facultie within vs or all our owne industry and endeuours That which we plow and sow and grinde and bake it is not our worke but Gods So sings the Psalmist Hee brings forth bread out of the earth Not corne but bread What should I speake of the Mildew of Serenes of feuers and consumptions which like canicular feruours burne vp our bodies by the rootes What of blasting of cankers and the greene sicknesse all which doth shew the similitude of our flesh with grasse The remembrance of which originall God hath signed vpon our heads whose change of colour and leafe-fall declareth plainly that his body is Congestum cespite culmen a poore cottage whose toppeds couered with a sodde of earth Earth earth earth saith the Prophet earth thou wast and earth thou art earth thou shalt be whose bones are stones whose veines are riuers onely in this it differs the earth is fixed and immoueable man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earth walking vpon earth Can any cogitation make vs more humble or more humane Humus aut humi repens es Grasse or grasse-hopper saith Dinine Esay Hee sitteth vpon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grassehoppers Poore grashoppers that sing care away merry and pleasant in their summer-dayes and not prouiding for the aduersity of Winter and of want O remember thy Creator before the yeares draw nigh when thou shalt say I haue no pleasure in them When all the daughters of musicke shall bee brought low when the Grashhopper shall bee a burthen dissipabitur capparis and appetite shall faile when man goeth to his long home and the mourners goe about the streets and the voyce saith Cry what shall I cry All flesh is grasse and euery man is vanitie Vanitie of vanities saith the preacher all is vanitie Omnis caro all but especially the many vere foenum est populus surely the people which grow so triuiall and so innumerable vpon the the face of the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens the domesticals of worldly delight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earth liuing earth louing affecting any thing but truth vere foenum est populus surely the people are grasse the multiplying multitude foecunda paupertas saith Lucan prolifical fertile poore Who whē they be as poore in spirit as in substance are the most proper subiect of Gods mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the mercifull Lord Iesus my bowels are tender to this poore multitude but when their sinnes spread as themselues luxuriant and infinite the displeasure of Almighty God mowes them downe by whole millions at once they are troden vnder the feet of Souldiers pestilence and famine do depopulate great Cities and for an embleme of sinfull flesh grasse groweth in the streetes Poore Christian brethren saith S. Chrysostome you that replenish the earth why do ye cumber the ground and make the land grone and lade God with your iniquities and presse him vnder you as a Cart that is pressed with straw Your sinnes turne you into straw and know ye not that God is a consuming fire For if you lust lye sweare purloyne will not trust him for raiment which clothes the grasse of the field you make your selues like to that grasse which is to day and to morrow is cast into the ouen When the root of bitternesse springs into infidelitie and thorny cares choake the word when that saying of the Pharisees is verified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the people are accursed being ouer-growne and ouer-grast with thistles and malice with cursings with drunkennesse and other venemous and vitious weeds what are they but fruites of the first malediction whose end is to bee burnt Thus Sodom which was greene as the garden of God whem their sinnes were ranke and growne ouer their heads they were destroied with fire from heauen And the populous Israelites which grew as plentifull as the grasse of Goshen their carkasses were strowed in the drie wildernesse and of all that preuailing multitude but two were planted in the land of Promise Calamitie comes of Calamus the conflagration of a whole countrey like a stubble field And in Christian landes what wofull desolation hath deuoured the miserable vulgar As an Oxe licketh vp the grasse round about him Numb 22. Or as the Prouerbe speakes that where the foote of the grand signior his horse treadeth nothing will grow that is greene Popule popule mi my people my people saith Almightie God quid potui facere quodnon feet What could I doe for you which I haue not done I haue watered you with the deaw of Heauen giuing you showers and fruitfull seasons nourishing your sucklings with the sweetest iuyce filling your hearts with ioy and gladnesse couering your imperfections with mercie and remembring that you were but flesh But because you longed for anger behold your land is left vnto you desolate Beloued in our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are these things so hath God wasted our brethren and made way for his wrath through the throngest of them and shall wee muster our sinnes and thinke our selues as farre remoued from God as we are diuided from the whole world when wee shall haue beene shall praeterciroumcised Saracens or other outlandish locusts graze on our posteritie and deglut our labours Barbarus has segetes shall barbarous miscreants swallow these fields shall the abhominable Alcorā supplant our Bibles or vnknown language bellow in our Churches or the bodies be prostrate to infernal Mahomet whose knees would not bow to the blessed name of Iesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I heare the soft murmure of your hearts God forbid Then let vs seeke Him before He slay vs and bee not like the Israelites who when He slew them they sought Him and sought Him early when it was too late But hitherto the Apostle hath compared the common frailty of our nature with the ordinarie pasture of the field 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is gramen aut stramen grasse withered or greene But is there nothing excellent and glorious in humane estate aboue this Yes and that 's the second poynt What is the glory of man As the flower of grasse saith the Apostle or as the Prophet stiles it All his goodlinesse is as the flower of the field The top of eminence is a crowne and that 's as Circular and of as short continuance as the crowne of the yeare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psalm 65. the two great Caesars haue their names in two moneths which are the strength and glory of the yeare as they the Maiesty and maturitie of the Romane Empire Neither was euer knowne more then one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or summer vigor in the period of any kingdome What constance then in a voluble Diademe which being carried about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the course of nature hath ben translated frō the Cedar to the brier from the Maister to the seruant which proud Popes haue spurned from the heads of Princes
and the Diuell a creator of sinfull men which follies to name is to confute them Neither am I perswaded that euill spirits haue any part in the generation of the most vngratious natures although the worthiest Christian wits did hold that they had knowledge of the faire daughters of men and thence to haue proceeded the race of Giants as monstrous for their vices and conditions as vast and enormious in their bodies that this infectious and detestable seed being dispersed through the whole earth doth now and then spring vp and produce such abhominable monsters as Heliogabalus and Mahomet and other carnall fiendes The prodigious lewdnesse of some violent and in corrigible natures hath caused this opinion more probable then true howsocuer it is sure the Diuel hath a lineage vpon earth and Cain is the most ancient of that kindred In this paire of brothers were the two houses first diuided and as they begun with fighting so they haue continued vntill now Hence multiplied the two Cities Cinitas Dei Terrena ciuitas whose beginnings proceedings and wonderful variety of fortunes how learnedly hath S. Austin followed in those sweet bookes which begin Gloriosissimam â—iuitatem Dei Where he teacheth how euery man belongs to one of those Citties being descended either of the malignity of Cain or of the bloud of Abel which Cain spilt There are but two factions if thou beest of Abels bloud declare what house thou commest of by thy innocency patience of the Saints If thou art of Caines kindred then deny not thy name bee content to bee numbred amongst thine owne And thus much of the nature of Cain Of the stocke and discent he is ex maligno of the Diuel of the malignant faction to conclude a vessell of dishonour made of the corrupt masse for if he had not beene of the euill he should not haue beene euill hac enim Aug. epist 106 massa si ita esset media vt quemadmodum nihil bont ita nec mali aliquid mereretur non frustra videretur iniquitas vt ex ea fierent vasa in contumeliam This masseis it were of indifferent quality neither good nor euill there might be cause to thinke it iniustice in God to make out of it any vessels of dishonour Now such as the tree is such is the fruit Who was of the Dinell there is the tree who slew his brother there is the fruit bitter and deadly fruit especially in the manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word signifies to cut in peeces like a sacrifice because he had sacrificed so well Cain would sacrifice him So Pilat mixed the Galileans bloud with their sacrifice And at the time of Immolation of the Passouer the Iewes sacrificed the innocent lambe of God thus the innocent when they are murdered they are offered to God in contempt of God and his worship that they may seeme to perish by him in whom they trusted Another circumstance is of the time how soone Cain shed bloud and the Diuell slaieth in the morning in the morning of youth and in the morning of the world By him death entered and how hee longeth to see it worke and that in the first blossome of vertue It is his cunning to stop the first step to goodnesse therefore haue care of the beginning of thy wayes of thy youth and good endeuours for there the Diuell is most instant he knowes well that in euery beginning is contained more then a beginning As soone as the Temple began to be re-edified he opposed mainly hee stirred euery stone that no stone might bee stirred And immediately when the Sauiour of our soules beganne the office of Christ the Diuell tempted him in the desart so in the natiuity of the creation he slew the first innocency of Nature and in the entrance of generation the first innocencie of grace So he persecuted the tender infancie of our Lord and he made the Primitiue Church to swim with bloud Hee knew that if the world were stained when it was a new vessell that colour would continue vnto the end So Rome an Epitome of the world in token that it should be died with the bloud of Martyrs the foundations of her walles were dipt in brothers bloud Cain and Romulus both elder brothers both furious potent Cain in his name which signifieth possession shewed that he had elenen parts against one so Achab killed Naboth and tooke possession and euer the greater part ouercommeth the better Abel could not kill Cain if he would but where might and malice wealth and wrath are ioyned there breake forth iniuties and oppressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wealth brings forth wrong Wherfore God set a marke vpon Cain that men might beware of him As the Romans vsed to bind some hay to the hornes of a madde Bull to signifie saith Plutarke that too much sodder made him mad wherevpon they applyed this prouerbe Foenum habet in cornu beware of him that is iniurious and rich Now as Cain was a patterne of all oppressours hauing power and doing wrong so Abel signifying vanity in the beginning was a type not onely of death but of the vanity of life for euery man liuing is altogether vanity How many haue their sunne-setting in the morning and they which haue the longest day liue but a day so soone doe wee appeare and vanish Vanity in apparell walking in a vaine shadow talking vainely disquietting our selues in vaine vaine hopes and vaine desires In the daies of my vanity saith Salomon I saw this and that vanity and whatsoeuer I beheld was vanity of vanities Another thing was allegorized in this History namely how our Sauiour Christ the second Adam was murthered by the Elders of the Iewes and his Bloud shed though speaking better things then that of Abel without the gates as Abels in the fields for which horrible sinne of God-slaughter the Iewes shall bee errant vagabonds vnto the worlds end signed by God that although all men hate and eschew them yet none shall kill them Destroy them not O God saith the Psalmist least my people forget it but scatter and despearse them So they are aliens in the whole earth a common prouerbe a common prey not borne but by leaue nor breathing but by good will And surely it is seldome seene but shame and beggery is the end of those which destroy the innocent either by the mouth of the sword or by the sword of the mouth and they which kill mens soules by heresy and selusme and they which slay by hatred and they which rauen and oppresse As the great fish eates the lesse and the greater cates the great and the greatest the greater so greedy Cainites deuoure and are deooured but at last the biggest saith S. Basil comes into the net and the deuill rips the prey out of his bowels thou appeares the insatiablenesse of these swallow-goods that haue more riches then they can digest when the whole estate of such and such a man shall bee found
and little Zacheus who climed the Tree to looke downe vpon him that was higher then the skie Then the Wise men of the East were not worthy of that name who came so farre to see him Saint Ierome might haue made a better wish then aboue all things to haue seene Christ in the flesh But our Sauiour himselfe condemnes these men when he saith the Queene of Saba shall rise vp in iudgement against this Generation for shee came farre to heare the wisedome of Salomon and behold a greater then Salomon is heere And Luke 10.25 Blessed are the eyes that haue seene what you see for I say vnto you many Prophets haue desired to see that which you see and could not see it Which is ment of seeing Christ Iesus in his mortall estate Foelix qui potuit fontem boni visero lucidum To apply that speech vnto this sence If the eye of a man were suddenly made able to behold the Heauens the Sun and Moone and Starres in their iust splendure and bignesse Or to see the whole earth with all the creatures in it at once Vuo distincto intuitu How would his mind bee rapt with admiration But the sight of God manifested in the flesh was a farre more admirable obiect the extasie of men and Angels and as I may say the proper end why the eye was created Of which fight if the senselesse creatures had beene made capable How thinke you would the Sunne haue desired to shine continually in that climate where Hee breathed And the other parts of the earth haue contended that they also might haue receiued the impression of His sacred feete enuying the felicity of Canaan Then let all true Christians honour the happy memories of those blessed Saints who were ordained to see that Iust One and to bee eye-witnesses of that Mysterie into which the immateriall Angels do delight to pry And as for vs wee that had not that prerogatiue to see him in the flesh yet for increase of our deuotion let vs euer beare Him in our fancies and vse all meanes that wee may seeme to see him that with a readier passage wee may feele him and beare him in our hearts This is the recompence of absence and onely solace vnto true loue by imagination to fill vp the distance of time and place and transforme things past into things present Quem vidistis pastores whom saw yee shepheards tell vs tell vs. We saw the Omnipotent infant and Angels worship him But where and when and how tell mee some circumstance that I may seeme to see him Vidimus Deum parvulum pannis inuolutum matrem vbera admouentem Wee saw God a little one swadled and lying in a cribbe and his mother giuing him suck O happy sight O vnspeakeable mysterie O gratissimi vagitus per quos eternos ploratus euasimus O foelices pannim quibus peccatorum sordes abstersimus O praesepe splendidum vbi iacuit panis angelorum Lacta Maria creatorem tuum lacta virgo gloriesa O foelicia oscula lactentis labijs impressa It is S. Austens meditation Sapientia si oculis cerneretur quantos amores excitaret sui Wisedome saith Plato if it could be seene with bodily eyes how would it stirre vp men to loue it But the wisedome of God became visible and manifested in the flesh and how should it stirre vp men to loue it This did so inflame the beloued Disciple him which dranke wisedome our of the bosome of our Lord that his Epistle which is wholly precepts of loue hee beginnes with mention of seeing Christ and repeates the same word againe and againe That which wee haue seene with our eyes which wee haue looked vpon and our hands haue handled of the word of life For the life appeared and we haue seene it and it appeared that I say which wee haue seene and heard declare wee vnto you And the whole number of the twelue when after his last farewell hee ascended how stood they gazing on him as being loth to loose the last minute of his visible presence And no maruell for the very sight no doubt conueighed vnto the faithfull a benigne influence prefigured in the old Testament where to looke stedfastly vpon the brasen Serpent was soueraigne against the poysonfull sting of fierie Serpents What deuout Christian now liuing would not giue the whole world if he had it for to see him To see him either in his childe-hood or in in his youth in his humilitie or in his maiestie When it pleased him sometimes to make his glorious deitie shine through his man-hood as Saint Ierome thinkes he did when he called S. Peter S. Andrew who therefore presently laid away and followed him Heare the meditation of the blessed Father S. Austen vpon this poynt Hei mihi quia videre non potui Dominum angelorum heu quod tam inaestimabili pietati presens obstupescere non merui And further Cur ô anima c. Wherfore ô my soule wast thou not present that thou mightst haue beene pierced through with sharpest griefe when thy Sauiours side was pierced with a speare where thou couldst not haue endured to haue seene the hands and feet of thy maker rent with nailes that thou mightst haue swounded to haue seene the bloud of thy redeemer spilt that thou mightest haue condoled with the blessed virgin O gracious good Lady what streames of teares may I thinke flowed out of thy most chaste eyes when thou beheldedst thy innocent thy onely son bound scourged murdered flesh of thy flesh bone of thy bone so cruelly cut mangled And further vtinā cum felice Iosepho dominum meū de cruce deposuissem cur non fui deosculatus loca vulnerum c. Thus holy men were wont to incense their loue and their deuotion to cleanse their imaginations from the idols of carnall beautie which hauing entred at the eyes haunt the disquiet fancies of poore youth and cannot be spelled nor expelled but with the image of God incarnate For this cause our venerable ancestors from all clymates of the Christian world haue resorted to the holy Cittie that although they could not see their Sauiour yet they might see and worship where his feete had trode or walked where he wept and swet and bled and died There was the price of our redemption numbred that earth and that heauens shal witnesse that there the summe was tendered and that innocent heart-bloud powred out which none can powre into his breast againe This made good Paula and her daughter Eustochium Romane Ladies of the honourable family of the Grachi remoue with all their substance to Bethleem and there they liued and there they died with S. Ierom. This made S. Helen honour of our English nation the happy mother of great Constantioe so deuoutly to visite euery place where our Lord conuersed and euery where to erect so many famous memories so many goodly Churches This caused S. Ierom to spend the greatest part of his life there There hee
euery strange thing hee heares of and to haue euery costly thing which he sees how can this loue of Christ bo in him He which hateth his brother whom he daily sees how can hee loue his Sauiour whom hee neuer saw When the concupiscence of the eye is waxen dimme and the faire forbidden fruit is faded Alas how will yee wish that yee had seene lesse and lesse loued that yee saw and more loued him whom yee neuer saw Behold him in his members behold him in his poore distressed membes behold him harbourlesse and naked behold him hungry and thirsty Cloth him lodge him feed him if you loue him that when you shall see him comming in the Clouds with glory yee may heare Come yee blessed for when I was hungry you fed mee when I was naked you clothed mee Which happinesse Hee grant vs that liueth and raigneth with the Father and Holy Ghost to whom bee all praise and glory euermore Amen The end of the third Sermon THE FOVRTH SERMON Of the frailty of Man 1. PET. 1.24 All flesh is as grasse and all the glory of man as the flower of grasse THIS is the echo of a cry in the fortieth chapter of Esay the sixth verse rebounding from the solidity of Peter The voice said cry Because all flesh the whole world must heare And because the whole world is so ingurgitate in the dulnesse of flesh that without a cry they cannot heare It seemes then that God will haue this cry to bee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à resonance in our eares which no melodie of pleasure should take away The Heathen man caused one to cry daily vnto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remember thou art a man And there are two maine cries in the Scripture The one puts vs in minde of our immortality which S. Ierom saith hee heard alwaies sounding in his eares Arise you dead and come to iudgement The second of our mortality and is of necessity precedent to the former proclaimed by this Harbinger Omnis caro foenum All flesh is grasse and all the glory of man Wherefore hee that hath eares to heare let him heare 1. the common meannesse of his nature al flesh is grasse All there is the community Flesh that is the name of his nature thirdly Grasse there is the meanenesse of his nature In the second part the meanenesse of the excellency of his nature The glory of man that is the execllency The flower of grasse there is the frailty of his excellence Lastly without exception all all the glory of man is as the flower of the grasse All flesh is grasse For God hauing made all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one bloud although they haue variety of distinction yet they all meete in this ground that they are grasse I am no better then my fathers saith Elias And the Apostles make themselues leuell in the same vaile of miserie with the common people of Iconium that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subiects of the same sufferings For this cause the Holy Ghost calles the poore mans body the flesh of the rich Despise not thou thine owne flesh Now the second poynt is the name of our nature which is here called flesh The body is our worse halfe and flesh the worse of the worse for it is tender and subiect to change and losse Further the flesh lusteth against the spirit Therfore S. Gregori cals it with coÌ„tempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this enuious little flesh By this name the Scripture calling the body or the whole man and vsing the part for the whole yet would not haue the part to bee the whole for then we should bee like the Cretians who were nothing but belly and beast or as the Israelites who seeking to fat their flesh the Psalmist saith that God sent leanesse into their soules Howsoeuer then you interpret the word flesh either of the body or of the nature and estate of man which confisteth much of things bodily or of carnalitie which is perishing of the soule in fauour of the body Of all these the Prophet cries aloud Omnis caro foenum all flesh is grasse To enter then vpon this argument which is the grassie substance of our nature did not the first man spring out of the earth and though he grew amongst the delicious fruits of paradice and had no poyson in his roote yet he continued not in honour but being transplanted into that common where we grow spred his degenerous of-spring ouer the whole earth whose seed multiplying innumerable was nourished with no other food vntill the floud came and corrupted the vertue thereof Since which time although our diet bee changed and flesh be nourished with flesh yet the chiefe of that flesh is but grasse concocted and conuerted into flesh and the flesh of men and beasts are both resolued into one dust which dust by perpetuall reuolution in the same circuit sends forth againe that aliment which sustames both them and vs. Before that iust and vniversall deluge had discoloured the earth it seemeth probable that as the dayes of man were of a greater length so the vegerable verdure of the earth was of more continuance in all habitable elymates thereof But after that calamitie immediatly in the distinction which tho Almighty established a greater portioÌ„ was allotted to the harder times the sweet seasons of the yeare were contracted and decaying Autumne the aspetitie of barren Winter prolonged Agreeably whereunto the spaces of our life were measured The yong springall soone passeth through his greene hopes and ripe manhood being straightned in the middest encroching age extends the rest in trouble and tempest vntill death There is Cruda viridisque senoctus whom the Greekes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who through the indulgence of a milde Winter besides the venorable antiquitie of their gray haires which is the uncture of wifedome and sage experience haue also fresh vigour in their bloud and actinity in their wittes and vnderstandings But for the most part the strength of these yeares is labour and sorrow for it is soone cut downe and with one blast of Gods anger they flye away So the famous Champion sighed to see his â—ere and dead armes And Helen wept when shee sawe her withered beautie in the glasse So that the Philosophy of nature doth restraine our pride comprising the progresse and persection of our life within the period of one yeare Quale gonus foliorum tale est hominum There is a time of growing and a time of fading but no part of our time passeth out of this coÌ„passe Which affordeth matter of consideration For as plants depend vpon the planots and are more beholding to the Suimne their father then the Earth their mother so that which we liue although it be supplied by an inward cause like to that power where with the earth was first indued by the creating Word yet the fauour or displeasure of heauen conferreth more to this effect then either the natiue