freedom from bondage in him that was wrapt up in swadling clouts all Felicity in him that was encompassed with weakness and misery These are the fruits of his Nativity these are the benefits of his birth and infancy The Eternal Father did more for us when he made him flesh than when he made the heaven and the earth beside without his Incarnation the Earth had been our Curse all the Elements our Plague the Heaven above our Envy and the Hell beneath our portion for ever But as soon as ever the Babe who is blessed for ever did open the womb our fetters were broken in sunder the kingdom of darkness spoyled no Malediction remained in the Law any longer no curse in death Hoc est Christianae fidei fundamentum quia unus per quem ruina alius homo Christus per quem structura This is the foundation of Christian faith this is the scope of all the Scripture this is the ground work of all hearts ease and consolation that one man was our ruine and another man was our reparation As the Apostle says Heb. ii 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation we deserve to mourn if we do not magnifie God for this joy we deserve to be miserable for ever if we prefer not the blessing we received this day for the very crown of our happiness Though you now see him not yet believing ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. i. 8. One man in a family having a fortunate advancement makes his whole blood and kindred fortunate with him how much more shall Christ make all mankind happy being made one of us accedens ad nos per id quod assumpsit ex nostro liberans nos per id quod mansit ex suo He is come near unto us all by that nature which he assumed of ours and he hath redeemed us all by that glorious Deity which was ever his own Finally there was a concurrency of all sorts of blessedness in this most mysterious Incarnation The Mother pure from all carnal copulation and incorrupt in her Virginity the place comfortable to the worst sinners because he chose his habitation among beasts in a stable and an ostery for the common resort of all
passengers because he came into the world for a publick benefit The time most seasonable and accommodate the very fulness of time as the Apostle says Whereupon St. Ambrose Christus tanquam maturitas advenit ut nihil acerbum nihil immaturum nihil immite sit he came when all the fruits of comfort were mellow ripe and delicious that nothing might be sower or harsh or distasteful to us Tardius enascitur cupressus seris umbram factura nepotibus says Pliny the Cypress tree is long a growing yet when it is grown up to a tree the shade of it serves for an harbour to the child unborn So the long expectation of Christs coming is requited with those blessings that grow up more and more and spread wider and wider for all generations to come The company that came from heaven to congratulate this day most glorious and chearful a multitude of heavenly host and what a mighty army hath he levied to take our part in respect of those few scattered forces which are against us The manner of his birth most edifying and instructive in all abjectness and low estate in all poverty and humility A magnificent pompous Saviour would have been a scandalous example as we may well mistrust it to the high imaginations of our hearts and might sooner have destroyed this proud world than redeem'd it we did not want a Champion in arms but an Infant in swadling clouts We did not need a Prince guarded with his Peers but one in the form of a servant whose best companions that came about him were silly Shepherds It was not for our turn to have one that would keep state and ruffle Superbia non est magnitudo sed tumor Pride is not greatness verily and in truth nay but a tumor that is blown up with appearance It was for our profit to have one that did empty himself of his glory and make himself of low degree that man may blush away his own pride when he sees the Son of God invested with humility Finally the fruit of this Nativity O the fruit of it is passing delectable and unutterable grace illumination vacancy from fear of condemnation tranquility of conscience angelical protection here angelical society hereafter to know the rigor of the Law was the old lesson to know the Covenant of Grace the new to live and dye were vulgar things to rise from death and to live for ever came by him who being our head was made mortal that we might be immortal members of his body So I have pointed only to severals as in a map to the felicity of the Womb he chose of the place that received him of the time that exactly fitted him of the company that congratulated him of the humility that adorn'd him of the precious fruit that grew from him that the Sum might redound to make up this principal point of my Text everlasting blessing is the free gift of God to this whole world through the Incarnation c. The second Evangelical observation above that which the woman conceived that spake these words is thus Both the Womb and the Paps also of common Mothers are obnoxious to many miseries and to such great ones sometimes that they prove mortal The subtilty of the Serpent brought this curse upon the Womb of mothers Gen. iii. 16. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children That calamity is a common wound to that tender sex not so apt to bear any sore affliction But the birth of Christ was without the pangs and hard travail of the Mother The malediction was not upon Mary but Blessed was the womb that bare him Ipsa genetrix fuit obstetrix says St. Cyprian Mary was both the Mother and the Midwife of the Child Far be it from us to think that the weak hand of any woman could facilitate that work which was guided only by the miraculous hand of God The Lord did do his own work so great so transcendent without all humane assistance And mark another reason of St. Austins if any should headily contradict it Quod sine voluptate carnis concepit sine dolore peperit The Virgin conceived our Lord without the lusts of the flesh and therefore she brought him forth without the dolour without the curse of the flesh And many other of the Fathers for it was their common tradition have these similitudes upon it As a Bee draws hony from the flower without offending it as Eve was taken out Adams side without any grief to him as a Sprig opens the bark of a tree to grow out of it as the light sparkles from the light of a Star such ease it was to Mary to bring forth her first born Son Gravida sed non gravabatur says Bernard Shee had a burden in her Womb before she was delivered yet she was not burdened that lies upon this proof that shee took a journey instantly before she was delivered from Nazareth to Bethlehem above forty miles and yet she suffered it without weariness or complaint For such was the power of the Babe that he did rather support the Mothers weakness than was supported And as he lightned his Mothers travail by t he way that it was not tedious to her tender age so he took away all dolour and imbecillity from her travail in Child-birth This was a benediction upon her Womb Blessed is the Womb c. Thirdly In this the woman prophesied more than shee understood that whereas nature is like Hagar that bringeth forth children unto bondage and all the off-springs which Mothers bring forth are in themselves accursed from the womb for we are all born and conceived in sin Prius reati quam nati only this child this Immanuel this holy of holies was a righteous branch that knew no sin that had no part in iniquity and therefore exempted from that malediction which lies upon our shoulders from the first hour wherein we are born According to the strictness of the Law by which no flesh is justified that sentence is most righteous against us all Deut. xxviii 18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body Therefore Job sell out with his birth-day and so did Jeremy for until the time that we are regenerate and born anew 't is most true which they perhaps disgusted in discontent Cursed be the day wherein I was born let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed St. Ambrose reduceth it very well to this moral application let the day of my first birth perish that I may be accounted to live from the day of my regeneration Pereat dies secularis ut dies spiritualis oriatur vanish those days of sin that none but spiritual days may shine upon me But all that bitter mourning came from hence that nothing but wrath and rejection belongs unto us as we are born in original depravation This is true in all one only excepted who in the similitude of sinful flesh took our nature upon him
Observation of days touching the very labour of the Cattel in the field and what not It was a burden as the Apostles testifie which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear yet there was sweetness in all this because it was done for the Lords sake though the task had been stricter David did well set forth the condition of the Law unto what great bondage it did captivate a man in these words Behold O Lord how that I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid a servant in extremity of thraldom and therefore it was repeated a Servant born for partus sequitur ventrem he must needs be so that was the Son of an handmaid he was born to be circumcised and to be a debtor to the whole Law Such were all they that boasted themselves to be the only freemen in the world because they were the Sons of Abraham Nay Simeon was not only such a Servant as I have hitherto described bridled under the Pedagogy of Moses Law but out of the relative terms of my Text I will shew that he was in greater subjection and aw for how doth he call the Lord here Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Lord that had power of life and death over his Vassal you shall not find it used again in all the four Evangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Favorinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Lord of a bondman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a freeman that is an hired servant I have plaid the Critick enough such servants those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were anciently called so not because they were paid for their labour which they did undergo in drudgery but because they were taken by hostility and their lives were forfeited to the Conquerour who had power to slay them yet spared them and resigned them up into their hands that would lay down a ransom for them So Simeon confesseth that God had the power of life and death over him when he might have killed him out of his clemency he spared him Behold a Servant then and such as he was such were all the Jews a man under the yoke of the Law and under the power of death But behold as this day the Deliverer was born and did quite change the copy of our service Christ as God did put the Church under the servitude of the Law but being made man he hath exempted us to the liberty of the Gospel and though we shall all die through that sentence which cannot be repealed yet if we believe that he hath given himself a ransom for us and live unto righteousness we shall not die unto condemnation But that you may know what kind of servants they are that retain to that family whereof God takes the care and administration mind the character of Simeon which the Holy Ghost gives him in the verses preceding my Text for his Calling it is obscurely past over thus there was a man in Jerusalem Galatinus says out of the Rabbins that one Simeon the just was the Master of the great Doctor Gamaliel and that may very well light upon this Simeon Much hath been urged to prove him to be a Priest but to no purpose Salmeron and Tolet alledge that when a child came to be presented to the Lord the Priest took the child out of the arms of his Mother and did not restore him again till he was redeemed for five Shekles of Silver according to the Law Num. xviii but how will they prove that a Child might not light into the arms of some other incidentally as well as into the arms of the Priest Yea but Simeon blessed Joseph and Mary ver 34. that is a Sacerdotal action Nay not always old Jacob blessed Pharaoh and every Prophet is an instrument of Benediction At the last heave says Tolet it is an old tradition of the Church to paint him in a Priestly Vesture an hard refuge when they refer us for a proof to Pictures and not to the Word of God Whether the Priesthood or the Layty may challenge him for theirs I know not one thing I know that he was a just man and waited for the consolation of Israel a pious holy Father a frequenter of the Temple a man uncompounded with the world but this was his righteousness that he lookt for the blessed off-spring God and man whom the Lord would send to redeem his Saints You will say perhaps did not all the Jews expect the Messias What did he more than other men Why herein he did exceed them that they did not look for such benefits from the Messias as Simeon did such spiritual refreshment for the soul and for the spirit Then the common sort of people lookt for Christ afar off he lookt for him just at that time near at hand As Joseph of Arimathea is said to look for the Kingdom of God that is to see Christ incarnate even then in the fulness of time Luke xxiii 51. Again others waited for Christ but carelesly without any earnest affection Simeon even languisht with longing and did passionately desire it St. Austin says that he did continually pray for the coming of Christ and often repeated that of David Psal lxxxv Shew us thy mercy O Lord and grant us thy salvation and then God answered him that he would fulfill his hearts desire Nicephorus tells us a vagrant story that Simeon was reading those words Isa vii Behold a Virgin shall conceive a Son and being sollicitous what that place should mean an Angel appeared and told him he should not die till he had seen that Babe with his eyes of whom Isaiah Prophesied This is certain the Holy Ghost had given him some great assurance of it The Spirit was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 25. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only in him but upon him which signifies extraordinary assistance as when it is said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me Isa lxi You see now with what endowments of heavenly graces Simeon was enricht before he called himself the servant of the Lord. His modesty would give himself no better title yet our Saviour speaks better things of those that believed Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends c. Joh. xv 15. It is not the meaning that we shall ever out-grow the name of servant for even at the day of judgment in the time of our reward it shall be said Well done good and faithful servant But here it is we are all servants by debt and nature the Gospel stiles us friends by Covenant and Composition Before Christ was revealed God dealt with them of the Synagogue as with servants he did not reveal the mysteries of the Trinity of the Incarnation of the coming of the Holy Ghost if he did reveal them to the Prophets it was ex privilegio not ratione status it was by
goodness were remarkable for the quantity that he had an exceeding portion of the Spirit in which regard he was more than a Prophet for the time that he received it it was from the womb yea and in some signs before the womb had opened to bring him forth in which regard he was more than the child of any Prophet these two the Angel hath put together He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mothers womb This was inundatio spiritus the Spirit abounding in him as a River at high-water fills the banks but in the most probable opinion it was not emundatio spiritus it did not cleanse his soul from corruption in every part but it instructed him with vertue more than ordinary to do great works For God forbid but that a man may be said to be sanctified and to be full of the Holy Ghost although the infectious poyson of original sin do still remain in him Which original contagion raigns in the wicked is much abated and kept under in the Just was lessen'd by Gods especial favour more than usually in John but the malignity thereof is not quite taken away till our mortal have put on immortality The reason is very slender that the sin wherein his mother conceived him was taken away before he was born because he seemed to have a passion of faith before ever he saw the light when he leapt at the presence of our Saviour for that might be a transient passion and no doubt it was no more and nothing lets but sin may abide also where the Spirit of grace doth inhabit and continue That which is alledged to prove him to have some defilement like all the Sons of Adam is far more forcible namely where the Scripture says how all are conceived and born in sin Where it lets us know in another place how God hath concluded all under sin that he might have mercy upon all And St. Austin upholds this cause Nemo dici potest renatus nisi priùs sit natus Christ says Unless a man be born again he cannot be the child of God Surely common sense will lead us to this notion a man must be first born before he can be born again and if carnal birth go before Regeneration then no man can be cleansed from all sin before the birth of the womb Besides out of the same reason that St. Austin brings against the Pelagians to prove that the leprosie of Adams sin is in little Infants by the same I will prove it to be in John because the wages of sin is death Christ only excepted who took our sins upon him and the beheading of John is a remonstrance that the meritorious cause of death was in him I mean iniquity To give full measure to this Point and running over Mat. xi 11. Verely says Christ among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist yet he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he I leave the multipliciousness of Expositions upon that Text and betake me to St. Hieroms Aliud est coronam justitiae possidere aliud in acie pugnare The least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than John because he was in his race and did struggle against sin and Satan the least in the kingdom of heaven hath his Crown upon his head and is past the fear of tentation So I have shewn that John had some frailties of flesh and bloud in him wherefore most submissively he flies to the true Altar of mercy for a pardon I have need to be baptized of thee Let the Saints of God have their due honour but let the mercies of Christ and the benefit of his bloud shed upon the Cross be dilated to every one that dies in the Lord which was the reason why I prosecuted the last Point And it is according to the humility of John to set forth his low estate when men would exalt him For the more the Embassadors of the Jews did magnifie him with Art thou the Christ Art thou Elias The more did he abase himself saying There is one among you whose shooes latchet I am not worthy to unloose Displiciat sibi unusquisque in se ut totus in Deo placeat Be displeased every man with himself and God will be pleased with thee This was of all comforts most intimate to the Prophets soul that he saw his own need and knew the right way to call for succour And the less hope he had of himself the more hope he had of God O how his hope quickned and exulted when he saw his Redeemer at Jordan whom he had never seen before He saw such comfort coming down with him as the Angel brought to Peter when he was in hold now the prison doors are opened get thee loose from thy sins But what speak I of Angels They had been sent indeed upon messages of joy there had been Patriarchs there had been Prophets in the world these were like fair diamonds whose light sparkles in the eye but gives no warmth to that which is cold But as the Psalmist says Except the Lord build the house the labourers labour but in vain Except the Son of God had vouchsafed in his own person to build the Church we had never reapt the fruit of eternal life John Baptist was an Israelite yet he trusts not to the Seed of Abraham Born under the Law but he knew it were death to rely upon that killing Letter He was a Prophet sanctified from the womb he cares not for that For what had he which he had not received and could he boast then as if he had not received it Finally He was full of fasting austerity preaching all manner of works yet he relies not upon them for when we have done all we can we are but unprofitable servants These are the strongest stays of humane trust that can be built upon yet he flies from them all and runs to the all-sufficient merits of Christ for succour This was a right aim taken Ac si oculo rubricam dirigat uno this was a straight line drawn bringing his hope just upon the Lord and giver of life I have need to be baptized of thee The time hath stopt me from proceeding to the last part which shall be made the beginning of our business upon the next occasion To God the Father c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 14 15. And comest thou to me And Jesus answering said unto him Suffer it to be so now For thus it becommeth us to fulfil all righteousness IF ever such an Argument could be laid before man wherein it might become his wit to dispute it with God I think verily it fell out in this Story which I continue in that Text that I have read unto you I will not except that instance which is able to amaze any Reader when the Lord spake unto Abraham to take his only Son Isaac and
for us and by imputation to bear our iniquities is part of those unknown torments of our Saviour which cannot be uttered Christo innocentissimo maxima fuit crux tradi iniquitati says one it was not such a sorrow to Christ to be delivered up to Caiaphas to Pilate to the Souldiers to the Cross as to be bound over to carry the mass of all our sins upon his shoulders Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the Cross 1 Pet. ii 17. Moriar prae amore amoris tui Domine O let me die for love of that great love of thine O Lord as one cries out upon it There are three things miserable and afflictive in the nature of man and that our Elder Brother Christ Jesus might be like unto his Brethren in all things he did in some manner undergo them all The first are taedia naturae the tedious and irksom difficulties of nature as hunger thirst weariness sharp punishments and fetters there was never any Martyr better acquainted with these than our blessed Lord. The second are languores naturae the diseases and defects of nature but these belong not to mankind in general but are personal mishaps for this and other reasons our Saviour was clear of them yet he did bear all those sicknesses and maladies for us in compassion as St. Paul says Bear ye one anothers burdens Gal. 6. that is by mutual pitty and affection so Christ did take our diseases upon him by compunction and commiseration for his brethren The third are deformitates naturae all manner of sins which are the ugly blots and deformities of nature and those he did bear for us not by being made a sinner but by representation when he stood before John in Jordan like one that was defiled He came to undergo infirmities and to confer strength to take injuries to bestow dignities to stand for a sick person and to bring health to represent a sinner but to act a Saviour That is the sum of the third reason Fourthly St. Austin imagined that Christ had another intention in his Baptism indirectly and by the by Vt Daemoni se occultaret for the device of a stratagem to mock the Devil that he might not be known of him but to draw Satan into the combat of a tentation which fell out in the beginning of the next Chapter The Figures out of the Old Testament were not unknown to this cunning Serpent that it must be only an Heifer without blemish and a Lamb without spot which was offered up unto the Lord to be a Sacrifice of attonement Therefore he must be holy and undefiled who should be sent from God to bruise the Serpents head and to save the people from their sins Then this projecting Satan makes no question to rank him for a defiled person that came to be baptized therefore he doth infer foolishly that upon advantage of fasting forty days he might tempt him to sin against the Lord. Because the Devil and his Angels make it their life and pleasure to delude us silly men God makes it his glory in our just revenge to mock and delude our enemy as the Priests of Baal abused the poor people with hypocritical false pretences therefore Elias turned those scoffs upon themselves and flouted the Priests of Baal It is strange that when as the Devil glories in the subtilty of a Serpent yet God should make his understanding so blind that he never perfectly understood how Christ was the eternal Son of God that came to destroy his grizzly kingdom untill he had suffered upon the Cross and died for the sins of the world First Satans eyes were dazled that he could not learn whether Christ was born of a pure Virgin because by Gods providence she was married to Joseph Besides like a meer man he was obedient to his Parents and for thirty years neither preacht nor wrought any miracle In the first issue he sees him baptized in the representation at least of a sinful man he sees him in a great peril upon the waters nigh to drowning observes he kept no austere life but eat and drank with sinners finally views him betrayed by a Disciple that was his own familiar friend then beaten and bruised by every cruel Officer All these badges of infirmity put together did drive those Fiends of darkness to surmise this was not He that should conquer death and the nethermost Pit At last the most refined of the ancient Authors do ingenuously collect that when Satan perceived him answering nothing before Pilate but willing to be offered up then he began to interpret this was the Lamb dumb before the shearer so opened he not his mouth and finally at the Passion of the Cross he might see plainly that God had darkned him not to find the truth and that his Dominion through his own malice was taken away for ever by the death of Jesus Therefore I return where I began the reason this wicked one was intrapt to think our blessed Lord was a sinner because he was baptized Says Origen upon the Passion Christ was visibly crucified in Mount Calvary but invisibly the Devil and the powers of Hell was nailed to the Cross so I may say Christ was visibly baptized but Satan and his Host were invisibly drowned in those waters because they were sanctified in this washing to save us from our sins And that is the sum of the fourth reason For brevity sake I will joyn our last reason and some meditations of Use together Our Saviour came to be baptized Vt per novum ritum homines ad novitatem introducerentur that by his example to undergo a new Rite and Ordinance men might be drawn from old customs to newness of life The new Ordinance had ratification and authority from the act of Christ as I have shewed before he was both circumcized and baptized but says Bernard Illud mihi tenendum tradidit quod ultimò suscepit He hath delivered to me to have and to hold for the perpetual Sacrament of the Church that which was last in being for the form of a new Covenant was established to evacuate the old But what 's a new form if the old corruptions be retained What an eye-sore is a new piece in an old garment As good be an unbelieving Jew after the ancient tincture of the Law as be a novel transformed Christian after the old leven of the Devil As St. Paul put the Romans in mind of their first rudiments so must I remember you Rom. vi 4. Therefore we are buried with Christ by Baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so also we should walk in newness of life Here are three things in order that have a pious connexion between them first a burial as it were in the water then a death and after that a rising again First I say the plunging or dipping in the water resembles a burial for although
truth after so much Preaching and Writing which the very Devils believed though unwillingly after the manifestation of some signs and tokens that the Son of Mary the Virgin was the Son of God coeternal and consubstantial with his Father All that knew Christ to be the Lord did not apprehend him after the same manner His Disciples and generally all that belong to the true Church find him out per lumen fidei by the revelation of supernatural faith so you must understand that in St. John No man knoweth the Father but the Son and no man knoweth the Son but he to whom the Father will reveal him Secondly The Angels of heaven who desire to peep into these mysteries they know him per lumen gloriae by the illumination of celestial glory Thirdly The Devils who are able to collect from signs and conjectures far more than any man these were convicted by his outward works and miracles as the Centurion cried out when the Sun was eclipsed and the veil of the Temple was rent in twain surely this was the Son of God St. Austin hath two rules of great direction to them that would be satisfied in this question 1. Christus tantùm innotuit Daemonibus quantùm voluit That cannot be denied Christ was disclosed to the Devils so much at a time as he saw fit to reveal himself and no more therefore their reason lacks weight that object how the very evil Angels being at first created full of rare perfections must needs know the mystery of the holy Trinity and that was such a principle of divine knowledge as could never be lost and by consequent they could never misconceive who was the Son of God This Argument is sand without chalk and doth not hang together For all that rebellious Regiment being cast out of heaven they were bereft of that excellent knowledge and of all other supernatural endowments and now they apprehend no more of God than God thinks it expedient for his own glory So stands the second rule of St. Austin Sic eis innotuit sicut eis terrendis innotescendum fuit Christ opened himself to Satan even as in the revenge of his justice he thought it fit to increase his terrour and amazement It was not a saving knowledge to the Devil no nor a knowledge so much as to make him cautious but a knowledge that increased sorrow and inflamed him with hatred Concerning the most wicked of men it is said None of the Princes of this world knew him for had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of life◠But Satan knew him and knew the Prophets what a glorious triumph the ignominy of the Cross would be unto him and as Isaiah saith by his death My righteous servant shall justifie many he knew he should destroy his own kingdom by the death of Christ yet Satan did prosecute against him and put it into the heart of Judas for since God had appointed his Son should die the Devil could not hinder his counsel and an outragious malice made him run desperate upon his own ruine This sprig of the Devils condition is planted in too many who are maliciously carried away with that Hell within them which hunts for vengeance Here is one drives his neighbour through all the Purgatories of the Law and yet perceives it must eat out his own estate and beggar him Here is another will quarrel to the death though nothing more certain than fall under the Sword or hang under the Gallows How many bloudy Assassines have crept out of Friers Cels and Jesuites Colledges and have lifted up their hand against God himself I may say in the person of Gods Anointed This blow they are sure shall both curse the Miscreant that did it and the Religion that taught it These are not weakness of men infirmities of the flesh though men would be wicked yet unless the Devil were in it and his desperate malice to boot such apparent sottishness could not be in their wickedness The agitation of this first Point lies but one question further whether this argument of the Tempters were strong enough to discover the true Son of God Command that these stones be made bread Creation is an act proper to the Lord and certainly incommunicable to any creature for there is an infinite distance between something and nothing therefore nothing but an infinite power can make something of nothing Now to create is either simply to give a being where there was none before as to make the earth and the heavens of nothing or to produce a thing out of such matter as was no way prepared for such a form as to make a man of the slime of the earth For it is as much to produce one substance out of another in a moment which was no way prepared for alteration as it is to create it out of nothing These could not choose but be Satans principles to be confident in this experiment If thou be the Son c. You will say perhaps did not Elisha the Prophet increase whole vessels of oyl from a little Cruse And yet this is no warrant to say he was the Son of God Beloved Elisha did make the Prayer for the poor Widows sake and God did multiply the oyl into that mighty quantity therefore we must run to this answer Either Satan hath more quickness and insight than men have to know when a miracle is done immediately by God himself or by his Servant whether by the prime Independent power or by the second and derivative power or else there is no evasion but we must say for all his art the Devil required no sufficient argument to convince his Infidelity This Christ might do as the Son of God by excellent adoption not by eternal generation and this will make that frequent saying of Athanasius true that the Devil was an Arian Cardinal Tolet a man of no small wit goes further in his conjectures than any man hath done before him Thus he objects Whither would this Serpent wind himself Or what would he find out The very Son of God by such a miracle as this Did not Moses work stranger conversions before Pharaoh And yet Pharaoh did not say this is the Son of God but truly this is the finger of God or the power of God that worketh in Moses Nay the evil one himself is able to bring about strange prestigiations as were seen in Pharaohs Sorcerers You see how hard it is to ground our faith as the Devil would do his upon miracles Yet Satan was more cunning in this way than any man can be for his judgment did lean upon two principles first if Christ turned stones into bread the hand of God was in it for our Saviour was holy and unblameable no way tainted with Magical Sorcery and if any Daemoniacal Art were in the fact the Prince of Devils must needs be aware of it Secondly God worketh no miracle by the hands of his Prophets or holy men to
he is made a greater vassal than the poorest of his Subjects themselves are the servants of corruption for of whom a man is overcome of the same he is brought in bondage 2 Pet. ii 19. What appearance of soveraignty was in the voluptuous Licinius Of whom Tacitus says Tanta torpedo invaserat animum ut si principem eum fuisse caeteri non meminissent ipse oblivisceretur Such a stupidness had possessed his mind that unless others had been mindful towards him that he was a Prince himself would have forgot it You see then there is no freedom but by killing the strength of sin and living unto God in new obedience if by one offence death reigned by one they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ Rom. v. 17. Sin holds the sinner under tyranny grace makes the righteous man reign in this life it is the Apostles phrase Therefore Christ who gives us freedom despised not to be called a servant to his Father Thou art my servant O Israel in whom I will be glorified Isa xlix 3. Thirdly That fawning heathen did humour his Patron for this reason Et habet quod det dat nemo largius So the Lord hath all manner of riches in store and he withholdeth no good thing from those that serve him No Master in the world is so munificent to reward his Ministers Let me borrow it from the Queen of Sheba's mouth what she said of Solomons attendants to apply it to those of Gods houshold that perform the task he sets them Happy are these thy servants that stand continually before thee being now made free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life Rom. vi 22. The poor bondman among the heathen had no more wages than food for all his drudgery the more hard-hearted they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristotle give a bond-slave provender like a beast and he is paid for his labour Did God ever use any of his retinue that serve him so hardly They have all their meat in due season and plenteously says he in the Parable How many hired servants are there in my Fathers house that have meat enough Yet this is nothing I may say to the remainder this is but the Alms-basket of his liberality What say you to this That he gave his only Son to redeem his servant and that the Servant might be spared even that most beloved Son did undergo the most bitter death of the Cross and all this that such servants as forgot the Lord who had done so great things for them and rebelled against him might be co-heirs with Christ in his Kingdom Who would not serve such a Master If he say go who would not make speed to follow If he say do this who would not do it He hath given us such hire more than all the world beside can lay down that we will worship the Lord our God and he only shall be served I should wrong the matter I handle if this question were not moved How we should feel the comfort in our selves that we serve the Lord I answer by a Negative by an Affirmative examination Negatively when we think that we have never laboured enough in our Lords Vineyard to earn our peny Or as it is elsewhere very clearly set down to take away all boasting from our works when we have done all we can say we are unprofitable servants The Affirmative Collection may be best drawn from a saying of Christs Mat. vi 24. No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will cleave to the one and despise the other Here I gather that the two notes of a good servant are deligere adhaerere to love and to cleave fast to his Master Those Servants that loved King David such as Hushai and Ittai and Ahimaaz would take part with him to the death in Absolons rebellion those were good Servants It was love that made Jacob such a diligent Shepherd under Laban to suffer heat and frost Laban never had the like to tend his flocks A servant that takes a delight to please you may trust him with any thing both for Faith and Diligence Nemo meliùs obtemperat quà m qui ex caritate obsequitur says St. Ambrose no man will obey God better or go further to discharge his Law then he that is rouzed up by the zeal of love and charity But he that doth the Lords work without pleasure and delight doth it with unwillingness unwillingness breeds sloath and between these all their service is left-handedly performed as if it were never intended Si quid invitus facis fit de te magis quà m id facis says Prosper Whatsoever you did grudgingly without love it was drawn from you but never done by you and as if you had not been the doer you shall never be rewarded Beside deligere I said there was adhaerere a good servant was no flincher but stuck close not a Fugitive as Jonas was not an Apostate as Demas was not one that began in the Spirit and ended in the Flesh the Galatians were thought to be bewitched that did so The Bond-man in the Old Law that loved his Master though the time of his releasement was come about would be bored through the ear for a ceremony that he would never part from him St. Paul was the fast man above all we read of that was glued unto the service of the Gospel Neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come c. shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yet I will end this Point in the words of one of our own Prelates a faithful Minister of God bestirs himself with respect to that one Master to whom he cleaves in all the works of his Vocation Ac si nihil aliud esset in hôc mundo praeter illum ac Deum As if there was none in the world but himself and God himself to obey and God to be served with all possible diligence This cleaving fast unto one Master doth link it self in with the next Point that the Lord God is only to be worshipped and served Let it not start your patience that I name it now the time is past I am not about to huddle it up at this time being the most copious subject and of the choicest variety in my judgment in all Divine Learning But this Doctrine you shall carry away with you at this time It is no impediment for Servants to shew all diligent duty to their Masters on earth because one verse of the Gospel says No man can serve two Masters and because my Text says of our Lord in heaven him only shalt thou serve Him only indeed in Religious Service in Divine Worship and Adoration he
away one opinion of St. Austins as quite out of the cancels of truth and then proceed He doth not deny but the dead through Gods concession may upon such occasions as the Lord directs them to appear unto the living he cites Samuel brought up by the Witch of Endor to speak with Saul What if that were not Samuel but an evil Spirit or an Imposter he cites Ecclesiasticus He objects what if that Book be refused because it is not in the Canon of the Hebrews Then he cites our present instance of Moses and Elias yet he falls off again and thinks the Saints themselves appear'd not but seem'd to appear by the Ministry of Angels Many times in the Old Testament when the Angel is sent from God as a Legate He speaks in the person of his King I am the Lord thy God therefore he presumes that Angels in this place might be called by the names of Moses and Elias for whom they appeared The same most excellent Author is more orthodox in other places upon this point This cannot well consist Christs glory was true and not ficticious it betokened a true estate of blessedness to us miserable men hereafter therefore it cannot piece well together that all this should be confirmed by ficticious and imaginary Witnesses Now I venture forward and first I will speak of Elias how he came in his own body then of Moses I have a reason for it and St. Mark 's words ly so there appeared unto them Elias with Moses In what body should Elias be an assistant to Christs glory now but in the same body wherein He was taken up in a whirlwind to Heaven Henoch and Elias were ever parallelled to be of the same condition in Gods favour that their Body was never dissolved from the Soul but in their whole substance assumed up on high Some Jewish Rabbins have presum'd to teach more than Scripture that the Bodies of Henoch and Elias were dissolved into Elements in their rapture and nothing but their Soul was received into Abrahams bosom I smell the leaven of the Sadduces in those Rabbies for certainly the origen of it came from such as they who resisted the truth that a Body could not be exalted to heavenly places Is not St. Paul enough to silence all tongues of that language Heb. xi 5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death If Enoch did not see death in his translation and that 's the fair letter of the Scripture no more did Elias Says Epiphanius Henoch and Helias their Bodies and Souls were never parted but remain undivided for ever Henoch lived a married life Elias was a Virgin to shew that continency in Marriage and Virginity shall both be glorified in the great day of the Resurrection Thus Epiphanius and I could name a multitude of concurrents who are advowers of the same sentence They that list to be contentious gainsay this Doctrin touching Elias his Body that it never was corrupted from the common theme of mans mortality Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. v. 12. Death passed upon all men what 's that but a just Sentence and Decree and none can say Why am I born to dy But there is mercy and power in the Most High to spare and to execute his Decree upon whom he pleaseth Heb. ix 27. Statutum est that presseth home says the Antagonist it is appointed unto men once to dye that 's the Text indeed but not statutum est omnibus it is appointed unto all men once to die as some do read it The ordinary end of men is death but God hath his exemptions and priviledges to limit that Statute I tell you a mystery says St. Paul We shall not all die but we shall all be changed there 's one limitation They that are found upon the earth at the second coming of Christ shall not die but shall be snatcht up with Christ in glory non separatione formae sed immutatione qualitatum their Soul shall not be taken of the Body but corruptible qualities shall be taken from the Body So it was in Elias his Rapture the Body was not destroyed but only that corruption which was in his Body Again it is appointed unto men once to die semel once and no more Yet the Shunamites Son Jairus Daughter Lazarus and many others brought back from their Graves died twice there 's another limitation of the Statute Nothing concludes from thence but that Elias his Body was never dissolved in that Body wherein he talked with God at Mount Horeb in the same Body he heard God talk to his Son at Mount Tabor about the time of the Transfiguration But as for Moses after what manner he came to Christ in the shape of a Body I cannot speak with any certainty To hold that the elements were compacted into the figure of a Body that he might use it for that occasion and then disperse it into air when the mysterie was finished hath an ill relish in it because imaginary shapes like Pageants to be set up for a while and strait taken down again were not fit demonstrations of the truth of the Resurrection Damascen observes wittily that it is likely how the Promise which God did long before make to Moses was now fulfilled Exod. xxxiii 23. That thou shalt see my back parts but my face shall not be seen meaning says he that the eye of man could not see his Divinity but he should have the honour to see Christ incarnate That is not unfitly called posteriora or exteriora Dei the out parts or the Veil of the Godhead Now was that desire of Moses fulfilled and the Son of Man in excellent beauty stood before him but had he not seen him with his own eyes all had not been according to his first desire and affection And me-seems that this conjecture is not weak if Elias had appeared in his own flesh Moses but in a phantastical shape this had derogated from the dignity of Moses who was the Prophet than whom none was greater from the Law to John the Baptist The Jews oppress us again with their figments in a second opinion saying that Moses was so beloved of God that he never saw death but continued in his Body for ever as Elias doth Josephus tells us his mind herein so plainly that I perceive the most did follow him that when Joshuah and Eleazar had parted with Moses upon Mount Nebo he was taken away from them in a Cloud and advanced to Heaven but to make the people quiet that they might not talk too much of his exaltation and attribute too much honour unto him he left it written that he died in the Land of Moab But this doth peremptorily contradict the Holy Word in divers places He died and was buried in a Valley in the Land of Moab Deut. xxxiv 6. according to the word of the Lord. That word is in the same book Deutr. xxxii 50. Thou
exhalation transpassant from man to man because the first sin was the biting of a Serpent Thirdly By the object of the Serpent we not only see the Author of all sin and the infectious venom of it but likewise a cunning craftiness which Satan hath entailed to the mystery of iniquity lying in wait whom he may deceive There is nothing that will lurk more subtilly to do an ill turn than some sort of Serpents or steal an opportunity more warily Then why should not all plots and mischievous arts of cunning be as hateful as an hissing Adder Nay why not as odious as Beelzebub himself the Prince of Devils Some such there are that have their sharpness of wit from no better founder than the old Dragon that have no measure in their dissimulation no trust in their word no fidelity in their oath no remorse no distinction in conscience whom they ruine and these are counted useful and fit for employment I do not altogether blame the Turks for reputing natural Ideots to be Saints I am sure they are Saints in comparison with such cunning Merchants But a true Christian is somewhat compounded out of the better part of them both as it is Rom. xvi 19. I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Nazianzen inoffensiveness tempered with much intelligence The simplicity of the Dove mitigating the subtilty of the Serpent To say all in a little Sin is supported by Stratagems but Justice by grave knowledge Therefore love wisdom because it comes from God Practise innocency because it comes from Christ Hate subtilty because it is the badge of the Serpent abhor mischief it is the work of the Devil This is for the general we all see what sin is in the Image of the Serpent More particularly the Israelites saw their own sin in that spectacle wherewith they provoked the Lord Num. xxi 4. The people were not turned aside from the promised Land but were wearied with a long journey and in their bitterness they spake against God and Moses They that serve God for temporal things will quickly murmur when they want rest and ease If the ground be not soft under their feet they think it tedious though it should bring them to heaven Beside they loathed Manna it was too light for their hot stomachs and it did not satisfie Somewhat else they would have yet they could not tell what themselves As they that are not contented with the bread that comes down from heaven shall be gnawn with the worm of superstition that will never give them quiet but these are the hints that provoked them to speak against God A little painfulness was repined at as a great deal of misery and a great benefit was repined at as but a little favour Now they that whet their tongues like Serpents was it not meet they should be stung with Serpents They that spat Poison against their Maker did they not deserve a poisonous castigation Or will they dare to murmur any more when they see their punishment cast in brass and abiding for a durable monument If we murmur against him whom we are bound to praise and love is not that disloyalty So did the Israelites If we murmur at small evils that may be tolerated is not that impatiency So did the Israelites If we murmur at good things for which we should rather give thanks if we murmur at Manna the precious nourishment of the soul is not that abominable ingratitude So did the Israelites And what should this sin be likened to but an Aspe or a Viper No Serpent is so much a Serpent as a grumbling spirit that is ever murmuring at God and Moses And this is the first use of the Brazen Serpent to turn unto it as a book wherein we read our sins Peccatum peccati cognitione curatur For the first cure to be applied unto sin is to make a recognition of it with an humble and a contrite spirit so did the truest Penitent and the greatest sinner King David I know my transgressions and my sin is always against me The next contemplation upon this brazen Image is not immediately to step from sin unto the remedy for the vengeance due unto sin is to be considered between them both Behold the bitter pain which Christ endured upon the Cross and it accuseth us that the disobedience was monstrous which must be expiated with so much sorrow Quà m gravis sit peccati conditio prodit remedii magnitudo says St. Austin How great the guiltiness of sin was appears in the magnitude of the remedy And no less it is apparent how insufferable that wrath was which we escaped because he sustained so much wrath that bore it in our stead Note the malediction which we had merited in the maledictive death which our Saviour did undergo and then it will be a pleasant thing to go to heaven as it were by the gates of hell But there is nothing more dangerous than deliverance out of danger if we forget the jeopardy I will bring this clearly out of the matter we have in hand The Creatures that annoyed the Israelites were Serpents For a serpentine sin deserved a serpentine punishment I will send the teeth of beasts upon them with the poison of the Serpents of the dust Deut. xxxiii 24. The teeth of other beasts might have procured a dismal slaughter but because a Serpent was accursed above every beast of the field the wounds that they made did superadd unto death the meditation of a curse and that their judgment was compounded with malediction And this was prosecuted in the figure that the brazen Serpent was lifted upon a pole to keep in mind that sting of the Law Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree Therefore you cannot deny that this is a looking-glass of Justice before we come to mercy As Christ crucified is a type of condemnation to unbelievers but a sacrifice of salvation to those that trust in his Redemption Oleaster says that the first Epithet that God gave to this Figure was to call it a Fiery Serpent Num. xxi 8. because a fire of Coals did continually burn within it that first it might strike dread and horror into all that saw it before it healed the impotent The fire of hell was annexed to that grace and blessing which came from heaven as if the sword of justice had been put up in the Scabbard of mercy but they were never asunder Lose not your self in applying mercy and nothing but mercy to your conscience lest it befall you as it doth with a Bee that is drowned in its own honey But correct presumption and confidence by converting to some remarkable objects of indignation When Achan that troubled the Land was executed They raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day says the Holy Ghost Josh vii 26. God doth not suffer grievous punishments to vanish as shadows but he makes them
betray me by the warning of the sop by rebuke and confusion Judas betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss though the treachery was permitted yet these were impediments though not such as would take place with a Reprobate Secondly God is no idle Spectator upon the actions of men whether good or bad where he permits the Devil to draw us into temptation his hand is not quite taken off from our sins but that he moderates our offences and that many ways as stopping our sins at such a quantity and excess that they shall go no further they that had power given them to kill Christ had not power to break his legs a bone of him could not be broken and the Lord sets other moments of time than the sinner casts about for himself as no man could lay hands on Christ yet the Pharisees fingers itcht at him because his hour was not yet come Therefore thirdly it must hang together with that which goes before that God disappoints a wicked man of that which he intends in his naughtiness and brings it about to his own glorious ends As Joseph said to his Brethren Ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good Gen. l. 20. Deus cogitavit id ipsum in bonum convertere Junius adds that unto it God did provide to convert it unto good Neither is our faith endangered hereupon to suspect God as the cause of sin because he draws his own ends out of evil that He may do and yet be no Author of sin but abhor it because He is Lord of those Creatures that sin and rebel against him and the Creature can no more exempt it self from his dominion because it is sinful then because it is sinful it will escape his Law or dissolve it self to nothing So then the antecedent Doctrin is summ'd up into this Thesis If you ask in these terms what was the cause of Christs death the answer is it was Gods Decree and eternal Statute for as much as He loved us with an everlasting love and would not spare his own Son to pull us out of destruction Again if you ask who was the cause that Christ was buffeted spot upon crowned with thorns crucified the answer is the Devil and his Instruments but when the Lord foresaw how their cruelty and blasphemy would abound his Counsel did direct moderate confine their sin and his loving kindness towards us that He might shew us plenteous redemption did permit it The ancient Fathers of the Church thought this the truest and most inoffensive conclusion to refer the injurious slaughter of Christ not to Gods ordination but to his permission You heard Leo's judgment before to whom St. Austin agrees The Jews enacted a sin which the righteous Lord did not compel them to do for no sin doth please him sed facturos esse praevidit quem nihil latuit but this was foreseen of him to whom nothing is concealed Yet St. Chrysostom more clearly that the scope of this part of St. Peters Sermon to the Jews is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was not their rage and violence which could have prevailed against Christ if God had not permitted it for as He did not command the evil Spirit to seduce Ahab and his flattering Prophets but the Devil offering himself and being most desirous to do that mischief God gave him leave and would not inhibit him so the Jews were not authorized or ordained or stirred up from God to shew that prodigious hatred to his Son but He yielded him up to their fury and did not deliver him therefore Christ did not say Father why hast thou given me up into their hands but my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Surely this is the scope of my Text and I believe they shoot wide from the mark that collect from hence that St. Peters meaning was either to excuse their heinous trespass or else to comfort their wounded conscience because Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledg of God no all the comfort which was administred is vers 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins There is no comfort under the Sun no balm in the world for a miserable sinner but repent and believe that there is abundant mercy in the satisfaction of Christ Jesus and for excuse that little extenuation of their fact which could be made is chap. iii. ver 17. Ye desired a Murtherer and killed the Prince of Life but I wote that through ignorance you did it as did also your Rulers these are plain and divine Allegations and there is no colour to help the greatness of their sin either from the determinate counsel or from the foreknowledg of God not from the determinate counsel for they had not an eye in the crucifying of Christ to comply with Gods counsel but to satiate their own spleen and hatred for impious men may execute that which God is content should come to pass and yet they do nothing less than obey God for obedience is not grounded upon the thing done but upon the readiness and duty of the will in doing beside was there any Law that commanded the High-Priests to crucifie our Saviour for God doth ever reveal his will in some Law No such Law I am sure therefore no obedience in this bloudy work of the Jews For no man can be said to obey that doth not know the will of the Lord neither doth direct his actions by the Rule of any Commandment And what had they to do with Gods secret counsel They had not the least glimpse of it Therefore my Text chargeth them home Ye have taken him and by wicked hands have crucified and slain him It is an error to amaze a man that reads it in the Popes Canon Law that because it was the counsel of the holy Trinity and the obedience of Christ to humble himself unto death even unto the death of the Cross therefore the Jews had sinned deadly if they had not crucified him It was well rejoyn'd by one that he wondred how the dumb and dead Paper did not stand up refusing to take that ink wherewith such an abominable blasphemy should be printed whereby the immaculate Lamb of God in whom there was no sin is affirmed to be justly and worthily condemned But will the fore-knowledge of God and that permission which followed it plead any part of their pardon Nothing less his fore-knowledge compels no man into the way of perdition God fore-sees iniquity in us because we will be evil but we are not made evil because he foresees it There have been always some in the world whom the Devil hath blinded with pernicious error making them dream of inevitable Fate and Destiny chiefly knitting this fallacy to fool themselves that Gods fore-sight cannot be deceived therefore such sins as he foresaw they would fall into are not to be declined St. Austin reprehended one of his Colledge
the people owe in the audience of the King and again they will preach how the King is tied to justice and equity far from Court in the audience of the People Inveigh against ingrossers of Grain in the City and against false Merchandise in the Country This is a most preposterous course and no way intended to edifie their Auditors So St. Peter might have tax'd the Idolatry of the Gentiles in the hearing of the Jews and the sin of the Jews that they killed Christ in the hearing of the Gentiles but that partition had been very ill divided For it were like that Paradox in Chirurgery called Vnguentum armarium to cure a man without application of the remedy at an hundred miles distance No St. Peter had no such Quacksalver tricks in Divinity but directs his reprehension to them that were before him Ye have taken c. And all the Jews were rightly thus accused except those few of men and women that were his Disciples and followed him for if they were not such as accused him falsely yet they were such as suborned Catives to betray him If they were not in the plot of betraying they were in the sin of delivering up to Pilate if not among those that delivered him up to judgment yet among those that cried out Crucifie him in the time of judgment Nay though they did not cry out nor so much as in their hearts consent to his unjust trial yet they held their peace they suffered wrong to prevail and did not resist it They did not put off the Roman Souldiers and stay their fatal hands in one respect or other they were all as guilty as St. Peter chargeth them By wicked hands ye have crucified and slain him Some of the Jewish Rabines slout at these words of St. Peters to this day saying the Christians are quite mistaken to impute unto them the crucifying of Christ for they had no such kind of death in their Law and they did all things à punto according to their Law they crucified no man They had but four capital punishments for Malefactors says Maimonides after the tradition of Moses killing with the Sword stoning to death hanging on a tree by the neck and burning But the infliction of crucifying was unheard of to their Nation Thus they And whereas Cardinal Baronius Cardinal Sigonius Justus Lipsius and some other learned men contradict the Rabbines in this I think they did amiss not to believe their great Doctors in their own Laws and Customs wherein they were most expert The true retortion is that in the days of Christ the power of life and death was taken out of the hands of the Jews by their Lords the Romans that reigned over them therefore they implore the Roman Magistrate that he would condemn and execute their Prisoner after the Roman Laws and the Romans did deal with him after the rigour of their Laws which sentenced all those that were convicted of sedition and raising tumults to the bitter death of the Cross So Christ foretold to his Disciples anon before he entred into Jerusalem That the Son of man should be betrayed unto the chief Priests and Scribes and they shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucifie him Mat. xx 19. It was not the custom in Israel to strike nails through the feet or hands of any that were hanged up says Maimonides Nay the most accurate Casaubon says that there is not one word in all the Hebrew tongue for being nailed to the Cross so little were they acquainted with the punishment This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text affigentes which the Vulgar Latine most ignorantly reads affligentes is heathen Language and unknown to the Jews The Rabbines in contempt of our Saviour call him in their Tongue sometimes as you would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that was hanged but their Tongue could not furnish them with a word to say he that was fastned to a tree There may be divers ways of hanging on a tree beside crucifying and the Old Testament useth ever the general phrase Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree The only place in the Old Law which hath respect particularly to the death of the Cross is Psal xxi 17. They pierced my hands and my feet Therefore the Rabbines have endeavoured to corrupt that place more than any other in all the Bible But the Psalmist alludes to that which the Jews should procure and the Romans execute One only place selected out of Sozomen by Casaubon avails much to prove that crucifying was not a Jewish but a Roman fashion For Constantine thought that no Malefactor was worthy to die on a Cross because our Lord had so suffered the just for the unjust therefore he took away that penalty of crucifying used before by the Romans says Sozomen Therefore the vulgar Latine Translation mistakes the words of my Text but hits the sense very well for it hath not Per manus impias by wicked hands but Per manus impiorum by the hands of the wicked as if it were in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Article which would make it personal But then the meaning is ye Jews have taken him and by the hands of the wicked that is of the Gentiles have crucified him and slain him So Christ foretold The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of sinners that is into the hands of the Gentiles We that are by nature Jews and not sinners of the Gentiles says St. Paul Gal. ii St. Chrysostome understands it two ways either by the hands of Judas or by the hands of the Souldiers It is all one for consider it well and it is rather the worse on their side than the better They suborned Judas they importuned Pilate they stirred up the Souldiers St. Peter passeth over these instrumental accidental coadjutors and directs his invectives against them that had the chief finger in the murder that set all the wheels a going Ye have taken him and crucified him If David could discern the hand of Joab in the woman of Tekoahs Parable then be sure the Lord doth espy the chief Actors and Complotters of all mischief and rebellion though others appear in the fact whom they have exposed to censure and dangers Statists love to bring about odious projects by the hands of underlings as the Ape in the Fable would take the Chesnut out of the hot Embers with the Cats foot But God will send his Angels to gather up the Tares in bundles all that were Complices in the same sin shall make one bundle both Jew and Gentile For there is no connivence in Gods justice no ignorance in his wisdom no partiality in his sentence To him therefore be glory for ever AMEN NINE SERMONS UPON THE RESURRECTION OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION ACTS ii 24. Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be
Chrysostomes judgment upon it is that when Christ came out of the Grave death it self was delivered from pain and anxiety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 death knew it held him captive whom it ought not to have seized upon and therefore it suffered torments like a woman in travel till it had given him up again Thus he But the Scripture elsewhere testifies that death was put to sorrow because it had lost its sting rather than released from sorrow by our Saviours Resurrection Secondly Cajetan understands by the loosening of the pains of death the undoing or taking off those penalties which he suffered in triduo mortis in those three days while he lay asleep in the Sepulchre But what penalties are those in his construction Why one thing irksom unto him was that the body and soul should be divided in sunder the other that the very place of hell to which his soul descended is in it self ordained for torment Et mora in inferno erat paena infamiae as another said any stay or delay in hell was a derogation to his honour and for the body resting in the Grave though then it have no sense of smart yet for that while it is sub mortis victoriâ imperio under the charge and Empire of death There is somewhat near to truth in this Exposition as I will manifest by and by and somewhat clean mistaken For all the sorrow and punishment of Christ was finished in his death that was the consummation of all his penal sufferings Wherefore his body was not kept in the Grave much less his soul made progress to Hell to bear any penalty revenge or sorrow for our sakes or to satisfie for our sins but to fulfill all righteousness to confirm our faith that he was truly dead and to captivate the Devil Therefore his Resurrection did not cut off or mitigate any sorrows which he sustained in death I cannot consent to Cajetan if he mean the contrary But if he take not sorrows in a proper signification but Metaphorically for the bands of death as the Syrian Paraphrast reads it Solvens funes mortis loosening the cords or twists of death so I think it to be the very marrow and true sense of the Text that God raised up his Son not Christ but God the sense continuing in the same person having loosened or unbound him from that death wherein he was detained three days But if it agree to the Person of Christ that he loosed the pains of death though it be a little violence to Grammer me thinks then thirdly it comes to this interpretation that Christ had paid you know that is solvere too he had undergone he had satisfied the pains of death or a most painful death So Beza says it may be taken here Dolores mortis pro morte dolorum The pains of death for a death full of pains even all that spight and malice could wreck upon him Andradius likewise in his defence of the Tridentine Faith agrees with Beza that Christ after he had given up the Ghost and paid the debt of Nature upon the Cross was acquitted or exempted from the sorrows of death that is from a death full of sorrows sorrows that were not only deeply impressed into the body as far as whips and thorns and nails could reach but exceeding anguish and pain of mind sighs and horrors that we can not conceive Thus far only we may peep into it that God was represented to him most â—ngry at our sins that He felt the malediction of his wrath lying upon him for our sakes especially that He was troubled to shed his bloud for so many ungrateful wretches that had no regard of it these were the sorrows of death that compassed him about but that He should put on the horror of our guiltiness so far and suppose himself to stand in our person at his Fathers Tribunal even to the forgetting of himself to the confusion of his reason to the pangs of desperation as if He felt hell about him whatsoever a grave and worthy Author says to this point upon my Text and in other places I draw my consent from it Exceeding sorrows both of body and mind gat hold of him but they were loosened and finished upon the Cross But will some man say why doth St. Luke speak of these in order after his Resurrection I answer that Christ satisfied the wrath of God to the full upon the Cross and paid that debt for which He was our surety to the utmost farthing Thereby He loosed the deadly sorrows yet it did not appear so well that He had loosed those sorrows till the time He rose from the dead therefore the victory over those sorrows being estated as it were in his rising again St. Luke ascribes it to his resurrection I have not spared you see to open this third and most common opinion unto you yet I rather satisfie my self in this Interpretation that as it was Gods work to raise up Christ so it was his act to loose the pains of death solvere i. e. irritum reddere all that the pains and sharpness of death could do was to divorce his Soul from his Body and God did frustrate and dissolve all that by uniting them again in the Resurrection And according to this true reading of the words which I have hitherto beaten upon the Expositions are easie and full of consolation full of consolation I say for neither could the Scripture say that the sorrows of death were all paid neither had it been possible for Christ to have got out of the Grave if there had been any one sin though the least in the world unsatisfied The other reading is strange to the Original yet admitted by all them that are bound even to the errors of the vulgar Latin Translation and often quoted and cited for great authority in some Controversies solvens dolores inferni having loosed the pains of Hell 'T is true that Irenaeus and some others of good credit of old do use the same and our Criticks tell us of one antient Greek Copy that concurrs with them and a learned Bishop of our own Church reconciles the seeming difference on this wise that by death in that place is meant not the first but the second Death the second Death you know is eternal punishment in Hell fire and in his opinion it comes all to one pass to say having loosed the sorrows of death and having loosed the sorrows of hell This will be examined by and by but first I will premise how some have blundered themselves in this reading St. Austin in that famous Epistle of his to Evodius propounds it though very faintly that it is not improbable that the Soul of Christ went into Hell in triduo mortis and carried away with him some that were there tormented and if none other were released yet at least Adam was If the Father can be expounded to mean that Christ blotted out the hand-writing against us harrowed Hell and
Paul and when we do those things which Nature her self is asham'd at and blusheth then we are dead the second day 3. God gave us a Law by Moses for the spark which he had kindled in nature was almost put out and it was time to dig that into stone which was worn out in flesh and he that violates the Law of Moses is dead the third day 4. Sin is grown strong by the Law Precept upon Precept made us the worse corruption in the soul is like an ill affected body it desires that most which is forbidden And therefore Christ gave us Legem Evangelii a short Lesson Repent and believe which is called the Law of the Gospel and if we violate that Law it is the fourth day of death and we begin to stink in the Sepulcher What an hard task hath Christ what a troublesome work have we put him to to diminish the power of original sin to rectifie the impairs and decays of Nature to satisfie for the Law but above all to mollifie a stony heart that will not believe to quicken an unrepentant heart this is dignus vindice nodus Martha and Mary sent to Christ when their Brother was sick to come and help now he had more need of Christ quatriduanus est this is the Parable of a sinner that will not believe the Gospel Help Lord and raise us up for who else can do it but the Lord Five Miracles you shall meet with in this Gospel of St. John four of which are recorded by no other Evangelist every one is greater than another but this is the Master-piece The first was turning of Water into Wine at Cana in Galilee Christ at the first conversion makes us quite other men than we were before cold water becoms warm and chearful wine 2. Follows the scourging of the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple that signifies contrition and compunction of the heart when theevish fancies such as steal away our soul are cashiered from the holy place 3. A man was healed at Bethesda that had been sick of an infirmity 38 years Custom in sin and want of devotion is a sore languishing sickness it is more to cure them than to cast the den of theeves out of the Temple 4. A man born blind was restored to his sight he that languished 38 years had enjoyed health before but he that was born blind was never better and it exceeded all the rest to dispel ignorance and blindness quando synteresis extincta est when the light of the conscience was quite put out But fifthly what talk we of sickness or blindness the dead man the Graves Tenant for four dayes dead by original sin dead by imperfection of nature dead by disobedience to the Law dead by unbelief and want of faith in Christ dead four days is raised up Tollite lapidem says Christ away with the stone removete legis pondus gratiam praedicate away with the burden that lies heavy upon him preach grace and remission of sins unto him and he shall live Behold another Moral of the same Authors in the Sermons de tempore if they be St. Austins Sin when it is made very sinful grows up by four degrees titillatione consensu facto consuetudine 1. By delighting in the suggestions of sin not but that suggestions of sin are sin but I speak of the growth of sin and not the root 2. By consenting to those delights 3. By committing the evil whereunto we consented 4. By continuing in the custom of delight and consent and committing evil Delight is the rotting of the seed in the ground Consent is the blade Commission of evil is the grown fruit Custom is the root that fastens it to the ground the seed may quickly be pickt up the blade may be blasted the fruit may be cut down but the root lies deep hidden you must plow and turn up the earth and dig deep before you can get it out In the 3 former parts the waves of ungodliness are coming up but custom is the inundation of iniquity the stream that goes over our head It was said of one Mandrabulus that the Oracle of Apollo pronounced against him that he grew worse and worse For out of a thankful mind for all his happiness received the first year he offered up a Gold Cup he repented him of his cost and the next year it was a Cup of Silver yet he thought he was too bountiful and the third year it was a Boul of Wood the fourth year he thought he had been thankful enough and gave just nothing Now says Apollo is Mandrabulus as bad as He can be So the heart which pleaseth it self with vicious cogitations is much corrupted yet God may still have the better part The heart that makes a bargain with Satan to do injustice is half the Devil 's yet the Body is not defiled with the act The body also may be an instrument of uncleanness then the heart is even lost and gone yet it may detest the fact and return unto the Lord. But when custom hath as it were sealed the Covenant to the Devil and delivered up the Deed the case is very desperate all the heart is in the enemies hand Lazarus is under a Grave-stone four days Difficilè surgit quem moles malae consuetudinis premit he will hardly swim above water again that is cast into the bottom of the Gulf with a Milstone of evil custom about his neck Yet Christ can quicken him as he did Lazarus I do not deny it but let no man treasure up sin as it were to prepare himself to repent of such a mass of iniquities but let no man dispair of that repentance if frailty have overtaken him If you feel your self incline to presume of repentance says St. Austin oppose against it the uncertain hour of death if you feel your self incline to despair of repentance oppose against it the abundance of grace Moderation is the best When sin doth post from delight to consent from consent to act from act to custom yet after four days says Christ Lazarus come forth So much of that circumstance Lazarus quatriduanus that being four days dead he was raised up to life It follows to be considered Lazarus ligatus he was bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin He was laid like a pledge in the grave and bound for security Christ was willing to release him some bonds he cancelled himself and some he left to be untied by others As for the bonds of death God did bind them and unloose them as for the bonds of the grave-cloaths let them unknit them that made the knot God did unty that which God bound let men unty their own work and then they are sure there can be no deceit As if our Saviour had said I know you will say of Lazarus as you did of the man born blind This is not he Will you deny it But here is your own
express when Christ did appear to his mother after his Resurrection to shew he was no accepter of persons in way of carnal Affinity He did appear to more than five hundred brethren at once doubtless she was one of them he did appear to the eleven and to them that were gathered together with them Luk. xxiv 33. I may suppose the Blessed Virgin was there because she was John's charge to take her with him but certainly she was none of that Train which came early in the morning with Mary Magdalen to the Sepulcher Then let us proceed and say from hence that God hath done great honour to this Sex to make them the first Instruments that should know and declare his Resurrection Where were the Apostles at this time Alas they were terrified and had â—â—ielded like Men to the Passions of the Flesh they were shut up close for fear of the Jews and durst not shew their heads only a few Women which had followed Christ were more adventurous than all the rest and as if it irked them to care for their Life any longer since the Life of the World was put to death una salus nullam sperare salutem they step out boldly let come what will Wherefore to give you St. Austins words Munus Apostolicum viris creptum ad breve tempus eis resignat the Apostolical Office was taken from the Disciples for a time and it was given to them to preach that wonderful work of God Christ risen from the dead Audentes tu Christe juvas you shall lose nothing to be couragious in a good cause that great glory to see the Son of God in a vision now alive again was given to them that did adventure to find him Secondly none wept so much for his death as these tender-hearted souls the Daughters of Jerusalem they were the first that mourned and they are the first that be comforted the greatest partakers of grief for his passion are made the first partakers of joy for his Resurrection Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted And if there be any that repine much at their own daily misfortunes who say they have buâ—â—â—ttle joy in this world let them strike their hand upon their brest and say it is because they have taken but little grief Jesus is our Passeover that was sacrificed for us but you heard the Ceremony read to day which God appointed the Lamb must be eaten with sower herbs or else you must not taste of the Passeover Christian whosoever thou be that art taught this day what a victory thy Saviour obtained against the Grave and against the nethermost Hell if thy heart be not replenished with joy upon the tidings if it do not assure unto thee the seal of the Divine Promise which is the earnest of thine inheritance it is because thou hast not eaten sower herbs with the Passeover Thou hast not yet afflicted thy voluptuous heart sufficiently as Mary Magdalen did and the other women before they came unto the Sepulcher Thirdly women are the first witnesses in daily Childbirths how we are born into this world children of wrath and God hath revealed to their knowledge in the first place how we shall be made alive again and become heirs of salvation For Resurrection is the birth of the dust and when the Grave had given up the dead body of Christ these women came as it were unto the labour much about the time that the Monument did groan even when an Earthquake had gone just before it Once it was their curse to have a woe pronounced upon them In dolore paries In sorrow shalt thou bring forth Children Gen. iii. 16. Now they see another manner of travel that God can quicken us to life again not miserably but triumphantly and the earth shall give up the dead with joy and gladness Fourthly we may well know him to be the same Christ who was crucified and rose again the third day because he chose no better witnesses than these were for so great a mystery The world it may be will contemn such simplicity of the Spirit but because it so pleased our Saviour Mary Magdalen and the women are most authentick witnesses and beyond all exception Shepherds address unto his cratch where he was born Women unto his Tomb where he was risen from the dead that you may see how Satans method of deceiving is quite contrary to Gods method of saving The Devil dealt all by craft to tempt our first Parents in the shape of a Serpent and Christ deals all by simplicity and innocency through the testimony of Shepherds through the testimony of Women If you be hard to believe the things which were very strange at his Nativity and at his Resurrection examine these persons and ye shall have plain truth without tricks and turnings A righteous cause needs not a supportance by Art and subtilty a piercing wit may find a way to make a bad action seem good but when the action is without controversie good already the devices of a sharp wit will never make it seem better for truth is least suspected when it is not varnished over with Policy Lastly To end this Point among all other women Mary Magdalen the great sinner is with the first that comes unto the Sepulchre to refresh our conscience which is opprest with the fore burden of iniquity that our Redeemer liveth to gratifie repentant sinners in especial wise that fly unto his mercy If it were fit for Mary to bury her sins in that Grave it will be fit likewise for thee and me Repentance may be described to be the Resurrection of the soul from the death of sin And this Resurrection from sin which I may call Metaphorical hath a fast interest none so sure as it in Christ as he comes forth from the darkness of the grave and shines upon the world All men shall be restored to life just and unjust for the Son of God redeemed the whole nature of man from the corruption of the Grave and the Devil did utterly lose jus mortis the whole dominion of death because our Saviour being an innocent was put to death over whom he had no dominion But the glory of our Saviours victory was to conquer two at once Hell and Death So the Prophet Hosea cries out in form of an Epinicium O death where is thy sting O hell where is thy victory And from his own voice he declares his glory Rev. i. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead behold I am alive for evermore and have the keys of Hell and of Death Therefore this great Festival is the penitent sinners holy day for whose sakes both the Keys are turned for whose sakes both the Gates are opened that the soul may pass from the judgment of Hell and the body from the rottenness of corruption And thus it appears why Christ was first seen of Women in his bodily manifestation after death It was granted to their couragious attempt that durst
Hell and to all Judaea that the Son of God about that instant as I do verily believe did break the gates of Brass and smite the bars of death in sunder It was heard to heaven and the Angel came down at his qu as soon as ever that triumphal sign was given wherein I have given you my opinion and not mine alone but of sundry others that the coming of the Angel was not a cause but a consequent of the Earthquake Tremuit terra non quia Angelus descendit de coelo sed quia ab inferis dominator ascendit The ground trembled not because the Angel descended from above but because the Conquerour ascended from beneath And I know not a prettier diversion in all the Scripture to put off that which might be expected than this is Who would not look that the story should run thus Behold there was a great Earthquake for Christ arose from the dead But the Holy Ghost to keep that Circumstance out of our knowledge at what time he arose did divert it in this manner Behold there was a great Earthquake for the Angel even at that instant and occasion came down from heaven And as heaven did partake of this noise when the earth was moved so I doubt not but the horror of it went down to Hell and troubled the Spirits that abide in chains of darkness for ever In all likelihood this great body of the world did quake from the Superficies to the Center of the Earth And Luther was possessed with this pious credulity that in this Earthquake the ground was parted with a large Hiatus from the Sepulcher to Hell and in the moment of that concussion of the ground our Saviour arose to life descended visibly to Hell made shew of his Resurrection there that Satan and Death were under his feet and presently came out of the Pit which could not shut its mouth against him As Luther may enjoy his own conjecture so thus far we may concur that the terrour of the Earthquake did penetrate to the Kingdom of the Devil And how far the Inhabitants of Judaea were affrighted at it it appears in the most couragious in the band of Souldiers who were tumbled to the ground at the noise like the stone which was rouled from the mouth of the Sepulcher and no marvel for St. Hierom either by his own perswasion or by tradition delivers that the rumbling of the earth was so great Vt cuncta concuteret eversionem terrae funditus minaretur That it josselled every thing together and threatned the subversion of this Universe To what end have I amplified it thus far but to make you conceive it fell out immediately through the wonderful hand of the Almighty Philastrius in his 54 Heresie enrolls it for an Heresie Si quis terram moveri putet naturaliter If any man shall say that an Earthquake comes to pass by naturall causes there he went beyond the Line for it appears evidently in Philosophical inquisitions that exhalations and hot air may be instrangled within the bowels of the earth and seeking a way for a larger room or else to get forth it breaks out with a terrible violence and removes some parts of this heavy Element To deny this were to put out the eye of reason Yet in this Earthquake that pertains to my Text I assent that there was no preparation of natural causes to produce it For just when our Saviours soul went out of the body at his Passion and just I think at the moment when his soul returned again into the body at the Resurrection the earth was smitten in a wonderful manner that the world might take notice that the like was never heard or seen And as I do resolutely conclude This motion of the Earth was supernatural so I hold off from the usual opinion that the Angel was made Gods instrument of the execution the manner the consequence of it so great that I am perswaded it was immediately the work of Christ himself Leo cubile in quo habitat tremere fecit says Chrysologus rationally and elegantly The Lion rouzed himself up from sleep the Lion of the Tribe of Judah roared and made his own den to quake Inferiour operations are committed to the Creatures the chief abide in God When Lazarus was raised from the dead says Christ to the Disciples Take ye away the stone and afterward being come forth of the Cave Do ye loose him and let him go So the Angel was an actor in the noble work of this day to roul away the grave-stone to dismay the Souldiers to comfort Mary Magdalen and the other women to preach the mystery to all But it was Christ himself that shook the ground from the Superficies to the Center this Ecce this Behold me seems bids us behold how it came from God and not from his Minister the Angel and behold there was a great Earthquake I remove forward to that which is more useful to be taught from the efficient to the final cause for what purpose was this great trembling and concussion of the earth at the Resurrection of our Saviour I will set forth six reasons First it makes us conceit that there was a great strugling and a combate between Christ and Death Death was brought unto the Bar impleaded before Almighty God divested by just judgment from all power found guilty because the guiltless and innocent was slain It was permitted to seize upon us Prisoners But it spared not the Judge himself which is Christ We that are slaves and servants were put under the dominion of it and Death presumed to offer violence to our Lord it was suffered to rage against men and it was bold to assault God Death according to the great Doom was the wages of sin how justly is the yoke of its tyranny broken when it became the murtherer of righteousness But how hardly would it lay down the authority which it had so long usurped over all mortal flesh So many Patriarchs so many Prophets Quo Tullus Dives Ancus so many Princes and Kings whose bodies crumbled into dust and their ashes were never made whole again and when this Law which had so long continued was to be broken what could be expected but that the earth would groan and struggle against the Resurrection When I speak of Death you know that I mean the Devil who had the power of death he had deluded himself with this fallacy Cruce vivus non descendit quomodo sepulchro mortuus ascendet Christ came not down from the Cross when he was alive how will he be able to come out of the Grave when he is dead He that had so much cunning was best able to deceive himself but with what resistance and murmuring the Prey was taken out of his mouth it is best set down thus briefly instead of a large description Behold there was a great Earthquake Secondly It betokens what noise and tumult there shall be in
of Christ the other at his Resurrection Terra quae in passione concussa fuerat horrore jam prae gaudio exilire videtur The whole Land of Judaea did quake with horror when he hung upon the Cross but it danced for joy when he rose out of the Grave so I have rendred the fifth reason The Sixth is Allegorical and thus in brief that our hearts must be shaken and inwardly troubled with compunction and repentance before we believe stedfastly in the Resurrection of Jesus Peter preacht and they that heard him were prickt in heart and said to him and to the rest of the Apostles Men and brethren what shall we do There was an heart-quake before they believed Paul and Silas prayed and sung praises to God and suddenly there was a great Earthquake then the Jaylor came in trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and said Sirs what must I do to be saved Here was an heart rent and torn a commotion in his conscience greater than an Earthquake and then he believed When Eve took and eat the forbidden fruit says an eloquent Father there was no Earthquake no horror to affright her O that the Palsie had possess'd her fingers O that her teeth had chattered that she might not have eaten but vitiis semper serviunt blandimenta All was hush and still nothing but fair allurements do minister to our vices But at Christs Resurrection the sound of an hideous noise was fierce and terrible to the ear Virtutibus austera fortia sunt amica Harsh and austere occurrencies are best agreeable to vertue Roul the thoughts of your heart up and down like a tempestuous Sea if you mean to make a fair voyage to heaven the commotion of a troubled spirit will breed eternal peace As Paul was smitten down before he believed so faith must be beaten into us with violence and therefore behold there was a great Earthquake at the Resurrection of Jesus Unto the motion of the Earth I conjoyn the next circumstance of my Text which I called the motion of the heaven it were like Copernicus his fancy in Astronomy to think that the Earth did only move and the Heavens stand still at the operation of this Miracle No the everlasting doors were set open and the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven Here is one Keeper more than the Jews look'd for about our Saviours Sepulchre one more than Pilate appointed One mighty Prince of that supernal Host whose countenance was able to daunt a Legion of the best Roman Souldiers perhaps there was a multitude with him to celebrate the Resurrection as there was a multitude that appeared in the fields of Bethlem to rejoyce at his Nativity But this Angel I may say determinately was one of the most royal Spirits that stand before the face of God for ever To make short I will not defer to give my reasons presently how sweetly the eternal Wisdom did dispose to let an Angel shew himself openly both at this place of the Grave and upon the celebration of this great day First Those ministring Spirits had been attendants upon all the parts of our Saviours humility and reason good they should be occupied upon all occasions of his exaltation and glory Since we read of Angels that gave all diligent attendance at his birth the holy Spirit of God knew that men would look for their company at the Resurrection I mean that we who know him now by faith would expect their mention upon this occasion in the Book of God Besides his Resurrection is a birth not called so because of a resemblance how man is brought to life out of the womb of his mother in natural Generation but properly in it self according to the phrase of Scripture Acts xiii 33. For Paul preaching at Antioch that God had fulfilled his Promise in raising up Jesus again says he As it is written in the second Psalm thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee So that these Phrases it seems are equivalent this day have I raised thee up from the dead and this day have I begotten thee And surely as a Father of our own Church says very well the news of his birth if God had so pleased might well have been brought by a mortal man it was but the entrance into a mortal life But the news of his Resurrection do become the mouth of an immortal Messenger because it was an entrance into life immortal Secondly The women came out of doors to embalm Christs body with a great deal of confidence they never thought how many difficulties were in their way and such difficulties as could never have been mastered if the Angel had not been sent to facilitate all things for them They mind not how the High Priests would excommunicate all those that professed to believe or do good to our Lord and Saviour they came to touch a dead body which was pollution by the Law they stand not upon that The Sepulcher was guarded with Souldiers who would permit none to come near it they would try that The Grave was sealed with Pilates perhaps with Caesars Seal which none must cancel on pain of death they would venture that The Grave-stone was exceeding heavy as much as twenty men could move says Nicephorus and barred strongly with Iron and they were out of doors and far on their way before they thought of that then they ask Quis removebit Who will roul us away this stone As who should say God will send us some assistance in so good an enterprise we will put on and hope for that and the Lord to make their Pilgrimage prosperous sent an Angel from heaven to remove away the stone Scipio Africanus besieged a City in Spain well fortified every way and wanted nothing and no hope did appear to take it In the mean time Scipio heard many causes pleaded before him and put off one before it was ended to be heard three days after and being asked by his Officers where he would keep his next Court he pointed to the chief Cittadel of the besieged City and told them he would hear the Cause there in that space he became Master of the Town and did as he had appointed He was not more confident to enter into a City rampar'd against him by his valour than these women were to enter into a Sepulcher by faith sealed and shut up but the Lord is present with couragious attempts and he sent his Angel to assist them Thirdly This shewed says St. Chrysostome that he who had been buried there was God as well as man Cum ad sepulchrum tanquam in coelo ubi Deus habitat assisterent for Angels were as officious at the Sepulcher as they use to be in heaven which is the throne of God If men be laid in their Tomb the worms attend them corruption goes to corruption But the body of Christ even when the soul had left it was still united in one person with the Godhead
and be utterly annihilated So an unbeliever who knows of no better condition that shall befall him than happens to Beasts that is not established in faith that though worms eat this Body in the Grave yet our Soul shall be cloathed with flesh and bone and enjoy an everlasting union in the highest places this man looks upon death as the extremity of all evils in which there is nothing but irreparable loss a thing that can admit of no consolation Resurrection is the edg of all valour and fortitude there can be no courage without it In assurance of it there is no sting there is no terror in our dissolution Says St. Paul Why stand we in jeopardy every hour why have I fought with beasts at Ephesus if the dead rise not as who should say there 's the encouragement of all that endure for the name of Christ Now these Souldiers whom the Jews obtein'd of Pilate to watch the Sepulcher were so far from apprehending this comfort that this Tabernacle of ours when we lay it down is sequesterd for a time till God restore it again out of the dust that they kept that place on purpose that there might be no resurrection According to their great demerits therefore those that were the most envious adversaries of life did shake for fear and became as dead men Fourthly the Souldiers feared exceedingly because they had been aiders to the malice of the Jews to crucifie Christ now when they saw the Sepulcher open the stone rolled away the Angel sitting upon it and by these signs the Resurrection declared that He whom they had put to death most barbarously was greater than death and Lord of the Angels their guiltiness must needs shake them to pieces and extreme horror stare them in the face When St. Peter came to that verse of his Sermon Act. ii 36. God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ The Jews that heard this they were pricked in their hearts and cried out Men brethren what shall we do St. Chrysostom says that many of those who had cried out in Pilate's Judgment-Hall Crucifie him crucifie him were at the Sermon so perhaps those Souldiers that had cast lots upon his Vesture and he that thrust the Spear into his side was at the Sepulcher The greater would be their oppressure of fear when they had been actors in the Tragedy They shall look upon me whom they have pierced Zach. xii 10. a most melancholy object to his Persecutors Eusebius says that the Jews did recall to mind that innocent bloud of Christ which they had shed upon the time that their City was besieged by Titus and that the thought thereof did so enfeeble their hands that they could not fight Although their own Historian Josephus will not impute the calamity of the City to that fault but confesseth sin did reign in Jerusalem at that time so copiously and prodigiously as the like was never in Sodom and Gomorrah but certainly the suspicion of that sin hath debased the courage and broke the heart of all the Nation of the Jews to this day St. Paul writing to the Hebrews bids them cast aside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. xii 1. the weight of their sin and I do not remember that he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a weighty ponderous sin to any other but to them I know we ought all to be sorry and lament that Christ was crucified for our sakes for those manifold sins that we have perpetrated and solum peccatum homicida est therefore we must be crucified with Christ in mortification and be buried with him in Baptism but the personal procurers of his death were the capital transgressors their sin was died in his bloud as it were in scarlet The Son of man must die and be betrayed but wo unto that man that doth betray him and crucifie him Beware therefore that we do not crucifie to our selves the Son of God a fresh the exposition is in the words following that we do not put him to an open shame Heb. vi 6. by heinous scandalous sins to cause Christs name to be blasphemed that is to put Christ to an ignominy and as it were to crucifie him again Such crimes will leave a sting behind them that will never cease to wound your conscience especially at the hour of death The Gentiles at first could not endure the Sign of the Cross it called their sins to remembrance but how will it tear your heart within you when you call to mind that the ignominy of Christ crucified is in your Soul The Souldiers saw what abomination they had committed when an Angel beautified Christs Sepulcher with his presence and for fear of him c. Fifthly the Souldiers could not keep Christs body in the Sepulcher as they were appointed by Pilat and the High-Priests therefore they feared those that had commanded them the task an evil Instrument is ever afraid of those that do imploy him The Pharisees were angry with their Servants and Officers that they did not bring Christ unto them and lay hands upon Him Joh. vii 43. yet it was not in them to do it no man could lay hands on him then for his hour was not yet come So the Watchmen knew what offence would be taken that Christs body was taken out of the Sepulcher yet they could not stop it No servitude in the world so heavy so dangerous so full of fear as to observe a wilful unreasonable Tyrant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nebuchadonosor put his Chaldaeans and Southsayers to death because they could not tell him the Dream which himself had forgotten Dan. ii 12. It is a just reward of wicked Instruments that they were always suspected always secretly hated by those that practise with them And when I have told you but one story in that kind I could be voluminous you will say Ohe jam satis est it is enough to represent the certain perdition of them that minister to ungodly practises But thus briefly Pope Paul the fifth fell out with the whole State of Venice interdicted all their Dominions began to raise arms against them for imprisoning the Abbot of Nervase whose crimes beside many other foul offences were these three 1. He poisoned his own Brother and wrought the death of a Prior of St. Austins Order and his Servant because they were conscious of it 2. He had long time the carnal knowledg of his own Sister and empoisoned her Maid lest she should betray him 3. He caused an Enemy of his to be killed and after that empoisoned the Murtherer lest he might accuse him This is related by no Protestant Pen but by Friar Paul of Venice of the Order of the Servites Nor do I report it to let you know what kind of offender the Pope protected but to manifest how He brought all those to an untimely end that had either the privacy or their parts to work for his iniquity I do
the dead and the resurrection of the soul from sin in this interview between himself and Mary Magdalen All men shall be restored to life good and bad for the Son of God redeemed the whole nature of man this day from the corruption of the Grave and the Devil did utterly loose jus mortis the dominion of death because our Saviour being an Innocent was put to death over whom he had no dominion But the glory of Christs victory was to conquer two at once Hell and Death So the Prophet Hosea cries out in form of triumph O Death where is thy sting O Hell where is thy victory and from his own voice Revel i. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead behold I am alive for evermore and have the keys of Hell and of Death So in his own person he shewed that he had conquered Death in the person of Mary Magdalen that he had conquered Hell Beloved this great day is Christs Festival and it is the Holiday of every penitent sinner because first he appeared to such an one to Mary Magdalen For our sakes both the Keys are turn'd and for our sakes both the Gates are opened that our bodies may escape the curse of corruption and that our souls may be delivered from the judgment of Hell through Jesus Christ the first fruits of the dead and that first appeared to an humble Convert AMEN THE EIGHTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION MAT xxviii 9 10. And as they went to tell his Disciples behold Jesus met them saying all hail and they came and held him by the feet and worshipped him Then said Jesus unto them be not afraid go tell my Brethren that they go into Galilee and there shall they see me YOU may call to your remembrance that my subject upon Easter-day the last year was How Christ was first seen after he rose again from the dead of one whom he had raised before from the death of sin he appeared first to Mary Magdalen And in this Text other women have the next turn to see him appear in order of story That Sex it is apparent had the honour of the day in the first and second bout that the power of God might be seen in the weaker Vessels The women brought sweet Spices to embalm his body and they encounter that which was sweeter than all the Spices in the world the Vision of the Lord who came forth from the dark places of the dead to life again There is not the weakest capacity among you but must needs observe that the relations of these things are very diversly set down in the four Evangelists And there is not the learnedst capacity among men that can distinctly unfold how they should be reconciled I suppose the Primitive Church I mean the Disciples that were taught by the Apostles and other Scholars taught by them were informed of the true Exposition how every thing hapned in its order but the tradition is lost And they who boast they have kept the Traditions of the Church faithfully are not able to give us a clear rule how to refer these confusions to a certain order St. Paul 1 Cor. xv rehearseth sundry ways how Christ was seen of many after he rose from the dead yet he utterly omits how he was seen of these devout women St. John Chap. xx speaks of the famous interview between our Saviour and Mary Magdalen and no more Our Evangelist in the beginning of this Chapter mentions Mary Magdalen and the other Mary that is the Mother of Zebedees children he goes no further St. Mark quotes another woman that is Salome St. Luke names also one Joanna she was the Wife of Chusa Herods Steward and indefinitely he folds it up that there were other women whose particular cognisance is not revealed And divers things are related divers ways of these which may be reconciled as divers ways without jar or contradiction The stiffest knot in the dissention is that although St. Luke and St. Mark record how the Angels appeared to the women and spake unto them of Christs rising yet they do not say that Christ was seen of them St. Mark relates that he was seen of Mary Magdalen So doth St. John they go no further St. Matthew holds him to Mary Magdalen and to one other Mary that is all Yet he involves at large that as the women not those women only went to bring tidings to the Apostles of what they had seen and heard Christ did meet them by the way For the perplexity of these Narrations some do argue that none of the women saw him this day risen from the dead but Mary Magdalen and that when this Scripture says that he did appear to the women plurally yet it is a Synechdoche speaking that of many which was verified but in one for but one saw him instead of all her companions This is not so probable for it would work better if this truth were manifested by a multitude of Witnesses Others also consider that Mary Magdalen saw him alone and was controuled at that time not to touch him therefore it must be another Apparition when divers women did touch him and worship him Some say therefore that in a very little compass of time Mary Magdalen saw him twice this day unless there were two Mary Magdalens as St. Ambrose would have it first alone and then immediately with her Consorts Yet that seems not so congruous I can say no more against it that two Apparitions should be granted to her in a few moments Therefore without any pertinacy in rejecting the conjectures of others I conceive this second Apparition of Christ which we have in hand to be made to Mary the Mother of James Joanna and Salom with other devout women of Galilee when Mary Magdalen was lately departed from them to tell her errand to the Disciples Laying my ground upon that opinion I deduct these parts out of the Text First I will treat upon it what proceeded from the women Secondly what proceeded from Christ Touching the women again I will handle first what they did before they saw Christ secondly what they did after they had seen him Before they saw him they went to tell his Disciples somewhat After they had seen him 1. They came to him 2. They held him by the feet 3. They worshipped him That which belongs to Christ is contained in his Action and his Words His Action is thus expressed Behold Jesus met them His Words are first a Salutation All Hail 2. A Consolation Be not afraid 3. A Commission Go tell my Brethren that they go into Galilee 4. A Promise There they shall see me These are the several talents which God hath committed to me in this and now I will employ them for my Masters profit The women before they had seen our Saviour went to tell his Disciples that must be our beginning They went and went to and fro sundry times upon this occasion It could not choose but be observed by the eyes
handle the improbability of this formal Tale and Fiction of what contradictions the Plot consists never to be pieced together for all this if it like you must be done while they stept Say ye c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was a Proverb in Greece if a man talked idly that he told a tale as if he crept out of a Tomb. I am sure this story about our Saviour stoln out of his Tomb is as doting a Dream as ever was told out of a Tomb no part hanging together with congruity to another Certainly it was with them as God said He would deal with them that built Babel Go to let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one what another says The error of those Jews was affected and very wilful they knew that Christ was risen and they would not know it and voluntary errors are ever punished with great blindness they that will believe a lie shall fall into strong delusions First why would the Souldiers say they slept why would they be brought to put themselves into such infamy and danger Infamy that such a crew of them would be talked of to have slept and snorted on the ground about the Sepulcher like Swine in their drunkenness but danger also admit the High Priests for all their fair promises could not have pacified the Governour where had they been according to the Laws of some Countries they that were to watch the Corpses of Malefactors executed were to answer Body for Body When Herod sought for Peter and found him not he commanded the Keepers should be put to death yet they could not help it will these Souldiers say they lost the Body by negligence which they should have kept and do they look to be rewarded ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit hic diadema This forgery would have cost them dear if Pilate had been a just Magistrate But the High Priests knew what a notable Ruler should sit upon the cause they could tell the Souldiers before hand how he should shuffle up all and pronounce as they would have him but it had been justice they should have suffered for this fault which they never committed I mean for sleeping in the time of their charge as David kill'd the Amalekite who made a formal tale that he slew King Saul when indeed he did not One wonders at it and for very good reason that all of the conspiracy were not afraid lest in the very moment that they began to publish their fiction Christ should have appeared and stood before them and convinced them for their forgery As when Athanasius was accused at a Council for breaking of Arsenius his Readers arm in his rage just at the nick Arsenius came in presence of the Council and it appeared upon his body that he had suffered no such violence But such cautions were so little in their thoughts at that time that they consider'd nothing at all a thick darkness which might be felt was faln upon them for who would ever produce witnesses that were a sleep would their testimony be ever taken unless the Judg were asleep too and if the body was stoln away while they slept which way did they come by the spirit of Prophecy to know the Disciples did it rather than other men or why did they not follow them and take it from them or why did they not crave Pilates Warrant to search for it where they had conveyed it durst they not abuse Pilates Authority so far and durst they mock God Into what confusions and inextricable errors a man falls that sins against his own conscience I could waken them with many questions more but I will not be tedious But who will believe them that in such a great Court of Guard as no doubt this was all the Band slept at once and not one of them so careful as some say a Flock of Cranes are by nature to watch by course or how could they all sleep when that which they had in charge was of so much rumour and expectation or is it possible such a deep Lethargy was faln upon them the air being so sharp that anon before they had a fire of coals within doors that none of them should waken either when the Disciples went in or came out of the Sepulcher the creaking which the stone would make when it was rolled off from the door must needs be heard a far off Answerable to this too the linnen cloaths which were about the Body were in the Sepulcher by themselves Had they such leisure to strip those off and stay longer by far than they needed had it not been a better concealment for the Body to bear it away wrapt than naked Beside Myrrh and Alloes which were cast about Christs Body were most glutinous things and would stick to the flesh so fast that they could not be taken off without much cunning and long patience Unless witnesses which were asleep may say any thing these things were impossible to be reconciled And his observation was right true that made it that the Priests might have spread this rumour with far more safety and likelihood if they had never trusted the Souldiers to tell the lie for them But God would not let them see their way that all Ages might be astonisht at their folly For this Guard of Souldiers was not begged of Pilate to compass the Sepulcher about till Christ had lain one night in the Grave till the day after he was crucified If they had said his Disciples stole him away the first night before the Watch was set the lye had been the stronger but with far less cunning they impute the loss of the Body to the Souldiers negligence not looking well to their charge the second night Say ye his Disciples came and stole him away while we slept A sleepy Project Nec fide constantes nec in perfidiâ men of no faith and of most foolish infidelity I reduce the Use of it to that notable Memorandum Where men are averse from hearing truth God dazles their mind with gross and senseless deceipts yea though they be High Priests as we know who they are that entangle themselves with a thousand absurd questions about the Sacrament because they will not be driven from their idolatrous practice to adore the Elements But let us approach unto it with simplicity of heart setting aside all contention and frowardness let us believe in Christ in this breaking of bread that our eyes may be opened let us drink of the fruit of the Vine in remembrance of his blood-shedding here that we may eat and drink with him in his Kingdom Finally as being risen with Christ let us seek those things which are above AMEN FIVE SERMONS UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 1. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one
upon them to make them loiter from their daily necessary labour but it was an high solemnity as fell out in all the year Dies celeberrimus sanctissimus as the Vulgar Latin reads it Lev. xxiii 21. where we read that then they should proclaime and call an holy Convocation So I have summed up the three occasions of this Feast in the Old Law first to give thanks for their deliverance from bondage Secondly to honour the day wherein first they received the Law at Mount Sinah and thirdly to offer up the first fruits of their Harvest will you see now how aptly the gift of the Holy Ghost was distributed at the same time When the day of Pentecost c. First Whereas the Jews did celebrate at the Feast of Pentecost their enfranchisement from the house of bondage so the benefit of liberty was augmented this day much more than ever it was before This Satan knew well enough and therefore the longest thing wherein he held the Church in ignorance was about the sending of the Holy Ghost long after the name of Christ and his power was received whole Cities and Societies confessed they had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost or not Ignorance in those Points which are necessary to salvation is the greatest thraldom and captivity in the world False Prophets says S. Paul do lead captive silly women laden with sins 2 Tim. iii. 6. I spake not only of such as sate in the darkness of death and were lost these were like Samson in fetters having their eies put out but the Disciples the flower of Christs train saw nothing in holy mysteries as they ought to see till the influence of this glorious day cleared there eye-sight their eyes were held their hearts were held they knew not which way their Redemption was brought about and how Israel was restored Our Saviour took out but one Text in all the New Testament it is out of Isaiah and it is to this very purpose that the Spirit of God redeemed us out of the captivity of ignorance the place is extant Luk. iv 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised This comes home to the matter I am sure Yet moreover this is a day of restitution unto liberty because it dissolved the Church from the tye and yoke of Levitical Ceremonies from those multitude of Statutes which overwhelmed the people with observation As Pharaoh was drowned in the red Sea so the tenure of Mosaical Ceremonies was drowned in the bloud of Christ which was shed upon the Cross and on this Feast we received the Seal of the Spirit that we were rid of them all So far I have demonstrated that at this time we shook off the bondage of Ignorance and Ceremonies which makes it a feast of Pentecost to us Christians as well as it was to the Jews Secondly You shall find the other correspondency marvelously kept between the Law and the Gospel Christ at his death was slain not only as the Paschal Lamb but even when the Lamb was slain on the Feast of Passeover Now from the Feast of Passeover or rather from the second day of sweet bread reckoning fifty days the Children of Israel came to Mount Sinah and there received the Law which was kept ever after with a most sacred memorial so fifty days after Christ rose from the dead the Apostles and the Church received the Spirit of Sanctification And I am sure we have much more cause to renown our Pentecost than the Jews had to honour theirs If the Law which was the ministration of death was so thankfully remembred how much more the dedication of the Gospel For this day as the Fathers say very well was the first dedication of Christs Catholick Church upon earth They were made the Sons of the bondwoman by the Law we are made the Sons of the free-woman by the Spirit We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the spirit of adoption Rom. viii 15. A sinner could have no comfort in the Pentecost of the Jews they had the Law and that condemned them this was miserable comfort We have gladsom tidings this day not from Sinah but out of Sion which bids us live by faith in Christ In no other Feast of the Jews might Leaven be eaten it was an hainous transgression but the two loaves of the first fruits were to be baked with Leaven which were dedicated to God at this Feast Lev. xxiii 17. Expositors say no more to it but thus Leaven was put into the dough of new corn Vt panes sapidiores essent to make it more savory certainly so vulgar an interpretation is much under the meaning of the Holy Ghost I would rather say it had a mystical construction that Leaven was allowed at this Feast to intimate that the Holy Spirit would bear with the leaven of our nature with our sins of frailty and infirmity And it is observable that this is the number of the Jubilee every fiftieth year was the Jubilee year which was a time with the Jews to restore all men to their Lands which were sold away by ill-husbandry and a general forgiving of all debts So this day was a true Jubilee for remission of Trespasses it was at this time that Peter preach'd remission of sins to all that did repent and believe to all without exception for says he the Promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even to as many as the Lord our God shall call So I have shewed that we received the divine Spirit of grace at Sion at the same time that they received the terrible Law at Sinah which makes it a greater Feast of Pentecost to us Christians than it was unto the Jews Thirdly We agree no less with them in the next similitude for keeping this day The Israelites according to the early maturity of corn in that climate began to put their Sickle at this time into Wheat Harvest so the Apostles from this day forward went forth to reap that which the Prophets had sown gathering much fruit unto eternal life and bringing the Wheat of God into his Garner unto the everlasting praise of the glory of his grace Their Barly Harvest such was the condition of their Soil and Husbandry begun at Easter their Wheat was begun to be cut down seven weeks after at Whitsuntide and the latter was called Tempus primitiarum the Time or Festival of First-fruits which were presented to the Lord. So God breathed his spirit into man at the creation of Adam that was the first Harvest which spirit being choked by him and coming to nothing this day there was a second emission of the spirit into man fully to restore and renew him again Now the two Loaves
will not say but it was very meet for an Israelite under the Law to know it but alass they did grope in the dark and it is hard to say whether ever they did find it for what Type or shadow did come home to demonstrate it You must not reply that it did appear in Jonas who came forth alive after he had been three days and three nights in the belly of the Whale for this was no Lesson for them that lived in eight or nine Ages from Moses unto the days of Jonas Neither must you urge that the first Temple was pluckt down to the ground and another reared up in the place which Temple did so prefigure Christs body that in that respect Haggai says The glory of the second house was greater than the first Hag. ii 10. This could never inform the peoples judgment all the while that the Tabernacle was under Tents Truly all that I can lead you to in this case is to the Ark which was but an Epitome of the Temple Nay nor to the Ark it self but to the three holy Reliques which were laid up in the Ark in them with a little curious observation you may find a rude draught of the Resurrection of our Saviour The two Tables of the Law which God gave first to Moses were broken but they were new hewn and written over again there was the reparation of the work of God which seemed to have been utterly lost The Pot of Mannah was in the Ark and this resembled Christ the Pot was like his Humane Nature of the earth earthy The Manna like his Godhead was above nature and came from heaven why this Manna would not keep above two days at the most after that it would putrifie but that which was put into the Pot did out-last the two days of putrefaction and for ought we know was never corrupted Finally Aarons Rod was a dead dry stick but it shot forth like a living Tree and brought forth Almonds Now if the Resurrection of Christ the very Pillar of faith was to be collected out of such dark obscure shadows what a gloomy night was the time of the Law And what an illustrious day is the Gospel which speaks this mystery so plainly to the capacity even of Children and Ideots Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him Yet I will confess that we are not yet come to broad day-light till the general Resurrection of all flesh is accomplished Very sweetly says one of the Moderns Tempus gratiae aurora est quae diet vicinior est quam nocti This time of grace is not complete day but a complete morning which hath little in it of the night and much of the day That is if you compare us with those of the Synagogue we are partakers of the day If you compare us with the life to come when our glory shall be revealed and Christ shall be all in all then we are yet in a dusky condition and have not hitherto shaken off the night St. Paul hath nickt it with most proper words Rom. xiii 12. says he The night is far spent the day is at hand Processit nox not Praecessit as the Vulgar Latin does misread it darkness is much abated not quite dispersed for as yet we see darkly as in a glass but the dawning of the day is risen in our Horizon for God hath given us the explicite knowledg of all Mysteries that conduce to our Salvation When the Church had first rest from persecution it had leisure to invent a splendour of Ceremonies in setting forth the Service of God among others I find that this was practised in the fourth Age that when the Deacon went up to some high place to read the Gospel there were certain attendants in the Church called Acolythi that carried two Torches lighted before him Ad demonstrandum quod de tenebris infidelitatis venimus ad lucem fidei to signifie that we have thrown aside darkness and infidelity and are come by the help of the Gospel into marvelous light So St. Hierom against Vigilantius in the day-time in the Eastern Countries when the Gospel is read Candles are lighted not ad fugandas tenebras sed ad sigum laetitiae demonstrandum not that such artificial light adds any thing to the light of the day but it is a token that light is come to us and we are glad of the illumination Give us leave then to say without boasting that wheresoever the name of Christ is professed and in no place else there is the acceptable time there is the day of salvation As there was light in Goshen when all the Land of Egypt was in darkness But especially we shall shew that we do believe that the day spring from on high hath visited us if we keep that one rule which St. Paul hath enforced upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us walk honestly and decently as in the day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either the energy of the word means that because many eyes are witnesses of our dressing in the day we will then habit our selves more comely than in the night when none or only those of our Family behold us So the Christian Church is like a City upon an Hill which cannot be hid the eyes of all Nations are bent upon it therefore let us walk soberly and justly that we give no scandal to the enemies of the Gospel Be as careful to apparel your souls handsomely with all grace and vertue in the sight of God as you are observant to dress your bodies decently in the day that nothing deformed may appear in you to the eyes of men Or it may thus concord with the Apostles intention such as are dissolute will forbear to riot it in the day they that are drunken are drunken in the night A Nation that is more civil in the night than in the day is hardly to be found unless it be true that some do tax us for such a Nation but all distempers of roaring and mischief for the most part break out in darkness Well then since the Gospel is a perpetual day not so little as a Lanthorn unto our feet that is but dim but a light from heaven above the light of the Sun Acts xxvi 13. Let us walk honestly as children of the light knowing we are made a spectacle to God and Angels and Men. So far I have entreated upon the Lords benignity he hath not only crowned David to be a mighty Potentate in the Land of Canaan but in the day of his Son Christ Jesus he hath crowned us all Kings and Priests of righteousness and hath given us a long day to rejoyce in even for ever and ever Now follows our acceptance and duty since this day hath appeared to the wish of our heart We will rejoyce and be glad in it as who should say as the faithful Israelites did keep one day for Davids Inauguration so in the day of the
to Gods hand Shall we not remove the occasion which may bring us into bondage hereafter Tant â sollicitudine petere audebis quod in te positum recusabis Will you pray so heartily for that unto God which you will not set hands to when you may do it for your selves Arise Barak and lead thy captivity captive thou Son of Abinoam I see it methinks in all your Countenances that every man is more willing to honour this day than the very day wherein he was born into the world for we are born in tears we are preserved with laughter God forbid that the enemy should have the upper hand to make this day a by-word for ever and to be blotted out from among the days of solemnity But whether they dig by Sophistry to pervert the weak and faithless Or whether they give words as smooth as Oyl having War in their hearts or whether they send over Emissaries Boutefeaues to devise against Hierusalem Lord keep thine anointed King in safety make his Crown flourish long upon his own head and upon the head of our most illustrious Prince and for ever uphold our Church and Commonweale that as thy truth hath brought it out of darkness of error and thy hand hath protected it from dark Conspiracies so it may shine in these Kingdoms for ever as the Sun in the Firmament and as the faithful Witness in heaven Even so Lord Jesus AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE Fifth of November ACTS xxviii 5. And he shook the beast into the fire and felt no harm IT comes to pass from our desire to see mankind multiplied that almost no Infant is born into the world without the eyes of many to behold it but if any one have escaped a jeopardy with the hazard of his life as he is a creature new-born again from danger so we cast our eyes more wishly upon the person As many as the house could hold resorted to see Lazarus revived John ii Solomon's Porch full met at once to see the Cripple use his Legs Acts iii. All the Island ran together to behold St. Paul who had shook a Viper into the fire and felt no harm and that self-same Miracle is the employment which your patience doth now attend upon And though we regard the deliverance of others at the pleasure of our curiosity as we use to say at our idle time yet to see St. Paul preserved it is as Socrates spake of Lysias his Oration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 somewhat more than business For that you may know him to be set up as a spectacle to look upon how many petty deaths were round about our Apostle in the former Chapter As if he should have gone out of the world like Hermaphroditus many ways at once In a mighty Tempest in a Famine of fourteen days in the hands of violent Souldiers surely his life had ended here but that God had determined he should die honourably by Caesars Sword Having satisfied the Sea a little beast assaileth him on the shore But excussit all is well both here and there and he is delivered And besides this we may very well make it not St. Pauls case alone it is like pure Gold which may be malleated and drawn out a great deal larger even to the entire profession of the whole Gospel 1. Vipera that there is a danger and then 2. Excussit both an easie and a joyful deliverance Ecclesia in illo patiebatur quando pro Ecclesiâ patiebatur as St. Augustin said of our Saviour The Church was wounded in him when he was wounded for the Church So St. Paul was an Embassadour to Caesar for the whole Church of God and therefore the ignominy and comfort redounded to the whole Church both of his great perplexity and likewise of his preservation To knit all this together a Serpent was a very fit instrument if you will regard the nature of man in these four degrees First Adam was set upon by a Serpent in the Garden of Eden and was stung to the quick and corrupt nature afforded him no deliverance Secondly The Israelites under Moses Law were assaulted and stung but found a remedy 3. St. Paul in the New Testament is assaulted but felt no harm Lastly The Saints in glory shall not so much as be assaulted To be vanquisht in our conflicts is the misery of our poor nature to be chastised by punishment is the rigour of the Law to be threatned by affliction is the life of the Gospel to be out of suspicion and fear of harm is the state of heaven The times of Nature and Law are past the days of Glory are not yet revealed my Text therefore not unfitly is a representation only of the third that is of the season of the Gospel This is the sum of all If neither life nor death height nor depth Viper nor any other creature can seperate us from the love of Christ then we boldly say without an error Ego sum Paulus thus was Paul and thus am I delivered Beloved from this one venimous Serpent take notice of the whole brood of the Viper Every torment is de crinibus anguis in the Poet a kind of Serpent greater or less If we complain like Jonas far more of a little worm that offends us than of a great Whale that devours us then affliction is Venenum patientiae it festers and leaves a wound behind it But if we be shod with the preparation of the Gospel Super aspidem basiliscum ambulare Not to fly from harm as fast as our feet can carry us but to walk at leisure upon the Lion and the Aspe then we bring the Text home to our selves then we shake beasts into the fire and feel no harm In which words may it please you to attend to these four parts 1. Here is a perilous Adversary known in this verse to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 savage and hurtful but better known in the former to be a Viper fastned on St. Pauls hand 2. His safe deliverance in excussit he shook off the worm 3. Vengeance is shown upon this fatal creature Excussit in ignem he cast it off for destruction into the fire Lastly The barbarous people who beheld all this they put us in mind of a fourth part they thought that God was in the work but mistook Paul for Pauls Creator therefore for a conclusion here is mirabile salutare a plain Miracle from heaven More likelihood for Paul to be kild there could not be and yet he felt no harm So danger is the first thing in order in my Text but scarce in time deliverance the next part was not one whit behind it in which there is Digitus Pauli the singer of Paul to requite the Viper with the flames of fire and Digitus Dei strange help from God alone I say the Barbarians did confess it The corps of the Text it is a deliverance now on the left hand behold peril and hazard of life on the right
punishment says Nazianzen is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Pillar of Salt erected up like a Trophy of his vengeance and their impiety Not so the righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is enough to chastise them to be wise and wary St. Austin compares a regenerate man with Adam in innocency by an excellent parallel Adam was priviledged to be secure in all present delights and comfort while he was in Paradise and so the faithful are not but every regenerate man is sure of heaven in his greatest Agony and so Adam in his pleasant Garden was not O could an heathen man preach so much Gospel as this Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis securitatem Dei O what a royal thing it was to be corruptible as man and yet to be secure as God! Expect not then from the Lord that he should always turn aside his hand as Vlysses did from his Son Telemachus What if he make his furrow upon the back of his own Children if they lie in the way Is there no time but the instant to be saved Yes St. Paul hath declined deliverance through all Tenses 2 Cor. i. Who hath delivered us Have you forgotten it And doth deliver us Perhaps you do not feel it And will deliver us I speak not I hope to such as do distrust it Wherefore let this suffice for excussit the deliverance of Paul The third thing follows which makes it mel in cuspide honey on the point of Jonathans Spear and pleasant to be in jeopardy his eye saw his desire upon his enemy excussit in ig nem he shook the beast into the fire c. If there be Songs of deliverance as David says there are and that he was compassed about with songs of deliverance then this is Canticum salutis The Viper did not only lose her sting like the angry Bee that loseth her weapon when she pricks her Adversary and lives a Drone ever after but Paul warms his hands at the fire whose fuel was the Viper which even now would have slain him Fire indeed by the judgment of our own Laws is a death appointed for Poysoners and it is but one fire for another only dry for moist Paul was ready to be inflamed so we read in the next verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was that the Islanders look'd for and therefore good reason the beast should fall into the fire Who doth not count it a monument worth the seeing to read his jacet an Epitaph upon his Enemies Tomb The subtil Graecians would not live in fear to see the Infants of Troy survive their Father they would see every thing in ashes Et nunquam satis Trojam jacentem it is safety to escape but security to want an adversary Break their teeth O Lord in their mouths saith the Psalmist but lest new ones come up in their room smite the jaw bones of the Lions and when they shoot out their arrows let them be rooted out If Shemei had lived happily he might have cursed Solomon as well as David and if Judas had not come quickly to his end he might have betrayed St. Peter as well as Jesus Iniquity of it self is infinite says Job xxii 5. Wherefore says Aquinas Homo peccat in suo aeterno quia voluntatem habet in infinitum peccandi Every sinner hath a good will to sin for ever In circuitu ambulat says David and the way of him that goes in a circle is as new to begin to morrow as it was to day Qui vitio modum ponit idem facit ac qui è Leucade se praecipitans velit sistere says the Stoick A sinner falls down headlong and Hell hath no bottom Then God puts in his Sickle and cuts down the Tares that they may not overgrow the Wheat Be of courage then O little Flock that flies away into the Wilderness and think that the voice of the Angel unto Joseph is still in your ears Return for they are dead that sought the life of Jesus And reason good that inquisitors after the bloud of Christ wilful sinners should be cut off or else the dumb beasts were hardly dealt with the Viper knew not Paul nor the mark of God upon him she did but her kind and yet she is consumed The Lion knew not Samson nor the Judge of Israel hunger made him roar after his prey and yet he died for it Why should David wish revenge upon the pleasant grass for his beloved Jonathan How could a Figtree trespass when it bore not plenty of fruit for Christ and his disciples that it withered and deflourished utterly All these died to make up one lesson for us that nothing can offend the Saints of God without an evil recompence Some revengeful Spirit perchance would ask here whether this be an Emblem for every man to endeavour to be as fortunate as Paul was and to make away his enemy with his own hand No Beloved there is no such moral in this Text and it were unchristian to attempt it Wrath is as a Serpent revenge is like a Viper shake them off a Gods name and then if Pauls hand were not moved the finger of God will deliver us from our enemies There is great difference in this point between heathen moral men and praise-worthy Christians Junius Brutus the darling of the Romans fained himself mad before but then he was mad indeed Quando expiravit super Tarquinii filium quasi ad inseros sequeretur when he bore malice unto death against his enemy and died upon him as if he would follow him to Hell Like the young Son of Thyestes wounded by his unnatural Uncle cast the trunk of his body upon the murderer as if he would have pressed him down like a Mountain Cumque dubitasset dia hâc parte an illâ caderet in patruum cadit says the Tragedian So did not Zacharias the Son of Barachias that fell between the Temple and the Altar It may seem there rather than in another place for a Peace-offering to be reconciled to his adversary So did not Stephen who kneeled among the stones which were cast at his head like a Statue in a Monument and prayed with more devotion for his enemies than for his own spirit We must feed them that hate us I keep open hospitality for such according to our Saviours construction Si inimicus if thou have an enemy feed him whosoever he be if he hunger then wretched are they who feed themselves rather with the hunger of their enemy As Vitellius boasted in Tacitus Inimici morte spectatâ se pavisse oculos that it glutted his eyes with delight to see his enemy tormented They that feed so shall digest Gods anger till it come like water into our bowels and like oyl into our bones We must not call for fire from heaven if we love not the Samaritans but forgive them and thou shalt heap coales of fire upon their head Chiefly let my speech drop as the soft dew upon the head of
being caught up into the clouds to live with God for ever Their judgment is right that he was disarrayed of all malignant qualities sin and mortality which belong to the soul or body But I wonder they should call these by the name of death for it was no otherwise with Enoch than it shall be with all men and women whom Christ shall find upon earth at his second coming St. Paul says they shall not die but they shall be changed that changing is no death for change and death are membra dividentia in the Apostle and cannot be confounded Now I have brought you out of all incumbrances of wrong opinions to the clear truth Enoch was not How He ceased not absolutely to live but he ceased to live any longer in a corruptible Tabernacle he prevailed above the sentence which was pronounced against Adam by the Judge of quick and dead Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return Mortality came from disobedience against the Commandment neither is it possible for any mere man to attain to such a measure of obedience as to deserve immortality do not imagine this holy Saint was without sin so that death could claim no dominion over him St. Chrysostome who speaks much for Enoch how the Lord rewarded his integrity with incorruption says no more but that he received Gods Law not that he kept it inviolably 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God kept him alive that received the Commandment that received it willingly and with an earnest heart to keep it But how was that Statute dispensed with you will say it is appointed to men once to die and after that comes judgment Heb. ix 27. An easie dispensation will serve for that for it was no otherwise with this man than it shall be with all the earth at the last day when the Inhabitants of the world shall not be uncloathed of skin and bone but be changed into an incorruptible perfection in the twinkling of an eye But that you may not wonder at Enochs case as if justice had connived and forgot it self remember this rule in St. James There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy Jam. iv 12. Mark that there are Judges constituted under the Law and it is not in them to save life where the Letter of the Law condemns for the Law governs them and not they the Law but there is a regent and principal authority whose clemency is above the Law That speech of Senecaes is as trivial as any Proverb Occidere contra legem nemo non potest servare nemo praeter te Every Varlet can kill a Citizen against the Law none but the Supreme Magistrate can save a Citizen against the Law You see then by what rectitude of justice Enoch might be exempted from death albeit we were all sentenced to become dust and clay out of which we were made because God is the most supreme independent Judge of all the world and may mitigate the severity of his own decrees Why should not his mercy preserve where it will And if he will preserve who can destroy Is there any curse but he can turn it into a blessing Where the Lord pleaseth to sweeten a bitter cup Poverty shall not be grievous nor ignominy dishonourable nor sickness painful nor life mortal A thousand fell before this Patriarch and ten thousand at his right hand but he was impassible and did not die He was not for the Lord took him Because the Septuagint Translators concur with St. Paul in one reading it is due to my Text to let it be known how they have enlarged this concise phrase And he was not in their words is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was not found And Clemens the Scholar of St. Peter and Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was not found that he ever died He appeared not and yet the Lord killed him not so the Chaldee Paraphrase For as St. Jerom said figuratively of the sweet end that Nepotian made that he did Migrare non mori And St. Bernard as much of Hubertus that he did Abire non obire Those pious men might rather be said to have gone a journey out of the way than have died so very properly and without a Metaphor it was true of Enoch that he did not die but was retired out of the way where he could not be found It seems he was much sought for as certainly good men will quickly be missed Antigonum refodio as the honest mans saying was he would have scrap'd the just King Antigonus out of his Grave when he was departed Though Elias was manifestly taken away into heaven yet the Sons of the Prophets besought Elisha that fifty strong men might go seek him lest the Spirit of the Lord had cast him upon some Mountain or into some Valley I could not blame them to wish they might find him again So says one upon that inquisition was made for Elias Enochus cum raperetur fortasse diu inquisitus fuit It may be Enoch was much inquired for in many places after God had took him Selneccerus says that the Lord exalted him up into the clouds Coram totâ Ecclesiâ praecipuis Patriarchis a great Congregation of men and the chief Patriarchs looking upon it Bolducus the Capuchin more particularly yet both altogether uncertainly using their own divinations Tulit eum Deus in nube in quâ apparebat ministranti God took him away in a cloud wherein he appeared as Enoch ministred unto him in the time of Sacrifice If this were done before a throng of Witnesses they might think it no more than a rapture for a little time as Paul was taken up into the third heavens for a small space and afterward restored to the Church They might search and hope to enjoy him again but he was not found the more was their loss that they wanted him the more was his happiness that he was quite gone and wanted nothing But Luther is of opinion that he was retired alone to walk with God in Prayer and sweet Meditations and then the Lord lifted him away to the habitations of the blessed when none were privy to it Seth and all the other Fathers of the Church knew not what was become of him his Son Methasalem and his Family look'd for him with sad hearts as Joseph and Mary sought for Jesus sorrowing no doubt they suspected the malice of the Caiâ—ites they thought he was slain like innocent Abel and privily buried Perhaps it was not revealed in a long time after what was become of him But as the Romans were highly discontented with the loss of Romulus their Founder and would not be satisfied till Proculus swore he saw him carried away into Heaven So when the Patriarchs had sate down sorrowing because they found not the very Gem of the Church the righteous man Enoch it made their gladness the greater when they knew the Lord had translated him alive into Paradise Now I proceed The benefit of it
of obedience but as the way to eternal life As a sick man takes the potions that are prescribed him not out of duty to the Physitian but out of due regard to his own recovery The similitude sorts with our infirmity Obtemperet medico ut surgat qui noluit credere ne aegrotaret says St. Austin Man would not obey the Physitian to prevent his sickness therefore let him use his after-wit and take those Sacramental means that are appointed to make him whole But fourthly there is lex privata a Law imposed upon some particular person in whose transgression neither were justice infringed nor Gods glory violated if his Command were not laid upon it and there is no scope in this but to make the passive humility of our soul that is our obedience more illustrious What was there in it else that the Man of God that came from Judah unto Bethel was charg'd neither to eat nor drink water in that place nor to return by the same way that he came there is no colour of Religious Worship in these observations but God would have him submit to his unquestionable Authority and you know his misery ensued when he was unperswaded to obey it Dominus cur jusserit viderit what profit there is to keep such private Laws as seem to carry no great substance in them let God look to that says the Father but be you obsequious That peremptory denuntiation upon pain of death not to eat of the Tree of knowledg of good and evil called the forbidden fruit no Theological wits could ever pass a ripe mature judgment upon it why it was so laid but that they and all we in them are to stoop under that sweet yoke of the Divine Will with absolute indefinite undiscoursed obedience It was no robbery to eat of it wherein God was defrauded of any thing that He stood in need of then it had been hurtful to him the fruit was not diseaseful or poisonous then it had been hurtful to them it was a pure Edict of Authority to let the best of all bodily Creatures know to what service and homage they were born as the vulgar Latin reads that verse Psal ix ult Constitue legislatorem super eos not as we translate it put them in fear O Lord but set a Lawgiver over them that they may know themselves to be but men Quomodo eris sub Domino nisi fueris sub praecepto so St. Austin upon that very instance of the forbidden fruit How are you under the Lord unless you be under the Law and not that Law which leans upon apparent reason for that Law is within you and therein you obey your self but that Law which flows from absolute Authority that 's without you and therein you stoop lowest under the power of God And this is the very condition of that word which the Angel spoke to Lot and those that were with him Look not behind thee neither stay in all the plain Wherein could it tend to the honour of God that they should set their face one way more than another perhaps you will say it was meant to the greater detestation of the Sodomites whom the Lord would not permit to have commiseration or any respect from good men or to urge them to make haste away with a kind of hyperbolical celerity As our Saviour sent his Disciples to preach in every City of Judaea with this speedy or prefestinating Command Salute no man by the way Luke x. 4. And Elisha imposed that post haste upon Gehazi his servant Gird up thy loyns and go thy way if thou meet any man salute him not and if any man salute thee answer him not again Suppose this or that were the secret drift of this Interdiction look not behind thee yet a little casting of the head on one side had not made their expedition the slower What need we seek a knot in a rush what need we prove her faulty for reasons that are not alleaged this convinceth obliquity enough in her sin that she did not observe the precise command of God in every gesture of her body In a word the thing it self commanded did not in it self bind the conscience but with the Command it did The eye is free to view all the works of the Lord unless something upon which it glanceth doth scandalize it with concupiscence Who suspects the contrary but that the crackling of the fire and the out-cries of them that perisht in those Cities that were consumed did rowze many in the neighbour Villages to look upon those places and lament them Did not Abraham rise up early in the morning and look toward the Land of the Plain and see the smoak of the Country go up as the smoak of a Furnace 't is soon answered Where there was no restraint there was no transgression But above all other Laws those which we may rather call Canons and Constitutions that impose the prestation of adiaphorous duties and prohibit other things that have no moral obliquity in them are most generous ways to heap reward upon the willing and to discover the stiff stomach of rebellion In all Injunctions Ecclesiastical and Political set aside charity edification unity peace of the Church or any other moral respect Put it only upon this that meer authority enforceth them which is just authority derived from Gods Ordinance God forbid we should need any haling or towing to them for he that sees the finger of Authority held up sees reason enough to obey and to recoil as Lots Wife did because the Commandment seem'd not to be weighty and ponderous is blind disobedience O 't is a blessed thing not to have a licentious itch upon a man not to desire scope and random but to submit chearfully to a punctual Discipline in all our actions and every circumstance of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is the praise of an Holy Father as if his soul had been created without a will Alas into what precipices would our fancy carry us if we were left to our selves to be libertines in any thing there would be nothing but confusion Deus servitute nostrâ non eget nos autem sine ejus dominatione esse non possumus nothing truer it is St. Austins God stands in no need of our service but we could not live without his command and governance 'T is hard to confine this point to brevity but I must break off only let me put you in mind that whereas the Jesuits set forth themselves to be the only Obedientiaries in the World so that to neglect the Precept of their Superior in a trifle they brand it for a flagitious crime yet the Jesuit a Lapide says upon my Text that he would not discord with them that hold the trespass of Lots Wife to be no more than venial error for either some sudden clap of thunder might make her start and look back unawares or else she thought not that the Angel gave her that
together enough to purchase a good Fee-simple in Canaan if the Lord had not given him his Portion Men think themselves now adays past the Law and penalties of death when they have sinned so much that they are grown wealthy in iniquity because if need be they can buy the favour of the Judg and he that has Achan's wealth a Wedg of gold and two hundred Shekels of silver legit ut Clericus I warrant him he is a learned Clerk and deserves his pardon But this man when he began to say deliciare anima when he was furnished to live sumptuously then he is cut off that as Solomon says the remembrance of death may be bitter to that man who thought it pleasant to live This was St. Austins rule when he was old and had learnt the World Mundus ille periculosior est cum se illicit diligi quà m cum se cogit contemni I fear no hurt from the World when it goes against me and casts a froward look upon my fortunes but my danger is near at hand when it smiles and flatters me as if all were happy When St. Basil observed how carefully Kings and Princes gathered up Pearls into their Treasury 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the wise God to shew the contempt of them had put into Oister-shells and scattered about the Sea-shore as vile and unprofitable You do not well says he to make a Treasury of that which is so mutable in the Generation and will ebb and flow from you like the Sea which begot them Fortune never stood long upon a Pinacle summo stare loeo nescia The Sponges that swell with liquors are most likely to be pressed and emptied You do all remember how Cesar gloried in his Victory among the cowardly Asiatiques veni vidi vici he did but set his feet upon their Soil and looked them in the face and so dismaied and vanquished them 'T is no more than King David tells of himself Psal xxxvii Vidi veni non inveni vidi I saw the ungodly flourish like a green Bay-tree veni I passed by and sought him non inveni he was quite gone in the twinkling of an eye I could not find him Now recollect these three qualities of Achan who was more likely to prosper than a Souldier in the flower of his age a joyful man at his journies end in the Land of his peace a wealthy man in the plenty of his riches Take it to thought all you that have the World tied unto you with a threefold Cord of health and peace and prosperity which men dream as if it could not be broken for it broke like Tow among the sparks and iste periit c. But as Demades said when news was brought that King Philip was dead and there was no other talk among the people Peace says Demades if he be dead to day he will be dead to morrow and the next day following so I will end my discourse how Achan perished it is the way of all sinners and not much to be lamented But for an innocent to be cast away it deserves pity wherefore St. Hierom reads my Text thus utinam solus periisset it makes not much for Achans death but I would he had perished alone in his iniquity There is no word of wonder beside this in the Text and here we must stay a while as all the Hoste of Israel did when they found the dead Corps of Amasa bleeding what the Spirit of God means by this vengeance non solus that he perished not alone in his iniquity It is St. Austins rule Relevatio mali non fit per communionem cladis sed solatium charitatis To perish together with more than our selves is no comfort at all but more anxiety So it made the Scene of Achan's Tragedy full and very bitter to see 36 Israelites that drew swords for the same Victory to be slain about him On the right hand there is more misery nati cruentâ caede confecti jacent the Sons ask for bread and their Father gives them stones to stone them Two things stand before us to be observed as the Angel did in Balaams way first what Companions Achan had in his punishment and secondly how it will stand with Gods justice that every man should not perish single by himself for his own iniquity First his fellow Souldiers turn their backs and are cut down at the Siege of Ai a sort of men that I presume are prepared alwayes to die but seldom provided to die well men that engender great love together as I think David and Jonathan did at first by entring their bodies into the same dangers Wherefore St. Paul did express his love to Epaphroditus in that name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my fellow Souldier and so to Archippus my fellow Souldier In the Roman Discipline it was held so honourable to save another of the same company that he carried for his reward civicam coronam a Crown upon his head made of the grass of that earth whereupon he saved anothers life The infamy of Achan was as notorious on the other side that caused six and thirty to be slain of the Camp of Israel To see that bad things are sure to do us hurt and the best things are not sure to help us The Ark of God was sent into the Camp at Shilob Arca fortitudinis Domini the Ark of Gods strength Psal 132. and yet the Philistins prevailed and the Ark was taken but if one Achan come down into the Battail there is plain treachery in that mans conscience and his Wedg of gold shall fight more against Israel than all the swords of the men of Ai. Good qualities stick close to them which have them as Virtue and Learning and we cannot part or bequeath them to any man Gifts of fortune as Honours and Riches may be removed to others as you like it But it is a hard case our vices are sure to fall down upon the head of such only as are dearest to us Beloved is it so Was the hand of the Lord in the battel of Israel and doth God direct the Sword of Simeon as well as the books of Levi Those that spend their bodies so courageously for our peace deserve to have their souls well instructed Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra frequentant I trust it is but a slander that Souldiers have small Religion where the Angel of God did draw his Sword at the threshing flore of Araunah the Jebusite David built an Altar So in every just quarrel it is the Lord himself and his anointed King that draws the Sword Wherefore do not defile the Camp with oaths and lust and drunkenness for the ground is fit for Davids Altar and the place is holy I have told you what it was to Achan to lose his fellow Souldiers yet the loss was not Achans so much as Joshuahs and he like a loving Prince did fall upon the ground and shewed much bitterness for the death
gave you Sons and Daughters you give Obsides Domino Hostages unto God and if you rebel as Nathan said to David because thou hast made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the Child that is born unto thee shall surely die The Fathers sins are visited unto the third and fourth Generation while the Grandsire full of fourscore years of sin stays awhile behind like the rotten root of evil and sees the tender branches cut away because the root was bad and corrupted Thus is the brief sum of the second part of my Text man perished in iniquity Corporeorum incorporeorum horison says Synesius the noble Image of God Secondly That man Achan a branch of the Olive tree even Israel which God had planted But an evil branch is evil though the stock were a Cedar of Libanus Non debent gloriari sarmenta quia non sunt spinarum ligna sed vitis says St. Austin Is it any glory for the dead branches to boast they were Vine branches and not Heythorn since they are cut off and cast away Lastly Non solus periit he fell down like the Tower of Siloam and brain'd all that were about him I have but one short part to dispatch Periit his execution how that man Perished c. To search much into Achans punishment were not the way to be more learned but more tormented And he that is Ingeniosus in suppliciis exquisite in describing the ruine of any man his invention smells of tyranny Briefly thus Every man in the rank of a Subject lives under the authority of three Commanders 1. Under the Conscience of his own heart 2. Under the Laws of his King 3. Under the Commandments of God Triplici nodo triplex cuneus every knot hath a wedge to drive into it And if we displease either God or the King or our own Conscience vengeance meets us on every side Conscientia parit vermem Magistratus mortem Deus Gehennam Conscience hath a worm in store nay a Cockatrice to sting us the Magistrate bears a Sword to divide us but especially it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God In an evil conscience we die unto all joy and comfort In our trespass against the Laws of man we die unto men In breaking the Statutes of God we die unto heaven surely he deserved not to die but one death that offended three All sin is mortal yet among sins some are still-born and make no noise in the world Some are crying sins that have a voice and a voice like the Edomites that cryed against Jerusalem Down with it down with it unto the ground Like the Jews that cried Crucifie him crucifie him and doubled the files of their iniquities Like the men of Ephesus that for two hours space made a noise Great is Diana of the Ephesians When sinners do double thus God finds out more deaths than one to punish them as if judgment had ransack'd the body to find two or three souls and would not leave to destroy all the brood of the Viper Abimelech a cruel murtherer of seventy brethren was crush'd under a Mill-stone and slain with his own Servants Sword it is pity he died not seventy times It was Sauls destiny first to die by the Arrows of the Bow and then to fall upon his own Sword It was Absolons destiny to be hang'd by the head in the Oak tree and be thrust through the heart with the Darts of Joab It was Judas his destiny to cast himself from the Gallows and to be broken in pieces upon the ground And lastly it was Achans destiny to be stoned with stones and then burnt with fire Thus that man perished c. It is very likely if this notorious rich sinner had lived his Tomb should have been as costly to lie over his dead corps as his Babylonish Garment was sumptuous to cover his living body But now there is not so much honour left him for his burial as earth to earth all is turned to ashes that the winds may blow him back again out of Canaan into Egypt from whence he brougt his iniquity A fair Tomb I confess cannot prove that I died a good man but that I died a wealthy Yet some honour is to be shewed to our dead corps because a dead body is nearer to the Resurrection than a living The Egyptians embalming the dead and the Odours and Spices which the Jews were wont to bestow do condemn those uncivil Funerals which some report of Geneva and Amsterdam that bury their dead in ditches and dunghils It makes Jesuits scoff at our Religion Scis ut haeretici colant parentes sulcant coemiteria sic colunt parentes Michael the Archangel fought about the body of Moses and Prudentius played the Poet very well touching Eulalia a Virgin Martyrs body cast abroad in a frosty night to the injury of the air and before morning it was overspread with icycles like a crystal Tomb. Pallioli vice linteoli ipsa elementa jubente Deo exequias Tibi virgo ferunt And certainly there was some such thing or St. Austin would not report it that divers Miracles as healing the sick and converting unbelievers have been wrought by Gods providence at the Tombs of the Martyrs to honour their death and memory But Achan was denied this happiness and though he had two deaths yet he had not one Tomb to be buried in Only an heap of stones were cast upon him for an infamy that as Varro said Monumentum quasi monimentum a Monument for admonition that we fear God and rebel not like Achan that perished fearfully c. The Papists will not leave Achan thus and remove him from Joshuahs hands and the Valley of Achor where he suffered into Purgatory But by what proof or warrant or Enditement Expect an Exposition fit for the nimble brains of the Colledge of Jesuits Achan was stoned with stones and then he died Afterward he and all he had were burnt with fire viz. Opera ejus accensa sunt in Purgatorio he and his works were burnt in Purgatory A likely matter since Joshuah was commanded to burn him and not the Devil Do you think Columbus that found out the fourth part of the world could have found out this third place to receive souls in which is neither Heaven nor Hell The Devil is much beholding to his Advocates that have made him not only Prince of darkness but that which God never made him Prince of Purgatory Some perchance will go a thought further and pronounce a fearful sentence that this man was wiped for ever out of the book of the living That is periit at the height the Lord bless us from it But St. Chrysostom was more mild and charitable As the digging of the earth says the Father and the plowing of it may seem but churlish usage yet that is the way to make it fruitful Ita magis erat Achani salutare supplicium quam aliis impunitas So Achan might go sooner to
one in the Gospel so strong that none could hold him no not the Chains wherewith he was tied but he brake them asunder Now this unhappy person of whom I speak was possessed with a Devil Mar. v. 4. The same evil spirit is entred into those robustious men who esteem them dastards who quake at the threatnings of the Law and faint at the terrours of death and judgment to come No fetters of Religious fear will hold them Are not these Sons of Anack mighty Giants And we that tremble and weep at the guilt of our sins are we not as Grashoppers in their sight You cannot be of that mind if you consider that it is not strength in the wicked but madness to carry themselves stubbornly before an infinite and omnipotent Majesty Gregory the Great is copious in a whole Sermon upon this subject that there is no such weakness as the fortitude of Reprobates Says he out of the Prophet Isaiah they are strong to drink Wine and mighty to pour in strong drink Is not that a weakness Ad inanem gloriam cum discrimine vitae perveniunt They will uphold their reputation in frivolous quarrels with the hazard of their lives nay with the hazard of their salvation and is not that a weakness They will endure attendants scorns base Offices for favour They will travel by Sea and Land in perils of Thieves in perils of Waâ—ers for the hope of Riches That is more than I can do says Gregory for this worlds good Profectò ego non sum tam fortis in ejus desiderio I am not so hardy to suffer so much for these transitory things Lastly Says he Contra flagella conditoris insensibiliter perdurant God threatens them and they do not weep he corrects them and they do not feel it There is a num Palsie in their conscience I may truly say they are dust Nullus pulvis est tam pulvis There is no moysture in them no living sap in their root if there were any thing of the life of grace in them they could not be so stupid Gregory concludes this Doctrine with a good distinction Reprobi sunt debiliter fortes boni sunt valenter infirmi Reprobates have great infirmity in their fortitude the Children of God have great fortitude in their infirmity Therefore it is more than manly it is Saint-like Apostolical Prophetical to weep because we have grieved the holy Spirit of God with our iniquities It is Apostolical by the instance of St. Paul Phil. iii. 18. There are many that walk of whom I have told you before and now I tell you weeping they are enemies to the Cross of Christ Even those superstitious ones that fall down before the sign of the Cross they are enemies to the Cross Many of them walk among us too many God help it their Idols and Images I fear will bring a curse upon the Land If St. Paul were alive he would tell us weeping that they are enemies to the Redemption obtained by Christ And weeping for sin is Prophetical Jeremy was never satisfied with weeping for the deplorable state of the Jews O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears Chap. ix 1. Et quid nisi vota supersunt The most that we can do is to wish for such a tender and compassionate soul It is to be wish'd I say but few there be that can overcome themselves to perform it As Leo said of his days men are little touched with any thing that God doth to us in his Justice or his Mercy Nec de correctione compungimur nec de remissione laetamur We have neither spiritual joy when God forgives us our sins nor penitent compunction when he corrects us for our sins Whence comes this hardness of heart Hath Mary Magdalen left none of her generation behind her Says the Son of Syrach What is created more wicked than the eye Therefore it weeps upon every occasion Upon every occasion it is ready to shed moisture but not upon the best occasion for when will it weep for its own transgressions because it hath been wanton and full of lust As a Widow that did not love her Husband will follow his Coarse with dry eyes to his burial So Christ is the Husband of every soul which he hath espoused to him in Baptism If your sins grieve him and provoke him to depart from you either lament it with many tears or the case is plain that you never loved him But the Devil hath turned the River of our tears the wrong way A vain Interlude a Fable upon the Stage represented in due action will make the soft Spectator to wet his handkercher So the River is diverted from its natural channel for when we are put in mind of the damnableness of our sins our cheeks are as sear as the Mountains of Gilboa upon which no drop of dew did fall Do you wonder at your selves and ask the reason of this Philosophy will tell you that love is stronger than hatred and hath more command of our passions We have tears in readiness to bewail the death of our dear friends love hath such power over our tender affections but when we are upon mortification to deplore and hate our sins the drops of our eyes are not so easily commanded And this is marvelous in Nature that you shall sooner see fire sparke out of our eyes in hot desire of revenge than tears which are most proper to the eye for our grievous sins But will Philosophy assist us with no better reason Then hear Divinity which will tell you the truth It is presumption rank presumption that will not let our shallow repentance go on unto tears We are not altogether perswaded that God is in earnest when he threatens what manifold woes he will bring upon us for our rebellions That desperate courage which we assume to our selves upon great likelihood of impunity is that which mitigates our sorrow and suffers it not to break forth into any great measure of lamentation We dream that the bloud of Christ is medicinal even for impenitent sinners Thus Satan kills us with that Balm which is distilled out of his wounds to cure us But keep your faith from these impostures and fawnings of the evil one who would make you laugh your selves to death lik those that are bitten with the Tarantula The Stag when he is at the bay and knows there is no way but death for him falls a weeping And are we not surer that no tittle of Gods minacies shall fail than if we were at bay with the Stag and ready to be pluck'd down Believe that God is a severe Judge and that all his threatnings are true that there is a day to come when there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth And when you fear this indeed then you will practise my Doctrine without teaching If any great sickness hold you that you think death is at hand then your eyes will pay the tribute of sorrow to
trials of obedience Yet though their number was so great and cumbersom their weight had been more easie if they had been plain and perspicuous but the people underwent much geare and I think not one among an hundred did know the signification The substance of Religion was so darkly involved in the Types that happy was that Prophet or Prophets Son that could crack the shel to eat the kernel Who of the Vulgar rank could penetrate into the moral signification of those vices which were forbidden in the unclean Creatures Vt homines mundarentur pecora culpatu sunt says Tertullian The Law did seem to loath some beasts that we might know what God did love Was not the Salvation in Christ propounded to them in Signes And his death resembled in a Bullock slain at the Altar And what small comfort was there in that Pardon which was not intelligible to the poor Offendor Luther says well upon my Text that mans knowledge is unshackled it is at liberty when he discerns the naked truth in it self Cognitio est ancilla quando subjecta est velaminibus figurarum Our Wisdom is made a bondwoman subject to the captivity of Ignorance when it sees nothing but in the dark Glass of typical Obumbrations Thanks be to God that we are Scholars of the New Testament We are called to the manifestation of faith and love in Christ that we do not grope in darkness but walk in light for the Gospel is like a Glade which is cut through the grove of ancient Ceremonies Let me speak to this point once more Beside their excess in number and their cloudy obscurity there were unpleasing remembrances in them some that seemed to be mysteries of grace were likewise mystical Exprobrations and therefore referred by good Expositors to the hand-writing of Ordinances which is against us Col. ii 14. For Ceremonies take them not as Sacraments or Circumstances of Evangelical Service but as Yokes of the Law Nihil aliud erant quà m miseriae humanae publica professio They were imprints of humane misery not Expiations but Confessions of our iniquity Circumcision it accused the Israelites that they were born in sin Their frequent washings did testifie that there was filthiness in the Object The life of the Sacrifice spilt upon the ground pronounced him guilty of death that brought it to the Lord. I go no further because I would be compendious and I have said enough for this discovery that the Law of Ordinances was our Adversary But thanks be to that Saviour who blotted out the hand-writing payed the grand debt which we did owe and discharged the interest likewise when he evacuated the Levitical Ceremonies which is the first mark of the freedom of Jerusalem Yet be advised that we do not claim more immunity by this Chatter than is granted for that is ordinary to stretch out the name of liberty like cheveril Leather to what length we please some have assumed that they have good ground to blow up all our Modern Ceremonies with this Mine because Jerusalem is free from the yoke of Ordinances It is true our Jerusalem is free and therefore we are free for partus sequitur ventrem the Church appoints her own Orders of decency now and is not appointed nothing is imposed upon it with bond of necessary and perpetual observation the principality is upon her shoulders to make her Children submit to her prudent Constitutions But if particular men might challenge interest in this freedom as if they had scope to serve God with what order and comliness they pleased this were an uproar and not a freedom and a looseness like that of mad men when they have broke their Chains Certainly the liberty which God hath granted in setting our feet at large from these things with which the Priesthood of Aaron was charged it was to accommodate us with great grace and favour but if this should repel the bringing in of those Ceremonies which are means to beget the greater veneration of Religion the bounty of God which cannot be would turn to a prejudice his blessing to a cross and such as love the welfare of Sion might cry out O Lord we are oppressed with liberty Touching the substance of divine Worship it is written with Gods own finger in holy Scripture we must not add unto it Only God is pleased to try our judgment how we will administer it in the particular fashion His Worship is the Bread of Life sent down from heaven and not invented upon earth but for the manner of his Worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens says of humane Philosophy it is like the sauce in which the bread is dipt to make it savoury to this conditement Jerusalem is allowed to put her skil providing for comliness and honesty as a wise dispenser of the mysteries of God Was ever any thing of moment transacted without some graceful solemnity Or is man so governed by the Spirit that he can lift himself up to Heaven sufficiently by interiour Meditation I forget not that some will say yea the Body also serveth God by the tongue And I allow it for an excellent way to warm our zeal with the loud voice of prayer But this warmth will quickly cool unless some devout actions concur together and deeds are far more durable in the fancy than the memory of speech either to teach the understanding somewhat which it ought to consider or to move the heart to due reverence and regard which it ought to have in the performance of sacred matters Here let the new Jerusalem act her part this is her liberty to enjoyn such Ceremonies for the eye as may prepare the heart the better to feel the power of the grace of God and to prescribe such visible signs as will leave a deeper print behind them than bare exhortation I will add that by this power bequeathed to the Church some Jewish Ceremonies may be reteined as far as the state of the things will bear if they be followed only for outward order and not returning to that obstinately which must be disannulled because Christ is come in the flesh I confess that Spiritual Worship is best for it is most correspondent to his nature whom we worship God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit This is the reason that he says he hates Incense and effusion of bloud at his Altar such kind of service hath no assimilation with him who is incorporeal give him the Sacrifices of righteousness of prayers and mercy and thanksgiving qui corpus non est umbram non habet Approach not to him with shadows for he is a Spirit and not a Body yet in respect of us though not of himself he entertains the lowliness of bodily Worship as it hath a conveniency and conjunction with our nature The Lord is a Spirit and he even he alone gives law how he will be worshipped in spirit but we that worship him are bodily creatures and
Jerusalem our Mother hath indulgence to appoint all external administrations of holiness It is no small ease as I have shewed it to be disingaged from the incumbrance of the old Ceremonies but that which comes next in order is so essential to our happiness that from thence we may say truly and from nothing else the Lord turned the captivity of Sion The time is past when salvation was offered to them turned the captivity of Sion The time is past when salvation was offered to them that did the works of the Law O those were days of bitterness and desperation the Covenant is renewed unto us in another form through the promise of mercy to them that believe in Jesus Christ Now Sin that great Tyrant shall have no dominion over us for we are not under the Law but under Grace Rom. vi 14. Mark the two Covenants and the severe exaction in the one and the mild temperature of the other the one comes blustering like the whirlwind and breaks down Mountains before it the other is the still voice which beats sweetly upon the ear of Elias the one hath nothing but dayes of trouble and reproach the other is a continual Jubilee of rest and peace The Law may be compared to those wretched men that work at the Oar in a Gally they strein their sinews and their strength to plow the waves and yet they meet with such strong tempests that they cannot recover the Haven but the Gospel is a Ship whose sails are spread with faith and hope and the winds of mercy blow them fairly on that the Passengers are carried as in a dream to the Port with speed and tranquillity Hear them both speak Rom. x. 5. for that 's the clearest Scripture I take it for their distinction The righteousness of the Law saith the man that doth these things shall live by them but the righteousness which is by faith speaketh on this wise if thou shalt confess the Lord Jesus thou shalt be saved The man that doth these things shall live but the Lord looked down from Heaven and found no such man upon all the earth Be the imperfections in our manners that are not scandalously culpable yet the law hath not pardon for them that which must be weighed in Gods Balance it must not want a scruple Correct the wandring of your eye bridle your tongue watch your heart â—r servent in prayer be vigilant against tentations yet there is that repugnancy to the Law that unruliness in this body of death that the evil which you would not you shall do and then the Law turns to be that Adversary in St. Matthew which delivers you over to the Tormentor till you have paid the utmost farthing This was not only a bondage under a churlish Nabal that would not be satisfied with such diligence as a Servant could perform but the condition of a beast whose qualities cannot excuse him totally but that sometimes he shall be spurred and beaten Yet none were ever born that can impeach the Law of rigour no not in the equity of humane reason if you will examine them from first to last it will come but into the Margent of our Enditement that our actions have not been so pure and holy and fervent as the bounty of the Divine goodness towards us requires turpitudes of life abominable desires of the heart bruitish intemperance scalding malice unclean passions will fill up our accusations O what a perturbation what unquietness of consciences what a hell of fear it is to know that our Arraignment is just and to have nothing but the Law that inexorable letter of condemnation to comfort us Imus imus praecipites we should feel our selves tumbling down and see no bottom Sin is so ponderous that if the Ship had not been lightned of Jonas it had sunk the Heaven could not hold the Devil and his Angels from falling the Earth could not support Core and Dathan but it is more massy and leaden upon the conscience than in all the Elements What need I to tell you that God did give the Law in an angry form upon Mount Horeb or that he delivered it to Moses a Servant to bring to note the bondage of the Letter I have looked back enough to this let me bring you from this Ergastulum this Prison of Works into the Courts of Gods House into Jerusalem above which is free Jerusalem at the time when this Epistle was written to the Galatians was in bondage two ways in Civil servitude under the Romans in Legal servitude under Moses a miserable case that they should not feel the oppression they were in under Moses car'd not for a Deliverer nay did as much as in them lay to curse their Deliverer Christ that came to set them free they used him as a Servant in crucem servus they crucified him which was a most servile punishment Thus their stupidness in their bondage did make for our freedom and thereby was consummated the Covenant of Faith that we might believe in him who died to be a propitiation for our sins O what a pleasant condition it is what a free what a Princely state of life to wait upon Gods mercy and to be subject to the Ordinance of Faith Upon it depend Pardon Forgiveness Reconciliation Grace Adoption of Saints the Inheritance the Kingdom the Promise of everlasting life With how much diffidence did the Lawgiver intercede in the behalf of Israel Forgive the sin of the people if not blot me out of the book of life To supplicate forgiveness is a message sent from Faith but the Law plucks it back with this distrustful Omen if not if there be no hope then is my confusion before me for ever This is noted in the Generation of Ismael the Son of the Bond-woman Says Sarah to Abraham Go in to Hagar it may be I may obtain children by her This is the Law which despairs and doubts whether God will be gracious but Faith never speaks so faintly looks for no denial how unworthy soever to obtein its Petitions Publicans invite Christ home Adulteresses wash his feet Thieves recommend themselves to be received into his Kingdom and all this not because they are free from the Law but from the Covenant of it which is the bondage of the Law Had their conscience misdeemed that they must be saved by Works they had run away like Bond-men from an austere Lord their tongue had been tied that it durst not wag but light shining in their hearts revealed unto them that Jerusalem was free that the Inheritance came by the Promise of Grace they flock unto him who is the Mediatour of a better Covenant who vindicates his Portion from the bands of Sin and Death and Hell and hath given power to his Ministers to bring those that seek for mercy out of the prison and servitude of Satan for whatsoever they loose upon Earth shall be loosened in Heaven Hold here and stir not from this rock put not the point to
righteousness Such a one would do no unjust thing though he saw his Pardon sealed with his fleshly eyes and were as surely confirmed in state of Salvation as an Angel of light Justus non est sub lege sed voluntas ejus est in lege says St. Austin He alludes to the Latine reading of the first Psalm a just man is not under the Law that is a strein of servitude but his will is in the Law there he finds equity and sincerity he loves them for themselves The minacles and castigations of it are without Law of which he takes no notice because his will is within Vopiscus says that after the death of Aurelian for six months there was an Interregnum no new Elect was agreed upon the People had no Prince to curb them no Tribune of whom they stood in awe yet there was no outrage committed Nam quod est in vit â optimum se quisque timebat Every man was afraid to offend himself and his own conscience These are voces libero homine dignae these are the Praises of more ingenuous men than ever Heathens could be It may be an Impreza for a perfect Christian he doth no evil out of this generous resolution for that he loves God within him not because he fears the world without him Out of Evangelical assurance though the second coming of Christ shall be with such a strange concussion that Heaven and Earth will stagger and burn for it yet a well-armed Christian hath digested the dread and wisheth for that day when the whole Creature shall be delivered from bondage it is his Exclamation Come Lord Jesus come quickly Consider in what an agony the whole Camp of the Israelites was when the Law was proclaimed with Thunder and Tempests upon Mount Sinah it will be strange to one of those to hear a good Disciple call earnestly for that day which will be so full of darkness and gloominess This is indeed the principal Crisis that we have shaken off the Spirit of bondage Non probatur perfecta caritas nisi cum ceperit ille dies desiderari There is no perfect love and by consequent no plenary excussion of servitude till we are earnest in that wish that the day of Christ were near at hand If not that terrour no not that doth pinch us then Jerusalem above is free Yet stay for one qualification more which will make the Angels to congratulate us our freedom if we observe that Proviso in our Charter nay which will please God so well that he will not only make us Citizens who were Bondmen before but Rulers over ten Cities as it is in the Parable that is account not of the good of this world as the Jew did but commit your Heart and your Treasure to the Inheritance which is above They that run far into the thought to prosper in the increment of this earth they cannot decline from being servants to the times to occasions to ignobleness to the manners of iniquity Lift up your hearts unto the Lord with an evangelical abrenunciation of the world and fling these fetters away for there is no such thraldom as that of base affections To serve a sin is worse than to serve a man by how much a man is better than a sin There are some of our Interpreters who have stated this Point not without injury to the Synagogue and the modern Jews have cause to disavow the imputation of mere carnal men as if God did set before them no more than the recompence of this lifes prosperity The Anabaptists teach that the Faithful before Christ did only taste of the sweetness of temporal blessings without any hope of eternal happiness a Censure fitter for beasts that are well pastured than for a man whose soul doth naturally heave him up to immortality chiefly it is an opinion most derogatory to such men whose Fathers did talk with God face to face Besides these Aquinas and his Scholars methinks lay out our difference but rudely Temporalia promittuntur in Veteri Testamento spiritualia in Novo The Old Testament proffers Temporal blessings and the New Testament Spiritual That were I confess the right livery at which a Bondman did stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the heathen Proverb Give the Servant that grinds at the Mill an allowance of food to sustain him and you owe him no more But if the Text of the Old Testament do move only in the circumference of this world and of this life it would scarce make good Philosophy how much less would it never pass for the Touchstone of pure Divinity Therefore without scandal to the old Jerusalem or partiality to the New the odds between us are these The Commonwealth of Israel had the sure promise made unto them of heavenly joy together with a pleasant portion upon earth if they served the Lord. The same Kingdom of heaven is more clearly promised to us but with afflictions and persecutions upon earth Their Jerusalem was in bondage because it kept the Law upon carnal Articles that it might flourish and be free Our Jerusalem is free because it will confess Christ though the more it confess him the more it should be in danger of bondage and imprisonment They were for present delight and heaven hereafter we are for present misery and heaven for ever The Apostles found it an hard matter to send the Church of Christ from Jewish Ceremonies they could not make a bank in their days but that some broke over as in the Church of Galatia No marvel since the dregs thereof are not purged out to this day Circumcision is still reteined among the Abyssines says Damianus Goez Aarons supreme Pontifical Authority is but transmigrated into the Papacy Some have been scrupulous in choice of meats but lately as if Moses did yet predominate Many are more strict than wise in numbring and keeping the hours of Sabbatical rest We that are here I hope are all very ready to condemn this Judaism and yet God knows the most of us are Jews in a greater concernment than we are aware of If we serve for heaven it is well but I am sure we are the more servile that it may be well with us upon earth We ask for the dew of heaven but we make earnest postulations for the fatness of the earth we are content to be shod with the preparation of the Gospel but not so well contented as if it be our fortune to wear the spurs of dignity These are the tricks of a Jew of an uncircumcised Jew his heart is not circumcised from ambition and vanity This is Gehazi's Leprosie which cleaves to base minds my Master is in heavenly raptures and contemns riches As the Lord lives I will run after him and take somewhat Run and let the Devil scorn you for your pains Doth Job serve God for nought To be Sanctified to be Justified to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost to receive spiritual Consolation to be the friends of God this