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
condition of the child Et illa peperit promigenitum c. It was Nicodemus his problem which he propounded to our Saviour Iterum potest homo nasci Can a man be born again or the second time that which is impossible to Nicodemus is true in the person of our Saviour for he that was the first begotten of God before all worlds is Ejus primogenitus at a second birth he is become the first born Son of Mary De victo genere sumsit hominem per quem generis humani vinceret inimicum says St. Austin The Devil thought that at one skirmish in the Garden of Eden he had made a perfect conquest over the poor nature of man flesh and blood could never rise up again to take arms against him His malice was like Caligula's that wisht all the subjects of the Roman Empire had but one head upon their shoulders that at one blow he might destroy the whole generation but de Victo genere as the Father said Christ mannageth the quarrel between us and Satan so fairly and indifferently that he took upon him not the substance of Angels but even the flesh which was overcome that in the same Nature he might destroy our enemies The Potter may make what vessels do like him best out of his own clay But how strangely was the wheel turn'd about when the Clay did make the Potter was it not enough to make man after the image of God but moreover to make God after the image and likeness of man was it not enough that the breath of the Lord should be made a living soul for man but that the eternal word of God should be made Flesh Vtinam sicut verbum caro factum est ita cor nostrum fiat carneum O that as the word was made flesh so our stony hearts as the Prophet says may be made flesh that we may believe and glorifie this wonderful generation but the manner of this generation is a secret of God within the rail and I will not touch it Let it suffice us to know concerning her first-born 1. That he was never called the Son of the Holy Ghost though he were conceived by him 2. That among all those of the genealogy from whom he descended especially he is called the Son of David and Abraham But 3. by the nearest interest he was Ejus primogenitus the first-born Son of Mary Touching the first it is an Article of our Creed that the Holy Ghost was the active principle of the generation of Christ and why then was he not called his Father because to be the father of another thing is not enough to be the active principle of it for even the Sun is the active cause that produceth Worms and Flies and all those which are called insecta animalia and yet it is not called the father of those creatures but a father must beget a thing according to his own kind and species and therefore Christ was born after the species and nature of the Woman whereby he is called not the Son of the Holy Ghost but the Son of Mary Again as for the next thine observed in the Preface of St. Matthew's Gospel among all those that belong to the line of our Saviours Parentage the persons especially pickt out are David and Abraham which was the Son of David which was the Son of Abraham and that for this reason though Christ came from the loins of many others St. Luke counts 77 descents between Adam and Christ yet the words of promise benedicentur in semine tuo it was only spoke unto Abraham and David that in their seed that is in Christ all the Kingdoms of the earth should be blessed And therefore Abraham and David were known by name above others It was in every mans mouth that the Messias should come out of their stock the Oath which he swore to our fore-father Abraham says Zachary in his Song and blind men and beggars had it at their fingers end Son of David have mercy on us The more to illustrate this you must know that there was a twofold root or foundation of the Children of Israel for their temporal being Abraham was the root of the people the Kingdom was rent from Saul and therefore David was the root of the Kingdom among all the Kings in the Pedigree none but He hath the name and Jesse begat David the King and David the King begat Solomon and therefore so often as God did profess to spare the people though He were angry He says he would do it for Abrahams sake So often as He professeth to spare the Kingdom of Judah He says he would do it for his Servant Davids sake So that ratione radicis as Abraham and David are roots of the People and Kingdom especially Christ is called the Son of David the Son of Abraham and to say no more their Faith in the Incarnation of Christ is of some moment in this point David having obtained the name to be called the Prophet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he doth so fully express the Birth and Passion of our Saviour and Abrahams faith is most notable in that one instance says Fulgentius when He made Eleezer his Steward put his hand under his thigh and take an oath in the name of the Lord not that he thought there was any connexion between his own flesh and the God of heaven Sed ut ostenderet Deum coeli ex eâ carne nasciturum but to shew that the blessed Babe of Mary should descend lineally from his Loyns Who in the third place by the nearest interest is called Ejus primogenitus the first-born Son of Mary Non quod post eum alius sed quod ante eum nemo says St. Austin not called the first-born Son as the eldest of them Sons that followed but as being the first fruits of a Virgin-womb that had none before nor after here is Isaiahs Prophesie Puer natus nobis a Child born unto us Natus est non sibi Christus sed mihi for He was born not for himself but for me and for all the Faithful Here is Jeremies Prophesie Mulier circundabit virum that a woman shall compass a man Jer. 31.22 The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth a woman shall compass a man For Isaiahs Child is called a Man in Jeremiah Insinuans ei nunquam defuisse virtutem because in the very swadling clouts he came forth not as a weak Infant but full of power and virtue as a Giant to run his course He grew on indeed says St. Austin from an infant to a man but never to be an old man Crescat fides tua robur inveniat vetustatem nesciat So let thy faith wax more and more let it come to perfection and maturity but never unto old age as if it droopt and were declining I come to the third strange condition of the Birth it was without travel or the pangs of woman as I
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
because he assumed such a frame such a natural body into the unity of his own Person Naturam nostram non solùm creando novit sed etiam assumendo He knows the condition of mans nature not only by Creation but also by Assumption Cyril of Alexandria did foresee an objection might rise from hence and thus prevents it What if the Word had not been made flesh Had not the Word notwithstanding perfectly known all the diseases and infirmities which hapned to that mass of flesh which it self created Yet it is answered that Christ had he never been incarnate had known the very secrets of our hearts and reins only he had not adjoyned this knowledge unto himself after the experimental manner This is the difference only which doth actuate our comfort much the more Scientiae divinae ea notitia quam effert experientia accessit That knowledge which is feeling and experimental was added to the divine omnisciency He knoweth whereof we are made he hath shared our mourning our sorrows and tentations he knows this dunghil metal of ours is full of putrefaction and he pities it To this one alluded ingenuously that Christ did anoint the eyes of the blind man with spittle and clay Joh. ix 6. Vt seipsum excitaret magìs tali spectaculo ad commiserationem That he might behold that object to stir up his commiseration You see by all this I have built upon a sure ground that our Saviour knowing experimentally the conflict of tentations what a mighty Giant this Goliah is that defies the Israel of God and how weak we are to make resistance it takes away the edge of his severity and enables him to plead our pardon before his Father So we our selves ought not be iron Judges unrelenting Censors but to look upon delinquents with a passionate regard and to pass our sentence upon offenders with this dram of moderation at least in our judgments we our selves have been tempted and know how hard it is to resist the devices of the Devil Secondly The first Adam was disgracefully overthrown by the Serpent therefore the second Adam did redeem this disgrace by overthrowing the Serpent in his own Tentations for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil 1 Joh. iii. 8. The Scripture accommodates a Parable to make us remember it Luk. xi 22. Satan is the strong man that kept his Palace in peace for he held a Princedom over the Sons of men but a stronger than he came upon him even our Lord and Saviour and overcame him and took away his Armour wherein he trusted and divided his spoiles Dignus vindice nodus a recovery fit for him that had the greatest power in heaven and earth that the Sons of men might sing Songs of triumph not David hath killed his ten thousand but Christ hath subdued that enemy that exalted himself above all that were made after the Image and likeness of God Alexander moved Calisthenes to tell him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how a man might purchase to himself a name to be the most famous of all men Calisthenes gave him a smart answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him kill the most famous of all men I suppose he ment of his enemies and this our great Champion hath done for us by frustrating and retorting all the tentations of Beelzebub the Prince of Devils It was our nature which he so much contemned that made him contemn the Son of God and adventure upon the holiest of all with confidence to get the day all the Posterity of mankind were so baffled in Adam that when Christ walked about in the similitude of man Satan supposed it was but Veni vici Come and conquer This day therefore the reproach was taken away from us when our chief Captain shewed the way that even flesh yet not through the arm of flesh but by the Spirit should be able to subdue our Ghostly enemies Thirdly Not only our former stain and ignominy is repaired because Christ was tempted and overcame but since that time also tentations have not that irresistible force which they had before their malignity is much abated Some ancient Writers especially Origen have puzzled their wits to conjecture what loss the Devil incurs when he is foiled in a tentation One thought that the same Devil could never tempt again like a Captive that yields himself up to the Conquerour and is never suffered to bear Arms again Others had rather say that the same infernal spirit could never turn head against the same Person any more who had once got the Mastery Others thought but themselves knew no reason for it that the Devil once repelled cannot tempt to the same sin any more I wish no man to build his judgment upon such divinations Beelzebub is by interpretation the God of a Fly Chase away Flies and yet the sent which allured them before draws them back again to the corruption which they had suckt before so I take it for an allowed truth that the Devil retires not quite for any repulse but as we see it in men or beasts in any Duel the longer they are beaten the worse they fight So the more we quench the firy darts of the Devil the more we disable his despight and make him impotent If the Tempter could have foreseen that Heroick vertue in Job and in the holy Martyrs he would have recoiled away and not touch'd their person Now every man reaps the fruit and praise of his own labours but the valiant acts and victories of our Saviour are publick advantages for as his Death had a mortifying force against the Old man which is in us and a quickning force toward the New man so his Tentations had a dulling force against the Devil and a strengthening force for us to make our arms break a bow of steel Ideo tentatus est Christus ne vincatur à tentatore Christianus says St. Austin Christ did vanquish the Devil in his own tentations that we might be unvanquishable This is our confidite Joh xvi 33. Be of good chear I have overcome the world Si tu vicisti gaude quid ad nos The Father makes one return a churlish answer rejoyce your self if you have overcome what is that to us Yea Beloved this is our Interest that his skirmishing is our peace and his victory is our triumph O how he hath sanctified tentations and made them wholsom which before were rank poyson Those things which were the baits to draw us to damnation are now become the instruments of our happiness blessed is the man that endureth tentation for when he is tried he shall receive the Crown of life Whosoever perceives his own concupiscence allure him to do evil let him call for a Second to aid him if he be not able himself to endure the brunt I mean for Jesus Christ he will be a party in all those quarrels if you call upon him faithfully ever
Marium says the Consul Marius and so daunted his Executioner Thus then our Saviour had escaped their hands divinitatem publicando 2. Where were the Legions of Angels that did attend him That Host of Princes who solemnized his Nativity with peace on earth and good will towards men would have recanted and sung a song quite of another nature to guard him from his passion And thus our Saviour had escaped exercitum producendo Durandus tries his skill for a third reason thus corpus in se mortale ad immortalitatem perducendo If you ask what he means by it I will enlarge his mind Our bodies do decay and decline every day more and more unto corruption necessarily because it is past the cunning of any mortal man to know precisely to a crum of bread what nourishment is best to fulfil the place of that which decays daily in our body but as for Christ scivit in alimento quantum necesse fuit sumere ad restaurationem deperditi He having the treasures of all wisdom hidden in him needed not the advise of any man to instruct him how the decays of nature being justly repaired could preserve his mortal body in a sound constitution for everlasting Scotus thinks this reason too weak and so do I also For although Christ had this inspection to discern wholsom from unwholsom in all the works of nature yet consumption and dissolution would happen to his body from two things The first prejudice to his health would be impuritas alimenti the earth and all the fruits thereof yield not such strength and vertue as they did before the Floud of Noah Si Adam habuisset alimentum nostrum mortuus fuisset senio says the same Schoolman very boldly if Adam in his best estate had been fed with such meats as we are and none besides age had brought him to his Grave Again there is potentiae nutritivae debilitatio that gentle heat which gives warmth to the faculty of concoction would have gone out like a candle in the socket and therefore it stands for a conclusion in his Divinity that a medicinal intelligence of herbs and fruits and other viands had not drawn out our Saviours life unto immortality There is a fourth reason how Christ could have restrained all agony and passion from his body for ever and it is without exception Death in a reasonable creature is the wages of sin they are relatives secundum esse so that a man may say here is a sinner and therefore a dead man here is the Tomb of a dead man and therefore the Grave of a sinner The next conclusion cannot be parted from the former for if Sin and Death be acus filum if one do draw the other after it then there must be some miraculous disposition in that mans body who is no sinner but innocent as an Angel of light and yet obnoxious to death as a vile transgressor Where then lies the miracle in the substance of our Saviour why thus the whole Manhood was united to the whole Godhead in the Union hypostatical but the influence the grace and priviledg of the Divine nature was not diffused over the flesh nay it cast not the celestial beams upon all the parts of his Soul till after the resurrection but it shined only upon the superior faculties of the will and understanding The strength then of our Samson did lye in capite in the Divine nature which he would not use to immortalize his Body before the Resurrection Potuit relaxare influentiam divinae naturae ut in inferiorem portionem redundarâ—t sayes Biel. It was a miracle then that He could confine the influence of his Godhead for a time to the superior faculties of the Soul and I think you will confess that there was no miracle done by necessity or compulsion but upon this presumption that the flesh was left unassisted of the Divinity there follows a threefold necessity of his death and dissolution The first is called necessitas naturae nature would have dropt away when it grew mellow ripe according to the course of humane constitution The second is called necessitas coactionis supposing the malice of the Jews and his obedience to unjust Authority he must have suffered by necessity of compulsion The third is called necessitas finis a necessity of death lay upon him from Gods eternal Decree to accompass the happy end preordeined which is mans Redemption But what is the fruit of this Doctrine now where are the sheaves to fill our bosom you will say now I doubt it not that Christ had power to lay down his life and to take it up Then enlarge your hearts to receive St. Austins Meditation Amplius tenemur Christo quod liberè voluit pati quà m quòd necessario Our engagement had been less if Christ had suffered by absolute and imperious necessity but we praise our God the more we bless him we magnifie him we give thanks unto him with the greater affection because our Sacrifice is of choice and liberty But I pass from the consideration of the mighty power which was in our Saviour Had he rejoyced like a Giant to run his course what death could have seized upon him had our Samson awoke out of sleep and shook himself no fetters could have held him But if you will lay your ear to the sweetest harmony that ever was tuned ad aquae lene caput sacrae if you will give attention to the soft and still bubling from whence sprung all our salvation voluit in a word he would not plead his innocency before Pilat he would be offer'd up he would be crucified It is a memorable accident which Plutarch doth report of a Sacrifice in Lacedaemon The Priests were in great distress for an unspotted Beast to be slain Satan no doubt desiring to supply them with fuel to kindle their Idolatry an unspotted Heifer swam over the River and laid it self down before the Altar I know not the truth of this Story but sure I am that I know a Sacrifice which will fit the Parable For when wrath had faln upon Mankind throughout all Generations and a burnt-Offering was wanting to appease the Lord to the end that Isaac and the Sons of Promise and Election might escape the blow of death the chief Ram of the Flock vir gregis even Jesus Christ thrust his horns into the Thicket and entangled his strength in the guilt of our sins so Isaac was saved and the Ram was sacrificed Voluit would he suffer was there no remedy but to cut off the Head to save the Body had not Christ humbled himself so far as to the death of the Cross yet had not our Redemption been finished by the ignominy of his poor Nativity the lowliness of submission to his Parents the pang of his Fastings the horror of his Agony in the Garden might not all other reproaches have ransomed his life This curious Question the Schoolmen ask therefore let them resolve it First says Biel
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
desired him to add two Collects naming first that for the second Sunday in Lent and then afterward that for the first Sunday after Trinity both most pertinent to that great occasion and then to give the Blessing which being done he thanked him heartily with a faltring speech whereby the Company plainly perceived that with the end of his Prayers he drew near the end of his mortal life and desired to be left alone and so all departed the Room save a couple of Servants who within half a quarter of an hour gave notice of his placid departure with as gentle a transmigration to happiness as I think was ever heard of Thus I have declared sincerely the Life the Sickness the Departure of this worthy Christian Prelate who lived as good men desire to live and as many men that are but shadows appear to live and then departed with as easie an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as any man could desire to die His Funerals onely remain which were performed by the Reverend and Learned Dr. Scattergood his Lordships Chaplain in the Cathedral Church where He was interred neer the Body of his Predecessor Bishop Langthon as old people said both great Benefactors to that Church under a fair Tomb erected by the Piety of the most accomplisht Sir Andrew Hacket his Eldest Son and Heir both of his Estate and Virtues He was attended thither by multitudes of the Loyal Gentry and sorrowful Clergy of his Diocess all desirous to pay the utmost dues and rights they were able to his Memory thinking no Flowers too sweet for his Herse and no Box of Ointment too costly for his Burial all admiring his past Diligence sage Government admirable Ministrations and bewailing the great and universal loss by his Death Quantum praesidium Ausonia quantum Tu perdis Iule O Diocess of Lichfield what a Father hast thou lost O University of Cambridge what a Friend O House of Aaron what an Ornament O Church of England what a Saint Sic ora ferebant But we will no more deplore his Death or repine that He is taken from us but rather rejoyce and give God thanks that we ever had Him and that He lived so long with us This World was not worthy of Him who was fitter Company for Angels and Stars of Heaven then Clods of dust and bloud below and therefore God took Him from this Dunghil to stand before his Throne Where we leave thee blessed Soul among the Angelical Choir joyful in the illumination of the holy Trinity and ravisht with thy contemplation of the Divine and unconceivable glory We will endeavour not only to read and admire but practise all thy holy Counsels which now sound more loud from thy Books and Writings then they formerly did from thy rare Discourses and Preachings We ascribe the glory of all to God and will compose our selves to imitate thy Graces and Virtues O Divine Hacket whose Name is renowned and Memory for ever blessed And will hereafter listen with patience for the voice of the Arch-Angel and Trump of God for the Resurrection of the Dead the Renovation of the World the Creation of the New Heaven and New Earth at the glorious appearing of Christ Jesus with all his holy Angels and Saints and then in the Number of godly Prelates and faithful Doctors of the Christian Church I shall see again my Bishop and Father and hope to be seen of Him in Glory AMEN Come Lord Jesu come quickly OPTIMO PATRI PIENTISSIMVS FILIVS ANDREAS HACKET MILES F. F. JOANNIS HACKET Episc Lichf Coventr cinerib sacrum PRimaevae pietatis Et summae eloquentiae Praesulem Ecclesiae Anglicanae fidei orthodoxae Assertorem strenuum Concionatorem etiam ad ultimum assiduum Et Superstitionis Babylonicae tam maturum hostem Vt penè in cunis straverit Loyolitas Raro exemplo Vt Poeta praeluderet Theologo Vitae denique integritate innocentiâ Morum suavitate candore Charitate ergà pauperes eximiâ Et liberalitate erga suos insignem typum Verbo omnia Joh. Williams Metropol Ebor. Patroni sui Ectypum Desine ulterius quaerere Ista omnia Tabula haec unico in Hacketo exhibet Adversus positum caetera marmor habet Obiit 28. Oct. 1670. sub anno aetatis suae 79. Sistamus ergo Morae pretium est scire Quis demum Langthono claudit latus Solus HACKETUS tanto dignus contubernio Cujus piae liberalitati debetur Quod Langthoni cineres non frigescunt Aedis Cathedralis Lichfieldiae Instanrator illic Restaurator hìc jacet Ecclesiae Anglicanae antistitum par ingens Eóque ingentius quòd sibimet pares Scire vis Lector Quà m multis ille bonis flebilis occidit Schola regia Westmonast Alumnum Collegium SS Trinitatis Cantabr Socium Ecclesia S. Andreae Holbourn Quadragenarium Rectorem Et Cheam in agro Surriensi Quadragenarium Rectorem Aedes D. Pauli Residentiarium Sedes haec Episcopalis dignissimum sibi Praesulem abreptum deflet Sed ludo te Viator Dum inter mortuos refero Eum VIRVM Quem restauratae Pauli reliquiae Ceddae ruinae Quem Hospitium Episcopale SS Trin. Coll. de novo extructum Et Cantabr Bibliotheca libris cumulatè aucta Longum dabunt superstitem At the head of the Statue upon the Monument is ingraved I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep till I have found out a place for the Temple of the Lord. Psal 132. At the Feet Quam speciosa vestigia Evangelizantium pacem The Motto of the Coat at the Head of the Tomb Zelus domus tuae exedit me On the opposite Coat at the Feet Inservi Deo laetare Upon the Grave-stone that covers the Body in the Isle contiguous to the Monument JOHANNES HACKET Episcopus Lichf Coventr heic situs est THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 7. And she brought forth her first born Son and wrapped him in swadling cloths and laid him in a Manger because there was no room for them in the Inn c. THis is a part of that joyful news which God did impart at first unto the Angels which the Angels in the twelfth ver did reveal unto the Shepherds which the Shepherds in the seventeenth verse made known abroad and thereby at first perchance it came to St. Luke which St. Luke made known in this Gospel to the Church which the Church from time to time hath delivered unto us which I at this day deliver unto you and which you must tell unto your Children that one Generation may comfort another with it unto the ends of the World I am in love with my Text but how shall I open and dilate my joy upon it No that most venerable name Mary the blessed Mother of our Lord knew not how to do it For although when Gabriel brought tidings unto her that she should conceive then she could come out with a strange word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if her spirit friskt and danc'd within for gladness
David What 's this inclination of the ear we cannot bow or stir that part as we may the hand and the knee Aures hominum sunt immotae ut sit velox ad audiendum says one the ears of man are not to be wagg'd and mov'd like the ears of a beast to the end there may be no impediment in attention but that he may be swift to hear But he is said to incline his ear who hath a submissive heart and listens diligently to that which is spoken If a frivolous tale suppose the feigned pilgrimage of some Errant Knight be told us every syllable shall be markt so heedily that you will be able to repeat it Conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant But if God do send his servants to narrate his will and pleasure how many disturbances shall they find in their relation of heavenly things Sarah laught at the Angel Pharoah chafed and interrupted Moses the Jews mis-interpreted Christ himself Gallio marks not a word that 's said Eutyches sleeps the Athenians flout at Paul and say what means this babler who will take the pains to tell a message any more to him that will abuse it so neglectfully and if God should take away the preaching of his word from this people let them thank themselves who were so defective in all due and reverent attention But says John the Baptist The Friend of the Bridegroom standeth and heareth him and rejoyceth greatly because of the Bridegrooms voice John iii. 29. And so much for this word behold as it is a note of admiration of demonstration and lastly of attention Behold I bring c. Now the first of seven things which are remarkable in the message is that which hath met us often before in all the Texts upon this Gospel the consideration of the person that the Angel is sent unto us upon a peaceable entreaty Ecce ego Behold I bring you good tidings The children of men have so often provoked God to send Angels with a sword of vengeance to the earth that no doubt Gabriel was pleased to bring a welcome message with him A messenger cannot help it if he come with sorrowful news and yet for the most part men will be displeased at such a one whose tongue doth bode discomfort and infelicity Joab did tender the welfare of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok when he would not let him be the first that should certifie David how Absalom was dead says he Thou shalt bear tidings another day but this day thou shalt bear no tidings because the Kings Son is dead Therefore if you mark it Angels that came to inflict punishment or to threaten some ensuing mischief came single for the most part or never above two at once but to do a good office to men upon earth to protect Elisha from the Aramites to annuntiate that the Messias was come into the world they came by troops and multitudes no less in this chapter then a multitude of the heavenly host There were three with Abraham in his tent to tell him that Isaac the son of promise should be born unto him of Sarah in their old age and we cannot but take notice how one of the three vanisht and was gone when they went into Lot's house to warn him that Sodom should be destroyed with fire and brimstone How far are they from this Angelical benevolence that gird other men with the remembrance of their misfortunes and insult over their miseries as Shimei us'd David in his affliction a curse will fall upon them that love to be instruments to undo men rather than to raise them up that delight in the crosses of their brother rather than in their consolation Miserable comforters as Job said of his Friends that powred vinegar into his wounds to vex them not to heal them But these holy ones that are sent from above delight to be the Embassadors of joy the first of them all that I read of in holy Scripture came to administer help and succor to the distressed and that was the Angel that came to Hagar to chear up her drooping spirits and to put her into the way of safety when she and Ishmael the child were almost ready to perish And now one of them comes in my Text with good news to shew that a perfect friendship was made up between all parties in this verse between Angels and Men for Ego Evangelizo I come to rejoyce with you as a friend I bring you good news 2. A friendship between God and man for a Saviour is born unto you which is Christ the Lord. 3. Friendship and amity between man and man between Kingdom and Kingdom between one Nation and another people at the 14. verse On earth peace and good will towards men Yet when our sins cry out for vengeance this truce is broke of all sides The sword of our enemies shall be unsheath'd and all peace shall be dissolv'd between man and man our Saviour shall become our angry Judge neither shall the blessing descend from God to Man Lastly the Angel shall draw his sword and cause the pestilence to cut down thousands upon thousands as the Mower shears down the grass of the field I am sure the fury of such an angry Angel sticks still in our remembrance Therefore let every man for his part keep fast the bond of his tripartite friendship by sanctification and obedience then the Angels will come unto us not in fury but in mercy saying Ecce ego c. I proceed to the next circumstance Ecce Evangelizo we render it to bring good tidings but it is as if he had said I come to be an Evangelist I am no Law-giver whose voice was terrible I am a messenger of a better Covenant of the Gospel of Grace At this Text beloved the Spirit of God doth enter the word Gospel or Evangel quite to alter the state of the Church from what it had been before For the better understanding hereof I pray you mark it attentively in what manner God did dispence his will and pleasure to his Church from the beginning of the world to the end of all times And for order sake I will reduce it all to three heads to a Law which was given by God to Adam to a Law which was given by Moses to Israel and to these glad tidings to wit the Gospel of the New Testament which was given by Christ to all Nations from one end of the earth to the other 1. Now I buckle to the first of these a Law was given by God to Adam That Law was short and commandatory fac vive do this and live therefore that is rightly called the Law of Works but the Gospel says if thou believest thou shalt be saved therefore that 's called the Law of Faith The same God was the author of both these both were revealed to men and to no other creature both of them according as we perform them promise the same reward both of them have
Christ Here are species praeliantium voces cantantium the habit of War and the Song of Peace Their habit shews what was before war and enmity against the earth their Song shews what shall be hereafter confidence and courage against our spiritual foes and assurance to get the mastery and so to have joy and peace in the Holy Ghost If Herod and all his partizans were troubled to hear the wisemen ask Where is he that is born King of the Jews what concussion of fear would have been among them to have heard that he brought a multitude of heavenly Souldiers with him into the world they are a defensive guard unto his little flock and though Tyrants rage though Inquisitions be advanced though Leagues be sworn though Armadoes fill the Seas and the Air with their Ships and Sails though the Rulers of the earth take counsel against the Lord and against his Christ yet there is an Army always ready prest in the Air the mighty one hath girt his Sword upon his thigh to deliver his Church in the time of need and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Therefore Solomon says of it thou art comely as Jerusalem and terrible as an Army with banners Cant. vi 4. Some of little Faith may look upon Christ newly born with fleshly eyes and may doubtingly say Nunquid isle salvare potest Israelem Can this Infant restore Israel can this sucking babe lead forth our Armies to vanquish our enemies O see how many legions he can command from Heaven and then say it is a vain thing to trust in the forces of man it is the Lord that hath powers and principalities in store to awe the world loe he cometh with a multitude of the heavenly host Thus much of the Choiristers I have now to speak of the preparation to their musick which is two-fold for it was with much speediness and with much chearfulness with much speediness for suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host The Choire was not long a tuning but the Hymn was sung immediately after the Sermon was ended like a chime that follows a Clock without distinction of a minute one good work follows another incontinently without any tedious pause or lingring respite as Pliny said of the Emperour Trajan in his Panegyrick that the people did often give him extemporary applauses and those sudden acclamations were a sign of their true hearty liking of his government Quae fingendi non habent tempus for being done of a sudden they had no leasure to think how to dissemble or flatter him so it is a sign our heart is right with the Lord when we break out into sudden praises of his goodness upon all occasional meditations When we have received any favour or when the merciful kindness of the Lord comes into our remembrance why do we not break forth into a speedy benediction and thanksgiving at what should we stick certainly every hesitation is a sin every moment of delay is ingratitude it was a Prophetical motion in John the Baptist before he was born as soon as the voice of the salutation of the Blessed Virgin sounded in Elizabeths ears the babe leaped in her womb for joy Quick motions of zeal and devotion are ever most acceptable Procrastinating of time is the ready way to be taken tardy like the foolish Virgins When Abraham entertain'd Angels Gen. xviii he gave them welcome as I may say with Angelical celerity Abraham hastned into the Tent to Sarah Sarah made ready quickly three measures of fine meal Abraham ran into the herd for a tender Calf and gave it to a young man and he hasted to dress it See what an active family here was all upon the speed to do good Nemo piger est in domo charitatis a charitable house had not one sluggish person in it The Cherubims are graven with wings to put wings to our slothfulness our heart should fly as fast to all good works as an arrow out of a well drawn bow The faithful among the Jews had long waited for the joy of their eyes the promised Messias day by day they did expect his appearance and one of their own says it was a chief part of the service and Prayers in the Synagogues to beseech God that his Anointed his Christ would come into the world After this earnest expectation he comes with as much haste and expedition as heart could wish messenger upon messenger one Angel after another and a third telling his errand almost before the second had done And because all the Angels equally wish our salvation one as much as another the whole multitude of them with the same nimble dispatch at the same instant proclaim it That the day-spring from on high hath visited us Yet before I end this point understand the case right the heavenly host did publish these glad tidings suddainly that God should be glorified the earth should have peace and good will should be imparted to sinners not that suddainly and immediately from that moment it should so come to pass Joseph had a dream sent him from God that his Father and his Brethren should bend unto him and he should be possest of great command and so it came to pass but after long imprisonment and much tribulation The Angel Gabriel greeted Mary that she was highly favoured of God the Shepherds honour'd her the Wise men visited her Simeon blest her yet the same Simeon tells her that before her blessedness should be accomplisht a Sword should pierce her own soul So the Angels give suddain intelligence of glad tidings and suddain joy makes the passion the stronger but many years were to turn about before the effects of their message should be fulfilled that is the earth enjoy her peace and God his glory For the speediness of the coming of the heavenly host let this suffice the other circumstance which concurs with the delivery of their message is their chearfulness and alacrity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they praised God with a merry noise and I must say it since all Expositors have said as much before me they sang chearfully to the God of Jacob They that offer him praise do honour him Psal l. 23. Now after the honouring of God for his own being for the eternal generation of the word for the proceeding of the Holy Ghost the supreme most excellent most glorious work is the Incarnation of Christ This is that noble act for whose sake all voices that have utterance shall magnifie him for evermore Therefore the usual Evening Anthem in Cathedrals I and the Psalms sung in private Parishes I am sure my observation deceives not was wont to be Psal cxlviii Praise ye the Lord from the heavens praise ye him all his Angels praise him all the host praise ye him Sun and Moon praise him all ye stars of light c. And the first Psalm among those proper ones appointed for morning Prayer begins The heavens declare the
and of Princely Justice that there is no impunity or connivency for them that scandalize the glory of the great King who ruleth over all Fourthly God hath his house wherein he hath promised to dwell let every thing therein be magnificent full of splendor bountiful fit to entertain his Majesty The Angels might have said Fie upon the earth when they sang glory in the highest to see Christ tumbled heedlesly in a Stable by most brutish hospitality I am sure men deserved no glory for this days work to bestow their Saviour in so ignominious a Lodging we may all blush to remember it but that I hope through all Ages we will satisfie for it as we shall be able and reform it Provide for him sumptuously in the beauty of holiness let no place be statelier than Christs Church among us Gentiles because no place was worse than the Manger wherein he was received among the Jews These things as I have laid them in order you may do well to do and then the good Angels have their wish but the Devil doth all he can to spoil their celestial musick We like not this partition says St. Austin wherein men have peace demised to them and God hath all the glory Et dum gloriam usurpant turbant pacem but they drive away their own peace by usurping glory O stulti filii Adae qui contemnentes pacem gloriam appetentes pacem perdunt gloriam Fond and silly men that neglect peace and seize upon glory to themselves and so they lose both peace and glory But most accurate is this distribution as the Choir of heaven hath laid it forth Here is nothing but discord and sedition in this lower world Nation against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom nay the very bowels of the Church torn out with Questions and Controversies here the blessing of peace is most to be desired to bring bone unto his bone and sinew unto his sinew In the world above their is nothing but righteousness and zeal and purity therefore the proper Incense to be sent up thither is perpetual praise and glory Avoid Satan that wouldst confound these things that malignant Spirit knows it would be no peace in earth if men on earth should hunt for glory but peace will ensue here if glory be given to him that is above So runs these words which are the Angels Congratulation to God their Prayer for men their Sermon unto men Glory be c. The next staff of the Song is and on earth peace for the second happiness on earth is peace and there is but one blessing that is Gods glory before it Some take the word peace in this place personally for Christ himself as if the Song went Let God be glorified that hath sent Jesus the Prince of Peace upon earth who brings good will to men Qui in coelis glorificatur in terrâ est factus terrenus says one He that sitteth in the heavens and ruleth over all dwelt upon the earth and became the peace of earth and the chastisement of our peace is upon him Isa liii Indeed he is God from heaven man from earth partaker of both in his two natures and therefore fit to reconcile all and to put all in peace It is the Hypostatical union that brings both ends together the two extremes heaven and earth and by that inseparable union God greets us with the kiss of love and gives us osculum pacis the Symbol of much endeared friendship the kiss of peace All enmities were so compounded and well agreed for his sake that St. Paul says He is our peace Eph. ii 14. The principal reconciliation which he obtained was that man might have peace with God for God wanted his own glory through the Idolatry of the world and therefore men wanted their peace because of their sins Our first Fathers prevarication we must often look back to that woful estate had caused such a rupture between God and us that no doubt the very Angels wondred how that offence would ever be remitted and forgotten And indeed that rent could never have been made up unless God and man by an infinite dispensation had been pieced together in one person unless he that is greater than Moses had stood before him in the gap to turn away his wrathful indignation we should all have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah Justice hath a great voice among the Attributes of God carries a mighty sway and it roared out from Mount Sinai Cursed is he that keeps not this whole Law cursed be he that breaks a tittle Then Christ steps in the Malediction light upon me I will endure it but these Sheep let them be spared Why Justice could not say this was a total indulgence then it would have clamoured but only a commutation of punishment for our acquitment the Lord did lay upon his Son the iniquity of us all We must not say this was just therefore the Lord decreed it but the Lord decreed it therefore this was just Alius solvit pro debitore aliud solvitur quam debebatur one was the debtor and another satisfied one thing was owed to God I mean the life of sinners another thing was paid I mean the life of an innocent So Justice had no injury and Mercy had no denial but justitia pax osculatae sunt two things that stood at distance were brought together that is righteousness and peace did kiss each other Psal lxxxiv If we set not Christ before us the Mediator between God and man our unworthiness would be such that we durst not ask of God to be appeased with us We could expect nothing but tribulation and anguish upon every soul both Jew and Gentile and that all the Angels should be in arms like Souldiers to bid us battel and to slay us But Christ came into the world like an Herald to stop the battel the Angels sang of their arms Salvation appeared unto us we cast up our eyes with joy to heaven from whence cometh our help our help cometh even from the Lord which hath made heaven and earth therefore when Christ was brought with triumph into Jerusalem the Song of the people did a little vary from my Text Peace in heaven say they and glory in the highest for when the great Majesty of heaven was pleased to spare men on earth the sure part of the amity was peace in heaven for when Christ had reconciled us to his Father that the peace came downward the Covenant was sure and could never be broken The next peace which the Angels congratulate unto us is Interioris domus tranquillitas if Christ have attoned the variances which our sins made between us and God peace will succeed within the closets of the conscience where there was nothing but horror before and perturbation Therefore Theophylact doth thus connect the first and second part of this Song Gloria in excelsis Deo quia in terra pacem secit Glory
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
humors then have with you they will be present in the Congregation Whereas our Saviour hath abstracted from all such humane qualifications and scandalous niceties that the sound of his Ministers should go forth into all the world and he that hath ears to hear let him not be so scrupulous in his choice but let him hear Paul was pleased to have Christ preached either through contention or sincerely all manner of ways says he I rejoyce Phil. i. 18. They that came to mock the Apostles as men drunk were caught by hearing them They that came to take our Saviour themselves were taken by hearing John vii 37. Many of the negligent rank that come to gaze about rather than to attend many that come hither with affections worse than beasts depart converted and repentant with a new heart and a new spirit more like Angels than men In brief let the Heathen that communicate not in the Gospel enjoy all that this earth and the plenty thereof can afford yet they and none but they are blessed that hear the word of God And if you will make a good man ply him apace with this exhortation to hear yet know now that is but the first rude draught of him till you finish him with that which follows he must hear and keep that which he hears Let him hear the sayings of Christ and do them then he shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock Mat. vii 24. Custodia Sermonis Dei est ejus adimpletio says Euthymius upon my Text to keep the word is to do as we are taught and to endeavour to fulfil the royal Law This is the very concluding promise which God did send to Israel by his messenger Moses If thou shalt hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day blessed shalt thou be in the City and blessed in the field Deut. xxviii most divinely the Psalmist Psal cxi 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have all they that do thereafter So that the understanding of the law of God consists not in knowledge and speculation but in practice and execution We must be Servants as well as Disciples The work of a Disciple is to hear and conceive aright but the work of a Servant is to do and obey and though dissimulation will intrude it self into every good thing yet there may be nay there is ten thousand times more hypocrisie in hearing than there can be in doing Imperfect fruits are more pleasing to God than bare leaves A sorry doer such a one as Ahab was in his sullen and crude repentance shall have more recompence from God than a barren unprofitable hearer that thrusts in at all the Lectures and Exercises that City and Country affords Live so that all men may see you have often talkt with God and God hath spoken often to you from this holy place else I must leave you among those that are censur'd by St. Paul 2 Tim. iii. 7. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth I told you before that Mary sate at our Saviours feet to hear his Sermon when Martha minded other domestical business between those two Maries choice was much more transcendent and unum necessarium but not unicum one necessary duty but not the only a part of Religion but not the whole for in another place Maries part of doing was far better than her part of hearing I mean her anointing of Christs head with a box of precious oyntment For this that she hath done shall be spoken of throughout the world Mat. xxvi 13. Let me make a summary application of all and so conclude This day we begin to solemnize the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and continue it with a Festival dedication for twelve days following There are three sorts of men that make most different uses of it some that are Epicures and never consider what great work the Lord wrought at this time that we have an Advocate with the Father who is the propitiation for our sins but they consider that feasting and freedom are vulgar in these days and they take their fill of that but according to their riotous manners you cannot conceive that they keep the Birth of Christ holy but that they celebrate a wakes for the making of some golden Calf for they sit down to eat and to drink and rise up to play Secondly There are others that honour God with their lips that will say this is an happy season wherein a Redeemer came down among us God hath raised up a mighty salvation for us all because he hath sent his Son to take our nature upon him And as Micah said being a most idolatrous sinner Now know I that the Lord will do me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Judg. xvii 11. So these men flatter themselves in their impenitent lives Now know I that the Lord will be merciful and spare me since the word became flesh and dwelt among us But I hope there are many of the third sort that conceive unutterrable gladness for the Nativity of their Saviour but they know withal that as Christ is the meritorious cause of all blessedness so it is a most barren faith to rest only in the contemplation of that for as all mankind are blessed that the womb did bear him and that the paps did give him suck so it must be accomplisht by this obedience Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Do you love him for his Incarnation then keep his sayings If a man love me he will keep my sayings Do you wonder that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son then take heed of maligning and hating one another He that says he loves God and hateth his brother is a lyar and there is no truth in him Do you honour his humility then command your self to imitate him in lowliness of heart would you do all due celebration to his sacred Birth frequent his holy Temple and hear his word and observe it 'T is much in every ones talk who keeps a good house in Christmass Beloved you are now at this present in the best that is Can any man keep a better house than God would you wish a more delicious banquet then such Confessions such Collects such Litanies such heavenly Prayers as our Church hath appointed in which there is nothing wanting but company to attend them what delicacies are contained in the holy Scriptures both read and preacht unto you what edifying Doctrine in the Homilies which are read on the Saints days together with the Divine Service and above all what Nectar what Manna what restoring Cordials are received in the Blessed Sacrament This is the house which God keeps who also allows you to be chearful at home at this season and commends it to you
the word of men though they call themselves the Church for the children of men are deceitful upon the weights they are altogether lighter than vanity it self To draw this Doctrine streight and even upon the Text 1. Many will alledge Simeons example and say they could willingly die if they might see this or that come to pass Pray observe that such as these seldom or never see their desire come to pass because they fabricate vain hopes to themselves without the word of the Lord. 2. When that which they long'd for doth come to pass they are content to redeem it with any Physick or cost that they may not die for all their bragging like the woman in the Fable that was miserably poor and gathering sticks for her fire and herbs for her sustenance being vexed with extreme want she bursts out into this frowardness O that death would come to me Says the Fable death did come to her to know what she would have Help me up with my bundle of sticks says she I have nothing else to say to you But this is the sum of this point all our petitions are but avaritious craving or unchristian presumption unless we say Lord let it be according to thy word And now I shall end my Sermon in that point wherein Simeon desired to end his life it is the reason upon which he stood why he would depart because he had seen that which his soul waited for before it flitted away For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which is to this effect the Redeemer is come let my fetters therefore be broken off my joy is excessive and superlative this frail flesh cannot contain it The new Wine is poured in O let the old bottles break Thou hast granted me more than ever thou didst grant to any Prophet upon earth therefore exalt me to thy Saints in heaven For all the Prophets could get no more than this answer that a Virgin should conceive Immanuel that is God with us should be born and their posterity should not fail to behold him in after ages but says St. Paul all these died in Faith not having received the promises themselves but having seen them afar off Heb. xi 13. Now this Patriarch did far exceed all the Prophets that he saw the Messias with his own eyes and none other And mark the Pleonasmus not contented to have said I have seen thy salvation He doth denote the assurance of the act that he was not deceived hisce oculis vidi I have seen him with mine eyes it is the very Jesus that shall save the world I cannot be deluded as Vlysses speaks to Circe in Homer that she should re-transform his associates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishing true sight from phantastical Nicephorus a most corrupt Historian hath a tale by himself that Simeon was so far stricken in years that he had been long blind and as soon as ever this heavenly babe was brought near unto him he recovered his sight and therefore he magnifies God that his eyes were restored to see the object of all objects the blessed Child Incarnate and is it likely that St. Luke would have concealed such a miracle if it had been true and would God have let us receive it from so corrupt an hand as Nicephorus The Scripture says ver 27. of this Chapter He came by the Spirit into the Temple not that he was led like a blind man There are some conjectures that rove at random likewise by what means he should discern such Divine glory in our Saviour Admit there were other Infants presented in the Temple at the same time how did he perceive that this was the Son of the most high rather than any of the rest I find one Author shoot his bolt that a celestial splendor came down from Heaven and shone round about the Child I find another Author more superstitious than this that the Blessed Virgin was compast about with a cloud of glorious light in the place where she stood and so that honour should terminate it self upon her and not upon Christ This is to trifle in a most serious matter for certainly the suggestion of the Holy Ghost within him was enough to direct him without any external cognizance and therefore Nyssen says well Blessed were the eyes both of his soul and body his bodily eyes did see the happiest sight in heaven and earth but the eyes of his soul did respect that which is invisible His bodily eyes did see God made of a woman an object more beautiful and estimable then even Paradise it self when Adam saw it at the best Nay more beautiful than the whole Revelation which S. John saw in heaven excepting Christ himself whom he saw upon his throne Abraham would have given his portion in the promised land to have seen him David his Kingdom Solomon his revenews of Ophir and therefore no wonder if Simeon triumph in it that the eyes of his body had seen him But what the eyes of his soul did pierce into is magnum auctarium an huge addition They did see his salvation and salvation cannot be comprehended but by a lively and an effectual Faith They did see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cornu salutis as old Zachary calls it in whom God had reposed all the stock and treasure of salvation But why thy salvation and not rather ours had it not been more proper to say mine eyes have seen mine or our salvation There is no difference in effect one saying is as proper as the other salutare tuum for he is the Son of God the gift of God to us the holy One conceived by the Holy Ghost and in those notions Gods salvation as David says the Lord hath made known his salvation Psal xcviii 2. Again salutare nostrum for he came to redeem us and to give himself a ransom for us and so he is our salvation As if Simeon had said this is he after whom Jacobs heart panted Gen. xlix 18. I have waited for thy salvation O Lord. This is he of whom Isaiah foretold All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God chap. lii 10. He comes with much impotency and weakness to be presented in the Temple and to be redeemed after the custom of the Law with five shekels of silver but he will redeem us both from the bondage of the Law and from the bondage of sin with the five wounds of his body If such salvation as this were only to be glanced upon perfunctorily this sage Israelite would have been contented to have seen him and rested there but forasmuch as we must incorporate our Saviour in our souls and endeavour that there be a real union 'twixt Christ and us therefore in the verse before my Text Simeon took up our Saviour into his arms and St. John makes that a great mystery of his own and his brethrens happiness that their hands had handled the word of life Quod Simeon ulnis gestavit nos fide
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
from another at the first asking and never draw sword for it nor give battel to resist it It was a short Motto which Pompey gave touching his speedy victories in Asia yet the work was longer a doing than so Veni vidi vici he came towards them and looked them in the face and vanquisht them Yet Satan pretended to make briefer work than this Motto execrable spirit he dares to assume that which is proper to the Almighty to speak the word and the whole World should have a new face of government and that he could remove Kings as Christ said his Disciples by faith should remove mountains be thou cast into the sea and it should be gone Perhaps he remembers how suddenly himself was deposed from glory I saw Satan fall like lightning sayes our Saviour which flasheth through the air and is out before you could think of it and when God pleaseth all the Kingdoms of the Earth shall have as sudden a transmutation when he shall come in glory and take all power and dominion into his own hand to judg both the quick and the dead But in the mean time the Thrones of Kings are established in Heaven the powers that are they are from God and it is not in the strength of Satan to confuse those Governments which God hath put in order therefore he is a lyar with an hyperbole of impudencie to say all this power will I give thee c. Yet by these words Ambition is accused to be an unstinted sin for why should Satan offer all but that he knows it to be an unlimited passion which is not satiated with one Crown but would subject every corner of the world unto it self The Sun can endure the Moon to partake with it in giving light unto the earth the Sun to govern the Day and the Moon to govern the Night but amongst these proud imperious Spirits some can endure no Superiour and some no equal Every one that is not their Vassal is held their Enemy Fire is a raging Element and would turn all other Elements into it self if God should not temper and asswage it So if God should not raise up Adversaries to oppose some mens Ambition they would bruise the four quarters of the world with a rod of Iron Is it not enough to write this word under a terrestrial Sphere for an Empreza of large Dominions Sol mihi semper lucet it is always day in some of his Realms if the Sun set in one of his Kingdoms it is shining in another Is not this enough I say But further to betray a mind that aims at all these Letters were engraven upon a Gate at Rome at a solemn time of Triumph Vnus Deus unus Papa unus rex catholicus I will not interpret them out of Latine for I hope they shall never be turned into English I think if God should create a new earth which never was made before some would lay claim to it As Fr. Victoria and sundry other Divines stretcht their learning to prove it out of the Gospel that the whole Tract of America possess'd before by millions of Owners but newly discovered to Europe did every whit belong to the King their Master The cares the anxieties the watchings that a good Ruler suffers to keep a small part of the earth which God hath given him in Justice and the love of true Religion The Eagerness the Fury the Phrensie that the Ambitious hath to clasp and compass all that God hath made here beneath which is more wide and ample by far than it is possible for one mans forcast and providence to keep in order None shall be more willing than Satan to make one man Lord of all for that is the ready way to mar all And when that enemy of our peace hath stoln away our content he cares not what we compass though it were all the power and glory in the world for without it we shall seem losers to our selves and such as are always wanting When Eve was Lady and Mistress of the whole world without a Competitor yet because there was a Godship higher than that estate she was not satisfied with her portion but would try conclusions to be like unto God knowing good and evil But to contract this Point I give it this minatory farewel He that extends his Ambition to get all power and all glory he that knows no top in that honour that he would mount to shall be cast down into misery that hath no bottom into the bottomless pit It is but late that I told you in a former Sermon upon this Text that when the Tempter made an overture to Christ of all the Riches in the Universe that the gift was not more spacious than unjust for it cannot be supposed how one man should be seized of all that is in the world by his proper right but by ejecting all Possessors in the world and respectively every private man from that Inheritance which he held before And that the wicked one may be constant to himself at all times alike stark naught he deals worse in this half of his liberality than in the former for if he intend to make Christ the Catholick Monarch of the world and give him all the power and glory of it it must need fall in that all the Kings and Princes of the world must be deposed from their Soveraignty and strike sail to the new erected A discovery not to be passed in silence It hath been defended by many Pens of late that Gregory the Seventh was the first that ever broach'd the Doctrine and Practice together that the Anointed of the Lord might be unking'd and stript of all their Royaltie by the effulminations of the Romans Pontife Loe you now that the learned of the Protestants should be so much over-seen in Antiquity for here is a Classical Author in my Text that holds that opinion about a thousand years a little over or under before Hildebrand had his honour For that Gregory the Seventh flourished much about a thousand years after Christ that very time which the Spirit of God said should be fulfilled and then Satan should be let loose after that one thousand years for a little season But as I said Hildebrand was not the first broacher of that disloyal Paradox here is his chief in my Text and to confirm what I say Matthew Paris our own Historian of great fame avers that the said Pope at his death which was in banishment cried out of his own wicked ways and treacherous Principles against his Lord the Emperour and confessed that the Devil set him on to disturbe the whole world with mutiny Yet how little the Successors in the Papacy have profited by his repentance I will tell you by that which is disputed daily in the School of one Tyrannus that I may allude to that of St. Luke Acts xix 9. Those Dogmatists are divided three several ways Some consciencious Romanists have taught that the Pope may not at
boni nostri An infinite perfection of excellency on which all things do depend for their first being and for their last happiness So St. Austin Haec est religio Christiana ut non colatur nisi unus Deus quia non fecit animam beatam nisi unus Deus Religious prostration seeks out no object but such as can make the soul blessed for ever and that is the only Lord. St. Hilary In maledicto est religio creaturae All Religion done to a Creature is accursed That Weather-cock Spalatensis after much search in antiquity confesseth that Nazianzen in the Greek Church Gregory the Great in the Latine Church knew of no other Religious Worship but that which is called Latria the veneration of God Nay their great Schoolman Aquinas I will make him the Judge against himself Religio est virtus exhibens famulatum Deo in iis quae specialiter pertinent ad Deum Religion is a vertue which doth perform all Ministry to God in those duties which peculiarly belong to God Go now and say against all these reasons and testimonies there is some kind of Religious Worship pertaining to a Creature I have heard some interpret it thus it is not denied but we are to give honour to the blessed Angels and Saints yes verily God forbid else Then they encroach that we are taught by our Religion to give them that honour therefore that honour which we do give them is Religious A most unlearned Assumption Religion teacheth the Children to honour the Parents yet it is not Religious honour but Civil that is given to our Parents Religion teacheth a Mariner or Plowman to follow his Calling diligently yet those are not religious but worldly businesses Religious Worship is the actus elicitus the immediate act which flows from Religion but all other honest civil Offices are actus imperati à latria Actions wherein Religion governs us and teacheth us but they are not properly called religious In a word no such excellency can be apprehended in a Creature to have religious honour done unto it for Religion binds the soul for ever to that it worships and that is only to God Therefore I conclude the first Dogmatical part of my Text that Christ included all kind of religious honours exempted none when he said Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And when the Pontificians profess to ascribe a Religious Dulia but no Latria to a Creature their Practice and their Doctrine cannot agree if they yield Religious Worship of what kind soever to any thing save unto the Lord our God if it be not Idolatry it is gross Superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The glory of a pious heart be given to God alone and not to God and the ever blessed Virgin joyned together as the Jesuites generally conclude all their Books with that Blasphemy There is more of my task behind though but little of it can be spent in this hour to demolish the errors of them that have offended against this Imperial Law Thou shalt worship c. Sundry false opinions have beaten upon these words as upon an Anvil open enemies and deceitful friends have risen up against it Some are totally some in half some are quarter Idolaters but the least corn of that sin is as heavy as a Milstone to plunge them without repentance into damnation In many of the Errors to be refuted I will be at a word and dispatch in some I will insist the longer where I find them worth my labour Those transgressors that worship not God alone are of three sorts The first are such as make another God than the Lord of heaven and earth in their own heart and worship that invention The second are they that kneel unto the true God and yet reserve some part of Religious Worship for his glorified Creatures as the Blessed Virgin the Angels the Saints both living and departed both themselves and their very Reliques shall have some part of their Adoration Thirdly Beside the honour which they give to the invisible God they find out a way to worship him in visible works of their own hands in Images in the figure of the Cross in the Elements of the Lords Supper All these are Aberrations for there is but one truth against them all Thou shalt worship the Lord c. First God loseth all his honour at their hands that frame a new God in their own heart and do all their service to it like the Ephesians that hallowed no other power in heaven and earth but a Goddess of their own acceptation Great is Diana of the Ephesians This is the most gross Idolatry of all other which professeth not the true God one whit and professeth that to be a God which hath no subsistence but the Metal of Gold or Silver or any other stuff upon which the Artist exercised his invention This is the foul and apparent transgression of the first Commandment but to worship the true God in a manner contrary to that he hath commanded in a piece of bread or in an Image is Idolatry by reduction and against the Second Commandment But the transgression of the Heathen was most vicious that knew no God but the works of their own hands The Scripture says they sinned more grievously that worshipped Baalim than they that worshipped the true God in Jeroboams Calves For Jehu called the Israelites that worshipped God in those Calves the worshippers of the Lord. But when Ahab was not content with that sin but was seduced by his Wife Jezabel who came of the Idolatrous Zidonians says the Lord as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the Son of Nebat he went and served Baal and worshipped him 1 Kings xvi 23. It is more pestilentious you see to worship a stark Idol than to worship the true God in an Idol though both are abominable But I will not speak of that stupid Idolatry of the Heathen whose own folly hath laught it out of the world if the workman could have put life into his work the Statue would have worshipped him for making it All those puppit Gods are faln down like Dagon of the Philistins and the Jewish Writers observe well that Dagons feet and hands were broken off from his body Partes adorationis abscissae sunt The Philistins worshipped that stock with their bended knee and their hands lifted up therefore the Idol lost his hands and knees Furthermore Dagon fell down upon his face Non tantum jacens sed super os jacens ut videretur adorare arcam Domini He was laid in a posture as if prostrate before the Ark of God as if the Heathen and all their vain inventions should be turned into the praise of the true God Worship him all ye Gods I will close this Point with a Paradox They which most abhor all Pictures and Images at this day they which hate them more than they should do even in
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
Davids words Hei mihi quia incolatus meus prolongatus est Alass for me that I see any more days upon earth when I cannot see that we have kept that peace in the Church which we have received from our Fore-fathers And I forget not the Poetry of Theodore Beza he lived so long till he had made Elegies upon the Funerals of all his learned Friends at last he heard of a choice pair Gualter and Lavater that they were dead to honour whose memory thus he begins Semper ego infelix lugenda in funera fratrum vivam superstes omnibus Shall I unhappy out-live all my Brethren to make Epitaphs upon them He that sees many days and nights sees many calamities And therefore one said elegantly of John the Apostle who out-lived all his fellows but died not a Martyr as they did that to live to such an extreme old age was his Martyrdom Longaevitas Johanni Martyriam quoddam fuit Surely God multiplies the days of a good man oftentimes that he may please him the more by desiring death Do not deplore with Micah of Mount Ephraim that our false Gods are taken away but that we are so long kept from the true God Of this good desire of dissolution and departure Peter would deprive himself by affecting a phantastical kind of felicity in Mount Thabor Master it is good c. I call it fantastical felicity because it ariseth from the love of the flesh which thinks all is well enough when it is removed far enough from sorrow and trouble therefore I ask in the third place An bonum sit non effligi If that condition of life be well chosen in this world which appears as this did to Peter to be exempted from all affliction Solomon said no and he is to be believed when he speaks by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost Eccles vii 2. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting those were two diverse things in his days but now every house of mourning must be an house of feasting and banqueting but he adds Sorrow is better than laughter for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better What a petty Kingdom had this Apostle chosen for himself and his fellows a Paradise as he thought without thorn or briar no labour in it no exercise no adventuring for Christ no profit for the Church somewhat like Monastical Recluses every one in his Tabernacle and in such places where there is least stir there is the greatest tentation Is this the holy ground whereon he would set his feet and never depart No it was better for him when he walked unto his Master upon the waters of tribulation Danger is the best Centinel in the world to make us watch our enemies Fear is the best warning-bell to call us often to Prayer Tribulation is the best Orator to perswade us to humility O Lord in trouble have they visited thee and they poured out a Prayer when thy chastising was upon them Isa xxvi 16. If any man be afflicted let him pray says St. James but if any man be not afflicted let him fast and pray for he is in the greater danger Plato was requested to draw a book of Laws for the Commonwealth of the Cyrenians he said he would take time and they asked him how long He answered Till some great calamity befall the City for hitherto they had been so happy that no Law giver could appoint them such Rules as were fit to govern them And surely St. Austin was not of St. Peters mind he would not have chosen to inhabit in a Mountain devoid of all misery for he had proved the world and found it true Mundus ille periculosior est cum se allicit diligi quà m cum secogit contemni This world will bring more hurt about when it allures us to love it than when it vexeth us to hate it A pretty Fable is that in the Moralist of a man that sought Pearls upon the Sea-shore at a low tide he lighted upon many shells of good Pearl able to enrich him and he ventured upon the Shelves for more and more till the Tide came round about him and he could not scape with his life O says he I should have learnt wisdom of the God of Nature who cast these Gems loosely and regardlesly upon the Sea-shore as things rather to be lost than found At last he besought a fisherman who came that way to take all his Pearls for his pains and save his life in his Cock-boat As he was taken in an ambush of the Sea in the midst of his good fortune so mischief arrests the worldly man in the midst of prosperity When Peter was scourged by the High-Priests when he was imprisoned by Herod when he was under Nero in the Lions paw that devoured him these were good times for the health of his soul that as the outward man perished the inward man might be renewed dayly But to be in a brightsom pleasant habitation Grave est molestum est periculosum est says Gregory It was dangerous it was obnoxious to many inconveniences which will appear yet further by the fourth question An bonum sit in terrâ manere Is there any rest upon earth on which we may say It is good c. 4. Where shall the Dove rest his foot If we would be contented with the present state we enjoy yet all things will change and though all things should remain as they are and never change yet we would never be contented The Sea is a new Sea every Tide the earth is a new earth every month or every quarter at the longest distance the same mutability whirls us about and the things that we possess Whether I be upon Sea or Land upon Mount Tabor or upon Mount Hermon I carry my self about and shall be weary of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was a Cynical Philosopher indeed that ran over every kind of life as unsatiated with it but it was not Philosophy but the state of flesh and bloud that taught it him The City had no Recreation The Country no Society Studies of Arts were laborious Navigation perilous run over all the world and he would ask for somewhat which he wanted what content then could Peter take in one Hill though it were furnish'd with a most desirable Vision How quickly would it have cloy'd him to have been long there like a Lark hopping upon one turf of grass Though God prepare for us a new Heaven and a new earth yet he must give us a new heart likewise to delight in them forever For it is not the object alone but the disposition of the soul which receives it that must make us say When I awake up after thy likeness I shall be satisfied with it The Poets set down this case of St. Peter in a pretty Fiction that the Goddess Calypso offered Vlysses her pleasant Island to live there always and to be immortal upon it
he called unto Moses out of the midst of the Cloud Some more veneration certainly redounds to the Divine Majesty by drawing a Veil before him that his glory may be kept secret The Mercy-seat from whence God promised the Children of Israel to tell them all things whatsoever they should do it was covered with the wings of the Cherubins that every rash eye might not behold it But this was not all that a shadowed darkness should beget veneration there was another reason that men might see no manner of shape or resemblance to make them figure the Lord in any form and commit Idolatry I will take Salmeron the Jesuit at his word in this Notation Ne si aliqua effigies videretur Deus pingeretur a Cloud did invelop the glory of the Father whensoever he spake that men might not say they saw his likeness and therefore paint or carve an image like unto him And since the Lord continues to speak out of a Cloud as well in the New Testament as in the Old surely his purpose continues the same to bridle our inclinations to Idolatry O that men knew what this Cloud meant and they would never be so forward to make the Images of God and they that will not learn that wholsom lesson from the Pillar of Cloud shall be consum'd by the Pillar of Fire Let us come from the substance of it to the qualities and certainly St. Matthew hath left us matter to work upon that he says it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bright Cloud it seems it lookt like that part of Heaven which we see in a fair night and is called via lactea the Milky way which is the concurrence of the light of many small Stars as if it were a Lane made or paved with dimpling Stars Such a Cloud must needs be more delectable than the clearest Summer day which had no thickness in the air but were all serenity And such it must be in a great measure in Aquinas's interpretation for when Peter talkt of Tabernacles close shady Arbors to keep out the light of the Sun he was thus confuted says Aquinas that light did rather become the Saints than shady darkness Claritas mundi innovati erit sanctorum tabernaculum when there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth bedeckt with infinite light that 's the Tabernacle of the Blessed which shall abide for ever But the chief reason was to fulfil that promise which David knew should be performed the Lord shall make my darkness to be light here was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the World Jesus Christ it is He that came to bring a Lantern to our feet and a Light unto our paths that we should not stumble and fall In the Old Testament the Clouds where God appeared were densissima tenebrosae thick and dark Clouds Exod. xix 16. vapours and pillars of smoak in the New Covenant the darkness is dispersed and the Cloud remaines white and of a pure lustre For the first Testament is full of Ceremonies and Shadows of things to come the Covenant of Faith in the Gospel exhibits the manifest and open truth says Paschasius Ratbertus it was neither a fiery Cloud nor a dark Cloud but a brightsom quia non in igne terroris nunc venit non in caligine caecitatis sed in lumine veritatis the terror of fire is overpast the mistiness of Clouds is cleared truth comes forth like the morning and is ascended to the height like the Sun at noon day Nay as the things to be believed are clear so there are no mists and fogginess in their affections where the spirit of grace will abide Non calligat affectibus hominum sed revelat occulta says St. Ambrose Our depraved imaginations shall not make the truth a lie but God shall bring to light the hidden things before the eyes of all men What 's the whole Gospel indeed but nubes lucida a very Cloud in it self but made lightsome and perspicuous by the gift of interpretation For although the Veil of the Law is removed away yet even among the Evangelical Writers there are says St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certain things hard to be understood the Incarnation of our Lord the Resurrection of the Dead the ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity still we are in nubibus these are thick Clouds and it is impossible for the natural man with the dim eye of nature to see through them without doubt great is the mystery of godliness God manifested in the flesh Faith is a very mysterious thing but that the cloud is illuminated by the revelation of the Holy Spirit and as he that sees through the Water or through a Cloud suppose an Oar through the Water or the Sun through a Cloud will rather trust to his judgment than to his outward sense which would much deceive him so because we do all see the secrets of God through a thick Cloud let us rather trust to our faith than to our reason there are many strong delusions incident to reason because it looks through the clouds of sin and infirmity And Beloved as for the Priests that should keep the Key of knowledge what is their Office and Calling but to make Clouds appear bright And therefore Christ said of his Apostles Vos estis lux mundi Ye are the light of the world Though now adays it is the fashion of many to make that which was lightsom before appear as duskie as a Cloud Such as especially about Gods unsearchable decrees tangle knots and ravel Divinity that you shall find no end And after much is spoken or written you may say Incertior sum multó quà m dudum I was in a Cloud before that was dark now I am in a smoak that puts out my eyes All the light which some voluminous Compilers afford which would teach men Gods secret purpose in their Election and the way of their own heart in their Conversion both which are inscrutable it is like a Candle in a Thieves Lanthorn perhaps they see a little themselves but I am sure no body else shall be the better for their light Finally to end this Point God who can colour a thick Cloud with whiteness and make it transparent is able to lay the dark conveyances of our hypocrisie conspicuous and naked before him Laban could not find his Idols because Rachel had hid them in her Tent but God can discover those sins which are our greatest Idols though we have set them up in the inmost corner of our heart If the Spirit of Elisha went along with Gehazi when Gehazi ran after Naaman to take a Bribe then the Lord that gave that Spirit to Elisha traceth along all the Compacts of Simony all the fine conveyances of Bribery all manner of Corruption though it be dark as midnight The fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is 1 Cor. iii. 13. When it once catcheth fire it will be
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
death the Sun rose earlier by certain hours than the natural season Vt redderet lucis horas quas terror Dominicae passionis invaserat to make restitution of those hours of light which were lost by the Eclipse of the Sun at our Saviours Passion and so it should be called a Day because it was miraculous and longer than the natural proportion of a Day But this is without the Book and rather Poetical than Theological But secondly to more purpose it justly bears the title of a Day for were it not for the benefit of Christ's Resurrection we had been buried in eternal night our bodies had gone down into the Sepulchre as into the Land of darkness to perish and rot and never to see the light more Nox est perpetuò una dormienda but through him who hath planted us into the similitude of his Resurrection we awake from sleep we stand up from the dead and Christ shall give us light 3. The claritude of those glorified Bodies which we shall put on in the General Resurrection will make us carry Day about with us whithersoever we go You know how Christ did look at his Transfiguration his face did shine as the Sun and his raiment was white as the light Mat. xvii 2. therefore it must needs be day with the Saints for ever after they are risen from the dead since according to the Pattern of their Masters beauty their faces shall shine like the Sun in the Firmament But fourthly whether these curiosities touch the Point I am not sure upon this I dare build that it is called the Day which the Lord made because no greater work than the Resurrection of Christ was made upon any day since the world began for two things are to be considered in it Quod apparuit in Christo quod nondum apparuit in nobis that which was wrought upon Christ's Body and was seen in him and by virtue of his rising from the dead that which shall appear in us hereafter O infinite Power which quickned Jesus again the life and soul of all the Members of his Body and would not let him see corruption I know not how to compare the noblest Acts of the Lord as many have done I dare not do it as whether it were more to create a man out of nothing or to recompose a man again when his Soul was flitted and the Substance of his Body passed about into innumerous Transmutations after the revolution of five or six thousand years This I know that on our part it had been better for us never to have been than not to have been restored to the Image of God which was defaced in us and simply to be is nothing so well as to be made incorruptible in the outward man and the inward man to be restored unto Righteousness and Holiness of life Besides after the Creation God did cease from his work and there is no new thing under the Sun but after the Resurrection of Christ God doth continually save his people from their Sins Or if you interpose that as the Father did rest the last day of the Week from the Works of the Creation so the Son did rest on the first day of the Week having absolutely accomplished the Work of our Redemption then I infer if the Rest of the Father ceasing from creating material things did sanctifie a Day then this greater Rest of the Son must much more sanctifie a Festival As the new Heavens and the new Earth shall be more glorious than the old which are subject to vanity so the Jewish Feast on the Sabbath for the Remembrance of the Creation is nothing so honourable as the Christian Feast of the Lords Day in Remembrance of the Resurrection Therefore at the close of the Benefit let me admonish you of the Duty We will c. When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from a strange Land they came home again to the Land of Canaan from whence they were descended like men that had lien long among the dead and were quite forgotten But with so much mirth and joy as is unutterable their mouth was filled with laughter and their tongue with joy This was but a Type of the Body brought back out of the Grave therefore this gladness will become us much better in the Substance than in the Figure Christ is returned victoriously out of the Sepulcher and in that victory hath redeemed us all from the captivity of the Grave then how requisite is it that our mouth should be filled with laughter and our tongue with singing for the Lord hath done very great things for us whereof we are glad There was never any Society I am perswaded more disconsolate more crest-faln than the Disciples were upon the Eve of this happy Resurrection their faith failed them and their courage failed them they lockt themselves up and sat drowzily like men that had lost the fairest expectation that heart could imagin and had neither life nor soul Heaviness did endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Jesus came into the midst of them the doors being shut and shewed them his feet and his hands Then were the Disciples glad when they saw the Lord Joh. xx 20. before the Lords Ascension though their minds were yet somewhat carnal yet they were glad that his sayings were verified in despight of the Jews that He was risen again the third day The old Father confuted his churlish Son with that principle of good nature it was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy brother was dead and is alive again Luke xv 32. Again the Disciples were very frollick because when they saw the Lord revived again they were perswaded that He would restore the Temporal Kingdom unto Israel a thing which erroneously they had long lookt for but after his Ascension then their joy was high swoln and full to the brim for it was illuminated by faith they rejoyced that he was risen and gone up in glory to possess his Kingdom for when Christ our life shall appear again then shall we also appear in glory But because ancient Customs are things that will stick to the remembrance I will borrow a little time to impart unto you what glad remonstrances the Old Fathers of the Church were wont to make of it First their very outward Garments were of the best they had and full of splendor not out of pride and wantonness but to testifie that in every circumstance they did magnifie that holy Mystery of Christs rising from the dead and to witness in their outward habit that the resurrection of the dead is the cloathing of us with new and immortal apparel Therefore Nazianzen wishing for his own dissolution cries out take from me this ponderous Garment that is this sinful corruptible Body which makes me sweat and faint and give me a lighter that will never trouble me Secondly their Churches were trickt up with the best bravery that they could
Conventicles which are the obstructions of Vnity and the decay of Allegeance and Loyalty They that live far from Court may perhaps see their danger sooner than the wisest that hear it and scarce hear all reports which threaten danger It is easie to spit out a spark but not a flame When Pliny in his Proconsulate in Asia wrote to Trajan that he found the Christians meeting in secret corners before day then they had no Churches and to be a harmless people that sung Psalms to Christ that confederated not to kill not to commit Adultery and the like Budaeus upon the Pandects is my Author that Trajan wrote to Pliny that he did not like to have them gather together in that privy sort for it might tend to conspiracy That thereupon the Christians certified of the Emperours jealousie refrained their meetings though as yet they had no publick places to assemble in for the Worship of Christ But try our Christians that meet in hugger mugger in houshold Congregations I doubt you will not find that inoffensiveness and modesty among them which was in our Primitive Brethren who would sooner observe the Edict of a Pagan Prince than these will the Defenders of the Faith Look upon this Point once more Noah called all that were about him together to the solemn Worship of God A good Spring sets all the Wheels a going with a true and an equal motion and it was fit this good work should be carried on in his person The Father of the Family the Master of the Houshold the chief Priest of the Church in Sacred causes the Supreme Magistrate in Civil causes in any of these respects but much more in all together he was to give a good example to his Relatives A good example let us look to it to whom it most belongs is a sweet savour to many far and wide to the whole World in the Twelve Apostles Upon which Gregory runs out in this exuberant eloquence The Apostles were flowers of all sweet smels as the flower of the Grape Doctrina praedicatorum inebriat mentes audientium their Doctrine did inebriate their Auditors with the Cup of Salvation there was in them the flower of the Olive in the sweet works of mercy the flower of the Rose in the crimson bloud of their Martyrdom the flower of the white Lilly in some by Virginity in all by pureness and chastity and the flower of the Violet in lowly growth or humility Holy conspicuous men are flowers of Paradise whose odours and colours are delectable an orient colour in their own conscience within a fragrant odour in their good name to those that are without Justus lilium est in se candidum sed proximo odoratum A just man is a Lilly that hath inherent whiteness to himself but sweet as a Rose to his neighbour by the edifying of his example that others may see his good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven It is happy to live well thrice happy to lead well like Cesars Souldiers that were called an Army of Commanders St. Basil says that some in his time did sprinkle sweet Ointment upon the Wings of tame Pigeons and sent them abroad like our coy Ducks to fetch in the wild Flocks that they might take delight in them and follow them home So as he applies it the good Odour which may be sented from them that are exemplarily vertuous attracts the wild and dissolute to the Dove Coats or the Collections of the Saints of God All that have done eminently to abandon Profaneness suppress Superstition revoke Sacriledge discourage the Factious suppress Hereticks and Contentious Kings Potentates Prelates shall be renowned as Josias was that famous restorer of Religion there remembrance shall be sweet as honey in all mouths and as Musick at a banquet of wine Ecclus. xlix 1. Enough now of this Point that Noah before all necessaries of life and nature took care for the instauration of true Religion begun in a most divine unity and setled it by his great example Therefore the Lord smelled a sweet savour The third thing which in the Affirmative interprets the phrase of my Text is That God is mightily delighted with Oblations of thankfulness Noah had a very small stock of Creatures with him to begin a new Generation and when they came forth of the Ark none were appointed to be slain but had their Exeatis with this blessing Be fruitful and multiply on the earth Yet the Patriarch knew by faith how he that had preserved them so miraculously could multiply their paucity and the sooner if somewhat were gratefully repayed to God Let Elias have a little of a little and the Widow shall have the more These few Beasts and Fowls I speak of were the Reliques of the Old World and the Seminary of the New Now how well did a Sacrifice come in to divide between these two Points of Religion To give thanks for the remainder preserved and to bespeak their increase for the time to come So God is justly acknowledged in both his titles Servator reliquiarum multiplicator seminarii the conserver of the little remainder the multiplier of the total Seminary O give thanks unto the Lord for he is gracious The most material exception that a good man can make against the shortness of life is that we want space to run over all the benefits we have received Woe be to them that have time and spare little for such Meditations Some man who is not very practical in this duty will say question me not whether I praise the Lord for his great mercies for my Redemption for my Salvation How can I forget it Or had I been in Noahs case escaped a common Deluge I would have offered a Sacrifice I see God must buy our gratitude dear if he will have it and many times when he pays well for it he goes without it For some do premeditately except against the Publick Thanksgiving of women delivered from the peril of Childbirth as if it savoured of Jewish Purification The time is to come when such shall know that it is better to be a thankful Jew than an unthankful Christian This was St. Austins Divinity Liberata est uxor tua à periculo partus benedicis Dominum When thy Wife is delivered and well recovered thou wilt say The name of the Lord be praised The like will any man almost do that is come off from a bloudy Battel a raging Tempest a burning Feaver a malicious Conspiracy that he may not appear a rank Atheist But the Lord as I said buys such thanks at a great rate Do you think he gives common blessings like a vantage above the dozen which you shall not pay for Is it nothing that the Sun doth shine upon us and not burn us That the Seas flow and ebb again and not overwhelm us That the Cattel of the field feed us and not devour us Nothing should befal us without a retribution of praise In every thing
spoken of the punishment of Lots Wife as in reference to a Carkass now I proceed to speak of it in reference to that into which she was turned as to the Sepulchre She became a Pillar of Salt Exemplum sine exemplo that is the first thing I collect out of it it is new and singular without any thing to match it The justice of the Lord may say upon this in the words of the Prophet Isaiah Remember ye not the former things neither consider the things of old behold I will do a new thing Isa xliii 19. To kill a Transgressour with such a death as never any died before must needs be remarkable Moses bid the Israelites mark it in Core Dathan and the rest of that Rebellion that they had incurred a great displeasure Num. xvi 29. If these men die the common death of all men if they be visited after the visitation of all men then the Lord hath not sent me but if the Lord make a new thing c. then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord. Sceleratius commissum est quod est gravius vindicatum says St. Austin Great impiety went before when it was revenged with such great severity But that is not all for surely there is a kind of singularity in the sin where there is such a singularity in the judgment as to slay the Delinquent in that manner as was unheard of to all former Generations You will say there was nothing new and singular in this womans sin disobedience unthankfulness infidelity relapsing these are common cases vulgar faults committed a thousand times over I grant it but do you ever read that God was so soon forgotten by any one while the memory of so great a deliverance was fresh and warm and while an Angel of the Lord was present and before her eyes to aw her and instruct her Never did any sinner so wilfully cast their life away and therefore never was any humane creature so strangely congealed into a lump of Salt Core and his band of Rebels were swallowed quick into the lowest Pit Ne terram contaminarent sepulchro says St. Ambrose that the interring of such odious corpses might not defile the earth and since that time many others have been so devoured by the open jaws of the ground in an Earthquake But the Grave did never admit the dead body of the sinner there it was left between heaven and earth never the like done before or since because she wavoured and doubted whether she should still look up to heaven or look back to that portion of earth from whence she was escaped It was a Statute of grace and mercy that the body of a Malefactor put to death should be buried soon after his execution The Gibeonites indeed when the Sons of Saul were delivered up to them did use them after their heathenish manner and let them remain for a publick spectacle many months after they were hanged on a tree but God was more pitiful as it is Deut. xxi 23. If a man have committed a sin worthy of death and be put to death his body shall not remain all night upon the tree thou shalt in any wise bury him that day that the Land be not defiled The monument of Gods curse was not to remain visibly in that place but burial was to abolish the curse from appearing in the Lords Land This is the particular instance in all the Scripture this of Lots Wife where God did leave the Malefactor slain to be seen above ground for many Ages after I think I have proved it a new and unheard of punishment For the righteous Judge hath new kind of blessings for some holy ones that were never known before and he hath new kind of revengeful Arrows in his Quiver for his rebellious enemies such as were never felt before A new kind of sustenance shall be found out for Elias in the Wilderness a new kind of remedy to cure Hezekiahs sickness a new way to save Jonas in the belly of a Whale a new form of Gaol-delivery for Peter out of Herods Prison And as men are full of new inventions and excogitate unheard-of Pride and Luxury fresh ways to serve the Devil which were never known before so God doth fill the earth with new Plagues to correct them Novae febrium terris incubuit cohors strange symptoms of Fevers rage oftentimes which put Physicians to a new study That murrion or Morbus vervecinus Anno 1580. of which thousands died in Germany and Italy was a new infliction of mortality never wrote of by any Artist in former Ages The Sweating sickness called the English sweat over all the world was first inflicted upon England in the Reign of Henry the Seventh Our Histories are silent if there were any such Malady among us in former Ages And I need not to remember you that Columbus his return out of West India brought the first contagion of deserved loathsomness upon Fornicators which for reverence to your ears I will not mention It is the singularity of our sins which is justly requited with such singularities of chastisement It is too vulgar that every little Cross will make us fall into a bitter expostulation An quisquam hominum est aequè miser Was there ever the like that hapned to any man None so wrongfully defeated for want of justice none so perfidiously betrayed by false friends none so continually afflicted with recurrent sickness These discontents are nought and peevish there is none but the Son of God can justly complain Was ever any sorrow like my sorrow But if you be truly perswaded that your calamities are new and unheard-of lay it to your conscience and examine your self upon it that you are made an example like Lots Wife because of some unparallel'd and matchless disobedience Yet some kind of new punishments rise out of natural causes so did not this for it is miraculous and supernatural to be turned into a Pillar of Salt The Heathen have many devices in their elaborate Fictions of Men and Women metamorphosed into Plants and Stones indeed into all kind of Creatures Celestial and Terrestrial and surely that which provoked their busie wits was to tell some things as strange in fiction as this story in my Text is infallible truth Nay this narration of Lots Wife how she look'd back to Sodom and so perished set their inventions so much on work that the heathen grounded a particular Fable upon it how Orpheus had Pluto's license to bring his Wife Eurydice out of hell if he kept this condition not once to look back upon her till he had brought her safe to earth out of those shades of darkness but he could not refrain out of fondness to cast back his eyes upon her and so lost his longing Blessed are they that have the spirit of understanding for you see that the best use that the heathen made of sacred Scripture was to turn it to the worst And as these Poetical heads
that Wolves and other stout Beasts of the Forest have beaten men quite out of their Country in some Stories A Town in Greece is well known upon record where Bats resorted in such number that young and old fled away and left their Habitation desolate God can go lower and do as much by Flies as by Lions The Canker-worm and the Caterpillar my great Army will I send among them Joel ii 25. This is the very threatning of Isa xlvii 3. Thy shame shall be seen and I will take vengeance and not meet thee as a man But how then even in the form of mean and despicable creatures to plague thee But the meanness of the instrument was no lessening of the pain their sting inflamed the Israelites as if they had been in a furnace Calidâque incendit viscera tabe while their flesh rosted and fell away by piece-meal from their bones Naturalists and Poets fill it up with much more horror which I leave to the Sons of Art to consider and will not amplifie it One Epithet includes it all Deut. viii 15. God led thee through the Wilderness wherein were firy serpents Praejudicium ante diem judicii a representment of the fire of Hell wherein the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched I like them that observe that the brazen Serpent that was erected for their cure in the next verse is called a firy Serpent because there was a fire of coals burning in it continually to strike a terror into all that saw it before it healed them as if the fire of Hell were annexed to the grace of healing that came from Heaven The Sword of justice was put into the Scabbard of mercy and they were never asunder They had need have had bodies of brass that did endure it Extreme diseases must have extreme remedies Some pains were no more than as a pricking Briar to the House of Israel and a grieving Thorn Ezek. xxviii 24. but the biting of the Dipsas or Causon is so violent that it makes the ill-affected some with madness a judgment correspondent to the sin to make coals of vengeance scald the tongue of the murmurer Pigeons may be applied to the languishing of a common Fever but I have known hot Brickbats laid to the feet of a sore Calenture So this People suffered outragiously that they might pray more penitently for in the way of thy Judgments have we waited for thee Thirdly it was exemplum sine exemplo no Age before or since did ever know the like as the Prophet says Isa xliii 19. Remember not the former things neither consider the things of old behold I will do a new thing to kill a transgressor with such a death as never any before Moses bad it be noted in Core and the Rebels Numb xvi 19. If these men be visited with the common visitation of all men the Lord hath not sent me but if the Lord make a new thing then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord. So here must be a singularity of sin because of the singularity of the judgment The lesson upon it is that God hath new blessings in store for some holy ones that were never known before and new judgments for his enemies that were never felt before A new way of nourishment found out for Elias in the Wilderness a new remedy to cure Hezekiah a new way to save Daniel in the Den of Lions a new way of Gaol-delivery to fetch Peter out of Herods Prison And as we are full of inventions and hit of fresh ways to serve the Devil such as were never heard before so God will fill the earth with new Plagues to correct them Nova febrium terris incubuit cohors Strange symptoms of diseases break out to put Physicians to a new study That Murrion or Morbus vervecinus of which thousands died in Germany and Italy anno 1580. was a mortality never heard of in the works of any Artist to that year The Sweating sickness called the English Sweat over all the World broke out no sooner than the Reign of Henry the Seventh Chronicles are silent of such a grief in nature before I need not remember you that Columbus his return out of America brought the first contagion of deserved loathsomness upon fornicators which for reverence to this place I will not name What say our Leeches to the rotting of horses three years together in Stables and Pastures nothing but observant Christians note that it began upon the jades that were stabled in the goodly Cathedral Church of St. Paul I hope it will be goodly again That barbarous profaneness whose like was not seen before was avenged upon no other Cattel in the field but only on that species that was kept at rack and manger in the House of the Lord. The end is this when a Plague is new unheard of like this of the Serpents lay it to conscience that it falls upon some new and matchless disobedience The fourth Plague and the worst of all is yet behind that it was incurable which I do not press from Dioscorides an old Writer upon the poison of serpents or Aldrovandus one of the latter that the teeth of the Prester and Causon the venemous brood of hot Countries make an irrecoverable wound yet they deserve credit as skilful men The Constat is from holy Scripture that the Patients saw the malady was helpless unless help came by the Prayer of Moses Else such a rugged natur'd People would not have been brought to that humility and submission as St. Chrysostom said they were that the People fell down on their faces before Moses and Moses fell on his face before God And then God referred it to nothing but a miracle to lift up a brazen Serpent most likely on the top of the Tabernacle then look upon it and be healed Which was Christ in a figure Joh. iii. 14. The Son of man was lifted up on the Cross and we poor sinners by faith are lifted up in that Machin and craned up as it were in the Cross of Christ to Heaven This is proved home that the wound of the murmurers was incurable not a salve for it in all the cunning of man O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help saith the Lord Hos xiii 9. If God had never toucht them with a Serpent should he have got any thanks for his protection I trow none for affliction unfelt is unregarded When we miss the Disease we miss not the Physician By the sense of the wound they came to know the benefit of a cure Had it been but the prick of a wasp skin deep at the most why lightly felt had been lightly regarded Or if Moses had drest them by some Art and Chyrurgery which he had learnt in Egypt the work of nature not the God of nature had been magnified It was otherwise in part and in all A bitter misery was among them and invincible all the comfort of art and
Sacrilegious It is unadvised Martinism and nothing else that frowns against the sumptuousness of the Church Build up an Ark a Gods name out of the spoils of Egypt we are not warned to destroy with Achan O let him perish alone in his iniquity This shall serve to be spoken for the first part of my Text the iniquity which betrayed Achan unto the vengeance of God which iniquity consisted of scandal against all the Host of Israel disobedience against Joshuah covetousness against his own foul the subject of the punishment follows And first if we dare look upon our own death and are not afraid to see our own bloud spilt homo periit I must tell you man perished in iniquity Do you call to mind what Mordecai said to Esther Think not that thou shalt escape in the Kings house there is no sanctuary in earth but that all must die or all men must be changed says St. Paul For as it was written upon Hectors Tomb Non Hector illic Troja sed tumulo jacet so we may endite upon the Grave of Adam homo periit here lies Man and his Posterity Surely if the Jews returning from Captivity could not chuse but shed tears to see the building of the Second Temple having remembred the glory of the First So who can look upon mankind in the state of misery without pity and compassion that can remember him in the days of peace and innocency Should we consider what variety and new delights Adam and Eve had before them to meditate upon the beauty of their own original righteousness the Tree of the Garden wherein all the beasts of the Forrest do move Heaven and Earth spick and span new to look upon and we may say as Epaminondas did concerning a worthy Captain that died in the Camp at Leuctra Quomodo vacavit huic in tantis negotiis mori How could this man spare any leisure to sin and die A strange misfortune Adam was set to dress the Garden of Eden and proved the first weed thereof in his own person wherefore Joseph of Arimathea built his Tomb like a birds nest in his Garden in remembrance that a trespass committed in a Garden was the first occasion of Tombs and Epitaphs and is it not usual to this day to cast up our Graves after the similitude of beds in Gardens In the state of innocency our meditation should have been only concerning the immortality of the Soul and Body but now we are constrained to study this Lesson as much as any for our healths sake homo periit how Man comes to die and read learned Lectures upon our own Carkases and Anatomies And it is not in vain that we place the heavy remembrance of an Anatomy before our Almanacks as if we were to prefix that Memorandum for a Diary before every day of the year homo periit that our flesh is come unto corruption and that our days are consumed in vanity Yet the fear of common calamity is most often forgot in every mans private security To tell you that man is come to destruction it is but a name and a sound and a second notion and seems to be nothing to us in particular We sit in our glory among Gods threatnings like King Solomon in his Throne among dead Lions which could not bite us But point out at Achan or Saul or any sinner set apart for the view of the World and it will work upon us Mark it if it be not true for who ever put on sackcloth or cast ashes upon his head for St. Peters Prophecy that all the World and the works thereof should be burnt with fire and the Elements melt away with heat But if Jonas denounce fire against one City and say Nineveh shall be destroyed then Nineveh will prevent those ashes which her Enemies would bring upon her and fulfil Jonah's Prophesy in the ashes of repentance O come not to view Gods Judgments as vain people do to the execution of some Malefactor that know who it is must suffer and that they shall stand by and fare no worse but to behold it but look upon Gods threatnings as upon some curious Picture which in thy fancy seems to look upon thee only and have such a touch of conscience at iste periit that man perished as King Belshazzar had in his Feast of wine when Gods hand wrote upon the Wall he perswaded himself that index digitus the finger pointed at no other but himself alone Now let us go one step lower to Pilates Ecce homo behold the man Behold Achan the Son of Zerah that man perished not alone in his iniquity Achan that had out-lived the corruption of his young years and was grown in age able to go to warfare to have many Children to know how to steal from God and dissemble with Joshua doth his hoary head go down with peace into the Grave King David reprieved Shemei his bitter Enemy unto the Reign of King Solomon Solomon reprieved him till his fault was almost out of mind Quem saepe casus transit aliquando invenit did his head go down with peace into the Grave Like the Web of Penelope all that hath been wrought in the year may be ravelled out in a night Crescant says God to the Tares Matt. xiii nay let them grow and sprout up and then cut them down and cast them dry into the fire Secondly He that was spared among all the dangers of the Wilderness is consumed in the City He that could escape the Pilgrimage of fourty years is doom'd to die in Canaan He that was not devoured in the fire of Taberah is burnt in the Valley of Achor As Aristotle speaks of Homers Poetry when he set up Walls for Troy in one Book and pluckt them down in another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 murum Peoeta quem finxit delevit So God can deal with us set us up or pluck us down but we are less than Walls They that walk in the night preserve the flame of their Torch or Candle from winds and Casualties abroad which notwithstanding they put out when they return to their home So Achan that walked over the Sea when the Bridg was under water and liv'd among Scorpions and was not consumed in the Sedition of Dathan nor slain in the Battels of Moab yet in portu naufragium the Vessel is not cast away in the Ocean Sea but in the Haven and his light is put out at home in the long expected Canaan Thus Judgment follows Judgment as Antigonus said when he spoiled Asia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alexander cut down the rich ears of Corn and he pluckt up the Stubble after him so the Armies of rebellious Sinners had been mown down in the Wilderness Achan and some few more were pluckt up like Stubble when Judgment seemed to pass them over Note this thirdly in Achans person mischief did light upon him not in the hunger and thirst of the Wilderness not in his poverty but having compiled much riches
no not in Israel Nor is this a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Heathen called it an embasement of a good courage for the humble man hath the loftiest mind of all others if it be well observed for he reckons not by the magnificent pomp and praise of the World though he have no little part in it but esteems God and nothing else to be his glory and because he doth give God the glory in all things that are excellent therefore he doth invite the Spirit of Grace unto himself by a religious policy as thus Grace is no longer Grace than you confess it is conferred by meer gift and frank benevolence The proud is so arrogant in all his thoughts that he would not yield to that he thinks it was his due which could not justly or at least congruously be denied him Needs must the rain fall down from such a steepy Mountain and where will it find a place to rest but in a little Valley in a lowly heart which magnifies the love and favour of Christ for the gift of the Spirit above all things but we had no right to ask it because we were sinful we had no understanding to desire it because we were foolish it is omni modo gratuita a good turn freely bestowed in all respects why do you not see says Bernard gratia nullibi nomen suum tuetur nisi in humili the Grace of God should quite lose its nature unless it dropt upon the humble man sink down therefore like a valley to receive this water for the Lord resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble 1 Pet. v. 5. Secondly The Spirit holds this Analogy with water it washeth away all filth from the soul and maketh the heart clean which was defiled No superstition hath lasted longer or spread further than one I shall name unto you that an external sousing of the body in water did quite take away the guilt of all those sins which had been committed by the body So Euripides as wise an Heathen as any in the pack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dive but into the Sea and it would rense away all their iniquities then the Jews encurred this errour by that corruption which the Romans brought among them especially the Pharisees who if they had walked in the streets or been in the Market presently washt as soon as they came home lest they had toucht or been toucht by somewhat unawares which was defiled by the Gentiles And if they washt all was well No marvel therefore if the savage Moriscoes have a strong fancy to this day how their filthiness is purged away if they bath in some river water every morning It is more strange that the Russian Christians in these times should attribute secret power to such an idle Ceremony but most foppish of all that the Priests of Rome would lead their whole Church into this delusion that venial sins are done away if a few drops of an hallowed casting bottel light upon the gaping people and many a shrewd knavery passeth under the name of a venial sin as it is to be seen in their Cases of Conscience Against all their errours which I have recited I lay my conclusion again nothing but the grace of God that water indeed which is above the heavens doth wash away all filth from the soul and make the heart clean which was defiled The which will appear the better by noting this preeminence in their difference Elementary water well applied takes away all impure soil that cleaves to a vessel But can it add a brightness to the Vessel better than it had in the first making No you will say that is not to be expected I but such is the operation of inward grace when it maketh clean an earthen vessel is still no better than earth when it is rensed in a River but if the Spirit from above abide within us if it wash and sanctifie this Vessel of clay it overlays it with Gold and makes it more precious by far than ever Then but a word spoken with grace and in due season is like apples of gold with pictures of silver says Solomon O how much have we need of it We are all black before God like the Children of an Ethiopian says the Prophet Amos. We have Vultus adustos faces as if they were scorched with flames Jer. xiii 8. And of others whom God did begin to loath their visage is blacker than a coal Lam. iv 8. Black will take no colour we use to say there is no help for it either by Art or Nature but if the supernatural hand be stretched out upon us then the Blackmore shall change his skin and the Leopard his spots As the bloud of the Mother after the birth of her Child keeps not the colour of bloud but becomes milk in her breasts so after we are begotten again by the Spirit and bring forth the fruits thereof our bloudy sins shall become milk and though they be read as Scarlet they shall be white as snow Isa i. 18. Yea the Prophet says of Jerusalem while it served the Lord her Nazarites were whiter than snow purer than milk Lam. iv 7. Doth not David promise as much unto himself if the Lord would renew a right spirit within him Lavabis me dealbabor super nivem Thou shalt wash me and I shall be whiter than the snow As if by the Sacred Unction from heaven his soul should have a new beauty which it never had before a plain Transfiguration such as our Saviours was in the Mount so that no Fuller upon earth could make a thing so white Solomon in all his Royalty was not cloathed like a Lilly of the field But take Solomon in his repentance whereof I perswade my self and his soul was much whiter than any Lilly in the field This is a superlative vertue wherewith the water in my Text is endowed to cleanse that which was foul from every spot and to make it surpass the whiteness which it had by nature Thirdly Happy is the tree that grows by the Rivers of waters No Plant can prosper unless sap and moysture nourish it So Grace is that coelestial water which supplies the root within us it makes the conscience abundant in good works and without it it is impossible to bring forth the fruits of righteousness Mark the rain which falls from heaven and the same shower which dropt out of one cloud increaseth sundry Plants in the same Garden according to the nature of the Plant. In one stalk it makes a Rose in another a Violet divers in a third but sweet in all So the Spirit is a moistning dew which works rare effects in several dispositions and all most acceptable to God Is your Complexion Cholerick Try thine own heart if it be apt to be zealous in a good cause If it be so it is the fruit of the Spirit that works upon your constitution Is Melancholy predominant The grace of God turns that sad
viluerunt Lesser things are admired which happen rarely the greater works of God because they are frequent are heeded carelesly Say not now but ye see cause enough why Christ did actuate this Miracle of the loaves no oftner than twice he would not stretch his Creatures beyond their natural size to please their idle curiosity And yet I will tell you of a miraculous multiplication but I do not wish you to believe that is done toties quoties as they think fit that have the Relique in their custody It is the Cross on which our Saviour was crucified you must not question the Story but that Helen found it in an heap of rubbish at Jerusalem many did desire Chips of it out of their devotion and though innumerous slices of it were cut away yet it kept its just magnitude and never varied The thing was divulged by some but none of the famous Doctors one thousand three hundred years ago One of them that is said to write extemporary Catechisms when he was a young man compares the Cross which wasted not for all the shivers that were borrowed from it to these Loaves and Fishes Another says out of his credulous good meaning that it got this solidity because the bloud of him was spilt upon it who saw no corruption And to this hour say such as get their living by this craft this holy wood is not consumed though it be abundantly imparted Is this credible that Christ did dispense this power unto any to work a Miracle when they would as if there were an Office erected to do signs and wonders Qui Bavtum non odit he that hath so strong a stomach to disgest this let him swallow such an other that out of three or four nails that pierced our Saviours hands and feet the Friers can direct you to Churches and Religious Houses where an hundred instead of four are exposed to adoration What though the Beam of the Cross did not diminish for the portions cut away yet which way did the Nails increase Did one Nail spawn another as big as it self None is so frontless to defend it But to cut off further process upon the matter It is best to bind the Legend how the Cross and the Nails have multiplied into volumes and believe them together But the sure way is not to parallel the glorious works of our Master with such Apocryphal fictions There is a great difference between Juggling and Miracles Hitherto touching the Act of his power in producing this admired work go onward to the next Point and we shall encounter his goodness Our Saviour did not use to do tricks to shew his skill but that some might be the better for him therefore his power was joyned with Beneficence Vt potestas non terreat sed amorem excitet says St. Austin That he might not astonish them with his greatness but endear them with his liberality Leaf gold is drawn out a great way and then it is fit for nothing but Ostentation So the multiplying of the Loaves and Fishes had served barely for the pomp of the eye but that the wonderful encrease thereof concluded in a benefit And first I note though the love of Christ to mankind was excessive strong unto death yet going in the Tract of reason they had little cause to look for this at his hands Alas he had no home to entertain them no Revenues wherewith to feast them no Olive yards or Vineyards to bestow upon them Could five thousand look for a Supper of his bestowing For our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might become rich that is says Nazianzen he put on the poverty of my wretched flesh that I might gain the riches of his glorious Divinity They that followed him had not their wages in Meats and Drinks in Silver and Gold but in Sanctity and Justification in peace of Conscience and in the earnest of the Spirit to be heirs of Salvation And he whose Profession it was to open the Treasures of Heaven to his Disciples and to possess naught of Earth no not so much as to set his foot upon doth he strain himself to give entertainment to so many in the Wilderness What was this but to yield as it were to the time to be beneficial to the Jews in a temporal way that by all means he might win their love He had fed their Spirit with the Word of life and satiated them one would think with the promise of eternal Joy and Immortality if they believed in his name but he knoweth whereof we are made he considereth the Worm in our corruptible appetite which is always craving He remembred that a little in hand goes a great way with them that cannot abide to have all their state in reversion therefore he distributed unto the necessity of their body though his Errand for which he came into the world was to be the Saver of Souls as you would say he stept a little out of his own way to bring them into the right way I cannot but revolve it in my fancy that the Jews were more transported with this curtesie of our Saviours than with all that had preceded Hereupon they cry out This is the Messias this is he that should come into the world Let us take him up and make him a King How ignorantly and unequally doth flesh and bloud set a price upon the works of God I durst almost say that this was one of the least good turns that ever he did them When a Miracle came off graciously indeed it had such a tang at the end of it as Son thy sins be forgiven thee or This day is Salvation come to thine house This had no such heavenly adjunct but was a frank Feast among a promiscuous company as his rain falls upon the just and unjust Well though the grudgings of this disease are become natural to us all to like the heavenly offices of the Gospel the better if Christ befriend us a little with these corruptible things yet carnal Companions are most odious to apprice things momentary before coelestial How much better doth Solomon distinguish Length of days meaning endless days are in his right hand and in his left hand riches and honour Wherefore David describes evil affected men that value earth before heaven that their right hand is a right hand of iniquity because they grasp transitory things in their right hand fixing their chiefest complacency in them which are favours of much later digress and to be received in the left And the same Metaphor is prosecuted in another sacred Song Cant. ii 6. His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me Sinistra capiti non praeponitur sed supponitur says Bernard The left hand which bestows Loaves and Fishes must be under our head not above it as if it were the top of our desires but the right hand should compass us about at the very heart To this Point but a word more Christ produced
that the worst they could say slander us so and spare not says St. Austin upon it maledictio sit super nos super nostros liberos let that reproach fall upon us and our Children for ever But if any Age were more in jeopardy than another to wrest the word Disciple to an ill sense I am perswaded 't is ours For if a Disciple be a learner of the Divine Testimonies there are many that affect to be Discipulissimi by their good will there is no day of the week but they would sit at the feet of their own Gamaliels the pretence of learning is so great in these our days that I am sure all former times come short of this double diligence And were they such Disciples that were first called Christians Certainly the word of God was very precious unto them and as St. James bids it be so they were swift to hear Seek the Lord while he may be found seek his face evermore quaeramus inveniendum quaeramus inventum seek him for He is glorious seek him evermore for He is infinite And that Heathen saying was to good purpose when we have one foot in the Grave be still willing to learn But these Disciples gathered their heavenly Manna by moderate measure in a fit proportion to digest it not like our open-ear'd people in a numberless quantity to make them loath it Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth says the great Doctor 1 Thes iv always walking and never going home not desiring to have instruction fall down in sweet drops to make the seed of the Word fructifie but with an Inundation to make it putrifie and continually gaping for somewhat that tends to the curiosity of knowledg rarher than the conscience of practice And where have they got this use but from outlandish fashions where there is no decent face of a Church no air of Devotion no solemn Liturgie to employ the time in whereby they must needs make up that which is wanting with continual preaching But you will say if this ravening after Sermons as I may call it be a fault it flows from the zeal of them that mean well and charity may construe it to the best There 's more in it than so as I conceive First it is too manifest to conceal it or deny it that superfluity of hearing is a cloak of dissimulation and hath bred a consumption of practising and scire est propter ire say the old Friers we know the way that we may go the way 2. Let any one descend skilfully into the nature of man and he shall see that it is our humour to grow too familiar with that which is told too often a decent distance and intermission would breed more reverence and attention 3. Whom doth it not afflict that hath a right sense of piety to see so much havock and loss of that which is so precious A Carpenter may hew off large chips from a Block but a Lapidary will make no waste of a Diamond when he pares it It was not the itching ear then which thinks it can never hear enough that made a Disciple in the Primitive Church they did not heap to themselves vain Teachers that every one of the common sort might prove a Doctor rather than a Learner and controul the best as if they were Masters rather than Disciples yet their heart was bent with meekness to receive the Word as St. James says they discharged their duty in good sort to hear and learn for hearing is the Key of knowledge but they did not turn the Key continually in the Lock and never open the door they were wise builders that heard the truth and did if and their desire was set to incarnate the written Word in their Souls by doing it as the blessed Virgin gave flesh to the Eternal Word by bearing it In a word they were such Disciples as gave the tongue of praise just occasion to call them Christians I will recite but a little of that which antiquity hath witnessed for their sakes Their Vessel was kept so chaste and clean that every day if persecutions dispersed them not they partaked of the body and bloud of their Saviour their temperance so great their fasting so constant that one says The Constitution of Lent began not till such time as their perpetual sobriety began to be unimitated Their Charity drew this admiration out of their forest enemies See how they love one another Even their Tormentors while their bodies lay bleeding under their hands were converted to believe and suffer with them by their Patience and Fortitude Finally Their contempt of the world was testified in this That no man said that ought which he had was his own but they had all their possessions in common Angelica respublica nihil dicere proprium says St. Chrysostom That made it no less than a Society of Angels to renounce their part in any proper possession It was not therefore hearing upon hearing that denominated them Disciples these were the Elements of which their Piety consisted and then they proceeded to be called Christians Yet before I come to the birth of this new title which is the chief corner-stone of my Text it will suit well to speak a little of the privation or cessation of their old names by which in former times they were known And they are of two sorts Such as the Church claimed to her self and delighted in or such wherewith flanderous tongues did think to wound her And they may be equally divided into three of the one sort and of the other First you meet it every where in the Epistles of the New Testament that such as professed to obey the Gospel were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brethren One is the Mother of us all in our natural being the earth One Mother of our spiritual Connexion the Church one common Father of our flesh the first man Adam one Father of our Regeneration the Holy Ghost But certainly Charity was the special scope in this appellation for no relation of love is so complete in all points as between Brother and Brother The love between Husband and Wife is not born with them The love between Father and Son is not level and reciprocal because it is not between persons that are equal the love between Friend and Friend is of our own choice nor of necessary duty only the love of Brothers is from the Womb from instinct of nature stands upon equal conditions and is underpropt with all circumstances that ingender affection And to give Charity the pre-eminence this was the first precious oyntment that was poured upon our head we were called brethren And secondly Saints to the Saints that are at Ephesus to the Saints at Colossi And many of the Saints did I shut up in prison says St. Paul before King Agrippa Acts xxvi 10. And this Attribute was given to our famous Predecessors from the Sacramental Seal of Baptism as
rather thus If we live as wicked men do we are scarce men but rather beasts and they that are scarce men by reason of their sins they are utterly lost I am sure for being Christians O if you have not Christ within you let your forehead blush that was sealed wâ—th his Cross without you How much better would it be for Hypocrites that they had been Pagans that never abused this Name than to have been outside Disciples no further than the name dealbati nomine Christiano says St. Austin not anointed with the oil of Christ the unction of the Spirit but parjeted over with the name of Christian like whited walls The Athenians forbad that any Bondman should be called by the name of Harmodius and Aristogeiton men that had jeoparded their lives to free their Country from servitude they held it dishonorable that those names that were devoted to the publick liberty should be polluted with servile contagion Domitian who was tyrannical in all his actions put one Metius a man of good condition to death for calling an inferior Vassal of his by the victorious name of Hannibal The Title of Philosopher O how the true Philosophers would storm when Caterpillars usurped it that had no affinity with true Philosophy it is a sickness and a very fever to me says one of them quod istiusmodi spurca animalia nomen usurpent sanctissimum that these unclean animals should steal such a sacred appellation If these men were so tender to preserve Civil and Academical honors from defamation will not God be much more incensed at pseudo-Christians and say why dost thou take the name of my well-beloved Son upon thee to pollute it Quid est dignitas in indigno nisi ornamentum in luctu says Salvian this glory with which you invest your selves shall be your utter shame you blot this Name with whoredoms and oppressions here therefore shall your names be blotted out of the book of life My invention will not serve me to conclude this point better than St. Austin hath done Vt nomen Christianum non ad judicium sed ad remedium habeamus convertamus nos ad bona opera that we may assume this name as a soveraign remedy against the Devil and not unto condemnation let us bring forth works worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ for whose sake we are called Christians And thou Antioch in the Land of Syria art not the least among those places that were holy ground thou wert like a new Hierusalem to us that are called Gentiles for in thee the sound was first heard which filled the earth with thy Majesty And the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch A place not long after the first foundation of it bruited abroad for much infelicity so frequently was it shattered with strong Earthquakes a place polluted with no small Idolatry for Apollo had his Shrine and Diana had hers within the Circuit of it Of a sudden when she was scandalous and forlorn those evils and calamities were redrest because God had a delight in a new Off-spring which was grown up within her walls and all the Inhabitants of the Earth did look upon her as a Star that was shot from Heaven Now began all the honors that the times would permit to be heaped upon it Some say that this being the best City wherein the Gospel had got ground St. Peter the chief Apostle was made the Bishop of it To make no brable of it lest I go beyond the allowance of my time this is all I will say if St. Peter were the Bishop of it then Ignatius was but a bad remembrancer that wrote so many Epistles and never spake of it then St. Chrysostom likewise who was a famous Pulpit-man in that City and made the best Sermons in Antioch that ever he made he were much overseen that he should never call it to mind in so many commemorations which he made concerning their dignity This is surely upon Record St. Peter afforded it his blessed presence and so did St. Paul his likewise a brave building of faith was erected there when the Covering was laid upon two such Pillars And a Bishoprick was founded there by those two great Apostles whose succession was happy in painful Prelates and constant Martyrs all Syria was subject to it as the Metropolis the Arabick Canons which Turrian hath set forth as constituted by the great Council of Nice say that all the Churches in Persia obeyed it as a Patriarchical See Justinian the Emperor because we had our best name imposed there gave it a better name and called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is being interpreted the City of God You may be sure their brave Presbyter St. Chrysostom hath often run over this string and made musick upon it In one place thus If any contention for priority ariseth you Antiochians may claim it before all the World illo scilicet privilegio vobis blandientes bearing up your selves upon that privilege that you were the first fruits of them that are called Christians this is your victory over your enemies this is your Diadem above your friends What a pudder some would have made of it if they could have boasted of this Prerogative O how the chief Pontif of Rome would have been hoisted up for an Oecumeniacal Bishop And out of the word Christian what a flourish Cardinal Bellarmin would have made for an Antichristian Supremacy God hath provided better things for us than that we should not be pelted with such a paper Bullet The Antiochians behaved themselves reverently and modestly and did not abuse the Grace of God unto wantonness They were not called Christianissimi more Christian than their Brethren for this verbal priority They did not arrogate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief Patriarchical Primacy before all other Prelates but were contented with the third rank to follow rome and Alexandria And in my slender opinion Baronius is never more to be commended in any thing than for rendring the true reason 〈◊〉 Says he in giving honorable place to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch regard was had to follow the steps of the Roman Magistrate and to settle Ecclesiastical Precedency just as he did distribute his principal Civil Dignities Now among all the Oriental Praefectures the Proconsul of Antioch was the most chief and honorable hence Antioch was established to be the Oriental Metropolis But because the temporal glory of Alexandria was greater and the chief Roman Praefecture of all others called Augustalis praefectura therefore though it was the younger Church in order of time yet her Patriarch preceded Antioch in order of dignity And if he had not wilfully shut his eyes against the light would he not have subscribed that this was the very cause that the Praelacy of Rome was preposed before them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom we yield it priority because it is the chief Imperial City or in Baronius his own
righteousness Such a one would do no unjust thing though he saw his Pardon sealed with his fleshly eyes and were as surely confirmed in state of Salvation as an Angel of light Justus non est sub lege sed voluntas ejus est in lege says St. Austin He alludes to the Latine reading of the first Psalm a just man is not under the Law that is a strein of servitude but his will is in the Law there he finds equity and sincerity he loves them for themselves The minacles and castigations of it are without Law of which he takes no notice because his will is within Vopiscus says that after the death of Aurelian for six months there was an Interregnum no new Elect was agreed upon the People had no Prince to curb them no Tribune of whom they stood in awe yet there was no outrage committed Nam quod est in vit â optimum se quisque timebat Every man was afraid to offend himself and his own conscience These are voces libero homine dignae these are the Praises of more ingenuous men than ever Heathens could be It may be an Impreza for a perfect Christian he doth no evil out of this generous resolution for that he loves God within him not because he fears the world without him Out of Evangelical assurance though the second coming of Christ shall be with such a strange concussion that Heaven and Earth will stagger and burn for it yet a well-armed Christian hath digested the dread and wisheth for that day when the whole Creature shall be delivered from bondage it is his Exclamation Come Lord Jesus come quickly Consider in what an agony the whole Camp of the Israelites was when the Law was proclaimed with Thunder and Tempests upon Mount Sinah it will be strange to one of those to hear a good Disciple call earnestly for that day which will be so full of darkness and gloominess This is indeed the principal Crisis that we have shaken off the Spirit of bondage Non probatur perfecta caritas nisi cum ceperit ille dies desiderari There is no perfect love and by consequent no plenary excussion of servitude till we are earnest in that wish that the day of Christ were near at hand If not that terrour no not that doth pinch us then Jerusalem above is free Yet stay for one qualification more which will make the Angels to congratulate us our freedom if we observe that Proviso in our Charter nay which will please God so well that he will not only make us Citizens who were Bondmen before but Rulers over ten Cities as it is in the Parable that is account not of the good of this world as the Jew did but commit your Heart and your Treasure to the Inheritance which is above They that run far into the thought to prosper in the increment of this earth they cannot decline from being servants to the times to occasions to ignobleness to the manners of iniquity Lift up your hearts unto the Lord with an evangelical abrenunciation of the world and fling these fetters away for there is no such thraldom as that of base affections To serve a sin is worse than to serve a man by how much a man is better than a sin There are some of our Interpreters who have stated this Point not without injury to the Synagogue and the modern Jews have cause to disavow the imputation of mere carnal men as if God did set before them no more than the recompence of this lifes prosperity The Anabaptists teach that the Faithful before Christ did only taste of the sweetness of temporal blessings without any hope of eternal happiness a Censure fitter for beasts that are well pastured than for a man whose soul doth naturally heave him up to immortality chiefly it is an opinion most derogatory to such men whose Fathers did talk with God face to face Besides these Aquinas and his Scholars methinks lay out our difference but rudely Temporalia promittuntur in Veteri Testamento spiritualia in Novo The Old Testament proffers Temporal blessings and the New Testament Spiritual That were I confess the right livery at which a Bondman did stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the heathen Proverb Give the Servant that grinds at the Mill an allowance of food to sustain him and you owe him no more But if the Text of the Old Testament do move only in the circumference of this world and of this life it would scarce make good Philosophy how much less would it never pass for the Touchstone of pure Divinity Therefore without scandal to the old Jerusalem or partiality to the New the odds between us are these The Commonwealth of Israel had the sure promise made unto them of heavenly joy together with a pleasant portion upon earth if they served the Lord. The same Kingdom of heaven is more clearly promised to us but with afflictions and persecutions upon earth Their Jerusalem was in bondage because it kept the Law upon carnal Articles that it might flourish and be free Our Jerusalem is free because it will confess Christ though the more it confess him the more it should be in danger of bondage and imprisonment They were for present delight and heaven hereafter we are for present misery and heaven for ever The Apostles found it an hard matter to send the Church of Christ from Jewish Ceremonies they could not make a bank in their days but that some broke over as in the Church of Galatia No marvel since the dregs thereof are not purged out to this day Circumcision is still reteined among the Abyssines says Damianus Goez Aarons supreme Pontifical Authority is but transmigrated into the Papacy Some have been scrupulous in choice of meats but lately as if Moses did yet predominate Many are more strict than wise in numbring and keeping the hours of Sabbatical rest We that are here I hope are all very ready to condemn this Judaism and yet God knows the most of us are Jews in a greater concernment than we are aware of If we serve for heaven it is well but I am sure we are the more servile that it may be well with us upon earth We ask for the dew of heaven but we make earnest postulations for the fatness of the earth we are content to be shod with the preparation of the Gospel but not so well contented as if it be our fortune to wear the spurs of dignity These are the tricks of a Jew of an uncircumcised Jew his heart is not circumcised from ambition and vanity This is Gehazi's Leprosie which cleaves to base minds my Master is in heavenly raptures and contemns riches As the Lord lives I will run after him and take somewhat Run and let the Devil scorn you for your pains Doth Job serve God for nought To be Sanctified to be Justified to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost to receive spiritual Consolation to be the friends of God this
is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one who hath the preeminence in all things the Master who is over all and above all which is Jesus Christ I mean not as it is alleaged out of Bartholus and some of the impudent Canonists that Christ as he was God and Man was Lord of the whole World Monarchically and Peter after him and by Peters right the successive Bishops of Rome by which fetch those branded Flatterers entitle their Popes to the direct right of all the Kingdoms of the earth indeed the Devil promised our Saviour all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them and since He refused it then the same Devil by the mouth of those Canonists profers it again to try though He will none of it himself if some other in the name of a Vicegerent will take it for him This is not the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that he is our Master in Heaven and Earth the Head to which all the Body is fitly knit by joynts and bands Colos ii 19. Joints and Bands Beloved neither of those words is idle or superfluous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commissurae the joints are all those blessings and benefits which are bestowed upon us and knit unto us Christ by reciprocal gratitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 juncturae are all those offices of Christian charity which bind the Members one to another all things which belong to the Communion of Saints and hold us together under the Head which nourisheth us with his influence Now it is a very ill disjunction which some make to argue upon the two natures of Christ according to whether he is our Master and our Head If you name the one or the other alone you will confuse your own Creed and know not what to believe for all the conditions belonging to a Head are in neither but in both First it was fit the Church should have such an Head which is agreeing and conformable to the Body which is knit unto it a spiritual Head and fleshly Members are not consonant to make an unity Therefore Christ and his Church are said to be like Man and Wife which are one flesh Ephes v. 31. But the Head of the Church must be fit to nourish every part of the Body with spiritual blessings and make it increase with the increase of God this can come from none but the Divine and Infinite who can give spiritual life alone and quicken them which are dead in their sins this He can do as he is Magister Verbi Magister Spiritus who but Christ is Master of the Word preacht and who but the same Christ is Master of the Spirit which gives power unto the Word You see then it is no complemental Name which is given to Christ in courtesie but a Title of due Royalty and condign Authority when we call him Master Master says Peter it is good for us to be here Upon the same Bank of earth you may gather Flowers and Weeds the Flowers are set by art in the Garden the Weeds are the natural offspring So in this same speech which the Apostle uttered in a rapture of love and delight here are good conclusions to be approved and bad contents to be reprehended but the errors arise naturally out of the words the good conclusions are rather forc't than natural yet they deserve the precedency in my discourse and this is the begining that when Peter started out of sleep and saw Christ in glory it pleased him at the heart bonum est says he this is good and he never spake truer in his life The bravest Nations in the World when they have been at the height of their Empire have took more pride and delight in Theatrical Shews and Magnificent Spectacles of Triumphs than in any other pomp for the satisfaction of the eye when it meets with a right object is above any other pleasure But all other things in the world are Counterfeits to right Jewels in respect of the Object of Divine Glory when the eye gets that to gaze upon the Soul dilates it self with such greediness to be filled with it that it would be infinite to receive it O how amiable are thy dwellings thou Lord of Hosts Psal lxxxiv David takes up his verse and goes no further to express it but leaves off with indefinite admiration And Theodoret refused to comment upon those words non tam explicandus sensus quam intimo sensu degustandus the sense and meaning of that Verse is not to be expounded but to be rellished and tasted by our affections We have stoln a name from virtue and called our Riches our Goods but beware to steal from Heaven as Prometheus did and to call the fruition of any thing upon earth good if the delights of the earth could speak they would say unto you why do you call us good nothing is good but to dwell in the Tabernacle of the Most High One day in thy Courts says the Psalmist is better than a thousand The days of this Life are called Thousands of days the Life of Glory is called One day These are called Thousands for the mutability that 's called One for the unchangeable eternity says St. Austin Howsoever it is true in this sense the shortest salutation of those supernal joys is more satisfactory Canis ad Nilum a touch and away than the longest saciety of these transitory exhilarations Two great Prophets rise from the dead to represent the glory of the life to come three living Disciples Peter especially are ravisht with it si mortuis non credideris saltem viventibus credas either believe the dead or the living which you will it is a good thing to see Christ in the Majesty of his glory Mark those words says Tertullian with special note quae fingendi non habent arbitrium extemporary acclamations wherein a man hath no leisure to invent dissimulation so out of the first pure passion of his mind which could not be forged St. Peter cried out when he saw the Glory of Christ bonum est it is good We cry out of the times now adays and the Age we live in but the more unthankful we for we do or may live more happily by far under the New Testament than the Jews did under the Old Every vision of Majestical glory did exceedingly terrifie the antient Israelites When the Lord came down upon Mount Sinah with triumph and with the sound of the Trumpet the people removed and stood afar of and durst not come near it now the Gospel hath expelled this fear so far that the Spectators did not shun the glory of Christ when they saw it but desired they might continue upon the place where it was for ever Deus se magis amandum exhibet quà m spectandum says one upon it God doth exhibit himself in the New Testament rather to be loved than to be dreaded and doth not now intend our terror but our comfort The glory of the Gospel
is like Gods Rainbow in the Clouds not only a beautiful but a merciful Token a Bow with the string towards the earth so that it is not prepared to shoot arrows against us As Pliny said to Trajan of his virtuous Consort nihil sibi ex fortunâ tuâ nisi gaudium vendicat so all that a Christian challengeth for his own is the blessed Virgins solace My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour Beloved they forget that God is called the Father of mercies and the God of all consolations they forget that since Christ is come in the flesh the Dove is returned with the Olive branch of peace in his mouth who fill the minds of men with melancholly desperate doubts and do oftner cast before them black stones of condemnation than white stones of absolution Chearfulness and a delightsom countenance becomes the Disciples of Christ howsoever the austere Pharisees censur'd our Saviour himself for a Winebibber and a Glutton because he was sociable and did not always lowr and pout after their hypocritical fashion St. Chrysostom neither lived with content to his own heart nor gave content to other because he was untractable to all manner of joyful familiarity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was so earnest for sobriety that he run into a Cynical austerity Some not unfitly I think contend so much that a Christian is to deport himself in a sweet consolatory fashion that they understand Solomon to that meaning Eccl. ix 8. Eat thy bread with joy and let thy garments be always white as if none should put on mournings for the Gospel sake unless they wanted a good conscience to rejoyce in Christ Though the splendour of the Law was terrible yet the glory of the New Testament is amiable bonum est says St. Peter it is a good thing to see the Majesty of our Saviour in perfect beauty Secondly Thus far the Apostle gave a right judgment upon the vision and thus much further that he said it was bonum nobis intended not so much for Christs exalted bravery as for our good When I began this Miracle I cited a rule out of Damascen and I repeat it again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the impulsive cause of all things that our Saviour did upon earth was the love which he did bear to the generation of men yea the Lord hath made man the scope of all his other works in a subordinate way to his own glory For man is made to serve the Lord and the earth is made to serve and supply the use of man and both ways man is made happy and not God says Lombard Et quod accepit obsequium à creaturis quod impendit Deo either to take homage from the Creature or to do homage to the glory of God All things are ours says St. Paul whether it be the world or life whether it be the World as the Vassal of our service or Life eternal as the Crown of our service When our Saviour did exhibit himself in this rare feature at Mount Thabor quorsum haec was it not to catch our hearts and affect them with the vision he did not present himself as Agrippa and Bernice did Act. xxv 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great pomp and estate to shew the regal lustre of their Royalty no the very Heathen were contented to say that the supreme power of Heaven must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contented with himself and needed no accessories to set forth his honour as Caesar spake in a lofty contempt to his mutinous Souldiers an vos momenta putatis ulla dedisse mihi so it would sound better from Gods mouth All the creatures upon earth cannot confer a scruple or the least moment to advance his excellency Christ was not contemptible by being made humble nor more renowned than he was before by appearing in Majesty Every way he is unobnoxious to the censure of man because every way he made himself fit for the good of man and when he joyned both humility and glory in one act both were for us See his lowly modesty when he rode upon an Ass to Jerusalem see his triumphs of dignity at the same time in those popular acclamations Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. But all was to this end that we might see and hear the honor of God and the fruit of our own salvation all the brightness which shin'd upon him in Mount Thabor was to enlighten our darkness Bonum est nobis says Peter it is good for us 3. Yet once again I will speak that the Apostle did speak the very truth in a third Point it was good to be continually present with Christs glory and never part from it Bonum est esse hic there is no mutation in perfect joy but an abiding for ever We cannot change for the better to go from the beatifical presence of God how could Peter choose but desire to hold him to that when he had begun to taste of it I have read in some obsolete stories of Lazarus who was raised to life after he had been dead four days and some others of the like kind that their soul had seen a little of the happiness of the life to come and being brought again into the body by the word of Christ they were never seen to laugh or smile either because they knew better than others that there was no true joy upon earth or because they were melancholy to have their happiness interrupted My soul longeth and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord says David Psal lxxxiv 2. If he could faint with desire to obtain that which he had never seen how might this Disciple faint and languish to leave that which he had seen Old Anna the Widow departed not out of the Temple of God day nor night which is as much in effect as if St. Luke had said Whatsoever place is called by Gods name deserves our frequent company and I say unto you of this house where now we are which is called by his name Bonum est nos esse hic it is good for us to be here St. Chrysostome tells me of some great Princes in his time that desired upon their death-bed to be buried in the Porch of the Church that although they were taken away from being present at the holy Service which they were wont to love yet their bodies even in the Grave might as it were be door-keepers for ever in the house of God I will conclude this general part with Bernards words Quid aliud videtur bonum quam in bonis animam demorari quandoquidem adhuc corpus non potest What is good for a man but that his soul should abide and persevere in good meditations and good works since there is no good place of continuance upon earth to receive his body You have the flower of St. Peters Speech bolted out but there is more bran remaining in six Conclusions that