time Therefore not St. Austin but some other forgetful Author said in 29 Serm. de Temp. that Christ was magnified for a fourth renowned work also upon that day namely for the first miracle of the loaves and fishes Concerning the first three I have authority enough in ancient Writers and three such miracles to be celebrated in the offices of one feast are enough to give it a principal reputation So gladsom a festival it was chiefly to sing praises to the Lord for the calling of the Gentiles that if either King or Potentate withdrew himself from Church on this day it was enough to tax him for a Pagan and that he did abhor the Gospel Therefore such as write of Julian the Emperour and his deep hypocrisie note in him that for many years he would come in all Princely pomp to Gods house at this feast lest he should have seemed openly and directly to have renounced all Christianity I have told you in what price and estimation this Festival was held of old because nothing was so precious to the Gentiles as their own salvation Therefore I hope you will do the day that common right to give diligent ear to some portion of the Scripture while I entreat upon it with what persons and miracles and other circumstances the preamble of our calling and illumination began In the Epistle for the day if you mark it we forget not Pauls kindness that he was a prisoner for us Gentiles Eph. 3.1 it is worth our thanks and remembrance much more is it worth the recitation in the Gospel what Christ became for our sakes a condition far meaner than for an Apostle to become a prisoner Paul from a sinful man became a diligent Apostle Christ being God came unto us in the shape of a sinful man of an impotent Babe and was bound though not in fetters yet in swadling clouts laid up in a Manger as contemptible a corner as a gaol and being all innocency reputed for our sakes worse than Barrabas the greatest scandal of the prison of him St. Paul did preach and the Prophets did preach and the Stars did preach and these Wise-men did preach that we Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of the same promise in Christ I have been copious upon the descent and stock and other qualities of these wise men upon their coming upon their journey so long and perilous from the East to Jerusalem Three things do equally divide my whole matter the doings and the sayings of these Pilgrims and the occasion of both For their doings and sayings to be equally regarded upon this Text I find that I concur with St. Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see the vertue of these Wise men both to come so far and to speak so far to come from home for Christs sake and to speak so home for Christs sake Where is he that is born c. The occasion of all is now to be handled Now when Jesus was born which is opened by two circumstances of the place that was in Bethlem and of the time In the days of Herod the King Now their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or boldness of speaking the truth is drawn to two heads by the Fathers Vnum quaerunt unum asserunt say they but here is one question and two assertions The confident question Where is he that is born King of the Jews The assertions first What God had wrought for them We have seen his Star in the East Secondly What God had wrought in them And are come to worship him And in the beginning I take the occasion in hand Now when Jesus was born Is that the Axel upon which all the business of these Eastern Travellers turns it self No wonder if that beget a great holy day for Christs birth is the occasion of all the holy days in the year If you keep some days festival for the Evangelists you know how they deserve it because they were his Penmen and Recorders if other times are celebrated for the Martyrdom of the Apostles because they were his Witnesses the Innocents of Bethlehem were slain in his quarrel and Michael and all the Angels fight for the Church because Christ is the head both of things in heaven and of things in earth All our joy all our triumphs all our glory move from hence and from this occasion Now when Jesus was born But to what end was all this hast Why should they make forward to see the Child as soon as ever he was born What could they report of him when they returned home but that they had seen an Infant His Tongue was not apt to speak as yet nor his hands to shew any proof of strength and mightiness They might have spared their labour one would think till he had been well grown to years of action and perfection nay but the Star calls them forth and will not let them loiter if they omit this opportunity God knows whether ever they have the benefit of a Star to usher them again The Lord above did know and the new Creature this strange Star did preach it and the hearts of the Wise-men were enlightened to understand it that there was occasion enough to call all the heathen or at least the wisest of the heathen or at least the Princes of the West I say to call them from the ends of the world to Judea to see this little Bethlemite lately born yet greater than all the Angels though they spring not from fleshly generation to see him suck at the breasts of Mary for a few drops of milk who feeds every living thing with plenteousness to see him supported in a Mothers arms who sustains the whole world by his power and founded the Elements upon nothing to see him cast his eyes about and newly peep out of those lidds of flesh to whom all things lie naked and discovered even the darkness of the pit and the secrets of the heart of man Nothing can be said nothing can be thought of this birth but is so mysterious and incomprehensible that the silly Shepherds who could not ponder those Magnalia Dei those Metaphysicks which the Angels told them made known abroad the things which they had heard concerning this Child but as for these Wise-men that could delve into a Mystery when they saw the young Child they fell down and worshipped him and presented him with their Treasures but we do not read of one word they spake either at Bethlem or when they returned home to their own Country the thing was ineffable and perhaps they praised God in silence and admiration that such a Child was born but could not utter it Such as would travel for wisdom had enough occasion for their journey were it never so far to behold the very Nativity though abstracted from the blessing that grows unto it Oritur origo rerum that he should have any kind of being in time who is Ens entium the cause and fountain of all
own Land without drawing bloud from Judah So this ghostly enemy hath not prevailed so far as to win the out-works of your innocency Such a tentation is but an Antiperistasis that augments the heat of vertue As St. Ambrose gives Joseph this Encomiastick Nonne tentatio Joseph virtutis est consecratio Nonne injuria carceris corona est castitatis That unchaste offer which Josephs Mistris offered unto him it did consecrate it did deifie his chastity Jonathans Arrows were either on this side his Lad whom he sent out into the field or else shot beyond him So the darts of Lust were either wide of Joseph or shot over his head an impregnable chastity is not so much as scratcht with these shafts of love Bring the case of such a one before Bernard and he doth excuse him from all guiltiness Non nocet sensus ubi non est consensus imò quod resistentem fatigat vincentem coronat This would Satan have that is no blame of mine unless my consent yield and say this would I have But more of this by and by where I will shew that Satans sinful Propositions were no way sinful to Christ that rejected them But I speak of that which I confess is very unusual a tentation repulsed and no part of the Commandment broken he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled Few are like those three servants of God to be cast into the Furnace and not to have the smell of fire about them But what if it please the Lord to have us exercised with the assault of some infirmities so that our conscience doth witness against us it is taken in the snares of sin Far be it from us to think that the Lord doth permit it to our condemnation and not rather to better us in obedience As a little wedge is beaten in sometimes to drive out a greater so a little tentation is suffered to creep in that a bigger mischief may not enter The falling into some sins in the best of Gods Servants is an anticipation against pride that they may not be puft up with their own righteousness Animam oportet assiduis saliri tentationibus says St. Ambrose Some errors and offences do rub salt upon a good mans integrity that it may not putrifie with presumption And whosoever is molested in heart because the enemy doth not cease to pollute him with evil desires and bad cogitations let him hope that God doth sift him as he did his great Servant St. Paul 2 Cor. xii 7. Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of revelations there was given me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet me To spend no time about the diversity of Interpretations what this Messenger of Satan should be I give my voice on their side that assign it to be carnal concupiscence for whose sake the Apostle says 1 Cor. ix 27. I bring under my body and keep it in subjection and against which he complains Rom. vii 23. I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin This spawn of depravation whatsoever it was did produce a good effect that he who was dignified with many revelations might consider he was a frail man for all that because of his inward rebellion in the flesh and his often imperfections Stimuli carnis sunt stimuli orationis Those thorns in the flesh did prick him on to continual prayer O blessed fruits of regeneration when our very sins shall make us serve the Lord with the better appetite And now I conclude the first general part of the Text for I think all other reasons may be easily reduced to these six which I have run over why Christ was tempted of the Devil In the second general part of the Text this Tentation hath an Author whose name is derived from calumniation and reviling that evil Angel to be known of all men because he is to be shunned of all men one often to be remembred and ever to be detested of much fame in the Gospel as Pilate is in the Creed because his malice is outragious against the Church both in heaven and earth of many titles for he is a great Prince over the children of disobedience none worse than that which is his common denomination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the reviler or the Devil The first accusation which he invented was against God himself whom he traduced for interdicting the fruit of one tree to our first Parents although their allowance was all things beside which the earth brought forth in great abundance And if God himself were not free from his slanderous impeachments they that are devoted to Gods honour must needs be obnoxious to his manifold calumniations And because he doth commence new matter of reviling before the audience of God continually St. John calls him the accuser who doth accuse our brethren before God day and night Rev. xii 10. Let every sin reduce it self to the head and fountain and the slanderer will be more ashamed of his chief than any Gluttony is first known in Esau Drunkenness in Noah Tyranny in Nimrod Polygamy in Lamech Murder in Cain but reviling in the Devil Nor is reviling only the murdering of a mans good name but directly it is a sin that is guilty of more bloud than any other iniquity And therefore the Devil whose mouth is the great bellows that blows defamation abroad Christ gives him his due when he says he was Homicida ab initio A murderer from the beginning Joh. viii 44. All the miseries which did befall the Martyrs and holy men began in slander and ended in slaughter Naboth first accused wrongfully for blaspheming God and the King and so put to death The Elders stirred up false witnesses that said they heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and the holy place the next news you here he is cast out of the City and stoned Our blessed Saviour was first wrongfully cried out upon that he made himself a King then led away to Pilate to be Crucified Is not this the fruit then of this Divinity Beware of slandering and evil speaking it is Peccatum sanguinum peccatum daemonum The sin of bloudshed and the sin of Devils The very Prince of Devils is characterized by being an accuser not because a man may not sometimes accuse and yet be a charitable Christian but because the more he accuseth the Elect of God the more it tickleth and delights his envie says St. Austin To this of St. Austin Lactantius hath added another reason Nos criminatorem vocamus quod crimina in quae ipse illicit ad Deum deferat We call our great Adversary a Devil or Calumniator because he delates and reports our faults to God to which his own wiliness did entice us First he empoysons us with bad suggestions and makes us guilty and then discovers us The reason why he tempts is to gather proofs of accusation against
give him the onset this is no God So Jesus grazing about like a poor sheep that could find nothing but stones for fodder the Wolf grins upon him but he proved to be the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Impar congressus Achilli and the wild beast of the Forest was repelled by him that led captivity captive the more infirmity pretended on Christs part the more glorious the victory Fames Domini pia fraus est ne caveat tentare Diabolus says Bonaventure This fast and hunger was a pious fraud or stratagem laid by God to draw on Satan to tempt his Lord and Maker and so prove him guilty of a most foul rebellion St. Austin doth so receive this opinion that he rejects all others it may be said says he that fasting came after Baptism even as a good diet is to be kept after health recovered for fear of a relapse but that is impertinent Illius causa jejunii non Jordanis tinctio sed Diaboli tentatio fuit This fast had no reference to the dipping in Jordan but to cozen Satan and make him rashly adventure upon the ensuing tentation So St. Ambrose likewise and almost all the best Authors of the best antiquity It is a fatal requital upon some busie wits that as they are sharp and sore deceivers so when their own turn comes about they are as sorrily deceived Marcus Crassus was one of the cunningst flatterers that ever was and yet no man so easily and so notoriously gull'd with flattery So Satan is the grand Impostor of mankind and yet this grand Imposture was thrust upon him to enter combate with Christ who is invincible and omnipotent And let cheaters and cunning practisers beware that their own shot rebound not upon themselves God hath a retorsion in store a fallere fallentem which will fall upon them in spight of subtilty and circumspection They think they work closely and no harm shall happen unto them I am sure that David prophesies how certainly they shall be stew'd in their own sawce they are taken in the crafty wiliness that they imagined for others in the same net that they hid privily is their foot taken The ways of a Serpent are slippery and treachery shall be tript up with treachery The Lord hath spoken it and the Lord hath done it I have set these three reasons why Christ fasted in the formost rank because they are warrantable Brentius I think mistook when he interserted this for a reason It is a great anxiety or a great sickness which keeps a man from his meat for a few days so as he thought the tentations of Christ were so violent and horrible that for forty days he eat nothing I suppose when I come to shew at what time the Devil began his work I shall make it appear that no tentation was offered to Christ until the fortieth day Howsoever the Author took his aim amiss for although we read that our Saviour endured a most violent conflict in the garden when he sweat drops of bloud in his Prayer the case is not the same in this conflict with the Devil In the Garden he stood before his Father representing himself not as the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased but under the imputation and malediction of all our sins and he struggled with his Fathers justice that he might bear our iniquities in his own body upon the cross This was a wrestling indeed to put all his strength and powers in a heat and all his spirits in an agony But to beat down the suggestions of the evil one it put him to no sollicitousness or anxiety never was victory got so easily None of those poysoned darts could stick in him this was the Lamb without spot that could commit no sin but came to take away the sins of the world This error is easily put off the next opinion is maintained more pertinaciously that this fasting was part of that obedience by which he merited exaltation of his Father and in like manner the pennance of fasting is meritorious to the obedient members of his Church Thus they I will examine this strictly by several pieces First to enter into a tedious disputation how or what Christ did merit by his obedience cannot consist with the time and it doth not piece well with my Text. But take a little knowledge of it by this similitude the Angels of heaven have a double operation one that they stand always before the face of our Father which is in heaven another that they are ministring Spirits and do good offices to the Church upon earth as they do always stand before God so they must needs be completely blessed having the substance of their reward but as they assist and help us so they have some kind of increase or as it is called accidental addition to their reward So Christ in the union of the two natures could not but ever behold the divine glory so that the fruition of that eternal happiness was ever conjoyned to him but inasmuch as the dispensation of our redemption was his continual exercise upon earth so that deserved him some additions to his glory in the glorification of the sensible part of mans nature the speedy resurrection of the body his speedy ascension or exaltation into heaven and as some do add that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow or if so be these things were so intrinsecal to the hypostatical union that they could not be parted from it yet thus it may be well agreed Mereri est de debito facere majus debitum These things accrued to Christ meritoriously because that which was due by the hypostatical union was made more due by his humiliation I add secondly that the great abstinence and sweet temperance of our Saviours life was part of his humiliation but for the forty days wherein he fasted I concur with them that maintain this was no part of his abstinence What abstinence could there be says one in this miraculous act when all that while he had no provocation in his appetite to long for meats no more than the Angels have who taste no corruptible things The faculties of nutrition call'd for no sustenance God repressed the appetite says Cajetan from feeling the provocations of hunger and thirst even as he suppressed the devouring quality of the fire that it should not burn the three constant Saints that were cast into it I make it my third reply though Christs obedience in his humiliation was meritorious yet there is so much disparity between his obedience and ours that men can take no measure of it I do not only mean in this difference which is so well known that he did exactly fulfil all the Law of God and for our part in many things we sin all There is another thing which puts as wide a difference between us Christ obeyed his Father because he would we because we must He obeyed without any terrour pronounced to compel
laugh with them that are merry but to make them voluptuous and exceed fly as low as you will and as high as you will Which alteration you shall find between that tentation which is past already and that which is now begun Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City and setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple In which words are to be noted four things Ordo Modus Locus communis Locus proprius First The order of these tentations that this is the immediate and next tentation to the former for then the Devil took him Secondly The manner is by assumption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he took him up 3. The more common place to which he took him it was to the holy City Jerusalem 4. Here is the peculiar and proper place he setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple These are the parts of that Argument which at this time lies before us Now this is the reason why I make the order of these tentations one and the first part of the Text at this time because St. Luke puts this tentation in the last part which St. Matthew accounts the second and this which St. Matthew reckons for the second St. Luke refers it last For after Christ had refused the motion to make bread of stones it follows according to St. Luke The Devil took him up into an high Mountain and shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world in a moment of time but our Evangelist gives his Narration the accent of time Tunc assumpsit then he took him up into the holy City Because therefore St. Matthew shews the Connexion of order it is believed generally that he hath the perfect consequence of the story One says that in some old Copies of the Greeks St. Luke concurs passage by passage with St. Matthew Jansenius a learned Author it seems had found some such thing and I believe so had St. Ambrose for whereas he wrote Commentaries purposely upon St. Luke yet he keeps no other order but the self-same which is found in St. Matthew Howsoever this is no jar or contradiction between the holy Writers but a variety which begets many good Meditations when we think upon it First Aquinas did thus excogitate upon it Quandoque ex inani gloria venitur ad cupiditatem quandoque ex cupiditate ad inanem gloriam The tentation upon the Pinacle was directed to beget vain-glory the tentation upon the Mountain tended to beget immoderate coveting of worldly things Now for these two there is no choice in the precedency for sometimes vain-glory would support it self by coveting in excess and sometimes a covetous affection drives a man into the itch of glory Secondly All sins are not equal yet there are some capital sins that in several respects are of an equal deformity between themselves and then they take their turn in holy Scripture one interchangeably to be set before the other Murder and Adultery Adultery and Murder are flagrant crimes and in some comparisons one is the greater trespass against our brother in some comparisons the other Thou shalt do no murder thou shalt not commit adultery so Moses ranged them in the Law to the Jews Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill Rom. xiii 9. So St Paul disposeth them writing to the Gentiles Indeed in the Hebrew Murder is first forbidden for being is simply better than well-being but in the 70 Translation Adultery is first forbidden for comparatively well-being is better than being St. Matthew therefore following the Hebrew says Christ did thus rehearse the Commandments to the young man Thou shalt not kill thou shalt not commit Adultery Mat. xix 18. St. Luke following the 72. cites our Saviour saying to the same man Do not commit Adultery do not kill Luk. xviii 20. So Pride in some cases is worse than Covetousness and therefore our Evangelist entreats first upon the tentation to Pride in some cases Covetousness is worse than Pride and so the other Evangelist writes first of that tentation which instigated unto Covetousness Thirdly St. Luke laid those two tentations together which were commenced in the Wilderness and Mountains and then with less confusion to the Readers apprehension speaks of that which fell out in the City and upon the Temple Many times the Scripture by anticipation brings in the history of a thing before the precise time wherein it was done as Mat. xxvii In the description of our Saviours Passion this accident is brought in that many dead bodies of the Saints arose and appeared in the holy City to many and yet it came not to pass upon the Passion day but when Christ was risen from the dead This Maxim is of good direction to the wise that can understand it Ordo artificialis in narratione rerum saepe est utilior ad intelligendum quà m ordo naturalis To transpose things in an history artificially is many times better for our understanding than the plain natural order But this tentation as it is sorted in St. Matthew is well placed both by the natural truth of the history and by the artificial method of it And thus much briefly to make this Point even between these two most divine Evangelists I put on to the next thing which is most strange in this tentation and verily to be admired the manner of it to which Christ did submit himself it is by Assumption by carriage through the air Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City It was a good Spirit which led him into the Wilderness to the exercises of Fasting and Prayer and Contemplation the very same which sate upon his head at Baptism in the shape of a Dove Now here is another Spirit retaining to the contrary faction who is ready not only to lead him but even to carry him through the Air to the most conspicuous Turret in all the City of Jerusalem Some of the ancient and pure stock of Writers were so loath to preach this Doctrine in the Church that Satan did bear up Christ between Heaven and Earth for fear of offending weak ones that they made other constructions of it which will no abide the test St. Cyprian expounds it as if all this had been done by Vision and Imagination But will Cyprian say that Christ was urged to cast himself down to the ground putativè not really but in imagination Or will he grant that our glorious Champion did vanquish his Adversary but in fancy and opinion Exilis esset Christi victoria Then Christ had but little to boast of and the Scripture would never have recorded this act as the most famous of all victories Beside these many other Interpreters in a more rational way confess this was a conflict truly and apparently fought and that the Devil really took him up Pedibus ductum non volantem he went along from the Wilderness up to the top of the Pinacle on his feet upon the Devils provocation And this opinion they maintain upon the meaning
and Political Priviledges made Satan desire to contaminate it with the greatest sins as with the Martyrdom of the Saints with the hypocrisie of the Pharisees with sundry other crimes and with this presumptuous precipitation if he could have drawn Christ unto it In Psalm cxxii there are three things which made very much to the praise of it 1. It was a City compact together the strongest Tower of defence in all the Kingdom 2. There sate the Thrones of Judgment even the Thrones of the house of David And 3. Thither went the Tribes up to give thanks to the name of the Lord so that for Fortitude for Civil Justice and for the use of Religion for being an holy City it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very eye of the Land of Canaan But especially the name of Jerusalem in holy Scripture is rather the name of Gods Church than of a place which contained material building and therefore very aptly called the holy City Nay there is not one word beside in all the Book of God which contains the whole threefold estate of the Church that I can remember namely both the Synagogue under the Law and the Gospel under Grace and the blessed Communion of the Saints in heaven For Jerusalem as the Grammarians note is a Noun of the dual number to signifie both the Militant part on earth and the Triumphant part in heaven of them that are sanctified and joyned to Christ the head No place so pregnant as Gal. iv 25. where St. Paul shews a double Jerusalem upon Earth the Synagogue and the Gospel Jerusalem which now is says the Apostle which desired to be under the Law under the rudiments of Moses was in bondage with her Children but Jerusalem which is above not meaning the Choirs of Angels in heaven but the Church Apostolical which is watered with the dew of heaven from above That is free which is the mother of us all Here are two Jerusalems one above another the Antitype above the Type the Substance above the Shadow the Son of God exhibited in the flesh above the Figures and Sacrifices of the Levitical Priesthood But in both respects it was called the holy City For as concerning the Law of Ceremonies there was no other place but it where they were purely exhibited to God and as concerning the New Testament or Faith in Christ there it began Repentance and Salvation were preached unto all Nations beginning at Jerusalem And for this relative holiness which that City had by being the chief and most ancient Seat of the Oracles of God even Heaven did borrow a name from Earth and hath not despised to be called the upper Jerusalem St. John says when the old Elements of the world did pass away there was a new Heaven and a new Earth and he saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God prepared as a Bride for her Husband Rev. xxi 1. For these causes it had Nomen super omne nomen A name above all names among all the dwellings upon earth even as Christ had a name above all names among the Sons of men But as the Serpent did find a way to come into Paradise so he resorted to this holy City It is his joy to make that a Cage of unclean birds which was the Sanctuary of God It is his industry to sow Tares in the midst of Wheat it is his envy to make an evil Leprosie rise up in those Walls where Christs name is praised it is his pastime to pollute the holy City that the Lord may abhor it And this was easily brought about by the Devil Jerusalem hath run his own fortune Gods honour did abide in it for a while and after a while it became an hissing to all the Earth Once there was no other place in all the world that was holy there was no other Metropolis no other Sanctuary all the habitations of the earth beside were Idolatrous therefore from that ancient purity wherein it excelled alone it is called Sancta an holy City The former renown did so remain upon it then when it had been guilty of the bloud of all the Prophets and had crucified Christ himself yet after all this the Spirit of God lets it retain a name fitter for its ancient Sanctity than for its present Iniquity Many dead bodies of the Saints arose and came into the holy City and appeared unto many Alas now it is neither holy nor yet a City but first a Theater upon which all wickedness was acted and then an heap of ruines Although after the change of many names which it hath suffered Adrichomius says that the Turks in their Language call it the holy City to this day How well doth this parallel the state of the Roman Pontificat at this day We are often told and the oftner the less reason here did the Apostles Peter and Paul preach and suffer Martyrdom here have thirty faithful Bishops successively suffered for the name of Christ here have the Arrian the Nestorian the Pelagian Heresies been refuted this is the holy City Yes as Jerusalem is so entitled for the pure Worship of God which was once professed there not for the present faith and sincerity all places have admitted impurity and corruption for it was denounced to man that the whole Earth and every part of it should bring forth thorns and thistles unto him All Kingdoms and Cities have their periods and shall have them to shew that Gods Kingdom only is perpetual All Nurseries and Seminaries of Faith have had their full Tides and their Ebbings their times of Grace and their aversions from it to shew that truth is only established in the heavens And I doubt not but after the revolution of those years and days which God hath prefixed in his secret knowledge it will be more easie for our Posterity than it is for us upon great alterations that happen in all places to prove that where the Papacy now reigns it suffers the same fate with Jerusalem was but is not the holy City Well to seek further into this Point the Tempter did devise rather to pollute Christ than the City of God to which he brought him yet certainly thither he brought him because that place did serve his turn better than the solitary Desart Our Saviours own Kindred were ambitious to have him manifested Shew thy self unto the world and this was the very Pin which Satan did drive at that Christ would affect to be gaz'd upon and admiâ—ed Digito monstrari dicier hic est to be pointed at for the mighty Prophet upon whom the Spirit descended at Jordan in the sight of all the people What went you out into the wilderness to see There is nothing to be seen in the Wilderness that is no place for pride to do its work in But come to Jerusalem and there are thousands of spectators to take notice of a Prophet This is the nature of vain-glory to mingle it self in a populous throng where it may be observed Ut
this lower Region God hath committed the Children to the nurture of the Parents the Woman to the safeguard of her Husband the Subject injured to the justice of the Magistrate the Sick and Impotent to the refection of them that are whole the Poor and Naked to the liberality of the Rich. Every weak and distressed is appointed his Protector by Gods Ordinance that is strong and whole and that Patron that looks not to those poor Clients with whom he stands incharged let him take heed that himself wants not a Patron when he looks for Christ to be his Advocate But when a whole Nation of true Believers nay when a whole world of Christians have been persecuted all at once Who looks to that God And will give them the wages of wicked Servants that should have been nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers to his precious Portion and yet had their chief hand in the Tragedy against it And because the whole earth sometimes fails of their duty towards the Church therefore the Lord hath his Angels in store as the last and infallible refuge that the less we are beholding to the Earth we may acknowledge our selves the more beholding to Heaven If Davids bowels earned for a rebellious Son and gave all the Captains charge Deal gently for my sake with the young man even with Absalon Verily the Lord will put his Ministers upon that good Office to be a Wall of protection to his obedient Sons Aut eripient periculum aut eripient animam Either they will take your afflictions from you or take you from your afflictions The Angel of the Lord tarrieth round about them that fear him and will deliver them And though the Devil meant nothing less than truth in his Sermon since he would needs preach let us lay hold of this for a true ground that the good Angels are very certain to keep their charge as they are commanded they are like the diligent Souldiers under the Centurions authority He says unto one go and he goeth and to another come and he cometh But their charge is set and appointed them it is not in their own free choice to lend their assistance where they please So the Schoolmen draw many questions to this Principle Non sunt liber â potestate praediti sed ministri ad nutum Domini The reason is twofold First All things must be done in order and without direction and appointment whom the Hosts of heaven should guard how far and at what time the Discipline would be altogether confused in that heavenly custody Secondly The knowledge of those blessed Spirits is finite they are not present at all our troubles which we suffer on earth they being far remote in heaven they know not the groanings of the heart it is out of their Sphere to apprehend what succour is needful for Infants that cannot moan themselves that cannot ask it of all these things they must be made acquainted and then their Province is allotted unto them by the especial Commission of God Wherefore as they are given by nature and grace to love Mankind so by a special Mandate and charge they are bound unto it Peter imputes his deliverance out of Prison to the Angels Ministry but principally to the Lords word and authority he doth not say that the Angel pull'd him out of danger of his own motion but now know I that the Lord hath sent his Angel and hath delivered me from the hand of Herod and from the expectation of all the people Acts xii 11. It was a good speech of Jonathans 1 Sam. xiv 6. There is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few Had he but added one thing more the speech had been complete and full of faith there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few or by none at all Then to what use serves the Auxiliary custody of Angels when the strength of all protection is in God alone without the subordinate performance of any Creature To dissolve this Question into many Answers First They that say their Creed and understand it that God is the Father Almighty and have the Theorie that his vertue by it self is all-sufficient yet when it comes to the experience and practice they will boggle and be much unconfident of their own security if some powers which are ordained of God and more familiar to us than his infinite Essence be not promised to relieve us in the day of our Visitation Israel had great cause to have strong affiance in him that had brought them out of the Land of Egypt yet a weak Plant had need of a Prop to be bound unto it and therefore their Charter was thus enlarged Behold I send an Angel before thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared Exod. xxiii 20. This was ex abundanti somewhat given above that which needed for the rudeness and infirmity of our faith Secondly The Ministry of those blessed Spirits is used here below not for the defect of the supreme power but to shew his Majesty and Dignity as earthly Princes have their Stipatores some bands of Noble Gentlemen to stand about their Person rather for Pomp than necessity Yet it begets obsequiousness and awe unto their Majesty Pavorinus a man of rare skill in Learning whensoever Hadrian the Emperour discoursed with him condescended in all things to let the Emperour overmatch him and when his friends thought it too much obsequiousness Favorinus thus excused himself I will permit him to be more learned that hath thirty Legions of Souldiers under his command So the imployment of that heavenly Host lends no assistance to God but proclaims him that hath so many terrible Ministers to command to be most dreadful and glorious and who is able to stand before his Host Thirdly The Angels and Saints shall make up one Triumphant Church in heaven the whole body of things in heaven and things on earth being gathered under Christ the head therefore they are knit together in these good Offices of defence and guardianship as a taste of that unity which shall be complete hereafter And indeed it is through Christ that these parts are recollected together which were disjoyned before It pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto himself in him whether they were things in heaven or things in earth He is that Ladder upon which Jacob saw Angels ascend and descend and so Christ speaking of that reconciliation which he had wrought told the High Priests Hereafter ye shall see the heavens open and Angels ascending and descending Fourthly Aquinas doth thus excogitate There are two ways wherein man stands in need of help to have grace infused into him and to be guided and assisted in perfecting that which is good Deus immediate hominem inclinat ad bonum infundendo ei gratiam God only and immediately doth infuse supernatural grace into the heart Sed inveniendae sunt
the wicked Spirit out of thy breast by speaking hatefully and reproachfully to the old man within thee and to his corruptions The rod of the wicked shall not rest in the lot of the righteous lest the righteous put forth their hands to wickedness Psal cxxv 5. And though in many things we sin all and who can say he hath not offended Yet take heed ye commit not sin with greediness as if you delighted in the servitude of iniquity nay as if you did it with that full resolution that you saw hell fire before you and yet you will not be reformed This is to gaze the Devil in the face and to have no remorse of conscience But if frailty steals upon us yet extinguish not the ardour of zeal which would fain be delivered from that captivity let it cry out I am carried away with the violence of my depraved nature and the evil which I would not that I do This is to commit sin but with such a delight as is mixt with great unwillingness The love of God still abideth in us and we cry out against the Tempter Get thee behind me Satan Though a good man be carried back sometime in his pious endeavours yet he looks towards Gods glory he minds that chiefly and he will not cast his eye off He moves not willingly toward the Devil though the Devil tread upon his heel behind him and sometimes prevails to pluck him back from God But remember how David composed himself and with that I end I have set God always before me therefore I shall not fall AMEN THE EIGHTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 10. For it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve THE Lacedaemonians had this Lesson in the private Instructions of their State and observed it as far as they could ut nunquâm cum eôdem hoste ter confligerent by no means to give battel three several times to the same Enemy for that Enemy encountring them so often might learn to overcome them by their own wayes and stratagems Why Satan hath this advantage to try masteries the third time with our Saviour neither did Christ varie one jot from his usual manner of defence he fights with the same sling and with a stone taken out of the same brook as before scriptum est for it is written the written word is all the refuge that our Lord did seek Satan knows full well at what guard He will lye doth then the adversary speed ever the better for this can he improve that knowledge to help himself Nay but far otherwise Christ is so surely fixt upon one true ground so constant to that rock of the Divine Law which is stronger than all the waves of the sea that some against it that his adversary discern'd at last the longer he strove the more unable he was to maintain the quarrel If the tempted entrench himself within the Scriptures indignation shall vex the tempter but he shall never prevail The Devil believes and trembles at it that all the Law is irresistable and shall triumph over the enemies of the Lord but this Text after which no more was said as if more could not be spoken it contains a more strict and high command than any other portion of the Law it extends not only to transgressors to hedg them in their duty that they may not start from it but to the blessed Angels that are confirm'd in grace to the damned Devils that are incorrigible in sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worship and adoration is lookt for at all these and every particular whether they be such as are comforted under mercy or such as are tormented under the Judges fury or such as sing praises for ever before the King of glory all must bend and do him homage At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow both in the highest region of souls in the middle region of the Militant Church or in the lowest region of Hell at that name every knee shall bow both of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Therefore Justin Martyr call'd upon all the Heathen with whom he disputed to receive this charge which my Text gives This says he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest that is the most spacious Commandment of all other a Charter between God and all his Creatures That upon which David speaks on this manner thy Commandment is exceeding broad Psal cxix 96. this is a chain to which all the works of the Lord are fastned and therefore our Saviour was sure it would bend his opposite with whom he disputed that he should not reply Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Where the Text is so clear I will not make it hard to be understood with dividing it The specials to be spoken of are these First the Lord God is to be worshipped Secondly the Lord God is to be served Thirdly He onely to be worshipped and served therefore fourthly whatsoever things they are beside to which men do offer religious worship and service let them mince and excuse it with what distinctions they please they run into flat Idolatry Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God let this be first the query upon the first point tu adorabis is there any emphasis in the Pronoun thou shalt worship Is the Commandment directed to the Tempter for that doubt I find in St. Chrisost whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Precept or a Repulse a Doctrin or a Defiance Thou shalt worship I answer it in several conclusions First the outward act of worship and adoration is enjoyned continually even to the spirits of damnation and they must perform it God hath put all things under Christs feet the Grave and Death and Hell Who is meant by Hell but Satan and his Camrades that are sunk into that place of sorrow wherefore he was bound to pay worship himself where he call'd for worship and let all the Angels of God worship him Heb. i. 6. yea and the Devil forceth himself sometimes to pay this tribute unto Christ though much against his will and content but sometimes he doth outwardly worship him that he may not fall into greater torments For as a Servant that hath run away and is taken falls down at his Masters feet that he may not be beaten so this unclean spirit having entred into a man that lived in tombs in the Country of the Gaderens when Christ came into those coasts the Devil did not keep the man close out of sight but came forth to meet Christ and worshipt our Saviour Mark v. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very word in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke vii 28. he fell down in that body into which he had entred before him and he besought him very much that he would not send him away out of the Countrey Indeed it is seen by the sequel
of them and behold Angels came and ministred unto him From this note or preface of attention I pass on to their person that came to minister unto Christ and they are Angels As the Philistins stood on a Mountain on the one side and Israel on a Mountain on the other side and there was a Valley between them from whence both the Armies might behold their two Champions David and Goliah fight it out So I dispute not against their conjecture that say the good Angels stood gazing from one prospect and the bad Angels from another to mark which way the Victory of this Duel would incline between Christ and Satan On the good Angels part this is certain we are put to no trial by our enemies visible or invisible but they come gladly to the speed of it and look upon us both with compassion and admiration We are made a spectacle unto the world and to Angels and to men says St. Paul As the Heathen did flock in multitudes to the Theaters to see the Christians cast unto wild beasts to be eaten which was no little part of their persecution that their enemies fed their eyes in sport with their misery So the blessed powers of heaven came to behold the same spectacle to compassionate that cruelty and to fortifie the sufferance of the Saints And if they can be content to be present at the skirmishes of the Scholars can it be supposed they would be away at this time when the Master of the fence was to play his Prize Beloved to put this further sometimes the Angels gave attendance to Moses Law and the Law it self was delivered by a Mediator in the hands of Angels But their study and delight was such in the Gospel of Christ that they gave all diligence to learn and understand it in all the mysteries St. Paul says that he was a Minister to preach the grace of God and to teach the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ says he To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God Eph. iii. 10. A most observable Text of Scripture that the Angels of heaven are the learneder for noting those passages which are taught touching the Mysteries of our salvation in this Church on earth And St. Chrysostom the loudest Trumpet of that Apostles glory among all the Fathers cries out See if Paul be not an Evangelist as well unto Angels as unto men This is marvellous and not to be admitted as if the good Angels knew not the Incarnation of Christ before and the calling of the Gentiles For how could they be ignorant of those divine Lessons which were so obvious and common in all the Prophets Admitting then that the whole substance of that Doctrine was known unto them long before yet many circumstances were revealed unto them by the actions and passions of the Church in after-time What then Was Paul or are we able to explain any thing for the better capacity of Angels No certainly Non addiscunt per Ecclesiam docentem sed per ea quae geruntur in Ecclesiâ Those principal intellectual spirits do not profit by the preaching of our Ministry but by things managed experimentally in the Church which were not so clear in Prophesie or speculation as when time revealed them They knew that Christ should bruise the Serpents head but when they saw it actually performed in repelling the three antecedent temptations then the mystery of God was made known unto them experimentally by the Church Those significations of the Gospel which the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven even those things the Angels desire to look into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stoop down and look into as Peter and John stoopt to look into the Sepulchre that is bowed down in humility to look into the great mystery of the Resurrection They are not inanes speculatores fond and curious gazers but most observant and most humble learners they will stoop unto the knowledge of the wisdom of God And that the Angels did note and pry into all things which our Saviour did in the dispensation of his Mediatorship the posture of the Cherubins upon the Ark is no unsignificant Figure Says God The faces of the Cherubins shall be toward the mercy seat Exod. xxv 20. As if the Angels did never cast their eye off from Christ our Propitiator from the Mercy Seat but did continually desire him in the fulness of time to have mercy upon Sion So I have made it known that such diligent attendants who listned faithfully to all the occurrencies of the Gospel must needs be at hand when Christ had ended his combate vvith the Devil And so ready at hand that it is noted these Angels are not said to descend from heaven as if they had been far off in another world but to come and minister which betokens a near attendance They came and ministred unto him And now Satan sees more by the event by this officious service of the Angels than he could extort by all his temptations Homo est quem ipse tentat Deus cui ab Angelis ministratur He must be a man that suffered such temptations but he must be a God that had such Ministers Christ came not to be ministred unto but to minister Mat. xx 28. That is in St. Pauls words He took upon him the form of a servant Phil. ii 7. For the very form of a man is the form of a servant Yet this servant thinks it no robbery to be equal with that God to whom all the powers in heaven and in earth do bow and obey But wherefore came the Angels now Do they come to bring assistance when the Devil was vanquished and had left our Saviour This were as the Adagie goes Post bellum auxilium Choraebus brought succours to the Siege of Troy when the fray was ended They miss of the right intention that think the Angels came for this end It was not to strengthen him against his enemy that was beaten and vanquished but to minister and stand before him for these reasons First possibly to spread a Table for him in the Wilderness and bring him meat because he had now fasted forty days and forty nights without intermission Not as if he could not be supplied without their provision but it was his pleasure they should attend upon his diet to let his enemy see there was another way to feed his body than to make stones of bread And this was it it may be that plurally many Angels came to minister unto him Had they been required barely to provide him necessaries one Angel could have brought enough of sustenance to give one man a meal but because this was intended not for any necessary relief towards his person but to shew his excellency above those heavenly hosts Behold a multitude stood round about him and Angels came and ministred unto him Secondly they might come to comfort him after
integrity of our Saviour against scandalous accusations when his lips were closed but as a Rest in Musick is not the close of the Song but a seasonable stop to make the next relish more graceful and harmonious so after the pause of silence which our Saviour made you shall now see the better how false and malicious the crimes of enditement were Before Cajaphas the High-Priest as I told you this only was objected that he threatned to destroy the Temple Three other capital crimes are laid against him Luke xxiii 2. that he perverted the Nation that he denied Tribute unto Caesar that he made himself the King of the Jews Here are two great sins against the Ecclesiastical Weal to pluck down the Temple and to pervert the Religion and two outrages against civil peace to pay no Tribute and to encroach upon the Title of the Kingdom let him be crucified a Gods name that pleads guilty to such abominations but if no more can be said against Jesus and we can shew in every particular that all this was forgery then let Pilate wash his hands and protest before them all that the life which they would take away is the bloud of a just person We heard him say He would destroy the Temple Never was such a syllable spoken Is not this the Temple wherein He bestowed his first blould at Circumcision a pair of Turtle Doves for a Sacrifice at his Mothers Purification Did He not shed his tears over this House of God in that pathetical lamentation O Jerusalem Jerusalem did He not spend his disputations with the Doctors his Sermons among the People his Prayer unto the Father and all under that holy Roof And now is his zeal turned to his reproach that He would pluck down the Sanctuary a while before did He not scourge the prophane Merchants and clense the Temple and now is He suspected for laying waste the dwelling place of the Most high Nay let them offer Swines flesh there let them change money and sell Doves I would rather bear with Superstition with Prophanation than with extreme Sacrilege O beware Beloved to open the lead of the Roof or to rent the walls of that Habitation where Gods Altar was inclosed He shall offend less that throws down any Mansion House in the World than he that cuts up but the Bramble-bush if he knew it wherein the glory of the Lord appeared 'T is pity that the stony hearts of men should suffer holy Buildings to moulder and crumble away into desolation I see a compassionate example before mine eyes O ye rich men of the World who is your God that you do not repair it But those Sons of Belial who prevent these ruins which time would bring upon the Houses of God 't is more pitty they should see the grey hairs of age in peace Surely as the Heavens which are the upper Court of Gods House shall melt away and be dissolved only by the power of God so Churches and Oratories here below which are the nether Courts of his Sanctuary should never be defaced in this World by any arm of flesh till the whole earth shall pass away and Gods own finger deface these Monuments of glory See but the hypocrisie of these Jews and Herodians they that are so careful a Temple should not be destroyed are furious to destroy the body of a man which is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Like the Popish Inquisitors most bold and zealous to curse those hotspurrs in our Kingdom who threw down a Church in their wrath and broke down the walls in their blind affection yet they themselves made havock of holy Praelats and did persecute their lives unto death and this was called Justice and Catholigue Religion to conclude this Accusation And why do they impeach our Saviour that He would destroy a Temple no such matter God knows Solvite templum hoc what means that why the Temple of his Body Why then who but they themselves do destroy the Temple which He spake of meaning the Temple of his Body The crime then you may perceive as it was objected against our Saviour it was slanderous but take this to the advantage of your instruction what judgment will God pour upon them who rob the Altar and spoil the Patrimony of the Church since these unconscionable Jews do confess that whosoever would destroy a Temple deserves to be crucified Yet Pilate was a Gentile and perchance would not heed the eracing of Gods House therefore to make the Romans look about them they have a second Objection in store That He would pervert the Nation Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some read it the Nation of the Romans but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Nation Forsooth they fain an Accusation that he taught contrary to the Law of Moses and if new Doctrine be publisht let the Rulers look to it for this is as apparent as the light of the day that new Religion is ever new Rebellion but I do not say so of old Doctrine renewed It is a strange stupidity which the Devil puts into some mens heads you cannot perswade them to change for the better Simonides would rather learn the art of Forgetfulness than the art of Memory Velleius the Epicuraean was afraid of nothing more than to have learned Problems cast into his head which might rouze him out of ignorance Gryllus was so well in a Hogsty that he was unwilling to leave his swinish life and turn man again Are there not a thousand examples of wanton Ladies that had rather be Girls and Younglings than grow into years of understanding and discretion So the Jews had rather be ever kept under the Paedagogie of the Law than be perfect men and cast off the yoke of Ceremonies and live in the liberties of the Gospel Nisi cessassent ceremoniae non discernere licuisset hodie quorsum essent institutae says our learned Calvin had not those Shadows and Figures ceased in their due time when Christ brought a body into the world they had seemed impertinent we had never known for what they were instituted The Levitical Ceremonies were so obnoxious to alteration that the Schoolmen have set down their state in no less than five Conclusions 1. They were ever mortales the Covenant of these Observations was to fade away and not to endure for ever 2. From the time of John Baptist to the Burial of our Saviour they were moriturae inclining to dissolution 3. Upon the Commission which the Apostles had to preach the Gospel at the Feast of Pentecost they were mortuae quite dead and expired 4. As the Corps of a great Personage is not interred but in a decent time after his departure so till the weakness of the Jews was well instructed they were sepeliendae laid out to be buried But lastly when the faith of Jesus Christ was preached unto all Nations they were mortiferae not only dead but deadly unto him who should distrust in Christ and make himself a debter
a tree Yet Christ avoided to be slain among the Infants of Bethlem he would not be cast down the steep Mountain in Galilee nor be stoned by the Pharisees but to expiate the first sin by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree he was exalted on a tree like the Serpent in the wilderness And there is somewhat of observation in it that he suffered in an elevation between heaven and earth to purge the Region of the Air from the infestation of the Devil Who was Damnatus ad acrem tanquam ad carcerem says St. Austin thrown out of heaven to remain in the air as in a prison and therefore called by St. Paul The Prince of the power of the air Eph. ii 2. Nay Hesiod the Heathen Poet came to this knowledge by what tradition I know not that wicked spirits enemies to mankind were diffused over that Element Therefore Jesus dying upon the Cross gave up the Ghost in the air that he might cleanse the air from those flying Serpents that is from Diabolical infestations says St. Athanasius Secondly He was mounted upon his Cross as a Conquerour over that which was trodden down and trampled under feet wherein he seemed to be condemned he condemned the world wherein he took infirmity upon him he shewed invincible fortitude wherein he suffered death he overcame the power of Death From that fatal Tree which the Jews prepared for an indelible ignominy Potentia redemptoris secit gradum ad gloriam says Leo The puissance of the Redeemer made it a degree unto glory The Devil stirred up all sorts of men against him his Disciples to deny him the Jews to accuse him the Souldiers to crucifie him the Passengers to blaspheme him The more opposition the greater was the triumph For the Psalmist makes it a Song of Jubilee They came about me like bees and are extinct as the fire among the thorns Let me give it a simile from another feast coincident this year upon the day of the Passion The Patron entitled to the noble Order of the Garter sits victoriously on horse-back and the Dragon is beaten under his feet and cast upon his back So our Champion rides in triumph upon the Cross and his enemy fell before him For Christ was visibly crucified but the Devil invisibly says Origen When our Saviour was transfigured and appeared in glory then Moses and Elias spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem Luk. ix 31. As if there were no fitter time to speak of his death than in that clarification because his death was the purchase of glory in that abasement he was exalted and did exalt us that believe in him in that machine and craned us up by his Cross to heaven And therefore he promised unto the penitent Thief when he was upon the Cross the joyes of Paradise because his Cross did open Paradise to all believers Two things are notorious marks that this kind of death so vile in appearance was a constructive exaltation First that the imperial Ensign of the Roman Army in the days of Constantine the Great was cast into the figure of a Cross known in ancient Authors by that obsolete word laborum it was a victorious auspice to have the flag of the Cross which was never overcome to fly before them Then it came to be extolled even to the top of the Crown of Kings A locis suppliciorum fecit transitum ad coronas Imperatorum says St. Austin Once it was infamous for a sign of a servile death now it is translated as it were from Golgotha unto the Crowns of Emperours Fructus arborem exaltat jam honor est non horror The fruit that hung upon the tree hath taken away all ignominy from the tree now the horror of it is changed into a Trophee of honour As the Serpent was lifted up so there was power and exaltation and victory in the sacrifice of our Saviour Thirdly As the Son of God was conquerant in death so he was glorified after death He humbled himself to death even to the death of the Cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him By his Cross and Passion he hath entred into heaven there to sit at the right hand of the Majesty for ever Now he is exalted in his Resurrection death hath no more dominion over him now his name is blessed and hallowed as the balm from which our salvation distilleth now his Kingdom is enlarged from Sea to Sea and the uttermost parts of the earth are his possession Now his people are gathered unto him to magnifie and praise him all Kings shall fall down before him all Nations shall do him service These are the success and the consequents of his humiliation Therefore as you would not envy his greatness in his Resurrection so do not despise the meanness of his Passion Non te pigeat videre serpentem in ligno pendentem si vis videre regem in solio regnantem says St. Austin be not troubled to see him lifted up upon a Pole like the brazen Serpent if you desire to see him sit upon his Throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords Ought not Christ to suffer these things and so to enter into his glory And let this confirm our faith and make us willing to be conformable to his sufferings The afflictive way nay the destructive way of persecution is the advancement of a Christian to be pluckt down is to be lifted up Through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God Acts xiv 22. As some did swim to shore upon planks in that shipwrack wherein St. Paul was a companion Acts xxvii so being all of us in the common naufrage of sin none are more safe than they that swim out upon the Cross which God hath laid upon them If we must bid farewel to temporal prosperity let us see what Pearls of patience and repentance we can find as Job did in the dunghil of sorrow and misery If Tempests blow stronger and stronger let us strive with Elias to go up to heaven in the whirlwind what we want in the Church Militant continue stedfast in the truth and it will be supplied in the Church Triumphant But in what estate soever you are be lifted up from the earth and let your affections be above Let not Satan get the upper ground and make advantage of it against us beneath Is he in the air Then shall my heart be in heaven Is he upon an exceeding high mountain in his tentations Then will I fly up to the Sanctuary of the Lord upon the wings of a Dove For the Mountain of the Lords house is established in the top of the mountains Isa ii 2. Would he have me look upon the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them No I will look upon him who despised glory and hath purchased honour by his opprobry upon him who was lifted up like the Serpent in the wilderness Draw near now and come unto that place where this
speak the Oracles of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rational discourses 1 Pet. iv 11. So our Saviour promised his Disciples I will give you a mouth and wisdom not a mouth only but wisdom with it so that all your Adversaries shall not be able to gainsay it Luk. xxi 15. Finally the Prophet Isaiah speaking in the person of an Evangelical Priest The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should speak a word in season Isa l. 4. And so to end all let us send up our tongues of praise and thanksgiving to heaven to the gracious God that did send down the blessing of these Tongues to his Church upon earth And the same Lord Jesus exalt us to his Church Triumphant where with one song and with one voice we shall sing glory to him for evermore AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 12 13. And they were all amazed and were in doubt saying one to another what meaneth this Others mocking said these men are full of new wine MEntion being made in the former part of this Chapter what effects the Mission of the Holy Ghost as upon this day wrought in the Apostles the next thing which is disclosed in these two verses is what entertainment it found in the World What entertainment should it find but joy and gladness and thanksgiving it was a shower of grace that fell from Heaven and every drop of it more valuable than an Orient Pearl which made the whole earth barren and unfruitful before spring out with spiritual increase that from thenceforth the Wombs of Mothers should not bring out men but Saints It was not as upon the sixth day of the week in the Creation of the World that God did breath into man the breath of Life but upon this first day of the week he breathed into his Church the breath of Righteousness and filled it with the seeds of future Glory From the Feast of the Passover the Jews were to number seven weeks and then they kept a most solemn day called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Pentecost that 's this very day instituted to recognize how at that time they came out of Egypt from the Bondage of Pharaoh and received the Law which was delivered upon Mount Horeb. But to expunge the memory of that occasion God did superinduct a far greater blessing upon this Festival day and poured out his Spirit in a bountiful and miraculous manner upon his Disciples at Jerusalem Was there a season appointed to congratulate the deliverance of the Jews from the Captivity of the Body and doth not this Mercy exalt it self above the other that they are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise to be enfranchised from the slavery of Sin and the Devil Was the remembrance of the Law a perpetual rejoycing though it were a killing Letter and is it not ten thousand times more comfortable to receive the power of the Holy Ghost which enabled them to keep the Law Did they take it kindly and chearfully to receive the Law written in Tables of Stone And is not the change a great deal better on this day to have it written in the fleshly Tables of their Heart Then the Lord gave them but one Talent and they made but small multiplication of it nay they were the Servants in the Parable and who but they that bound it up and buried it in a Napkin Lo here are five Talents delivered unto us a greater Sum than ever the Children of Men received before And answer me now in equity what entertainment the Mission of the Holy Ghost should receive in the World Not to deceive your expectation with many words the case is thus The best of the Jews that came to the God-speed of this days work profest ignorance and knew not what to make of it the worst of them exhaled envy and rancour out of their malignant minds and jeared at it And they were all amazed and were in doubt c. The parts must needs arise to these two heads Grande miraculum Grande ludibrium First a great Miracle for it wrought these three things first Amazement they were all amazed secondly Doubt they were in doubt thirdly earnest Search and Inquisition for they said one to another what meaneth this But though the greater part were thus affected and therefore it is said they were all amazed meaning the greater number yet divers turn'd it to mockery and said these men are full of new wine First the sending of the Holy Ghost was construed to be a great Miracle by all that saw the effects of it in the Apostles and in the beginning it is exprest by a passion that took away their reason for a time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were amazed then it troubled their reason they doubted and finally it exercised their reason for they asked after it Amazement is a word to express the highest and most sudden admiration that can take a man when astonishment doth seize upon the faculties of the mind and bind them up for a little space that they have no power to exercise themselves as if they were Planet-blasted The Latin word Attonitus is he that is scared with a sudden clap of thunder so that he is stupified for a while but the Greek word in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goes further for the right signification is they were beside themselves or they were in an extasie So our Saviour's Kinsmen being themselves out of their wits with ignorance thought that our Saviour was transported when he preached the Gospel and knew not what he said therefore their opinion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is beside himself Mark iii. 21. Ecstatici qui non sunt in potestate mentis they that are amazed have not their mind present for the time it is dizied and confounded so that this Miracle wrought upon the Jews after the highest pitch of admiration Let us interpret it to the best that joy did overcome them to see the riches of all goodness poured out upon the Sons of men Their Forefathers were astonisht with fear at the delivery of the Law and they are astonisht with joy at the coming of the Holy Ghost The Gift it self the Persons that received it the Operation which it did exercise in them to speak the glory of God in all Tongues and Languages all are transcendently wonderful that the wit of a natural man especially is not able to comprehend them The Gift it self in the first place is so celestial that the Lord himself is not more wonderful in all his works than in sending the Holy Ghost so hidden from the knowledg of the world so rare to be found so beneficial to mankind that he that marvels not at it is himself a Miracle Are you amazed at things which are secret and very abstruse in their nature none more close and unperceivable than this As the wind passeth by and is not perceived so God breaths the
a little extemporary acquaintance and no more with that to which they say Amen Next let every man preach that challengeth he hath the gift sorrily God knows and then he knows that Preaching will come to nothing as well as Prayer Beware that you let not our great Adversary subvert all Piety and Religion by these encroachments bad men may mock holy Ordinances but God is not mocked Fear the Lord reverence his ways receive the blessings of the Spirit with thanksgiving and praise rule the Tongue to glorifie him that made it to set forth his honour that gives it utterance AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE CORONATION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the Day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and he glad in it THE words which I have selected to preach upon are part of a Psalm which excels both in the Letter and in the Spirit rich in the litteral sense copious in the spiritual the Kingdom of David set forth magnificently in the one the Kingdom of Christ glorified in the other Sometimes the ditty of the Song points directly at the Throne of David and sometimes at Christs Triumphs over his Death and his victorious Resurrection I cannot choose between them both but think of the Country of Mesopotamia the fruitful Garden of the world girt about with waters the Rivers did flow in and out in all quarters of the Land and the Land was much more pleasant for the windings and intricate Maeanders of the Rivers So this Hymn hath a most delightful alternation in it skipping often from Christ to David and from David to Christ with sundry melodious changes as if it purposed to make the Reader lose himself if he did not curiously note the Narration There hath been much ado among Expositors whether the Psalm should concern them both or only one of them choose you which you will Some refer it all to David and to the rejoycing of the People in his behalf that they saw him happily inaugurated King of Israel after he had been long kept back by the House of Saul and many other potent Enemies The Jewish Rabbins make no other construction of it and they follow the Chaldee Paraphrast who doth thus read the 22. verse of this Psalm the Builders did reject the youngest of the Sons of Jessai and would not let him reign over them but he hath deserved to be received for their Prince and Governor therefore we will keep holy day and rejoyce Thus Vatablus and Isidore Clarius and many others of this latter Age have dived no further than into the superficies of this Scripture that is into so much and no more than concerned the Monarchy of David But they did not see into the bottom that lookt no further for the Antient Fathers of the Church not one but all have discover'd so manifest a Prophesie concerning our Saviour that nothing can be clearer It is a general rule that David in most of his Psalms had more regard to Christ than to Himself in this more eminently than ordinary so that the New Testament is full of the application Pick out the 22. verse The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner according to three several Gospels our Saviour demonstrates that himself was the Stone which the Scribes and Pharisees refused but God had exalted him to be the Head of the Church both ih Heaven and Earth St. Peter proves as much in the audience of many thousands of the Jews and none of them did contradict him Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified this is the Stone which is set at naught of you Builders which is become the head of the corner ver 26. of this Psalm Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord I doubt not but all the loyal hearts of Juda and Jerusalem did congratulate David in those words when he entred into the Royal City but all the Multitude of the People applied them to the Advent of the Messias Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord Matth. xxi 9. And indeed St. Hierom says that the Jews in their Liturgy of old were wont to read this Psalm in their Synagogues for the Messias sake and did put it among those Prayers in which they did heartily desire the coming of Christ the Lord Nay says Cajetan the 17. verse can become the mouth of no mortal man but it is the voice of the immortal Son of God to say I will not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Therefore those Authors that had the most judicious Palat have acknowledged that sometimes Davids matters are brought into this Psalm and sometimes Christs nay sometimes both of them in one verse as in my Text. The begining of the Psalm says St. Chysostom was a Celebration for the setting on the Crown upon the head of the King of Israel but ex improviso mutavit argumentum in a sudden extasie the Prophet changeth his argument and speaks of Christ nay says Euthymius if a man will be acquainted with the stile of the Propets let him remember that this is their custom intercidere solent sermones in rem aliam transire ne adversarii manus injiciant they use to break off abruptly and fall from one thing to another lest if the Enemies of the Truth did understand them they would make away those holy Writings to the irrecoverable loss of the Church of Christ This was necessary to be premised that you might know what to look for out of my Text namely David's Day in the Letter and Christ's Day in the Spirit In the Case of David no man doubts what day is pointed at surely it is the day of his Inauguration when after much resistance made by his Enemies at last he did enjoy the Scepter of all Israel quietly and peaceably and there was an Holy-day instituted to remember it with sacred Solemnity The Lord had made that Day happy unto David and the People did celebrate it in a joyful and religious manner I need not to tell you how proper that construction of my Text is to this Day wherein God hath settled our Anointed Sovereign over all the Kingdoms of his Father and I trust you profess your due thankfulness to God for his most pious and religious Reign and that we have great cause to rejoyce and be glad in it But which is that among all the days of Christ which God did make more transcendently than the rest there 's a little scruple in that point I find one or two refer it to the day of his Nativity but their reasons are weak and they are no considerable number to be followed St. Hierom and St. Austin are in the right I think for they apply it to the whole time of the Gospel wherein the terrors of the Law are broken and all things are most sweet and pleasant to penitent Believers Behold now is the acceptable Time now is the
holy Angels and herein the Bohemian Churches accorded with us as I see in their Confession yet these Ordinances we uphold because they are beautiful to Religion and contein nothing repugnant to faith and good manners not by any long antiquity as I was able to speak for the former Feasts For Polydor Virgil was most unadvised when he wrote that these Feasts were kept from the Apostles times one distinction is to be ruminated upon that there were some hundreds of years past between the keeping of such Feasts in Private places and universally over all the Church Where any Apostle or Saint flourisht in his life or seal'd the Faith with his death that particular Place or City did celebrate his Festival it gain'd no further as very anciently the Bishop of Smyrna wrote that Polycarpus his day was at hand and he would call the people together to celebrate it devoutly For the universal acceptance of them in all Churches the most will acknowledg that it began at the soonest in the sixth Age under Gregory the Great but with the best search that I can make I cannot perceive that Publick Holidays were kept in the names of Peter and Paul Andrew and John till in the Ninth Age at a Council gathered at Mentz by Charles the Great and some Festivals dropt in straglingly long after as in the names of St. Thomas St. Bartholomew and St. Luke in the Twelfth Age so that it is no great antiquity which upholds those Saints dayes but these reasons following First that we may give thanks that the Church had such examples and be stirred up to the imitation of their vertue 2. As the Scripture hath not commanded such days so it hath not forbad them and in things honest and laudable we must obey them that are set over us in the Lord. 3. A solemn Fast may be proclaim'd to avert Gods Judgments Joel ii 15. and if God allow a meeting of rest upon some new occasion of a doleful event will he not permit piety to triumph with joy and gladness when the whole race of mankind doth or may participate the benefit 4. As there is nothing repugnant in Scripture so there is something very consonant to it For though the Jews were directed like Children in all their Ceremonies yet the whole Nation being delivered from the Plot of Haman Esther and Mordecai ordained a Feast in memory of it Esth ix 21. and we must not think they meant to make it a Merry-wake but a time to praise God In the Jewish Ritual they had a set Service for it as one says and it is vainly put off that this was a Divine Law and not an Ecclesiastical because it is entred into the Scripture For do they find that God sent word by any Prophet no such thing Mordecai suggested it Esther sollicited it Ahasuerus a Heathen King ratified it and so it went current with the People Again Jo. x. 22. our Saviour went up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of the Dedication and was not that Feast a voluntary Sanction of the Synagogue it must be confest for when Antiochus had profaned the Altar of the Temple 1 Mach. iv Judas Machabeus instituted a perpetual Feast toward the end of November to dedicate it again unto the Lord. The principal grudg of some wrangling men is against the Feasts of the Saints not against the Feasts of Christ and that because they have been Idolatrously abused in the Church of Rome their common Maxime is adiaphora non necessaria horrendâ idololatriâ polluta sunt abolenda I will explain them Things necessary to Religion though abused are not to be abolisht as the Word and Sacraments but adiaphorous things abused with no less than Idolatry must for ever be laid aside and these have caused Pilgrimages upon opinion of merit Invocation of Saints Worship of Reliques This foundation is false for by this slight the Devil would blow up all our Ceremonies and we should not have one left Our Churches must be pluckt down and the Bells hang no longer in the Steeple for they have been exorcised and baptized I yield that a Ceremonious Ordinance polluted with Idolatry is to cease if the abuse can not be taken away as Hezekiah could not stop the people from worshipping the brazen Serpent but when manifested good comes and evil is but suspected the former wrong being redrest what equity is there to cast it off I should fight with many other such objections but want of time will part that fray and I shall meet with them all to the capacity of the understanding by shewing upon what abuses Holy-days are to be disallowed 1. It is impious to institute them immediately to the honor of the Saints Some of the Children of our own Mother have scandalized us for that fault and yet Card. Bel. doth acquit us but we cannot acquit him for he delivers it roundly that the honour of the day doth immediately and terminatively belong unto the Saints but we enstile the day by their name for their memorial sake as some called their Moneths by the names of their Emperors but in those days we do only worship God 2. It is very lewd to employ them to vanities Interludes idleness and not the service of God take heed the Lord do not say I will turn your Feasts into mourning Siccine exprimitur publicum gaudium per publicum dedecus says Tertulliam 3. To abound with excessive number of Holy-days is a fault likewise it cannot consist with charity to lay so many injunctions and burdens upon mens consciences It made St. Austin cry out Tolerabilior esset Judaeorum conditio the Jews were less vexed with Observations than Christians Clemangis complained of the excessive number in the Roman Church and especially that they read the Legends of Saints upon those days and not the Scriptures Numerositas festivitatum cives decet non exules says one his meaning is to keep many Holy-days was fitter for Heaven than for Earth 4. As a needless multiplication though for good Saints and good occasions is bad so to appoint them for false Saints and bad occasions is ten times worse their Corpus Christi day instituted by Vrban IV. an 1264. upon a forg'd Miracle is most disallowable they carry the Host in Procession to have a Creature adored A solemn day is kept by them for the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin into heaven which hath no probable Author till Damascens time in the year 800. There 's another a great deal later for her Immaculate Conception as if she were sanctified in the womb and had no original sin Some are consecrated to Saints that for ought we know never were as Christopher Hypolitus some to such as never were Saints as Ignatius Loyola the Founder of the Jesuits a man compounded of nothing but vain-glory dissimulation and subtlety Canus their own Bishop could say we honour the memory of divers for Saints on earth whose souls are tormented in hell 5. It
residue the Lord will give victory to his chosen people But as Cyrus in Xenophon speaks of the manner of the Median hunting beasts in Gardens that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hunt beasts that were bound so to follow these turncoat Fugitives which have sheltred themselves in Cloisters and are sworn to do us mischief it were vincta venari to pursue that which was entangled therefore I leave them with Judas and this brand upon both their foreheads concluding the second part of my Text c. I am now descended in the third place to the stratagem of this day and am faln upon the haters of my Lord the King A King who is an uniter of Kingdoms into one body as David was of Judah and Israel none more zealous no not David himself for the prosperity of Jerusalem and the magnificence of the holy Temple Under Christ not only the Supreme Head but under Christ the most careful Watchman of our Churches and as Christ did tenderly affect his Apostles above all other men so the Successors of the Apostles the Reverend and most holy Bishops of our Church have found not the smallest place in the love of our gracious Soveraign Surely above all men if the Clergy be not careful to set forth the honour of this day with great joy and solemnity it is their ignorance or their negligence Ignorance is the very annihilating of a Scholar negligence the foulest fault in a Labourer Had these furious Sword-men that laid their weapons to his throat sound an austere Master nay a Tyrant they must have born with it and not touch the man that bears the character of the Lords Anointed But his Peers are verè parâ—s welcom as his equals his familiar friends Had they been out of the lists of counsel not acquainted with secret affairs what should they do but be thankful for the peace which they enjoy without trouble and pray for that Government which fills them with plenteousness without their labour but they were familiars in whom he trusted adventuring his Royal Person not only under their roof but under their locks and custody Lastly had his bounty no way flown into their Coffers and whose bounty among all the Kings of the earth hath replenished more yet their bodies are secure by the protection of his Laws their souls secure by his maintenance of true Religion their goods secure by his Courts of Justice and yet his own c. Did eat of his bread that is true But to feed upon the Kings hospitality is a curtesie every day common to thousands that visit the Court But for a mighty Monarch to grace his Subjects Table with his Royal Presence and to eat of his bread this is not the felicity of every one Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter it is a respect of high honour where it lights and the glory of an illustrious Family And out of doubt that mind must be very sordid and avaricious that esteems it not the more noble grace to make their service find acceptation that they may expend somewhat rather than receive somewhat of a mighty Potentate I can spare no more time to publish the black sin of the Authors of this treachery It was Dionysius his saying to Plato that if he should dismiss him and give him leave to depart for Greece Plato would make him the common talk of Athens Do not think O King says Plato that we have so little care of learned conference that we would chuse you for our discourse So I hope beloved that our hearts are so full charged with thankfulness to God for this days deliverance that in twenty years and more we have no leisure as yet to think of the Malefactors Let this day be spent and many days following only in Prayer and Supplication and Thanksgiving to that God who hath given victory to his Anointed and will do to his Seed for evermore Nay let me add one thing coronidis vice and I have quite done we have found this verse to tax Achitophel to condemn Judas and lastly to lie at their door who perished deservedly this day in their own fury Bonaventure hath yet smelt out another enemy and such a one as none more familiar none more intimate to any of us all Is not this fair warning beloved And will you know who it is O man it is thy self He that prays to God to bless him from his enimies is afraid of malice indeed it is a dreadful thing He that prays to God to bless him from his friends is afraid of treachery and indeed no mischief less avoidable But let me pray to God to bless me from my self no enemie so full of flattery so like to prevail so cunning in tentation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is the Civil War which wastes the inward parts it is the carnal man against the spiritual Self-love is every mans disease Why You are your own familiar friend Confession of sins can hardly be extorted from us Why We trust to our selves too much Gluttony and Riot are within our Walls Why We feed our selves and are our own carvers From our enemies defend us O Christ from Forain Invasion from Domestical Conspiracy from the malice of Satan and from the corruption of this vile Flesh the body of death which we carry about Good Lord deliver us AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Fifth of November AMOS ix 2. Though they dig into Hell thence shall my hand take them WE have two sorts of Holy-days and Festivals to call Assemblies together into the Church of God Some in honour of the Saints who are our friends that their Piety may redound to our imitation Some occasioned by the malice of our enemies to sing praises for our preservation both are useful if we advise aright And who knows whether King David was instructed better from Hushai his Friend or from Shemei that reviled him He that would be safe says Plutarch and walk sure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he must either have true Friends or bitter enemies And as God would have it the Church hath plenty of both sorts Saints of honour in heaven spiteful men to undermine it upon earth darkness beneath to complot treachery light above to reveal it There is both manus fodiens an hand digging into Hell against us and manus educens the eternal hand that fashioned all things on our side to take them out Beloved here are two chief instructions from two main ways to inform our faith blessed is every one that hath duly prepared one heart to receive them Which that we may the better do I pray observe what a lofty Hyperbole the whole verse doth consist of threatning the ungodly that they shall neither have advantage by Heaven nor Hell Though they dig c. They that go about to cast away themselves are not in their way except they wander And that you may know how sinners straggle whithersoever they go mark what several interpretations the words do bear Hugo the
produce in Europe When their Wonders are done so far from home it is a sign they would be trusted but not hazard examination 4. Where the Holy Ghost came down from Heaven it was fit that the Soil just under that Zenith should be the Cradle of the Church to receive its infancy Christ commanded his Disciples to tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from above Act. i. 4. He would not send his Souldiers abroad unarm'd to fight his Battels the Spirit of Grace is medulla Ecclesiae the Pith the Marrow of it Our strength without it is but like that of dead bones where it descends plentifully there riseth up a Church to Christ And here the Apostles had it not inchoativè but cumulativè they were abundantly filled with it because they were to empty it out to all Nations Out of these Premises I proceed to the Conclusion Jerusalem was Ecclesia Primitivorum The Church of the First-born the Apostles the eldest Sons of their Mother did teach the first Alphabet of Christianity there and therefore by way of gratitude to so great a Benefactress the Catholick Church by way of Metonymy Causa pro causato will never be ashamed to be called Jerusalem Every Kingdom upon due right must bear a reverend respect to them from whom they received their happy conversion Some had the first knowledge of Salvation from Rome some from Constantinople some from Antioch some from France some from England but all from Jerusalem And yet none of these are to domineer over the faith of their Brethren They that have begotten us in Christ may teach another Gospel in the revolution of Ages than the Gospel of Christ and then are we bound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to labour to reduce them into the right way above all others who were the Parents of Religion It is a blessing sorted out to some whereof David speaks Thou hast made me wiser than my Teachers Jerusalem that drank the luke-warm bloud from Christs side and had the Prerogative of pure Doctrine without all mixture of insincerity it had a Bishop in the whirl of times John the Predecessor of Prailius who was an Origenist and a suspected Pelagian another of its Pastors was Gerontius a confessed Eutychian and divers others it had that were leavened with heretical contagion None would concur with these unless they would put out their eyes to wander for company because they were the chief Fathers of the City of God Imagine therefore that Alcasar the Jesuit had all tâ—at he could ask that the new Jerusalem that came from heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband was the Church of Rome yet his Reader must be very courteous that will admit that Exposition give them this moreover that Isaiah meant it Chap. lx 3. The Gentiles shall come to thy light and Kings to the brightness of thy rising No proper name is specified there But what if it were Rome Although the seventy two and their own Vulgar Latine have added the word Jerusalem unto it Above all suppose it were possible to consist with my Text that it were the Roman Church which was opposed to Hagar the Bond-woman that these were her Epithets to be above and free and the Mother of us all which had it been Tu es Petrus had never been planted in the fore-front of their argument nor had it been their Dromedary ridden and jaded upon all Controversies this had been their Achilles in which they had boasted themselves invincible But if all this garnish had been the true beauty of that Church it would afford us no more than to meditate upon the Prophets question with wonder and commiseration How is the faithful City become an harlot The true Church upon earth is a Tabernacle portable hither and thither easily devolved from place to place When Abraham looked for a City that had foundations he expected it in heaven and not in earth Heb. xi I know what is ready to be caught hold of from hence by some and much good do them with it that the Church is compared here to no ignoble handful of people which a man must grope for in the dark but to an illustrious Commonweal famously known and conspicuous in a glorious manner to all the world Yet with their leave this Jerusalem which St. Paul prefers was in those days like a Pearl in the shell orient in it self but hidden from the world overspread with a multitude of gainsayers ten thousand Adversaries and ten thousand more to one Orthodox believer As the Historian says of C. Marius brought so low in his fortune that he hid himself from pursuers of Sylla in the flags of a fenny ditch Quis eum fuisse tum consulem aut futurum credere Who would have thought he had been Consul or should ever live to be Consul again So when the Apostles and a few persons more met in an upper Chamber at the feast of Pentecost who would have took them to be the Kingdom of God upon earth and none but they Or who would have divined that such as they begot in the truth should spread into all quarters as the Stars for multitude It is the Lords doing and it is marvelous in our eyes The Mountain of the Lord hath been notorious and a clear object unto innumerous eyes upon the top of the Mountains But is there any such promise that her outward splendour should be constant and her felicity perpetual Nay rather are we not threatned with such times when it shall be rare to find faith upon the earth with large Apostacies with flying away into the Wilderness with the Saints dispersed into private Corners Grant that this should be for one hard brunt and no more Dato non concesso yet if the small number of right Believers may be compelled at any time to exercise their Religion in private the reason falls which some do pertinaciously allege that the Church must be always well known over the greatest part of the Earth because her Doctrines and Traditions must be fair and open to all them that will come unto her to seek salvation or else such as continue in ignorance are excusable if sometimes it may be obscured by misery their mouth is stopt for making that objection and we are assured that the conversion of Unbelievers is not so plentifully brought to pass by the populous association of men professing faith and godliness as by the inward impulsion of the spirit where the Labourers pains do hit successfully by the hidden will of God But if the quarrel went no further than that the Church is a Jerusalem always well known and visible in some measure of manifestation it might quickly be compounded a Congregation there hath been ever since the Apostles whose report might come to the ears of natural men though their profession of supernatural verities was known only to spiritual men in this latitude we may believe upon historical faith that the City upon an hill was never
being of our nature and yet I will tell you a vitious filthy sinner doth so ill become the name of a man that there is far more congruity between him and a Beast he is more Swine or Tyger or Fox or locust than man he is not four-footed but he is bruitish hearted in his inward parts he hath put off humanity But if repentance shall restore him out of this bestial conversation if God shall set good men at his right hand that by strength of reason force of perswasion timeliness of admonition yea or by sharpness of correction shall make him feel and know the beauty of an honest life he is redintegrated in the powers and faculties of a man which he had quite lost So that our being in the austerity of Philosophy is connexed with our well-being No good man and by consequent no not a man till he be governed by the Principality of reason civil Education and the conditement of Vertue is such a Parent as reposeth a vile person a transformed Monster into the proper line of his own Praedicament it makes him Man Not to flutter in the air as it were any longer with Paradoxes impious Catives I confess shall stand for men for they shall suffer the curses and punishment of men in Hell-fire What is it therefore which Jerusalem adds unto us that she is called our Mother why the renovation of the mind or the new man created after God in righteousness and true holiness And as the Birthright which Jacob obteined from Esau was instead of another birth unto Jacob so when such as were vessels of wrath became Heirs of the Promise by Baptism and the Ministry of the Church is not this a Mother that gives them a better life than they had before The Love of God is our life Faith conceives us Hope brings us forth Charity feeds us with her breasts Obedience wraps us in swadling bands and knowledg brings us up God doth inhabit our mind and understanding as the Soul doth inspire the Body As Abram was turned into Abraham and Simon into Peter when they pleased the Lord so take any one that is regenerate and chang'd from his vain conversation though his shape and substance continue as it was before yet the Angels that rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner behold him with their celestial eyes not as the same but as another Creature And no wonder if he become another object in the sight of Heaven the reasonable Soul is that which constitutes the natural man but Faith being superadded a better spirit possesseth him and Christ is the form of a Christian It is St. Paul's Phrase ver 19. of this Chapter My little children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed in you As Ananias travel'd and earned for a Child till Christ was formed in Paul so Paul travel'd and had the sorrows of a Mother when â—he brings forth in the anxiousness of his heart till Christ was formed in the Galatians First the Church brought him forth then he laboured abundantly and assisted the Church to bring forth others The true solution of the old Riddle Mater me genuit eadem mox gignitur ex me the Son of Grace is begotten of this Mother and afterward filling up a place in the Communion of Saints he is reckoned into the collective Body which is called Jerusalem our Mother But a late Writer puts in his judgment very well I think how far the Motherhood of the Church intends to make us Children of Adoption it travels in birth that by her work Christ may be formed in us The Members of our fleshly body are formed in our Mothers Womb by her natural faculties she can go further for the absolution of the work that is the inhabitation of the Soul is the act of God so the Church doth the part of a Mother it propounds repentance discloseth the mysteries of faith perswades us with the expectation of a great reward in Heaven offers us the use of both the salutiferous Sacraments thus a new fashion a new Creature even the form of Christ doth creep upon us but the life by which we live it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it comes from without from above from the inspiration of the spirit of Christ But without that efformation or effigeation in the Womb of the Mother never expect the vivification or information of the Holy Ghost a Doctrin best known in those trivial words of St. Austin he cannot have God for his Father that will not have the Church for his Mother Ascribe the top of the blessing to him from whom every good gift especially those which are supernatural descends Of his own good will He begat us with the word of truth Jam. 1.18 His good will moved him to pity us his vertue and power went out from him to beget us and his truth which shined in our hearts was the instrumental cause to convert us Carry it along with you therefore that the invisible Father that is in Heaven works by the visible Mother the Church that is on Earth As Eve was the Mother of all living so she is the Mother of all believing Crescite multiplicamini is spoken to one as well as to the other both were ordeined in their several sorts for that blessing increase and multiply Therefore St. James hath conjoyned the Word of Truth to the Will of God both are mixed together to regenerate a pious people And although some have been too nice in expounding the Phrase Of his own will he begat us with the word of truth not with the words of truth in the plural as if our salvation were effected by pronouncing one word as when first we were made Members of Christ by saying I baptize thee and when we have sinned and return again to the Lord by saying I absolve thee yet be it briefly or largely it is the word spoken and preached by the Church which gives us this heavenly feature to be the holy ones of God Briefly the Mother that doth beget us is the Church Militant but the Mother to whose filiation and inheritance we aspire is the Church Triumphant It is true that in relation to Christ the Church is his Body and all we are his Members and in that reference it doth not make the Elect Servants of God but rather it is compounded of those Servants for properly the Body is not the Mother of the Members the Members are not the effect of the Body but they constitute the Body as integral parts And so Solomon hath more aptly given it honour in those delicious Metaphors of a Bundle of Myrrh a Cluster of Grapes and a Pomegranat which I think is the best resemblance a Pomgranat contains many kernels under one Coat so many thousands of Disciples are under the covering of Christ 2. As many kernels are in the small Pomegranat as in the great so the Graces of Christ are in the little Churches as in the more spacious 3. As
these Galatians in the common Brotherhood mater nostrum the Mother of us Bad Christians and weak Christians and Christians mis-led into Errors are still Christians retaining to the common Mother till they lose their legitimation by damnable Heresies accompanied with obstinacy But there must be a forbearing one another in love if we endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Eph. iv 3. Now here I might end having no further to go in the Text if I did follow the Vulgar Latine Translation whose reading is Jerusalem quae sursum est libera quae est mater nostra Being content to say that Jerusalem is our Mother and not annexing that it is the Mother of us all But the Vniversality of the Church must not so slip from us It is the reading of the Greek Copies of the Syriack of St. Hierom and therefore to be preferred before the Vulgar Latine which hath curtail'd the verse Nay in reference to this omnium that Jerusalem is the Mother of such a multitude of us all it follows in the next words Rejoyce thou barren that bearest not the desolate hath many more Children than she that hath an husband A most remarkable thing in the power of God to fill the world with such an omnium in a short space out of Twelve Apostles It is all one to Christ to be glorified in many or in few and truth must not be carried by the number but by the dignity and weight of witnesses It is no ill passage in Pope Nicholas I. his Epistle to Michael the Emperour Numerus pusillus nec obest ubi abundat pietas nec multiplex prodest ubi regnat impietas But let the World choose whether they like a cause which is countenanced by many or by few we can refer our selves to either I mean to the greater or to the lesser number Says St. Austin we are a little flock as Lambs in the midst of Wolves and yet again it is true many shall come from the East and West and sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the Kingdom of God Multi pauci pauci in comparatione perditorum multi in societate Angelorum We are few and we are many We are few in proportion to them that are rejected and yet we shall make a mighty train to follow the Lamb being joyned to innumerous Societies of Angels The Citizens of this Jerusalem are all the Saints that have been and are now and shall be hereafter and surely these surpass the Stars of heaven for multitude We admire nothing more for multiplicity than the drops of rain or the drops of dew and therefore David prophesied that the Children of the Church should exceed by Millions and Thousands like the dew that overspreads the earth From the womb of the morning is the dew of thy youth Psal cx That is the sense of the Learned take Cajetan for all the rest the Generation of the faithful shall not be as a Mother brings forth two or three children but as the Morning that yields innumerous drops of dew Bucanan turn'd his most elegant verse to this strain Non roris imber ante lucem argenteis tot vestit arva gemmulis And he is imitated and emulated in our English by a Poet of our own he says the Servants of Christ shall be arayed in Ephods not so few as the pearls of morning dew hanging on the herbs and flowers And if the family of Christ hath not many names added daily unto it the sin lies at our own doors Jerusalem is the Mother of all and it is her part to invite all to take their share in the coelestial inheritance and to apply the Promise to every man as far as the sound of the Gospel can reach Christ died to redeem thy soul if thou wilt repent and believe I end with Solomons Prayer O that thou wert my brother that sucked the breast of my Mother O that ye were all such as I am says St. Paul except these bonds O that all and every person on earth would learn the way of eternal life Jerusalem hath amplitude to receive them she is the Mother of us all And heaven hath amplitude to receive them which is the City to which we tend for ever AMEN A SERMON UPON REVEL vi 9. I saw under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the VVord of God and for the Testimony which they held INtending to speak somewhat according to the subject of the Day about the Church Triumphant in Heaven this Book is the most proper place to seek a Text out for that occasion surely it is so For that is the reason that the Epistle for the Day is selected out of St. John's Revelation rather than any other Scripture A door was opened in Heaven and he was carried thither in Spirit to peep into the Cabinet Counsels of the Most High Concerning therefore the things above and that little which is revealed to this World beneath how can we satisfie our selves better than out of his illumination As in the Parabolical Story of Lazarus and the Rich man Christ hath as it were unlockt Hell to let us see what the damned Spirits do so in this Book and in this Text above all other Sections of this Book he hath opened the Curtains of Heaven to let us see what the blessed Saints do But to go on soft and fair to the matter which I am to handle I confess it is no season yet to make hast because I am stopt with two objections First the Contents of this Prophesie have such an abstruse and mystical sense that the best Clerks in all Ages that have known most are commended for their moderation that they have said least unto it Whom would it not deter to meddle with it If he consider that the parcels of this Prophesie are all belonging to that Book with the seven Seals in the fifth Chapter And no man in heaven or in earth was able to open the Book no man able to read in it or to look into it There is but one thing that can help me out of the tanglings of this difficulty and that one thing will do it Namely that the whole Loom is not spun with one thread Among the hard and inexplicable passages there are some interlinings to refresh the Reader with facility In which sort my Text hath been ranked by the most Writers And reason good For at the opening of the first Seal in this Chapter will you mark it one of the Beasts invited St. John to the attention of some profound matter saying Come and see At the opening of the Second Seal because mystery upon mystery succeeded another Beast gave him warning to be very considerative saying come and see So at the opening of the third and fourth Seal all alike But when the Lamb doth open the fifth Seal in the exordium to my Text the voice did bid him no longer come and see there needed no such
Heavens move continually the hours run apace there is a swift Arrow in Gods Bow and if the Lord prolong the time a little it is to bring on a greater revenge upon his foes and to make the restauration of the Church more glorious A very little remains to conclude all the parties that are delated to God in this complaint are those that dwell on the earth Take it thus if you will The earth is full of violence and oppression where Justice playeth her part best some humane vices and affections will creep in no man knows how and put it out of order in every Region in every quarter of the World whether it be misfortune or malice that is the cause some that have integrity on their side come by the worst But thy Power O mighty God stretcheth over all from the rising of the Sun to the setting thereof dissolve therefore the Pillars of this Universe and shake it in pieces avenge thy Saints at once of them that dwell on the Earth Not amiss likewise in this Key The very earth upon which they walk groans under the Arrogancy of Tyrants they are fruitless Trees that cumber the ground they are not worthy to breath in the same air with the Servants of Christ therefore cut them off from the Land of the Living and lay their honour in the dust But best of all in this strein Here is no Catalogue or recitation of them that have bandied against the true in heart for their number is infinite but they are described by that wherein all their affections agree that they dwell on the earth It is no reviling Accusation they are not called Vipers or Wolves or Sons of Belial though these names had been no slanders but Per mucterismum they are quipt for their base affections that they are terrae silii clods of dirt Sons of the Earth whose belly like the Serpent's cleaveth to the ground and when they tread the Saints under their feet it is some earthy Concupiscence that rageth in them A petty Cony-catcher strips the Fatherless of his right to joyn House to House and Land to Land A Nimrod a mighty Robber he would spread his Kingdom by usurpation he knows not whither himself An Oecumenical Bishop that would be struggles for indirect dominion in Temporals In ordine ad spiritualia all their insolencies jump in this just as it likes their own ambition they would dwell upon the earth Indeed who would reckon it among the flowers of his fortune that he can crush and break all those in pieces that resist him but such a one as thinks of nothing but his short time upon earth and never accounts of a world to come These is nothing that can stop rancorous men in their malice if they take their possession here Tanquam mercedem non tanquam arrham as their full reward and quit claim to all other demand A miserable recompence not so much as the value of two Sparrows will follow the Owner to his Grave Disdain these movable things bestowed upon the Sons of Keturah and labour for the immovable inheritance which fell to Isaacs share The Reubenites that chose their Lot in Gilead on this side Jordan and seated themselves there they could challenge no part in the Land of Promise What a good title did Peter pretend to a great share in Heaven when he said Behold we have left all and followed thee Rather will I follow him for one drop of his bloud than retain to the greatest Potentate for all that he can give upon earth It is a bloud that speaks better things than the bloud of the Martyrs or the bloud of Abel for it pleads for no revenge unless it be trod under foot It is a bloud that intercedes for the pardon of our sins for grace to be given us in this life for a Kingdom of happiness hereafter c. AMEN FINIS The Reader is desired to correct the following ERRATA occasioned by the Publishers necessary absence from the Press In the Account of the life Page line  xxiv 16 for Tents r. Tenths xxv 30 rectè r. rectae xxix 23 the r. He xxx 20 not r. nor xxxv 22 Shools r. Schools  25 the world will r. they will xxxvi 3 hath r. had xxxix  1 Tim. 15. r. 5.17 xl 9 r. Baronius 2d T. in the Mar. In the Book Page line  3 1 world r. word 6 10 effugeamus r. effugiamus ib. 34 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ib. 36 Anak r. Anah 10 36 r. that circumstance 11 3 for heaven r. from heaven ib. 8 r. where Jacob 12 33 bow r. bough 20 16 to place r. to a place 21 45 r. the commonly 36 45 That it is r. That is 37 37 paená r. culpâ 41 59 Rubanus r. Rabanus 56 35 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 66 10 a Captain r. as Captain 68 2 our dele the comma after our 76 60 demoni r. Daemoni 79 33 r. finished it 81 11 Olimpia r. Olympias 83 2 3 r. out of Adam ib. 17 reati r. damnati 84 16 r. those immoderate 91 25 propararet r. praepararet ib. 41 set r. sed 93 19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 103 15 numbers r. number 106 17 r. we well deserved 113 36 r. almost all the ib. 43 r. Kingdom of our Father David that cometh in the name of the Lord 117 26 Ruth 18. r. Ruth 1.11 ib. 27 Gomaras r. Gomarus 120 61 an man r. any man 122 23 r. judgments thought ib. 46 Hasamonei r. Hasmonei 126 26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 128 26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 137 28 r. promised him 139 49 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 140 23 low r. loe 143 3 r. the Temple of the new Jerusalem 154 35 Act. 15. r. 1.5 160 16 r. was ignorant 161 3 incition r. insition 167 45 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 169 57 r. which were 176 35 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 188 61 mere r. a mere 194 59 Quo ad r. Quoad 201 17 influens r. influxus 207 40 r. ought not to be 211 6 r. Naboth was first ib. 9 here r. hear 213 9 stimulas r. stimulus 214 6 7 into r. unto 216 34 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ib. 55 well I r. will I 222 37 Curtius r. cursus 234 11 foot r. food ib. 30 ostentione r. ostensione ib. 33 feebless r. feeblness 241 19 non r. nos 249 61 Monacha r. Monica 264 11 of a God r. of God 266 3 4 panem r. famem famem r. panem ib. 18 inemandibili r. inemendibili 268 36 this is r. there is 271 39 every may r. every man 272 19 mistruct r. mistrust 273 35 grounds r. grinds 279 33 Goatish r. Gothish 283 3 Dimittit r. Demittit
nothing but the ruine that came He was naturally of a very pleasant and chearful temper but sad news made his soul retire a great way further into him and quite of another humour Indeed no man was more troubled and angustiated in mind for the miseries and distresses of this Church and Kingdom I have often heard his deep Sighs and his great Complaints when he did profess he did only breath but not live I have seen the heaviness of his eyes when he spake nothing his grave and ripe wisdom made him apprehend Fears more deeply than other people did But when his Majesties sufferings in Person came no man could conjecture the load of sorrow that was upon him He would say he felt his old heart wither within him and could not but sigh away his spirit he would often repent He had done no more by Preaching and Writing to prevent it and after the Kings Death frequently desired nothing else but to depart from this world of sin and suffering crying out Satur sum omnium quae video aut audio But next to the Death of his Royal Majesty he would bewail the cutting up the pleasant Vine of the Church of England and alienating the Churches Patrimony together with those of the King Queen Loyal Nobility and Gentry whereby the whole Kingdom of England was then in the hands of unjust Possessors For the Citie 's abetting this bloudy War He was now grown to a strong aversation toward London the place where he was born baptized bred and nothing could ever move him to go thither more until the Earls of Holland and Norwich both requested his Assistance at their expected deaths The Earl of Holland was very penitent for that he had deserted so good a Master in the beginning of the Wars Norwich was very chearful in the comforts of a good Conscience He would much admire how God sometimes gives secret admonition of things contrary to all humane expectations for the Earl of Holland had many Messengers came and told him they had Votes enough and to spare for his life yet nothing would perswade him but he should die within a few days and so he did The Earl of Norwich that knew of no friends yet would not believe but he should escape and so he did After this he return'd to his Rural retirement to end his Old Age in continual Prayer and Study omitting all exercise of body whereupon he fell into a great fit of sickness and upon his recovery the famous Dr. Harvy enjoyned him two things to renew his chearful conversation and take moderate walks for exercise assuring him that in his practise of Physick since these times he observed more people died of grief of mind than of any other disease and that his studious and sedentary life would contract him frequent sickness unless he used seasonable exercise Whereupon afterwards for his healths sake he would every Morning before he setled to his study take large walks very early to make him expectorate phlegm and other cloudy and fuliginous vapours whereby he afterwards continued Vegete and healthful to the last At this time he did much good in the Country by keeping many Gentlemen firm to the Protestant Religion who were much assaulted by lurking Priests who sought to perswade them that it was then necessary to joyn with the Roman Church or else they could be of none for they saw as the others said the Protestant Church quite destroyed But the good Doctor advised them better that the Church of England was still in being and not destroyed rather refined by her sufferings God then tried us as Silver is tried in the hot fire of persecution which purifies but wastes not Then especially our Church resembled the Primitive which grew up in persecutions and as the Earth is said to be the Lords in all its Fulness so the Church of England was the Lords in all its penury and emptiness And in these lowest of times he was full of faith and courage that himself should still live to see a better world one day and would greatly blame any of the Kings Friends who despaired of seeing the time of the restitution of all things His opinion was the Youths at Westminster spun a Spiders Web that could not last long and therefore was very confident of his Majesties return and would instance in Josephs case who was sometime sold for a slave imprisoned as a Malefactor yet afterwards advanced to be Governour of the Kingdom and in David who was hunted over all the Mountains of Israel yea and forced to fly his Country too and yet after brought to the Throne and also in Caius Marius who was forced to hide himself in the Flags of a Fenny ditch from the pursuers of Sylla so that the Historian asks Quis eum fuisse Consulem aut futurum crederet Who would ever have thought him to have been Consul or should live to be Consul again And therefore when any would say There was but little hope he would answer Tum votorum locus est cum nullus est spei They ought to pray the more and Prayer was a good reserve at the last cast Accordingly he would acknowledge that his many cares for the welfare of the King and Church of England did often send him to his Prayers but gave God thanks that his Prayers did always expel his cares After a day spent in Prayer he would tell an especial Friend he found in himself a marvelous illumination and chearfulness in the Evening and that as usually thick clouds in Winter cause dark weather till they were dissolved in rain or snow but then the Sun would shew himself and the air grow pleasant again So sorrows and cares cloud the mind and soul till we are able to dissolve them into devotion and holy Prayers and then post nubila Phoebus and professed nothing more contributed to his divine joys than his often reading and meditation upon Davids Psalms which he conceived they had done very wisely who set them in the midst of the Bible as the Fourth Commandment for Religious Assemblies was by God himself in the midst of the Decalogue In those doleful days that was done in St. Paul's London which Selymus threatned to St. Peter's at Rome to Stable his horses in the Church and feed them at the High Altar whereupon our Doctor was very confident their ruine grew ripe apace and not long after hapned the death of Oliver of which being suddenly told and the manner of it he only said as Tully of a Villain Mortem quam non potuit optare obiit and that we should see within a little while all the world would stink of him and disdain his Arbitrary and bloudy usurpations and accordingly in a very short time we saw all things incline to work about the happy revolution towards the accomplishment whereof no man was more active in stirring up the Nobility Gentry Clergy and People to desire a free Parliament and Petition General Monk
a scandalous Minister had confiscated his own authority of reprehending that in others which he was guilty of himself and that the Doctrin and Discipline of our Church could never have been so contemptible but for their sakes who with their ill lives and manners made all the threatnings of holy Scripture which they preached and all the Censures of the Church which they passed or denounced ridiculous and insignificant yet withal his Lordship ever gave the people warning not to despise the chastening of their Mother for no man can lightly esteem the power of the Keys upon earth and yet be well prepared in heart to receive the judgment of God in the World to come For better amendment of whatsoever was amiss his Lordship would like St. Austin and other antient Bishops frequently sit Judg in his Ecclesiastical Courts and hasten the dispatch of all Affairs and especially if there were any thing that concerned his Clergie would always be present at the hearing of those Causes that neither his Clergie nor any by them might be wronged when he went not in person to the Court he gave ready access at his own House to all who came to complain even the meanest people who were grieved with long and tedious Suits and after hearing what they could say would sometimes send for the Chancellour and Proctors on both sides and what he could not redress at home he would oftentimes go to Court and end there throwing out many Causes that had been long depending for trivial matters and would not suffer any Causes to be entred for defamatory words or trifles without his own knowledg first to the end they might be composed without much vexation to the parties by this means his Lordship created to himself much trouble which he valued not for the great good he did by it and though less profit came to the Officers of the Court yet were they also contented believing God would better bless them for taking onely those Fees which so conscientious a Judge was willing to allow After Ordination he seldom dismissed any whom he ordain'd without rare counsel To remember they were Ordain'd to Cures not to Sine Cures the Cure of Souls the greatest of all others and wish them every day to think of the invaluable dignity and seriousness thereof and therefore in all their Preachings to avoid lightness Quia Nugae in ore Sacerdotum sunt blasphemiae as likewise all ridiculous gestures and loud vociferations empty affectation of words and phrases without weighty and ponderous sense and significancy accounting that elegant words without solid matter were but perfum'd Nonsense and that there was infinite difference between plainness and rudeness They had a duty to discharge both to the wise and unwise and therefore must take care that the learned Auditor might still learn somewhat and the unlearned Auditor might understand not only some but all His charge was that in every thing we should retain this great Principle to offer to God the very Best we have whosoever builds God an House let them build it better than their own the Ornaments thereof should be fairer than our own our Sermons there superiour to our ordinary discourses or labours in any other kind arising not from extemporary sawciness but our studied and best industry and therefore ever warned them as St. Paul did Timothy though he had the gift of Prophecying still to attend to reading as Preaching and remember St. Paul himself would not preach without Books and therefore caused them to be brought after him in all his Travels and sometimes preached the same thing the next Sabbath-day and therefore probably kept Notes He conceived it small commendations to any to pour out faster than they took in and that indiligent and over-frequent Preaching beyond the Preacher's parts or what the people 's needs required was no advantage to learning or piety especially in the obvious way of Preaching altogether by Doctrin Reason and Vse which of all Expositors of Scripture Musculus first took up and was one great means to lay the Pulpit open to the prophanations of the late times such Preaching being oftentimes so poor and easie that every Justice of Peace his Clerk thought he could perform as well as his Minister whereas a good Preacher had need be skill'd in the whole Encyclopedy of Arts and Sciences Logick to divide the Word aright Rhetorick to perswade School Divinity to convince Gainsayers knowledge of many Tongues to understand Originals and learned Authors and above all he would recommend St. Hierom's counsel Discamus in Terris quorum scientia nobis perseverabit in Coelis for otherwise all kind of learning in a Minister without good Example and innocency of life was but a jewel of gold in a Swine's snout This was his constant advice to his Clergie at Ordinations and Visitations which he duly held every third year Visitation of Churches he would maintain was no Filia noctis started up in a night of darkness and Popery but an Apostolical Institution and practised afterwards by all the Primitive Fathers and Bishops Herein his Lordship would oftentimes be the Preacher himself so that in his first Visitation Anno 1665. in his Progress in Shropshire and at Stafford from the last of May to the fifteenth of June he preached eight times in the compass of those few dayes at Bridgnorth Salop Elsmere Wem Whitchurch Drayton Hodnet and Stafford and confirmed above five thousand persons whom he required not to be tumultuarily presented but with the preexamination of their several Ministers and was in all places most joyfully received So that when he put on his Episcopal Robes he put not off his Ministerial Labours no man had reason to say his Majesty by making him Bishop had spoiled a good Preacher as it was said of Frier Giles that the Pope had marr'd a painful Clerk by making him a powerful Cardinal nor was he like Julius the third of whom the Historian complains that he had been formerly a diligent man but when he came to the Popedom never minded his Study or the Affairs of the Church more Our Bishop on the other side professed he found as many cares in his Bishops Rochet as he believed Antigonus did in his Royal Purple and if it were not for the glory of God and good of his Church had rather throw it away than hang it about his shoulders St. Paul very well understood his Office when he called it a good work not to be discharged without painful study often preaching daily hearing and determining Cases of Conscience judging in Causes Ecclesiastical repairing or building of Churches These and so many other things beside he found to do at home that all absence seemed tedious and intolerable to him abroad so that he never slept out of his Bishoprick in many years nor was willingly absent from his Flock but upon extraordinary occasions as in Parliament c. and then would often request my Lord Chamberlain
better tidings to you Israelites than to any other Nation if you will accept them The Son of God came of their Fathers according to the flesh in their Country he came to preach daily and no where in the world beside in their eyes he wrought his Miracles and upon their bodies he practis'd his wonderful power to cure their Diseases to make their Blind to see and their Lame to walk He professed himself to be more devoted to their welfare than to all the earth beside before the Canaanitish woman I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel They were his he did acknowledge it he was theirs but they denied it he came to his own but his own received him not To abreviate my discourse in this point Evangelizo vobis they are glad tidings to you because it is given to you to hear the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven for blessed is the ear that heareth the things which you hear Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God It is flat cheating in the Devil to put dubitation into mans fancy on this wise I am partaker of the outward word but I know not whether God have gone any further with me to give me his inward Spirit to quicken that seed unto immortal life Beloved as Christ did institute both Bread and Wine to be the outward Elements of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood Bread is the substance of food Wine causeth the concoction and makes it comfortable food So the word preacht is the food of life and God never lets it go alone without some drops of the Wine of his Grace to make it nourishing and beneficial Jude xiii 23. Manoah the Father of Sampson cries out to his Wife we shall surely die because we have seen God Nay says she If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not receive a burnt-offering at our hand Neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would at this time have told us such things as these So let me answer all dubitative Christians unless the Lord did desire thy salvation he would not put his Word into thy ear nor his Sacrament into thy mouth The Gospel is an happy annuntiation to every one that hears it unless he quench the Grace which is offered unto him Evangelium omni populo the tidings are auspicious to all people To all people Trahit sua quemque voluptas There are so innumerous many fond pleasures desires vanities affections in several appetites can any thing satisfie them all yes it is relishable to every palat that will taste it though the true delight apprehended is included among the small number of the Elect yet it is given to all and no man shall say he is lost for want of a Redeemer and a sacrifice for his sins Cum omnibus scriptus significavit omnes says Origen He was taxed in his Mothers Womb by Augustus Caesar when all the world was taxed to intimate that he did communicate himself to all the world that after that conscription of their names in Caesars enrollment whosoever believed in him his name might be written among the Saints in the book of Life In the first lesson read upon Christmas-day thus you have it Isa ix 3. They joy before thee according to the joy in harvest and as men rejoyce when they divide the spoil A good Harvest is not welcome to one Village but it is gladsome to the whole Country round about and when spoils are divided after the vanquishing of an Enemy every Souldier is enricht and hath his share Such a communicative blessing is our Saviours Incarnation every man fills his bosom with the sheaves of the harvest every Christian Souldier that fights a good warfare plucks somewhat from the spoils of the Enemy The dew of thy birth is as the womb of the morning A learned Father of our own Church transposeth the Versicle on this wise Thy birth from the Womb is as the morning dew which waters the whole earth As the walls of Jericho fell down before the sound of the rams horns so the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile methinks it fell down flat to the ground at this blast of the Angels trumpet in my Text that these were glad tidings not toti populo but omni populo not to the whole people of the Jews but to all the people of the world The wall of discord is taken away in the universe which parted those two great houses and shall not the sweet welcome of the Birth of Christ take away a wall of partition between thee and thy neighbour which is in thy heart Can you out of enmity and hatred wish sorrow unto any when God wisheth joy great joy unto all dost thou envy at the prosperity of thy brother when the Lord would have the same glad tidings common to you both Lay down old grudgings and quarrels with the old year and begin the new year with a new reconciliation in love unfeigned and true meaning Charity and the Lord renew a right spirit in us all Amen THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 11. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. THE Angel hath made a brief Sermon upon a great occasion The occasion is the Incarnation of our Lord and who can be so copious upon that subject as the Mystery requires yet the Sermon which the Angel preacheth is neither a whole Chapter nor a whole Gospel but three verses of a Gospel In the multitude of words a great deal is lost unto the hearer the good application of a little whatsoever we think will yield the best fruits of increase But for such divine joy as is here proclaimed it was fit to roul it up in a small pill and to minister it to the audience in a little quantity How is it possible for frail flesh to subsist and not to be dissolv'd for gladness if the Angel had continued his tidings with such matter as he begun a Saviour is born unto you a Saviour is born no petty redeemer but the Lord strong and mighty a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. O it was provident care after the Shepherds had heard a little to tell them no more at once but rather to send them away into the City that they might see the rest After Israel had shaken off the Chaldean slavery and the Lord had turned the captivity of Sion David knew not how to express their astonisht joy but thus they were like unto them that dream as Livie says of the Grecians when the Romans that conquer'd them sent them unexpected liberty Mirabundi velut somni speciem arbitrabantur they received the tidings as if it had been a pleasing dream and themselves scarce awake So our sins have so much discomforted our hearts that our spirits are confus'd and faint if we receive all the comfort that God sends at once like a strong
prostrate our selves to the earth in giving honour to Christ for our salvation Both the Saints in heaven and the Faithful on earth and the Dead departed under the earth all these hath God ordained to bow the knee at the name of his Son Jesus Phil. ii 10. Indeed to do it toties quoties at every repetition of the name is not necessarily inferr'd from thence perhaps say it be no more than a pious Institution of the Church to keep us in a faithful remembrance that we do not forget it yet a dutiful Child will hearken to the voice of the Church and not wave her Authority and neglect it as if the Spirit of God had not directed her to prescribe outward things in a decent manner to the setting forth of Gods glory Isaiah could not speak of a Saviour in the Old Testament but this comes in Vnto me shall every knee bow and every tongue shall swear Isa xlv 23. and lest the world might suppose they may be bold and sawcy with a merciful Saviour St. Paul admonisheth how that Saviour shall be a Judge Rom. xiv 11. We shall all stand before the Judgment-seat of Christ for it is written As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God Beloved now ye are in Gods Temple judgment you neither see nor fear but imagin with me the Lord were coming in the clouds every mans innumerable sins laid open before him to condemn him in this distraction of amazement is there any thing to put life into your terrified souls but the name of a Saviour then let an Angel preach before you There is no name under heaven by which you can be saved but only the name of Jesus Tell me from your own heart what you think if in that case your head would not uncover your knee bend yea your face grovel upon the earth confess this and amend your stubbornness it is nothing but the forgetfulness of destruction which makes ye so unregardful to do reverence at the name of salvation One thing more and I shall have said enough to this Zanchy and others allow that soon after the first 300 years it was a custom ungain-said in that ancient Orthodox Church to put S. Paul's item in practice and more than that to bend and uncover at the name of Jesus and this done to let the Arrians see that all worship and honour was due to the eternal Son of God Though I trust there be now no Arrians among us is it not fit to hold the Ceremony that we may keep simple and perverse men from being Arrians Princes do not use to lose any part of the honour which was once given them upon any occasion and will not God look to have that honour maintain'd which was once laudibly ascrib'd vnto him by all mens confession he cannot grow less to have his honour impair'd howsoever there may be a mutability in occasions I will end with St. Austins words Hoc nomen salvatoris mei in ipso adhuc lacte matris cor meum pie biberat my heart did drink in this name of Saviour with piety and reverence even from my Mothers breasts So much for the honour of imposition the benefit of application and that worship of reverence which is due to be done at the name of Saviour Now I may say I have built up the Tower in my Text the strong Tower of David our chief defence that which remains is but the raising of the Walls to compass it about And you remember what we must deal with next he comes so near unto us that he participates of our nature Salvator natus he is a Saviour that is born born might the Shepherds say what an Infant whose mouth was not yet opened so that an Angel spake for him can this be that wonderful one ye talk of that shall deliver us Ecce venit equitans that had been more probable to be believ'd behold he cometh riding though it were in despicable humility Beheld he cometh riding upon an ass and upon a colt the foal of an ass But to be born an Infant though it were his diminution it was our glory and exaltation He was born and made like unto us in all things sin only excepted not to give us a natural life such as he took after our image but to make us partakers of his Divine Excellency that as we have carried the image of the earthly we might carry the image of the heavenly We rejoyce at the birth of our own children the Psalmist calls them arrows in our quiver as if they were the might of our strength Yet alas for their birth it would be unto nothing but eternal sorrow unless it were for the Incarnation of this Infant in my Text we might curse the day wherein we were born with Job and wish the day quite blotted out with Jeremy but that we cast off our former birth as it were and begin our life again at Baptism in the name of our Saviour How wisely the Almighty doth fold one work in another and one counsel in another to perfect the body of the Saints is past our finding out Yet it is sweet to enquire into the method of our salvation and to ask after this mystery among others why the Son of God would destroy sin in the nature of man and why he would be born in the similitude of corruptible flesh to gain for us an immortal inheritance I must prefer St. Paul's reason in the first place because it is direct Scripture Heb. iv 15. We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin So that Christ as he was God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds he knew our misery and infirmity but as he was man of the substance of his Mother born in the world so did he feel our afflictions and compassionate our infirmities He knoweth whereof we be made and remembreth that we are but dust When the bones of the poor cleave to the skin in time of famine and scarcity when the blood waxeth wan and pale with sickness when the body is under the torments of a tyrant in these extremities we may fly to Christ with boldness and plead unto his mercies O our Saviour that wert incarnate thou thy self didst take a corruptible body into the unity of thy person the chastisement of our peace was upon thy flesh thou knowest what we are able to suffer thou knowest our weakness and our frailty As for other causes why he would be conceiv'd in the womb of a mortal woman and be born to be a Saviour I will briefly go along with Damascen who reduceth them to these four heads that God might demonstrate the goodness of his Love his Justice his Wisdom and his power 1. To the first of these the heathen spake somewhat but knew not well what they said Amor
requisite additions and put it out of question The Wisemen adored him with costly Gifts after the manner of an earthly Prince The Angels glorifie him with Hymns and Praises after the Majesty of God In every respect this is the greatest testimony of Christ in all the Scripture excepting where God used his own voice immediately from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased These things are but said now I will prove it in the prosecuting of the parts which are these The Messengers the preparation to the Message and the Message it self or the Choristers the preparation to their Musick and then the Anthem The Choristers are 1. Heavenly ones 2. A multitude 3. An Host or an Army of them Their preparation is twofold With much suddenness suddenly there was with the Angel and with much chearfulness for they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 singing praise unto God The Anthem it self hath three rests in it Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will towards men And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly Host these are the Choristers that sung the Carol and the first thing we note in them is that they were heavenly ones Many things in the former Verses of this Chapter were exceeding mean if I may not say vile and sordid touching our Saviours Nativity but this portion of the story is of another nature and very honourable the more his Divinity had hid it self in Clouts in Flesh in a Manger the more it is illustrated by a glorious testimony The Earth afforded him one of the worst places it had the Heavens afforded him their very best attendance the Angels These heavenly Spirits you see gaze not upon the Work of our Redemption nor upon the Oeconomy of the Church as idle Spectators but they were imployed from the beginning in all the works of the Lord Job xxxviii 7. Who laid the corner stone of the earth when the morning Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy Some Expositors infer from hence that the Angels applauded and praised the Lord for the Creation of the world for the Chaldee Paraphrase instead of the Sons of God reads it Acies Angelorum the Army of Angels And the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the corner stone of the earth was laid all my Angels praised me with a loud voice St. Chrysostome says upon it that the Angels admired to see the beauty of the world beneath they were astonished to behold the degrees of the Elements the multitude of all sorts of Creatures their Order Number and measure And by so much were they transported with the beauty of Gods Excellency more than we and of all his Works by how much they did better perceive that they were wrought with infinite and inexplicable wisdom This apprehension of the Fathers upon those words of Job I think is not to be refused Anastasius Sinaita is cited to go a great deal further that on the fourth day of the Creation the Angels saw the Sun rise in the morning from under the interposition of the Earth and presently they bethought them how Christ Sol justitiae should be born of a pure Virgin and dwell upon the earth and immediately they sung this very Song Gloria in excelsis as a prevention or prediction what should be sang upon this day almost four thousand years before it came to pass But this conjecture supposeth one of these two things scarce to be admitted either that these heavenly ones foresaw the fall of Adam before it came to pass as well as God and that the Son of God should be given in the flesh for a Propitiation to be the remedy or else another scholastic quidlibet must be received that Christ was so the head of the Angels that he should have been Incarnate and the Angels saved by faith in that Incarnation though Adam had never faln which is but harsh in the delivery This is the true Doctrine and the right descant upon the Point these Spirits that dwell in Heaven rejoyced for the Creation of the Earth when the Foundations of it were laid as Job says how much more would they bear a part and triumph for our sakes at the Restauration and the Redemption of the Earth Yet now we are at the truth mistake not the reason of their joy as some have done let me but touch upon a petty error and so proceed to the true causes It is supposed by many that the Angels are ready to attend the Church with all their help and diligence and exceeding glad in our prosperity because they receive an augmentation of their blessedness by their pious Ministry towards the Sons of men Now this savours of a little servility me thinks as if those holy ones did not communicate themselves to be safeguards and watchmen over us without expectation of reward but Biel presseth it further Tum sequitur si homo non fuisset creandus Angelus non habuisset beatitudinem It would follow that Angels had never come to the height of their beatitude unless men had been created nay it will follow further they should come short of their full beatitude unless man had sinned and disobeyed Gods Commandment Let me lay down more sufficient reasons therefore for your further satisfaction First The Angels had always done their best to pitch their Pavilions round about us and to keep us from the tyranny of the Devil but they perceived that their protection was not a saving Medicine it would not cure it would not keep us in life but it bred them great content and joy when Christ did manifest himself in flesh upon the earth to heal our sores and bruises and to overcome that strong man for us and spoil him generally to supply in himself whatsoever was defective in their abilities This is Origens reason and his Simile follows as if many unexpert but well affected Physicians should spend their pains to no profit about a sick person whom they would fain recover and hearing that one of renowned skill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was come into the City who would undoubtedly restore the languishing party all the rest that had attempted it did much congratulate his coming So our heavenly Friends the Angels could not speed us as they desired but as soon as they saw the Prince of Physicians was come into the world first one Angel appeared the Prolocutor of the whole Host and he broke with the Shepherds about good tidings of great joy to all People This day is born c. All this while the rest of his consort hovered in the air and at last became visible and discovered themselves in a Volley Apparuerunt cum illo Angeli says the Syrian Paraphrast exulting and praising God that the Lamb was yeaned that should take away the sins of the World Secondly The fruit of this birth came to us and not to them Nusquam Angelos Christ took not on him the
seed of Angels but the seed of Abraham yet they are as forward in praise and thanksgiving as if the benefit had been their own Let the envy of wicked natures envy at this that God hath such good servants as are possessed with exceeding joy not for their own but for their fellow servants happiness O most Angelical perfection to account of the blessings that fall upon our brethren as if they descended upon our selves This heavenly Host did sing with mirth upon our Holy day but it is the Devils manner to houl and cry at the good of others if Christ came to save a man they rore that he came to torment them before the time Since the deliverance of poor distressed men was the Devils pain let the salvation of all those upon whom the faith of the Gospel doth shine be our rejoycing The foundation of Lycurgus his Commonwealth among the Spartans was Ne scirent privatim vivere that they should not accustom themselves to think of the private but of the publick good and it is the foundation of charity among Christians Nescirent privatim gratias agere that they should not restrain their thankfulness to their own peculiar but to extend it for favours which do befall every member in the Church of Christ Thirdly The Choire of heaven sang praise unto God on this day to set us in whom it concern'd to us a Child is born and to us a Son is given Shall the standers by pour out their Jubilee and will we hold our peace Will we make it no holy day when it only concerns ours and not the Angels redemption Was it not opprobrious to the Scribes and High Priests and Pharisees that a troop of Wisemen should beat out a journey of twelve days perhaps and peradventure more and bring all the precious gifts with them that those Eastern Countries afforded and all this to honour him that was born King of the Jews and yet his own people neither visit upon those reports nor search for him suffer him to fly away into Egypt and never miss him he came unto his own and his own received him not And when Satan stands forth to accuse the Sons of men will he not as much cast it in our teeth the Angels began a pleasant Song for your sakes and you ungrateful whose nature he took upon him did not follow they piped unto you but you did not dance He came unto his own and his own rejoyced not Fourthly Gregory puts in his conjecture among the rest Dum nos conspiciunt recipi suum gaudent numerum impleri Lucifer and his adherents whose rebellion had cast them out of Heaven did break the numbers of the glorious Angels and make them less therefore they break out into singing because the rooms of those collapsed Angels shall be filled in Heaven with those penitent sinners on earth that walk by Faith and newness of life as Peter and the rest no doubt were much comforted after Judas had fall'n away from his place by transgression that Matthias was numbred with the eleven Apostles The Church of Christ hath lost ground in great shares of Europe and Asia but what happy tidings are those and I trust they shall be better and better when we hear that souls are gained as fast in the furthest India and remotest America The Lacedemonians had a choice band of Souldiers which they call'd their immortal Phalanx because the number was always kept full at the instant almost when one of the band died or was slain another was elected into the order So the true flock of Christ is certain and invariable the number cannot be wrong'd many Apostates slide away yet elsewhere many millions are added to the Church This augmentation of them that are lost makes the Angels glad and sing Glory be to God on high Fifthly and lastly since the eternal Son of God did inhabit upon the earth the earth was become an amiable theatre for heavenly creatures to play their parts upon And as the Poet flatter'd Augustus Caesar that the spirits of the Decii and of the Scipio's wisht they had been reserv'd to have lived in his happy Reign so we may say and yet in no flattering phrase that the Angels either wisht themselves incarnate or else to minister to Christ continually upon earth in their incorporeal condition As the Saints arose out of their graves in their bodies and descended out of heaven in their souls and appeared unto many in the holy City of our Saviours Resurrection so the Cherubims came down from the firmament above and made their apparition in a visible form to celebrate the mystery of his Incarnation Not one of the Fathers but have wrote resolutely without doubting that Angels are part of our assembly in these Congregations ever since and most intelligently do so interpret St. Paul 1 Cor. 11.10 The woman ought to have power of her head because of the Angels that is to do nothing immodestly or unchastly because the Angels would be witnesses of their impudency And thus far on that point how the celestial chantors that modulate their tunes continually before the Throne of God these were the organs and well tuned Cymbals that welcomed Christ with a Song of Joy unto the earth But beside their heavenly nature they were a multitude a numberless concourse of them as some think even the whole company of Angels ten thousands of thousands that minister before the Throne of God as the Prophet Daniel speaks the windows of heaven were opened and Seraphins came down as thick as rain It is hard to say whether it would not have been pain and grief for any of those blessed Spirits to have staid behind though it were in Heaven whether they could have quieted their own desires to be absent from this occasion I am sure St. Paul leaves out none of them but cites them altogether Heb. i. 6. When he brings his first-born into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him Another says and that 's Salmeron the fields of Bethlehem could not contain all the Angels supposing as it is truth that they appeared visibly Sed ex omni hierarchia aliqui advenerant sicut in militia sunt multi ordines but some appeared out of every Hierarchy instead of all the rest as sometimes certain choice Souldiers are pickt out of every Squadron in an Army It was a matter of great consequence never any tidings of such weight were brought into the world before and reason good then that divers should come to testifie it and it was matter of great praise as ever shall be sung and reason good then that many should come to celebrate it If you will argue what would barely have sufficed I confess though fewer had preacht Christ in the audience of the Shepherds and though a multitude of this multitude had been spared yet the tidings would effectually have been believed and the whole world have been partakers of them But it is no contradiction
to say he that will afford honour unto Christ but even a bare enough affords him a great deal too little God did not appoint such Glory unto his Son as did just suffice but to teach us with what abundant magnificent reverence he should have been received He makes the whole train of Angels as some say the selected flower of them as others say attend him that his advent may be all in all illustrious Be it so yet I would it were not so that some do grudge and cavil at many points of ornament and decency which they find in our holy Service May not sundry Ceremonies be left out say they and yet our Religion be sound and entire Indeed our Ceremonies are not necessary in themselves we grant it why and what if such great Cathedral Churches had not been built nor such rich costly ornaments bestowed upon the Roof upon the Choire upon the Communion-Table might not Prayers be read and Sermons preacht with poorer habiliments and in meaner places well no man denies but God was faithfully serv'd in Dens and Rocks and Caves of the earth when the Apostles and Prophets were persecuted Besides there are that complain when one Minister may sufficiently and audibly read Service to the Congregation frustra fit per plura what a needless thing it is to have a Choire of Singers discharge that which ordinarily is no more than one mans labour They that make these objections let them consider what errors they fall into they may as well tax God himself for sending a multitude of Angels to congratulate the birth of his Son when two or three would have done the business for out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be justified Why should a reasonable man think it fit to glorifie God with bare scanty provision God hath given us full measure of all his blessings and running over therefore no decent Ceremony is superfluous no rich Ornament too gorgeous no strain of our Wit too eloquent no Musick too sweet no Multitude too great to advance his name who hath exalted us by the humiliation of his Son and made us capable to live with Angels in Heaven because Christ was content to lie among beasts in a manger Yet I am not out of this point concerning the multitude that came Angels came by one or by two at some other famous births in holy Scripture now they come not single or by pairs but they throng together at this Birth because this was no petty Saviour This was he that God gave in his great mercy to call all the ends of the world together from the East unto the West therefore all the dwellers in Heaven muster'd themselves together from one end to another and prophesied by their multitudes what increase the Evangelical Church should have A great multitude of all nations and kindred and people which none could number Rev. vii 9. A great draught of fish inclosed in the net so that the net was ready to break Some Feasts in the Old Law as that of the Passeover and that of Tabernacles had seven days annext to honour them Christmas-day hath twelve days joyn'd unto it to eche out the solemnity why should he not have most days to solemnize it of any Feast for through that holy Incarnation the company ot true Worshippers is infinitely larger than it was before As nothing is hidden from the heat of the Sun so every corner of the earth is disclosed to the light of the Gospel And remember that there is no variation or change in God as he appointed many Angels to sing out his Birth so to this time and for ever he loves to be glorified by multitudes Let two or three be gathered together in his name rather than one separatist alone but if you will multiply those two or three to hundreds to thousands of souls O then his desire is upon them that fear him and upon those thwackt congregations that call upon his name He that invited the guests in the Gospel did not think his Feast well bestowed till his room was full therefore he bid his servants scower the High-ways and bring them in that his number might be augmented I commend your private exercises of Prayer between God and your own heart that your Father that sees you devout in secret may reward you openly But those Prayers which you would have most prosperous and successful send them up in the thickest press of Prayers when a great assembly opens their lips together He that joyns his spirit with the spirit of the Church shall be heard as if he prayed with ten thousand voices Finally to bring this point to the end Angels flock by multitudes to disperse these tidings that Christ is born and who should take up this message after them but they that are called Angels in the Testaments New and Old The Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the Messenger or the Angel of the Lord of hosts Mal. ii 7. And then the Church is blessed when there is multitudo exercitus a multitude of this Ecclesiastical host a multitude of these Angels upon earth when there are many among you to break the bread of life I know after the old Proverb there may be Multi thyrsigeri pauci Bacchi many Priests and few Pulpit-men many of that office and few that officiate therefore our Saviour bad those that followed him to pray that since the harvest was plenteous and the labourers were few that the Lord of the harvest will send forth labourers into his harvest God will send forth many Reapers at the last to gather his Wheat into his Barn and to burn up the Chaff therefore if there be not many sowers and many labourers the sickle will light upon those to cut them down for weeds that being Angels in the Church and sufficient for multitude did not often tune their musick after their ditty in my Text c. The connexion of the next point will fit well with the former for thirdly they are an host of Angels and therefore many nay they must be very many and more than one rank or file that make an host-like multitude the number of fifty or an hundred would make a full train for messengers but they would be much too few to make an Army As Tigranes scoft at the Roman legions which Lucullus led says he if they come to me for Embassadors they are a fair company if they come against me for an Army they are but an handful A multitude though unarmed are a good safeguard in their populous numbers how much more when they appear in battel array and stand readily charg'd in warlike preparation But I will come in order to the reasons of this apparition There are no creatures so mean and weak but God is able to put strength into them and to raise an invincible host therefore the very Flies and Grashoppers are called his Army and an
best harmony with our best chearfulness from the example of Angels especially at this time for the Birth of our blessed Lord and Saviour c. THE EIGHTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 14. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will towards men O Sing unto the Lord a new Song for he hath done marvelous things I will begin the New year from that portion of Davids Canticle Marvelous things they were you will all confess that the powerful God should be made a feeble Infant that a woman should bear him in her womb who supports the world and all the Creatures that are contained in it that the Eternal should be born who had no beginning never was the like heard or seen before therefore whatsoever was said of old will not agree to set it forth it must be a new Song of praise and thanksgiving to our God So is the Text which I have read before you It cometh to pass by the providence of God that St. Lukes Gospel is more chearful than all the rest and full of Musick So that he is well called by one not only the Evangelist but the Psalmist of the New Testament The Song of Zachary the Song of Maries Magnificat the Song of Simeon this Song of the Angels the Church is beholding to him for reciting them and to no other Penman of the holy Word St. Paul calls him Luke the Physician some of the Roman Church to serve their own Imagery delights out of some Histories unallowed call him Luke the Painter there is no conjecture for that out of the book of Scripture which cannot lye But I have more conjecture for my own opinion that he was Luke the Musician a man of divers gifts and qualities for the Prophets and Evangelists wrote the Scriptures by divine revelation yet always with a sweet tincture of their own abilities The stately eloquence of Isaiah shews his breeding St. Pauls Logical Arguments shew his Scholarship St. Peters facile Exhortations shew his zeal and plain Education Finally if I be not deceiv'd the repeating of so many celestial Hymns in St. Luke shew his musical art and affection Now the Spirit of the Church hath been ever so directed by God to take in all the Songs of the New Testament into its publick Service and Liturgie the Magnificat the Benedictus the Nunc Dimittis Thus it is not only with us but was so most anciently in all flourishing and well established Churches Neither is this Versicle of the Angels I mean my Text left out but it is referred to the chief part of our serving of God in the celebration of the holy Communion before we part from the Table of the Lord our Rubrique commands us to sing or say Glory be to God on high Indeed that Prayer as we have it is enlarged with many other pithy strains of devotion We praise thee we bless thee we worship thee we glorifie thee c. And such as have wrote of ancient Ceremonies say that Pope Telesphorus made up that excellent prayer of Laud and Thanksgiving beginning with my Text. Very ancient it is I am sure because I meet with it for the most part in those pieces which are called the Constitutions of Clemens and St. James his Liturgy But for the words which I handle I have great cause to judge that they were the most acceptable Prayer of the Primitive Church for St. Paul begins his Epistles with grace and peace be multiplied as much as to say peace on earth and good will towards men and the end of many clauses in his Epistles is that Doxology to God To whom be glory for evermore Amen I wonder that the words themselves are bended in and out with such curious divisions by many Divines for the Angel hath parted them into three several rests and I will not go about to mend his work and whereas Points are raised out of Grammatical constructions of the Verb whether they should be the Indicative or the Optative Mood it shall be all one to that way in which I will handle the parts for I will handle every of the three members three ways First As a Congratulation or thanksgiving Secondly By way of Prayer or Petition Thirdly By way of Doctrine and Instruction Thanksgiving unto God that his glory on high appeareth that peace doth flourish on earth and that he is pleased with men or make it a Prayer or Postulation that all glory may be given to God all safety to the earth and that an happy reconciliation may be begun with men Otherwise if it be a Sermon or Exhortation the sum is that God be magnified peace preserved a friendship with God endeavoured thus nothing shall be lost of this divine musical Embassage Glory be to God in the highest c. Now we cannot be to seek what is the sum of the first member Glory to God in the highest it must be thus the Angels glorifie God for sending Christ in the flesh to redeem mankind and they wish and pray that men may glorifie God in Christ and they teach us that Gods glory is to be sought before all things and so I proceed to explicate it before you If the Disciples be silent at what time it is fit to praise God the stones shall speak says our Saviour that 's ultimum refugium the last shift and refuge that the very dross of the earth if need were should not want a tongue to magnifie its Creator But it stirs up emulation and provokes us more when those that are far above us discharge the duty which we ought to execute rather than when those things which are much beneath us should give us example So my Text lets you see that if men be silent and set not forth the praise of the Lord the Angels will speak and give him glory It were a great shame for the Commons to be rude and irrespectful towards their King when the Nobles and Princes of the people are most dutiful and obsequious so when the Cherubins devote their Songs to extol the most High it were a beastly neglect in man a worm in respect of a Cherubin not to bear a part in that humble piety But to speak after the method of reason had it not been more proper for the Angels at this time to have proclaimed Christs Poverty than his Power his Infancy than his Majesty his Humility in the lowest rather than his glory in the highest If there wereany glory coming out of this work of the Incarnation it may seem we had it rather than our Saviour and he lost it But the piercing eye of those celestial Spirits could see abundant honour compassing Christ about where ignorant man could espy nothing but vileness and misery For first they celebrate the glory of Gods justice in sending his Son made of a woman and made under the Law to suffer for us that had sinned against the Law because that Justice would not receive man into favour
But for brethren to dwell together in a good amity and as much as in us lies to have peace with all men it makes heaven upon earth Malignities and disagreements are things whereof the Angels have no experience in heaven but because the earth is full of mischief and debate and there must be seditious truce-breakers at all times that peace-makers may be more approved Therefore the Angels do not only congratulate the Church but they pray for it that it may abound with peace and they preach unto it that it may seek peace and ensue it We know not so well as the Angels do what an Hell it is to be an enmity with God we perceive not so well as they what a black sin it is to be at strife and division among our selves Hear and attend what they wish for our sakes and will not we wish the same benefit as heartily to our selves wish and labour for it for they that will not do their part to effect that they pray for they did but dream and not pray The Angels in these words gave our Church a pattern to repeat the collect for peace every day in our morning Devotion O God which art the author of peace and lover of concord And that which we pray for daily compose we our charity to practice daily especially while it is called to day when we come to the Table of the Lord The Angels Song is perswasive but the Body and Blood of Christ doth more effectually commend unto us this middle strein of my Text Peace on earth Now I come to the last part of the three and as the close of a Song is best composed when it hath a soft and a gentle cadence so it fails not here in the last note of all and good will towards men And good will c. so our old English Translation reads it with the conjunction copulative and perhaps upon the authority of some Greek Copies but for my own part I never saw or heard of any that had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet Beza commends the Syrian Paraphrase for adding it to the clearing of the sense and so do I. And this is gained by it that the author of that Syrian gloss goes against the common reading of the Latin Church that make but two portions of this Angelical Ditty Glory be to God on high and on earth peace to men of good will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make that noun the Genitive case as they do and the whole order is inverted It is not to be denied unto them but that such a reading is in some ancient Fathers but the most and the best concur with our Translation Howsoever let the words have the right interpretation and that shall make no disagreement The Latin Expositors are divided in it for some say it is peace of good will towards men others say it is towards men of good will peace So Beda Non est pax impiis sed hominibus bonae voluntatis This peace on earth belongs not to all promiscuously good and bad elect and reprobate but to such as are well affected to Gods glory And Leo inclines most that way In terra pax conceditur quae facit homines bona voluntatis such a peace is come down on earth as makes men willing and ready to serve the Lord. Surely this is an inforced sense and must rightly be understood of Gods good will towards men and not of mans good will towards God for it is the praise of God and not of man it is but a colour therefore of some learned Romanists to say that as it is specified in the first section to whom glory is given to God in the highest so it is fitly specified in the second section to whom peace is bequeathed to men of good will For the very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good will is mostly referred to God and not to man and surely it refers it self to God and his good pleasure not to men or to any good will of theirs I know it and ever preach that consolation to you that where there is a diligent and a studious endeavour God will accept of our good will though the action be offensive Vt si sit actionis infirmitas at sit voluntatis integritas and the Lord will speak peace unto their souls that are men of good will but Christ came not to save us because any of us all were men of good will and took delight in him nay he came unto his own and his own received him not and when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. v. 10. They make far better use of the Latin reading that expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of good will are men whom God hath respected from on high in his good will and pleasure such as belong to his beneplacitum to his election and purpose before the beginning of the world and are the children of it So Tolet most ingeniously on earth peace of good will towards men Hoc est ex Dei beneplacito gratuita voluntate non ex eorum meritis in the Jewish salutation peace was as much as health and salvation and God grants peace and salvation of good will to men out of his free love and the eternal counsel of his own will and out of no merits of ours Sponte gratis nullis praecedentibus meritis voluit mundum salvare says Nyssen upon it Of his own accord of his gratuitous goodness Christ came to save mankind and for no preceding good works or good will of ours And then the most common reading of the Greek Church is coincident with that true Orthodox sense and good will towards men that is and Gods free grace and kind acceptation towards them with whom he was offended So St. Chrysost conceives it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and reconciliation to men So the Syrian Paraphrast Et bonum nuntium or Evangelium hominibus and good tidings towards men a happy chearful message to all that will believe in the name of the Lord Jesus for Christ is our glorifier in heaven our pacifier on earth and our reconciler to God Indeed as there is no difference in the Text between earth and men so there is as little between peace and good will peace were rather a captious advantage than a true peace unless benevolence and good will did follow it Let God the Father have his glory to himself alone and to no other then God the Son will be our peace our peace that shall have no end Isa ix 7. and God the Holy Ghost who is the essential love of the Godhead will seal a pledge and earnest of the Divine Love unto our hearts and will breath into us the Spirit of love and good will one to another Amen THE NINTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE xi 27 28. A certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said unto him
exercise the works of Charity to cure the sick to heal the impotent The Donatists penn'd up the Church of Christ within the limits of Affrica for in the Song of Solomon God says to the Spouse mystically Vbi pascis Vbi cubas sub meridie Cant. i. 7. Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon As if the true Church therefore were limited to those Southern parts or Meridian Is it not as wonderful to fetch the Cardinalitian dignity of the Church of Rome from this Text 1 Sam. ii 8. Domini sunt cardines terrae The Pillars of the earth are the Lords and he hath set the world upon them Or Adoration of Images from this Text that Jacob worshipped leaning upon the top of his staff Heb. xi 21. And is not a Lay Presbytery screwed in to govern the Church instead of the most ancient Hierarchy of Bishops from this quite mistaken Citation 1 Tim. v. 17. Let the Presbytery the Elders that rule well be accounted worthy of double honour especially they that labour in the Word and Doctrine I will not put my self to the task to go any further in this reckoning for all Schisms and Heresies and almost all sins will shroud under the Patronage of the Word of God Yet such is the pureness of that Fountain that it is not pudled though dirty Swine do wallow in it nay though the Devil himself run headlong into it as he did into the Sea Here he tumbles about in this Psalm to cast dirt upon it yet the Psalm is no whit less sacred and venerable than it was before Et malè quod recitas incipit esse tuum as he did use it most blasphemously it was not Scripture but rather Magick and Incantation For first according to St. Hierom the Psalm pertains not to Christ but to his Members they have the promise that they shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty and the Arrians who did mainly contend against the Orthodox that David made the Hymn upon Christ and not upon pious men do but follow the Exposition of the Devil But of this hereafter 2. He did quite abuse the meaning of the Prophet The Angels are appointed by God to keep the faithful in safety against their enemies but the promise extends not to him that will throw himself into danger and be his own greatest enemy 3. He curtalled the holy Scripture and left out these most emphatical words In omnibus viis tuis that God shall keep thee in all thy ways Surely he was ashamed to mention these words for it can be none of a mans ways to cast himself down from a Pinacle of the Temple Diaboli est truncare autoritates this is a devillish craft which God abhors to lop off somewhat of the Scripture that the remainder may do hurt If any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this Prophesie God shall take away his part out of the book of life God is most highly abused when his sayings are mangled and misreported How much more when a whole Commandment and of principal consequence against worshipping of Images is omitted in many Missals I know not upon what pretence of brevity Even among men 't is taken for the sign of a most contumelious affection to report one Sentence or one Comma of a mans speech without the supplement of all Circumstances As Serapion served Severianus If thou diest a good Christian says Severianus and not an arrant Reneigo Christ was never made man Serapion brings him to his answer for this Heresie that he maintained Christ was never made man Thus the Devil had what he pleased and made use of what he lust in the Psalm and so like a broken glass it was for no service Fourthly says St. Ambrose why did he not go on to the end of the Psalm at least why did he not take in the very next verse Psal xci 13. Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet Quare siles super Aspidem Basiliscum nisi quia tu es Leo Basiliscus Satan is the Lion and the Adder whom not only Christ but every good member of his flock should tred under his feet these were his own names therefore he durst not recite them And yet the time was I can tell you when the Devil made as good use of that verse as he did of the precedent verse when he tempted Christ it seems he loves to be tempting with this Psalm but thus it was Pope Alexander the third persecuted the Emperour Frederick Barbarossa by Arms and Excommunications till he brought him upon his knees and lower than his knees in all servile and base submission and Alexander setting his foot upon the Emperours neck a scorn which Alexander the Great never put upon Darius insulted over him with that verse which next follows the Devils quotation in my Text Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder and shalt trample the Dragon under thy feet Nothing makes worse corruption than that which is best of all wnen it is marred and spoyled and nothing makes worse sense than the Oracles of God when they are perverted And as Samson having his Locks cut off wherein consisted the spirit of Fortitude was weak as another man so the Scripture mutilated and mangled having not the native and wholsom interpretation wherein the efficacy of the Spirit consists is of no force or validity The Devil himself was not afraid of the name of Jesus when it was not rightly used Acts xix The holy Incense was to be offered up in the Lords Censors so the Scripture hath a right savour in it when it is offered up with the meaning of the Holy Ghost Delaiah brought a false Prophesie to Nehemiah to hide himself from his enemies in the Temple but Nehemiah would not hear him Chap. vi 10. 'T is a grace of God which every one of us should beg often upon our knees that he would open the true meaning of the Scripture unto us Who hath the key of David that openeth and no man shutteth that we may not distort those good Lessons to our perdition and by our own ill digestion convert the most sincere milk of the Word into the rankest poyson These two cautions shall be the conjunct uses of this Point First that ignorant men be not removed from the truth by misconceiving such doubtful places of Scripture which are fittest to be argued by them that sit in Moses Chair It is a laudable conjecture of a modern Author that the Devil knew our Saviour was not brought up in the Schools of knowledge all the Jews could descant upon it Whence hath this man learning Is not this the Carpenters Son And therefore he mis-scited the Scripture unto Christ as unto an illiterate person that could not discover him Every man is not an Apollos mighty in the Scripture some
snow did not equal him His countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering Then for strange persons such as long since were departed and gone out of the world because the world was not worthy of them they return in visible shapes to play a new part upon the stage of the earth Behold there talked with him two men which were Moses and Elias I enter upon the handling of these Points without more circumlocution I have acquainted you before with two things of main consequence in this Miracle of the Transfiguration first the final cause why Christ was transfigured Secondly the efficiency from whence this exceeding brightness was derived Now I come to set it forth unto you first in his face then in his raiment Distill out the very best that all the Heathen have wrote and it is not able to teach us so much as is contained in this portion of Scripture touching the immortality of the soul and the beatitude of the life to come Here are the two last Articles of the Creed exemplified and set out in their real truth the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting The immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the flesh are confirmed in the persons of Moses and Elias who are brought forth to appear before mortal men face to face And our Saviour makes himself a spectacle of the happiness of the world to come for the fashion of his countenance was altered or thus in another Evangelists description his face did shine as the Sun I may say unto him as Daniel did to Nebuchadonosor upon the interpretation of his dream Tu es caput aureum Thou O King art the head of Gold Dan. ii 38. But we are sure if that head be gold the inferiour members under him shall not be iron and clay Of his glory we shall all receive and with the light of his face all the body shall be beautified This is a Beacon shining upon the top of an hill which shines from the East unto the West from one end of the earth unto the other But it is a pacificous Beacon which portends peace and not war where you read that the Lord looks like burning fire there he threatens us to beware of his indignation so John makes a character of Christ Rev. i. 14. His eyes were as a flame of fire in a great commotion of passion the eye will look like a forge of wrath as Tully displaies Verres ardebant oculi toto ex ore crudelitas emicabat His eyes did burn with anger cruelty did every where sparkle out of his face The Philosopher says that the Phancy is seated in the middle Region of the brain above the eyes which upon great and sudden wrath calls up the spirits hastily unto it self and with that swift motion they are heated and seem to flame in the eyes Flammea torquens lamina says the Poet of his Turnus Therefore this phrase of speech is borrowed from the manner of men that the eyes of Christ were as a flame of fire And it bids us kiss the Sun lest he be angry if his wrath be kindled yea but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him But at this apparition which I entreat of he did recreate his servants with his looks Here is no mention of fâ—â—e in his eyes but of light in his face and that is always taken in good part for an auspicious Omen They looked upon him and were lightned and their faces were not ashamed Psal xxxiv 5. They that stand before him and have a reflection from the light of his countenance shall not knit their brow and look down for fear unto the earth as Cain did Yet more than so this Sunshine Majesty wherewith he was beautified doth not only dissipate shame but serve us with the hope of Salvation Make thy face to shine upon thy servant O save me for thy mercies sake Psal xxxi 16. It is a good thing to be safe under his mercy the chearful aspect of his face doth promise that at the least And doth not this glistering transmutation assure us likewise that his grace shall shine in our hearts to produce the fruits of life The life is the light of men says St. John and by inversion it is true to say that this light is the life of the soul Therefore this was not the irradiation of the Sun or any other star which though it be a comely creature yet it is but an inanimate thing but to shew it was Lux viva and Lux ad vitam living light and light that begetteth eternal life therefore it sparkled from the living flesh of the eternal Sun of God And it may be observed how usefully St. Matthew says his face did shine like the Sun not as if he did then illuminate half the world at once with his face for then the rest of the Disciples who went not up to the Mountain must have known somewhat of this alteration it being most probable that the Transfiguration fell out in the night but because the Sun doth enough on his part to shine unto all men and if any want the benefit it is not for defect of the light which is spread sufficiently abroad So Christ by himself and his Priests hath annunciated the truth openly that it is our own fault and not his if it be not tendered to all people and known throughout the world 2. The Sun before he ariseth sends out beams and gives some light to the Horizon but makes the day more clear when he is risen upon the earth So Christ did give the Patriarchs a glimpse of faith before he was incarnate and lived upon the earth but he did embrighten the Church much more with faith when the world had heard and seen with their eyes and looked upon and their hands had handled the word of life And do you mark who were present witnesses at the fulgor of this transfiguration Both Moses and Elias who had lived on earth in the Age before and three Apostles who did live in that present Age because he was that light which gave the lustre of faith both to the former and to the latter Ages of the world take heed your heart be not thick clay and gross earth which will not admit and give transparency to this spiritual light He that believeth not abideth in darkness It is perilous to be in darkness and most horrible to abide in it and without faith you shall abide in the darkness of Hell for ever Though this which I have said already be much yet this prospective of admirable light leads us further for in this Transformation the Master did shew what Liveries of glory the Servants should wear when they should dwell with him in his Kingdom for ever As Zalumna said to Gideon of Gideons brethren so doth this enlightened countenance of Christ say unto his Saints As thou art so shall they be each one according to the form of the Children
Ruby and Saphir but the colour of the Diamond cannot be well called by any name there is a white gloss and a sparkling flame mixt together which shine fairly but render no constant colour So we cannot say what manner of shew the Rayment of our Saviour did make These two did concur to the composition of the beauty Candor lux A whiteness mixed with no shadow a light bedimmed with no darkness It was white and glistering says our Evangelist White as the light says St. Matthew And his face being bright as the Sun his rayment exceeding white as the snow says St. Mark these two make such a medley that no Painter can think how to ground a colour to resemble it Altera pars de coelo splendidior sole altera de terrâ candidior nive The Divine Nature of Christ is from heaven and that exceeds the very Sun in the heaven in brightness His Humane Nature is from the earth beneath and that did exceed the very snow upon the earth in whiteness They had more fancy than sure foundation for their doctrine that grounded upon this place how the bodies of the righteous when they are risen and stand at Gods right hand shall not abide naked but be overcast with a Regal Robe of excellency Neither will it help that they fetch a proof Rev. vi 11. that the souls under the Altar had white Robes given to adorn them to make the true interpretation of these things more passable First I will speak of the alteration in Christs Garment then of the candor and whiteness It is well known in holy Scripture that Christ is called our garment and that as many as are true members of the Church are called Christs Garment Gal. iii. 27. As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ There the Saviour of mankind is our Robe Now we read of the conversion of the Gentiles and their being gathered into the Church Isa xlix 18. Lift up thine eyes round about and behold all these gather themselves together and come unto thee As I live saith the Lord thou shalt surely cloath thee with them all as with an ornament As Charity useth to be painted full of young children some hanging upon her Arms some upon her Brests So the Son of God is love it self and all his Children lay fast hold upon him and hang about him as a Vesture covers the body these are his Garment which shall shine for his sake in the Kingdom of heaven for ever Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi was visited by a great Lady in Rome who came in a specious fashion with her Chains of Pearl and Ear rings and Jewels about her Cornelia expected till her Sons came home who demeaned themselves before her with awful dutie and fit obeysance and to these she points saying Hi sunt gemmae meae torques monilia mea These are my Jewels and my Pendants that adorn me At such a value Christ accounts all those that live in him by faith these are his Garment which is white and glistering and no Fuller upon Earth can make a thing so white no earthly felicity can be comparable with that heavenly glory Philosophers and Heathen Orators these are Fullers upon earth their wits are not able to reach to the imagination of that spiritual joy which Christ hath prepared for them that fear him And they that have a Pharisaical opinion to be justified by their own works these are Fullers upon earth that would make all clean by the Art of man Alas it lies not in our skill in our endeavours in our righteousness it is Christ that can present a Church all glorious not having spot or wrinkle he will set us as a Signet upon his arm and as a seal upon his right hand he will wear us as a robe of dignity and bedeck us with grace and glory so that no Fuller on earth can make a thing so white There are three things metaphorically called Garments in whose whiteness and purity consists the perfection of all our happiness Stola sanctitatis justificationis gloriae 1. Here is the fair Robe of sanctity and innocency in the first place as God says of some good ones in the Church of Sardis Rev. iii. 4. They have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in white They had not defiled their Garments that is they had not spotted their Conscience with uncleanness Therefore the Primitive Church emblematically did stir up such as were baptized to righteousness and holiness of life by enjoyning them that Ceremony to wear white Garments at the time of their Baptism Accipe vestem candidam immaculatam quam perferas sine maculâ ante tribunal Domini says St. Ambrose Thou that comest to be made a Christian take this white unstained garment and keep it unspotted unto the day of the Lord. 2. There is the robe of Justification when God looks upon us not as we are in our selves but as we are cloathed with the merits of Jesus Christ Non est breve pallium it is no scanty short Cloak which will not come down to the foot but it reacheth over all from our conception to our death it is spread over all our sins both original and actual and hides all our deformities Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ O fair nuptial garment which will bring us into the Bride-chamber of the Bridegroom for ever 3. The robe of justification makes us fit to be invested with the robe of glory That eternal life which we desire and expect is moralized in the name of a white garment because such apparel was used among the Jews upon occasion of gladness The Wiseman commending a life which was always led in mirth and alacrity without lumpish austerity says he Let thy garments be always white and let thy head lack no oyntment And because the life of Angels and Saints shall be nothing but singing of Psalms and pleasance and festivity before God for evermore therefore the Angels appeared in long white garments in our Saviours Sepulchre Mark xvi 5. And to express that eternity of joy which we shall have in bliss Christ would not be transfigured without this circumstance that his rayment was white and glistering Albedo vitae puritatem splendor doctrinae eminentiam significat That Allusion shall be noted to conclude this Point whiteness commends a pure and an innocent life glistering commends the word of truth in the holy Scripture that it is as clear as the Sun at noon-day But it is not an outside of purity which will stand the trial before God Hypocrites may go in sheeps cloathing a fair and a clean nap may be upon their coat without when their inside is a ravening Wolf So Hereticks will parget their Doctrine over with plausible reasons I perhaps through the power of Satan they will shine with miracles but take heed you do not worship their Idol because it shines like Gold Haeretici falsa dogmata
But her tentation would not take he preferred to refuse this offer and return home to his own Country Pleasure is not a Goddess but a Sorceress which would offer us the like Bonum est esse hic this is a fair inheritance were it not a gay thing if this were heaven and you imparadised in this pleasant seat for ever O no says celestial love go out my soul go out take the wings of the morning fly away to thy Country above the heavenly Jerusalem and then rest for ever Philip that mighty Macedonian feasted many Wits at a Banquet and he propounded a question to be argued before him What was the greatest thing in Nature After many Opinions one collected all that had been said and concluded Neither was Philip himself the greatest of all things nor the Hill Olympus nor the Sea of waters nor the Sun in the Firmament Sed cor quod res maximas despiceret the greatest of all things was an heart that despised the greatest things which are in this world beneath Unclog your affections from all contents of this miserable life if Tabor it self transport you the best part of the Militant Church where Christs glory shines which by Gods mercy I am confident we enjoy yet forget that and yearn for the Church Triumphant Be willing to bequeath the earth to the succession that follows you and your body to the ground and your soul to God 5. I am ready to move the fifth question alas when I consider it how unfit is the natural man for spiritual things An bonum sit quod paucis solummodò est bonum Whether we should call that good which is appropriated to our selves and not communicated to many This is it for which Origen thinks that Satan stirred up Peter to utter these words to entreat him to bless that little company upon Mount Taber with his presence and to leave all mankind without redemption O too forgetful Nimiumque oblite tuorum both of the other nine Disciples and of all that people that sate in darkness and in the shadow of death It was the most Jewish maliciousness that the Jews had to challenge God that his mercies and blessings belonged to their Nation and to no other Kingdom but this contraction is far more unreasonable to beseech Christ to smother his glory in a private corner with Moses and Elias and three Apostles as if these were the five wise Virgins enough to enter into the Marriage Chamber of the Bridegroom If one member be honoured all the members shall rejoyce with it but when all the members of the body are honoured every member shall rejoyce much more Tolle invidiam tuum est quod habeo tolle invidiam meum est quod habes says St. Austin Be not you envious and that which I have is yours Let not me be envious and that which you have is mine A carnal man you see wisheth his own happiness with the consequent infelicity of all the world beside let me oppose unto this the stupendious example of a regenerate man that wished his own damnation for the salvation of a great people I could wish that my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh Rom. ix 3. Some have commented upon it that Paul was unadvised in those words and offended God Nay Beloved the Holy Ghost cannot be unadvised by whose instinct he wrote and he doth Preface in the beginning I say the truth in Christ I lie not St. Chrysostom cannot speak better than he did upon that verse Quia nos longè sumus ab hâc dilectione Pauli ideo intelligere ejus verba non possumus We want so much of that love to our brethren which Paul had to his that we are not able to make a good construction of his meaning Yet I will direct you in a few words Paul did not desire to be separated for his brethrens sake from the charity and friendship of Christ for then he should love man better than God but from the felicity and sweet fruit of that friendship He would perish for ever not as Christs enemy but as an offering for his Nation He doth not desire to be out of the love of Christ but out of the Vision of Christ The conversion of an whole people he thought was more for Gods glory than the salvation of one man therefore although Gods Election must stand and that was impossible which he desired yet so long as he loved his brethren in God and not against God it was no excessive love And that is the judgment of Calvin But to draw to the use of the Point you see that perfect charity squints not at its own benefit with the great detriment of others Bonum est nobis is bad divinity and bad civility it spoils Church and Commonwealth that which is good to one or to a few will never thrive if it be not good for many It is true he is one of the fools of the world that is not wise for himself but he is one of Gods Reprobates that is wise for none but for himself Nequicquam sapit qui non omnibus sapit When every man is his own end all things will come to a bad end Blessed were those days when every man thought himself rich and fortunate by the good success of the publick wealth and glory We want publick souls we want them I speak it with compassion there is no sin or abuse in the world that afflicts my thought so much Every man thinks that he is a whole Commonwealth in his private Family Omnes quae sua sunt quaerunt All seek their own Did St. Paul write it against us or against the Philippians Chap. ii 21. Can the Publick be neglected and any mans Private be secure It is all one whether the mischief light upon him or his Posterity There are some says Tully that think their own Gardens and Fish-ponds shall be safe when the Commonwealth is lost Doth he not call them fools by craft Away with this bonum nobis to intend our own good rather than the general it was the greatest error that St. Peter committed 6. To the last question briefly in a word An bonum consistit in aspectu humanitatis Christi Could it be the supreme good of man to behold the Humane Nature of Christ only beatified Surely the Humane Nature shining as light as the Sun was a rare object that Peter could have been contented with that and no more for his part for ever yet the resolution of the School holds certain that blessedness consists essentially in beholding the Divine Nature which is the fountain of all goodness and power and in the fruition thereof accidentally it consists in beholding Christs Humane Nature glorified and in the consequent delectation These things must not be enlarged now because I am prevented by the time To God the Father c. THE FIFTH SERMON UPON The Transfiguration LUKE ix
in Pompey's company I may say in a better capacity of truth that the three Disciples could not miss their Parents their Children their Friends their Possessions their Countrey no nor the whole World beneath if they could but reserve a Tabernacle in any secret place wherein they might enjoy our Lord Jesus Christ The Prophets who were preserv'd by Obadiah's favour were contented to live in a Cave where they might serve God without Idolatry and Peter would possess a new-found World not inhabited by evil men alter alteri magnum theatrum sumus a few good ones are enough to enjoy one another without a contagion of the multitude Alas when he would needs be making a place for Christ that he could devise no better Structure than a Tabernacle But will God indeed dwell on the earth says Solomon Behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee how much less this House that I have builded Solomon thought so meanly of the goodliest Temple that ever was built for Gods honour what a Building was here then not worthy to be named Let us make three Tabernacles As he was laid in a Manger when he was born so he was never housed richly and sumptuously all the while he lived upon earth never till Joseph of Arimathaea composed his body decently in a fair Sepulcher which is not an excuse that we should make him vile houses now but a provocation to make him amends on our part for that contempt which was offered him when he lived in Judaea As for the instance of my Text that Peter offered him a Tabernacle made of a few sticks it is to be born with both because he knew not what he said and he was able to do no better True love is satisfied that all will be taken in good part which is well intended As Jacob set up a Stone and poured oil upon it and called it the House of God Gen. xxviii 18. what would you have him do that had no better at hand but where the Land abounds with costly and sumptuous materials can ye bestow them better than upon the Church of Christ Do you not perswade your self that there the Lord hath heard you often from Heaven and given you all manner of things that are good and can you suffer those walls to be unadorn'd where you have been prosperous or can any heart be so hardned to suffer that Table to be unfurnisht with Ornaments at which we have often been fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Benediction I charge not this place with any such neglect but I commend and pronounce them blessed especially who have been liberal that Gods honour might be set out among us in the beauty of holiness and I lament it where it is otherwise for it is a mournful sight me-thinks to see any place excel the Church in preeminence and magnificence not as if I thought the Lord did favour us for fair walls and roofs without a fair inside but first it signifies the almightiness of God when we honour him with the best and chiefest of all outward things and secondly it makes our zeal shine before men that we love our Heavenly Father better than all the wealth of the Earth and the Lord loveth a chearful giver The best Temples that we can dedicate to God are our sanctified Souls and Bodies and therefore St. Austin said alluding to this Text Qui Deo vult facere tabernacula praeparet ei penitralia cordis He that will make a Tabernacle for God let him prepare a clean heart this is well said if we play not the hypocrites with this figurative Religion If some men be incited to offer up the Sacrifice of Alms unto Christ they tell you spare them for that and they will offer up the Sacrifice of a contrite heart Are not these two ill divided bid them worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker that they hold superfluous for they will bend the knees of their heart Are not those two ill divided Charge the rich men of the World to repair Gods decayed Churches and make them beautiful that draws money from them too fast therefore they say we will build a Sanctuary to the Lord in our inward heart Be not deceived God cannot be mocked with these metaphorical excuses I had rather offer with St. Peter to build a Tabernacle unadvisedly where there was no cause than be backward to build a Tabernacle for the mighty Lord where there was a cause Because Moses and Elias had preached Christ unto the Disciples they would do something again to requite it not hear the word of God gratis as some do as if they would give no mony for it If you will give nothing for that precious gift which cometh from above take heed the Lord do not say to you at the last day What good service have you done in all your life that I should give any thing to you as some men have their customs not to give so undoubtedly God hath his custom not to reward As David said to Araunah The Lord forbid I should sacrifice unto him of that which cost me nothing so Peter would not hear a Sermon of Christ crucified and do no good thing for it faciamus c. These Tabernacles which he spake of being an allusion to the Church I find them agree very well in this that the Militant Church is but like a Tabernacle portable from one place to another to be taken down in one place and to be set up in another always removing As we see the Gospel began to shine most bright at first in the Eastern Countries and now it hath pleased God that in the most conspicuous purity it is carried into the West From Jerusalem it removed to Antioch from Antioch to divers places of Achaia in Greece further and further every Age till now that the multitude of the Isles do praise the Lord like a Militant Tabernacle or Pavilion pitcht where God pleaseth to fight against the Devil and his Angels and to win ground from him that would destroy the Earth Psal cxxviii 3. The Wife which is spoken of there and likned to a fruitful Vine is an Allegory of the Church Now the Church while it wanders upon earth is vitis in lateribus domus a fruitful Vine upon the walls of the House it stands without the doors of the Palace but when the Church shall be settled quietly in the upper Jerusalem it shall be vitis in penetralibus domus the Vine shall be translated into the midst of Paradice there it shall be a City abiding for ever and no longer a removing Tabernacle Now you have heard St. Peters zeal in the Fabrique which he moved to be built in the progress of this point you shall hear these Tabernacles of his were but wild Chimaera's or as we say Castles in the air for he took Mount Thabor as it was now adorn'd with glory for the Heaven which he desired to enjoy
fall out with the whole Profession of Chivalry for one Miscreants sake that pierced my Saviours side or for four at the most as some say that scourged him Quis requiescet super lonco quo perfossum est Christi latus for by that reason we should fall out with the Priests and High-Priests too who were deeper interested in the business than the Souldiers The Sons of Aaron were his first Enemies as you would say Hereticks and corrupt Teachers that sow Tares among the Wheat were the first Adversaries against the Church of Christ The Military men were his last Enemies they that wounded him in my Text and belyed the truth of his Resurrection afterward watching at the Sepulcher So the Battels of usurping Princes put on pestilently to be the last ruin of the Church Caesaris milites Caesar's Souldiers such as these were his Souldiers that would be an Universal Monarch the Caesar over all the Princes of the earth Some Expositors out of their respects to the honour of a Martial life would have this person to be ne unus militum no Souldier at all rightly called but by abuse and usurpation and I think you will say they speak reason when I tell you why When Hannibal was Master of the field against the Romans a People of Italy called Brutiani revolted to the Conquerors side But fortune turn'd and the time came that the Romans had clear'd the Coast of the Carthaginians and could take revenge of their Enemies at home then they neither would let those Brutiani live so happily as in Peace nor so honourably as to bear Arms in War but took them along with their Camp and made them Lictores Lorarii that is base Instruments for correction and execution of Malefactors so that by good conjecture this was but unus è Brutianis an Executioner and not a Souldier but as he lived in the Camp Now where villany was bred in the bone and the condition of the man was to be like Satanas emissus ad vexandum orbem appointed to vex all that came into his hands what could be expected but that he should thrust his Spear into the bowels of an Innocent As it was said of Maximinus the Tyrant who was born a Barbarian both by Father and Mother in quo fuit conscientia degeneris animi he did not apply himself to good because his conscience always told him that his original was base and degenerous Let him be as bad as we would have him or as good as the Text calls him he was as we are in one thing a Gentile and not a Jew a Gentile that did malice Christ The divisions of both those two great Houses did concur to these cruel and dolorous sufferings that both in their Posterity to the worlds end might think themselves indebted to expiate so great an offence both had an interest in these bloody passions prosecuting our Saviours death ut qui pro persecutoribus oraret Gentiles non excluderet says Origen That since he prayed for his Persecutors the Gentiles who were at one end of his Persecutions might be partakers of his Prayers And the counterfet Gospel of Nicodemus tells us what success this Gentile had upon our Saviours most potent Intercession and Prayer for his Enemies For this Longinus that name his new Godfathers have given him having lost the use of one eye long before a little sprinkling of this bloud did light upon it and restore it again The miracles and the grace of God made him a Christian and finally a constant profession of him that was crucified made him a glorious Martyr Whether the Story be true or false I dispute not this Author knew that there was a possibility we might believe it For 't is true that St. Hierom said upon the conversion of many Publicans and Harlots Christus est succinum ad congregandas sibi stipulas paleas many who had copious vices were drawn unto Christ as the Coral and the Jet draw chaff and straws and things of the least moment about them Men and Brethren to this day Christ is crucified to this day Armed men and Souldiers bend their fury against the Church of Christ are about his Cross For as the Philosopher said that an ill man was the worst of all Beasts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he was arm'd with wit and reason to do injustice So every sinner is not so strong as a Souldier to hurt nor furnisht with ability to be so bad as he would be he wants a spear to thrust Christ into the side as Isaiah said of the Army of Senacharib which threatned sore against the Temple of the Lord but fell short of their purpose The Children are come to the birth and are not able to bring forth But when I see Power and Authority make the worst use of it to oppress when I see a pregnant Wit set it self to scoff and libel when I hear Eloquence whet her tongue to plead against the innocent alas say I this is robusta iniquitas this impiety is armed with a Spear the weapons of malice are girt about it my Saviour and his poor Members are sure to smart for it Says the Prophet Ezekiel chap. xxxii they shall go down to Hell with their Weapons of War that is with their violent and powerful sins Transgressors we may be Souldiers that fight against Heaven I hope we will never be Cast away the weapons of Satan and put on the armour of light I have done with the Person I come to the Violence offered lanceâ fodit he pierced him with a Spear The hand of Jereboam which was stretched out against the man of God dried up and withered the hand of the Emperor Valens shook with an extreme Palsie and could not subscribe to the Banishment of Basil the Great says Theodoret but the hand of the Persecutor which aimed at the Body of Christ himself that was stedfast no infirmity in it no sinew shrunk Let these go their way says Christ of his Disciples when they were all taken together in the Garden let not these be apprehended the Shepherd rather than the Sheep the Master than the Servants In me convertite ferrum whosoever escapes his own flesh shall never flinch at torment St. Austin asks why his dearest flesh was pierced and despitefully mangled but according to the Scriptures not a bone of him was broken quia ossa sunt electi eorum virtutes his flesh was the Sacrifice which must be offered upon the Altar of the Cross but his Elect and their Virtues are understood by his bones and whatsoever betides himself yet his Elect that is his bones must not be broken In the Similitude of the Vine whereunto our Saviour is compared more than once Bernard hath thus continued the Allegory that in Circumcision he was vitis praecisa a Vine that was pruned and though a little cut yet no substantial part was wounded In the captious questions of the Pharisees when
word of the power of Christ which coupled again those parts divorced the soul and body not by breathing a new life into the body but by breathing out a loud voice Lazarus come forth Such as had been but banished their Country in the days of Caesar the Dictator and were restored again by the grace of Augustus and Antony were called Charonitae as if they had been wasted back again into this world when they were quite extinguished Those Roman Potentates would be esteemed Gods of another world that could unlock a man from the fetters of banishment needs then must he be greater than the Kings of the earth whose authority can break the bars of death and bring the Prisoners forth from the captivity of corruption The Scythians says Lucian swear by these two Idols as the Gods of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Wind and by the Sword Hic spirandi est autor ille mortis The one gives breath to live the other takes life away Now that which gives life and that which takes away life can be no less than a God say the very Scythians These heathen knew no more of Gods power than to give life and to take away life Had they known what it was to restore life again that would have been the chief power of divinity even in their estimation Majus est restituere quà m dare quantò miserius est perdidisse quà m omnino non accepisse It is more admirable to restore the soul again than to create it at the first because it is more miserable for the body to have lost a soul than never to have received it The great Clerks the Athenians could not tell what to make of the infinite power of the Resurrection It is pretty that St. Chrysostome observes upon them Acts xvii when Paul preached unto them and mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Resurrection of the dead they thought this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been a God the unknown God at whose Altar they did worship Evil men can abuse that which is good God can make good employment of that which is evil Death upon the first sin was named to be a punishment It is Meritoria in Martyribus and I may say Gloriosa in resurgentibus it is made an instrument of great reward unto the Martyrs and the passage to an Article of faith to believe in the Resurrection We call them that are dead in the Lord Abraham and Isaac and Jacob alas there are no such now Abraham dissolved into dust is no longer Abraham the soul cannot be called Abraham only the whole man both soul and body but so sted fastly do we trust the dead shall rise again Quod defunctorum animas nominibus suppositi appellamus says Thomas We speak of the dead as if they were now alive because they shall live again even as Christ spake to the corps of Lazarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as to a Corps but as to one living not as to one that was dead but as to ears that could hear Lazarus come forth And it is well says the Father that among all the Corpses in the dust Christ pickt him out by name as who should say now I will have none but Lazarus to come forth others shall appear in their time otherwise all the Legions of the dead had come to light and stood thick upon the earth from the East unto the West Indeed the souls under the Altar cry our Quousque Domine fain would they stand before him like Enoch and Elias so eager they are and vehement instantly to have tongues to speak and hands to hold up and knees and heads to bow as if they were not contented that their days to come for those things were days of eternity We shall meet together all in the same Livery cloathed with bodies of youth according to the measure of our Saviours Age Eph. iv Alexander out of a surly Magnificence Soli Antipatro Phocioni salutem scripsit in Epistolis never wrote in the top of his Letters I wish you long life and prosperity but only to Phocion and Antipater But God will direct his voice to every member of his Church one summon shall call forth Abraham and Isaac and all the world which at this time begins for a relish of faith but with this person alone Lazarus come forth And thus much for the first thing wherein the power of his Divinity appeared Mortuus excitatur a dead Man was raised Now that Lazarus after four days was raised that he which was bound came forth of the Grave is discourse for some other time Thus much only in a word upon the present occasion The next thing that you shall read concerning Lazarus after he was raised is this he sate at Supper with our Saviour in the second verse of the next Chapter Why behold the Supper of the Lord there is the next place where you are to meet with Christ after you are risen from your sins and the preparation of this Table to replenish your hungry souls with grace is as great a testimony of our Saviours Divinity as to raise up Lazarus Tu das epulis accumbere Divum it is the highest power of God which he confers to his Church upon earth to give them leave to meet together before the food of Angels As Manna melted away with the Sun-rising and new store fell upon earth the next morning which is a kind of Resurrection so you that have quenched Gods Spirit that have melted away his grace and let it putrifie for want of good employment this is the Morning this is the Season to gather a new Omer full that you may cherish and increase your faith Which that you may do c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN xi 44. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face was bound about with a Napkin THis is an Easterday Text notwithstanding that the party intreated of is Lazarus for as John Baptist was born a little before the birth of Christ and John was the Forerunner of his Nativity so Lazarus rose from death but a little before Christ rose and was the Forerunner of his Resurrection The Jews Passover was nigh at hand so you shall read in the 55. verse of this Chapter certainly it was not long before Christ the true Paschal Lamb was offered upon the Cross that this Miracle was done Feriâ sextâ ante Dominicam de Passione says one the Friday before Passion Sunday which is nine days past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom he put them into admiration with this work before this great day of admiration came Nor have we a Praeludium only how our Saviour should conquer death in this Chapter but you shall resent and perceive some resurrection wrought upon every person that had interest in this story First the news of Lazarus death was brought unto Christ beyond
exist hic exclusus intravit these two St. Austin makes to be very like being shut in the Sepulchre he came out by his own power being shut out of doors he came in by his own power Well let it be answered that Christs body did not penetrate the dimensions either of stone or door as I told you before but that a passage was made for him miraculously so that in a moment which could not be discern'd they gave way and made him entrance and though this answer like not our Adversaries I am sure they cannot refute it And is this fair dealing when St. John doth not tell how Christ came in the doors being shut from thence to pronounce how Christ is present in the Holy Communion and see their inference Christ came in to his Disciples the doors being shut ergo Christs body being in heaven the same body is in the Priests hands in ten thousand places at once and in every little crumb of the Host his whole body is present He that understands this consequence is more than a mortal creature I will run over their chiefly alleaged subtilties and dispatch all Bellarmine affirms that the corporeal substance of Christ partakes the spiritual manner of Angelical existence that is he is present in the Eucharist substantially not quantitatively And yet Aquinas and He himself confess that the substance of Christs body is not there naked or divested of dimensive quantity it hath quantity there but is not there after a quantitative manner to have quantity but not the nature of quantity is not this a flat Chimaera to be in the Host substantially but not with quantity and local dimensions I have read it from them a thousand times but could never found what it should be And shall I think those millions of godly but unlearned Souls in the Church must learn such distinctions to obtein salvation but a late Jesuit would thus illustrate it the soul of man is an whole soul in every part of the body an Angel at once in distinct ubities or places the thoughts of man may be at once in many quarters of the Earth God is in Heaven and Earth at once therefore the body of Christ may be in many Hosts at the same instant I answer there is not one of these things alleaged will fit the purpose for every Angel is definitively in a place so that being in one site he removes to another The soul is immaterial by nature and the form of the body the thought of man is an intentional motion and action and not a corporeal or spiritual thing God is every where because he is infinite but Christs humane body is finite material limited to certain place and measure and differeth from all the former things therefore it hangs not together from the pretence of those instances that the same identical body of Christ is multiplied in the Sacrament of so many thousand Altars Thus their sophistical cavils have compel'd me to go with them one mile and for the last conclusion I will go with them twain But say those subtle Writers if God can put an whole Camel in the eye of a needle may he not put the whole body of Christ in the least part of a consecrated Crum In this Objection they strain at a Crum and swallow a Camel Christ did not say that a Camel continuing in his ordinary quantity can pass through the eye of a needle but by a supposition a rich man making Mammon his God may as easily pass to Heaven But lest we may seem to be averse to Gods omnipotency I go further that there is a two-fold power in God ordinata absoluta one according to the order which himself hath fixed by his Word and Will the other according to the infiniteness of his Essence which exceedeth his Will According to the power of God measur'd and regulated by his Word and Will it is impossible that a Camel in his gross bulk should pass through the eye of needle or that the whole body of Christ can be in a bit of bread or that he is substantively present in many places at one instant We do not say that the infinite Essence of God could not have ordeined these things to be possible but he hath in every place of Scripture reveal'd that He will not have these things to be possible The power of God is his will and what He will not He cannot is the saying of Tertullian Now that God will have it possible to have the body of Christ pass through the dimensions and solidity of the Grave-stone He no where affirmeth and therefore I do utterly reject the Pontifician interpretation I have finisht what I had premeditated upon all the three motions in my Text at last we see all was composed into quiet and the Angel sat upon the Grave-stone But here I will rest my self at this time and proceed no further Almighty God roll away the stone of ignorance and stubbornness from within us and settle all these things in our hearts for Jesus Christ his sake who died for our sins and rose again as this day for our justification AMEN THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION MAT. xxviii 3 4. His Countenance was like lightning and his Rayment white as snow And for fear of him the Keepers did shake and became as dead men THere is no day mentioned in all the Scripture upon which so much business and action is recorded to fall out as upon this grand day the day of our Lord and Saviours Resurrection The holy Evangelists according to the secret wisdom of the Spirit write in a confused order the sundry accidents of this day which with your patience I will set down very briefly every one in their own place Mary Magdalen and the other women bought Odours and sweet Spices to embalm the body lying in the Sepulcher and to that end came forth very early in the Morning As they hastened on the day there hapned a great Earthquake and the Angel of God rouled the stone from the Sepulcher The Watchmen who kept the Monument are sore afraid at the sight of the Angel and at the opening of the Grave they certifie the High Priests all that was done and the High Priests out-face the truth with lying and corruption Now Mary Magdalen and the women being come to the place where the body had been laid miss it and wonder at it Mary runs to Peter and John and tels them they have taken the Lord out of the Sepulcher and we know not where they have laid him While Mary was gone the Angel comforts the other women that staid behind fear not ye seek Jesus which was crucified he is not here but he is risen go tell his Disciples c. Yet these women went not far from thence But in this space Peter and John came to the Sepulcher and found the Monument empty save of a few linnen cloaths Mary Magdalen also comes back to the Sepulcher and weeps
place IN this Book of the Acts of the Apostles you have the Evidences and most antient Records of the Primitive Church Christ in the four Evangelists taught us what an absolute Church should be and St. Luke practically hath given us an exemplar what an absolute Church was and flourished in the time of the holy Apostles In the first Chapter of this Book you may note what a thin company and small Society was first intrusted with the Gospel of Christ How the number of the Twelve was made complete again after the loss of Judas by the election of Matthias and these together with some other Disciples made up 120 names ver 15. Pusillus Grex a very little flock indeed as many as conveniently met in one dining room or upper Chamber and these to deal with all the world not half so many as Gideon selected out of thirty thousand to save and deliver Israel from the Midianites Though it was a most stately Altitude in the Roof of Solomons Temple that the height of it was 120 Cubits yet it was but a narrow scantling for the Primitive Church of our Saviour to have but 120 Disciples Could these few would flesh and bloud say be heard over the face of the whole earth Well says King Ahaz it is all one unto the Lord to save with many or with few And as if the Lord had thought these too many to propagate the Christian faith Salmeron says I know not from whom he had it that fourteen of those 120 proved arch Hereticks and sowers of false Doctrine and then that little number of faithful ones was more than the tenth part diminished But put this second Chapter in the balance against the first and you will say there were labourers enough for Gods Harvest though half of them had been spared Consider what excellent unutterable and even God-like gifts they had given to them at this Feast of Pentecost so that all Nations and Languages that dwelt round about were astonish'd in this Chapter at the grace that came out of their lips One of them was able to deal with many thousands of natural men that were not illuminated and to confound them in their wisdom And now I purpose to adjoyn my self God willing to that Treatise what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what wonderful works these were which God poured upon those that expected the influence of his grace at this season how many and manifold gifts were given upon this day in one gift the gift of the Holy Ghost At this time I will go as far in that subject as my Text will lead me in these Points First Here is the time of the Holy Ghost's coming the day of Pentecost Secondly The company that received the Holy Ghost all of them a multitude with whom anon we shall be better acquainted Thirdly and principally it is to be noted how they were prepared to receive the Holy Spirit Which I draw to two Heads they were Vna and Vnanimes they were all in one place no strangeness or separation one from another and they were Vnanimes of one accord which is divided into two blessings though they were not divided for they were in vinculo pacis and in vinculo spei they were knit in the bond of peace by concord and all knit in the bond of hope by patience and expectation that the Holy Ghost would come upon them And when the day of Pentecost was fully come c. That Doctrine which our Saviour preached to his Apostles in the seventh verse of the former Chapter is fit to begin the first Point The Father keeps the times and seasons in his own power and all his good fruits he brings forth in such due seasons that the season is as fertile of observation as the fruit it self so it will fall out to ingender copious observations that the Holy Ghost was given now unto the Apostles just at this Feast and not untill this day the Feast of Pentecost Let us have recourse to the Law of Moses that we may make our selves perfect in this mystery God spake unto Pharaoh to let the Children of Israel go that they might hold a feast unto the Lord in the Wilderness Exod. v. 1. Therefore when they were brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm they did perform what the Lord intended they did hold a Feast not presently but after they were out of the dread of the Egyptians just fifty days after the Passeover that Pharaoh was content to send them away And from thence the Greek 72 Translators put it into one word and called it Pentecost The Hebrew Doctors all say that the first Pentecost was celebrated on the sixth day of the third month so reckoning after their Tradition from the second day of the feast of unleavened bread which was the sixteenth day of the first month it made a compleat number of a Pentecost or fifty days and was called therefore the Feast of Weeks because they were to number exactly by days and weeks and not to miss the day which the Lord had appointed God was very curious and exact in his Commandment Well this Feast was first solemnized at Mount Sinah after they had cast Egypt at their back fifty days what were the conditions and reasons for which it was instituted Let me resolve that and you will understand all First In remembrance how joyful and thankful they were that they came out of Captivity Oleaster notes very truly though one of the Jesuites carp at him for it that the remembrance of their long Captivity was one end of this Feast it is so expresly Deut. xvi 12. Thou shalt keep the Feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God and thou shalt remember thou wast a bondman in Egypt Secondly On the same fiftieth day that they came out of Egypt the Law was delivered upon Mount Sinah or Horeb for Horeb is but a part of Mount Sinah and the memorial thereof was ever after celebrated upon this yearly Feast So St. Hierom says in an Epistle to Fabiola Dedicatio legis est Pentecoste The Pentecost is the dedication of the Law Thirdly It had another respect to make it holy for it was called festum messis or primitiarum the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of First-fruits for as soon as they put in their Sickle into the Wheat harvest they baked two Loaves leavened made of fine flower of the first fruits and waved them before the Lord and offered them up with many bloudy Sacrifices Now this was not put in ure at the present but it was a festival Ceremony not to be omitted to celebrate Gods mercies for the fruitfulness of the earth when they came into the Land of Canaan It is true that the Feasts of the Passeover and of Tabernacles were observed in an holy wise seven days together at the feast of Weeks or Pentecost they kept but that one day sacred to the Lord because it was the beginning of Harvest and God put no decrees
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
many Ages that went before you I see a spectacle to be commiserated in this old Fabrick before mine eyes O that God would stir up many Nehemiahs among you to re-edifie his Temples and Churches which are decaied and impoverished Hearken to another Proposition In the Republick of the Jews in the Fiftieth year the year of Jubilee the Land which was sold away from any Tribe returned again to the Tribe and to his Family that sold it You see and I hope do pity it at least into how many Tribes the portion of the Church is divided how many Impropriations have almost laid waste the dwelling places of God God stir up a religious heart in many of you to imitate those Worthies who have bequeathed of their Wealth to regain unto the Tribe of Levi that which was so sinfully alienated from them Fifty and fifty years and more to them are run out and still our Inheritance is in the hand of Srangers and there will remain unless by your bounty you will repossess the Church again in those holy demeans which by divine right belong unto it It is worth your knowledge to give you notice how riches came first into the world says Abulensis in his question upon Genesis Cain and Abel and Seth burnt whole burnt-offerings in the open field upon the floor of the earth unto the Lord the great fire of those Sacrifices melted Gold and Silver in the veines of the earth lying near unto the Superficies and purged it from dross as in a refining Furnace which being congealed men found out the use of it and how precious it was and so by this mans conjecture Riches were first found out by doing Honour unto God and is it not most natural to repay them back again for Gods honour and to expect a better recompence The Text I confess doth most properly touch upon the Cleargy themselves upon the Priests of God Honorantes Honorabo they may claim it especially as their due for I told you the Message was delivered by an Angel to Eli the High Priest and to his Sons who had succeeded him in the Priesthood if they had been righteous Let the Sons of Aaron especially praise the Lord with the two Silver Trumpets Verbo vita their painful doctrine and their pious and peaceable life and then if all other honour fail they shall be thrice honoured when the Archangel shall call them out of the Grave with his Trumpet to the Resurrection of the Just If you will see an honourable Priest indeed read the Ninth Chapter of Ecclesiasticus It is the praise of Simon the Son of Onias What a declaration is there What a Description of his glory Beyond all the Eloquence that ever I met with in humane Oratory if the delight of the Subject do not deceive my judgment Such Honour in his Robes when he was cloathed with the perfection of Glory such Majesty in the manner of his Sacrificing such shouting with the Musick of the Temple how the High Priest stretcht his hands over the Congregation and gave them the blessing of the Lord with his lips then how the People bowed their face to the ground and worshipped the Lord lastly how Simon himself was honoured in the Congregation shining like a Rainbow in a cloud of dew They that will please themselves let them read it and learn both what it is for the Bishop to ravish the People with devotion and for the people to return all reverence and honour to the Bishop I know this Doctrine is against the stomach of a troublesom Faction in the Church If God and the King should give Honour unto his Priests every day they would grudge against it every hour No Honour or Lordship for that Coat say they as if because our Saviour called the Disciples the Salt of the earth we must be all set like the Salt at the lower end of the Table If Joseph were honoured in the sight of all the Egyptians that laid up food in Pharaohs Granary shall no honourable place belong unto them that lay up spiritual food in the Temple for the people of the Lord Can you turn this Text and say it was not preach'd to Eli Them that Honour me I will Honour Let me answer one Objection and so I will end this first part What is this that God saith Honorantes Honorabo he will Honour his Saints when such as have filled the Commonwealth with outcries and the Church with abominations are Rulers and Potentates in every Age When the rich Glutton is cloathed with Purple and fine Linnen every day they that make this complaint let them turn about and look where they are in Earth or in Heaven One asked Aesop why the Weeds grew faster than the Flowers in his Garden says the wise man Quia terra est horum Noverca illorum Mater The Earth is own-Mother to my Weeds and Stepmother to my Flowers So says Christ to his Disciples Doth the World hate you And no marvel you are not of the World your Conversation is in Heaven But will you have a Paradox indeed God never gave honours to a wicked and pestilent person Why but how came he to have them Is not all Honour from God Yes but they were not given to him Dati sunt Avo Proavoque dati seris nepotibus says Seneca they were given to the good Grandfathers or Forefathers that used them well or they are prepared for the Sons or Nephews who will use them better hereafter Mamercus Scaurus was a known Adulterer and yet the Romans chose him Consul not intending to give him Honour but forsooth his Father had been an excellent Senator Et indigne fert populus Romanus sobolem ejus jacere they were loth to disgrace his dissolute Son And surely God will much more respect the thousand Generations of them that love him and keep his Commandments for the honours which a dangerous person hath are not his own they are hatcht for the Children yet unborn that the promise may coextend only to the just Them that honour me I will honour All this while we have been in the first part of Pharaohs Dream among the goodly Kine and in a golden Harvest now we come to the second to the lank ears of Corn to the ill-favoured Cattle to those that cast Gods honour behind their backs till he cast them away into utter darkness for so says the other member of the Text They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed Theodoret in his Ecclesiastical History having discoursed briefly upon the life of Julian the Apostate brake off abruptly and would not speak of his Successor the Christian Emperour Jovinian till he had begun a new Book and a new Treatise it were a great Trespass says he to write their Acts and Monuments upon the same Paper So I affected this method I confess to spin a new Web as it were and to frame a new discourse when I came to them who are the contemners of Gods
that any Martyr or Confessor departed hath done for Christs sake it is a shame for you if you do not covet to do as much or more than that at least accuse your self if you be not sorry that your frailties make you come short of the best Lay your hand every one upon his own conscience and you may well say after me sweet Jesu should any of thy Creatures love thee better than I Should any servant be more obedient than I Any Martyr be willing to suffer more than I Should Enoch that walked with God desire to please thee more than I Never will I give over to try if I can run before them for none of thine Elect is so much endebted to thy bloudy Passion as I am because none of them had so many sins to be forgiven Press on to be the nearest of them that shall stand before the presence of the Lord and account it among thy great sins if thy heart do not pant and yearn to be equal with the principal of the Saints And make not your estimation of a good man by this rule that his vertues are more than his vices Or as Guicciardine says who had cause to know what he wrote that Popes are praised for their goodness when they do not exceed the wickedness of other men and trust not to that fleshly sloth that a moderate competency of honesty is well enough Non omnes possunt esse Scipiones Maximi All men cannot be anointed with the oyl of gladness above their fellows If Noah and Abraham and Moses had roused up their spirit no better what should the Church have done for exquisite Semplars of Zeal and Faith but if it had wanted all these an absolute pattern of holiness had remained in Enoch upon the earth was no man created like him we must therefore carry some transcendent sanctity in our notions to know what it is to walk with God First It commends him that he had much conversation or as it were a familiar friendship with God Can two walk together unless they be agreed Amos iii. 3. Agreement is not all it imports as much as an endearing and a sociable benevolence We took sweet counsel together and walked in the house of God as friends Psal lv 14. Let this embolden none to walk and strout it in the body of the Church while others are at their Prayers in the Quire they are more bold and familiar with God than welcome I know not what greater contempt could be shewn by a civil man if he were present at the time of sacred hours in one of the Mosques of Mahomet But I will not digress To walk with God is to go hand in hand like a loving Associate and I need not mince it to say like the friend of God We are all servants properly naturâ debito in our Nature and in our debt to the Law Neither do we ever cease to be servants by the gift of grace but it is an Evangelical priviledge that some of those that are servants and obey his will in all things should be called the friends of God So our Saviour says to his Disciples after he had given them a taste of all saving knowledge Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you Now although the condition that all men lived in before Christ came into the world was the state of servants yet such Prophets and Patriarchs as were greatly illuminated with Evangelical faith praeter rationem status notwithstanding the bondage of Nature and of the Law were vouchsafed this Title the friends of God A thrice blessed name which vindicates us from Captivity it breaks our bonds asunder it makes us partakers of divine acquaintance it consigns us an interest in the love of Christ more than we dare boast of it And is this the way to procure it to walk with God What say you to walking through Fire and Sword What think you of walking through the Valley of the shadow of death Break not hands with such a God though it should come to a most bitter exigent But in that ease and safety that we live now few or none are put to any hardness for Christs sake No League in the world more sought for more willingly accepted no Amity less burdensom or more beneficial St. Austin in his Confessions brings in a couple that served the Roman Emperour thus debating the matter What can we look for in this Palace more than to be called the friends of the Emperour This is no sure unmovable favour when we have it and how long must we wait and attend before we get it Amicus Dei si esse voluero ecce nunc fio Let me turn to God to day and desire to be his friend it shall be done instantly and never delayed So they resolved though their courses were excentrick to the way of honour and preferment they would walk in righteousness to be called the friends of Christ and so Enoch walked with God Vera amicitia est idem velle idem nolle says the Oratour A friendship will hold fast between them that chuse the same things and refuse the same things and agree in all things So that to walk with God so far till it grow to the tide of a friendship is no more nor no less than Fiat voluntas tua The will of the Lord be done The fore-cited Clemens in his lately revived Epistle instead of saying that Enoch walked with God phraseth it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God found him to be a just man through all obedience and so translated him and the Chaldee Paraphrase He walked in the fear of the Lord turning neither to the right hand nor to the left I know the word being metaphorical may be varied and followed in many senses and all according to a godly Canou Gregory the Great deviseth this distinction of the word out of his own ingenuity Some walk from God as Apostates and Demas that turned to the world Some walk against God or set their face against him as the proud and rebellious so the stiff-necked Israelites Ye walk contrary to me Lev. xvi 21. But some on the laudable part may be said to walk before God as the Prophets so John the Baptist was a forerunner of Christ He went before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways Some walk after God as humble Penitents and those that take up their Cross and follow him Finally A religious Magistrate that is solo Deo minor whose power is from God and useth that power as he ought he walks with God and he that despiseth him despiseth the Lord. Every whit of this may be maintained with good construction but lest the phrase should be dissected too much to the loss of the sense I will rather be rude in expression than subtil to
examination for they will not tell us what they mean It cannot be that Terrestrial Paradise out of which Adam was banisht it cannot be that for the Floud prevailed above all the earth to waste and spoil it And for figurative significations of the word they are endless who can interpret them But will you know the truth upon Eccles xliv 16. The Vulgar Latine of such authentick credit with them hath cogg'd in the word Paradise Enoch pleased the Lord and was translated into Paradise The Arabick Version I hear upon the eleventh of the Hebrews hath used St. Pauls Text so and inserted the word Paradise into it Yet there is no such syllable in the 72 or in the Greek Text of the Son of Syrach that is all one to them where it serves their turn they make use of the Greek Copies before the Hebrew and of the Latine before the Greek the Roman Church can dignifie what Language it pleaseth But enough of this it is a meer Latine errour which first seduced the Schoolmen to write that Enoch was translated into Paradise Touching Limbus Patrum their Doctrine is more clear and explicite that it is a place below the earth called in large sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell a receptacle of the souls of those holy ones and good believers that died before Christ ascended into heaven where they were at rest and peace but enjoyed not the presence of God And this they expound to be that bosom of Abraham whither the Angels carried the soul of Lazarus The latter instance I suppose is enough to confute the former for the rich man looked up and saw Abraham and Lazarus in the high places above him a great gulf of exceeding distance being between them therefore it could be no such Limbus as they dream of in the Confines or Suburbs of hell And St. Austin dasht this opinion long since with an Argument not to be answered I have searched the Scriptures says he and could never find that Hades or Hell was taken in good part therefore to make a place of rest and joyful habitation to be the fourth and best degree of hell as all their Authors take it is beyond his understanding But why not Enoch assumed into some part of heaven Their reason for that The Scripture says plainly that Elias was carried up to heaven not because any quiet Habitation may be called Heaven in respect of this world of misery but forasmuch as verily he did change Earth for Heaven and therein is made a Type of Christs Ascension as Jonas the Prophet was a Type of his Resurrection So St. Ambrose I should have remembred it before upon the Funerals of Valentinian allows Abrahams bosom to be the house of God above the Firmament Certainly St. Paul would never have used that distinction Whether in the body or out of the body he knew not if it had been impossible for the body of man to be exalted into the third Heavens As Core and Dathan were swallowed quick into Hell body and soul for their great Rebellion so Enoch and Elias were carried quick into heaven body and soul for their great obedience The Greek Church keeps the Feast of Elias upon the twentieth of July says Metaphrastes in his Catalogue All that Lapide the Jesuit says unto it is that Elias his name is honoured upon that day by the Greek Church but he is not worshiped or invocated on that day because he is not in Heaven I know not whether the Jesuit say truth in that because I never saw the work of Metaphrastes but if the Greek Church neither make Prayers unto him nor give him religious honour I am sure they are the wiser and the farther from the Roman Superstition They have one question among the Schoolmen maintained pro and con with bitter contentions so God afflicts their wits that resist the truth upon their supposition that Enoch and Elias are not yet in Patriâ termino not yet come to the consummation of their days not yet in the receptacles of heaven but in some other place whither they be still in proficiency of holiness waxing better and better as when they lived upon earth for then say those Doctors this absurdity would follow they should exceed the Merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints their stock of good Works should run on in infinitum I think they are afraid they might prove such excellent servants that God should scarce be able to requite them Thus they entangle themselves in endless strifes to keep Enoch out of Heaven and with him all those souls that died in the Faith before our Saviour gave up the Ghost and upon affected misconstruction of those Texts that Christ was the first fruits of them that sleep that no man hath ascended into heaven but he that first descended the Son of man that is in heaven To explain my self and satisfie them remember our Saviours words that there are divers mansions in his Fathers house that is divers Stories of glory in his Fathers house built one above another there are outward Courts of glory and inward Chambers Now it is not to be denied but that Enoch and all the souls of all the just men of the Old Testament were in some quarterings of Heaven as in their proper place and in a state of happiness and salvation which is figuratively called heaven yet I do not say but Christ did open a door unto them to bring them nearer to the Vision of God in the highest heavens when himself did enter into glory The souls of good men deceased were ever in the hand of God but not ever in like distance to the joyes of God They were in Heaven before Christ ascended but not in such an Heaven as they possess now after he ascended Their Lot was Heaven from the beginning but their inheritance is augmented that Verse in our Morning Hymn looks this way I take it when thou hadst overcome c. But of St. Pauls meaning to jump with this Doctrine I am very confident Heb. ix 8. The way into the holiest of all was not yet mode manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing That I may leave no objections behind me to stumble you the main scruple is that the Scripture speaks as if Christ had made the first passage into Heaven in his own person which must be interpreted of the highest heavens where the blessed shall remain for ever no man was admitted there not the body nor the soul of man till he that was God and man in one person went in first and by his own merits and intercession gave access unto his brethren I settle in my own belief upon this answer not for want of two other answers and both of them probable The one that before ever Christ took flesh virtually and meritoriously he opened the Kingdom of heaven to all Believers Ab origine mundi operata est Christi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministry of
appointed Which is the fountain of all discontent not to stay Gods leisure and to complain of his Providence as if he had broke his day Such will fall into a passion as if they wanted ease and that the ground was not soft enough under their feet though the way should lead them to the Kingdom of Heaven But a true faith expects Gods leisure from day to day will neither faint nor fret that his suit hangs long in the Court of Requests Many sores will never be well healed unless they be long dressing and many deliverances will never be throughly perfect unless they be long settling and many mercies are like seed in the ground and will be long growing A second Instance of grudging is in the 5. verse Our soul loatheth this light bread Is that a fault in bread to be light see how they commend it in dispraising it I am sure they came lightly by it It fell like a hoar frost about their Tents they neither ploughed nor sowed nor reaped they did but stoop and gather it they lived as easily as young birds in the nest when the Dam puts meat into their mouths They did not see how God did take away the curse of Adam from them to eat bread in the sweat of their brows Let them look to this and make use of it that are of the best rank that God do not lay this sin to their charge on this wise you labour not at all yet you want not you have store enough and ease enough into the bargain yet never content They that work hard for one dayes food depend upon God and call upon him more than they that have before hand for a year nay sufficient for an age Now put both the exceptions of the Israelites together for their bones and their belly for their journey and their bread and you see a little painfulness was repined at as a great deal of misery and a great benefit slighted for but a little favour But was there so much evil in this sin to cause a flight of Serpents to fall upon the Camp I believe so and I will prove it First there are two sins so scandalous to the Jewish Nation that Philo conceals them nay Josephus out of more love to his Country then fidelity in History never remembers them those be the worshipping of the Golden Calf and this serpentine sin of murmuring at Salmonah Therefore this artifice of Josephus tells you that murmuring was one of the two sins of the first magnitude Secondly it is a filthy crime to obscure great benefits under a black cloud of unthankfulness They murmured at Moses whom no praises could sufficiently extol for his rare deservings He brought them out of Egypt and made them all free men that were slaves What recompence could they make him for their liberty They were beholding to him for one thing more which was greater than all the rest to uphold them in true Religion and the right Worship of God so that it was said of them and of no other Nation in the Earth Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God Deut. xii 2. In all things he ruled them with a faithful hand yet they were ever at this key O that it were otherwise that it were better thus and thus which were no better than Nebuchadonosor's Dreams he knew not himself what he had dreamt of when he was awake The use of it from their error is that we should sit down and count how many blessings we have received and be thankful rather than fret at a few imaginary inconveniences which I can puff away with a little breath as easily as a downy blow-ball O all ye works of the Lord which he hath wrought in England in less than two years praise him and magnify him for ever We have cause to frame a ditty balsamed all over with a perfume of thanksgiving for all things that God hath done for us from the center of the Earth to the top of Heaven Thirdly God hath laid a great burden upon the shoulders of the Ruler to provide for the safety of so many millions and what reward hath he in this World but acceptance and encouragement from his Lieges This was the comfort of David 2 Sam. iii. 36. Whatsoever the King did pleased the People But if so much merit meet with frowardness then says Moses I cannot bear your cumbrance burden and strife Deut. i. 12. And if they weary the good spirit of Moses doubtless they shall receive the recompence of their own bitter spirit Nay if the Ruler be not the better for your good word let him not be the worse for your undutiful language A reasonable thing as can be askt If you will not honour him do not murmur at him that 's the least that can be required and too little in conscience But we must get what we can from bad debtors To be short in this point if you speak evil of that which you are bound to praise if you fall foul on the ways of God because you will not wait his leisure if you pick quarrels at good things for which you are bound to give thanks I appeal not as I might to mans judgment to dry up the filth that runs from faction with the spunge of the Laws I refer them to God and to the Host of his venemous creatures which he will send to correct their poisonous tongues The sin is like to nothing more than an Asp or Viper no serpent so much a serpent as a murmuring spirit therefore such a punishment was a fit cover to clap upon such a sin The Lord sent serpents among them A Judgment 1. vile 2. painful 3. strong 4. incurable First a vile one to die serpent-bitten was inglorious to the warlike stomach of that People their sword could not help them and if they kept not in their Tents like Prisoners one of these Sergeants of God would shoot through the air and clap upon them Let no man say a woman slew me says Abimelech Judg ix 54. Let not the uncircumcised thrust me through says Saul 1 Sam. xxxi 4. But this was far below them both and most opprobrious to humane nature For as the Devil could not choose a viler creature wherein to tempt us so there is not a meaner on earth to chastise us They might be for ought we know created on purpose for this office of wrath as the Frogs and Locusts in Egypt or gathered from all quarters to fall thick upon their Camp as Quails were brought from all places to feed them there might be store of them in the Wilderness before now but never stirred up till now to do execution I define it not but which way soever they came they were never a whit the better It is a reproach upon man who had the dominion of the Creatures and saw them all put under his feet that every paultry worm is able to turn against him and bring him to the dust Marvel not
of the Israelitish Midwifes but good deeds also which like the Alms of Cornelius shall reach up to Heaven The Sea hath raged horribly and swallowed the Innocent the Stream hath gone even over his Soul that we might restore it again as mercifully as the Whale did Jonas with the increase of our substance that we might cast our bread as Solomon preached upon the waters God hath suffered an heavy sickness to wast away the afflicted and to consume his bones not that the Dogs should be more merciful than Dives and lik the poor mans sores but that our liberality might make him whole Canaan and the Patriarchs were well nigh famished with hunger what because God had forgotten to be gracious and had shut up his loving kindness in displeasure Not so but that Egypt might relieve them with their Granaries The Husbandman soweth seed in the ground and the encrease comes up thereafter God giveth it a body and to every seed his own body but the merciful man soweth a Loaf of bread in the belly of the hungry and it shall rise up again unto a plentiful Harvest Christ was made poor says Paul that we might be made rich and for the good use of our riches he hath made many poor There are few so hard-hearted but will protest with an oath if our Saviour had been incarnate in these our days how they would have strived to make him welcom their choisest Palace should have received him and his Diet should have been whatsoever the Earth and Sea afforded I says Tertullian Porrigat manum Jupiter accipiat if Jupiter himself would ask alms he should have it every man can say so Alass to promise this excess to him who needs it not is a kind of spiritual bribery Keep your costly Mansions to your selves and afford him some sustenance in an Hospital Take the plenty of the Earth to your own Table in sobriety and temperance and feed him with your Alms Basket If he say loe here is Christ or loe there he is and that every distressed Christian is nourished for his sake you may believe him Haec est tunica quam dedisti mihi Martine it is an old Story in Sulpitius the good Bishop Martinus cloathed a Criple with his Coat in the day time and in the Dreams upon his Bed he saw Christ himself wear it and thank him for it Such there are whom otherwise we may call good men but spoil their good parts as Crassus did with the love of money and having closed their Ark will not suffer so much as a Crow to fly out of it they will not believe this Divinity that to spend well upon Earth is to lay up treasure in Heaven Such a mans eyes are made of Spittle and Clay but not by Christ and they love to behold nothing but Gold which is indeed a refined Clay burnt well like a Brick by the heat of the Sun and the influence of the other stars Now there are but two common pretendments to make us spare our Purse and keep our hand withered in our bosom Semper aliquid curtae deest rei we have nothing to spare we have but five loaves and two fishes and what are they among so many O can you forget those mighty Mites which the poor Widow cast into the Treasury Three things says St. Gregory are incruenta sacrificia Sacrifices well pleasing unto God without drop of bloud shed Castitas in juventute sobrietas in ubertate liberalitas in paupertate a Chast Youth unspotted touching the Flesh Sobriety in Plenty and Liberality in Poverty And this is the Devils Topicks to perswade us we must repay nothing back again unto God unless He would give us as much as we could wish for Plato thought he made a charitable Common Wealth when by his evil Law to permit promiscuous lust no man knew another whether he were Stranger or Brother or of nearer Consanguinity So hath God knitted his Church together that we are all Christs and Christ is ours and yet we feel not the afflictions of Joseph they are nothing to us Nay it were well if we were not readier to give Stones than Bread and for a Fish a Scorpion This was Nabals Largess to David he told him he was a Runnagate from Saul his Master The next excuse against Charity is the great abuse of all good deeds and the wrong employment But though men be evil and the dayes are evil and the bounty of holy men is oft times wrong employed yet the Churches of God are no Transgressors why do the Rich men of the World nothing for them Do you expect that the Holy Ghost should come down again like a mighty rushing wind and enter in that every Wall and Window is left naked and decayed especially in famous Cathedral Churches to the injuries of the weather Good God! what was the zeal of our Fore-fathers that they should build more unto Religion than we can keep in reparation When St. Paul pleaded for a Collection for the poor Saints of Jerusalem feed them says he with your plenty who are enriched with their abundance With what abundance did the Apostle mean O say the Friers with the abundance of their good works and zeal as a bought or borrowed sanctity No such matter but for the abundance of the Words sake which first came out of the bosom of Jerusalem But all the Gospel which is preached in our Cathedral Churches cannot procure them so much benevolence as to preserve them from the curse of desolation that one stone be not left upon another And I would the innocent stones could fall down from their high Pinacles into the bowels of the earth from whence they were digged then were they safe and would be at rest again but now great men take them up and we must say in charity that which made God a Chancel serves to build them up a Kitchen or a Stable O if you will not be so merciful as your Father which is in Heaven be but as merciful as your Forefathers upon Earth who were zealous for the House of the Lord. But these things should rather be done then spoken Therefore let this suffice for mercy which is the first part of my Text. Now a complete Christian is not like a small Vessel which recovers his Haven with one Sail alone with Mercy only If you will have Religion to be ponderibus librata suis full poised on every side magna est veritas praevalet truth also is a prevailing part let not mercy and truth forsake thee And what is truth says Pilate but he would not stay to take his answer Why the Spirit is truth says St. John 1. Ep. v. I am the truth says Christ John xiiii God is Truth and in him is no error In a word your holy Faith is the Truth that which is armatura lucis the Armour of Light with St. Paul Rom. xiii that which is stronger than all things says Zorobabel in his Parable But
what delight Owls may take to separate themselves and sit alone but Vbi cadaver ibi aquilae where the body is there will the Eagles be gathered This is the fourth Pillar upon which the praise of the Rechabites is erected they were Votaries in one Vow they were joyned in an order and confederacy to serve the Lord When all other Relations will be out of date in heaven perchance quite forgotten the Title of Brotherhood among the Saints shall continue for ever Thus the Rechabites are combined Et illi dixerunt and they all said with one acclamation We will drink no Wine But since I have spoken to the allowance and good liking of such as put themselves into one link and brotherhood of Religion a thing unusual in our ears a word will not be unfitting before I proceed any farther to explain my self and let you know both whom I cast off and whom I would entertain and justifie in this Doctrine First God forbid I should allow any factious conjuration like the desperate Campe of Absolon like Theudas and his Banditi like Judas of Galilee and his Swordmen no nor every foolish Rabble that meets at Tavern must be called an Order We had of late times such as bound themselves in a League as if they had been Rechabites and they chose a name for themselves as if they had been Sheperds I will not say they did drink no wine But this I dare say if they had run riot as they began they would have left themselves as little Land to plow as the Rechabites had neither field nor vineyard The Friers and Monks of Rome they are Orders that seem devoted to the Church and so were the Pharisees Verily some were anciently allowed in the Church to profess such austerity as needed not to counterpoise the Philosophical strict life of many Heathen And as their original was not allowed from God but mans institution so in a little space they grew so bad that almost no zealous Spirit in any Age but did defie the Monasteries In our time their profession of poverty is but lazy beggary their obedience is to gain liberty against them who were made to command them and to profess thraldom to one who usurps authority their Vow of Chastity is to despise the Ordinance of Marriage and to enjoy fleshly liberty their practice is so profane that Boccace an Italian thought they spent all their study to find out this one conclusion that there was no God But the Rechabites fixed themselves so curiously upon the true Worship of God as the Star pointed in a right line to the Manger where Christ was reposed For there is but this double error in enjoying the world First To think through infidelity Deum defuturum ubi promisit that God will fail to provide for us notwithstanding his Promises So runs the Devils Tentation against our Saviour Mat. iv He must command stones to be made bread or he must starve for ever Secondly To run into presumption Deum adfuturum ubi non promisit that God would succour us in those cases where he never passed his word to do it Behold it again in the Sophistry of Satan Cast thy self down for he will give his Angels charge over thee to decline Infidelity the Rechabites commit their bodies to Tabernacles instead of houses They live among strangers instead of their own people Their Substance is the poor increase of their Flocks instead of Lands and Revenues their Diet is Parsimonious they will drink no Wine Yet to decline presumption they exercise a Calling they fill up a good employment in the Commonwealth they have Children and Families to instruct in the Lord. These are the Confederates and Votaries in whose holy life I found but three things before for your imitation 1. Their constancy against enticements 2. Their obedience and awful respects to the Laws of Jonadab 3. Their temperance and religious weaning of their bodies from the surfeited breasts of Drunkenness and Luxury now your patience may expect as it is my duty to perform the last task concerning the Vow of the Rechabites The Fountain is but one but the Head is parted into these four streams 1. What inducements they had to make this Vow 2. That their Vow being made stood upon just and lawful conditions 3. That the greater defenders of Vows the Roman Monks do not imitate the Rechabites 4. That Vows being justly made they are solemnly to be performed and then the Lord is pleased Every part shall be offered again to your remembrance as it is handled In the first place they had encouragement to take this Vow upon them for three reasons 1. As being but strangers to the true Commonwealth of Israel 2. To make the better preparation for the Captivity of Babylon 3. To draw their affections to the content of a little and the contempt of the world We love for the most part to gaze at strangers and curiosity will ask as if it were in Office about their birth and condition Their Genealogy briefly and under correction of better skill is on this wise Midian was born unto Abraham of Ketura Gen. xxv Jethro the Father of Zipporah the Wife of Moses came of that stock being Priest and Son of Midian Exod. ii Hemath is the next in knowledge of that Race and of Hemath came the Kenites 1 Chron. ii 55. Now the Kenites were the Children of Moses's Father-in-Law this is the very Text. Judg. i. 16. They went up out of the City of Palm trees with the Israelites and dwelt among them in the Wilderness and feared the Lord. But the Kenites were voluntary adjoyners not of the Covenant and Inheritance they had none in Canaan no not a foot of ground God having mightily blessed them with a little only by keeping Sheep as their Father Jethro and his Daughters did Rechab and Jonadab provided assurance for their Children among the Israelites for ever And whereas strangers should cast about for two things especially that is neither to be burdensom to the place they live in and eat out the Inhabitants nor to be unprofitable as superfluous parts of the Kingdom So did these men they were bound to plant no Vineyards to till no ground or build houses and who could say they robbed the Country of any Commodity But they fed Flocks and attended their charge in the field least Israel should say we have no need of you Happy men who left the pleasant Country where they were born and followed the Tabernacle into a strange Land where they might be born again by the grace of God As Tully said when he fled from Rome to Pompey Exilium in Pompeii causâ est tanquam patria he that was banished for so good a man was better than at home So resolve we every one to follow the true Church wheresoever it is tossed about in the World there is no banishment to a Christian but to be far from God Earth is our Pilgrimage and Heaven our Country Christus
of the Spring and Harvest must give it blade and mature it but Christ had all these in the palm of his hand eminenter he took a fragment of a barly loaf into his hand and to teach his Church that his grasp had in it the fecundity of the earth the moisture of the showers the influence of the Sun the comprehension of all times and seasons and the excellency of all power as he broke it it enlarged it self far beyond those goodly ears of Wheat which Pharaoh saw in his Dream and every crum became an handful quinque panes erant quinque semina non terrae mandata sed ab illo qui terram fecit multiplicata says St. Austin the five loaves were after the manner of five seeds of corn not fructifying in the earth but multiplying in his hand that made the earth But because all kind of pulse and grane yea though it were Manna it self that came from Heaven is of that condition that it must run through much art before it be made bread but that which Christ brake and gave to his Disciples was bread in the first existence and production therefore St. Hilary had rather compare the loaves that swelled thus by Christs blessing to a River whose fountain supplies one wave to run after another with an indifferent succession and whatsoever the Cattle drink riseth again out of the Spring and the channel is always filled so the loaves received no diminution by the portions which were broken off sed quicquid aufertur usurario quodam meatu reparatur nay the principal was not only repaired but it was requited with interest Having stood at gaze a while to behold that which was done shall we walk round about it as it were to observe if we can after what manner it was done he that takes upon him to search into the modus how a Miracle was effected must beware of two rocks in his way that he do not distrust and say in his mind how is it possible to be and that he do not circumscribe the Divine power and say necessarily thus it must be Steering my self by these advisoes I say first Christ could amplify that little portion of bread into those great exceedings by creating some new substance to eek out that which was in his hand before qui sine seminibus operatur semina he spake the word and the first seeds that ever grew came out of nothing nothing is not removed at such vast distance from his power but that it may be made something because he is infinite in doing all things Secondly He that turned water into wine with the same vertue could turn the adjacent air into the substance of Bread and Fish Which sudden alteration in a thin and a fluid body unprepared to take such an impression was an action proper to God and no less transcendent than the principal Creation Thirdly Though growth be the affection only of a living thing yet he could make every fragment of those victuals to grow in an instant of time as the dry stick in Aarons hand did shoot out Leaves and Almonds Fourthly If he pleased it was not difficult to him but that he could distend and widen that small matter into a far broader substance as when a little water is rarified and boiles over a Cauldron when it is vehemently heated or as the Rib which was taken out of Adams side was extended to make a Woman which surpassed it self an hundred fold in magnitude Finally I may miss in all these for the ways of the Lord are past finding out and some other means may be used upon which the eye of Philosophy did never open You may as soon tell the number of the Stars as reckon in what divers fashions such an unwonted augmentation should come to pass and my Text is read in some old Copies very consonant hereunto that our Saviour distributed of both species Bread and Fish not quantum volebant as much as the five thousand desired but quantum volebat as much as he would Whatsoever his will affects his strength effects or else there were not only impotency but contristation in the Divine Nature but his goodness is not bounded by our imperfect desires nor his truth by our weak understanding In which title the Apostle had reason to glorifie him Eph. iii. 20. Vnto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think unto him be glory throughout all ages world without end The report which Pliny makes of the Lioness that she whelps but once in all her life perhaps is mistaken yet the principle toward which he lookt in that report is a good one that great births and great effects fall out but seldom Christ did not make many such distributions as this was and yet it was not like Plinies Lioness once more he brought forth the like First He shewed what strange things his Divinity could command among the Jews for first he was sent to them Soon after and in the very next Chapter after the order of St. Matthew he fed four thousand with seven Loaves and a few Fishes near to Decapolis among those of Tyre and Sidon and they were Gentiles If Miracles would prove infallible means to convert sinners commonly we think so but it is our ignorance if they were natural nourishment to beget sound and wholsom Faith they had seen them oftner But to lay it open to you that this Miracle upon which I preach did not take with them as it deserved the very same persons that had eat of his Banquet expostulate with Christ in the thirtieth verse of this Chapter What sign shewest thou that we may see and believe thee What dost thou work See what it is come to That which was done but the other day was forgotten and a Sign they ask for as if they had never seen any before Nay before the end of this Chapter Ver. 66. Many of these whom he had engaged unto him by his miraculous benefits they dropt off like withered Leaves from that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him No better came of his great work done upon the Loaves and Fishes no better came of Manna in the days of Moses which was every morning spread about their Tents And yet we are perswaded if God would shew such tokens among us it would make us such earnest such thankful Christians that the kindness would not be lost upon us And doth that conceit hold you that to see five thousand fed with a few fragments would do your Faith and Conscience such a pleasure Why then I tell you you see a greater Argument of Gods infinite power every day in the year Millions of People being in the world as many as there be drops in the Sea yet all these have their daily bread and the celestial benignity is never exhausted This is customary indeed but much more than the other Et insolita stupendo vident quibus quotidiana
find whose ambition is pained like a woman in travel till it bring forth a bigger fortune who covet forty that it may beget an hundred and drive on an hundred till it make a thousand and so forth you may say that these have lickt of the Devils hony and if they might have their own will they would burst their belly Now to conclude all To say that this Wilderness-ful of people had as much as they could eat out of two or three Omers of corn out of a little that a poor Lad perhaps had gleaned it is marvelous in our ears Yet take all and it goes much beyond this for the Fragments which remained did fill twelve Baskets Yea says the common Gloss there are Speculations of Divinity with secret Traditions which the rude unlearned people cannot digest these the Apostles and their Successors keep close in their own baskets it may be this note is of that kind therefore I pass it over and let them reserve it to themselves The plain truth is that was done 1. Ad miraculi evidentiam it could not have been evident that all were filled unless somewhat had been left 2. It was done ad miraculi claritatem to make it exceed above any thing that could be compared It was beyond Manna that would not keep if any of it were laid up this did It was beyond the meat which the Ravens brought to Elias he had but a morsel at once to serve necessity It was beyond the Widows meal and her oil they increased no more after the rain fell but here was an increase after an universal satuâ—ity 3. When this miraculous Feast was done a great deal superabounded to admonish them they must not think to live always upon Miracles 4. As the beginning of this noble work was a lesson against covetousness and thrust us on to distribute so the end of it is a lesson against Prodigality and bids us lay up that which remains 5. Let them to whom it belongs do the due work of Evangelists and though they earn but little here the remainder will be great which comes hereafter God will give to each Apostle a Basket full nay a Barnful in the Kingdom of Heaven Both Cedrenus and Nicephorus take them as they be relate what precious Monuments these baskets were in after Ages it is thus Constantine intending the splendor of his own City brought from Rome the largest Pillar of Porphyrite stone Upon the top he set an Image of Brass praised for the best Piece in the world it was the Statue of Apollo in old Troy In a Vault under the Base he laid up as his choicest Reliques an Axe with which Noah made the Ark and these twelve Baskets in which the Fragments were carried away of the Loaves and Fishes Why these more than any other Reliques Nicephorus says nothing to it you shall have my conjecture He chose the Relique belonging to the Ark rather than any other to preserve the City standing upon the Sea from Inundation He chose these twelve Baskets as a deprecation against Famine I will dispatch Other mysteries I could enumerate upon this which was over and above all that was eaten One thing I must not omit which hath busied divers to no great purpose that when five thousand eat of five Loaves and two Fishes twelve Baskets remained when four thousand eat of seven Loaves and a few Fishes but seven Baskets remained What is this to us if Christ would shew the riches of his Liberality unequally where he pleased But what if it cannot be decided for all this at which Feast most was remaining The twelve Baskets are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were such as you might dandle in your hand the Jews carried them under their arm in the days of Juvenal the Poet. The seven Baskets are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as big as Paniers There is a large difference between Amos his little basket of Summer fruit and the basket wherein St. Paul escaped out of a Window at Damascus that is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Acts. Now you see that seven Dossars may come to more than twelve Hand-baskets But I determine nothing mighty was the power of our Lord Jesus in both and his Liberality never to be forgotten Nay the increase which he gives us year by year is so plentiful as our latest harvest can testifie that no memory so short but will remember it no heart so ingrate but accepts it with all thankfulness no tongue so slow but will praise him AMEN A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL UPON S t LUKE'S DAY ACTS xi 26. And the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch SAint Luke the Pen-man of this Book of Scripture hath a threefold interest in this Text in every principal word of it an interest He was a Disciple by calling whether one of the 70 is a disputable question an Antiochian by birth and a Christian by his Title Then who could better put these three together than himself that the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch It is not expedient doubtless to glory but if we should glory we should speak the truth that the Congregation of the Church hath reaped more honor by this Record than all the Grandees of the Earth can shew for themselves in their best Charters and Monuments Civil Histories will confess that earthly things of what pomp and splendor soever they receive little grace from their first original for either the evidences of their beginning are obscure consisting upon such weak proofs as cannot command us to believe them The Inscription of an old piece of money coined who knows why And the Characters of a broken Stone digged up who knows where These are the Models that Cities and Kingdoms do greedily embrace and thrust upon you for your best Memorials If the Evidences be more authentical then ten to one but their novelty will disparage them for what is it to reckon upon one or two Ages past a thing may be quickly famous but it must ask longer time to be venerable Finally if Antiquity and clear Evidence do both concur quando haec rara avis est which lights but seldom what mean and contemptible beginnings shall you find of those Nations and Republiques upon whose glory the Heavens have shined with most propitious influence The Persian Dynastie once so rich and puissant look back to the Founder and it was a Child exposed in the Woods taken up by the charity of a Shepherd and fostered a while by his poverty They that laid the foundation of Romes greatness and had the heart afterward to think how to conquer the whole Earth were at first but a Crue of Thieves I will not displease to call to mind upon what slight and almost ridiculous occasions Titles of brave estimation did first grow into credit it holds in them all that Almighty God willing to advance Religious honor above Secular hath blurr'd the Secular honor with one of these three diminutions vel
language Vt ex politica dignitate auctior illustrior que fieret Ecclesiastica that the Ecclesiastical Dignity may become more ample and illustrious in the right of the Political Well to end all Antioch had once the day renowned for Orthodox Believers for constant Martyrs for innumerous Disciples she conteined 366 Parish Churches says Volateranus now her material buildings are for the most part eraced down her spiruual building quite vanished and her streets are possessed with Mahumetans You see that the Church is a removing Tabernacle rolling about from Sea to Sea from Land to Land That Truth which shall never fail upon Earth may fail in any particular Kingdom The Antiochians that were the first Christians are become the last God knows how the mystery of his vocation will work that the last shall be first Be not high-minded but fear that fearing we may work with diligence and believe with stedfastness and suffer with patience that we may be partakers of the first Resurrection in newness of life and of the second Resurrection in the glorification of Soul and Body AMEN A Commencement Sermon AT CAMBRIDGE ACTS xii 23. And immediately the Angel of the Lord smote him because he gave not God the glory and he was eaten of worms and gave up the Ghost IF the Caesarea was so attentive to hear King Herods Eloquence and how he did exalt himself above God What is your alacrity may I presume Dearly Beloved to give ear to this story and to Gods vengeance how he did exalt himself above Herod It might be suspected that Caesarea the Region which was called by the name of Caesar would be chiefly for the honour of the King but now we are in the house of the Lord and in his Temple doth every man speak of his honour says the Prophet David St. Luke hath occasioned the mention of two Angels in this Chapter and they are both strikers The first Angel is in the seventh verse that smote St. Peter on the side and rouzed him up from sleep I wish that a good Spirit sent from God may now stir up your attentions The second Angel is in my Text that smote King Herod in the inward bowels and believe it such as was the sin of Herod a presumptuous speaker such is the sin of every carless and unprofitable hearer that serves the vanity of his own imaginations in this holy place and gives not God the glory Is the Lord asleep think you because ye are drowzie Are not his Angels heedful of their charge because your thoughts are wandring Are you sure to come often to Church hereafter if you leave your affections at home to day Nay but though the present business be confined to an hour so is not the vengeance of the Lord for immediately the Angel smote him because he gave not God the glory Every religious exercise should be too long by a Preface I come therefore to set the Text in order that I may proceed to the explication of the parts and they are two First That Herod would not glorifie God indeed that is the bitter root out of which grew all these worms he gave not God the glory Secondly That God was glorified in Herod he was smitten of an Angel eaten of Vermine and gave up the Ghost Herod says St. Chrysostom gave not God the glory two ways 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his mouth spake proud things before the people 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he suffered the people to speak proud things as if he were equal with God and did not rebuke them Wherefore God was glorified in Herod four ways 1. That tantus periit the Ruler the Prince of the people he was smitten 2. A tanto periit no less than a mighty Angel smote him 3. Tantus tam repentè immediately he was smitten 4. Tantus tam luctuosè he was eaten of worms and gave up the Ghost Did not the Lord shew great glory in plucking down the mighty He was smitten Is not his arm exalted when the Angels are his Ministers An Angel smote him Shall not his wrath be terrible when it consumes in the twinkling of an eye Immediately he was smitten Lastly How weak is man in his sight even as a bulrush in the field All the beasts are his Army and the vilest creatures if he send them forth are strong as Lions the Worms did eat up this Galilaean and he gave up the Ghost As the man said in the Gospel Mat. xvii That his child fell often into the water and often into the fire two merciless Elements and very dangerous So Herod in the first part of the Text fell in aquas tumoris into the swelling waters of pride and in the second part in ignem terroris into the fire of vengeance and castigation The offence is to be offered to the first consideration he gave not God the glory There is a satiety of all things and to exceed a just proportion even in that which is good it is blameful and vicious too much justice is rigour too much temperance is diseaseful too much love is troublesome But to give God the glory it is a duty unto which we are bound with an infinite devotion if it were possible even as He is infinite so that we cannot fill up the measure much less are we able to exceed it Wherefore if God gave Children by seventies as he did to Ahab he asked but the first born who was consecrated to his service every hour of time that we live is his benevolence yet the Law is our remembrancer only to keep the Sabbath day the Earth is the Lords and all that therein is and yet his portion is but the tenth of the field but of his glory he hath parted no stakes to the Sons of men it is his own entirely non dabo never ask him for a share he will not part with it As his Ark did never thrive at Ashdod nor at Ekron but only when it was returned to Israel so let not the strength of the mighty nor the wisdom of the prudent be magnified glory will never thrive but when it is returned to the God of Israel and Dagon shall fall down before the Ark of his Majesty Themistocles demanding Tribute of the men of Andria told them that he had brought two powerful Advocates to plead his cause Suadam Vim Perswasion if they pleased Violence if they refused The self-same two Apparitors go before the glory of the most high Exhortation and Confusion Doth it like you to bless his name So God is glorified by the devotion of his Creature Doth it like you to exalt your self with Ero similis altissimo Then you shall be brought down and he will be honoured in your confusion He that swells to the greatest in this world shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven Et fortasse ideo non erit in regno coelorum ubi nisi magni esse non possunt says St Austin
the old Greek Proverb goes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in every Pomgranat there are some corrupt kernels so there are some wicked ones in every Church 4. As the seeds of the Pomegranat are of a bloudy colour so the Robes of the Apostles and others the best kernels of the Church were red in the bloud of Martyrdom but made white in the bloud of the Lamb. The sum is in the whole Pomgranat in the lump we are the Body of Christ but take us one by one and consider us as sometimes we were darkness and now light in the Lord and that this fire was kindled in us all from the Altar of Christ Jesus and by them that minister at it so Jerusalem which is above is the Mother of us all For the most proper work of a Mother is to bring forth Children and the most proper work of a good Mother is to bring them up And because of these two Solomon in the same Canticle hath used this appellation which my Text doth I will bring thee into the House of my Mother that is the Church And though he were the greatest King one of them that ever the Earth saw yet it is no disparagement to him to call that his Mother which God calls his Spouse I will betroth thee unto me for ever yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and faithfulness Hos ii 19. The Bridegroom hath taken this Bride unto him and their Offspring are multiplied and happy are those and none but they who are the legitimate Children of this sacred Marriage The Font of Baptism is the Womb of the Church the Spirit that moves upon the waters to sanctify them is the Father and from these two are brought forth the Sons of the Most High that shall dwell in glory for evermore And because of this indissoluble connexion between the Holy Ghost and this Spouse who is always present with it St. Austin notes that she must not only be a fruitful Mother in abundance of issue but also a pure Virgin because she knows none other Husband Ecclesia virgo est parit Mariam imitatur quae Dominum peperit the Church is both a Virgin and a Mother like the Mother of our Lord although a Mother yet of unquestioned virginity St. Ambrose runs more division upon the same string on this sort Sancta Ecclesia immaculata coit◠foecunda part◠virgo est castitate mater prole the holy Catholick Church keeps her Bed immaculate and yet her Offspring is innumerous a Mother by perpetual propagation and yet a Virgin by perpetual chastity Parit nos non dolore membrorum sed gaudio Angelorum nutrit nos non corporis lacte sed Apostolorum she is delivered of us with no pain or sorrow but with the joy of the Angels in Heaven she feeds us not with the breasts of a woman but the Milk of the Apostles which is better than Nectar to the Soul and the Manna that comes down from Heaven It is yet more admirable what God hath wrought upon this Jerusalem by demonstration of the Spirit and of power We are the dispersions of the Gentiles that are now the People of the Lord we were as a Strumpet that went a whoring after Idols and God hath betrothed this Church unto him and made it an unpolluted Virgin I deny not but lament it that there are some Christian stations affected towards Idolatry which renews the infamy of our ancient whoredoms But whatsoever our Mother is now our Grandmother was chaste and pure in Hegesippus dayes Take it in that sincerity of practice and Doctrin and then you may see the mighty works of Christ to turn an Harlot into a Virgin and a Virgin into a Mother Magna est sponsae singularis dignitas meretricem invenit virginem fecit says St. Austin this is the great and singular dignity of the Bride which hath prepared her self to meet the Bridegroom that comes from Heaven he hath changed her whoredom into virginity and multiplied her virginity into foecundity that she is the Mother of us all You see the Mother through whose Ministery every Christian is born again of water and of the Holy Spirt neque parcit unigenito pro sic genito the Father did not spare his only begotten Son that we might be thus begotten But is there no more that belongs to a Mother than to bring forth yes says Clemens Alexandrinus and I quote him because he speaks of the Church every thing that brings forth is obliged by nature to supply nourishment unto that which it brings forth I am not so rigid but I will grant that in cases of weakness and divers accidental indispositions that which nature doth ordinarily urge and provide for may be dispensed but this rule is born with every Female that which is so fruitful as to be a Mother should be so careful as to be a Nurse And so is the Church Not only Moses the Law-giver carried the People of Promise as a nursing Father carrieth his Child Num. xi 12. by tenderness by ordering their steps by breeding them in good Precepts and Laws but the Apostles were much more laborious to feed the Christian Proselytes with the Word of life that they might grow up from grace to grace unto the stature of perfect righteousness I have fed you with Milk says St. Paul to the newly converted Corinthians 1 Cor. iii. 2. and he suppeditated stronger meat to them that could digest it And for all manner of sweetness and forbearance he behaved himself gently among the Thessalonians as a Nurse cherisheth her Children 1 Thes ii 7. Every Rule and Doctrin which is delivered sincerely and in truth is Milk to those that thirst to drink of the Well of salvation Honey and Milk are under thy tongue says Solomon speaking of this Mother and Nurse Cant. iv xi Milk is a pleasant food so is the Gospel to them that have a spiritual taste there is no Aloes or bitterness in it but to them that have a carnal palat It is Antalcidas his answer in Plutarch to one that asked how he might speak that which might be accepted says he Si loquaris jucundissima praestes utilissima if you will deliver that which is most pleasant and season it with that which is most profitable so that which is sucked from the Breasts of this Parent arrides the taste with sweetness and it is as profitable as sweet and called Milk because it is a most growing nourishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Naturalists as they were accounted plain and innocent above all other People so they did excel for health and magnitude of body Be admonished therefore that such Christians as wax not better and better take some other thing for their nourishment than the Milk of the Church which doth not prosper in them If you do not grow and add virtue to virtue you have chosen a Nurse with dry breasts and whose complexion is diverse
sakes But Cornelius à Lapide the Jesuit puts the infamy of an Anabaptist upon Calvin as if he had taught that the soul departed had no sense or taste at all of the glory of God Why did he not censure Ambrose and Bernard Why did he not spit his venom upon Pope John the XXII There was good reason for that if we may believe Gerson a most grave Author of their own part But Calvin was the first that ever I met withall who writ a voluminous Treatise to prove that the souls of good men after this life have their quartering and Mansion in Heaven that they are not insensible of their state or benummed in sleep or fettered with darkness but that they praise the Lord continually and Christ that redeemed them which is consonant to this Point of my Text that John saw the souls under the Altar Yet I like not their way who are so careful to teach the people that the souls deceased do not sleep that they keep themselves waking with a thousand Fictions and Impostures there is scarce one leaf written of any Saint in the Church of Rome especially of the modern ones but you shall meet with two or three sprinklings in it how his soul appeared in this or that manner to his friends upon earth their posthumous miracles after their death exceed the number of those which they did when they were living And if any thing be out of order it is straitway rectified with an apparition And from whence think you the Elf or Goblin comes that appears From a place where I am sure this good Apostle saw no souls from the correction house of Purgatory Their Larvae or night-walking souls are their best Doctors for the confirmation of that opinion Ask Gregory the Great else who could urge little beside to gain credit to his opinion for the temporary chastisements of the faithful after this life but as the dead came and made relation to their surviving acquaintance Some silly men were first affrighted out of their wits with a gastly Vision and then guess you who it was that taught them points of Religion But four ages ran out after Gregories time before this cousenage grew trivial and common Gregory the Fourth in the year 835. decreed that a Solemn Feast should be held over all the Church to the memory of all the Saints in heaven that whatsoever was not fully performed in the Feasts and Vigils of particular Saints might be consummated on that day this was nothing to the puling souls detained in the prison of temporary castigation But almost two hundred years after Odilo the Abot of Cluni in commiseration to them that were departed in his own Monastery dedicated a day for the relief of their souls not yet admitted into heaven And Pope Jo. XVIII anno 1007 taking light from Odilo commanded the Feast of all Souls to be general in all places The Devil wanted nothing but the opening of this door to beat down all opposites with apparitions And let the Readers mark it that from that Age not a Book was written not a Chapter of a Book but it relates what Nocturnal Mercuries appeared to bring tidings from Purgatory Some Jangler will catch at this and say Belike you reject all Apparitions of the dead for lies or Demoniacal Impostures If I should I had Tertullian to abet me Omnem mortuorum exhibitionem incorporalem praestigias judices All incorporeal Phantosms of the dead are juglings and delusions And if any point of doctrine depend upon the sleeveless Errands that the souls departed bring I do renounce them for delusions We have Moses and the Prophets and we are certain their Spirits are ever to be preferred before any Spirit that comes from the dead For the living to go to the dead says the Prophet Isaiah none of that but to the Law and to the Testimony Isa viii 19. Rabbi Maimon says that some superstitious Jews would burn Incense among the graves that the dead might come and talk with them And therefore God said that man should be cut off from among the people that sought the truth among the dead Deut. xviii 11. Yet I deny it not but that the divine power hath sometimes presented the Saints departed to communicate with the living as they that appeared in the holy City to testifie our Saviours Resurrection Mat. xxvii Likewise in the 2. of Mach. Chap. ult Onius who once had been High Priest he was exhibited being dead to Judas Machabaeus that is another instance if you have any stomack to that Historian But the upshot is that Souls have been seen in heaven that was the Vision of St. John so Souls may be sent from Heaven but not from Purgatory Through fire I confess these souls had passed which the Apostle saw yet not through that subterraneous fire which they imagine but through the fire of Martyrdom and persecution He saw the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the Testimony which they held And if it be true as none of the worst Expositors conjecture that the computation of the fifth Seal opened immediately before the words of my Text is rightly calculated at what time Dioclesian did cease to make havock in the Church it was a very fit time to see souls in heaven slain for the Word of God it was thwackt with Martyrs like an hive with Bees For burning of Churches for massacring of Christians for Proscription of Innocents no Persecution was ever like it It lasted ten whole years without ceasing and in the first year of his Reign in Egypt only an hundred forty and four thousand Christians were put to death beside seventy thousand that were banisht insomuch says Scaliger that the Epocha of Dioclesian is called the Epocha of the Martyrs in Chronology Who would have thought that the Posterity of Cham a Generation branded with dark and unlovely visages should have afforded so many sacrifices to be offered up unto the glory of Jesus Christ Well might the Church of Aethiopia sing the Canticle of Solomon I am black but comely O ye Daughters of Jerusalem And not only these but exceeding great numbers of Bishops Priests and People in all quarters of the habitable world a long bedroll of faithful men and women in this Island did taste of the bitter Cup under the same Tyrant Fathers lost their Children Children lack'd their Parents the Wife missed her Husband and one friend another whom St. John hath found altogether making up one Chorus of blessed Spirits and while Rachel the Church below mourneth for her Children Jerusalem which is above the Mother of us all rejoyceth for them Martyrdom is the way to sublimate death into a Cordial which was a poyson the means to make that a blessing which was a curse upon our nature A Traffick proper to none but to the Citizens of the supernal City to secure our whole adventure not by assuring but by losing their life It is not only the
therefore whatsoever the refractory think that filled our Liturgie with Te Deums with Magnificats with Doxologies Methinks Prayer were but a drowzy thing without them When we ask any thing that we need we speak in the Dialect of men but when we send forth acclamations to the honour of Jesus Christ we speak with the tongues of Seraphims In our Petitions we may exceed and ask too much in our Doxologies we cannot exceed It agrees well to the true only God which Plato ascribed to his Idols heap what Epithets you will upon the Gods you cannot flatter them Perhaps some are of the mind of that Heathen that asked a Rhetorician to what purpose he penn'd an Oration in praise of Hercules for who did ever discommend Hercules Or if Blasphemers should detract from God his excellency it is not made less So all the invocations and Halleluja's of the Saints cannot add on Cubit not one Inch to the stature of his Majesty it is uncapable of increase and can never grow greater But will you be content to open your lips unto the praise of the Coelestial goodness if it bring your self to honour though it be no amplification to the glory of God Agreed then no man can ascribe much praise to God but out of a large capacity of faith for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost No man can speak of the King of Heaven according to his due honour but it will procreate devotion and reverence no man doth advance the name of God in the preface of his Prayer but it is a tacite Confession that he prefers the glory of his Maker before his own Necessity Behold now though Gods honour be in the state that it was before yet your soul is in a better state by Prayer and Invocation for a spiritual gift in this life is a degree to a reward in the life to come Let me not defer it any longer to speak of the ditty of that praise which the Souls under the Altar did give unto the most High And the words when they are laid together are Triga divinae gloriae as it is called a Chariot drawn by the three transcendent Attributes of the Divine Nature Who doth excel in Power but the Lord Who doth excel in goodness but the Holy of Holies And He that brings to pass whatsoever he hath spoken he must excel in truth Power belongs unto the Father for all things are by him Truth belongs unto the Son for all the shadows of the Old Law are fulfilled in him Goodness belongs to the Holy Ghost for he is the Sanctification that is diffused in our hearts Therefore more praise cannot be couched in three words than in these Lord Holy and True We wretched and ignorant sinners that utter these words with polluted lips we cannot apprehend as the Martyrs in Heaven do what an eternal weight of glory is in every one of these Syllables Yet we know that he is Lord whose authority admits no equal the Idaea of all goodness whose sanctity admits no question A Truth which is the measure of all truth whose words and statutes admit no contradiction His Dominion is so strong that it cannot be resisted his Holiness is so sincere that it cannot sin and his Truth is so firmly coupled to his Holiness that he cannot lie There is no Power but in Him for all the Foundations of the Earth are weak There is no Holiness but in him for there is none that doth good no not one There is no verity but in him for God is true and every man a lyar As for all the Gods of the Heathen there was infirmity in their protection for they had no strength Viciousness in their Sanctions for they had no sanctity Delusions in their Oracles for they were nothing but vanity To contract a world of variety which may be morallized out of this Triple Crown of God it is not to be over-passed that these are the Titles upon which the Church depends for all its blessings the Hills unto which we lift up our eyes for help Solium gubernandi altare sanctificandi cathedra docendi The Throne of his Kingdom the Altar of his Priesthood the Chair of his Prophetical Wisdom which afford unto the Church Might to protect it Grace to purifie it and Truth to direct it in all things Or observe it how the Enemies of the Church are over-matcht and trodden down by these Attributes We all know they are in three Ranks Tyrants Hypocrites and Hereticks To suppress Tyrants he is the mighty Lord for the detestation of Hypocrites he is the Holy One of Israel for the conviction of Hereticks Truth hath flourisht out of the Earth and Righteousness hath looked down from Heaven But if these be the Flowers of Christs honour if the Martyrs as some Expositors say meant of him only they are Lines which will easily I am sure meet in that Center Though once he was compassed with our infirmities yet now what Power so great as his to whom the Father hath committed all judgment What Holiness so perfect as his which challenged the censure of his Enemies Which of you can reprove me of sin Or what Truth so praepotent as out of his mouth which made his Adversaries confess Never man spake like him Not to leave this Subject without some utility to our life Are these Titles of our Father no way hereditary to us by Adoption of Sons Yes surely after the model of our earthen Vessel the compellation of Lord which is so awful and to be adored in the Supreme Majesty it claims veneration and submissive obedience to those Powers upon earth to whom God hath committed the execution of his governance The other two Attributes are not so restrictive but are the Vrim and Thummim of every Christian or like the two eyes in our head we know not which is dearest Holiness and Truth Truth is the illumination of our understanding in all points to be believed Holiness is the reformation of our will in all cases of practice Which of these can you spare and live your brains or your heart If Holiness be true there will be no Hypocrisie If Truth be holy there will be no contention If Holiness be true Zeal shall be joyned to Knowledge If Truth be holy Knowledge shall be joyned to action Where Truth is not holy Herod for the engagement of his Oath will cut off the head of John Baptist Where holiness is not true the Pharisees in defence of the Law will Crucifie our Saviour Wherefore put on the new man which is created after God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the holiness of truth or in true holiness Eph. iv 24. Forget not I pray that I said these Epithets were not only an Invocation but an obtestation also as if the Martyrs had said As thou art the Lord as thou art holy as thou art true avenge our bloud of them that
Persecutors to be a Counsel and not a Precept Some would have all going to Law to be a repining against the will of God and impatiency against his scourge when he takes any thing from us by the same tenure a sickness being a scourge from God we must not seek to the Physician to cure it Finally The Anabaptists think that the Gospel hath so quite cut the Nerves of revenge that they abhor the Magistrate who is the conservator of peace and justice and repute him to be Gods instrument no otherwise than as Nebuchadonozor or the Devil This is a large field of Tares to be cut down and all with one Sickle revenge may be prosecuted for the correction of sin for the peace of the Church for the demonstration of Gods justice So doth our Church in the Collect used in the time of War Asswage the malice of our Enemies abate their pride confound their devices So do the Souls of the Martyrs in heaven Avenge our bloud c. I confess it is an hard matter to hit of this way which I speak of and among those that pray for revenge not one among a thousand I am perswaded but tread awry Howsoever the pure love to Justice may stir us up to those devotions yet our frailty can scarcely perform it without some vindicative passions It is a common error to miscall our Spleen by the name of Zeal and to take that hot affection to be a Coal from the Altar which is a firebrand from the infernal Pit But it is a second Conclusion that the Spirits of good men departed may cry out to have judgment pass upon Tyrants for the effusion of their bloud because they can ask nothing inordinately they that are confirmed in grace and cannot sin they cannot make a Petition that is over-ballanced with the least grain of rancor or partiality Beside as Rabshekah said to the men of Judah how untruly let him answer it Am I now come up without the Lord against this Land to destroy it Yea the Lord said unto me Go up against this Land and destroy it So may the Saints say without prevarication Do we pray for vengeance against our Persecutors without the Lord Yea the Lord hath said unto us Pray unto me for vengeance against your Enemies their Will moves by his inspiration and they can wish for nothing without it Ab ipso bibunt quodcunque sitiunt St. Austin speaks it upon my Text when they thirst for any thing they drink it first from the Fountain of his pleasure Wherefore there is this disparity in our case and theirs We are ignorant what may become of our Persecutors Stubborn sinners are often called to repentance Paul was converted in that minute when he imagined most mischief against the Faith O then let us overcome evil with good praying that they may turn unto the Lord and be saved This is a fair Christian revenge indeed to pray against their sins Hoc ipsum in illis vindicatur quod periit iniquitas Now the Saints in glory as many of the best Divines hold are not at such uncertainty as we are but it is revealed unto them that their Persecutors are in a lost condition that they will die in their impenitency therefore in conformity to that judgment which God hath reserved for them they pour out their Imprecations that destruction may take them unawares They that know how unalterable the Decrees of the Lord are and by special impartment are acquainted with the execution of his Decrees it is impossible that the Saints in Heaven should solicite him for the salvation of Reprobates they pray for nothing but for that which they obtain they pray for none but for whom they may be heard Some of us ask and have not St. James tells us why Because we ask amiss The drift of this Conclusion is we ask good things of God for our Enemies because for ought we know they may become his friends The Martyrs cry aloud against their Enemies because they know they shall be Fiends of Hell We are restrained from cursing our ill-willers because malice will inject it self into such Prayers the Citizens which dwell above are liable to no such prohibition because there can be no defect in their charity The third Conclusion is so cautious to give no scandal so circumspect not to open the least window to malice and hatred that it resents the word Revenge in this place to be of an improper signification and that which the Souls departed sue for is not revenge but deliverance Deliverance Of what Not of themselves who are out of harms-way in Abrahams bosom But of their Brethren afflicted and tormented here beneath As who should say How long O Lord wilt thou not deliver the bloud of our Brethren the poor Members of the Militant Church from them that rage upon the Earth They that are dead in the Lord have not only an existence after this life but a memory to call to mind what garboyls were in this world when they breathed in it as the Parabolical History of the Rich man and Lazarus may confirm it This being presupposed as the opinion of others I press it not as irrefragable it must go along with it that they have a most compassionate desire that the poor Sheep whom they left in the midst of Wolves may have an end of their misery And no marvel if their Communion which they had and shall have again make them clamour as if they petition for themselves How long O Lord c. For as young Scholars talk Proverbially of the breaking of Priscians head when a Solacism is committed though he be rotten in his grave so unmerciful proceedings against them that suffer under the Cross of Christ seem to fetch bloud from the Saints in Heaven You will think I suppose that this Interpretation sticks at a knot To deliver is a softer and a more innocent word than to revenge how will that stubborn word to revenge bear so mild a signification The Criticks will readily help us in that David pleading his integrity before Saul yet mistrusting that his displeasure was unreasonable and implacable says he Vlciscatur me de te Jehova The Lord avenge me of thee As the Letter sounds this had been most disloyal and most dangerous to have cursed Saul to his face therefore the Phrase must be understood in this manner The Lord deliver me from thy vengeance Again 1 Mach. xiii 6. I will avenge my Nation and the Sanctuary and our Wives and Children for the heathen are gathered to destroy us What is meant then by avenging the Sanctuary but delivering it from profanation To uphold it with another Authority the Widow invokes the unjust Judge to avenge her of her adversary Luk. xviii 3. Camerarius says it is jus exequere do me right against him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Juris consulti vocant defensores that is they that defend and maintain the cause of the poor are called
two observations 1. It appears in St. Matthew that the Angel called him Jesus before he was born yea before he was conceived Luke i. 31. it was Gabriels message to Mary Thou shalt conceive in thy Womb and bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus Men called him so after he was born and circumcised Idem quippe Angeli salvator hominis hominis ab incarnatione Angeli ab initio creaturae for the same Lord is the Saviour both of Angels and Men of Angels before he was born from the beginning of the world of Men in the fulness of time after he was born That is the second person in Trinity being the eternal Son of the Father did confirm the good Angels in grace that they should never fall and the same person incarnate being the Mediator of God and Man did redeem the Elect that they should rise again from their sins and reign with him in glory 2. The complete imposition of the name was at his circumcision when he first shed his Blood as if his Death had been foretold as soon as he was born it would cost him blood not a few drops of the foreskin but the very blood of the heart to be called Jesus In Circumcision he was called a Saviour at his Passion the word Jesus was wrote upon the Cross then his enemies confest he was a Saviour In circumcisione non fuit actu perfecto sed destinatione salvator in Circumcision it was told by destination what he should be and incompleatly and by inchoation what he was It was a sign of servitude and of taking the guilt of sin to be Circumcised it was a sign of ignominy and reproach to be Crucified but this name exalted him and defended him against the bad opinion of the world when he was called at the one time in the Temple and entitled on the Cross at the other Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews To drive this point no longer about the honour of the imposition of the name this is the sum Angels and Men had their several shares in the dignity to give this attribute to our Lord but the name was grounded in his own nature of exceeding mercy and in his office of reconciliation therefore God alone could give him this name Innatum est ei nomen hoc non inditum ab humana aut Angelica natura says Bernard the name was bred with him and not imposed by men or Angels A name so royally impos'd must include a great deal of excellency that 's the next point Gallio the Deputy of Achaia was a great scorner of Religion and because Paul magnified Christ and the Jews blasphemed him Gallio said it was a controversie of words and names and he would not meddle with it it was not worth the while The name of Christ was beyond Gallio's reach to judge upon it David makes a great account of that which he did villifie Thou hast magnified thy name and thy word above all things Psal cxxxvii The names of God Jehovah are his names as a Creator and yet to be magnified above all things but the name of Jesus adds above his power of creation his goodness of saving and redemption Nihil nasci profuit nisi redimi profuisset it had been unbeneficial to be created unless we had been happily redeemed His Words his Actions his Miracles his Prayers his Sacraments his Sufferings all did smell of the Saviour Take him from his Infancy to his Death among his Disciples and among the Publicans among the Jews or among the Gentiles he was all Saviour The Jews were under the condition of thraldom at this time when Christ was born under the thraldom of their enemies and the tidings of a Saviour was sweet news at such a season yet the Shepherds could not so mistake that an Infant born but that day could go out with their hosts to subdue their enemies No person upon earth hath such need of a Saviour as a sinner whether it be peace or war Pandora's box of mischiefs all the miseries that can be named are the just reward of a sinner therefore the Angel doth not specifie to the Shepherds from what calamities he should redeem them and be called a Saviour indefinitely and absolutely from all A few particulars would but derogate from the honour of his salvation he sweeps away all evil at once like a Spiders web ab omni malo he saves us from the whole mass of evil a Saviour which is Christ the Lord Jer. xxiii 7. It shall no more be said the Lord Liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt but the Lord liveth which brought the house of Israel from the North Country the land of Chaldaea Alas both these are easie redemptions to that which calls him Jesus in the New Testament the Lord liveth who saveth his people from their sins there begins his mercy at that point to break the heavy yoke of sin from our necks to repress the dominion of the flesh rebelling against the spirit to take away earthly desires from our will and affections in a word to clear us in Gods Court that our iniquities may no more be imputed to us Who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood Revel i. 5. 2. He is a Saviour that delivers us from the sting and punishment of sin which is death He destroyed our death by dying on the Cross and repaired our life again by his own Resurrection 3. He is a Saviour that delivereth us from the power of Satan that although the enemy tempt and oppose vehemently yet he should not overcome his Saints Now is the judgment of this world now shall the Prince of this world be cast forth John xii 32. and so cast forth that he shall never renew his tyranny again For through death Chrst did destroy him that had the power of death the Devil Heb. ii 14. 4. He is a Saviour that frees us from the wrath of God and when we were enemies we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son Rom. v. From sin from death from Satan from the wrath of God These are the four heads of our Redemption and these are the excellencies included in the name of Saviour After these things thus declared methinks the third point should fall in directly without any contradiction Methinks of our selves without bidding men should strive to do abundant reverence at the hearing of this word a Jesus a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. We have not that feeling of our sins which we ought to have nor of the wrath of God for if we had we would hear this name with greater joyfulness but the destruction is not near enough to affect us Hell and damnation are not represented before our face if those things were so nigh that we did feel their horror we would not captiously gainsay that Ceremony of the Church to vail the head and bend the knee and to
glory Thirdly He distributed to the Disciples and assumed them into the same works which himself did save only in the work of our Redemption but when he was acting that part either they fell asleep or run away as when he was laid hold upon to be crucified it was an exploit above a mortal man to assist it and would admit of no associate I have trodden the Wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me Isa lxiii 3. But the power of doing Miracles was communicated unto them for the edifying of the body of the Saints and that before a great Congregation where there were many witnesses that there was such virtue given to men as if Christ had said before them all these are they that shall work signs and wonders in my Name when I am gone to Heaven These are they indeed but to do such mighty things was an Heritage which they could bequeath again to their Sons and to their Sons Sons in all descending Generations As a Conqueror enters it may be in triumph into a City which he hath taken but when the Solemnity of the triumph is over a plain working-day fashion serves for after so the Gospel entred with triumph into the World by the power and pomp of Miracles overtopping all false Religions and captivating all imaginations but would you have Christianity to hold on its triumph when it hath vanquished both Judaism and Idolatry 1600 years ago Not so but as there is a time to every purpose under Heaven so there was a time to glorify God by Signs and Wonders and a time to believe though Signs are ceased But now was the season to communicate some share of that mighty vertue to the Apostles as well to prepare them to know their office as to prepare the People to know that those were the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God Lastly the Disciples received the Blessing immediately from Christ and they went between Him and the People to feed them with bread to teach us that it is for his Saints sake that the earth hath plenty of all things It was not unto them which murmured that God gave water of the rock but unto Moses that cried unto him It was to Elias that God gave rain after three years drought and not unto Ahab Forget not therefore which way all temporal Blessings come about There are holy and mortified men among us that spend the greatest part of their life in penance and devotion these make intercession for you that your Table may be furnished and though they do not give it you with their hand as the Disciples did in our present business they give it you with their Prayers when others revel it and waste their stock in vanity these grovel upon the earth with their bended knees that the Lord would not be angry As St. Austin said to such a purpose Quando ipsi laetantur nos pro illis gemimus when others pamper their genius with marrow and fatness these do macerate themselves with abstinence to avert famine from the Land A devout man whose zeal is free from faction and his heart clear from malice that drives not his private prosperity but every day spends some Canonical hours most strictly for publick blessings it may be hath nothing himself and yet procures all as the Apostles took bread from Christ not for themselves but to give away to the multitude or if some little came to their share they enjoyed it not without the envy of those that were the better for their benefit For when they had distributed their Masters Maundy once and again to so many folk yet they grudged them that which a Nest of Sparrows would make bold with when they pluckt a few ears of corn and rub'd them in their hands Well the World will never reform this ingratitude and yet the Lord doth not repent him that his Saints are so precious in his sight that they obtein riches health and peace for those that hate them and persecute them Such a poor Widow as Anna that continued in Prayers and Fastings day and night in the Temple in part Cesar did owe the prosperity of his Crown unto her the People were beholding to her that they had their Traffick the Priests that they had the exercise of their Religion they of the City that they had their health they of the Country that they had their Harvest May be there were Blasphemers Extortioners Adulterers that were filled with this Feast which Christ made so it shall be while good and bad are intermingled every where But do you mark it Christ committed the bread at the first breaking to the hands of the Disciples for faithful and good men are the Conduit-pipes of all the Blessings which the earth receiveth from the Father of mercies to whom be glory for evermore AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON JOHN vi 11. He distributed to the Disciples and the Disciples to them that were set down and likewise of the Fishes as much as they would IT will not be denied but if I share this Miracle between those that had their finger in it two parts to speak with the least must be given to Christ If therefore there be double as much in Christs act that be distributed to the Disciples as there is in their act who distributed to them that were set down it was as due required to put the Bucket twice into the Well to draw waters from the former and with half that labour uno pede stans that is at this once and no more to dispatch the latter And now I shall put it unto you that this Miracle is come down as low as it could descend The divine incomprehensible nature was the Origen of it and therefore Christ used that Ceremony when he took the Loaves into his hand to look up to heaven Our Saviours Humane Nature was the next Vessel into which the grace of the Almighty was poured for the Father had given all things into his hand Joh. xiii 3. The next and underneath his feet were the Apostles they had their Power and Commission from him As the Father sent me so send I you Joh. xx The last of all to whom the Apostles communicate their gift are the People and there the gift abides The Dove that is the Holy Spirit doth use to fetch this compass about before he lights O glorious Hierarchy O most beautiful degrees of strength and Majesty O golden Chain whose uppermost Link is fastned to the highest heaven and the nethermost part toucheth the lowest earth Thus doth our blessedness descend step by step from the Father to the Son from the Son to the Disciples and from the Disciples to all those that are nourished with the words of Truth and of good Doctrine 1 Tim. iv 6. So then we hold of God as the Author of all Grace of Christ as the head of the Body which is his Church of the Apostles and their Successors as his subordinate Ministers And
aptly do the Fathers make that of David comprehend this whole mystery Psal civ 13. He watereth the hills from aboue and the earth is filled with the fruit of thy works Having declared with much facility by what degrees this Miracle descended it was to let you know that I am come to the last stair and draw out now from the lowest vent and that in these two parts the sub-distribution and the reception Or if you will take the Points rather in the concrete they are those of the last order of givers the Disciples and their correlative the receivers the discumbentes they that sate down The former namely the Disciples shall be considered two ways Either according to the extraordinary power of God upon them whereby the bread and fish did multiply in their hands likewise as it had done in our Saviours Or according the ordinary dispensation of grace wherein you may look upon them two ways As boni viri and boni pastores first as good men that gave liberally of what they had Secondly as good Pastors that fed the Flock over which they were appointed Then the Receivers for whom this Table was provided the Discumbentes the Miracle gains honour out of them in two respects in multi and multum 1. How many did partake five thousands beside women and children 2. How much they had even as much as they would And though that be wonderful yet that is a Meiosis and modestly set down if we scan the truth for they had more than they could spend Now I make my entrance to the Points of Doctrine and at this I begin that as Christ had distributed to the Disciples so they did the same office to them that were set down A main consideration and perhaps the very first thing in Christs intention for when a motion was made that he would conclude his Sermon and send the People home no says he Give ye them to eat Therefore his purpose was that their hands should expedite the Miracle and they should distribute And yet the Vulgar Latine which is held by the Romanists to be the Paragon of Translations makes no mention at all of the Disciples in my Text that either Christ gave to them or that they did give to others It is not in their Copy and it is never like to be For once ill with them and you may be sure it shall never be better See what a misery it is to challenge unto any thing wherein mans labours or passions have an interest that it is absolute and inculpable for though it be never so much depraved it shall never be mended They fly at us for leaving Apocryphal Scripture out of the Canon we have more cause to jerk at them for leaving Canonical Scripture more than once out of the Gospel But not to lose my self in their negligence we have the warrant of all ancient Greek Copies that the Loaves and Fishes were in the Disciples hands after they had been in Christs Nay we have good authority to countenance it that they multiplied in the Disciples hands after they had multiplied in Christs It would have been a double labour and a wearisom delay to the People if the Apostles had awaited till Christ had made it out into five thousand parts and then the Apostles to have fetcht those portions and have served them one by one to the multitude this would have took up the better part of an whole day to dispatch it But there was a nearer cut than so that the time might not be tedious and the Miracle more illustrious after Christ had blessed the bread it began to grow in his hands and as the Disciples plucked away from it to give to them that were set down it grew the faster Subrepunt in frangentium manibus quaedam fragmentorum procreationes The Disciples were not only eye-witnesses but they did also feel the vertue of the Lord. As a Spunge being crush'd up in the fist will dilate it self when the hand is open so the Bread which they held did rise up to a prodigious quantity they felt it wax and grow greater that which could be held between two fingers at first was so big in two moments that they could not hold it in their Palm Euthymius says it did not only multiply in their hands but it retained that vertue when they put up the remainder in their baskets Vt sicut manus itae humeros testes haberent hujus miraculi that as their eyes had seen and their hands had handled so their very shoulders might feel the weight of the power of God I am sure that which came to their share in the process of this work was so notorious and palpable that the place where it was brought to pass carries their name to this day for that spot of the ground where the Feast was kept being in the Tribe of Nepthali over against Bethsaida is called by the Inhabitants of the Holy Land at this time Apostolorum Mensa not Christs but the Apostles Table says Adricomius I must go further and fall into a comparison which I will qualifie by and by the Loaves and Fishes increased more in the Disciples hands than they had done in Christs because it lay upon their Function and service to deal them unto more St. Chrysostom had such an intentive eye to the success which their labour had that he writes as if he thought there was no increase of the bread till they broke it before the people I will not take his part in that opinion but that it shall up to the increase of thirty fold in Christs hand and to an hundred fold in theirs or to some such proportion I submit my suffrage to that conjecture But is not this a Paradox Was it ever seen that the borrowed light was clearer than the natural That the Pitcher held more than the Well That the Disciple was above his Master This Objection is soon pressed under if we keep the rule of faith which St. Peter preached to the Jews Acts iii. 12. Ye men of Israel why marvel ye at this Or why look ye so earnestly on us as if we by our own power and holiness had brought this to pass They did it not of themselves but in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the other great Apostle says in the person of Christ 2 Cor. ii An honourable man may array his Page in richer cloathing than he wears himself The Lord loseth no reverence by this from them that are wise Though the Servant exceed in bravery yet it is at the Masters cost and he exceeds in authority So Christ put his blessing upon the bread and his Spirit upon the Apostles with his assistance he let them superabound and as it were go beyond himself but the glory returns to the Fountain for they that cannot add one Cubit to their stature cannot add one crum to a Loaf but that they plowed with his Heifer Nay but what if perverse men should mistake hereupon and not discern