of our neglect It is not more the shame of Israel then the glory of the Centurion that our Saviour says I have not found so great faith in Israel Had Israel yielded any equall faith it could not have been unespied of these All-seeing eyes yet though their Helps were so much greater their Faith was less and God never gives more then he requires Where we have laid our Tillage and Compost and Seed who would not look for a Crop but if the uncultured Fallow yield more how justly is that unanswerable ground near to a curse Our Saviour did not mutter this censorious testimony to himself not whisper it to his Disciples but he turned him about to the people and spake it in their ears that he might at once work their shame and emulation In all other things except spirituall our self-love makes us impatient of equalls much less can we endure to be out-stripped by those who are our professed inferiours It is well if any thing can kindle in us holy ambitions Dull and base are the spirits of that man that can abide to see another overtake him in the way and out-run him to Heaven He that both wrought this Faith and wondred at it doth now reward it Go thy ways and as thou hast believed so be it unto thee Never was any Faith unseen of Christ never was any seen without allowance never was any allowed without remuneration The measure of our receits in the matter of favour is the proportion of our belief The infinite Mercy of God which is ever like it self follows but one rule in his gift to us the Faith that he gives us Give us O God to believe and be it to us as thou wilt it shall be to us above that we will The Centurion sues for his Servant and Christ says So be it unto thee The Servant's health is the benefit of the Master and the Master's Faith is the health of the Servant And if the Prayers of an earthly Master prevailed so much with the Son of God for the recovery of a Servant how shall the intercession of the Son of God prevail with his Father in Heaven for us that are his impotent Children and Servants upon Earth What can we want O Saviour whilst thou suest for us He that hath given thee for us can deny thee nothing for us can deny us nothing for thee In thee we are happy and shall be glorious To thee O thou mighty Redeemer of Israel with thine Eternal Father together with thy Blessed Spirit one God infinite and incomprehensible be given all Praise Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen XIII The Widow's Son raised THE favours of our beneficent Saviour were at the least contiguous No sooner hath he raised the Centurion's Servant from his Bed then he raises the Widow's Son from his Bier The fruitfull clouds are not ordained to fall all in one field Nain must partake of the bounty of Christ as well as Cana or Capernaum And if this Sun were fixed in one Orb yet it diffuseth heat and light to all the world It is not for any place to ingross the Messengers of the Gospel whose errand is universal This immortal Seed may not fall all in one furrow The little City of Nain stood under the hill of Hermon near unto Tabor but now it is watered with better dews from above the Doctrine and Miracles of a Saviour Not for state but for the more evidence of the work is our Saviour attended with a large train so entering into the gate of that walled City as if he meant to besiege their Faith by his Power and to take it His providence hath so contrived his journey that he meets with the sad pomp of a Funeral A wofull Widow attended with her weeping neighbours is following her onely Son to the grave There was nothing in this spectacle that did not command compassion A young man in the flower in the strength of his age swallowed up by death Our decrepit age both expects death and solicits it but vigorous youth looks strangely upon that grim Serjeant of God Those mellow apples that fall alone from the tree we gather up with contentment we chide to have the unripe unseasonably beaten down with cudgels But more a young man the onely Son the onely Child of his mother No condition can make it other then grievous for a well-natur'd mother to part with her own bowels yet surely store is some mitigation of loss Amongst many children one may be more easily missed for still we hope the surviving may supply the comforts of the dead But when all our hopes and joys must either live or die in one the loss of that one admits of no consolation When God would describe the most passionate expression of sorrow that can fall into the miserable he can but say O daughter of my people gird thee with sackcloath and wallow thy self in ashes make lamentation and bitter mourning as for thine onely Son Such was the loss such was the sorrow of this disconsolate mother neither words nor tears can suffice to discover it Yet more had she been aided by the counsel and supportation of a loving Yoke-fellow this burthen might have seemed less intolerable A good Husband may make amends for the loss of a Son Had the Root been left to her intire she might better have spared the Branch now both are cut up all the stay of her life is gone and she seems abandoned to a perfect misery And now when she gave her self up for a forlorn mourner past all capacity of redress the God of comfort meets her pities her relieves her Here was no Solicitour but his own Compassion In other occasions he was sought and sued to The Centurion comes to him for a Servant the Ruler for a Son Jairus for a Daughter the neighbours for the Paralytick here he seeks the Patient and offers the Cure unrequested Whilst we have to doe with the Father of mercies our Afflictions are the most powerfull suitours No tears no prayers can move him so much as his own commiseration O God none of our secret sorrows can be either hid from thine eyes or kept from thine heart and when we are past all our hopes all possibilities of help then art thou nearest to us for deliverance Here was a conspiration of all parts to mercy The Heart had compassion the Mouth said Weep not the Feet went to the Bier the Hand touched the Coffin the power of the Deity raised the dead What the Heart felt was secret to it self the Tongue therefore expresses it in words of comfort Weep not Alas what are words to so strong and just passions To bid her not to weep that had lost her onely Son was to perswade her to be miserable and not feel it to feel and not regard it to regard and yet to smother it Concealment doth not remedy but aggravate sorrow That with the counsel of not weeping therefore she might see cause of
then native subjection yet where God did countermand Herod there could be no question whom to obey They say not We are in a strange Country Herod may meet with us it can be no less then death to mock him in his own territories but chearfully put themselves upon the way and trust God with the success When men command with God we must obey men for God and God in men when against him the best obedience is to deny obedience and to turn our backs upon Herod The Wise men are safely arrived in the East and fill the world full of expectation as themselves are full of wonder Joseph and Mary are returned with the Babe to that Jerusalem where the Wise men had inquired for his Birth The City was doubtless still full of that rumour and little thinks that he whom they talk of was so near them From thence they are at least in their way to Nazareth where they purpose their abode God prevents them by his Angel and sends them for safety into Egypt Joseph was not wont to be so full of Visions It was not long since the Angel appeared unto him to justifie the innocency of the Mother and the Deity of the Son now he appears for the preservation of both and a preservation by flight Could Joseph now chuse but think Is this the King that must save Israel that needs to be saved by me If he be the Son of God how is he subject to the violence of men How is he Almighty that must save himself by flight or how must he flie to save himself out of that land which he comes to save But faithful Joseph having been once tutoured by the Angel and having heard what the Wise men said of the Star what Simeon and Anna said in the Temple labours not so much to reconcile his thoughts as to subject them and as one that knew it safer to suppress doubts then to assoil them can believe what he understands not and can wonder where he cannot comprehend Oh strange condition of the King of all the world He could not be born in a baser estate yet even this he cannot enjoy with safety There was no room for him in Bethlehem there will be no room for him in Judaea He is no sooner come to his own then he must flie from them that he may save them he must avoid them Had it not been easie for thee O Saviour to have acquit thy self from Herod a thousand ways What could an arm of flesh have done against the God of spirits What had it been for thee to have sent Herod five years sooner unto his place what to have commanded fire from heaven on those that should have come to apprehend thee or to have bidden the earth to receive them alive whom she meant to swallow dead We suffer misery because we must thou because thou wouldest The same will that brought thee from Heaven into earth sends thee from Jewry to Egypt As thou wouldst be born mean and miserable so thou wouldst live subject to humane vexations that thou who hast taught us how good it is to bear the yoke even in our youth mightst sanctifie to us early afflictions Or whether O Father since it was the purpose of thy wisedom to manifest thy Son by degrees unto the world was it thy will thus to hide him for a time under our infirmity And what other is our condition we are no sooner born thine then we are persecuted If the Church travail and bring forth a male she is in danger of the Dragons streams What do the Members complain of the same measure which was offered to the Head Both our Births are accompanied with Tears Even of those whose mature age is full of trouble yet the infancy is commonly quiet but here life and toil began together O Blessed Virgin even already did the sword begin to pierce thy Soul Thou which wert forced to bear thy Son in thy womb from Nazareth to Bethlehem must now bear him in thy arms from Jewry into Egypt Yet couldst thou not complain of the way whilest thy Saviour was with thee His presence alone was able to make the Stable a Temple Egypt a Paradise the way more pleasing then rest But whither then O whither dost thou carry that blessed burthen by which thy self and the world are upholden To Egypt the Slaughter-house of God's people the Furnace of Israel's ancient affliction the Sink of the world Out of Egypt have I called my Son saith God That thou calledst thy Son out of Egypt O God is no marvell It is a marvell that thou calledst him into Egypt but that we know all earths are thine and all places and men are like figures upon a table such as thy disposition makes them What a change is here Israel the first-born of God flies out of Egypt into the promised Land of Judaea Christ the first-born of all creatures flies from Judaea into Egypt Egypt is become the Sanctuary Judaea the Inquisition-house of the Son of God He that is every where the same makes all places alike to his He makes the fiery Furnace a Gallery of pleasure the Lions den an house of defence the Whales belly a lodging-chamber Egypt an harbour He flees that was able to preserve himself from danger to teach us how lawfully we may flee from those dangers we cannot avoid otherwise It is a thankless fortitude to offer our throat unto the knife He that came to die for us fled for his own preservation and hath bid us follow him When they persecute you in one City flee into another We have but the use of our lives and we are bound to husband them to the best advantage of God and his Church God hath made us not as Butts to be perpetually shot at but as the marks of Rovers movable as the wind and sun may best serve It was warrant enough for Joseph and Mary that God commands them to flee yet so familiar is God grown with his approved servants that he gives them the reason of his commanded flight For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him What wicked men will do what they would doe is known unto God beforehand He that is so infinitely wise to know the designs of his enemies before they are could as easily prevent them that they might not be but he lets them run on in their own courses that he may fetch glory to himself out of their wickedness Good Joseph having this charge in the night staies not till the morning no sooner had God said Arise then he starts up and sets forward It was not diffidence but obedience that did so hasten his departure The charge was direct the business important He dares not linger for the light but breaks his rest for the journey and taking advantage of the dark departs toward Egypt How knew he this occasion would abide any delay We cannot be too speedy in the execution of Gods commands we may be too late
for his Truth we do but suffer with him with whom we shall once reign However the Disciples pleaded for their Master's safety yet they aimed at their own they well knew their danger was inwrapped in his It is but a cleanly colour that they put upon their own fear This is held but a weak and base Passion each one would be glad to put off the opinion of it from himself and to set the best face upon his own impotency Thus white-livered men that shrink and shift from the Cross will not want fair pretences to evade it One pleads the perill of many dependents another the disfurnishing the Church of succeeding abettours each will have some plausible excuse for his sound skin What errour did not our Saviour rectifie in his followers Even that fear which they would have dissembled is graciously dispelled by the just consideration of a sure and inevitable Providence Are there not twelve hours in the day which are duely set and proceed regularly for the direction of all the motions and actions of men So in this course of mine which I must run on earth there is a set and determined time wherein I must work and doe my Father's will The Sun that guides these hours is the determinate counsell of my Father and his calling to the execution of my charge whilst I follow that I cannot miscarry no more then a man can miss his known way at high noon this while in vain are either your disswasions or the attempts of enemies they cannot hurt ye cannot divert me The journey then holds to Judaea his attendents shall be made acquainted with the occasion He that had formerly denied the deadliness of Lazarus his sickness would not suddenly confess his death neither yet would he altogether conceal it so will he therefore confess it as that he will shadow it out in a borrowed expression Lazarus our friend sleepeth What a sweet title is here both of death and of Lazarus Death is a sleep Lazarus is our friend Lo he says not my friend but ours to draw them first into a gracious familiarity and communion of friendship with himself for what doth this import but Ye are my friends and Lazarus is both my friend and yours Our friend O meek and mercifull Saviour that disdainest not to stoop so low as that whilst thou thoughtest it no robbery to be equall unto God thou thoughtest it no disparagement to match thy self with weak and wretched men Our friend Lazarus There is a kind of parity in Friendship There may be Love where is the most inequality but friendship supposes pairs yet the Son of God says of the sons of men Our friend Lazarus Oh what an high and happy condition is this for mortal men to aspire unto that the God of Heaven should not be ashamed to own them for friends Neither saith he now abruptly Lazarus our friend is dead but Lazarus our friend sleepeth O Saviour none can know the estate of life or death so well as thou that art the Lord of both It is enough that thou tellest us death is no other then sleep that which was wont to pass for the cousin of death is now it self All this while we have mistaken the case of our dissolution we took it for an enemy it proves a friend there is pleasure in that wherein we supposed horrour Who is afraid after the weary toils of the day to take his rest by night or what is more refreshing to the spent traveller then a sweet sleep It is our infidelity our impreparation that makes death any other then advantage Even so Lord when thou seest I have toiled enough let me sleep in peace and when thou seest I have slept enough awake me as thou didst thy Lazarus But I go to awake him Thou saidst not Let us go to awake him those whom thou wilt allow companions of thy way thou wilt not allow partners of thy work they may be witnesses they cannot be actours None can awake Lazarus out of this sleep but he that made Lazarus Every mouse or gnat can raise us up from that other sleep none but an Omnipotent power from this This sleep is not without a dissolution Who can command the Soul to come down and meet the body or command the body to piece with it self and rise up to the Soul but the God that created both It is our comfort and assurance O Lord against the terrours of death and tenacity of the grave that our Resurrection depends upon none but thine Omnipotence Who can blame the Disciples if they were loth to return to Judaea Their last entertainment was such as might justly dishearten them Were this as literally taken all the reason of our Saviour's purpose of so perillous a voiage they argued not amiss If he sleep he shall doe well Sleep in sickness is a good sign of recovery For extremity of pain bars our rest when Nature therefore finds so much respiration she justly hopes for better terms Yet it doth not always follow If he sleep he shall doe well How many have died in lethargies how many have lost in sleep what they would not have forgone waking Adam slept and lost his rib Sampson slept and lost his strength Saul slept and lost his weapon Ishbosheth and Holofernes slept and lost their heads In ordinary course it holds well here they mistook and erred The misconstruction of the words of Christ led them into an unseasonable and erroneous suggestion Nothing can be more dangerous then to take the speeches of Christ according to the sound of the letter one errour will be sure to draw on more and if the first be never so slight the last may be important Wherefore are words but to express meanings why do we speak but to be understood Since then our Saviour saw himself not rightly construed he delivers himself plainly Lazarus is dead Such is thy manner O thou eternall Word of thy Father in all thy sacred expressions Thine own mouth is thy best commentary what thou hast more obscurely said in one passage thou interpretest more clearly in another Thou art the Sun which givest us that light whereby we see thy self But how modestly dost thou discover thy Deity to thy Disciples Not upon the first mention of Lazarus his death instantly professing thy Power and will of his resuscitation but contenting thy self onely to intimate thy Omniscience in that thou couldst in that absence and distance know and report his departure they shall gather the rest and cannot chuse but think we serve a Master that knows all things and he that knows all things can doe all things The absence of our Saviour from the death-bed of Lazarus was not casuall but voluntary yea he is not onely willing with it but glad of it I am glad for your sakes that I was not there How contrary may the affections of Christ and ours be and yet be both good The two worthy Sisters were much grieved at our Saviour's
of those eyes whom thou wouldst bless with the sight of thee thou wert seen indeed of five hundred at once but they were Brethren So in thine Ascension thou didst not carry all Jerusalem promiscuously forth with thee to see thy glorious departure but onely that selected company of thy Disciples which had attended thee in thy life Those who immediately upon thine ascending returned to Jerusalem were an hundred and twenty persons a competent number of witnesses to verify that thy miraculous and triumphant passage into thy Glory Lo those onely were thought worthy to behold thy majesticall Ascent which had been partners with thee in thy Humiliation Still thou wilt have it thus with us O Saviour and we embrace the condition if we will converse with thee in thy lowly estate here upon earth wading with thee through contempt and manifold afflictions we shall be made happy with the sight and communion of thy Glory above O my Soul be thou now if ever ravished with the contemplation of this comfortable and blessed farewell of thy Saviour What a sight was this how full of joyfull assurance of spirituall consolation Methinks I see it still with their eyes how thou my glorious Saviour didst leisurely and insensibly rise up from thine Olivet taking leave of thine acclaiming Disciples now left below thee with gracious eyes with Heavenly benedictions Methinks I see how they followed thee with eager and longing eyes with arms lifted up as if they had wished them winged to have soared up after thee And if Eliah gave assurance to his servant Elisha that if he should behold him in that rapture his Master's Spirit should be doubled upon him what an accession of the spirit of joy and confidence must needs be to thy happy Disciples in seeing thee thus gradually rising up to thy Heaven Oh how unwillingly did their intentive eyes let go so Blessed an Object How unwelcome was that Cloud that interposed it self betwixt thee and them and closing up it self left onely a glorious splendour behind it as the bright track of thine Ascension Of old here below the Glory of the Lord appeared in the Cloud now afar off in the sky the Cloud intercepted this Heavenly Glory if distance did not rather doe it then that bright meteor Their eyes attended thee on thy way so far as their beams would reach when they could goe no farther the Cloud received thee Lo yet even that very screen whereby thou wert taken off from all earthly view was no other then glorious how much rather do all the beholders fix their sight upon that Cloud then upon the best piece of the Firmament Never was the Sun it self gazed on with so much intention With what long looks with what astonished acclamations did these transported beholders follow thee their ascending Saviour as if they would have look'd through that Cloud and that Heaven that hid thee from them But oh what tongue of the highest Archangel of Heaven can express the welcome of thee the King of Glory into those Blessed Regions of Immortality Surely the Empyreall Heaven never resounded with so much joy God ascended with jubilation and the Lord with the sound of the Trumpet It is not for us weak and finite creatures to wish to conceive those incomprehensible spirituall Divine gratulations that the Glorious Trinity gave to the victorious and now-glorified Humane nature Certainly if when he brought his onely-begotten Son into the world he said Let all the Angels worship him much more now that he ascends on high and hath led captivity captive hath he given him a Name above all names that at the Name of JESVS all knees should bow And if the Holy Angels did so carol at his Birth in the very entrance into that estate of Humiliation and infirmity with what triumph did they receive him now returning from the perfect atchievement of Man's Redemption And if when his type had vanquished Goliah and carried the head into Jerusalem the damsels came forth to meet him with dances and timbrels how shall we think those Angelicall Spirits triumphed in meeting of the great Conquerour of Hell and Death How did they sing Lift up your heads ye gates and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors and the King of glory shall come in Surely as he shall come so he went and behold he shall come with thousands of his Holy ones thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand thousands stood before him From all whom methinks I hear that blessed applause Worthy is the Lamb that was killed to receive power and riches and wisedom and strength and honour and glory and praise Praise and honour and glory and power be to him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for evermore And why dost not thou O my Soul help to bear thy part with that happy Quire of Heaven Why art not thou rapt out of my bosome with an ecstasy of joy to see this Humane nature of ours exalted above all the Powers of Heaven adored of Angels Archangels Cherubin Seraphim and all those mighty and glorious Spirits and sitting there crowned with infinite Glory and Majesty Although little would it avail thee that our Nature is thus honoured if the benefit of this Ascension did not reflect upon thee How many are miserable enough in themselves notwithstanding the Glory of their humane nature in Christ None but those that are found in him are the happier by him who but the Members are the better for the glory of the Head O Saviour how should our weakness have ever hoped to climb into Heaven if thou hadst not gone before and made way for us It is for us that thou the fore-runner art entred in Now thy Church hath her wish Draw me and I shall run after thee Even so O Blessed Jesu how ambitiously should we follow thee with the paces of Love and Faith and aspire towards thy Glory Thou that art the way hast made the way to thy self and us Thou didst humble thy self and becamest obedient to the death even to the death of the Cross Therefore hath God also highly exalted thee and upon the same terms will not fail to advance us we see thy track before us of Humility and Obedience O teach me to follow thee in the roughest ways of Obedience in the bloudy paths of Death that I may at last overtake thee in those high steps of Immortality Amongst those millions of Angels that attended this triumphant Ascension of thine O Saviour some are appointed to this lower station to comfort thine astonished Disciples in the certain assurance of thy no-less-glorious Return Two men stood by them in white apparell They stood by them they were not of them they seemed Men they were Angels Men for their familiarity two for more certainty of testimony in white for the joy of thine Ascension The Angels formerly celebrated thy Nativity with Songs but we do not find they then appeared in white thou wert then to undergoe much sorrow