hast superadded Reason making those first propensities of Nature to be reasonable in order to Society and a conversation in Communities and Bodies politick and hast by several laws and revelations directed our Reasons to nearer applications to thee and performance of thy great End the glory of our Lord and Father teach me strictly to observe the order of Creation and the designs of the Creatures that in my order I may do that service which every creature does in its proper capacity Lord let me be as constant in the ways of Religion as the Sun in his course as ready to follow the intimations of thy Spirit as little Birds are to obey the directions of thy Providence and the conduct of thy hand and let me never by evil customs or vain company or false persuasions extinguish those principles of Morality and right Reason which thou hast imprinted in my understanding in my creation and education and which thou hast ennobled by the superadditions of Christian institution that I may live according to the rules of Nature in such things which she teaches modestly temperately and affectionately in all the parts of my natural and political relations and that I proceeding from Nature to Grace may henceforth go on from Grace to Glory the crown of all Obedience prudent and holy walking through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT IV. Of the great and glorious Accidents happening about the Birth of JESVS The Angels appearing to the Shepherds S. LUKE 2. 14. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men The Epiphanie S. MAT 2. 11. When they had opened their treasures they presented unto him gifts Gold and Frank incense and Myrrhe 1. ALthough the Birth of Christ was destitute of the usual excrescences and less necessary Pomps which used to signifie and illustrate the birth of Princes yet his first Humility was made glorious with Presages Miracles and Significations from Heaven which did not only like the furniture of a Princely Bed-chamber speak the riches of the Parent or greatness of the Son within its own walls but did declare to all the world that their Prince was born publishing it with figures and representments almost as great as its Empire 2. For when all the world did expect that in Judaea should be born their Prince and that the incredulous world had in their observation slipt by their true Prince because he came not in pompous and secular illustrations upon that very stock Vespasian was nurs'd up in hope of the Roman Empire and that hope made him great in designs and they being prosperous made his fortunes correspond to his hopes and he was indeared and engaged upon that fortune by the Prophecy which was never intended him by the Prophet But the fortune of the Roman Monarchy was not great enough for this Prince design'd by the old Prophets And therefore it was not without the influence of a Divinity that his Decessor Augustus about the time of Christ's Nativity refused to be called LORD possibly it was to entertain the people with some hopes of restitution of their Liberties till he had grip'd the Monarchy with a stricter and faster hold but the Christians were apt to believe that it was upon the 〈◊〉 of a Sibyll foretelling the birth of a greater Prince to whom all the world should pay adoration and that the Prince was about that time born in Judaea the Oracle which was dumb to Augustus's question told him unask'd the Devil having no tongue permitted him but one to proclaim that an Hebrew child was his Lord and Enemy 3. At the Birth of which Child there was an universal Peace through all the World For then it was that Augustus Caesar having composed all the Wars of the World did the third time cause the gates of Janus's Temple to be shut and this Peace continued for twelve years even till the extreme old age of the Prince until rust had sealed the Temple doors which opened not till the Sedition of the 〈◊〉 and the Rebellion of the Dacians caused Augustus to arm For he that was born was the Prince of Peace and came to reconcile God with man and man with his brother and to make by the sweetness of his Example and the influence of a holy Doctrine such happy atonements between disagreeing natures such confederations and 〈◊〉 between Enemies that the Wolf and the Lamb should lie down together and a little child boldly and without danger put his finger in the nest and cavern of an Asp and it could be no less than miraculous that so great a Body as the Roman Empire consisting of so many parts whose Constitutions were differing their Humours contrary their Interests contradicting each others greatness and all these violently oppressed by an usurping power should have no limb out of joynt not so much as an aking tooth or a rebelling humour in that huge collection of parts but so it seemed good in the eye of Heaven by so great and good a symbol to declare not only the Greatness but the Goodness of the Prince that was then born in Judaea the Lord of all the World 4. But because the Heavens as well as the Earth are his Creatures and do serve him at his Birth he received a sign in Heaven above as well as in the Earth beneath as an homage paid to their common Lord. For as certain Shepherds were keeping watch over their slocks by night near that part where Jacob did use to feed his cattel when he was in the land of Canaan the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them Needs must the Shepherds be afraid when an Angel came arrayed in glory and clothed their persons in a robe of light great enough to confound their senses and scatter their understandings But the Angel said unto them Fear not for I bring unto you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. The Shepherds needed not be invited to go see this glorious sight but lest their fancy should rise up to an expectation of a Prince as externally glorious as might be hoped for upon the consequence of so glorious an Apparition the Angel to prevent the mistake told them of a Sign which indeed was no other than the thing 〈◊〉 but yet was therefore a Sign because it was so remote from the common probability and exspectation of such a birth that by being a Miracle so great a Prince should be born so poorly it became an instrument to signifie it self and all the other parts of mysterious consequence For the Angel said This shall be a sign unto you Ye shall find the Babe wrapt in swadling-cloaths lying in a manger 5. But as Light when it first begins to gild the East scatters indeed the darknesses from the earth but ceases not to increase its 〈◊〉
a participation of his felicities for he is strangely covetous who would enjoy the Sun or the Air or the Sea alone here was treasure sor him and all the world and by lighting his brother Simon' s taper he made his own light the greater and more glorious And this is the nature of Grace to be diffusive of its own excellencies for here no 〈◊〉 can inhabit the proper and personal ends of holy persons in the contract and transmissions of Grace are increased by the participation and communion of others For our Prayers are more effectual our aids increased our incouragement and examples more prevalent God more honoured and the rewards of glory have accidental advantages by the superaddition of every new Saint and beatified person the members of the mystical body when they have received nutriment from God and his Holy Son supplying to each other the same which themselves received and live on in the communion of Saints Every new Star gilds the firmament and increases its first glories and those who are instruments of the Conversion of others shall not only introduce new beauties but when themselves shine like the stars in glory they shall have some reflexions from the light of others to whose fixing in the Orb of Heaven themselves have been instrumental And this consideration is not only of use in the exaltations of the dignity Apostolical and Clerical but for the enkindling even of private charities who may do well to promote others interests of Piety in which themselves also have some concernment 4. These Disciples asked of Christ where he 〈◊〉 Jesus answered Come and see It was an answer very expressive of our duty in this instance It is not enough for us to understand where Christ inhabits or where he is to be found for our understandings may follow him afar off and we receive no satisfaction unless it be to curiosity but we must go where he is eat of his meat wash in his Lavatory rest on his beds and dwell with him for the Holy Jesus hath no kind influence upon those who stand at distance save only the affections of a Loadstone apt to draw them nigher that he may transmit his vertues by union and confederations but if they persist in a sullen distance they shall learn his glories as Dives understood the peace of Lazarus of which he was never to participate Although the Son of man hath not where to lay his head yet he hath many houses where to convey his Graces he hath nothing to cover his own but he hath enough to sanctifie ours and as he dwelt in such houses which the charity of good people then afforded for his entertainment so now he loves to abide in places which the Religion of his servants hath vowed to his honour and the advantages of Evangelical ministrations Thither we must come to him or any-where else where we may enjoy him He is to be found in a Church in his ordinances in the communion of Saints in every religious duty in the heart of every holy person and if we go to him by the addresses of Religion in Holy places by the ministery of Holy rites by Charity by the adherences of Faith and Hope and other combining Graces the Graces of union and society or prepare a lodging for him within us that he may come to us then shall we see such glories and interiour beauties which none know but they that dwell with him The secrets of spiritual benediction are understood only by them to whom they are conveyed even by the children of his house Come and see 5. S. Andrew was first called and that by Christ immediately his Brother Simon next and that by Andrew but yet Jesus changed Simon' s name and not the other 's and by this change design'd him to an eminency of Office at least in signification principally above his Brother or else separately and distinctly from him to shew that these Graces and favours which do not immediately cooperate to eternity but are gifts and offices or impresses of authority are given to men irregularly and without any order of predisponent causes or probabilities on our part but are issues of absolute predestination and as they have efficacy from those reasons which God conceals so they have some purposes as conccal'd as their causes only if God pleases to make us vessels of fair imployment and of great capacity we shall bear a greater burthen and are bound to glorifie God with special offices But as these exteriour and ineffective Graces are given upon the same good will of God which made this matter to be a humane Body when if God had so pleased it was as capable of being made a Fungus or a Sponge so they are given to us with the same intentions as are our Souls that we might glorifie God in the distinct capacity of Grace as before of a reasonable nature And besides that it teaches us to magnifie God's free mercy so it removes every such exalted person from being an object of envy to others or from pleasing himself in vainer opinions for God hath made him of such an imployment as freely and voluntarily as he hath made him a Man and he no more cooperated to this Grace than to his own creation and may as well admire himself for being born in Italy or from rich parents or for having two hands or two feet as for having received such a designation extraordinary But these things are never instruments of reputation among severe understandings and never but in the sottish and unmanly apprehensions of the vulgar Only this when God hath imprinted an authority upon a person although the man hath nothing to please himself withal but God's grace yet others are to pay the duty which that impression demands which duty because it rapports to God and touches not the man 〈◊〉 as it passes through him to the fountain of authority and grace it extinguishes all 〈◊〉 of opinion and pride 6. When Jesus espied 〈◊〉 who also had been called by the first Disciples coming towards him he gave him an excellent character calling him a true Israelite in whom was no guile and admitted him amongst the first Disciples of the Institution by this character in one of the first of his Scholars hallowing Simplicity of spirit and receiving it into his Discipline that it might now become a vertue and duty Evangelical For although it concerns us as a Christian duty to be prudent yet the Prudence of Christianity is a duty of spiritual effect and in instances of Religion with no other purposes than to avoid giving offence to those that are without and within that we cause no disreputation to Christianity that we do nothing that may incourage enemies to the Religion and that those that are within the communion and obedience of the Church may not suffer as great inconveniences by the indiscreet conduct of religious actions as by direct temptations to a sin These are the purposes of private Prudence to
hand is heavy and his sword is sharp and pierces to the dividing the marrow and the bones and he that considers the infinite distance between God and us must tremble when he remembers that he is to feel the issues of that anger which he is not certain whether or no it will destroy him infinitely and eternally 4. But if the whip be given into our hands that we become executioners of the Divine wrath it is sometimes worse for we seldom strike our selves for emendation but add sin to sin till we perish miserably and inevitably God scourges us often into Repentance but when a Sin is the whip of another sin the rod is put into our hands who like blind men strike with a rude and undiscerning hand and because we love the punishment do it without intermission or choice and have no end but ruine 5. When the Holy Jesus had whipt the Merchants in the Temple they took away all the instruments of their sin For a Judgment is usually the commencement of Repentance Love is the last of Graces and 〈◊〉 at the beginning of a new life but is reserved to the perfections and ripeness of a Christian. We begin in Pear The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom 〈◊〉 hen he smote them then they turned and enquired early after God And afterwards the impresses of Fear continue like a hedge of thorns about us to restrain our dissolutions within the awfulness of the Divine Majesty that it may preserve what was from the same principle begun This principle of their emendation was from God and therefore innocent and holy and the very purpose of Divine Threatnings is that upon them as upon one of the great hindges the Piety of the greatest part of men should turn and the effect was answerable but so are not the actions of all those who follow this precedent in the tract of the letter For indeed there have been some reformations which have been so like this that the greatest alteration which hath been made was that they carried all things out of the Temple the Money and the Tables and the Sacrifice and the Temple it self went at last But these mens scourge is to follow after and Christ the Prince of the Catholick Church will provide one of his own contexture moresevere than the stripes which 〈◊〉 felt from the infliction of the exterminating Angel But the Holy Spirit of God by making provision against such a Reformation hath prophetically declared the aptnesses which are in pretences of religious alterations to degenerate into sacrilegious desires Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit sacriledge In this case there is no amendment only one sin resigns to another and the person still remains under its power and the same dominion The PRAYER OEternal Jesu thou bright Image of thy Father's glories whose light did shine to all the world when thy heart was inflamed with zeal and love of God and of Religion let a coal from thine Altar fanned with the wings of the Holy Dove kindle in my Soul such holy flames that I may be zealous of thy honour and glory forward in Religious duties earnest in their pursuit prudent in their managing ingenuous in my purposes making my Religion to serve no end but of thy glories and the obtaining of thy promises and so sanctific my Soul and my Body that I may be a holy Temple fit and prepared for the inhabitation of thy ever-blessed Spirit whom grant that I may never grieve by admitting any impure thing to desecrate the place and unhallow the Courts of his abode but give me a pure Soul in a chaste and healthful 〈◊〉 a spirit full of holy simplicity and designs of great ingenuity and perfect Religion that I may intend what thou commandest and may with proper instruments 〈◊〉 what I so intend and by thy aids may obtain the end of my labours the rewards of obedience and holy living even the society and inheritance of Jesus in the participation of the joys of thy Temple where thou dwellest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost O Eternal Jesus Amen DISCOURSE VIII Of the Religion of Holy Places 1. THE Holy Jesus brought a Divine warrant for his Zeal The selling Sacrifices and the exchange of Money and every Lay-employment did violence and dishonour to the Temple which was hallowed to Ecclesiastical ministeries and set apart for Offices of Religion for the use of holy things for it was God's House and so is every house by publick designation separate for Prayer or other uses of Religion it is God's House My house God had a propriety in it and had set his mark on it even his own Name And therefore it was in the Jews Idiome of speech called the Mountain of the Lord's House and the House of the Lord by David frequently God had put his Name into all places appointed for solemn Worship In all places where I record my Name I will come unto thee and bless thee For God who was never visible to mortal eye was pleased to make himself presential by substitution of his Name that is in certain places he hath appointed that his Name shall be called upon and by promising and imparting such Blessings which he hath made consequent to the invocation of his Name hath made such places to be a certain determination of some special manner of his Presence For God's Name is not a distinct thing from himself not an Idea and it cannot be put into a place in literal signification the expression is to be resolved into some other sence God's Name is that whereby he is known by which he is invocated that which is the most immediate publication of his Essence nearer than which we cannot go unto him and because God is essentially present in all places when he makes himself present in one place more than another it cannot be understood to any other purpose but that in such places he gives special Blessings and Graces or that in those places he appoints his Name that is himself specially to be invocated 2. So that when God puts his Name in any place by a special manner it signifies that there himself is in that manner But in separate and hallowed places God hath expressed that he puts his Name with a purpose it should be called upon therefore in plain signification it is thus In Consecrate places God himself is present to be invok'd that is there he is most delighted to hear the Prayers we make unto him For all the expressions of Scripture of God's 〈◊〉 the Tabernacle of God God's Dwellings putting his Name there his Sanctuary are resolved into that saying of God to Solomon who prayed that he would hear the Prayers of necessitous people in that place God granting the request expressed it thus I have sanctified the House which thou hast built that is the House which thou hast designed for my Worship I have designed for your Blessing what you have
the Apostle says He that is in Christ walks as he also walked But thus the actions of our life relate to him by way of Worship and Religion but the use is admirable and effectual when our actions refer to him as to our Copy and we transcribe the Original to the life He that considers with what affections and lancinations of spirit with what effusions of love Jesus prayed what fervors and assiduity what innocency of wish what modesty of posture what subordination to his Father and conformity to the Divine Pleasure were in all his Devotions is taught and excited to holy and religious Prayer The rare sweetness of his deportment in all Temptations and violences of his Passion his Charity to his enemies his sharp Reprehensions to the Scribes and Pharisees his Ingenuity toward all men are living and effectual Sermons to teach us Patience and Humility and Zeal and candid Simplicity and Justice in all our actions I add no more instances because all the following Discourses will be prosecutions of this intendment And the Life of Jesus is not described to be like a Picture in a chamber of Pleasure only for beauty and entertainment of the eye but like the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks whose every feature is a Precept and the Images converse with men by sense and signification of excellent 〈◊〉 16. It was not without great reason advised that every man should propound the example of a wise and vertuous personage as Cato or Socrates or Brutus and by a fiction of imagination to suppose him present as a witness and really to take his life as the direction of all our actions The best and most excellent of the old Law-givers and Philosophers among the Greeks had an allay of Viciousness and could not be exemplary all over Some were noted for Flatterers as Plato and Aristippus some for Incontinency as Aristotle Epicurus Zeno Theognis Plato and Aristippus again and Socrates whom their Oracle affirmed to be the wisest and most perfect man yet was by Porphyry noted for extreme intemperance of Anger both in words and actions And those Romans who were offered to them for Examples although they were great in reputation yet they had also great Vices Brutus dipt his hand in the bloud of Caesar his Prince and his Father by love endearments and adoption and Cato was but a wise man all day at night he was used to drink too liberally and both he and Socrates did give their Wives unto their friends the Philosopher and the Censor were procurers of their Wives Unchastity and yet these were the best among the Gentiles But how happy and richly furnished are Christians with precedents of Saints whose Faith and Revelations have been productive of more spiritual Graces and greater degrees of moral perfections And this I call the priviledge of a very great assistance that I might advance the reputation and account of the Life of the Glorious Jesu which is not abated by the imperfections of humane Nature as they were but receives great heightnings and perfection from the Divinity of his Person of which they were never capable 17. Let us therefore press after Jesus as 〈◊〉 did after his Master with an inseparable prosecution even whithersoever he goes that according to the reasonableness and proportion expressed in S. Paul's advice As we have born the image of the earthly we may also bear the image of the heavenly For in vain are we called Christians if we live not according to the example and discipline of Christ the Father of the Institution When S. Laurence was in the midst of the torments of the Grid-iron he made this to be the matter of his joy and Eucharist that he was admitted to the Gates through which Jesus had entred and therefore thrice happy are they who walk in his Courts all their days And it is yet a nearer union and vicinity to imprint his Life in our Souls and express it in our exterior converse and this is done by him only who as S. Prosper describes the duty despises all those gilded vanities which he despised that fears none of those sadnesses which he suffered that practises or also teaches those Doctrines which he taught and hopes for the accomplishment of all his Promises And this is truest Religion and the most solemn Adoration The PRAYER OEternal Holy and most glorious Jesu who hast united two Natures of distance infinite descending to the lownesses of Humane nature that thou mightest exalt Humane nature to a participation of the Divinity we thy people that sate in darkness and in the shadows of death have seen great light to entertain our Understandings and enlighten our Souls with its excellent influences for the excellency of thy Sanctity shining gloriously in every part of thy Life is like thy Angel the Pillar of Fire which called thy children from the darknesses of Egypt Lord open mine eyes and give me power to behold thy righteous Glories and let my Soul be so entertained with affections and holy ardours that I may never look back upon the flames of 〈◊〉 but may follow thy Light which recreates and enlightens and guides us to the mountains of Safety and Sanctuaries of Holiness Holy Jesu since thy 〈◊〉 is imprinted on our Nature by Creation let me also express thy Image by all the parts of a holy life 〈◊〉 my Will and Affections to thy holy Precepts submitting my Understanding to thy Dictates and Lessons of perfection imitating thy sweetnesses and Excellencies of Society thy Devotion in Prayer thy Conformity to God thy Zeal tempered with Meekness thy Patience heightned with Charity that Heart and Hands and Eyes and all my Faculties may grow up with the increase of God till I come to the full measure of the 〈◊〉 of Christ even to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus that at last in thy light I may see light and reap the fruits of Glory from the seeds of Sanctity in the 〈◊〉 of thy holy Life O Blessed and Holy Saviour Jesus Amen THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin MARY until his Baptism and Temptation inclusively WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE FIRST PART Qui sequitur me non ambulat in Tenebris LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675. THE LIFE Of our Blessed Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST The Evangelical Prophet Behold a Virgin shall conceive beare a son and shall call his name Immanuel Isa 7 14. Mat 1 22 23 The Annunciation S. LUKE 1. 28 Haile thou that art highly favoured the Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women SECT I. The History of the Conception of JESVS 1. WHen the fulness of time was come after the frequent repetition of Promises the expectation of the Jewish Nation the longings and tedious waitings of all holy persons the departure of the
all publick Societies of men one word or an intimation from Christ would have sounded an alarm and put us into postures of defence when all Christ's excellent Sermons and rare exemplar actions cannot tie our hands But it is strange now that of all men in the World Christians should be such fighting people or that Christian Subjects should lift up a thought against a Christian Prince when they had no intimation of encouragement from their Master but many from him to endear Obedience and Humility and Patience and Charity and these four make up the whole analogy and represent the chief design and meaning of Christianity in its moral constitution 11. But Jesus when himself was safe could also have secured the poor Babes of Bethlehem with thousands of diversions and avocations of Herod's purposes or by discovering his own Escape in some safe manner not unknown to the Divine wisedom but yet it did not so please God He is Lord of his Creatures and hath absolute dominion over our lives and he had an end of Glory to serve upon these Babes and an end of Justice upon Herod and to the Children he made such compensation that they had no reason to complain that they were so soon made Stars when they shined in their little Orbs and participations of Eternity for so the sense of the Church hath been that they having dyed the death of Martyrs though incapable of making the choice God supplied the defects of their will by his own entertainment of the thing that as the misery and their death so also their glorification might have the same Author in the same manner of causality even by a peremptory and unconditioned determination in these particulars This sense is pious and nothing unreasonable considering that all circumstances of the thing make the case particular but the immature death of other Infants is a sadder story for though I have no warrant or thought that it is ill with them after death and in what manner or degree of well-being it is there is no revelation yet I am not of opinion that the securing of so low a condition as theirs in all reason is like to be will make recompence or is an equal blessing with the possibilities of such an Eternity as is proposed to them who in the use of Reason and a holy life glorifie God with a free Obedience and if it were otherwise it were no blessing to live till the use of Reason and Fools and Babes were in the best because in the securest condition and certain expectation of equal glories 12. As soon as Herod was dead for the Divine Vengeance waited his own time for his arrest the Angel presently brought Joseph word The holy Family was full of content and indifferency not solicitous for return not distrustful of the Divine Providence full of poverty and sanctity and content waiting God's time at the return of which God delayed not to recall them from Exile out of Egypt he called his Son and directed Joseph's fear and course that he should divert to a place in the jurisdiction of Philip where the Heir of Herod's Cruelty Archelaus had nothing to do And this very series of Providence and care God expresses to all his sons by adoption and will determine the time and set bounds to every Persecution and punish the instruments and ease our pains and refresh our sorrows and give quietness to our fears and deliverance from our troubles and sanctifie it all and give a Crown at last and all in his good time if we wait the coming of the Angel and in the mean time do our duty with care and sustain our temporals with indifferency and in all our troubles and displeasing accidents we may call to mind that God by his holy and most reasonable Providence hath so ordered it that the spiritual advantages we may receive from the holy use of such incommodities are of great recompence and interest and that in such accidents the Holy Jesus having gone before us in precedent does go along with us by love and fair assistences and that makes the present condition infinitely more eligible than the greatest splendour of secular fortune The PRAYER O Blessed and Eternal God who didst suffer thy Holy Son to fly from the violence of an enraged Prince and didst chuse to defend him in the ways of his infirmity by hiding himself and a voluntary exile be thou a defence to all thy faithful people when-ever Persecution arises against them send them the ministery of Angels to direct them into ways of security and let thy holy Spirit guide them in the paths of Sanctity and let thy Providence continue in custody over their persons till the times of refreshment and the day of Redemption shall return Give O Lord to thy whole Church Sanctity and Zeal and the confidences of a holy Faith boldness of confession Humility content and resignation of spirit generous contempt of the World and unmingled desires of thy glory and the edification of thy Elect that no secular interests disturb her duty or discompose her charity or depress her hopes or in any unequal degree possess her affections and pollute her spirit but preserve her from the snares of the World and the Devil from the rapine and greedy desires of Sacrilegious persons and in all conditions whether of affluence or want may she still promote the interests of Religion that when plenteousness is within her palaces and peace in her walls that condition may then be best for her and when she is made as naked as Jesus to his Passion then Poverty may be best for her that in all estates she may glorifie thee and in all accidents and changes thou mayest sanctifie and bless her and at last bring her to the eternal riches and abundances of glory where no Persecution shall disturb her rest Grant this for sweet Jesus sake who suffered exile and hard journeys and all the inconveniences of a friendless person in a strange Province to whom with thee and the eternal Spirit be glory for ever and blessing in all generations of the World and for ever and ever Amen SECT VII Of the younger years of JESVS and his Disputation with the Doctors in the Temple The House of Prayer It is written My house shall be called of all Nations the house of prayer Mark 11. 17. If they return confess thy name and pray and make supplication before thee in this House Then hear thou in heaven and forgive 2. Chron 6. 24. 26. IESUS disputing with the Doctors S. LUKE 2. 46. 47. They found him in the Temple sitting in the midst of the Doctors both hearing them and asking them questions And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding answers 1. FRom the return of this holy Family to Judaea and their habitation in Nazareth till the blessed Child Jesus was twelve years of age we have nothing transmitted to us out of any authentick Record but that they went to
Hypocrisie and vanities of the one and the Heresie of the other For Herod's leven was the pretence that he was the Messias which the Sect of the 〈◊〉 did earnestly and spitefully promote And after this 〈◊〉 of themselves by the way they came together to Bethsaida where Jesus cured a blind man with a collyrium of spittle salutary as Balsam or the purest Eyebright when his divine benediction once had hallowed it But Jesus staid not there but departing thence into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi out of Herod's power for it was in Philip's jurisdiction after he had prayed with his Disciples he enquired what opinion the world had of him and whom they reported him to be They answered Some say thou art John the Baptist some that thou art Elias or Jeremias or one of the Prophets for in 〈◊〉 especially the Sect of the Pharisees was mightily disseminated whose opinion it was that the Souls of dead men according to their several merits did transmigrate into other bodies of very perfect and excellent persons And therefore in all this variety none hit upon the right or fansied him to be a distinct person from the ancients but although they differed in the assignation of his name yet generally they agreed it was the Soul of a departed Prophet which had passed into another Body But Jesus asked the Apostles their opinion and Peter in the name of all the rest made an open and confident Confession Thou art CHRIST the Son of the living God 9. This Confession Jesus not only confirmed as true but as revealed by God and of fundamental necessity for after the blessing of Peter's person upon allusion of Peter's name Jesus said that upon this Rock the article of Peter's Confession he would build his Church promising to it assistances even to perpetuity insomuch that the gates of hell that is persecution and death and the grave should never prevail against it adding withall a promise to Peter in behalf of all the rest as he had made a Confession for them all that he would give unto him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven so that whatsoever he should bind on earth should be bound in Heaven and whatsoever he should loose on earth should be loosed in Heaven a power which he never communicated before or since but to their successors greater than the large Charter of Nature and the donative of Creation in which all the creatures under Heaven were made subject to Man's Empire but till now Heaven it self was never subordinate to humane ministration 10. And now the days from hence forward to the Death of Jesus we must reckon to be like the Vigils or Eves of his Passion for now he began and often did ingeminate those sad predictions of his unhandsome usage he should shortly find that he 〈◊〉 be rejected of the Elders and chief Priests and Scribes and suffer many things at Jerusalem and be killed and be raised up the third day But Peter hearing that sad discourse so contrary to his hopes which he had blended with temporal expectances for he had learned the Doctrine of Christ's Advent but not the mystery of the Cross in great and mistaken civility took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee But Jesus full of zeal against so soft and humane admonition that savoured nothing of God or of abstracted immaterial considerations chid Peter bitterly Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me And calling his Disciples to him told them a second part of a sad doctrine that not only himself but all they also must suffer For when the Head was to be crowned with thorns if the Members were wrapped in softnesses it was an unhansome undecency and a disunion too near an antipathy and therefore who ever will be the Disciple of Jesus must take up his Cross deny himself and his own fonder appetites and trace his Master's foot-steps marked out with bloud that he shed for our Redemption and restitution And that there be no escape from the participation of Christ's suffering Jesus added this Dilemma He that will save his life shall lose it and he that will lose it shall save it to eternity Which part soever we chuse there is a life to be lost but as the first are foolish to the extremest misery that will lose their Souls to gain the World so they are most wise and fortunate that will give their lives for him because when the Son of Man shall come in his own glory and his Father's and of his Angels he shall reward every man according to his works This discourse Jesus concluded with a Prophecy that some standing in that presence should not die till they saw the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom 11. Of the greater glories of which in due time to be revealed Jesus after eight days gave a bright and excellent probation For taking with him Peter and James and John he went up into the mountain Tabor to pray and while he prayed he was transfigured before them and his face did shine like the Sun and his garments were white and 〈◊〉 And there appeared talking with him Moses and Elias gloriously speaking of the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem which glory these Apostles after they had awaked from sleep did behold And the Interlocutors with Jesus having finished their embassy of death which they delivered in forms of glory representing the excellencies of the reward together with the sharpness of the passage and interval departed leaving the Apostles full of fear and wonder and 〈◊〉 insomuch that Peter talked he knew not what but nothing amiss something Prophetical saying Master it is good to be here 〈◊〉 us build three tabernacles And some devout persons in memory of the mystery did 〈◊〉 three Churches in the same place in after-Ages But after the departure of those attendent Saints a cloud incircled Jesus and the Disciples and a voice came from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son hear him The cloud quickly disappeared and freed the Disciples from the fear it had put them in So they attended Jesus and descended from the mountain being commanded silence which they observed till the Resurrection 12. The next day came to Jesus a man praying in behalf of his son Lunatick and sore troubled with a Devil who sought oft to destroy him in fire and water that Jesus would be pleased to deliver him For his Apostles tried and could not by reason of the want of Faith for this Grace if it be true though in a less degree is of power to remove mountains to pluck up trees by the roots and to give them solid foundation in the waters And Jesus rebuked the Devil and 〈◊〉 departed out of him from that very hour Thence Jesus departed privately into Galilee and in his journey repeated those sadnesses of his approaching Passion Which so afflicted the spirits of the Disciples that they durst
think the infelicities of our nature and the calamities of our temporal condition to become criminal so long as they make us not omit a duty or dispose us to the election of a crime or force us to swallow a temptation nor yet to exceed the value of their impulsive cause He that grieves for the loss of friends and yet had rather lose all the friends he hath than lose the love of God hath the sorrow of our Lord for his precedent And he that fears death and trembles at its approximation and yet had rather die again than sin once hath not sinned in his fear Christ hath hallowed it and the necessitous condition of his nature is his excuse But it were highly to be wished that in the midst of our caresses and levities of society in our festivities and triumphal merriments when we laugh at folly and rejoyce in sin we would remember that for those very merriments our Blessed Lord felt a bitter sorrow and not one vain and sinful laughter but cost the Holy Jesus a sharp pang and throe of Passion 4. Now that the Holy Jesus began to taste the bitter Cup he betook him to his great Antidote which himself the great Physician of our Souls prescribed to all the world to cure their calamities and to make them pass from miseries into vertue that so they may arrive at glory he prays to his heavenly Father he kneels down and not only so but falls flat upon the earth and would in humility and fervent adoration have descended low as the centre he prays with an intension great as his sorrow and yet with a dereliction so great and a conformity to the Divine will so ready as if it had been the most indifferent thing in the world for him to be delivered to death or from it for though his nature did decline death as that which hath a natural horrour and contradiction to the present interest of its preservation yet when he looked upon it as his heavenly Father had put it into the order of Redemption of the World it was that Baptism which he was straitned till he had accomplished And now there is not in the world any condition of prayer which is essential to the duty or any circumstances of advantage to its performance but were concentred in this one instance Humility of spirit lowliness of deportment importunity of desire a fervent spirit a lawful matter resignation to the will of God great love the love of a Son to his Father which appellative was the form of his address perseverance he went thrice and prayed the same prayer It was not long and it was so retired as to have the advantages of a sufficient solitude and opportune recollection for he was withdrawn from the most of his Disciples and yet not so alone as to lose the benefit of communion for Peter and the two Boanerges were near him Christ in this prayer which was the most fervent that he ever made on earth intending to transmit to all the world a precedent of Devotion to be transcribed and imitated that we should cast all our cares and empty them in the bosom of God being content to receive such a portion of our trouble back again which he assigns us for our spiritual emolument 5. The Holy Jesus having in a few words poured out torrents of innocent desires was pleased still to interrupt his Prayer that he might visit his charge that little flock which was presently after to be scattered he was careful of them in the midst of his Agonies they in his sufferings were fast asleep He awakens them gives them command to watch and pray that is to be vigilant in the custody of their senses and obervant of all accidents and to pray that they may be strengthened against all incursions of enemies and temptations and then returns to prayer and so a third time his Devotion still encreasing with his sorrow And when his Prayer was full and his sorrow come to a great measure after the third God sent his Angel to comfort him and by that act of grace then only expressed hath taught us to continue our Devotions so long as our needs last It may be God will not send a Comsorter till the third time that is after a long expectation and a patient 〈◊〉 and a lasting hope in the interim God supports us with a secret hand and in his own time will refresh the spirit with the visitations of his Angels with the emissions of comfort from the Spirit the Comforter And know this also that the holy Angel and the Lord of all the Angels stands by every holy person when he prays and although he draws before his glories the curtain of a cloud yet in every instant he takes care we shall not perish and in a just season dissolves the cloud and makes it to distill in holy dew and drops sweet as Manna pleasant as Nard and wholsome as the breath of Heaven And such was the consolation which the Holy Jesus received by the ministery of the Angel representing to Christ the Lord of the Angels how necessary it was that he should die for the glory of God that in his Passion his Justice Wisdom Goodness Power and Mercy should shine that unless he died all the World should perish but his bloud should obtain their pardon and that it should open the gates of Heaven repair the ruine of Angels establish a holy Church be 〈◊〉 of innumerable adoptive children to his Father whom himself should make heirs of glory and that his Passion should soon pass away his Father hearing and granting his Prayer that the Cup should pass speedily though indeed it should pass through him that it should be attended and followed with a glorious Resurrection with eternal rest and glory of his Humanity with the exaltation of his Name with a supreme dominion over all the world and that his Father should make him King of Kings and Prince of the Catholick Church These or whatsoever other comforts the Angel ministred were such considerations which the Holy Jesus knew and the Angel knew not but by communication from that God to whose assumed Humanity the Angel spake yet he was pleased to receive comfort from his servant just as God receives glory from his creatures and as he rejoyces in his own works even because he is good and gracious and is pleased so to do and because himself had caused a voluntary sadness to be interposed between the habitual knowledge and the actual consideration of these discourses and we feel a pleasure when a friendly hand lays upon our wound the plaister which our selves have made and applies such instruments and considerations of comfort which we have in notion and an ineffective habit but cannot reduce them to act because no man is so apt to be his own comforter which God hath therefore permitted that our needs should be the occasion of a mutual Charity 6. It was a great season for
and adherences of love and obedience to his heavenly Father were next to infinite yet in his external actions in which only with the correspondence of the Spirit in those actions he propounds himself imitable he did so converse with men that men after that example might for ever converse with him We find that some Saints have had excrescencies and eruptions of Holiness in the instances of uncommanded Duties which in the same particulars we find not in the story of the Life of Jesus John Baptist was a greater Mortifier than his Lord was and some Princes have given more money than all Christ's Family did whilest he was alive but the difference which is observable is that although some men did some acts of Counsel in order to attain that perfection which in Jesus was essential and unalterable and was not acquired by degrees and means of danger and difficulty yet no man ever did his whole duty save only the Holy Jesus The best of men did sometimes actions not precisely and strictly requisite and such as were besides the Precept but yet in the greatest flames of their shining Piety they prevaricated something of the Commandment They that have done the most things beyond have also done some things short of their duty But Jesus who intended himself the Example of Piety did in manners as in the rule of Faith which because it was propounded to all men was fitted to every understanding it was true necessary short easie and intelligible So was his Rule and his Copy 〈◊〉 not only with excellencies worthy but with compliances possible to be imitated of glories so great that the most early and constant industry must confess its own imperfections and yet so sweet and humane that the greatest infirmity if pious shall find comfort and encouragement Thus God gave his children Manna from Heaven and though it was excellent like the food of Angels yet it conformed to every palate according to that appetite which their several fancies and constitutions did produce 9. But now when the Example of Jesus is so excellent that it allures and tempts with its facility and sweetness and that we are not commanded to imitate a Life whose story tells of 〈◊〉 in Prayer and Abstractions of senses and immaterial Transportations and Fastings to the exinanition of spirits and disabling all animal operations but a Life of Justice and Temperance of Chastity and Piety of Charity and Devotion such a Life without which humane Society cannot be conserved and by which as our irregularities are made regular so our weaknesses are not upbraided nor our miseries made a mockery we find so much reason to address our selves to a heavenly imitation of so blessed a Pattern that the reasonableness of the thing will be a great argument to chide every degree and minute of neglect It was a strange and a confident encouragement which Phocion used to a timorous Greek who was condemned to die with him Is it not enough to thee that thou must die with Phocion I am sure he that is most incurious of the issues of his life is yet willing enough to reign with Jesus when he looks upon the Glories represented without the Duty but it is a very great stupidity and unreasonableness not to live with him in the imitation of so holy and so prompt a Piety It is glorious to do what he did and a shame to decline his Sufferings when there was a God to hallow and sanctifie the actions and a Man clothed with infirmity to undergo the sharpness of the passion so that the Glory of the person added excellency to the first and the Tenderness of the person excused not from suffering the latter 10. Thirdly Every action of the Life of Jesus as it is imitable by us is of so excellent merit that by making up the treasure of Grace it becomes full of assistances to us and obtains of God Grace to enable us to its imitation by way of influence and impetration For as in the acquisition of Habits the very exercise of the Action does produce a Facility to the action and in some proportion becomes the cause of its self so does every exercise of the Life of Christ kindle its own fires inspires breath into it self and makes an univocal production of its self in a differing subject And Jesus becomes the fountain of spiritual Life to us as the Prophet Elisha to the dead child when he stretched his hands upon the child's hands laid his mouth to his mouth and formed his posture to the boy and breathed into him the spirit returned again into the child at the prayer of Elisha so when our lives are formed into the imitation of the Life of the Holiest Jesus the spirit of God returns into us not only by the efficacy of the imitation but by the merit and impetration of the actions of Jesus It is reported in the Bohemian Story that S. Wenceslaus their King one winter-night going to his Devotions in a remote Church bare-footed in the snow and sharpness of unequal and pointed ice his servant Podavivus who waited upon his Master's piety and endeavoured to imitate his affections began to faint through the violence of the snow and cold till the King commanded him to follow him and set his feet in the same footsteps which his feet should mark for him the servant did so and either fansied a cure or found one for he followed his Prince help'd forward with shame and zeal to his imitation and by the forming footsteps for him in the snow In the same manner does the Blessed Jesus for since our way is troublesome obscure full of objection and danger apt to be mistaken and to affright our industry he commands us to mark his footsteps to tread where his feet have stood and not only invites us forward by the argument of his Example but he hath troden down much of the difficulty and made the way easier and fit for our feet For he knows our infirmities and himself hath felt their experience in all things but in the neighbourhoods of sin and therefore he hath proportioned a way and a path to our strengths and capacities and like Jacob hath marched softly and in evenness with the children and the cattel to entertain us by the comforts of his company and the influences of a perpetual guide 11. Fourthly But we must know that not every thing which Christ did is imitable by us neither did he in the work of our Redemption in all things imitate his heavenly Father For there are some things which are issues of an absolute Power some are expresses of supreme Dominion some are actions of a Judge And therefore Jesus prayed for his enemies and wept over Jerusalem when at the same instant his Eternal Father laughed them to scorn for he knew that their day was coming and himself had decreed their ruine But it became the Holy Jesus to imitate his Father's mercies for himself was the great instrument of
the eternal Compassion and was the instance of Mercy and therefore in the operation of his Father's design every action of his was univocal and he shewed the power of his Divinity in nothing but in miracles of Mercy and illustrations of Faith by creating arguments of Credibility In the same proportion we follow Jesus as himself followed his Father For what he abated by the order to his intendment and design we abate by the proportions of our Nature for some excellent acts of his were demonstrations of Divinity and an excellent Grace poured forth upon him without measure was their instrument to which proportions if we should extend our infirmities we should crack our sinews and dissolve the silver cords before we could entertain the instances and support the burthen Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights but the manner of our Fastings hath been in all Ages limited to the term of an artificial day and in the Primitive Observations and the Jewish Rites men did eat their meal as soon as the Stars shone in the firmament We never read that Jesus laughed and but once that he rejoyced in spirit but the declensions of our Natures cannot bear the weight of a perpetual grave deportment without the intervals of refreshment and free alacrity Our ever-blessed Saviour suffered the Devotion of Mary Magdalene to transport her to an expensive expression of her Religion and twice to anoint his feet with costly Nard and yet if persons whose conditions were of no greater lustre or resplendency of Fortune than was conspicuous in his family and retinue should suffer the same profusion upon the dressing and perfuming their bodies possibly it might be truly said It might better be sold and distributed to the poor This Jesus received as he was the CHRIST and Anointed of the Lord and by this he suffered himself to be designed to Burial and he received the oblation as Eucharistical for the ejection of seven Devils for therefore she loved much 12. The instances are not many For how-ever Jesus had some extraordinary transvolations and acts of emigration beyond the lines of his even and ordinary conversation yet it was but seldom for his being exemplary was of so great consideration that he chose to have fewer instances of Wonder that he might transmit the more of an imitable Vertue And therefore we may establish this for a rule and limit of our imitations Because Christ our Law-giver hath described all his Father's will in Sanctions and signature of Laws whatsoever he commanded and whatsoever he did of precise Morality or in pursuance of the Laws of Nature in that we are to trace his footsteps and in these his Laws and his practice differ but as a Map and a Guide a Law and a Judge a Rule and a Precedent But in the special instances of action we are to abate the circumstances and to separate the obedience from the effect whatsoever was moral in a ceremonial performance that is highly imitable and the obedience of Sacrificing and the subordination to Laws actually in being even now they are abrogated teach us our duty in a differing subject upon the like reason Jesus's going up to Jerusalem to the Feasts and his observation of the Sabbaths teach us our duty in celebration of Festivals constitute by a competent and just Authority For that which gave excellency to the observation of Mosaical Rites was an Evangelical duty and the piety of Obedience did not only consecrate the observations of Levi but taught us our duty in the constitutions of Christianity 13. Fifthly As the Holy Jesus did some things which we are not to imitate so we also are to do some things which we cannot learn from his Example For there are some of our Duties which presuppose a state of Sin and some suppose a violent temptation and promptness to it and the duties of prevention and the instruments of restitution are proper to us but conveyed only by Precept and not by Precedent Such are all the parts and actions of Repentance the duties of Mortification and Self-denial For whatsoever the Holy Jesus did in the matter of Austerity looked directly upon the work of our Redemption and looked back only on us by a reflex act as Christ did on Peter when he looked him into Repentance Some states of life also there are which Jesus never led such are those of temporal Governors Kings and Judges Merchants Lawyers and the state of Marriage in the course of which lives many cases do occur which need a Precedent and the vivacity of an excellent Example especially since all the rules which they have have not prevented the subtilty of the many inventions which men have found out nor made provision for all contingencies Such persons in all their special needs are to govern their actions by the rules of proportion by analogy to the Holiness of the person of Jesus and the Sanctity of his Institution considering what might become a person professing the Discipline of so Holy a Master and what he would have done in the like case taking our heights by the excellency of his Innocency and Charity Only remember this that in such cases we must always judge on the strictest side of Piety and Charity if it be a matter concerning the interest of a second person and that in all things we do those actions which are farthest removed from scandal and such as towards our selves are severe towards others full of gentleness and sweetness For so would the righteous and merciful Jesus have done these are the best analogies and proportions And in such 〈◊〉 when the Wells are dry let us take water from a Cistern and propound to our selves some exemplar Saint the necessities of whose life have determined his Piety to the like occurrences 14. But now from these particulars we shall best account to what the duty of the Imitation of Jesus does amount for it signifies that we should walk as he walked tread in his steps with our hand upon the Guide and our eye upon his Rule that we should do glory to him as he did to his Father and that whatsoever we do we should be careful that it do him honour and no reproach to his Institution and then account these to be the integral parts of our Duty which are imitation of his Actions or his Spirit of his Rule or of his Life there being no better Imitation of him than in such actions as do him pleasure however he hath expressed or imitated the precedent 15. He that gives Alms to the poor takes Jesus by the hand he that patiently endures Injuries and affronts helps him to bear his Cross he that comforts his brother in Affliction gives an amiable kiss of peace to Jesus he that bathes his own and his neighbour's sins in tears of penance and compassion washes his Master's feet We lead Jesus into the recesses of our heart by holy Meditations and we enter into his heart when we express him in our actions for so
the heightning his own Felicity but out of mere and perfect charity and the bowels of compassion sent into the world his only Son for remedy to humane miseries to ennoble our Nature by an union with Divinity to sanctifie it with his Justice to inrich it with his Grace to instruct it with his Doctrine to fortifie it with his Example to rescue it from servitude to assert it into the liberty of the sons of God and at last to make it partaker of a beatifical Resurrection 2. God who in the infinite treasures of his wisdom and providence could have found out many other ways for our Redemption than the Incarnation of his eternal Son was pleased to chuse this not only that the Remedy by Man might have proportion to the causes of our Ruine whose introduction and intromission was by the prevarication of Man but also that we might with freer dispensation receive the influences of a Saviour with whom we communicate in Nature although Abana and Pharpar Rivers of Damascus were of greater name and current yet they were not so salutary as the waters of Jordan to cure Naaman's Leprosie And if God had made the remedy of humane nature to have come all the way clothed in prodigy and every instant of its execution had been as terrible affrighting and as full of Majesty as the apparitions upon Mount Sinai yet it had not been so useful and complying to humane necessities as was the descent of God to the susception of Humane Nature whereby as in all Medicaments the cure is best wrought by those instruments which have the fewest dissonancies to our temper and are the nearest to our constitution For thus the Saviour of the world became humane alluring full of invitation and the sweetnesses of love exemplary humble and medicinal 3. And if we consider the reasonableness of the thing what can be given more excellent for the Redemption of Man than the Bloud of the Son of God And what can more ennoble our Nature than that by the means of his holy Humanity it was taken up into the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity What better Advocate could we have for us than he that is appointed to be our Judge And what greater hopes of Reconciliation can be imagined than that God in whose power it is to give an absolute Pardon hath taken a new Nature entertained an Office and undergone a life of Poverty with a purpose to procure our Pardon For now though as the righteous Judge he will judge the Nations righteously yet by the susception of our Nature and its appendant crimes he is become a party and having obliged himself as Man as he is God he will satisfie by putting the value of an infinite Merit to the actions and sufferings of his Humanity And if he had not been God he could not have given us remedy if he had not been Man we should have wanted the excellency of Example 4. And till now Humane nature was less than that of Angels but by the Incarnation of the Word was to be exalted above the Cherubims yet the Archangel Gabriel being dispatched in embassie to represent the joy and exaltation of his inferiour instantly trims his wings with love and obedience and hastens with this Narrative to the Holy Virgin And if we should reduce our prayers to action and do God's Will on earth as the Angels in Heaven do it we should promptly 〈◊〉 every part of the Divine Will though it were to be instrumental to the exaltation of a Brother above our selves knowing no end but conformity to the Divine Will and making simplicity of intention to be the 〈◊〉 and exterior borders of our garments 5. When the eternal God meant to stoop so low as to be fixt to our centre he chose for his Mother a Holy person and a Maid but yet 〈◊〉 to a Just man that he might not only be secure in the Innocency but also provided sor in the Reputation of his holy Mother teaching us That we must not only satisfie our selves in the purity of our purposes and hearty Innocence but that we must provide also things honest in the 〈◊〉 of all men being free from the suspicion and semblances of evil so making provision for private Innocence and publick Honesty it being necessary in order to Charity and edification of our Brethren that we hold forth no impure flames or smoaking firebrands but pure and trimmed lamps in the eyes of all the world 6. And yet her Marriage was more mysterious for as besides the Miracle it was an eternal honour and advancement to the glory of Virginity that he chose a Virgin for his Mother so it was in that manner 〈◊〉 that the Virgin was betrothed lest honourable Marriage might be disreputed and seem inglorious by a positive rejection from any participation of the honour Divers of the old Doctors from the authority of 〈◊〉 add another reason saying That the Blessed Jesus was therefore born of a woman betrothed and under the pretence of Marriage that the Devil who knew the 〈◊〉 was to be born of a Virgin might not expect him there but so be ignorant of the person till God had serv'd many ends of Providence upon him 7. The Angel in his address needed not to go in inquisition after a wandring fire but knew she was a Star fixt in her own Orb he found her at home and 〈◊〉 that also might be too large a Circuit she was yet confined to a more intimate retirement she was in her Oratory private and devout There are some Curiosities so bold and determinate as to tell the very matter of her Prayer and that she was praying for the Salvation of all the World and the Revelation of the 〈◊〉 desiring she might be so happy as to kiss the feet of her who should have the glory to be his Mother We have no security of the particular but there is no piety so diffident as to require a sign to create a belief that her imployment at the instant was holy and religious but in that disposition she received a grace which the greatest Queens would have purchased with the quitting of their Diadems and hath consigned an excellent Document to all women that they accustom themselves often to those Retirements where none but God and his Angels can have admittance For the Holy Jesus can come to them too and dwell with them hallowing their Souls and consigning their bodies to a participation of all his glories But recollecting of all our scattered thoughts and exteriour extravagances and a receding from the inconveniences of a too free conversation is the best circumstance to dispose us to a heavenly visitation 8. The holy Virgin when she saw an Angel and heard a testimony from Heaven of her Grace and Piety was troubled within her self at the Salutation and the manner of it For she had learn'd that the affluence of Divine comforts and prosperous successes should not exempt us from fear
his thoughts determinate but stood long in deliberation and longer before he acted it because it was an invidious matter and a rigour He was first to have defam'd and accus'd her publickly and being convicted by the Law she was to die if he had gone the ordinary way but he who was a just man that is according to the style of Scripture and other wise Writers a good a charitable man found that it was more agreeable to Justice to treat an offending person with the easiest sentence than to put things to extremity and render the person desperate and without remedy and provoked by the suffering of the worst of what she could fear No obligation to Justice does force a man to be cruel or to use the sharpest sentence A just man does Justice to every man and to every thing and then if he be also wise he knows there is a debt of mercy and compassion due to the infirmities of a man's nature and that debt is to be paid and he that is cruel and ungentle to a sinning person and does the worst thing to him dies in his debt and is unjust Pity and forbearance and long-suffering and fair interpretation and excusing our brother and taking things in the best sence and passing the gentlest sentence are as certainly our duty and owing to every person that does offend and can repent as calling men to account can be owing to the Law and are first to be paid and he that does not so is an unjust person which because Joseph was not he did not call furiously for Justice or pretend that God required it at his hands presently to undo a suspected person but waved the killing letter of the Law and secured his own interest and his Justice too by intending to dismiss her privately But before the thing was irremediable God ended his Question by a heavenly demonstration and sent an Angel to reveal to him the Innocence of his Spouse and the Divinity of her Son and that he was an immediate derivative from Heaven and the Heir of all the World And in all our doubts we shall have a resolution from Heaven or some of its Ministers if we have recourse thither for a Guide and be not hasty in our discourses or inconsiderate in our purposes or rash in judgment For God loves to give assistances to us when we most fairly and prudently endeavour that Grace be not put to do all our work but to facilitate our labour not creating new faculties but improving those of Nature If we consider warily God will guide us in the determination But a hasty person out-runs his guide prevaricates his rule and very often engages upon error The PRAYER O Holy Jesu Son of the Eternal God thy Glory is far above all Heavens and yet thou didst descend to Earth that thy Descent might be the more gracious by how much thy Glories were admirable and natural and inseparable I adore thy holy Humanity with humble veneration and the thankful addresses of religious joy because thou hast personally united Humane nature to the Eternal Word carrying it above the seats of the highest Cherubim This great and glorious Mystery is the honour and glory of man it was the expectation of our Fathers who saw the mysteriousness of thy Incarnation at great and obscure distances And blessed be thy Name that thou hast caused me to be born after the fulfilling of thy Prophecies and the consummation and exhibition of so great a love so great mysteriousness Holy Jesu though I admire and adore the immensity of thy love and condescension who wert pleased to undergo our burthens and infirmities for us yet I abhor my self and detest my own impurities which were so great and contradictory to the excellency of God that to destroy Sia and save us it became necessary that thou shouldest be sent into the World to die our death for us and to give us of thy Life 2. DEarest Jesu thou didst not breath one sigh nor shed one drop of bloud nor weep one tear nor suffer one stripe nor preach one Sermon for the salvation of the Devils and what sadness and shame is it then that I should cause so many insufferable loads of sorrows to fall upon thy sacred head Thou art wholly given for me wholly spent upon my uses and wholly for every one of the Elect. Thou in the beginning of the work of our Redemption didst suffer nine months imprisonment in the pure Womb of thy Holy Mother to redeem me from the eternal servitude of Sin and its miserable consequents Holy Jesu let me be born anew receive a new birth and a new life imitating thy Graces and Excellencies by which thou art beloved of thy Father and hast obtained for us a favour and atonement Let thy holy will be done by me let all thy will be wrought in me let thy will be wrought concerning me that I may do thy pleasure and submit to the dispensation of thy Providence and conform to thy holy will and may for ever serve thee in the Communion of Saints in the society of thy redeemed ones now and in the glories of Eternity Amen SECT III. The Nativity of our Blessed Saviour JESVS The Birth of LESUS And she brought forth her first borne son and wrapped him in swadling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no roome sor them in the Inne Luk. 2. 7. The Virgin MOTHER S LUKE 11. 27 Blessed is the Womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast Sucked v. 28. Yea rather Blessed are they that heare the word of God and keep it 1. THE Holy Maid longed to be a glad Mother and she who carried a burthen whose proper commensuration is the days of Eternity counted the tedious minutes expecting when the Sun of Righteousness should break forth from his bed where nine months he hid himself as behind a fruitful cloud About the same time God who in his infinite wisdom does concentre and tie together in one end things of disparate and disproportionate natures making things improbable to cooperate to what wonder or to what truth he pleases brought the Holy Virgin to Bethlehem the City of David to be taxed with her Husband Joseph according to a Decree upon all the World issuing from Augustus Caesar. But this happened in this conjunction of time that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet Micah And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the Princes of Judah for out of thee shall come a Governour that shall rule my people Israel This rare act of Providence was highly remarkable because this Taxing seems wholly to have been ordered by God to serve and minister to the circumstances of this Birth For this Taxing was not in order to Tribute Herod was now King and received all the Revenues of the Fiscus and paid to Augustus an appointed Tribute after the manner of other Kings Friends and
his leisure either we disrepute the infinity of his Wisdom or give clear demonstration of our own vanity 2. When God descended to earth he chose to be born in the Suburbs and retirement of a small Town but he was pleased to die at Jerusalem the Metropolis of Judaea Which chides our shame and pride who are willing to publish our gayeties in Piazza's and the corners of the streets of most populous places but our defects and the instruments of our humiliation we carry into desarts and cover with the night and hide them under ground thinking no secrecy dark enough to hide our shame nor any theatre large enough to behold our pompous vanities for so we make provisions for Pride and take great care to exclude Humility 3. When the Holy Virgin now perceived that the expectation of the Nations was arrived at the very doors of revelation and entrance into the World she brought forth the Holy Jesus who like Light through transparent glass past through or a ripe Pomegranate from a fruitful tree fell to the earth without doing violence to its Nurse and Parent She had no ministers to attend but Angels and neither her Poverty nor her Piety would permit her to provide other Nurses but her self did the offices of a tender and pious Parent She kissed him and worshipped him and thanked him that he would be born of her and she suckled him and bound him in her arms and swadling-bands and when she had 〈◊〉 to God her first scene of joy and Eucharist she softly laid him in the manger till her desires and his own necessities called her to take him and to rock him softly in her arms and from this deportment she read a lecture of Piety and maternal care which Mothers should perform toward their children when they are born not to neglect any of that duty which nature and maternal piety requires 4. Jesus was pleased to be born of a poor Mother in a poor place in a cold winter's night far from home amongst strangers with all the circumstances of humility and poverty And no man will have cause to complain of his course Robe if he remembers the swadling-clothes of this Holy Child nor to be disquieted at his hard Bed when he considers Jesus laid in a manger nor to be discontented at his thin Table when he calls to mind the King of Heaven and Earth was fed with a little breast-milk But since the eternal wisdom of the Father who knew to chuse the good and refuse the evil did chuse a life of Poverty it gives us demonstration that Riches and Honors those idols of the World's esteem are so far from creating true felicities that they are not of themselves eligible in the number of good things however no man is to be ashamed of innocent Poverty of which many wise men make Vows and of which the Holy Jesus made election and his Apostles after him made publick profession And if any man will chuse and delight in the affluence of temporal good things suffering himself to be transported with caitive affections in the pleasures of every day he may well make a question whether he shall speed as well hereafter since God's usual method is that they only who follow Christ here shall be with him for ever 5. The Condition of the person 〈◊〉 was born is here of greatest consideration For he that cried in the Manger that suck'd the paps of a Woman that hath exposed himself to Poverty and a world of inconveniences is the Son of the living God of the same substance with his Father begotten before all Ages before the Morning-stars he is GOD eternal He is also by reason of the personal Union of the Divinity with his Humane nature the Son of God not by Adoption as good Men and beatified Angels are but by an extraordinary and miraculous Generation He is the Heir of his Father's glories and possessions not by succession for his Father cannot die but by an equality of communication He is the express image of his Father's person according to both Natures the miracle and excess of his Godhead being as upon wax imprinted upon all the capacities of his Humanity And after all this he is our Saviour that to our duties of wonder and adoration we may add the affections of love and union as himself besides his being admirable in himself is become profitable to us Verè Verbum hoc est abbreviatum saith the Prophet The eternal Word of the Father is shortned to the dimensions of an infant 6. Here then are concentred the prodigles of Greatness and Goodness of Wisdom and Charity of Meekness and Humility and march all the way in mysterie and incomprehensible mixtures if we consider him in the bosome of his Father where he is seated by the postures of Love and essential Felicity and in the Manger where Love also placed him and an infinite desire to communicate his Felicities to us As he is God his Throne is in the Heaven and he fills all things by his immensity as he is Man he is circumscribed by an uneasie Cradle and cries in a Stable As he is God he is seated upon a super-exalted Throne as Man exposed to the lowest estate of uneasiness and need As God clothed in a robe of Glory at the same instant when you may behold and wonder at his Humanity wrapped in cheap and unworthy Cradle-bands As God he is incircled with millions of Angels as Man in the company of Beasts As God he is the eternal Word of the Father Eternal sustained by himself all-sufficient and without need and yet he submitted himself to a condition imperfect inglorious indigent and necessitous And this consideration is apt and natural to produce great affections of love duty and obedience desires of union and conformity to his sacred Person Life Actions and Laws that we resolve all our thoughts and finally determine all our reason and our passions and capacities upon that saying of St. Paul He that loves not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be accursed 7. Upon the consideration of these Glories if a pious soul shall upon the supports of Faith and Love enter into the Stable where this great King was born and with affections behold every member of the Holy Body and thence pass into the Soul of Jesus we may see a scheme of holy Meditations enough to entertain all the degrees of our love and of our understanding and make the mysterie of the Nativity as fruitful of holy thoughts as it was of Blessings to us And it may serve instead of a description of the Person of Jesus conveyed to us in imperfect and Apocryphal schemes If we could behold his sacred Feet with those affections which the Holy Virgin did we have transmitted to us those Mysteries in story which she had first in part by spiritual and divine infused light and afterwards by observation Those holy Feet tender and unable to support his sacred Body should bear him over
sweetnesses which represent the glory of the reward by the Antepasts and refreshments dispensed even in the ruggedness of the way and incommodities of the journey All other delights are the pleasures of Beasts or the sports of Children these are the Antepasts and preventions of the full Feasts and overflowings of Eternity 10. When they came to Bethlehem and the Star pointed them to a Stable they entred in and being enlightned with a Divine Ray proceeding from the face of the Holy Child and seeing through the cloud and passing through the scandal of his mean Lodging and poor condition they bowed themselves to the earth first giving themselves an Oblation to this great King then they made offering of their Gifts for a man's person is first accepted then his Gift God first regarded Abel and then accepted his Offering which we are best taught to understand by the present instance for it means no more but that all outward Services and Oblations are made acceptable by the prior presentation of an inward Sacrifice If we have first presented our selves then our Gift is pleasant as coming but to express the truth of the first Sacrifice but if our Persons be not first made a Holocaust to God the lesser Oblations of outward Presents are like Sacrifices without Salt and Fire nothing to make them pleasant or religious For all other sences of this Proposition charge upon God the distinguishing and acceptation of Persons against which he solemnly protests God regards no man's Person but according to the doing of his Duty but then God is said first to accept the Person and then the Gist when the Person is first sanctified and given to God by the vows and habits of a holy life and then all the actions of his Religion are homogeneal to their principle and accepted by the acceptation of the man 11. These Magi presented to the Holy Babe Gold Frankincense and Myrrh protesting their Faith of three Articles by the symbolical Oblation By Gold that he was a King by Incense that he was a God by Myrrh that he was a Man And the Presents also were representative of interiour Vertues the Myrrh signifying Faith Mortification Chastity Compunction and all the actions of the Purgative way of Spiritual life the Incense signifying Hope Prayer Obedience good Intention and all the actions and Devotions of the Illuminative the giving the Gold representing Love to God and our Neighbours the Contempt of riches Poverty of spirit and all the eminencies and spiritual riches of the Unitive life And these Oblations if we present to the Holy Jesus both our Persons and our Gifts shall be accepted our Sins shall be purged our Understandings enlightned and our Wills united to this Holy Child and entitled to a communion of all his Glories 12. And thus in one view and two Instances God hath drawn all the world to himself by his Son Jesus in the Instance of the Shepherds and the Arabian Magi Jews and Gentiles Learned and Unlearned Rich and Poor Noble and Ignoble that in him all Nations and all Conditions and all Families and all persons might be blessed having called all by one Star or other by natural Reason or by the secrets of Philosophy by the Revelations of the Gospel or by the ministery of Angels by the Illuminations of the Spirit or by the Sermons and Dictates of spiritual Fathers and hath consigned this Lesson to us That we must never appear before the Lord empty offering Gifts to him by the expences or by the affections of Charity either the worshipping or the oblations of Religion either the riches of the World or the love of the Soul for if we cannot bring Gold with the rich Arabians we may with the poor Shepherds come and kiss the Son lest he be angry and in all cases come and serve him with fear and reverence and spiritual rejoycings The PRAYER MOst Holy Jesu Thou art the Glory of thy people Israel and a light to the Gentiles and wert pleased to call the Gentiles to the adoration and knowledge of thy sacred Person and Laws communicating the inestimable riches of thy holy Discipline to all with an universal undistinguishing Love give unto us spirits docible pious prudent and ductile that no motion or invitation of Grace be ineffectual but may produce excellent effects upon us and the secret whispers of thy Spirit may prevail upon our Affections in order to Piety and Obedience as certainly as the loudest and most clamorous Sermons of the Gospel Create in us such Excellencies as are fit to be presented to thy glorious Majesty accept of the Oblation of my self and my entire services but be thou pleased to verifie my Offering and secure the possession to thy self that the enemy may not pollute the Sacrifice or divide the Gift or question the Title but that I may be wholly thine and for ever clarifie my Understanding sanctifie my Will replenish my Memory with arguments of Piety then shall I present to thee an Oblation rich and precious as the treble gift of the Levantine Princes Lord I am thine reject me not from thy favour exclude me not from thy presence then shall I serve thee all the days of my life and partake of the glories of thy Kingdom in which thou reignest gloriously and eternally Amen SECT V. Of the Circumcision of JESUS and his Presentation in the Temple The Circumcision of Iesus S. LUKE 2. 21. And when eight daies were accomphshed for the circumcising of the Child his name was called Iesus which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the Wombe The Purification and Presentation S. LUKE 2. 22. And when the dayes of her purification were accomplished they brought him to Ierusalem to present him to the Lord. 1. AND now the Blessed Saviour of the World began to do the work of his Mission and our Redemption and because Man had prevaricated all the Divine Commandments to which all humane nature respectively to the persons of several capacities was obliged and therefore the whole Nature was obnoxious to the just rewards of its demerits first Christ was to put that Nature he had assumed into a saveable condition by fulfilling his Father's preceptive will and then to reconcile it actually by suffering the just deservings of its Prevarications He therefore addresses himself to all the parts of an active Obedience and when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the Child he exposed his tender body to the sharpness of the circumcising stone and shed his bloud in drops giving an earnest of those rivers which he did afterwards pour out for the cleansing all Humane nature and extinguishing the wrath of God 2. He that had no sin nor was conceived by natural generation could have no adherences to his Soul or Body which needed to be pared away by a Rite and cleansed by a Mystery neither indeed do we find it expressed that Circumcision was ordained for abolition or pardon of original sin it
adore thy glorious Name whereby thou hast shut up the abysses and opened the gates of Heaven restraining the power of Hell and discovering and communicating the treasures of thy Father's mercies O Jesu be thou a JESUS unto me and save me from the precipices and ruines of sin from the expresses of thy Father's wrath from the miseries and unsufferable torments of accursed spirits by the power of thy Majesty by the sweetnesses of thy Mercy and sacred influences and miraculous glories of thy Name I adore and worship thee in thy excellent Obedience and Humility who hast submitted thy Innocent and spotless flesh to the bloudy Covenant of Circumcision Teach me to practise so blessed and holy a precedent that I may be humble and obedient to thy sacred Laws severe and regular in my Religion mortified in my body and spirit of circumcised heart and tongue that what thou didst represent in symbol and mysterie I may really express in the exhibition of an exemplar pious and mortified life cutting off all excrescences of my spirit and whatsoever may minister to the flesh or any of its ungodly desires that now thy holy Name is called upon me I may do no dishonour to the Name nor scandal to the Institution but may do thee honour and worship and adorations of a pure Religion O most Holy and ever-Blessed JESU Amen DISCOURSE II. Of the Vertue of Obedience 1. THere are certain Excellencies either of habit or consideration which Spiritual persons use to call General ways being a dispersed influence into all the parts of good life either directing the single actions to the right end or managing them with right instruments and adding special excellencies and formalities to them or morally inviting to the repetition of them but they are like the general medicaments in Physick or the prime instruments in Mathematical Disciplines such as are the consideration of the Divine presence the Example of JESUS right Intention and such also is the vertue of Obedience which perfectly unites our actions to God and conforms us to the Divine will which is the original of goodness and sanctifies and makes a man an holocaust to God which contains in it eminently all other Graces but especially those Graces whose essence consists in a conformity of a part or the whole such are Faith Humility Patience and Charity which gives quietness and tranquillity to the spirit and is an Antepast of Paradise where their Jubilee is the perpetual joys of Obedience and their doing is the enjoying the Divine pleasure which adds an excellency and lustre to pious actions and hallows them which are indifferent and lifts up some actions from their unhallowed nature to circumstances of good and of acceptation If a man says his prayers or communicates out of custome or without intuition of the Precept and divine Commandment the act is like a Ship returning from her voyage without her venture and her burthen as unprofitable as without stowage But if God commands us either to eat or to abstain to sleep or to be waking to work or to keep a Sabbath these actions which are naturally neither good nor evil are sanctified by the Obedience and rank'd amongst actions of the greatest excellency And this also was it which made Abraham's offer to kill his Son and the Israelites spoiling the Egyptians to become acts laudable and not unjust they were acts of Obedience and therefore had the same formality and essence with actions of the most spiritual Devotions God's command is all our rule for practice and our Obedience united to the Obedience of Jesus is all our title to acceptance 2. But by Obedience I do not here mean the exteriour execution of the work for so Obedience is no Grace distinct from the acting any or all the Commandments but besides the doing of the thing for that also must be presupposed it is a sacrifice of our proper Will to God a chusing the duty because God commands it For beasts also carry burthens and do our commands by compulsion and the fear of slaves and the rigour of task-masters made the number of bricks to be compleated when Israel groaned and cried to God for help But sons that labour under the sweet paternal regiment of their Fathers and the influence of love they love the precept and do the imposition with the same purposes and compliant affections with which the Fathers made it When Christ commanded us to renounce the World there were some that did think it was a hard saying and do so still and the young rich man forsook him upon it but Ananias and Sapphira upon whom some violences were done by custome or the excellent Sermons of the Apostles sold their possessions too but it was so against their will that they retain'd part of it but St. Paul did not only forsake all his secular fortunes but counted all to be dross that he might gain Christ he gave his Will made an offertory of that as well as of his goods chusing the act which was enjoyned This was the Obedience the Holy Jesus paid to his heavenly Father so voluntary that it was meat to him to do his Father's will 3. And this was intended always by God My son give me thy heart and particularly by the Holy Jesus for in the saddest instance of all his Precepts even that of suffering persecution we are commanded to rejoyce and to be exceeding glad And so did those holy Martyrs in the primitive Ages who upon just grounds when God's glory or the 〈◊〉 of the Church had interest in it they offered themselves to Tyrants and dared the violence of the most cruel and bowelless hang-men And this is the best oblation we can present to God To offer Gold is a present fit to be made by young beginners in Religion not by men in Christianity yea Crates the Theban threw his gold away and so did Antisthenes but to offer our Will to God to give our selves is the act of an Apostle the proper act of Christians And therefore when the Apostles made challenge of a reward for leaving all their possessions Christ makes no reply to the instance nor says You who have left all but You who have followed me in the regeneration shall sit upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel meaning that the quitting the goods was nothing but the obedience to Christ that they followed Jesus in the Regeneration going themselves in pursuit of him and giving themselves to him that was it which intitled them to a Throne 4. And this therefore God enjoyns that our offerings to him may be intire and complete that we pay him a holocaust that we do his work without murmuring and that his burthen may become easie when it is born up by the wings of love and alacrity of spirit For in effect this obedience of the Will is in true speaking and strict Theology nothing else but that Charity which gives excellency to Alms and energy to Faith and
all exteriour acts of Religion are to be guided by our Superiour if he sees cause to restrain or asswage any 〈◊〉 For a wound may heal too fast and then the tumour of the flesh is proud not healthful and so may the indiscretions of Religion swell to vanity when we think they grow towards perfection but when we can indure the causticks and correctives of our Spiritual Guides in those things in which we are most apt to please our selves then our Obedience is regular and humble and in other things there is less of danger There is a story told of a very Religious person whose spirit in the ecstasie of Devotion was transported to the clarity of a Vision and he seemed to converse personally with the Holy Jesus feeling from such entercourse great spiritual delights and huge satisfactions in the midst of these joys the Bell call'd to Prayers and he used to the strictness and well instructed in the necessities of Obedience went to the Church and having finished his Devotions returned and found the Vision in the same posture of glories and entertainment which also said to him Because thou hast left me thou hast found me for if thou 〈◊〉 not left me I had presently left thee What-ever the story be I am sure it is a 〈◊〉 Parable for the way to increase spiritual comforts is to be strict in the offices of humble Obedience and we never lose any thing of our joy by laying it aside to attend a Duty and Plutarch reports more honour of Agesilaus's prudence and modesty than of his gallantry and military fortune for he was more honourable by obeying the Decree of the Spartan Senate recalling him from the midst of his Triumphs than he could have been by finishing the War with prosperous success and disobedience 26. Our Obedience being guided by these Rules is urged to us by the consignation of Divine Precepts and the loud voice of thunder even seal'd by a signet of God's right hand the signature of greatest Judgments For God did with greater severity punish the Rebellion of Korah and his company than the express Murmurs against himself nay than the high crime of Idolatry for this Crime God visited them with a sword but for Disobedience and Mutiny against their Superiours God made the Earth to swallow some of them and fire from Heaven to consume the rest to shew that Rebellion is to be punished by the conspiration of Heaven and Earth as it is hateful and contradictory both to God and Man And it is not amiss to observe that obedience to Man being it is for God's sake and yet to a person clothed with the circumstances and the same infirmities with our selves is a greater instance of Humility than to obey God immediately whose Authority is Divine whose Presence is terrible whose Power is infinite and not at all depressed by exterior disadvantages or lessening appearances just as it is both greater Faith and greater Charity to relieve a poor Saint for Jesus sake than to give any thing to Christ himself if he should appear in all the robes of Glory and immediate address For it is to God and to Christ and wholly for their sakes and to them that the Obedience is done or the Charity expressed but themselves are persons whose awfulness majesty and veneration would rather force than invite Obedience or Alms. But when God and his Holy Son stand behind the cloud and send their Servants to take the Homage or the Charity it is the same as if it were done to them but receives the advantage of acceptation by the accidental adherencies of Faith and Humility to the several actions respectively When a King comes to Rebels in person it strikes terrour and veneration into them who are too apt to neglect and despise the person of his Ministers whom they look upon as their fellow-subjects and consider not in the exaltation of a deputed Majesty Charles the Fifth found a happy experience of it at Gaunt in Flanders whose Rebellion he appeased by his presence which he could hardly have done by his Army But if the King's Authority be as much rever'd in his Deputy as it is sacred in his own Person it is the greater Humility and more confident Obedience And as it is certain that he is the most humble that submits to his inferiours so in the same proportion the lower and meaner the instrument upon which God's authority is born the higher is the Grace that teaches us to stoop so low I do not say that a sin against humane Laws is greater than a prevarication against a Divine Commandment as the instances may be the distance is next to infinite and to touch the earth with our foot within the Octaves of Easter or to tast flesh upon days of Abstinence even in those places and to those persons where they did or do oblige have no consideration if they be laid in balance against the crimes of Adultery or Blasphemy or Oppression because these Crimes cannot stand with the reputation and sacredness of Divine Authority but those others may in most instances very well consist with the ends of Government which are severally provided for in the diversity of Sanctions respectively But if we make our instances to other purposes we find that to mutiny in an Army or to keep private Assemblies in a Monarchy are worse than a single thought or morose delectation in a fancy of impurity because those others destroy Government more than these destroy Charity of God or Obedience But then though the instances may vary the Conclusion yet the formal reason is alike and Disobedience to Man is a disobedience against God for God's Authority and not Man's is imprinted upon the Superiour and it is like sacred fire in an earthen Censer as holy as if it were kindled with the fanning of a Cherub's wing or placed just under the Propitiatory upon a golden Altar and it is but a gross conceit which cannot distinguish Religion from its Porter 〈◊〉 from the Beast that carried it so that in all Disobedience to Men in proportion to the greatness of the matter or the malice of the person or his contradiction to the ends of Government and combinations of Society we may use the words by which the Prophet upbraided Israel 〈◊〉 it not enough that you are grievous unto men but will you grieve my God also It is a contempt of the Divinity and the affront is transmitted to God himself when we despise the Power which God hath ordained and all power of every lawful Superiour is such the Spirit of God being witness in the highest measure Rebellion is as the sin of 〈◊〉 and stubbornness as Idolatry It is spoken of Rebellion against God and all Rebellion is so for He that despiscth you despiseth me saith the Blessed Jesus that 's menace enough in the instance of Spiritual regiment And You are gathered together against the Lord saith Moses to the rebellious
a voice from Heaven saying Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased This was the inauguration and proclamation of the Messias when he began to be the great Prophet of the new Covenant And this was the greatest meeting that ever was upon earth where the whole Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity was opened and shewn as much as the capacities of our present imperfections will permit the Second Person in the veil of Humanity the Third in the shape or with the motion of a Dove but the First kept his primitive state and as to the Israelites he gave notice by way of caution Ye saw no shape but ye heard a voice so now also God the Father gave testimony to his Holy Son and appeared only in a voice without any visible representment 4. When the Rite and the Solemnity was over Christ ascended up out of the waters and left so much vertue behind him that as Gregorius Turonensis reports that creek of the River where his holy body had been baptized was indued with a healing quality and a power of curing Lepers that bathed themselves in those waters in the faith and with invocation of the holy Name of Jesus But the manifestation of this power was not till afterwards for as yet Jesus did no Miracles 5. As soon as ever the Saviour of the World was baptized had opened the Heavens which yet never had been opened to Man and was declared the Son of God Jesus was by the Spirit driven into the Wilderness not by an unnatural violence but by the efficacies of Inspiration and a supernatural inclination and activity of resolution for it was the Holy Spirit that bare him thither he was led by the good Spirit to be tempted by the evil whither also he was pleased to retire to make demonstration that even in an active life such as he was designed to and intended some recesses and temporary dimissions of the world are most expedient for such persons especially whose office is Prophetical and for institution of others that by such vacancies in prayer and contemplation they may be better enabled to teach others when they have in such retirements conversed with God 6. In the Desart which was four miles 〈◊〉 the place of his Baptism and about twenty miles from Jerusalem as the common computations are he did abide forty days and forty nights where he was perpetually disturbed and assaulted with evil spirits in the midst of wild beasts in a continual fast without eating bread or drinking water And the Angels ministred to him being Messengers of comfort and sustentation sent from his Father for the support and service of his Humanity and imployed in resisting and discountenancing the assaults and temporal hostilities of the spirits of darkness 7. Whether the Devils 〈◊〉 in any horrid and affrighting shapes is not certain but it is more likely to a person of so great Sanctity and high designation they would appear more Angelical and immaterial in representments intellectual in words and Idea's temptations and inticements because Jesus was not a person of those low weaknesses to be affrighted or troubled with an ugly 〈◊〉 which can do nothing but abuse the weak and imperfect conceptions of persons nothing extraordinary And this was the way which Satan or the Prince of the Devils took whose Temptations were reserved for the last assault and the great day of trial for at the expiration of his forty days Jesus being hungry the Tempter invited him only to eat bread of his own providing which might refresh his Humanity and prove his Divinity hoping that his hunger and the desire of convincing the Devil might tempt him to eat before the time appointed But Jesus answered It is written Man shall not live by Bread alone but by every word that 〈◊〉 out of the mouth of God meaning that in every word of God whether the Commandment be general or special a promise is either expressed or implied of the supply of all provisions necessary for him that is doing the work of God and that was the present case of Jesus who was then doing his Father's work and promoting our interest and 〈◊〉 was sure to be provided for and therefore so are we 8. The Devil having failed in this assault tries him again requiring but a demonstration of his being the Son of God He sets him upon the battlement of the Temple and invites him to throw himself down upon a pretence that God would send his Angels to keep his Son and quotes Scripture for it But Jesus understood it well and though he was secured of God's protection yet he would not tempt God nor solicite his Providence to a dereliction by tempting him to an unnecessary conservation This assault was silly and weak But at last he unites all his power of stratagem and places the Holy Jesus upon an exceeding high mountain and by an Angelical power draws into one Centre Species and Idea's from all the Kingdoms and glories of the World and makes an admirable Map of beauties and represents it to the eyes of Jesus saying that all that was put into his power to give and he would give it him if he would fall down and worship him But then the Holy Lamb was angry as a provoked Lion and commanded him away when his temptations were violent and his demands impudent and blasphemous Then the Devil leaveth him and the Angels came and ministred unto him bringing such things as his necessities required after he had by a forty days Fast done penance for our sins and consigned to his Church the Doctrine and Discipline of Fasting in order to a Contemplative life and the resisting and overcoming all the Temptations and allurements of the Devil and all our ghostly enemies Ad SECT IX Considerations upon the Baptizing Fasting and Temptation of the Holy JESVS by the Devil 1. WHen the day did break and the Baptist was busie in his Offices the Sun of Righteousness soon entred upon our Hemisphere and after he had lived a life of darkness and silence for thirty years together yet now that he came to do the greatest work in the World and to minister in the most honourable Embassie he would do nothing of singularity but fulfil all righteousness and satisfie all Commands and joyn in the common Rites and Sacraments which all people innocent or penitent did undergo either as deleteries of 〈◊〉 or instruments of Grace For so he would needs be baptized by his servant and though he was of Purity sufficient to do it and did actually by his Baptism purifie the Purifier and sanctifie that and all other streams to a holy ministery and effect yet he went in bowing his head like a sinner uncloathing himself like an imperfect person and craving to be washed as if he had been crusted with an impure Leprosie thereby teaching us to submit our selves to all those Rites which he would institute and although 〈◊〉 of them be like the
It looked of a blew mould the bone of the nose laid bare the flesh of the neather lip quite fallen off his mouth full of worms and in his eye-pits two hungry Toads feasting upon the remanent portion of flesh and moisture and so he dwelt in his house of darkness And if every person tempted by an opportunity of Lust or intemperance would chuse such a room for his privacy that company for his witness that object to allay his appetite he would soon find his spirit more sober and his desires obedient I end this with the counsel of S. Bernard Let every man in the first address to his actions consider whether if he were now to die he might safely and prudently do such an act and whether he would not be infinitely troubled that death should surprise him in the present dispositions and then let him proceed accordingly For since our treasure is in earthen vessels which may be broken in pieces by the collision of ten thousand accidents it were not safe to treasure up wrath in them for if we do we shall certainly drink it in the day of recompence 37. Thirdly Before and in and 〈◊〉 all this the Blessed Jesus propounds Prayer as a remedy against Temptations Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation For besides that Prayer is the great instrument of obtaining victory by the grace of God as a fruit of our desires and of God's natural and essential goodness the very praying against a Temptation if it be hearty servent and devout is a denying of it and part of the victory for it is a 〈◊〉 the entertainment of it it is a positive rejection of the crime and every consent to it is a ceasing to pray and to desire remedy And we shall observe that whensoever we begin to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit our Prayers against it lessen as the consent increases there being nothing a more direct enemy to the Temptation than Prayer which as it is of it self a professed hostility against the crime so it is a calling in auxiliaries from above to make the victory more certain If Temptation sets upon thee do thou set upon God for he is as soon overcome as thou art as soon moved to good as thou art to evil he is as quickly invited to pity thee as thou to ask him provided thou dost not finally rest in the petition but pass into action and endeavour by all means humane and moral to quench the 〈◊〉 newly kindled in thy bowels before it come to devour the marrow of the bones For a strong Prayer and a lazy incurious unobservant walking are contradictions in the discourses of Religion 〈◊〉 tells us a story of a young man solicited by the spirit of Uncleanness who came to an old Religious person and begged his prayers It was in that Age when God used to answer Prayers of very holy persons by more clear and familiar significations of his pleasure than he knows now to be necessary But after many earnest prayers sent up to the throne of Grace and the young man not at all bettered upon consideration and enquiry of particulars he found the cause to be because the young man relied so upon the Prayers of the old Eremite that he did nothing at all to discountenance his Lust or contradict the Temptation But then he took another course enjoyned him Austerities and exercises of Devotion gave him rules of prudence and caution tied him to work and to stand upon his guard and then the Prayers returned in triumph and the young man trampled upon his Lust. And so shall I and you by God's grace if we pray earnestly and frequently if we watch carefully that we be not surprised if we be not idle in secret nor talkative in publick if we read Scriptures and consult with a spiritual Guide and make Religion to be our work that serving of God be the business of our life and our designs be to purchase Eternity then we shall walk safely or recover speedily and by doing advantages to 〈◊〉 secure a greatness of Religion and spirituality to our spirits and understanding But remember that when Israel fought against Amalek Moses's prayer and Moses's hand secured the victory his Prayer grew ineffectual when his Hands were slack to remonstrate to us that we must cooperate with the grace of God praying devoutly and watching carefully and observing prudently and labouring with diligence and assiduity The PRAYER ETernal God and most merciful Father I adore thy Wisdom Providence and admirable Dispensation of affairs in the spiritual Kingdom of our Lord Jesus that thou who art infinitely good dost permit so many sadnesses and dangers to discompose that order of things and spirits which thou didst create innocent and harmless and dost design to great and spiritual perfections that the emanation of good from evil by thy over-ruling power and excellencies may force glory to thee from our shame and honour to thy Wisdom by these contradictory accidents and events Lord have pity upon me in these sad disorders and with mercy know my infirmities Let me by suffering what thou pleasest cooperate to the glorification of thy Grace and magnifying thy Mercy but never let me consent to sin but with the power of thy Majesty and mightiness of thy prevailing Mercy rescue me from those 〈◊〉 of dangers and enemies which daily seck to 〈◊〉 that Innocence with which thou didst cloath my Soul in the New birth Behold O God how all the Spirits of Darkness endeavour the extinction of our hopes and the dispersion of all those Graces and the prevention of all those 〈◊〉 which the Holy Jesus hath purchased for every loving and obedient Soul Our very 〈◊〉 and drink are full of poison our Senses are snares our 〈◊〉 is various Temptatio our sins are inlets to more and our good actions made occasions of sins Lord deliver me from the Malice of the Devil from the Fallacies of the World from my own Folly that I be not devoured by the first nor cheated by the second nor betrayed by my self but let thy Grace which is sufficient for me be always present with me let thy Spirit 〈◊〉 me in the spiritual 〈◊〉 arming my Understanding and securing my Will and 〈◊〉 my Spirit with resolutions of Piety and incentives of Religion and deleteries of Sin that the dangers I am encompassed withall may become unto me an occasion of victory and trimph through the aids of the Holy Ghost and by the Cross of the Lord Jesus who hath for himself and all his servants triumphed over Sin and Hell and the Grave even all the powers of Darkness from which by the mercies of Jesus and the merits of his Passion now and ever deliver me and all thy 〈◊〉 people Amen DISCOURSE VI. Of Baptism Part I. 1. WHen the Holy Jesus was to begin his Prophetical Office and to lay the foundation of his Church on the Corner-stone he first temper'd the Cement
the time of his first MIRACLE until the Second Year of his PREACHING WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE SECOND PART Chrysost. ad Demet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675. TO The Right Honourable and Excellent Lady THE LADY MARY Countess Dowager of NORTHAMPTON I AM now to present to your Honour part of that Production of which your great love to Sanctity was Parent and which was partly designed to satisfie those great appetites to Vertue which have made you hugely apprehensive and forward to entertain any Instrument whereby you may grow and encrease in the Service of God and the Communion and Charities of holy people Your Honour best knows in what Soil the first Design of these Papers grew and but that the Excellent Personage who was their first Root is transplanted for a time that he may not have his righteous Soul vexed with the impurer Conversation of ill-minded men I am confident you would have received the fruits of his abode to more excellent purposes But because he was pleased to leave the managing of this to me I hope your Honour will for his sake entertain what that rare Person conceived though I was left to the pains and danger of bringing forth and that it may dwell with you for its first relation rather than be rejected for its appendent imperfections which it contracted not in the fountain but in the chanels of its progress and emanation Madam I shall beg of God that your Honour may receive as great increment of Piety and ghostly strength in the reading this Book as I receive honour if you shall be pleased to accept and own this as a confession of your great Worthiness and a testimony of the Service which ought to be payed to your Honour by Madam Your Honour 's most humble and most obliged Servant JER TAYLOR SECT X. Of the first Manifestation of JESVS by the Testimony of John and a Miracle Iohn points to Iesus The next day Iohn seeth Iesus coming unto him and saith Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world This is he of whom I said after me cometh a man which is preserred before me for he was before me And I knew him not but that he should be made manifest to Israel Ioh. 1. 29 30 31. Christ turns water into wine There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee And there were set there six water pots of stone after the manner of the purifying of the Iewes containing two or three firkins a peice Iesus saith unto them fill the water pots with water and they filled them to the brim Iesus saith unto them draw out now c. This begin̄ing of miracles did Iesus in Cana of Galilee and manifested forth his glory Ioh. 2 6 7 8-11 1. AFTER that the Baptist by a sign from Heaven was confirmed in spirit and understanding that Jesus was the Messias he immediately published to the Jews what God had manifested to him and first to the Priests and 〈◊〉 sent in legation from the Sanhedrim he professed indefinitely in answer to their question that himself was not the CHRIST nor Elias nor that Prophet whom they by a special Tradition did expect to be revealed they knew not when And concerning himself definitely he said nothing but that he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness Make straight the way of the Lord. He it was who was then amongst them but not known a person of great dignity to whom the Baptist was not worthy to do the office of the lowest Ministery who coming after John was preferred far before him who was to increase and the Baptist was to decrease who did baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire 2. This was the Character of his personal Prerogatives but as yet no demonstration was made of his Person till after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus and then when-ever the Baptist saw Jesus he points him out with his finger Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the World This is he Then he shews him to Andrew Simon Peter's brother with the same designation and to another Disciple with him who both followed Jesus and abode with him all night Andrew brings his brother Simon with him and then Christ changes his name from Simon to Peter or Cephas which signifies a Stone Then Jesus himself finds out Philip of Bethsaida and bad him follow him and Philip finds out Nathanael and calls him to see Thus persons bred in a dark cell upon their first ascent up to the chambers of light all run staring upon the beauties of the Sun and call the partners of their darkness to communicate in their new and stranger revelation 3. When Nathanael was come to Jesus Christ saw his heart and gave him a testimony to be truly honest and full of holy simplicity a true Israelite without guile And Nathanael being overjoyed that he had found the Messias believing out of love and loving by reason of his joy and no suspicion took that for a proof and verification of his person which was very insufficient to 〈◊〉 a doubt or ratifie a probability But so we believe a story which we love taking probabilities for demonstrations and casual accidents for probabilities and any thing creates vehement presumptions in which cases our guides are not our knowing faculties but our 〈◊〉 and if they be holy God guides them into the right perswasions as he does little birds to make rare nests though they understand not the mystery of operation nor the design and purpose of the action 4. But Jesus took his will and forwardness of affections in so good part that he promised him greater things and this gave occasion to the first Prophecy which was made by Jesus For Jesus said 〈◊〉 him 〈◊〉 I said I saw thee under the Fig-tree believest thou Thou shalt see greater things than these and then he prophesied that he should see Heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man But being a Doctor of the Law Christ chose him not at all to the Colledge of Apostles 5. Much about the same time there happened to be a Marriage in Cana 〈◊〉 Galilee in the vicinage of his dwelling where John the Evangelist is by some supposed to have been the Bridegroom but of this there is no certainty and thither Jesus being with his 〈◊〉 invited he went to do civility to the persons espoused and to do honour to the holy rite of Marriage The persons then married were but of indifferent fortunes richer in love of neighbours than in the 〈◊〉 of rich possessions they had more company than wine For the Master of the Feast whom according to the order and piety of the Nation they chose 〈◊〉 the order of Priests to be the president of the Feast
of Religion ought to be greater than the affections of Society And though we are bound in all offices exteriour to prefer our Relatives before others because that is made a Duty yet to purposes spiritual all persons eminently holy put on the efficacy of the same relations and pass a duty upon us of religious affections 10. At the command of Jesus the Water-pots were filled with water and the water was by his Divine power turned into wine where the different oeconomy of God and the world is highly observable Every man sets forth good wine at first and then the worse But God not only turns the water into wine but into such wine that the last draught is most pleasant The world presents us with fair language promising 〈◊〉 convenient fortunes pompous honours and these are the outsides of the bole but when it is swallowed these dissolve in the instant and there remains 〈◊〉 and the malignity of Coloquintida Every sin 〈◊〉 in the first address and carries light in the face and hony in the lip but when we have well drunk then comes that which is worse a whip with six strings fears and terrors of Conscience and shame and displeasure and a caitive disposition and diffidence in the day of death But when after the manner of the purifying of the Christians we fill our Water-pots with water watering our couch with our tears and moistening our cheeks with the perpetual distillations of Repentance then Christ turns our water into wine first Penitents and then Communicants first waters of sorrow and then the wine of the Chalice first the justifications of Correction and then the sanctifications of the Sacrament and the effects of the Divine power joy and peace and serenity hopes full of confidence and confidence without shame and boldness without presumption for Jesus keeps the best wine till the last not only because of the direct reservations of the highest joys till the nearer approaches of glory but also because our relishes are higher after a long 〈◊〉 than at the first Essays such being the nature of Grace that it increases in relish as it does in fruition every part of Grace being new Duty and new Reward The PRAYER O Eternal and ever-Blessed Jesu who didst chuse Disciples to be witnesses of thy Life and Miracles so adopting man into a participation of thy great imployment of bringing us to Heaven by the means of a holy Doctrine be pleased to give me thy grace that I may 〈◊〉 and revere their Persons whom thou hast set over me and follow their Faith and imitate their Lives while they imitate thee and that I also in my capacity and proportion may do some of the meaner offices of spiritual building by Prayers and by holy Discourses and 〈◊〉 Correption and friendly Exhortations doing advantages to such Souls with whom I shall converse And since thou wert pleased to enter upon the stage of the World with the commencement of Mercy and a Miracle be pleased to visit my Soul with thy miraculous grace turn my water into wine my natural desires into supernatural perfections and let my sorrows be turned into joys my sins into vertuous habits the weaknesses of humanity into communications of the 〈◊〉 nature that since thou keepest the best unto the last I may by thy assistance grow from Grace to Grace till thy Gifts be turned to Reward and thy Graces to participation of thy Glory O Eternal and ever-Blessed Jesu Amen DISCOURSE VII Of Faith 1. NAthanael's Faith was produced by an argument not demonstrative not certainly concluding Christ knew him when he saw him first and he believed him to be the Messias His Faith was excellent what-ever the argument was And I believe a GOD because the Sun is a glorious body or because of the variety of Plants or the fabrick and rare contexture of a man's Eye I may as fully assent to the Conclusion as if my belief dwelt upon the Demonstrations made by the Prince of Philosophers in the 8. of his Physicks and 12. of his Metaphysicks This I premise as an inlet into the consideration concerning the Faith of ignorant persons For if we consider upon what 〈◊〉 terms most of us now are Christians we may possibly suspect that either Faith hath but little excellence in it or we but little Faith or that we are mistaken generally in its definition For we are born of Christian parents made Christians at ten days old interrogated concerning the Articles of our Faith by way of anticipation even then when we understand not the difference between the Sun and a Tallow-candle from thence we are taught to say our Catechism as we are taught to speak when we have no reason to judge no discourse to dilcern no arguments to contest against a Proposition in case we be catechised into False doctrine and all that is put to us we believe infinitely and without choice as children use not to chuse their language And as our children are made Christians just so are thousand others made Mahumetans with the same necessity the same facility So that thus sar there is little thanks due to us for believing the Christian Creed it was indifferent to us at first and at last our Education had so possest us and our interest and our no temptation to the contrary that as we were disposed into this condition by Providence so we remain in it without praise or excellency For as our beginnings are inevitable so our progress is imperfect and insufficient and what we begun by Education we retain only by Custom and if we be instructed in some slighter Arguments to maintain the Sect or Faction of our Country Religion as it disturbs the unity of Christendom yet if we examine and consider the account upon what slight arguments we have taken up Christianity it self as that it is the Religion of our Country or that our Fathers before us were of the same Faith or because the Priest bids us and he is a good man or for something else but we know not what we must needs conclude it the good providence of God not our choice that made us Christians 2. But if the question be Whether such a Faith be in it self good and acceptable that relies upon insufficient and unconvincing grounds I suppose this case of Nathanael will determine us and when we consider that Faith is an 〈◊〉 Grace if God pleases to behold his own glory in our weakness of understanding it is but the same thing he does in the instances of his other Graces For as God enkindles Charity upon variety of means and instruments by a thought by a chance by a text of Scripture by a natural tenderness by the sight of a dying or a tormented beast so also he may produce Faith by arguments of a differing quality and by issues of his Providence he may engage us in such conditions in which as our Understanding is not great enough to chuse the best so neither is it furnished with
holy and the scene of representing Prayers which in type intimates the same thing which is involved in the expression of the next words My House shall be called the House of Prayer to all Nations now and for ever to the Jews and to the Gentiles in all circumstances and variety of Time and Nation God's Houses are holy in order to holy uses the time as unlimited as the Nations were indefinite and universal Which is the more observable because it was of the outward Courts not whither Moses's Rites alone were admitted but the natural Devotion of Jews and Gentile-Proselytes that Christ affirmed it to be holy to be the House of God and the place of Prayer So that the Religion of publick places of Prayer is not a Rite of Levi but a natural and prudent circumstance and advantage of Religion in which all wise men agree who therefore must have some common principle with influence upon all the World which must be the univocal cause of the consent of all men which common principle must either be a dictate of natural or prime Reason or else some Tradition from the first Parents of mankind which because it had order in it beauty Religion and confirmation from Heaven and no reason to contest against it it hath surprised the understanding and practices of all Nations And indeed we find that even in Paradise God had that which is analogical to a Church a distinct place where he manifested himself present in proper manner For Adam and Eve when they had sinned hid themselves from the Presence of the Lord and this was the word in all descent of the Church for the being of God in holy places the Presence of the Lord was there And probably when Adam from this intimation or a greater direction had taught Cain and Abel to offer sacrifice to God in a certain place where they were observed of each in their several Offerings it became one of the rules of Religion which was derived to their posterity by tradition the only way they had to communicate the dictates of Divine commandment 8. There is no more necessary to be added in behalf of Holy Places and to assert them into the family and relatives of Religion our estimate and deportment towards them is matter of practice and therefore of proper consideration To which purpose I consider that Holy Places being the residence of God's Name upon earth there where he hath put it that by fiction of Law it may be the sanctuary and the last resort in all calamities and need God hath sent his Agents to possess them in person for him Churches and Oratories are regions and courts of Angels and they are there not only to minister to the Saints but also they possess them in the right of God There they are so the greatest and Prince of Spirits tells us the Holy Ghost I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne and his train filled the Temple Above it stood the Seraphim that was God's train and therefore holy David knew that his addresses to God were in the presence of Angels I will praise thee with my whole heart before the gods will i sing praise unto thee before the Angels so it is in the Septuagint And that we might know where or how the Kingly worshipper would pay this adoration he adds I will worship towards thy holy 〈◊〉 And this was so known by him that it became expressive of God's manner of presence in Heaven The Chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels and the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place God in the midst of Angels and the Angels in the midst of the 〈◊〉 place and God in Heaven in the midst of that holy circle as 〈◊〉 as he is amongst Angels in the recesses of his Sanctuary Were the rudiments of the Law worthy of an attendance of Angels and are the memorials of the Gospel destitute of so brave a retinue Did the beatisied Spirits wait upon the Types and do 〈◊〉 decline the office at the ministration of the Substance Is the nature of Man made worse since the Incarnation of the Son of God and have the Angels purchased an exemption from their ministery since Christ became our brother We have little reason to think so And therefore S. Paul still makes use of the argument to press women to modesty and humility in Churches because of the Angels And upon the same stock S. Chrysostome chides the people of his Diocese for walking and laughing and prating in Churches The Church is not a shop of manufactures or merchandise but the place of Angels and of Archangels the Court of God and the image or representment of Heaven it self 9. For if we consider that Christianity is something more than ordinary that there are Mysteries in our Religion and in none else that God's Angels are ministring spirits for 〈◊〉 good and especially about the conveyances of our Prayers either we must think very low of Christianity or that greater things are in it than the presence of Angels in our Churches and yet if there were no more we should do well to behave our selves there with the thoughts and apprehensions of Heaven about us always remembring that our business there is an errand of Religion and God is the object of our Worshippings and therefore although by our weakness we are fixt in the lowness of men yet because God's infinity is our object it were very happy if our actions did bear some few degrees of a proportionable and commensurate address 10. Now that the Angels are there in the right of God and are a manner and an exhibition of the Divine Presence is therefore certain because when-ever it is said in the Old Testament that God appeared it was by an Angel and the Law it self in the midst of all the glorious terrors of its manisestation was ordained by Angels and a word spoken by Angels and yet God is said to have descended upon the Mount and in the greatest glory that ever shall be revealed till the consummation of all things the instrument of the Divine splendour is the apparition of Angels for when the Holy Jesus shall come in the glory of his Father it is added by way of explication that is with an 〈◊〉 of Angels 11. The result is those words of God to his people Reverence my 〈◊〉 For what God loves in an especial manner it is most fit we should esteem accordingly God loves the gates of Sion more than all the 〈◊〉 of Jacob. The least turf of hallowed glebe is with God himself of more value than all the Champain of common possession it is better in all sences The Temple is better than gold said our Blessed Saviour and therefore it were well we should do that which is expressed in the command of giving reverence to it for we are too apt to pay undue devotions to gold Which precept the holiest of
him to bring us to drink of the fountain of living water For thus God declared it to be a delight to him to see us live as if he were refreshed by those felicities which he gives to us as communications of his grace and instances of mercy and consignations to Heaven Upon which we can look with no eye but such as sees and admires the excellency of the Divine Charity which being an emanation from the mercies and essential compassion of Eternity God cannot chuse but 〈◊〉 in it and love the works of his Mercy who was so well pleased in the works of his Power He that was delighted in the Creation was highly pleased in the nearer conveyances of himself when he sent the Holy Jesus to bear his image and his mercies and his glories and offer them to the use and benefit of Man For this was the chief of the works of God and therefore the Blessed Master could not but be highliest pleased with it in imitation of his heavenly Father 2. The woman observing our Saviour to have come with his face from 〈◊〉 was angry at him upon the quarrel of the old Schism The Jews and the Samaritans had differing Rites and the zealous persons upon each side did commonly dispute themselves into Uncharitableness and so have Christians upon the same confidence and zeal and mistake For although righteousness hath no fellowship with unrighteousness nor Christ with Belial yet the consideration of the crime of Heresie which is a spiritual wickedness is to be separate from the person who is material That is no spiritual communion is to be endured with Heretical persons when it is certain they are such when they are convinced by competent authority and sufficient argument But the persons of the men are to be pitied to be reproved to be redargued and convinced to be wrought upon by fair compliances and the offices of civility and invited to the family of Faith by the best arguments of Charity and the instances of a holy life having your conversation honest among them that they may beholding your good works glorifie God in the day when he shall visit them Indeed if there be danger that is a weak understanding may not safely converse in civil society with a subtile Heretick in such cases they are to be avoided not saluted But as this is only when the danger is by reason of the unequal capacities and strengths of the person so it must be only when the article is certainly Heresie and the person criminal and interest is the ingredient in the perswasion and a certain and a necessary Truth destroyed by the opinion We read that S. John spying Cerinthus in a Bath refused to wash there where the enemy of God and his Holy Son had been This is a good precedent for us when the case is equal S. John could discern the spirit of Cerinthus and his Heresie was notorious fundamental and highly criminal and the Apostle a person assisted up to infallibility And possibly it was done by the whisper of a Prophetick spirit and upon a miraculous design for immediately upon his retreat the Bath fell down and crushed Cerinthus in the ruines But such acts of aversation as these are not easily by us to be drawn into example unless in the same or the parallel concourse of equally-concluding accidents We must not quickly nor upon slight grounds nor unworthy instances call Heretick there had need be a long process and a high conviction and a competent Judge and a necessary Article that must be ingredients into so sad and decretory definitions and condemnation of a person or opinion But if such instances occur come not near the danger nor the scandal And this advice S. Cyprian gave to the Lay-people of his Diocese Let them decline their discourses whose Sermons creep and corrode like a Cancer let there be no colloquies no banquets no commerce with such who are excommunicate and justly driven from the Communion of the Church For such persons as S. Leo descants upon the Apostle's expression of heretical discourses creep in humbly and with small and modest beginnings they catch with flattery they bind gently and kill privily Let therefore all persons who are in danger secure their persons and Perswasions by removing far from the infection And for the scandal S. Herminigilda gave an heroick example which in her perswasion and the circumstances of the Age and action deserved the highest testimony of zeal religious passion and confident perswasion For she rather chose to die by the mandate of her tyrant-Father Leonigildus the Goth than she would at the Paschal solemnity receive the blessed Sacrament at the hand of an Arrian Bishop 3. But excepting these cases which are not to be judged with forwardness nor rashly taken measure of we find that conversing charitably with persons of differing Perswasions hath been instrumental to their Conversion and God's glory The believing wife may sanctifie the unbelieving husband and we find it verified in Church-story S. Cecily converted her husband Valerianus S. Theodora converted Sisinius S. Monica converted Patricius and Theodelinda Agilulphus S. Clotilda perswaded King Clodoveus to be a Christian and S. Natolia perswaded Adrianus to be a Martyr For they having their conversation honest and holy amongst the unbelievers shined like virgin Tapers in the midst of an impure prison and amused the eyes of the sons of darkness with the brightness of the flame For the excellency of a holy life is the best argument of the inhabitation of God within the Soul and who will not offer up his understanding upon that Altar where a Deity is placed as the President and author of Religion And this very entercourse of the Holy Jesus with the Woman is abundant argument that it were well we were not so forward to refuse Communion with dissenting persons upon the easie and confident mistakes of a too-forward zeal They that call Heretick may themselves be the mistaken persons and by refusing to communicate the civilities of hospitable entertainment may shut their doors upon Truth and their windows against Light and refuse to let Salvation in For sometimes Ignorance is the only parent of our Perswasions and many times 〈◊〉 hath made an impure commixture with it and so produced the issue 4. The Holy Jesus gently insinuates his discourses If thou hadst known who it is that asks thee water thou wouldest have asked water of him Oftentimes we know not the person that speaks and we usually chuse our Doctrine by our affections to the man but then if we are uncivil upon the stock of prejudice we do not know that it is Christ that calls our understandings to obedience and our affections to duty and compliances The Woman little thought of the glories which stood right against her He that sate upon the Well had a Throne placed above the heads of Cherubims In his arms who there rested himself was the Sanctuary of rest
thy 〈◊〉 and Glories O Blessed and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE IX Of Repentance 1. THE whole Doctrine of the Gospel is comprehended by the Holy Ghost in these two Summaries Faith and Repentance that those two potent and imperious Faculties which command our lower powers which are the fountain of actions the occasion and capacity of Laws and the title to reward or punishment the Will and the Understanding that is the whole man considered in his superiour Faculties may become subjects of the Kingdom servants of Jesus and heirs of glory Faith supplies our imperfect conceptions and corrects our Ignorance making us to distinguish good from evil not onely by the proportions of Reason and Custome and old Laws but by the new standard of the Gospel it teaches us all those Duties which were enjoyned us in order to a participation of mighty glories it brings our Understanding into subjection making us apt to receive the Spirit for our Guide Christ for our Master the Gospel for our Rule the Laws of Christianity for our measure of good and evil and it supposes us naturally ignorant and comes to supply those defects which in our Understandings were left after the spoils of Innocence and Wisdome made in Paradise upon Adam's prevarication and continued and encreased by our neglect evil customes voluntary deceptions and infinite prejudices And as Faith presupposes our Ignorance so Repentance presupposes our Malice and Iniquity The whole design of Christ's coming and the Doctrines of the Gospel being to recover us from a miserable condition from Ignorance to spiritual Wisdome by the conduct of Faith and from a vicious habitually-depraved life and ungodly manners to the purity of the Sons of God by the instrument of Repentance 2. And this is a loud publication of the excellency and glories of the Gospel and the felicities of man over all the other instances of Creation The Angels who were more excellent Spirits than humane Souls were not comprehended and made safe within a Covenant and Provisions of Repentance Their first act of volition was their whole capacity of a blissful or a miserable Eternity they made their own sentence when they made their first election and having such excellent Knowledge and no weaknesses to prejudge and trouble their choice what they first did was not capable of Repentance because they had at first in their intuition and sight all which could afterward bring them to Repentance But weak Man who knows first by elements and after long study learns a syllable and in good time gets a word could not at first know all those things which were sufficient or apt to determine his choice but as he grew to understand more saw more reasons to rescind his first elections The Angels had a full peremptory Will and a satisfied Understanding at first and therefore were not to mend their first act by a second contradictory But poor Man hath a Will alwayes strongest when his Understanding is weakest and chuseth most when he is least able to determine and therefore is most passionate in his desires and follows his object with greatest earnestness when he is blindest and hath the least reason so to do And therefore God pitying Man begins to reckon his choices to be criminal just in the same degree as he gives him Understanding The violences and unreasonable actions of Childhood are no more remembred by God than they are understood by the Child The levities and passions of Youth are not aggravated by the imputation of Malice but are sins of a lighter dye because Reason is not yet impressed and marked upon them with characters and tincture in grain But he who when he may chuse because he understands shall chuse the evil and reject the good stands marked with a deep guilt and hath no excuse left to him but as his degrees of Ignorance left his choice the more imperfect And because every sinner in the style of Scripture is a fool and hath an election as imperfect as is the action that is as great a declension from Prudence as it is from Piety and the man understands as imperfectly as he practises therefore God sent his Son to take upon him not the nature of Angels but the 〈◊〉 of Abraham and to propound Salvation upon such terms as were possible that is upon such a Piety which relies upon experience and trial of good and evil and hath given us leave if we chuse amiss at first to chuse again and chuse better Christ having undertaken to pay for the issues of their first follies to make up the breach made by our first weaknesses and abused understandings 3. But as God gave us this mercy by Christ so he also revealed it by him He first used the Authority of a Lord and a Creator and a Law-giver he required Obedience indeed upon reasonable terms upon the instance of but a few Commandments at first which when he afterwards multiplied he also appointed ways to expiate the smaller irregularities but left them eternally bound without remedy who should do any great violence or a crime But then he bound them but to a Temporal death Only this as an eternal death was also tacitely implied so also a remedy was secretly ministred and Repentance particularly preached by Homilies distinct from the Covenant of Moses's Law The Law allowed no Repentance for greater crimes he that was convicted of Adultery was to die without mercy but God pitied the miseries of man and the inconveniences of the Law and sent Christ to suffer for the one and remedy the other for so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and that Repentance and Remission of sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations And now this is the last and only hope of Man who in his natural condition is imperfect in his customs vicious in his habits impotent and criminal Because Man did not remain innocent it became necessary he should be penitent and that this Penitence should by some means be made acceptable that is become the instrument of his Pardon and restitution of his hope Which because it is an act of favour and depends wholly upon the Divine dignation and was revealed to us by Jesus Christ who was made not onely the Prophet and Preacher but the Mediatour of this New Covenant and mercy it was necessary we should become Disciples of the Holy Jesus and servants of his Institution that is run to him to be made partakers of the mercies of this new Covenant and accept of him such conditions as he should require of us 4. This Covenant is then consigned to us when we first come to Christ that is when we first profess our selves his Disciples and his servants Disciples of his Doctrine and servants of his Institution that is in Baptism in which Christ who died for our sins makes us partakers of his death For we are buried by Baptism into his death saith S. Paul Which was also
represented in ceremony by the Immersion appointed to be the Rite of that Sacrament And then it is that God pours forth together with the Sacramental waters a salutary and holy fountain of Grace to wash the Soul from all its stains and impure adherences And therefore this first access to Christ is in the style of Scripture called Regeneration the New Birth Redemption Renovation Expiation or Atonement with God and Justification And these words in the New Testament relate principally and properly to the abolition of sins committed before Baptism For we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation to declare his Rightcousness for the remission of sins that are past To declare I say at this time his righteousness And this is that which S. Paul calls Justification by Faith that boasting might be excluded and the grace of God by Jesus made exceeding glorious For this being the proper work of Christ the first entertainment of a Disciple and manifestation of that state which is first given him as a favour and next intended as a duty is a total abolition of the precedent guilt of sin and leaves nothing remaining that can condemn we then freely receive the intire and perfect effect of that Atonement which Christ made for us we are put into a condition of innocence and favour And this I say is done regularly in Baptism and S. Paul expresses it to this sense after he had enumerated a series of Vices subjected in many he adds and such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified There is nothing of the old guilt remanent when ye were washed ye were sanctified or as the Scripture calls it in another place Ye were redeemed from your vain conversation 5. For this Grace was the formality of the Covenant Repent and believe the Gospel Repent and be converted so it is in S. Peter's Sermon and your sins shall be done away that was the Covenant But that Christ chose Baptism for its signature appears in the Parallel Repent and be baptized and wash away your sins For Christ loved his Church and gave himself for it That he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish The Sanctification is integral the Pardon is universal and immediate 6. But here the process is short no more at first but this Repent and be baptized and wash away your sins which Baptism because it was speedily administred and yet not without the preparatives of Faith and Repentance it is certain those predispositions were but instruments of reception actions of great facility of small employment and such as supposing the person not unapt did confess the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and fulness of the redemption is called by the Apostle a being justified freely 7. Upon this ground it is that by the Doctrine of the Church heathen persons strangers from the 〈◊〉 of grace were invited to a confession of Faith and dereliction of false Religions with a promise that at the very first resignation of their persons to the service of Jesus they should obtain full pardon It was S. Cyprian's counsel to old Demetrianus Now in the evening of thy days when thy Soul'is almost expiring repent of thy sins believe in Jesus and turn Christian and although thou art almost in the embraces of death yet thou shalt be comprehended of immortality Baptizatus ad horam securus bine exit saith S. Austin A baptized person dying immediately shall live eternally and gloriously And this was the case of the Thief upon the Cross he confessed Christ and repented of his sins and begged pardon and did acts enough to facilitate his first access to Christ and but to remove the hindrances of God's favour then he was redeemed and reconciled to God by the death of Jesus that is he was pardoned with a full instantaneous integral and clear Pardon with such a pardon which declared the glory of God's mercies and the infiniteness of Christ's merits and such as required a more reception and entertainment on man's part 8. But then we having received so great a favour enter into Covenant to correspond with a proportionable endeavour the benefit of absolute Pardon that is Salvation of our Souls being not to be received till the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord all the intervall we have promised to live a holy life in obedience to the whole Discipline of Jesus That 's the condition on our part And if we prevaricate that the mercy shewn to the blessed Thief is no argument of hope to us because he was saved by the mercies of the first access which corresponds to the Remission of sins we receive in Baptism and we shall perish by breaking our own promises and obligations which Christ passed upon us when he made with us the Covenant of an intire and gracious Pardon 9. For in the precise Covenant there is nothing else described but Pardon so given and ascertained upon an Obedience persevering to the end And this is clear in all those places of Scripture which express a holy and innocent life to have been the purpose and design of Christ's death for us and redemption of us from the former estate Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye are healed Exinde from our being healed from our dying unto sin from our being buried with Christ from our being baptized into his death the end of Christ's dying for us is that we should live unto righteousness Which was also highly and prophetically expressed by S. Zachary in his divine Ecstasie This was the oath which he sware to our Fore-father Abraham That he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies might serve him without fear In holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life And S. Paul discourses to this purpose pertinently and largely For the grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts Hi sunt Angeli quibus in lavacro renunciavimus saith Tertullian Those are the evil Angels the Devil and his works which we deny or renounce in Baptism we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world that is lead a whole life in the pursuit of universal holiness Sobriety Justice and Godlinèss being the proper language to signifie our Religion and respects to God to our neighbours and to our selves And that this was the very end of our dying in Baptism and the design of Christ's manifestation of
our Redemption he adds Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Who gave himself for us to this very purpose that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Purifying a people peculiar to himself is cleansing it in the Laver of Regeneration and appropriating it to himself in the rites of Admission and Profession Which plainly designs the first consignation of our Redemption to be in Baptism and that Christ there cleansing his Church from every spot or wrinkle made a Covenant with us that we should renounce all our sins and he should cleanse them all and then that we should abide in that state Which is also very explicitely set down by the same Apostle in that divine and mysterious Epistle to the Romans How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death Well what then Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life That 's the end and mysteriousness of Baptism it is a consignation into the Death of Christ and we die with him that once that is die to sin that we may for ever after live the life of righteousness Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin that is from the day of our Baptism to the day of our death And therefore God who knows the weaknesses on our part and yet the strictness and necessity of conserving Baptismal grace by the Covenant Evangelical hath appointed the auxiliaries of the Holy Spirit to be ministred to all baptized people in the holy Rite of Confirmation that it might be made possible to be done by Divine aids which is necessary to be done by the Divine Commandments 10. And this might not be improperly said to be the meaning of those words of our Blessed Saviour He that speaks a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him but he that speaks a word against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him That is those sins which were committed in Infidelity before we became Disciples of the Holy Jesus are to be remitted in Baptism and our first profession of the Religion but the sins committed after Baptism and Confirmation in which we receive the Holy Ghost and by which the Holy Spirit is grieved are to be accounted for with more severity And therefore the Primitive Church understanding our obligations according to this discourse admitted not any to holy Orders who had lapsed and fallen into any sin of which she could take cognisance that is such who had not kept the integrity of their Baptism but sins committed before Baptism were no impediments to the susception of Orders because they were absolutely extinguished in Baptism This is the nature of the Covenant we made in Baptism that 's the grace of the Gospel and the effect of Faith and Repentance and it is expected we should so remain For it is nowhere expressed to be the mercy and intention of the Covenant Evangelical that this Redemption should be any more than once or that Repentance which is in order to it can be renewed to the same or so great purposes and present effects 11. But after we are once reconciled in Baptism and put intirely into God's favour when we have once been redeemed if we then fall away into sin we must expect God's dealing with us in another manner and to other purposes Never must we expect to be so again justified and upon such terms as formerly the best days of our Repentance are interrupted not that God will never forgive them that sin after Baptism and recover by Repentance but that Restitution by repentance after Baptism is another thing than the first Redemption No such intire clear and integral determinate and presential effects of Repentance but an imperfect little growing uncertain and hazardous Reconciliation a Repentance that is always in production a Renovation by parts a Pardon that is revocable a Salvation to be wrought by fear and trembling all our remanent life must be in bitterness our hopes allayed with fears our meat attempered with Coloquintida and death is in the pot as our best actions are imperfect so our greatest Graces are but possibilities and aptnesses to a Reconcilement and all our life we are working our selves into that condition we had in Baptism and lost by our relapse As the habit lessens so does the guilt as our Vertues are imperfect so is the Pardon and because our Piety may be interrupted our state is uncertain till our possibilities of sin are ceased till our fight is finished and the victory therefore made sure because there is no more fight And it is remarkable that S. Peter gives counsel to live holily in pursuance of our redemption of our calling and of our escaping from that corruption that is in the world through Lust lest we lose the benefit of our purgation to which by way of antithesis he opposes this Wherefore the rather give diligence to make your calling and election sure And if ye do these things ye shall never fall Meaning by the perpetuating our state of Baptism and first Repentance we shall never fall but be in a sure estate our calling and election shall be sure But not if we fall if we forget we were purged from our old sins if we forfeit our calling we have also made our election unsure movable and disputable 12. So that now the hopes of lapsed sinners relie upon another bottom And as in Moses's Law there was no revelation of Repentance but yet the Jews had hopes in God and were taught the succours of Repentance by the Homilies of the Prophets and other accessory notices So in the Gospel the Covenant was established upon Faith and Repentance but it was consigned in Baptism and was verifiable onely in the integrity of a following holy life according to the measures of a man not perfect but sincere not faultless but heartily endeavoured but yet the mercies of God in pardoning sinners lapsed after Baptism was declared to us by collateral and indirect occasions by the Sermons of the Apostles and the Commentaries of Apostolical persons who understood the meaning of the Spirit and the purposes of the Divine mercy and those other significations of his will which the blessed Jesus left upon record in other parts of his Testament as in Codicills annexed besides the precise Testament it self And it is certain if in the Covenant of Grace there be the same involution of an after-Repentance as there is of present Pardon upon past Repentance and future Sanctity it is impossible to
them not to retain them or invite them but as objects of displeasure to avert them from us 2. To resist all lustful desires and extinguish them by their proper correctories and remedies 3. To resuse all occasions opportunities and temptations to Impurity denying to please a wanton 〈◊〉 or to use a 〈◊〉 gesture or to go into a danger or to converse with an improper unsafe object hating the garment spotted with the flesh so S. Jude calls it and not to look upon a maid so Job not to sit with a woman that is a singer so the son of Sirach 4. To be of a liberal soul not mingling with affections of mony and inclinations of covetousness not doing any act of violence rapine or injustice 5. To be ingenuous in our thoughts purposes and professions speaking nothing contrary to our intentions but being really what we 〈◊〉 6. To give all our faculties and affections to God without dividing interests between God and his enemies without entertaining of any one crime in society with our pretences for God 7. Not to lie in sin but instantly to repent of it and return purifying our Conscience from dead works 8. Not to dissemble our faith or belief when we are required to its confession pretending a perswasion complying with those from whom 〈◊〉 we differ Lust Covetousness and Hypocrisie are the three great enemies of this Grace they are the motes of our eyes and the spots of our Souls The reward of Purity is the vision beatifical If we are pure as God is pure we shall also see him as he is When we awake up after his likeness we shall 〈◊〉 hold his presence To which in this world we are consigned by freedom from the cares of Covetousness the shame of Lust the fear of discovery and the stings of an evil Conscience which are the portion of the several Impurities here forbidden 17. Seventhly Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God The wisdome of God is first pure and then peaceable that 's the order of the Beatitudes As soon as Jesus was born the Angels sang a Hymn Glory be to God on high and on earth peace good will towards men signifying the two great 〈◊〉 upon which Christ was dispatched in his Legation from Heaven to earth He is the Prince of Peace Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man ever shall see God The acts of this Grace are 1. To mortisie our Anger 〈◊〉 and fiery dispositions apt to enkindle upon every slight accident inadvertency or misfortune of a friend or servant 2. Not to be hasty rash provocative or upbraiding in our language 3. To live quietly and serenely in our families and neighbourhoods 4. Not to backbite slander misreport or undervalue any man carrying tales or sowing dissention between brethren 5. Not to interest our selves in the quarrels of others by abetting either part except where Charity calls us to rescue the oppressed and then also to do a work of charity without mixtures of uncharitableness 6. To avoid all suits of Law as much as is possible without intrenching upon any other collateral obligation towards a third interest or a necessary support for our selves or great conveniency for our families or if we be engaged in Law to pursue our just interests with just means and charitable maintenance 7. To endeavour by all means to reconcile disagreeing persons 8. To endeavour by affability and fair deportment to win the love of our neighbours 9. To offer satisfaction to all whom we have wronged or slandered and to remit the offences of others and in trials of right to find out the most charitable expedient to determine it as by indifferent arbitration or something like it 10. To be open free and ingenuous in reprehensions and fair expostulations with persons whom we conceive to have wronged us that no seed of malice or rancor may be latent in us and upon the breath of a new displeasure break out into a flame 11. To be modest in our arguings disputings and demands not laying great interest upon trifles 12. To moderate balance and temper our zeal by the rules of Prudence and the allay of Charity that we quarrel not for opinions nor intitle God in our impotent and mistaken fancies nor lose Charity for a pretence of an article of Faith 13. To pray heartily for our enemies real or imaginary always loving and being apt to benefit their persons and to cure their faults by charitable remedies 14. To abstain from doing all affronts disgraces slightings and 〈◊〉 jearings and mockings of our neighbour not giving him appellatives of scorn or irrision 15. To submit to all our Superiours in all things either doing what they command or suffering what they impose at no hand lifting our 〈◊〉 against those upon whom the characters of God and the marks of Jesus are imprinted in signal and eminent authority such as are principally the King and then the Bishops whom God hath set to watch over our Souls 16. Not to invade the possessions of our Neighbours or commence War but when we are bound by justice and legal trust to defend the rights of others or our own in order to our duty 17. Not to speak evil of dignities or undervalue their persons or publish their faults or upbraid the levities of our Governours knowing that they also are designed by God to be converted to us for castigation and amendment of us 18. Not to be busie in other mens affairs And then the peace of God will rest upon us The reward is no less than the adoption and inheritance of sons for he hath given unto us power to be called the sons of God for he is the Father of Peace and the Sons of Peace are the Sons of God and theresore have a title to the inheritance of Sons to be heirs with God and coheirs with Christ in the kingdom of Peace and essential and never-failing charity 18. Eightly Blessed are they which are Persecuted sor righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven This being the hardest command in the whole Discipline of Jesus is fortified with a double Blessedness for it follows immediately Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you meaning that all Persecution for a cause of Righteousness though the affliction be instanced only in reproachful language shall be a title to the Blessedness Any suffering for any good or harmless action is a degree of Martyrdom It being the greatest testimony in the world of the greatest love to quit that for God which hath possessed our most natural regular and orderly affections It is a preferring God's cause before our own interest it is a loving of Vertue without secular ends it is the noblest the most resigned ingenuous valiant act in the world to die for 〈◊〉 whom we never have seen it is the crown of Faith the confidence of Hope and our greatest Charity The Primitive
Churches living under Persecution commenced many pretty opinions concerning the state and special dignity of Martyrs apportioning to them one of the three Coronets which themselves did knit and supposed as pendants to the great Crown of righteousness They made it suppletory of Baptism expiatory of sin satisfactory of publick 〈◊〉 they placed them in bliss immediately declared them to need no after-Prayer such as the Devotion of those times used to pour upon the graves of the faithful with great prudence they did endeavour to alleviate this burthen and sweeten the bitter chalice and they did it by such doctrines which did only remonstrate this great truth That since no love was greater than to lay down our lives nothing could be so great but God would indulge to them And indeed whatsoever they said in this had no inconvenience nor would it now unless men should think mere suffering to be sufficient to excuse a wicked life or that they be invited to dishonour an excellent patience with the mixture of an impure action There are many who would die for Christ if they were put to it and yet will not quit a Lust for him those are hardly to be esteemed Christ's Martyrs unless they be dead unto sin their dying for an Article or a good action will not pass the great scrutiny And it may be boldness of spirit or sullenness or an honourable gallantry of mind or something that is excellent in civil and political estimate moves the person and endears the suffering but that love only which keeps the Commandments will teach us to 〈◊〉 for love and from love to pass to blessedness through the red Sea of bloud And indeed it is more easie to die for Chastity than to live with it and many women have been found who suffered death under the violence of Tyrants for defence of their holy vows and purity who had they long continued amongst pleasures courtships curiosities and importunities of men might perchance have yielded that to a Lover which they denied to an Executioner S. Cyprian observes that our Blessed Lord in admitting the innocent Babes of Bethlehem first to die for him did to all generations of Christendom consign this Lesson That only persons holy and innocent were fit to be Christ's Martyrs And I remember that the Prince of the Latine Poets over against the region and seats of Infants places in the Shades below persons that suffered death wrongfully but adds that this their death was not enough to place them in such blessed mansions but the Judge first made inquiry into their lives and accordingly designed their station It is certain that such dyings or great sufferings are Heroical actions and of power to make great compensations and redemptions of time and of omissions and imperfections but if the Man be unholy so also are his Sufferings for Hereticks have died and vicious persons have suffered in a good cause and a dog's neck may be cut off in sacrifice and Swine's bloud may 〈◊〉 the trench about the Altar but God only accepts the Sacrifice which is pure and spotless first seasoned with salt then seasoned with fire The true Martyr must have all the preceding Graces and then he shall receive all the Beatitudes 19. The acts of this Duty are 1. Boldly to confess the Faith nobly to exercise publick vertues not to be ashamed of any thing that is honest and rather to quit our goods our liberty our health and life it self than to deny what we are bound to affirm or to omit what we are bound to do or to pretend contrary to our present perswasion 2. To rejoyce in Afflictions counting it honourable to be conformable to Christ and to wear the cognizance of Christianity whose certain lot it is to suffer the hostility and violence of enemies visible and invisible 3. Not to revile our Persecutors but to bear the Cross with evenness tranquillity patience and charity 4. To offer our sufferings to the glory of God and to joyn them with the Passions of Christ by doing it in love to God and obedience to his Sanctions and testimony of some part of his Religion and designing it as a part of duty The reward is the Kingdom of Heaven which can be no other but eternal Salvation in case the Martyrdom be consummate and they also shall be made perfect so the words of the reward were read in Clement's time If it be less it keeps its proportion all suffering persons are the combination of Saints they make the Church they are the people of the Kingdom and heirs of the Covenant For if they be but Confessors and confess Christ in prison though they never preach upon the rack or under the axe yet Christ will confess them before his heavenly Father and they shall have a portion where they shall never be persecuted any more The PRAYER O Blessed Jesus who art become to us the Fountain of Peace and Sanctity of Righteousness and Charity of Life and perpetual Benediction imprint in our spirits these glorious characterisms of Christianity that we by such excellent dispositions may be consigned to the infinity of Blessedness which thou camest to reveal and minister and exhibit to mankind Give us great Humility of spirit and deny us not when we beg Sorrow of thee the mourning and sadness of true Penitents that we may imitate thy excellencies and conform to thy sufferings Make us Meek patient indifferent and resigned in all accidents changes and issues of Divine Providence Mortifie all inordinate Anger in us all Wrath Strife Contention Murmurings Malice and Envy and interrupt and then blot out all peevish dispositions and morosities all disturbances and unevenness of spirit 〈◊〉 of habit that may hinder us in our duty Oh teach me so to hunger and thirst after the ways of Righteousness that it may be meat and drink to me to do thy Father's will Raise my affections to Heaven and heavenly things fix my heart there and prepare a treasure for me which I may receive in the great diffusions and communications of thy glory And in this sad interval of infirmity and temptations strengthen my hopes and 〈◊〉 my Faith by such emissions of light and grace from thy Spirit that I may relish those Blessings which thou preparest for thy Saints with so great appetite that I may despise the world and all its gilded vanities and may desire nothing but the crown of righteousness and the paths that lead thither 〈◊〉 graces of thy Kingdom and the glories of it that when I have served thee in holiness and strict obedience I may reign with thee in the glories of Eternity for thou O Holy Jesus art our hope and our life and glory our 〈◊〉 great reward Amen II. 〈◊〉 Jesu who art infinitely pleased in demonstrations of thy Mercy and didst descend into a state of misery suffering persecution and 〈◊〉 that thou mightest give us thy mercy and reconcile us to thy Father and make us
was a Law of Works that is especially and in its first intention But this being less perfect the Holy Jesus inverted the order 1. For very little of Christianity stands upon the outward action Christ having appointed but two Sacraments immediately and 2. a greater restraint is laid upon the passions desires and first motions of the spirit than under the severity of Moses and 3. they are threatned with the same curses of a sad eternity with the acts proceeding from them and 4. because the obedience of the spirit does in many things excuse the want of the outward act God always requiring at our hands what he hath put in our power and no more and 5. lastly because the spirit is the principle of all actions moral and spiritual and certainly productive of them when they are not impeded from without therefore the Holy Jesus hath secured the fountain as knowing that the current must needs be healthful and pure if it proceeds through pure chanels from a limpid and unpolluted principle 4. And certainly it is much for the glory of God to worship him with a Religion whose very design looks upon God as the searcher of our hearts and Lord of our spirits who judges the purposes as a God and does not only take his estimate from the outward action as a man And it is also a great reputation to the Institution it self that it purifies the Soul and secures the secret cogitations of the mind It punishes Covetouiness as it judges Rapine it condemns a Sacrilegious heart as soon as an Irreligious hand it detests hating of our Brother by the same aversation which it expresses against doing him 〈◊〉 He that curses in his heart shall die the death of an explicite and bold Blasphemer murmur and repining is against the Laws of Christianity but either by the remissness of Moses's Law or the gentler execution of it or the innovating or lessening glosses of the Pharisees he was esteemed innocent whose actions were according to the letter not whose spirit was conformed to the intention and more secret Sanctity of the Law So that our Righteousness must therefore exceed the Pharisaical standard because our spirits must be pure as our hands and the heart as regular as the action our purposes must be sanctified and our thoughts holy we must love our Neighbour as well as relieve him and chuse Justice with adhesion of the mind as well as carry her upon the palms of our hands And therefore the Prophets foretelling the Kingdom of the Gospel and the state of this Religion call it a writing the Laws of God in our hearts And S. Paul distinguishes the Gospel from the Law by this only measure We are all Israelites of the seed of Abraham heirs of the same inheritance only now we are not to be accounted Jews for the outward consormity to the Law but for the inward consent and obedience to those purities which were secretly signified by the types of Moses They of the Law were Jews outwardly their Circumcision was outward in the flesh their praise was of men We are Jews inwardly our Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter and our praise is of God that is we are not judged by the outward act but by the mind and the intention and though the acts must sollow in all instances where we can and where they are required yet it is the less principal and rather significative than by its own strength and energy operative and accepted 5. S. Clemens of Alexandria saith the Pharisees righteousness consisted in the not doing evil and that Christ superadded this also that we must do the contrary good and so exceed the Pharisaical measure They would not wrong a Jew nor many times relieve him they reckoned their innocence by not giving offence by walking blameless by not being accused before the Judges sitting in the gates of their Cities But the balance in which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Christians is not only the avoiding evil but doing good the following peace with all men and holiness the proceeding from faith to faith the adding vertue to vertue the persevering in all holy conversation and godliness And therefore S. Paul commending the grace of universal Charity says that Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law implying that the prime intention of the Law was that every man's right be secured that no man receive wrong And indeed all the Decalogue consisting of Prohibitions rather than Precepts saving that each Table hath one positive Commandment does not obscurely verifie the doctrine of S. Clement's interpretation Now because the Christian Charity abstains from doing all injury therefore it is the fulfilling of the Law but because it is also patient and liberal that it suffers long and is kind therefore the Charity commanded in Christ's Law exceeds that Charity which the Scribes and Pharisees reckoned as part of their Righteousness But Jesus himself does with great care in the particulars instance in what he would have the Disciples to be eminent above the most strict Sect of the Jewish Religion 1. in practising the moral Precepts of the Decalogue with a stricter interpretation 2. and in quitting the Permissions and licences which for the hardness of their heart Moses gave them as indulgences to their persons and securities against the contempt of too severe Laws 6. The severity of exposition was added but to three Commandments and in three indulgences the permission was taken away But because our great Law-giver repeated also other parts of the Decalogue in his after-Sermons I will represent in this one view all that he made to be Christian by adoption 7. The first Commandment Christ often repeated and enforced as being the basis of all Religion and the first endearment of all that relation whereby we are capable of being the sons of God as being the great Commandment of the Law and comprehensive of all that duty we owe to God in the relations of the vertue of Religion Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Lord and Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength This is the first Commandment that is this comprehends all that which is moral and eternal in the first Table of the 〈◊〉 8. The Duties of this Commandment are 1. To worship God alone with actions proper to him and 2. to love and 3. obey him with all our faculties 1. Concerning Worship The actions proper to the Honour of God are to offer Sacrifice Incense and Oblations making Vows to him Swearing by his Name as the instrument of secret testimony confessing his incommunicable Attributes and Praying to him for those Graces which are essentially annexed to his dispensation as Remission of sins Gifts of the Spirit and the grace of 〈◊〉 and Life
seventh by very many of their own Doctors of which I reckon this a sufficient probation because they permitted stranger Virgins and Captives to fornicate only they believed it sinful in the Hebrew Maidens And when two Harlots pleaded before Solomon for the Bastard-child he gave sentence of their question but nothing of their crime Strangers with the Hebrews signified many times Harlots because they were permitted to be such and were entertained to such purposes But these were the licences of a looser interpretation God having to all Nations given sufficient testimony of his detestation of all Concubinate not hallowed by Marriage of which among the Nations there was abundant testimony in that the Harlots were not permitted to abide in the Cities and wore veils in testimony of their shame and habitual undecencies which we observe in the story of Thamar and also in Chrysippus And although it passed without punishment yet never without shame and a note of turpitude And the abstinence from Fornication was one of the Precepts of Noah to which the Jews obliged the stranger-Proselytes who were only Proselytes of the House and the Apostles inforce it upon the Gentiles in their first Decree at Jerusalem as renewing an old stock of Precepts and obligations in which all the converted religious Gentiles did communicate with the Jews 38. To this Christ added that the Eyes must not be adulterous his Disciples must not only abstain from the act of unlawful Concubinate but from the impurer intuition of a wife of another man so according to the design of his whole Sermon opposing the Righteousness of the Spirit to that of the Law or of Works in which the Jews confided Christians must have chast desires not indulging to themselves a liberty of looser thoughts keeping the threshold of their Temples pure that the Holy Ghost may observe nothing unclean in the entry of his habitation For he that lusts after a woman wants nothingto the consummation of the act but some convenient circumstances which because they are not in our power the act is impeded but nothing of the malice abated But so severe in this was our Blessed Master that he commanded us rather to put our eyes out than to suffer them to become an offence to us that is an inlet of sin or an invitation or transmission of impurity by putting our eye out meaning the extinction of all incentives of Lust the rejection of all opportunities and occasions the quitting all conditions of advantage which ministers fuel to this Hell-fire And by this severity we must understand all beginnings temptations likenesses and insinuations and minutes 〈◊〉 Lust and impurity to be forbidden to Christians such as are all morose delectations in vanity wanton words gestures Balls revellings wanton diet garish and lascivious dressings and trimmings of the body looser Banquetings all making provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lusts of it all lust of Concupiscence and all lust of the eye and all lust of the hand unclean contracts are to be rescinded all lust of the tongue and palate all surfeiting and drunkenness for it is impossible to keep the spirit pure if it be exposed to all the entertainment of enemies And if Christ forbad the wanton eye and placed it under the prohibition of Adultery it is certain whatsoever ministers to that Vice and invites to it is within the same restraint it is the eye or the hand or the foot that is to be cut off To this Commandment Fastings and severe Abstinences are apt to be reduced as being the proper abscission of the instruments and temptations of Lust to which Christ invites by the mixt proposition of threatning and reward for better it is to go to Heaven with but one eye or one foot that is with a body half nourished than with full meals and an active Lust to enter into Hell And in this our Blessed Lord is a Physician rather than a Law-giver for abstinence from all impure Concubinate and morose delectations so much as in thought being the Commandment of God that Christ bids us retrench the occasions and insinuations of Lust it is a facilitating the duty not a new severity but a security and caution of prudence 39. Thou shalt not steal To this Precept Christ added nothing because God had already in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 this Precept with a restraint upon the desires For the Tenth Commandment sorbids all coveting of our Neighbour's goods for the Wife there reckoned and forbidden to be desired from another man is not a restraint of Libidinous appetite but of the Covetous it being accounted part of wealth to have a numerous family many wives and many servants and this also God by the Prophet Nathan upbraided to David as an instance of David's wealth and God's liberality But yet this Commandment Christ adopted into his Law it being prohibited by the natural Law or the Law of right Reason Commonwealths not being able to subsist without distinction of Dominion nor industry to be encouraged but by propriety nor Families to be maintained but by defence of just rights and truly-purchased Possessions And this Prohibition extends to all injustice whether done by force or fraud whether it be by ablation or prevention or detaining of rights any thing in which injury is done directly or obliquely to our Neighbour's fortune 40. Thou shalt not bear false witness That is Thou shalt not answer in judgment against thy Neighbour falsely which testimony in the Law was given solemnly and by Oath invoking the Name of God 〈◊〉 adjure thee by God that thou tell us whether thou be the CHRIST said the High Priest to the Blessed Jesus that is speak upon thy Oath and then he told them fully though they made it the pretence of murthering him and he knew they would do so Confessing and witnessing truth is giving glory to God but false witness is high injustice it is inhumanity and treason against the quietness or life or possession of a just person it is in it self irregular and unreasonable and therefore is so forbidden to Christians not only as it is unjust but as it is false For a Lie in communication and private converse is also forbidden as well as unjust testimony Let every man speak truth with his Neighbour that is in private society and whether a Lie be in jest or earnest when the purpose is to deceive and abuse though in the smallest instance it is in that degree criminal as it is injurious I find not the same affirmed in every deception of our Neighbours wherein no man is injured and some are benefited the errour of the affirmation being nothing but a natural irregularity nothing malicious but very charitable I find no severity superadded by Christ to this Commandment prohibiting such discourse which without injury to any man deceives a man into Piety or safety But this is to be extended no farther In all things else we
or mental Prayer is all one to God but in order to us they have their several advantages The sacrifice of the heart and the calves of the lips make up a holocaust to God but words are the arrest of the desires and keep the spirit fixt and in less permissions to wander from fancy to fancy and mental Prayer is apt to make the greater fervour if it wander not our office is more determined by words but we then actually think of God when our spirits only speak Mental Prayer when our spirits wander is like a Watch standing still because the spring is down wind it up again and it goes on regularly but in Vocal Prayer if the words run on and the spirit wanders the Clock strikes false the Hand points not to the right hour because something is in disorder and the striking is nothing but noise In mental Prayer we confess God's omniscience in vocal Prayer we call the Angels to witness In the first our spirits rejoyce in God in the second the Angels rejoyce in us Mental Prayer is the best remedy against lightness and indifferency of affections but vocal Prayer is the aptest instrument of communion That is more Angelical but yet fittest for the state of separation and glory this is but humane but it is apter for our present constitution They have their distinct proprieties and may be used according to several accidents occasions or dispositions The PRAYER O Holy and eternal God who hast commanded us to pray unto thee in all our necessities and to give thanks unto thee for all our instances of joy and blessing and to adore thee in all thy Attributes and communications thy own glories and thy eternal mercies give unto me thy servant the spirit of Prayer and Supplication that I may understand what is good for me that I may desire regularly and chuse the best things that I may conform to thy will and submit to thy disposing relinquishing my own affections and imperfect choice Sanctifie my heart and spirit that I may sanctifie thy Name and that I may be gracious and accepted in thine eyes Give me the humility and obedience of a Servant that I may also have the hope and confidence of a Son making humble and confident addresses to the Throne of grace that in all my necessities I may come to thee for aids and may trust in thee for a gracious answer and may receive satisfaction and supply II. GIve me a sober diligent and recollected spirit in my Prayers neither choaked with cares nor scattered by levity nor discomposed by passion nor estranged from thee by inadvertency but fixed fast to thee by the indissolvible bands of a great love and a pregnant Devotion And let the beams of thy holy Spirit descending from above enlighten and enkindle it with great servours and holy importunity and unwearied industry that I may serve thee and obtain thy blessing by the assiduity and Zeal of perpetual religious offices Let my Prayers come before thy presence and the lifting up of my hands be a daily sacrifice and let the fires of zeal not go out by night or day but unite my Prayers to the intercession of thy Holy Jesus and to a communion of those offices which Angels and beatified Souls do pay before the throne of the Lamb and at the celestial Altar that my Prayers being hallowed by the Merits of Christ and being presented in the phial of the Saints may ascend thither where thy glory dwells and from whence mercy and eternal benediction descends upon the Church III. LOrd change my sins into penitential sorrow my sorrow to petition my petition to 〈◊〉 that my Prayers may be consummate in the adorations of eternity and the glorious participation of the end of our hopes and prayers the fulness of never-failing Charity and fruition of thee O Holy and Eternal God Blessed Trinity and mysterious Unity to whom all honour and worship and thanks and confession and glory be ascribed for ever and ever Amen DISCOURSE XIII Of the Third additional Precept of Christ viz. Of the manner of FASTING 1. FAsting being directed in order to other ends as for mortifying the body taking away that fuel which ministers to the flame of Lust or else relating to what is past when it becomes an instrument of Repentance and a part of that revenge which S. Paul affirms to be the effect of godly sorrow is to take its estimate for value and its rules for practice by analogy and proportion to those ends to which it does cooperate Fasting before the holy Sacrament is a custom of the Christian Church and derived to us from great antiquity and the use of it is that we might express honour to the mystery by suffering nothing to enter into our mouths before the symbols Fasting to this purpose is not an act of Mortification but of Reverence and venerable esteem of the instruments of Religion and so is to be understood And thus also not to eat or drink before we have said our morning Devotions is esteemed to be a religious decency and preference of Prayer and God's honour before our temporal satisfaction a symbolical attestation that we esteem the words of God's mouth more than our necessary food It is like the zeal of Abraham's servant who would not eat nor drink till he had done his errand And in pursuance of this act of Religion by the tradition of their Fathers it grew to be a custom of the Jewish Nation that they should not eat bread upon their solemn Festivals before the sixth hour that they might first celebrate the rites of their Religious solemnities before they gave satisfaction to the lesser desires of nature And therefore it was a reasonable satisfaction of the objection made by the assembly against the inspired Apostles in Pentecost These are not drunk as ye suppose seeing it is but the third hour of the day meaning that the day being festival they knew it was not lawful for any of the Nation to break their fast before the sixth hour for else they might easily have been drunk by the third hour if they had taken their morning's drink in a freer proportion And true it is that Religion snatches even at little things and as it teaches us to observe all the great Commandments and significations of duty so it is not willing to pretermit any thing which although by its greatness it cannot of it self be considerable yet by its smallness it may become a testimony of the greatness of the affection which would not omit the least minutes of love and duty And therefore when the Jews were scandalized at the Disciples of our Lord for rubbing the ears of corn on the Sabbath-day as they walked through the fields early in the morning they intended their reproof not for breaking the Rest of the day but the Solemnity for eating before the publick Devotions were finished Christ excused it by the necessity and charity of the act they were
and therefore less likely to deceive for which reason it is said that he shall deceive if it were possible the very elect that is therefore not possible because that by which he insinuates himself to others is by the elect the Church and chosen of God understood to be his sign and mark of discovery and a warning And therefore as the Prophecies of Jesus were an infinite verification of his Miracles so also this Prophecy of Christ concerning Antichrist disgraces the reputation and faith of the Miracles he shall act The old Prophets foretold of the Messias and of his Miracles of power and mercy to prepare for his reception and entertainment Christ alone and his Apostles from him foretold of Antichrist and that he should come in all Miracles of deception and lying that is with true or false Miracles to perswade a lie and this was to prejudice his being accepted according to the Law of Moses So that as all that spake of Christ bade us believe him for the Miracles so all that foretold of Antichrist bade us disbelieve him the rather for his and the reason of both is the same because the mighty and surer word of Prophecy as S. Peter calls it being the greatest testimony in the world of a Divine principle gives authority or reprobates with the same power They who are the predestinate of God and they that are the praesciti the foreknown and marked people must needs stand or fall to the Divine sentence and such must this be acknowledged for no enemy of the Cross not the Devil himself ever foretold such a contingency or so rare so personal so voluntary so unnatural an event as this of the great Antichrist 12. And thus the Holy Jesus having shewed forth the treasures of his Father's Wisdom in Revelations and holy Precepts and upon the stock of his Father's greatness having dispended and demonstrated great power in Miracles and these being instanced in acts of Mercy he mingled the glories of Heaven to transmit them to earth to raise us up to the participations of Heaven he was pleased by healing the bodies of infirm persons to invite their spirits to his Discipline and by his power to convey healing and by that mercy to lead us into the treasures of revelation that both Bodies and Souls our Wills and Understandings by Divine instruments might be brought to Divine perfections in the participations of a Divine nature It was a miraculous mercy that God should look upon us in our bloud and a miraculous condescension that his Son should take our nature and even this favour we could not believe without many Miracles and so contrary was our condition to all possibilities of happiness that if Salvation had not marched to us all the way in Miracle we had perished in the ruines of a sad eternity And now it would be but reasonable that since God for our sakes hath rescinded so many laws of natural establishment we also for his and for our own would be content to do violence to those natural inclinations which are also criminal when they derive into action Every man living in the state of Grace is a perpetual Miracle and his Passions are made reasonable as his Reason is turned to Faith and his Soul to Spirit and his Body to a Temple and Earth to Heaven and less than this will not dispose us to such glories which being the portion of Saints and Angels and the nearest communications with God are infinitely above what we see or hear or understand The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu who didst receive great power that by it thou mightest convey thy Father's mercies to us impotent and wretched people give me grace to believe that heavenly Doctrine which thou didst ratifie with arguments from above that I may fully assent to all those mysterious Truths which integrate that Doctrine and Discipline in which the obligations of my duty and the hopes of my felicity are deposited And to all those glorious verifications of thy Goodness and thy Power add also this Miracle that I who am stained with Leprosie of sin may be cleansed and my eyes may be opened that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law and raise thou me up from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that I may for ever walk in the land of the living abhorring the works of death and darkness that as I am by thy miraculous mercy partaker of the first so also I may be accounted worthy of the second Resurrection and as by Faith Hope Charity and Obedience I receive the fruit of thy Miracles in this life so in the other I may partake of thy Glories which is a mercy above all Miracles Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean Lord I believe help mine unbelief and grant that no 〈◊〉 or incapacity of mine may hinder the wonderful operations of thy Grace but let it be thy first Miracle to turn my water into wine my barrenness into fruitfulness my aversations from thee into unions and intimate adhesions to thy infinity which is the fountain of mercy and power Grant this for thy mercie 's sake and for the honour of those glorious Attributes in which thou hast revealed thy self and thy Father's excellencies to the world O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The End of the Second Part. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Second Year of his PREACHING until his ASCENSION WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE THIRD PART Seneca apud Lactant. lib. 6. c. 17. Hic est ille homo qui sive toto corpore tormenta patienda sunt sive flamma ore recipienda est sive extendenda per patibulum manus non quaerit quid patiatur sed quà m bene LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675 TO The Right Honourable and Vertuous Lady The LADY FRANCES Countess of CARBERY MADAM SInce the Divine Providence hath been pleased to bind up the great breaches of my little fortune by your Charity and Nobleness of a religious tenderness I account it an excellent circumstance and handsomeness of condition that I have the fortune of S. Athanasius to have my Persecution relieved and comforted by an Honourable and Excellent Lady and I have nothing to return for this honour done to me but to do as the poor Paralyticks and infirm people in the Gospel did when our Blessed Saviour cured them they went and told it to all the Countrey and made the Vicinage full of the report as themselves were of health and joy And although I know the modesty of your person and Religion had rather do favours than own them yet give me leave to draw aside the curtain and retirement of your Charity for I had rather your vertue should blush than my unthankfulness make me ashamed Madam I intended by this Address not onely to return you spirituals for
weekly Sabbath the Disciples of Jesus pull ripe 〈◊〉 of corn rub them in their hands and eat them to satisfie their hunger For which he offered satisfaction to their scruples convincing them that works of necessity are to be permitted even to the breach of a positive temporary constitution and that works of Mercy are the best serving of God upon any day whatsoever or any part of the day that is vacant to other offices and proper for a religious Festival 3. But when neither Reason nor Religion would give them satisfaction but that they went about to kill him he withdrew himself from Jerusalem and returned to Galilee whither the Scribes and Pharisees followed him observing his actions and whether or no he would prosecute that which they called profanation of their Sabbath by doing acts of Mercy upon that day He still did so For entring into one of the Synagogues of Galilee upon the Sabbath Jesus saw a man whom S. Hierom reports to have been a Mason coming to Tyre and complaining that his hand was withered and desiring help of him that he might again be restored to the use of his hands lest he should be compelled with misery and shame to beg his bread Jesus restored his hand as whole as the other in the midst of all those spies and enemies Upon which act being confirmed in their malice the Pharisees went forth and joyned with the Herodians a Sect of people who said Herod was the Messias because by the decree of the Roman Senate when the Sceptre departed from Judah he was declared King and both together took counsel how they might kill him 4. Jesus therefore departed again to the sea-coast and his companies encreased as his fame for he was now followed by new multitudes from Galilee from Judaea from Jerusalem from Idumaea 〈◊〉 beyond Jordan from about Tyre and Sidon who hearing the report of his miraculous power to cure all diseases by the word of his mouth or the touch of his hand or the handling his garment came with their ambulatory hospital of sick and their possessed and they pressed on him but to touch him and were all immediately cured The Devils confessing publickly that he was the Son of God till they were upon all such occasions restrained and compelled to silence 5. But now Jesus having commanded a ship to be in readiness against any inconvenience or troublesome pressures of the multitude went up into a mountain to pray and continued in prayer all night intending to make the first ordination of Apostles which the next day he did chusing out of the number of his Disciples these twelve to be Apostles Simon Peter and Andrew James and John the sons of thunder Philip and Bartholomew Matthew and Thomas James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zelot Judas the brother of James and Judas 〈◊〉 With these descending from the mountain to the plain he repeated the same Sermon or much of it which he had before preached in the first beginning of his Prophesyings that he might publish his Gospel to these new Auditors and also more particularly inform his Apostles in the Doctrine of the Kingdom for now because he saw Israel scattered like sheep having no Shepherd he did purpose to send these twelve abroad to preach Repentance and the approximation of the Kingdom and therefore first instructed them in the mysterious parts of his holy Doctrine and gave them also particular instructions together with their temporary commission for that journey 6. For Jesus sent them out by two and two giving them power over unclean spirits and to heal all manner of sickness and diseases telling them they were the light and the eyes and the salt of the world so intimating their duties of diligence holiness and incorruption giving them in charge to preach the Gospel to dispense their power and Miracles freely as they had received it to anoint sick persons with oil not to enter into any Samaritan Town but to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to provide no viaticum for their journeys but to put themselves upon the Religion and Piety of their Proselytes he arms them against persecutions gives them leave to slye the storm from City to City promises them the assistances of his Spirit encourages them by his own example of long-sufferance and by instances of Divine providence expressed even to creatures of smallest value and by promise of great rewards to the confident confession of his Name and furnishes them with some propositions which are like so many bills of exchange upon the trust of which they might take up necessaries promising great retributions not only to them who quit any thing of value for the sake of Jesus but to them that offer a cup of water to a thirsty Disciple And with these instructions they departed to preach in the Cities 7. And Jesus returning to Capernaum received the address of a faithful Centurion of the Legion called the Iron Legion which usually quartered in Judaea in behalf of his servant whom he loved and who was grievously afflicted with the Palsie and healed him as a reward and honour to his Faith And from thence going to the City Naim he raised to life the only son of a widow whom the mourners followed in the street bearing the corps sadly to his funeral Upon the fame of these and divers other Miracles John the Baptist who was still in prison for he was not put to death till the latter end of this year sent two of his Disciples to him by divine providence or else by John's designation to minister occasion of his greater publication enquiring if he was the Messias To whom Jesus returned no answer but a Demonstration taken from the nature of the thing and the glory of the Miracles saying Return to John and tell him what ye see for the deaf hear the blind see the lame walk the dead are raised and the lepers are cleansed and to the poor the Gospel is preached which were the Characteristick notes of the Messias according to the predictions of the holy Prophets 6. When John's Disciples were gone with this answer Jesus began to speak concerning John of the austerity and holiness of his person the greatness of his function the Divinity of his commission saying that he was greater than a Prophet a burning and shining light the Elias that was to come and the consummation or ending of the old Prophets Adding withall that the perverseness of that Age was most notorious in the entertainment of himself and the Baptist for neither could the Baptist who came neither eating nor drinking that by his austerity and mortified deportment he might invade the judgment and affections of the people nor Jesus who came both eating and drinking that by a moderate and an affable life framed to the compliance and common use of men he might sweetly insinuate into the affections of the multitude obtain belief amongst them They could object
in the same mystical Head is an adunation nearer to identity than those distances between Parents and Children which are only cemented by the actions of Nature as it is of distinct consideration from the spirit For Jesus pointing to his Disciples said Behold my Mother and my Brethren for whosoever doth the will of my Father which is in heaven he is my Brother and Sister and Mother 14. But the Pharisees upon the occasion of the Miracles renewed the old quarrel He casteth out Devils by Beelzebub Which senseless and illiterate objection Christ having confuted charged them highly upon the guilt of an unpardonable crime telling them that the so charging those actions of his done in the virtue of the Divine Spirit is a sin against the Holy Ghost and however they might be bold with the Son of Man and prevarications against his words or injuries to his person might upon Repentance and Baptism find a pardon yet it was a matter of greater consideration to sin against the Holy Ghost that would find no pardon here nor hereafter But taking occasion upon this discourse he by an ingenious and mysterious Parable gives the world great caution of recidivation and backsliding after Repentance For if the Devil returns into a house once swept and garnished he bringeth seven spirits more impure than himself and the last estate of that man is worse than the first 15. After this Jesus went from the house of the Pharisee and coming to the Sea of Tiberias or Genezareth for it was called the Sea of Tiberias from a Town on the banks of the Lake taught the people upon the shore himself sitting in the ship but he taught them by Parables under which were hid mysterious senses which shined through their veil like a bright Sun through an eye closed with a thin eye-lid it being light enough to shew their infidelity but not to dispell those thick Egyptian darknesses which they had contracted by their habitual indispositions and pertinacious aversations By the Parable of the Sower scattering his seed by the way side and some on stony some on thorny some on good ground he intimated the several capacities or indispositions of mens hearts the carelesness of some the frowardness and levity of others the easiness and softness of a third and how they are spoiled with worldliness and cares and how many ways there are to miscarry and that but one sort of men receive the word and bring forth the fruits of a holy life By the Parable of Tares permitted to grow amongst the Wheat he intimated the toleration of dissenting Opinions not destructive of Piety or civil societies By the three Parables of the Seed growing insensibly of the grain of Mustard-seed swelling up to a tree of a little Leven qualifying the whole lump he signified the increment of the Gospel and the blessings upon the Apostolical Sermons 16. Which Parables when he had privately to his Apostles rendred into their proper senses he added to them two Parables concerning the dignity of the Gospel comparing it to Treasure hid in a field and a Jewel of great price for the purchace of which every good Merchant must quit all that he hath rather than miss it telling them withall that however purity and spiritual perfections were intended by the Gospel yet it would not be acquired by every person but the publick Professors of Christianity should be a mixt multitude like a net inclosing fishes good and bad After which discourses he retired from the Sea side and went to his own City of Nazareth where he preached so excellently upon certain words of the Prophet 〈◊〉 that all the people wondred at the wisdom which he expressed in his Divine discourses But the men of Nazareth did not do honour to the Prophet that was their Countryman because they knew him in all the disadvantages of youth and kindred and trade and poverty still retaining in their minds the infirmities and humilities of his first years and keeping the same apprehensions of him a man and a glorious Prophet which they had to him a child in the shop of a Carpenter But when Jesus in his Sermon had reproved their infidelity at which he wondred and therefore did but few Miracles there in respect of what he had done at Capernaum and intimated the prelation of that City before 〈◊〉 they thrust him out of the City and led him to the brow of the hill on which the City was built intending to throw him down headlong But his work was not yet finished therefore he passing through the midst of them went his way 17. Jesus therefore departing from Nazareth went up and down to all the Towns and Castles of Galilce attended by his Disciples and certain women out of whom he had cast unclean spirits such as were Mary Magdalen Johanna wife to Chuza Herod's Steward Susanna and some others who did for him offices of provision and ministred to him out of their own substance and became parts of that holy Colledge which about this time began to be 〈◊〉 because now the Apostles were returned from their Preaching full of joy that the Devils were made subject to the word of their mouth and the Empire of their Prayers and invocation of the holy Name of Jesus But their Master gave them a lenitive to asswage the tumour and excrescency intimating that such priviledges are not solid foundations of a holy joy but so far as they cooperate toward the great end of God's glory and their own Salvation to which when they are consigned and their names written in Heaven in the book of Election and Registers of Predestination then their joy is reasonable holy true and perpetual 18. But when Herod had heard these things of Jesus presently his apprehensions were such as derived from his guilt he thought it was John the Baptist who was risen from the dead and that these mighty works were demonstrations of his power increased by the superadditions of immortality and diviner influences made proportionable to the honour of a Martyr and the state of separation For a little before this time Herod had sent to the Castle of Macheruns where John was prisoner and caused him to be beheaded His head Herodias buried in her own Palace thinking to secure it against a re-union lest it should again disturb her unlawful Lusts and disquiet Herod's conscience But the body the Disciples of John gathered up and carried it with honour and sorrow and buried it in Sebaste in the confines of Samaria making his grave between the bodies of 〈◊〉 and Abdias the Prophets And about this time was the Passeover of the Jews DISCOURSE XV. Of the Excellency Ease Reasonableness and Advantages of bearing Christ ' s Yoke and living according to his Institution Ecce agnus Dei gui toâ—lit peccata Mundi Iohn 1. 29. Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the World The Christian's Work and Reward Matth. 11. 29 30. Take my yoke upon
the flames of Hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear and purely for the love of God Whether the Woman were onely imaginative and sad or also zealous I know not But God knows he would have few Disciples if the arguments of invitation were not of greater promise than the labours of Vertue are of trouble And therefore the Spirit of God knowing to what we are inflexible and by what we are made most ductile and malleable hath propounded Vertue clothed and dressed with such advantages as may entertain even our Sensitive part and first desires that those also may be invited to Vertue who understand not what is just and reasonable but what is profitable who are more moved with advantage than justice And because emolument is more felt than innocence and a man may be poor for all his gift of 〈◊〉 the Holy Jesus to endear the practices of Religion hath represented Godliness unto us under the notion of gain and sin as unfruitful and yet besides all the natural and reasonable advantages every Vertue hath a supernatural reward a gracious promise attending and every Vice is not only naturally deformed but is made more ugly by a threatning and horrid by an appendent curse Henceforth therefore let no man complain that the Commandments of God are impossible for they are not onely possible but easie and they that say otherwise and do accordingly take more pains to carry the instruments of their own death than would serve to ascertain them of life And if we would do as much for Christ as we have done for Sin we should find the pains less and the pleasure more And therefore such complainers are without excuse for certain it is they that can go in foul ways must not say they cannot walk in fair they that march over rocks in despight of so many impediments can travel the even ways of Religion and Peace when the Holy Jesus is their Guide and the Spirit is their Guardian and infinite felicities are at their journey's end and all the reason of the world political oeconomical and personal do entertain and support them in the travel of the passage The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus who gavest Laws unto the world that man-kind being united to thee by the bands of Obedience might partake of all thy glories and felicities open our understanding give us the spirit of discerning and just apprehension of all the beauties with which thou hast enamelled Vertue to represent it beauteous and amiable in our eyes that by the allurements of exteriour decencies and appendent blessings our present desires may be entertained our hopes promoted our affections satisfied and Love entring in by these doors may dwell in the interiour regions of the Will O make us to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and all the instruments of Religion in order to thy glory and our own felicities Pull off the visors of Sin and discover its deformities by the lantern of thy Word and the light of the Spirit that I may never be bewitched with sottish appetites Be pleased to build up all the contents I expect in this world upon the interests of a vertuous life and the support of Religion that I may be rich in Good works content in the issues of thy Providence my Health may be the result of Temperance and severity my Mirth in spiritual emanations my Rest in Hope my Peace in a good Conscience my Satisfaction and acquiescence in thee that from Content I may pass to an eternal Fulness from Health to Immortality from Grace to Glory walking in the paths of Righteousness by the waters of Comfort to the land of everlasting Rest to feast in the glorious communications of Eternity eternally adoring loving and enjoying the infinity of the ever-Blessed and mysterious Trinity to whom be glory and 〈◊〉 and dominion now and for ever Amen DISCOURSE XVI Of Certainty of Salvation 1. WHen the Holy Jesus took an account of the first Legation and voyage of his Apostles he found them rejoycing in priviledges and exteriour powers in their authority over unclean spirits but weighing it in his balance he found the cause too light and therefore diverted it upon the right object Rejoyce that your names are written in Heaven The revelation was confirmed and more personally applied in answer to S. Peter's Question We have for saken all and followed thee what shall we have therefore Their LORD answered Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel Amongst these persons to whom Christ spake Judas was he was one of the Twelve and he had a throne allotted for him his name was described in the book of life and a Scepter and a Crown was deposited for him too For we must not judge of Christ's meaning by the event since he spake these words to produce in them Faith comfort and joy in the best objects it was a Sermon of duty as well as a Homily of comfort and therefore was equally intended to all the Colledge and since the number of Thrones is proportioned to the number of men it is certain there was no exception of any man there included and yet it is as certain Judas never came to sit upon the throne and his name was blotted out of the book of life Now if we put these ends together that in Scripture it was not revealed to any man concerning his final condition but to the dying penitent Thief and to the twelve Apostles that twelve thrones were designed for them and a promise made of their inthronization and yet that no man's final estate is so clearly declared miserable and lost as that of Judas one of the Twelve to whom a throne was promised the result will be that the election of holy persons is a condition allied to duty absolute and infallible in the general and supposing all the dispositions and requisites concurring but fallible in the particular if we fall off from the mercies of the Covenant and prevaricate the conditions But the thing which is most observable is that if in persons so eminent and priviledged and to whom a revelation of their Election was made as a particular grace their condition had one weak leg upon which because it did rely for one half of the interest it could be no stronger than its supporters the condition of lower persons to whom no revelation is made no priviledges are indulged no greatness of spiritual eminency is appendent as they have no greater certainty in the thing so they have less in person and are therefore to work out their salvation with great fears and tremblings of spirit 2. The purpose of this consideration is that we do not judge of our final condition by any discourses of our own relying upon God's secret Counsels and Predestination of Eternity This is a mountain upon which whosoever climbs like Moses to behold the land of Canaan at great distances may please his eyes or
die and then gather his sheep together into one fold intimating the calling of the Gentiles to which purpose he was enabled by his Father to lay down his life and to take it up and had also endeared them to his Father that they should be preserved unto eternal life and no power should be able to take them out of his hand or the hand of his Father for because Jesus was united to the Father the Father's care preserved the Son's flocks 23. But the Jews to requite him for his so divine Sermons betook themselves to their old argument they took up stones again to cast at him pretending he had blasphemed but Jesus proved it to be no blasphemy to call himself the son of God because they to whom the Word of God came are in Scripture called Gods But nothing could satisfie them whose temporal interest was concerned not to consent to such Doctrine which would save their souls by ruining their temporal concernments But when they sought again to take him Jesus escaped out of their hands and went away beyond Jordan where John at first baptized which gave the people occasion to remember that John did no Miracle but this man does many and John whom all men did revere and highly account of for his Office and Sanctity gave testimony to Jesus And many believed on him there 24. After this Jesus knowing that the harvest was great and as yet the labourers had been few sent out seventy two of his Disciples with the like commission as formerly the 12. Apostles that they might go before to those places whither himself meant to come Of which number were the Seven whom afterwards the Apostles set over the Widows and Matthias Mark and some say Luke Justus Barnabas Apelles Rufus Niger Cephas not Peter Thaddaeus Aristion and John The rest of the names could not be recovered by the best diligence of Eusebius and Epiphanius But when they returned from their journey they rejoyced greatly in the legation and power and Jesus also rejoyced in spirit giving glory to God that he had made his revelations to babes and the more imperfect 〈◊〉 like the lowest Valleys which receive from Heaven the greatest flouds of rain and blessings and stand thick with corn and flowers when the Mountains are unfruitful in their height and greatness 25. And now a Doctor of the Law came to Jesus asking him a Question of the greatest consideration that a wise man could ask or a Prophet answer Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life Jesus referred him to the Scriptures and declared the way to Heaven to be this only to love the Lord with all our powers and faculties and our neighbour as our self But when the Lawyer being captious made a scruple in a smooth rush asking what is meant by Neighbour Jesus told him by a Parable of a Traveller fallen into the hands of robbers and neglected by a Priest and by a Levite but relieved by a Samaritan that no distance of Countrey or Religion destroys the relation of Neighbourhood but every person with whom we converse in peace and charity is that Neighbour whom we are to love as our selves 26. Jesus having departed from Jerusalem upon the forementioned danger came to a village called Bethany where Martha making great and busie preparation for his entertainment to express her joy and her affections to his person desired Jesus to dismiss her Sister Mary from his feet who sate there feasting her self with the viands and sweetnesses of his Doctrine incurious of the provisions for entertainment But Jesus commended her choice and though he did not expresly disrepute Martha's Civility yet he preferred Mary's Religion and Sanctity of affections In this time because the night drew on in which no man could work Jesus hastened to do his Father's business and to pour out whole cataracts of holy Lessons like the fruitful Nilus swelling over the banks and filling all the trenches to make a plenty of corn and fruits great as the inundation Jesus therefore teaches his Disciples that Form of Prayer the second time which we call the Lord's Prayer teaches them assiduity and indefatigable importunity in Prayer by a Parable of an importunate Neighbour borrowing loaves at midnight and a troublesome Widow who forced an unjust Judge to do her right by her clamorous and hourly addresses encourages them to pray by consideration of the Divine goodness and fatherly affection far more indulgent to his Sons than natural Fathers are to their dearest issue and adds a gracious promise of success to them that pray He reproves Pharisaical ostentation arms his Disciples against the fear of men and the terrors of Persecution which can arrive but to the incommodities of the Body teaches the fear of God who is Lord of the whole Man and can accurse the Soul as well as punish the Body He refuses to divide the inheritance between two Brethren as not having competent power to become Lord in temporal jurisdictions He preaches against Covetousness and the placing felicities in worldly possessions by a Parable of a rich man whose riches were too big for his barns and big enough for his Soul and he ran over into voluptuousness and stupid complacencies in his perishing goods he was snatched from their possession and his Soul taken from him in the violence of a rapid and hasty sickness in the space of one night Discourses of divine Providence and care over us all and descending even as low as grass He exhorts to Alms-deeds to Watchfulness and preparation against the sudden and unexpected coming of our Lord to Judgment or the arrest of death tells the offices and sedulity of the Clergy under the Apologue of Stewards and Governours of their Lords houses teaches them gentleness and sobriety and not to do evil upon confidence of their Lord's absence and delay and teaches the people even of themselves to judge what is right concerning the signs of the coming of the Son of Man And the end of all these discourses was that all men should repent and live good lives and be saved 27. At this Sermon there were present some that told him of the Galileans whose bloud Pilate mingled with their sacrifices For the Galileans were a sort of people that taught it to be unlawful to pay tribute to strangers or to pray for the Romans and because the Jews did both they refused to communicate in their sacred Rites and would sacrifice apart at which Solemnity when Pilate the Roman Deputy had apprehended many of them he caused them all to be slain making them to die upon the same Altars These were of the Province of Judaea but of the same Opinion with those who taught in Galilee from whence the Sect had its appellative But to the story Jesus made reply that these external accidents though they be sad and calamitous yet they are no arguments of condemnation against the persons of the men to convince them of a greater guilt than others
upon whom no such visible signatures have been imprinted The purpose of such chances is that we should repent lest we perish in the like judgment 28. About this time a certain Ruler of a Synagogue renewed the old Question about the observation of the Sabbath repining at Jesus that he cured a woman that was crooked loosing her from her infirmity with which she had been afflicted eighteen years But Jesus made the man ashamed by an argument from their own practice who themselves loose an oxe from the stall on the Sabbath and lead him to watering And by the same argument he also stopt the mouths of the Scribes and Pharisees which were open upon him for curing an Hydropick person upon the Sabbath For Jesus that he might draw off and separate Christianity from the yoke of Ceremonies by abolishing and taking off the strictest Mosaical Rites chose to do very many of his Miracles upon the Sabbath that he might do the work of abrogation and institution both at once not much unlike the Sabbatical Pool in Judaea which was dry six days but gushed out in a full stream upon the Sabbath For though upon all days Christ was operative and miraculous yet many reasons did concur and determine him to a more frequent working upon those days of publick ceremony and convention But going forth from thence he went up and down the Cities of Galilee re-enforcing the same Doctrine he had formerly taught them and daily adding new Precepts and cautions and prudent insinuations advertising of the multitudes of them that perish and the paucity of them that shall be saved and that we should strive to enter in at the strait gate that the way to destruction is broad and plausible the way to Heaven nice and austere and few there be that find it teaches them modesty at Feasts and entertainments of the poor discourses of the many excuses and unwillingnesses of persons who were invited to the feast of the Kingdom the refreshments of the Gospel and tacitly insinuates the rejection of the Jews who were the first invited and the calling of the Gentiles who were the persons called in from the high ways and hedges He reprehends Herod for his subtilty and design to kill him prophesies that he should die at Jerusalem and intimates great sadnesses future to them for neglecting this their day of visitation and for killing the Prophets and the Messengers sent from God 29. It now grew towards Winter and the Jews feast of Dedication was at hand therefore Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the Feast where he preached in Solomon's Porch which part of the Temple stood intire from the first ruines and the end of his Sermon was that the Jews had like to have stoned him But retiring from thence he went beyond Jordan where he taught the people in a most elegant and perswasive Parable concerning the mercy of God in accepting Penitents in the Parable of the Prodigal son returning discourses of the design of the Messias coming into the world to recover erring persons from their sin and danger in the Apologues of the Lost sheep and Goat and under the representment of an Unjust but prudent Steward he taught us so to employ our present opportunities and estates by laying them out in acts of Mercy and Religion that when our Souls shall be dismissed from the stewardship and custody of our body we may be entertained in everlasting habitations He instructeth the Pharisees in the question of Divorces limiting the permissions of Separations to the only cause of Fornication preferreth holy Coelibate before the estate of Marriage in them to whom the gift of Continency is given in order to the Kingdom of Heaven He telleth a Story or a Parable for which is uncertain of a Rich man whom Euthymius out of the tradition of the Hebrews nameth Nymensis and Lazarus the first a voluptuous person and uncharitable the other pious afflicted sick and a begger the first died and went to Hell the second to Abraham's bosome God so ordering the dispensation of good things that we cannot easily enjoy two Heavens nor shall the infelicities of our lives if we be pious end otherwise than in a beatified condition The Epilogue of which story discovered this truth also That the ordinary means of Salvation are the express revelations of Scripture and the ministeries of God's appointment and whosoever neglects these shall not be supplied with means extraordinary or if he were they would be totally ineffectual 30. And still the people drew water from the fountains of our Saviour which streamed out in a full and continual emanation For adding wave to wave line to line precept upon precept he reproved the Fastidiousness of the Pharisee that came with Eucharist to God and contempt to his brother and commended the Humility of the Publican's address who came deploring his sins and with modesty and penance and importunity begged and obtained a mercy Then he laid hands upon certain young children and gave them benediction charging his Apostles to admit infants to him because to them in person and to such in embleme and signification the Kingdom of Heaven does appertain He instructs a young man in the ways and counsels of perfection besides the observation of Precepts by heroical Renunciations and acts of munificent Charity Which discourse because it alighted upon an indisposed and an unfortunate subject for the young man was very rich Jesus discourses how hard it is for a rich man to be saved but he expounds himself to mean they that trust in riches and however it is a matter of so great temptation that it is almost impossible to escape yet with God nothing is impossible But when the Apostles heard the Master bidding the young man sell all and give to the poor and follow him and for his reward promised him a heavenly treasure Peter in the name of the rest began to think that this was their case and the promise also might concern them but they asked the Question What shall we have who have forsaken all and followed thee Jesus answered that they should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel 31. And Jesus extended this mercy to every Disciple that should forsake either house or wife or children or any thing for his sake and the Gospel's and that they should receive a hundred fold in this life by way of comfort and equivalency and in the world to come thousands of glories and possessions in fruition and redundancy For they that are last shall be first and the first shall be last and the despised people of this world shall reign like Kings and contempt it self shall swell up into glory and poverty into an eternal satisfaction And these rewards shall not be accounted according to the priviledges of Nations or priority of vocation but readiness of mind and obedience and sedulity of operation after calling which Jesus taught his Disciples in the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard to whom the
himself to his house who received him with gladness and repentance of his crimes purging his Conscience and filling his heart and house with joy and sanctity for immediately upon the arrival of the Master at his house he offered restitution to all persons whom he had injured and satisfaction and half of his remanent estate he gave to the poor and so gave the fairest entertainment to Jesus who brought along with him Salvation to his house There it was that he spake the Parable of the King who concredited divers talents to his servants and having at his return exacted an account rewarded them who had improved their bank and been faithful in their trust with rewards proportionable to their capacity and improvement but the negligent servant who had not meliorated his stock was punished with ablegation and 〈◊〉 to outer darkness And from hence sprang up that dogmatical proposition which is mysterious and 〈◊〉 in Christianity To him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken away even what he hath After this going forth of Jericho he cured two blind men upon the way 5. Six days before Easter Jesus came to Bethany where he was feasted by Martha and Mary and accompanied by Lazarus who sate at the table with Jesus But Mary brought a pound of Nard Pistick and as formerly she had done again anoints the feet of Jesus and fills the house with the odour till God himself smelt thence a savour of a sweet-smelling sacrifice But Judas Iscariot the Thief and the Traitor repined at the vanity of the expence as he pretended because it might have been sold for three hundred pence and have been given to the poor But Jesus in his reply taught us that there is an opportunity for actions of Religion as well as of Charity Mary did this against the Burial of Jesus and her Religion was accepted by him to whose honours the holocaust of love and the oblations of alms-deeds are in their proper seasons direct actions of worship and duty But at this meeting there came many Jews to see Lazarus who was raised from death as well as to see Jesus and because by occasion of his Resurrection many of them believed on Jesus therefore the Pharisees deliberated about putting him to death But God in his glorious providence was pleased to preserve him as a trumpet of his glories and a testimony of the Miracle thirty years after the death of Jesus 6. The next day being the fifth day before the Passeover Jesus came to the foot of the mount of Olives and sent his Disciples to Bethphage a village in the neighbourhood commanding them to unloose an asse and a colt and bring them to him and to tell the owners it was done for the Master's use and they did so and when they brought the Asse to Jesus he rides on him to Jerusalem and the People having notice of his approach took branches of Palm-trees and went out to meet him strewing branches and garments in the way crying out Hosanna to the son of David Which was a form of exclamation used to the honour of God and in great Solemnities and signifies Adoration to the Son of David by the rite of carrying branches which when they used in procession about their Altars they used to pray Lord save us Lord prosper us which hath occasioned the reddition of Hoschiannah to be amongst some that Prayer which they repeated at the carrying of the Hoschiannah as if it self did signifie Lord save us But this honour was so great and unusual to be done even to Kings that the Pharisees knowing this to be an appropriate manner of address to God said one to another by way of wonder Hear ye what these men say For they were troubled to hear the People revere him as a God 7. When Jesus from the mount of Olives beheld Jerusalem he wept over it and foretold great sadnesses and infelicities futurely contingent to it which not only happened in the sequel of the story according to the main issues and significations of this Prophecy but even to minutes and circumstances it was verified For in the mount of Olives where Jesus shed tears over perishing Jerusalem the Romans first pitched their Tents when they came to its final overthrow From thence descending to the City he went into the Temple and still the acclamations followed him till the Pharisees were ready to burst with the noises abroad and the tumults of envy and scorn within and by observing that all their endeavours to suppress his glories were but like clapping their hands to veil the Sun and that in despight of all their stratagems the whole Nation was become Disciple to the glorious Nazarene And there 〈◊〉 cured certain persons that were blind and lame 8. But whilest he abode at Jerusalem certain Greeks who came to the Feast to worship made their address to Philip that they might be brought to Jesus Philip tells Andrew and they both tell Jesus who having admitted them discoursed many things concerning his Passion and then prayed a petition which is the end of his own Sufferings and of all humane actions and the purpose of the whole Creation Father glorifie thy Name To which he was answered by a voice from Heaven I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again But this nor the whole series of Miracles that he did the Mercies the Cures nor the divine Discourses could gain the Faith of all the Jews who were determined by their humane interest for many of the Rulers who believed on him durst not confess him because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God Then Jesus again exhorted all men to believe on him that so they might in the same act believe on God that they might approach unto the light and not abide in darkness that they might obey the commandments of the Father whose express charge it was that Jesus should preach this Gospel and that they might not be judged at the last Day by the Word which they have rejected which Word to all its observers is everlasting life After which Sermon retiring to Bethany he abode there all Night 9. On the morrow returning to Jerusalem on the way being hungry he passed by a Fig-tree where expecting fruit he found none and cursed the Fig-tree which by the next day was dried up and withered Upon occasion of which preternatural event Jesus discoursed of the power of Faith and its power to produce Miracles But upon this occasion others the Disciples of Jesus in after-Ages have pleased themselves with phancies and imperfect descants as that he cursed this Tree in mystery and secret intendment it having been the tree in the eating whose fruit Adam prevaricating the Divine Law made an inlet to sin which brought in death and the sadnesses of Jesus's Passion But Jesus having entred the City came into the Temple and preached the Gospel and the chief Priests and
Institution 14. Two days before the 〈◊〉 the Scribes and Pharisees called a council to contrive crafty ways of 〈◊〉 Jesus they not daring to do it by open violence Of which meeting when Judas 〈◊〉 had notice for those assemblies were publick and notorious he ran from 〈◊〉 and offered himself to betray his Master to them if they would give him a considerable reward They agreed for thirty pieces of silver Of what value each piece was is uncertain but their own Nation hath given a rule that when a piece of silver is named in the Pentateuch it signifies a sicle if it be named in the Prophets it signifies a pound if in the other writings of the Old Testament it signifies a talent This therefore being alledged out of the Prophet Jeremy by one of the Evangelists it is probable the price at which Judas sold his Lord was thirty pound weight of silver a 〈◊〉 price for the Saviour of the world to be prized at by his undiscerning and unworthy Countreymen 15. The next day was the first day of 〈◊〉 bread on which it was necessary they should kill the Passeover therefore Jesus sent Peter and John to the City to a certain man whom they should 〈◊〉 carrying a pitcher of water to his house him they should follow and there prepare the Passeover They went and found the man in the same circumstances and prepared for Jesus and his Family who at the even came to celebrate the Passeover It was the house of John surnamed Mark which had always been open to this blessed Family where he was pleased to finish his last Supper and the mysteriousness of the Vespers of his Passion 16. When evening was come Jesus stood with his Disciples and 〈◊〉 the Paschal Lamb after which he girt himself with 〈◊〉 and taking a bason washed the feet of his Disciples not only by the ceremony but in his discourses instructing them in the doctrine of Humility which the Master by his so great 〈◊〉 to his Disciples had made sacred and imprinted the lesson in lasting characters by making it symbolical But Peter was unwilling to be washed by his Lord until he was told he must renounce his part in him unless he were washed which option being given to Peter he cried out Not my feet only but my hands and my head But Jesus said the ablution of the feet was sufficient for the purification of the whole man relating to the custom of those Countreys who used to go to supper immediately from the baths who therefore were sufficiently clean save only on their feet by reason of the dust contracted in their passage from the baths to the dining-rooms from which when by the hospitable master of the house they were caused to be cleansed they needed no more ablution and by it Jesus passing from the letter to the spirit meant that the body of sin was washed in the baths of Baptism and afterwards if we remained in the same state of purity it was only necessary to purge away the filth contracted in our passage from the Font to the Altar and then we are clean all over when the 〈◊〉 state is unaltered and the little adherencies of imperfection and passions are also washed off 17. But after the 〈◊〉 of the Paschal Lamb it was the custom of the Nation to sit down to a second Supper in which they ate herbs and unlevened bread the Major-domo first dipping his morsel and then the family after which the Father brake bread into pieces and distributed a part to every of the Guests and first drinking himself gave to the rest the chalice filled with wine according to the age and dignity of the person adding to each distribution a form of benediction proper to the mystery which was Eucharistical and commemorative of their Deliverance from Egypt This Supper Jesus being to celebrate changed the forms of benediction turned the Ceremony into Mystery and gave his body and bloud in Sacrament and religious configuration so instituting the venerable Sacrament which from the time of its institution is called the Lord's Supper which rite Jesus commanded the Apostles to perpetuate in commemoration of him their Lord until his second coming And this was the first delegation of a perpetual Ministery which Jesus made to his Apostles in which they were to be succeeded to in all generations of the Church 18. But Jesus being troubled in spirit told his Apostles that one of them should betray him which Prediction he made that they might not be scandalized at the sadness of objection of the Passion but be confirmed in their belief seeing so great demonstration of his wisdom and spirit of Prophecy The Disciples were all troubled at this 〈◊〉 arrest looking one on another and doubting of whom he spake but they beckned to the beloved Disciple 〈◊〉 on Jesus's breast that he might ask for they who knew their own innocency and infirmity were desirous to satisfie their curiosity and to be rid of their indetermination and their fear But Jesus being asked gave them a sign and a 〈◊〉 to Judas commanding him to do what he list speedily for Jesus was extremely 〈◊〉 till he had drunk the chalice off and accomplished his mysterious and 〈◊〉 Baptism After Judas received the sop the Devil entred into him and Judas went forth immediately it being now night 19. When he was gone out Jesus began his Farewel-Sermon rarely mixt of sadness and joys and studded with mysteries as with Emeralds discoursing of the glorification of God in his Son and of those glories which the Father had prepared for him of his sudden departure and his migration to a place whither they could not come yet but afterwards they should meaning first to death and then to glory commanding them to love one another and foretelling to Peter who made consident protests that he would die with his Master that before the cock should crow twice he should deny him thrice But lest he should afflict them with too sad representments of his present condition he comforts them with the comforts of Faith with the intendments of his departure to prepare places in Heaven for them whither they might come by him who is the way the truth and the life adding a promise in order to their present support and future felicities that if they should ask of God any thing in his name they should receive it and upon condition they would love him and keep his Commandments he would pray for the Holy Ghost to come upon them to supply his room to furnish them with proportionable comforts to enable them with great Gifts to lead them into all truth and to abide with them for ever Then arming them against future Persecutions giving them divers holy Precepts discoursing of his emanation from the Father and of the necessity of his departure he gave them his blessing and prayed for them and then having sung a Hymn which was part of the great Allelujah beginning at the 114 Psalm
he did and the expresses of his power saying He saved others himself he cannot save others saying Let him come down from the Cross if he be the King of the Jews and we will believe in him and others according as their Malice was determined by phancy and occasion added weight and scorn to his pains and of the two Malefactors that were crucified with him one reviled him saying If thou be the CHRIST save thy self and us And thus far the Devil prevailed undoing himself in riddle provoking men to do despite to Christ and to heighten his Passion out of hatred to him and yet doing and promoting that which was the ruine of all his own Kingdom and potent mischiefs like the Jew who in indignation against Mercury threw stones at his Image and yet was by his Superiour judged idolatrous that being the manner of doing honour to the Idol among the Gentiles But then Christ who had upon the Cross prayed for his enemies and was heard of God in all that he desired felt now the beginnings of success For the other Thief whom the present pains and circumstances of Jesus's Passion had softned and made believing reproved his fellow for not fearing God confessed that this death happened to them deservedly but to Jesus causelesly and then prayed to Jesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom Which combination of pious acts and miraculous Conversion Jesus entertained with a speedy promise of a very great felicity promising that upon that very day he should be with him in Paradise 33. Now there were standing by the Cross the Mother of Jesus and her Sister and Mary Magdalen and John And Jesus being upon his Death-bed although he had no temporal estate to bestow yet he would make provision for his Mother who being a Widow and now childless was likely to be exposed to necessity and want and therefore he did arrogate John the beloved Disciple into Marie's kindred making him to be her adopted Son and her to be his Mother by fiction of Law Woman behold thy son and Man behold thy Mother And from that time forward John took her home to his own house which he had near mount Sion after he had sold his inheritance in Galilee to the High Priest 34. While these things were doing the whole frame of Nature seemed to be dissolved and out of order while their LORD and Creator suffered For the Sun was so darkened that the Stars appeared and the Eclipse was prodigious in the manner as well as in degree because the Moon was not then in Conjunction but full and it was noted by Phlegon the freed man of the Emperor Hadrian by Lucian out of the Acts of the Gauls and Dionysius while he was yet a Heathen excellent Scholars all great Historians and Philosophers who also noted the day of the week and hour of the day agreeing with the circumstances of the Cross. For the Sun hid his head from beholding such a prodigy of sin and sadness and provided a veil for the nakedness of Jesus that the women might be present and himself die with modesty 35. The Eclipse and the Passion began at the sixth hour and endured till the ninth about which time Jesus being tormented with the unsufferable load of his Father's wrath due for our sins and wearied with pains and heaviness cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and as it is thought repeated the whole two and twentieth Psalm which is an admirable Narrative of the Passion full of Prayer and sadness and description of his pains at first and of Eucharist and joy and prophecy at the last But these first words which it is certain and recorded that he spake were in a language of it self or else by reason of distance not understood for they thought he had called for Elias to take him down from the Cross. Then Jesus being in the agonies of a high Fever said I thirst And one ran and filled a spunge with vinegar wrapping it with hyssop and put it on a reed that he might drink The Vinegar and the Spunge were in Executions of condemned persons set to stop the too violent issues of bloud and to prolong the death but were exhibited to him in scorn mingled with gall to make the mixture more horrid and ungentle But Jesus tasted it only and refused the draught And now knowing that the Prophecies were fulfilled his Father's wrath appeased and his torments satisfactory he said It is finished and crying with a loud voice Father into thy hands I commend my spirit he bowed his head and yielded up his spirit into the hands of God and died hastning to his Father's glories Thus did this glorious Sun set in a sad and clouded West running speedily to shine in the other world 36. Then was the veil of the Temple which separated the secret Mosaick Rites from the eyes of the people rent in the midst from the top to the bottom and the Angels Presidents of the Temple called to each other to depart from their seats and so great an Earthquake happened that the rocks did rend the mountains trembled the graves opened and the bodies of dead persons arose walking from their coemeteries to the Holy City and appeared unto many and so great apprehensions and amazements happened to them all that stood by that they departed smiting their breasts with sorrow and fear and the Centurion that ministred at the execution said Certainly this was the Son of God and he became a Disciple renouncing his military imployment and died a Martyr 37. But because the next day was the Jews Sabbath and a Paschal Festival besides the Jews hastened that the bodies should be taken from the Cross and therefore sent to 〈◊〉 to hasten their death by breaking their legs that before Sun-set they might be taken away according to the Commandment and be buried The souldiers therefore came and brake the legs of the two Thieves but espying and wondring that Jesus was already dead they brake not his legs for the Scripture foretold that a bone of him should not be broken but a souldier with his lance pierced his side and immediately there streamed out two rivulets of Water and Bloud But the Holy Virgin-Mother whose Soul during this whole passion was pierced with a sword and sharper sorrows though she was supported by the comforts of Faith and those holy Predictions of his Resurrection and future glories which Mary had laid up in store against this great day of expence now that she saw her Holy Son had suffered all that our necessities and their malice could require or inflict caused certain ministers with whom she joyned to take her dead Son from the Cross whose Body when she once got free from the nails she kissed and embraced with entertainments of the nearest vicinity that could be expressed by a person that was holy and sad and a Mother weeping for her dead Son 38. But she was highly
the griefs of a Christian whether they be instances of Repentance or parts of Persecution or exercises of Patience end in joy and endless comfort Thus Jesus like a Rainbow half made of the glories of light and half of the moisture of a cloud half triumph and half sorrow entred into that Town where he had done much good to others and to himself received nothing but affronts yet his tenderness encreased upon him and that very journey which was Christ's last solemn visit for their recovery he doubled all the instruments of his Mercy and their Conversion He rode in triumph the 〈◊〉 sang Hosannah to him he cured many diseased persons he wept for them and pitied them and sighed out the intimations of a Prayer and did penance for their ingratitude and stayed all day there looking about him towards evening and no man would invite him home but he was forced to go to Bethany where he was sure of an hospitable entertainment I think no Christian that reads this but will be full of indignation at the whole City who for malice or for fear would not or durst not receive their Saviour into their houses and yet we do worse for now that he is become our Lord with mightier demonstrations of his eternal power we suffer him to look round about upon us for months and years together and possibly never entertain him till our house is ready to rush upon our heads and we are going to unusual and stranger habitations And yet in the midst of a populous and mutinous City this great King had some good subjects persons that threw away their own garments and laid them at the feet of our Lord that being devested of their own they might be re-invested with a robe of his Righteousness wearing that till it were changed into a stole of glory the very ceremony of their reception of the Lord became symbolical to them and expressive of all our duties 7. But I consider that the Blessed Jesus had affections not less than infinite towards all mankind and he who wept upon Jerusalem who had done so great despight to him and within five days were to fill up the measure of their iniquities and do an act which all Ages of the world could never repeat in the same instance did also in the number of his tears reckon our sins as sad considerations and incentives of his sorrow And it would well become us to consider what great evil we do when our actions are such as for which our Blessed Lord did weep He who was seated in the bosom of Felicity yet he moistened his 〈◊〉 Lawrels upon the day of his Triumph with tears of love and bitter allay His day of Triumph was a day of Sorrow and if we would weep for our sins that instance of sorrow would be a day of triumph and 〈◊〉 8. From hence the Holy Jesus went to Pethany where he had another manner of reception than at the Holy City There he supped for his goodly day of Triumph had been with him a fasting-day And Mary Magdalen who had spent one box of Nard pistick upon our Lord's feet as a sacrifice of Eucharist for her Conversion now bestowed another in thankfulness for the restitution of her Brother Lazarus to life and consigned her Lord unto his Burial And here she met with an evil interpreter 〈◊〉 an Apostle one of the Lord 's own Family pretended it had been a better Religion to have given it to the poor but it was Malice and the spirit either of Envy or Avarice in him that passed that sentence for he that sees a pious action well done and seeks to undervalue it by telling how it might have been better reproves nothing but his own spirit For a man may do very well and God would accept it though to say he might have done better is to say only that action was not the most perfect and absolute in its kind but to be angry at a religious person and without any other pretence but that he might have done better is spiritual Envy for a pious person would have nourished up that infant action by love and praise till it had grown to the most perfect and intelligent Piety But the event of that man gave the interpretation of his present purpose and at the best it could be no other than a rash judgment of the action and intention of a religious thankful and holy person But she found her Lord who was her 〈◊〉 in this become her Patron and her Advocate And hereafter when we shall find the Devil the great Accuser of God's Saints object against the Piety and Religion of holy persons a cup of cold water shall be accepted unto reward and a good intention heightned to the value of an exteriour expression and a piece of gum to the equality of a 〈◊〉 and an action done with great zeal and an intense love be acquitted from all its adherent imperfections Christ receiving them into himself and being like the Altar of incense hallowing the very smoak and raising it into a flame and entertaining it into the embraces of the firmament and the bosom of Heaven Christ himself who is the Judge of our actions is also the entertainer and object of our Charity and Duty and the Advocate of our persons 9. Judas who declaimed against the woman made tacite reflexions upon his Lord for suffering it and indeed every obloquy against any of Christ's servants is looked on as an arrow shot into the heart of Christ himself And now a Persecution being begun against the Lord within his own Family another was raised against him from without For the chief Priests took crafty counsel against Jesus and called a Consistory to contrive how they might destroy him and here was the greatest representment of the goodness of God and the ingratitude of man that could be practised or understood How often had Jesus poured forth tears for them how many sleepless nights had he awaked to do them advantage how many days had he spent in Homilies and admirable visitations of Mercy and Charity in casting out Devils in curing their sick in correcting their delinquencies in reducing them to the ways of security and peace and that we may use the greatest expression in the world that is his own in gathering them as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings to give them strength and warmth and life and ghostly nourishment And the chief Priests together with their faction use all arts and watch all opportunities to get Christ not that they might possess him but to destroy him little considering that they extinguish their own eyes and destroy that spring of life which was intended to them for a blissful immortality 10. And here it was that the Devil shewed his promptness to furnish every evil-intended person with apt instruments to act the very worst of his intentions the Devil knew their purposes and the aptness and proclivity of Judas and by bringing these together he
praise so when it is presented to him he takes no contentment in it and if it be easie to want Praise when it is denied yet it is harder not to be delighted with it when it is offered But there is much reason that we should put restraints upon our selves lest if we be praised without desert we find a greater Judgment of God or if we have done well and received praise for it we 〈◊〉 all our reward which God hath deposited for them that receive not their good things in this life For as silver is tried in the melter and gold in the Crucible so is a man tried by the mouth of him that praises him that is he is either clarified from his dross by looking upon the praise as a homily to teach and an instrument to invite his duty or else if he be already pure he is consolidated strengthned in the sobriety of his spirit and retires himself closer into the strengths and securities of Humility Nay this step of Humility uses in very holy persons to be enlarged to a delight in affronts and disreputation in the world Now I begin to be Christ ' s Disciple said 〈◊〉 the Martyr when in his journey to Rome he suffered perpetual revilings and abuse S. Paul rejoyced in his infirmities and reproach and all the Apostles at Jerusalem went from the tribunal rejoycing that they were esteemed worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus This is an excellent condition and degree of Humility But I chuse to add one that is less but in all persons necessary 9. Fourthly Christ's Humble man is careful never to speak any thing that may redound to his own praise unless it be with a design of Charity or Duty that either God's glory or the profit of his neighbour be concerned in it but never speaking with a design to be esteemed learned or honourable S. Arsenius had been Tutor to three Caesars Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius but afterwards when he became Religious no word escaped him that might represent and tell of his former greatness and it is observable concerning S. Jerome that although he was of noble extraction yet in all his own Writings there is not the smallest intimation of it This I desire to be understood only to the sence and purposes of Humility and that we have no designs of vanity and phancy in speaking learnedly or recounting our exteriour advantages but if either the 〈◊〉 of our brother or the glory of God if either there be Piety or Charity in the design it is lawful to publish all those excellencies with which God hath distinguished us from others The young Marquess of Castilion being to do publick exercise in his course of Philosophy made it a case of Conscience whether he were bound to dispute his best fearing lest vanity might transport him in the midst of those praises which his Collegiates might give him It was an excellent consideration in the young Gentleman but in actions civil and humane since the danger is not so immediate and a little complacency becoming the instrument of vertue and encouragement of studies may with like care be referred to God as the giver and 〈◊〉 his praises he might with more safety have done his utmost it being in some sense a duty to encourage others to give account of our Graces and our labours and all the appendent vanity may quickly be suppressed A good name may give us opportunity of perswading others to their duty especially in an Age in which men chuse their Doctrines by the men that preach them and S. Paul used his liberty when he was zealous for his Corinthian Disciples but restrained himself when it began to make reflexions upon his own spirit But although a good name be necessary and in order to such good ends whither it may serve it is lawful to desire it yet a great name and a pompous honour and secular greatness hath more danger in it to our selves than ordinarily it can have of benefit to others and although a man may use the greatest honours to the greatest purposes yet ordinary persons may not safely desire them because it will be found very hard to have such mysterious and abstracted considerations as to separate all our proper interest from the publick end To which I add this consideration That the contempt of Honour and the instant pursuit of Humility is more effective of the ghostly benefit of others than Honours and great Dignities can be unless it be rarely and very accidentally 10. If we need any new incentives to the practice of this Grace I can say no more but that Humility is Truth and Pride is a Lie that the one glorifies God the other dishonours him Humility makes men like Angels Pride makes Angels to become Devils that Pride is Folly Humility is the temper of a holy spirit and excellent Wisdom that Humility is the way to glory Pride to ruine and confusion Humility makes Saints on Earth Pride undoes them Humility beatifies the Saints in Heaven and the Elders throw their Crowns at the foot of the Throne Pride disgraces a man among all the Societies of Earth God loves one and Satan solicits the cause of the other and promotes his own interest in it most of all And there is no one Grace in which Christ propounded himself imitable so signally as in this of Meekness and Humility for the enforcing of which he undertook the condition of a Servant and a life of Poverty and a death of Disgrace and washed the feet of his Disciples and even of Judas himself that his action might be turned into a Sermon to preach this Duty and to make it as eternal as his own Story The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who wert pleased to lay aside the Glories and incomprehensible Majesty which clothed thy Infinity from before the beginning of Creatures and didst put on a cloud upon thy Brightness and wert invested with the impure and imperfect broken robe of Humane nature and didst abate those Splendors which broke through the veil commanding Devils not to publish thee and men not to proclaim thy Excellencies and the Apostles not to reveal those Glories of thine which they discovered incircling thee upon mount Tabor in thy transfiguration and didst by perpetual Homilies and symbolical mysterious actions as with deep characters engrave Humility into the spirits of thy Disciples and the Discipline of Christianity teach us to approach near to these thy Glories which thou hast so covered with a cloud that we might without amazement behold thy Excellencies make us to imitate thy gracious Condescensions take from us all vanity and phantastick complacencies in our own persons or actions and when there arises a reputation consequent to the performance of any part of our Duty make us to 〈◊〉 the glory upon thee suffering nothing to adhere to our own spirits but shame at our own imperfection and thankfulness to thee for all thy assistences let us never seek the
our life and he dwells in the body and the spirit of every one that eats Christ's flesh and drinks his bloud Happy is that man that sits at the Table of Angels that puts his hand into the dish with the King of all the Creatures and feeds upon the eternal Son of God joyning things below with things above Heaven with Earth Life with Death that mortality might be swallowed up of life and Sin be destroyed by the inhabitation of its greatest Conqueror And now I need not enumerate any particulars since the Spirit of God hath ascertained us that Christ enters into our hearts and takes possession and abides there that we are made Temples and celestial mansions that we are all one with our Judge and with our Redeemer that our Creator is bound unto his Creature with bonds of charity which nothing can dissolve unless our own hands break them that Man is united with God and our weakness is fortified by his strength and our miseries wrapped up in the golden leaves of glory 2. Hence it follows that the Sacrament is an instrument of reconciling us to God and taking off the remanent guilt and stain and obligations of our sins This is the 〈◊〉 that was shed for you for the remission of sins For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus And such are all they who worthily eat the flesh of Christ by receiving him they more and more receive remission of sins redemption sanctification wisdom and certain hopes of glory 〈◊〉 as the Soul touching and united to the flesh of Adam contracts the stain of original misery and imperfection so much the 〈◊〉 shall the Soul united to the flesh of Christ receive pardon and purity and all those blessed emanations from our union with the Second Adam But this is not to be understood as if the first beginnings of our pardon were in the holy Communion for then a man might come with his impurities along with him and lay them on the holy Table to stain and pollute so bright a presence No first Repentance must 〈◊〉 the ways of the Lord and in this holy Rite those words of our Lord are verified He that is justified let him be justified 〈◊〉 that is here he may receive the increase of Grace and as it grows so sin dies and we are reconciled by nearer unions and approximations to God 9. Thirdly The holy Sacrament is the pledge of Glory and the earnest of Immortality for when we have received him who hath overcome Death and henceforth dies no more he becomes to us like the Tree of life in Paradise and the consecrated Symbols are like the seeds of an eternal duration springing up in us to eternal life nourishing our spirits with Grace which is but the prologue and the infancy of Glory and differs from it only as a Child from a Man But God first raised up his Son to life and by giving him to us hath also consigned us to the same state for our life is hid with Christ in God When we lay down and cast aside the impurer robes of flesh they are then but preparing for glory and if by the only touch of Christ bodies were redintegrate and restored to natural perfections how shall not we live for ever who eat his flesh and drink his bloud It is the discourse of S. Cyril Whatsoever the Spirit can convey to the body of the Church we may expect 〈◊〉 this Sacrament for as the Spirit is the instrument of life and action so the bloud of Christ is the conveyance of his Spirit And let all the mysterious places of holy Scripture concerning the effects of Christ communicated in the blessed Sacrament be drawn together in one Scheme we cannot but observe that although they are so expressed as 〈◊〉 their meaning may seem intricate and involved yet they cannot be drawn to any meaning at all but it is as glorious in its sense as it is mysterious in the expression and the more intricate they are the greater is their purpose no words being apt and proportionate to signifie this spiritual secret and excellent effects of the Spirit A veil is drawn before all these testimonies because the people were not able to behold the glory which they cover with their curtain and Christ dwelling in us and giving us his flesh to 〈◊〉 and his bloud to drink and the hiding of our life with God and the communication of the body of Christ and Christ being our life are such secret glories that as the fruition of them is the portion of the other world so also is the full perception and understanding of them for therefore God appears to us in a cloud and his glories in a veil that we understanding more of it by its concealment than we can by its open face which is too bright 〈◊〉 our weak eyes may with more piety also entertain the greatness by these indefinite and mysterious significations than we can by plain and direct intuitions which like the Sun in a direct ray enlightens the object but confounds the organ 10. I should but in other words describe the same glories if I should add That this holy Sacrament does enlighten the spirit of Man and clarifie it with spiritual discernings and as he was to the two Disciples at 〈◊〉 so also to other faithful people Christ is known in the breaking of bread That it is a great defence against the hostilities of our ghostly enemies this Holy Bread being like the Cake in 〈◊〉 's Camp overturning the tents of 〈◊〉 That it is the relief of our sorrows the antidote and preservative of Souls the viand of our journey the guard and passe-port of our death the wine of Angels That it is more healthful than Rhubarb more pleasant than Cassia That the Betele and 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 the Moly or Nepenthe of Pliny the Lirinon of the 〈◊〉 the Balsam of 〈◊〉 the Manna of Israel the Honey of Jonathan are but weak expressions to tell us that this is excellent above Art and Nature and that nothing is good enough in Philosophy to become its 〈◊〉 All these must needs fall very short of those plain words of Christ This is my Body The other may become the ecstasies of Piety the transportation of joy and wonder and are like the discourse of S. 〈◊〉 upon mount Tabor he was resolved to say some great thing but he knew not what but when we remember that the Body of our Lord and his Bloud is communicated to us in the Bread and the Chalice of blessing we must sit down and rest our selves for this is the mountain of the Lord and we can go no farther 11. In the next place it will 〈◊〉 our enquiry to consider how we are to prepare our selves For at the gate of life a man may meet with death and although this holy Sacrament be like Manna in which the obedient find the relishes of Obedience the chaste of
this instance there was a rare mixture of effects as there was in Christ of Natures the voice of a Man and the power of God For it is observed by the Doctors of the Primitive Ages that from the Nativity of our Lord to the day of his Death the Divinity and Humanity did so communicate in effects that no great action passed but it was like the Sun shining through a cloud or a beauty with a thin veil drawn over it they gave illustration and testimony to each other The Holy Jesus was born a tender and a crying Infant but is adored by the Magi as a King by the Angels as their GOD. He is circumcised as a Man but a name is given him to signifie him to be the SAVIOUR of the World He flies into Egypt like a distressed Child under the conduct of his helpless Parents but as soon as he enters the Country the Idols fall down and confess his true Divinity He is presented in the Temple as the Son of man but by Simeon and Anna he is celebrated with divine praises for the MESSIAS the SON OF GOD. He is baptized in Jordan as a Sinner but the Holy Ghost descending upon him proclaimed him to be the well-beloved of God He is hungry in the Desart as a Man but sustained his body without meat and drink for forty days together by the power of his Divinity There he is tempted of Satan as a weak Man and the Angels of light minister unto him as their supreme Lord. And now a little before his death when he was to take upon him all the affronts miseries and exinanitions of the most miserable he receives testimonies from above which are most wonderful For he was tranfigured upon Mount Tabor entred triumphantly into Jerusalem had the acclamations of the people when he was dying he darkned the Sun when he was dead he opened the sepulchres when he was fast nailed to the Cross he made the earth to tremble now when he suffers himself to be apprehended by a guard of Souldiers he strikes them all to the ground only by replying to their answer that the words of the Prophet might be verified Therefore my people shall know my Name therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak behold it is I. 10. The Souldiers and servants of the Jews having recovered from their fall and risen by the permission of Jesus still persisted in their enquiry after him who was present ready and desirous to be sacrificed He therefore permitted himself to be taken but not his Disciples for he it was that set them their bounds and he secured his Apostles to be witnesses of his suffering and his glories and this work was the Redemption of the world in which no man could have an active share he alone was to tread the wine-press and time enough they should be called to a fellowship of sufferings But Jesus went to them and they bound him with cords and so began our liberty and redemption from slavery and sin and cursings and death But he was bound faster by bands of his own his Father's Will and Mercy Pity of the world Prophecies and Mysteries and Love held him fast and these cords were as strong as death and the cords which the Souldiers malice put upon his holy hands were but symbols and figures his own compassion and affection were the morals But yet he undertook this short restraint and condition of a prisoner that all sorts of persecution and exteriour calamities might be hallowed by his susception and these pungent sorrows should like bees sting him and leave their sting behind that all the sweetness should remain for us Some melancholick Devotions have from uncertain stories added sad circumstances of the first violence done to our Lord That they bound him with three cords and that with so much violence that they caused bloud to start from his tender hands That they 〈◊〉 then also upon him with a violence and incivility like that which their Fathers had used towards Hur the brother of Aaron whom they choaked with impure spittings into his throat because he refused to consent to the making a golden Calf These particulars are not transmitted by certain Records Certain it is they wanted no malice and now no power for the Lord had given himself into their hands 11. S. Peter seeing his Master thus ill used asked Master shall we strike with the sword and before he had his answer cut off the ear of Malchus Two swords there were in Christ's family and S. Peter bore one either because he was to kill the Paschal Lamb or according to the custom of the Country to secure them against beasts of prey which in that region were frequent and dangerous in the night But now he used it in an unlawful war he had no competent authority it was against the Ministers of his lawful Prince and against our Prince we must not draw a sword for Christ himself himself having forbidden us as his kingdom is not of this world so neither were his defences secular he could have called for many legions of Angels for his guard if he had so pleased and we read that one Angel slew 185000 armed men in one night and therefore it was a vast power which was at the command of our Lord and he needs not such low auxiliaries as an army of Rebels or a navy of Pirates to 〈◊〉 his cause he first lays the foundation of our happiness in his sufferings and hath ever since supported Religion by patience and suffering and in poverty and all the circumstances and conjunctures of improbable causes Fighting for Religion is certain to destroy Charity but not certain to support Faith S. Peter therefore may use his keys but he is commanded to put up his sword and he did so and presently he and all his fellows fairly ran away and yet that course was much the more Christian for though it had in it much infirmity yet it had no malice In the mean time the Lord was pleased to touch the ear of Malchus and he cured it adding to the first instance of power in throwing them to the ground an act of miraculous mercy curing the wounds of an enemy made by a friend But neither did this pierce their callous and obdurate spirits but they led him in uncouth ways and through the brook Cedron in which it is said the ruder souldiers plunged him and passed upon him all the affronts and rudenesses which an insolent and cruel multitude could think of to signifie their contempt and their rage And such is the nature of evil men who when they are not softned by the instruments and arguments of Grace are much hardned by them such being the purpose of God that either Grace shall cure sin or accidentally increase it that it shall either pardon it or bring it to greater punishment for so I have seen healthful medicines abused by the incapacities of a
Prophets of the Lord. And S. Austin upon the Incursion of the Vandals into Africa called his Clergy together and at their Chapter told them he had prayed to God either to deliver his People from the present calamity or grant them patience to bear it or that he would take him out of the world that he might not see the miseries of his Diocese adding that God had granted him the last and he presently fell sick and died in the siege of his own Hippo. And if Death in many cases be desirable and for many reasons it is always to be submitted to when God calls And as it is always a misery to fear death so it is very often a sin or the effect of sin If our love to the world hath fastened our affections here it is a direct sin and this is by the son of Sirach noted to be the case of rich and great personages How bitter O death is thy remembrance to a man that is at rest in his possessions But if it be a fear to perish in the ruines of Eternity they are not to blame for fearing but that their own ill lives have procured the fear And yet there are persons in the state of Grace but because they are in great imperfection have such lawful fears of Death and of entring upon an uncertain Sentence which must stand eternally irreversible be it good or bad that they may with piety and care enough pray David's prayer O spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen But in this and in all other cases Death must be accepted without murmur though without fear it cannot A man may pray to be delivered from it and yet if God will not grant it he must not go as one hal'd to execution but if with all his imperfect fears he shall throw himself upon God and accept his sentence as righteous whether it speak life or death it is an act of so great excellency that it may equal the good actions of many succeeding and surviving days and peradventure a longer life will be yet more imperfect and that God therefore puts a period to it that thou mayest be taken into a condition more certain though less eminent However let not the fears of Nature or the fear of Reason or the fears of Humility become accidentally criminal by a murmur or a pertinacious contesting against the event which we cannot hinder but ought to accept by an election secondary rational and pious and upon supposition that God will not alter the sentence passed upon thy temporal life always remembring that in Christian Philosophy Death hath in it an excellency of which the Angels are not capable For by the necessity of our Nature we are made capable of dying for the Holy Jesus and next to the privilege of that act is our willingness to die at his command which turns necessity into vertue and nature into grace and grace to glory 20. When the sick person is thus disposed let him begin to trim his wedding-garment and dress his Lamp with the repetition of acts of Repentance perpetually praying to God for pardon of his sins representing to himself the horror of them the multitude the obliquity being helped by arguments apt to excite Contrition by repetition of penitential Psalms and holy Prayers and he may by accepting and humbly receiving his sickness at God's hand transmit it into the condition of an act or effect of 〈◊〉 acknowledging himself by sin to have deserved and procured it and praying that the punishment of his crimes may be here and not reserved for the state of Separation and for ever 21. But above all single acts of this exercise we are concerned to see that nothing of other mens Goods stick to us but let us shake it off as we would a burning coal 〈◊〉 our flesh for it will destroy us it will carry a curse with us and leave a curse behind us Those who by thy means or importunity have become vicious exhort to Repentance and holy life those whom thou hast cozened into crimes restore to a right understanding those who are by violence and interest led captive by thee to any undecency restore to their liberty and encourage to the prosecution of holiness discover and confess thy fraud and unlawful arts cease thy violence and give as many advantages to Vertue as thou hast done to Viciousness Make recompence for bodily wrongs such as are wounds dismembrings and other disabilities restore every man as much as thou canst to that good condition from which thou hast removed him restore his Fame give back his Goods return the Pawn release 〈◊〉 and take off all unjust invasions or surprises of his Estate pay Debts satisfie for thy fraud and injustice as far as thou canst and as thou canst and as soon or this alone is weight enough no less than a Mil-stone about thy Neck But if the dying man be of God and in the state of Grace that is if he have lived a holy life repented seasonably and have led a just sober and religious conversation in any acceptable degree it is to be supposed he hath no great account to make for unpretended injuries and unjust detentions for if he had detained the goods of his neighbour fraudulently or violently without amends when it is in his power and opportunity to restore he is not the man we suppose him in this present Question and although in all cases he is bound to restore according to his ability yet the act is less excellent when it is compelled and so it seems to be if he have continued the injustice till he is forced to quit the purchace However if it be not done till then let it be provided for then And that I press this duty to pious persons at this time is only to oblige them to a diligent scrutiny concerning the lesser omissions of this duty in the matter of fame or lesser debts or spiritual restitution or that those unevennesses of account which were but of late transaction may now be regulated and that whatsoever is undone in this matter from what principle soever it proceeds whether of sin or only of forgetfulness or of imperfection may now be made as exact as we can and are obliged and that those excuses which made it reasonable and lawful to defer Restitution as want of opportunity clearness of ability and accidental inconvenience be now laid aside and the action be done or provided for in the midst of all objections and inconvenient circumstances rather than to omit it and hazard to perform it 22. Hither also I reckon resolutions and forward purposes of emendation and greater severity in case God return to us hopes of life which therefore must be re-inforced that we may serve the ends of God and understand all his purposes and make use of every opportunity every sickness laid upon us being with a design of drawing us nearer
though less perfectly it ought not to be denied and they less ought to neglect it 25. But as every man must put himself so also he must put his house in order make his Will if he have an Estate to dispose of and in that he must be careful to do Justice to every man and Charity to the poor according as God hath enabled him and though Charity is then very late if it begins not earlier yet if this be but an act of an ancient habit it is still more perfect as it succeeds in time and superadds to the former stock And among other acts of Duty let it be remembred that it is excellent Charity to leave our Will and desires clear plain and determinate that contention and Law-suits may be prevented by the explicate declaration of the Legacies At last and in all instances and periods of our following days let the former good acts be renewed let God be praised for all his Graces and Blessings of our life let him be intreated for Pardon of our sins let acts of Love and Contrition of Hope of Joy of Humility be the work of every day which God still permits us always remembring to ask remission for those sins we remember not And if the condition of our sickness permits it let our last breath expire with an act of Love that it may begin the Charities of Eternity and like a Taper burnt to its lowest base it may go out with a great emission of light leaving a sweet smell behind us to perfume our Coffin and that these lights newly made brighter or trimmed up in our sickness may shine about our Herse that they may become arguments of a pious sadness to our friends as the charitable Coats which Dorcas made were to the widows and exemplar to all those who observed or shall hear of our holy life and religious death But if it shall happen that the disease be productive of evil accidents as a disturbed phancy a weakned understanding wild discoursings or any deprivation of the use of Reason it concerns the sick persons in the happy intervalls of a quiet untroubled spirit to pray earnestly to God that nothing may pass from him in the rages of a Fever or worse distemper which may less become his duty or give scandal or cause trouble to the persons in attendance and if he shall also renounce and disclaim all such evil words which his disease may speak not himself he shall do the duty of a Christian and a prudent person And after these 〈◊〉 he may with Piety and confidence resign his Soul into the hands of God to be deposited in holy receptacles till the day of restitution of all things and in the mean time with a quiet spirit descend into that state which is the lot of Caesars and where all Kings and Conquerours have laid aside their glories The PRAYER O Eternal and Holy Jesus who by Death hast overcome Death and by thy Passion hast taken out its sting and made it to become one of the gates of Heaven and an entrance to Felicity have mercy upon me now and at the hour of my death let thy Grace accompany me all the days of my life that I may by a holy Conversation and an habitual performance of my Duty wait for the coming of our Lord and be ready to enter with thee at whatsoever hour thou shalt come Lord let not my death be in any sence unprovided nor untimely nor hasty but after the common manner of men having in it nothing extraordinary but an extraordinary Piety and the manifestation of a great and miraculous Mercy Let my Senses and Understanding be preserved intire till the last of my days and grant that I may die the death of the righteous having first discharged all my obligations of justice leaving none miserable and unprovided in my departure but be thou the portion of all my friends and relatives and let thy blessing descend upon their heads and abide there till they shall meet me in the bosom of our Lord. Preserve me ever in the communion and peace of the Church and bless my Death bed with the opportunity of a holy and a spiritual Guide with the assistence and guard of Angels with the perception of the holy Sacrament with Patience and dereliction of my own 〈◊〉 with a strong Faith and a firm and humble Hope with just measures of Repentance and great treasures of Charity to thee my God and to all the world that my Soul in the arms of the Holy Jesus may be deposited with safety and joy there to expect the revelation of thy Day and then to partake the glories of thy Kingdom O Eternal and Holy Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy JESUS He beareth his Cross Ioh 19. 16. 17. And they took Iesus and lead him away 17. And he bearing his Cross went forth into a place called the place of a Scult which is called in y e Hebrew Golgotha They Erect the Crucifixe Ioh 3. 14. 15. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in y e wilderness even so must y e Son of man be lifted up 15. That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but haue eternall life 1. WHen the Sentence of Death pronounced against the Lord was to be put in execution the Souldiers pulled off the Robe of mockery the scarlet Mantle which in jest they put upon him and put on his own garments But as Origen observes the Evangelist mentioned not that they took off the Crown of thorns what might serve their interest they pursue but nothing of remission or mercy to the afflicted Son of man but so it became the King of Sufferings not to lay aside his Imperial thorns till they were changed into Diadems of Glory But now Abel is led forth by his brother to be slain A gay spectacle to satisfie impious eyes who would not stay behind but attended and waited upon the hangman to see the Catastrophe of this bloudy Tragedy But when Piety looks on she beholds a glorious mystery Sin laughed to see the King of Heaven and Earth and the great lover of Souls in stead of the Scepter of his Kingdom to bear a Tree of 〈◊〉 and shame But Plety wept tears of pity and knew they would melt into joy when she should behold that Cross which loaded the shoulders of her Lord afterward sit upon the Scepters and be engraved and signed upon the Foreheads of Kings 2. It cannot be thought but the Ministers of Jewish malice used all the circumstances of affliction which in any case were accustomed towards malefactors and persons to be crucified and therefore it was that in some old Figures we see our Blessed Lord described with a Table appendent to the fringe of his garment set full of nails and pointed iron for so sometimes they afflicted persons condemned to that kind of Death and S. Cyprian affirms that Christ did stick to the wood that he carried being
galled with the iron at his heels and nailed even before his Crucifixion But this and the other accidents of his journey and their malice so crushed his wounded tender and virginal body that they were forced to lay the load upon a Cyrenian fearing that he should die with less shame and smart than they intended him But so he was pleased to take man unto his aid not only to represent his own need and the dolorousness of his Passion but to consign the duty unto man that we must enter into a 〈◊〉 of Christ's sufferings taking up the Cross of Martyrdom when God requires us enduring affronts being patient under affliction loving them that hate us and being benefactors to our enemies abstaining from sensual and intemperate delight forbidding to our selves lawful festivities and recreations of our weariness when we have an end of the spirit to serve upon the ruines of the bodie 's strength mortifying our desires breaking our own will not seeking our selves being entirely resigned to God These are the Cross and the Nails and the Spear and the Whip and all the instruments of a Christian's Passion And we may consider that every man in this world shall in some sence or other bear a Cross few men escape it and it is not well with them that do but they only bear it well that 〈◊〉 Christ and tread in his steps and bear it for his sake and walk as he walked and he that follows his own desires when he meets with a cross there as it is certain enough he will bears the cross of his Concupiscence and that hath no fellowship with the Cross of Christ. By the Precept of bearing the Cross we are not tied to pull evil upon our selves that we may imitate our Lord in nothing but in being afflicted or to personate the punitive exercises of Mortification and severe Abstinencies which were eminent in some Saints and to which they had special assistances as others had the gift of Chastity and for which they had special reason and as they apprehended some great necessities but it is required that we bear our own Cross so said our dearest Lord. For when the Cross of Christ is laid upon us and we are called to Martyrdom then it is our own because God made it to be our portion and when by the necessities of our spirit and the rebellion of our body we need exteriour mortifications and acts of self-denial then also it is our own cross because our needs have made it so and so it is when God sends us sickness or any other calamity what-ever is either an effect of our ghostly needs or the condition of our temporal estate it calls for our sufferance and patience and equanimity for therefore Christ hath suffered for us saith S. Peter leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who bore his Cross as long as he could and when he could no longer he murmured not but sank under it and then he was content to receive such aid not which he chose himself but such as was assigned him 3. Jesus was led out of the gates of Jerusalem that he might become the sacrifice for persons without the pale even for all the world And the daughters of Jerusalem followed him with pious tears till they came to Calvary a place difficult in the ascent eminent and apt for the publication of shame a hill of death and dead bones polluted and impure and there beheld him stript naked who cloaths the field with flowers and all the world with robes and the whole globe with the canopy of Heaven and so dress'd that now every circumstance was a triumph By his Disgrace he trampled upon our Pride by his Poverty and nakedness he triumphed over our Covetousness and love of riches and by his Pains chastised the Delicacies of our flesh and broke in pieces the fetters of Concupiscence For as soon as Adam was clothed he quitted Paradise and Jesus was made naked that he might bring us in again And we also must be despoil'd of all our exteriour adherencies that we may pass through the regions of duty and divine love to a society of blessed spirits and a clarified immortal and beatified estate 4. There they nailed Jesus with four nails fixed his Cross in the ground which with its fall into the place of its station gave infinite torture by so violent a concussion of the body of our Lord which rested upon nothing but four great wounds where he was designed to suffer a long and lingring torment For Crucifixion as it was an excellent pain sharp and passionate so it was not of quick effect towards taking away the life S. Andrew was two whole days upon the Cross and some Martyrs have upon the Cross been rather starved and devoured with birds than killed with the proper torment of the tree But Jesus took all his Passion with a voluntary susception God heightning it to the great degrees of torment supernaturally and he laid down his life voluntarily when his Father's wrath was totally appeased towards mankind 5. Some have phansied that Christ was pleased to take something from every condition of which Man ever was or shall be possessed taking Immunity from sin from Adam's state of Innocence Punishment and misery from the state of Adam fallen the fulness of Grace from the state of Renovation and perfect Contemplation of the Divinity and beatifick joys from the state of Comprehension and the blessedness of Heaven meaning that the Humanity of our Blessed Saviour did in the sharpest agony of his Passion behold the face of God and communicate in glory But I consider that although the two Natures of Christ were knit by a mysterious union into one Person yet the Natures still retain their incommunicable properties Christ as God is not subject to sufferings as a man he is the subject of miseries as God he is eternal as man mortal and commensurable by time as God the supreme Law-giver as man most humble and obedient to the Law and therefore that the Humane nature was united to the Divine it does not infer that it must in all instances partake of the Divine felicities which in God are essential to man communicated without necessity and by an arbitrary dispensation Add to this that some vertues and excellencies were in the Soul of Christ which could not consist with the state of glorified and beatified persons such as are Humility Poverty of spirit Hope Holy desires all which having their seat in the Soul suppose even in the supremest 〈◊〉 a state of pilgrimage that is a condition which is imperfect and in order to something beyond its present For therefore Christ ought to suffer saith our Blessed Lord himself and so enter into his glory And S. Paul affirms that we see Jesus made a little lower than the Angels for the suffering of death 〈◊〉 with glory and honour And again Christ humbled himself and became obedient unto
death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every name Thus his present life was a state of merit and work and as a reward of it he was crowned with glory and immortality his Name was exalted his Kingdom glorified he was made the Lord of all the Creatures the first-fruits of the Resurrection the exemplar of glory and the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church and because this was his recompence and the fruits of his Humility and Obedience it is certain it was not a necessary consequence and a natural efflux of the personal union of the Godhead with the Humanity This I discourse to this purpose that we may not in our esteem lessen the suffering of our dearest Lord by thinking he had the supports of actual Glory in the midst of all his Sufferings For there is no one minute or ray of Glory but its fruition does outweigh and make us insensible of the greatest calamities and the spirit of pain which can be extracted from all the infelicities of this world True it is that the greatest beauties in this world are receptive of an allay of sorrow and nothing can have pleasure in all capacities The most beautious feathers of the birds of Paradise the Estrich or the Peacock if put into our throat are not there so pleasant as to the eye But the beatifick joys of the least glory of Heaven take away all pain wipe away all tears from our eyes and it is not possible that at the same instant the Soul of Jesus should be ravished with Glory and yet abated with pains grievous and 〈◊〉 On the other side some say that the Soul of Jesus upon the Cross suffered the pains of Hell and all the torments of the damned and that without such sufferings it is not imaginable he should pay the price which God's wrath should demand of us But the same that reproves the one does also reprehend the other for the Hope that was the support of the Soul of Jesus as it confesses an imperfection that is not consistent with the state of Glory so it excludes the Despair that is the torment proper to accursed souls Our dearest Lord suffered the whole condition of Humanity Sin only excepted and freed us from Hell with suffering those sad pains and merited Heaven for his own Humanity as the Head and all faithful people as the Members of his mystical Body And therefore his life here was only a state of pilgrimage not at all trimmed with beatifick glories Much less was he ever in the state of Hell or upon the Cross felt the formal misery and spirit of torment which is the 〈◊〉 of damned spirits because it was impossible Christ should despair and without Despair it is impossible there should be a Hell But this is highly probable that in the intension of degrees and present anguish the Soul of our Lord might feel a greater load of wrath than is incumbent in every instant upon perishing souls For all the sadness which may be imagined to be in Hell consists in acts produced from principles that cannot surpass the force of humane or Angelical nature but the pain which our Blessed Lord endured for the expiation of our sins was an issue of an united and concentred anger was received into the heart of God and Man and was commensurate to the whole latitude of the Grace Patience and Charity of the Word incarnate The Crucisixion Mark 15 25. Erat autem Hora tertia crucifixerunt eum Mark 15 25. And is was the third houre they crucified him The takeing down from the Cross. Luk. 23 50 And there was a man named Ioseph a Counsellour he was a good man a lust y e same had not consented to y e counsell deed of them 52. This man went unto Pilate begged y e Body of Iesus 53 And he took it down wrapped it in linen layd it in a Sepulehre that was hewn in stone wherein never man before was layd 6. And now behold the Priest and the Sacrifice of all the world laid upon the Altar of the Cross bleeding and tortured and dying to reconcile his Father to us and he was arrayed with ornaments more glorious than the robes of Aaron The Crown of Thorns was his Mitre the Cross his Pastoral staffe the Nails piercing his hands were in stead of Rings the ancient ornament of Priests and his flesh rased and checker'd with blew and bloud in stead of the parti-coloured Robe But as this object calls for our Devotion our Love and Eucharist to our dearest Lord so it must needs irreconcile us to Sin which in the eye of all the world brought so great shame and pain and amazement upon the Son of God when he only became engaged by a charitable substitution of himself in our place and therefore we are assured by the demonstration of sense and experience it will bring death and all imaginable miseries as the just expresses of God's indignation and hatred for to this we may apply the words of our Lord in the prediction of miseries to Jerusalem If this be done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry For it is certain Christ infinitely pleased his Father even by becoming the person made 〈◊〉 in estimate of Law and yet so great Charity of our Lord and the so great love and pleasure of his Father exempted him not from suffering pains intolerable and much less shall those escape who provoke and displease God and despise so great Salvation which the Holy Jesus hath wrought with the expence of bloud and so precious a life 7. But here we see a great representation and testimony of the Divine Justice who was so angry with sin who had so severely threatned it who does so essentially hate it that he would not spare his only Son when he became a conjunct person relative to the guilt by undertaking the charges of our Nature For although God hath set down in holy Scripture the order of his Justice and the manner of its manifestation that one Soul shall not perish for the sins of another yet this is meant for Justice and for Mercy too that is he will not curse the Son for the Father's fault or in any relation whatsoever substitute one person for another to make him involuntarily guilty But when this shall be desired by a person that cannot finally perish and does a mercy to the exempt persons and is a voluntary act of the suscipient and shall in the event also redound to an infinite good it is no deflection from the Divine Justice to excuse many by the affliction of one who also for that very suffering shall have infinite compensation We see that for the sin of Cham all his posterity were accursed the Subjects of David died with the Plague because their Prince numbred the people Idolatry is punished in the children of the fourth generation
Saul's seven sons were hanged for breaking the League of Gibeon and Ahab's sin was punished in his posterity he escaping and the evil was brought upon his house in his son's days In all these cases the evil descended upon persons in near relation to the sinner and was a punishment to him and a misery to these and were either chastisements also of their own sins or if they were not they served other ends of Providence and led the afflicted innocent to a condition of recompence accidentally procured by that infliction But if for such relation's sake and oeconomical and political conjunction as between Prince and People the evil may be transmitted from one to another much rather is it just when by contract a competent and conjunct person undertakes to quit his relative Thus when the Hand steals the Back is whipt and an evil Eye is punished with a hungry Belly Treason causes the whole Family to be miserable and a Sacrilegious Grandfather hath sent a Locust to devour the increase of the Nephews 8. But in our case it is a voluntary contract and therefore no Injustice all parties are voluntary God is the supreme Lord and his actions are the measure of Justice we who had deserved the punishment had great reason to desire a Redeemer and yet Christ who was to pay the ransome was more desirous of it than we were for we asked it not before it was promised and undertaken But thus we see that Sureties pay the obligation of the principal Debtor and the Pledges of Contracts have been by the best and wisest Nations slain when the Articles have been broken The Thessalians slew 250 Pledges the Romans 300 of the Volsci and threw the Tarentines from the Tarpeian rock And that it may appear Christ was a person in all sences competent to do this for us himself testifies that he had power over his own life to take it up or lay it down And therefore as there can be nothing against the most exact justice and reason of Laws and punishments so it magnifies the Divine Mercy who removes the punishment from us who of necessity must have sunk under it and yet makes us to adore his Severity who would not forgive us without punishing his Son for us to consign unto us his perfect hatred against Sin to conserve the sacredness of his Laws and to imprint upon us great characters of fear and love The famous Locrian Zaleucus made a Law that all Adulterers should lose both their eyes his son was first unhappily surprised in the crime and his Father to keep a temper between the piety and soft spirit of a Parent and the justice and severity of a Judge put out one of his own eyes and one of his Sons So God did with us he made some abatement that is as to the person with whom he was angry but inflicted his anger upon our Redeemer whom he essentially loved to secure the dignity of his Sanctions and the sacredness of Obedience so marrying Justice and Mercy by the intervening of a commutation Thus David escaped by the death of his Son God chusing that penalty for the expiation and Cimon offered himself to prison to purchase the liberty of his Father Miltiades It was a filial duty in Cimon and yet the Law was satisfied And both these concurred in our great Redeemer For God who was the sole Arbitrator so disposed it and the eternal Son of God submitted to this way of expiating our crimes and became an argument of faith and belief of the great Article of Remission of sins and other its appendent causes and effects and adjuncts it being wrought by a visible and notorious Passion It was made an encouragement of Hope for he that spared not his own Son to reconcile us will with him give all things else to us so reconciled and a great endearment of our Duty and Love as it was a demonstration of his And in all the changes and traverses of our life he is made to us a great example of all excellent actions and all patient sufferings 9. In the midst of two Thieves three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain agony and dishonour all of them so eminent and vast that he who could not but hope whose Soul was enchased with Divinity and dwelt in the bosom of God and in the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity yet had a cloud of misery so thick and black drawn before him that he complained as if God had forsaken him but this was the pillar of cloud which conducted Israel into Canaan And as God behind the Cloud supported the Holy Jesus and stood ready to receive him into the union of his Glories so his Soul in that great desertion had internal comforts proceeding from consideration of all those excellent persons which should be adopted into the fellowship of his Sufferings which should imitate his Graces which should communicate his Glories And we follow this Cloud to our Country having Christ for our Guide and though he trode the way leaning upon the Cross which like the staffe of Egypt pierced his hands yet it is to us a comfort and support pleasant to our spirits as the sweetest Canes strong as the pillars of the earth and made apt for our use by having been born and made smooth by the hands of our Elder Brother 10. In the midst of all his torments Jesus only made one Prayer of sorrow to represent his sad condition to his Father but no accent of murmur no syllable of anger against his enemies In stead of that he sent up a holy charitable and effective Prayer for their forgiveness and by that Prayer obtained of God that within 55 days 8000 of his enemies were converted So potent is the prayer of Charity that it prevails above the malice of men turning the arts of Satan into the designs of God and when malice occasions the Prayer the Prayer becomes an antidote to malice And by this instance our Blessed Lord consigned that Duty to us which in his Sermons he had preached That we should forgive our enemies and pray for them and by so doing our selves are freed from the stings of anger and the storms of a revengeful spirit and we oftentimes procure servants to God friends to our selves and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven 11. Of the two Thieves that were crucified together with our Lord the one blasphemed the other had at that time the greatest Piety in the world except that of the Blessed Virgin and particularly had such a Faith that all the Ages of the Church could never shew the like For when he saw Christ in the same condemnation with himself crucisied by the Romans accused and scorned by the Jews forsaken by his own Apostles a dying distressed Man doing at that time no Miracles to attest his Divinity or Innocence yet then he confesses him to be a Lord and a King and his Saviour He confessed his own
shame and unworthiness he submitted to the death of the Cross and by his voluntary acceptation and tacite volition of it made it equivalent to as great a punishment of his own susception he shewed an incomparable modesty begging but for a remembrance only he knew himself so sinful he durst ask no more he reproved the other Thief for Blasphemy he confessed the world to come and owned Christ publickly he prayed to him he hoped in him and pitied him shewing an excellent Patience in this sad condition And in this I consider that besides the excellency of some of these acts and the goodness of all the like occasion for so exemplar Faith never can occur and until all these things shall in these circumstances meet in any one man he must not hope for so safe an Exit after an evil life 〈◊〉 the confidence of this example But now Christ had the key of Paradise in his hand and God blessed the good Thief with this opportunity of letting him in who at another time might have waited longer and been tied to harder conditions And indeed it is very probable that he was much advantaged by the intervening accident of dying at the same time with Christ there being a natural compassion produced in us towards the partners of our miseries For Christ was not void of humane passions though he had in them no imperfection or irregularity and therefore might be invited by the society of misery the rather to admit him to participate his joys and S. Paul proves him to be a merciful high Priest because he was touched with a feeling of our infirmities the first expression of which was to this blessed Thief Christ and he together sate at the Supper of bitter herbs and Christ payed his symbol promising that he should that day be together with him in Paradise 12. By the Cross of Christ stood the Holy Virgin Mother upon whom old Simeon's Prophecy was now verified for now she felt a sword passing through her very soul she stood without clamour and womanish noises sad silent and with a modest grief deep as the waters of the abysse but smooth as the face of a pool full of Love and Patience and Sorrow and Hope Now she was put to it to make use of all those excellent discourses her Holy Son had used to build up her spirit and fortifie it against this day Now she felt the blessings and strengths of Faith and she passed from the griefs of the Passion to the expectation of the Resurrection and she rested in this Death as in a sad remedy for she knew it reconciled God with all the World But her Hope drew a veil before her Sorrow and though her Grief was great enough to swallow her up yet her Love was greater and did swallow up her grief But the Sun also had a veil upon his face and taught us to draw a curtain before the Passion which would be the most artificial expression of its greatness whilest by silence and wonder we confess it great beyond our expression or which is all one great as the burthen and baseness of our sins And with this veil drawn before the face of Jesus let us suppose him at the gates of Paradise calling with his last words in a loud voice to have them opened that the King of glory might come in The PRAYER O Holy Jesus who for our sakes didst suffer incomparable anguish and pains commensurate to thy Love and our Miseries which were infinite that thou mightest purchase for 〈◊〉 blessings upon Earth and an inheritance in Heaven dispose us by Love Thankfulness Humility and Obedience to receive all the benefit of thy Passion granting unto us and thy whole Church remission of all our sins integrity of mind health of body competent maintenance peace in our days a temperate air fruitfulness of the earth unity and integrity of Faith extirpation of Heresies reconcilements of Schisms destruction of all wicked counsels intended against us and bind the hands of Rapine and Sacriledge that they may not destroy the vintage and root up the Vine it self Multiply thy Blessings upon us sweetest Jesus increase in us true Religion sincere and actual devotion in our Prayers Patience in troubles and whatsoever is necessary to our Soul's health or conducing to thy Glory Amen II. O Dearest Saviour I adore thy mercies and thy incomparable love expressed in thy so voluntary susception and affectionate suffering such horrid and sad Tortures which cannot be remembred without a sad compassion the waters of bitterness entred into thy Soul and the storms of Death and thy Father's anger broke thee all in pieces and what shall I do who by my sins have so tormented my dearest Lord what Contrition can be great enough what tears sufficiently expressive what hatred and detestation of my crimes can be equal and commensurate to those sad accidents which they have produced Pity me O Lord pity me dearest God turn those thy merciful eyes towards me O most merciful Redeemer for my sins are great like unto thy Passion full of sorrow and shame and a burthen too great for me to bear Lord who hast done so much for me now only speak the word and thy servant shall be whole Let thy Wounds heal me thy Vertues amend me thy Death quicken me that I in this life suffering the cross of a sad and salutary Repentance in the union and merits of thy 〈◊〉 and Passion may die with thee and rest with thee and rise again with thee and live with thee for ever in the possession of thy Glories O dearest Saviour Jesus Amen SECT XVI Of the Resurrection and Ascension of JESUS The Burial of Iesus Mat 27 57 When the even was come there came a rich man of Arimathea named Jo seph who also himself was Jesus Disciple he went to Pilate beggd the body of Jesus Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered And when Ioseph had taken the body he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth layd it in his own new tomb which he had hewen out in y e rock The Resurrection of Iesus Mat 28 2 And behold there was a great earthquake for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven came rolled back y e stone from the doore and sate upon it And for feare of him the keepers did shake became as dead men And the Angel sayd unto the woman Fear not ye for I know that ye seek Iesus that was crucified He is not here for he is Risen as he sayd 1. WHile it was yet early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought sweet spices to the Sepulchre that they might again embalm the Holy Body for the rites of Embalming among the Hebrews used to last forty days and their love was not satisfied with what Joseph had done They therefore hastned to the grave and after they had expended their money and bought the
of prepared torments he died a natural death in a good old age 5. After this Jesus having appointed a solemn meeting for all the Brethren that could be collected from the dispersion and named a certain mountain in 〈◊〉 appeared to five hundred Brethren at once and this was his most publick and solemn manifestation and while some doubted Jesus came according to the designation and spake to the eleven sent them to preach to all the world Repentance and Remission of sins in his Name promising to be with them to the end of the world He appeared also unto James but at what time is uncertain save that there is something concerning it in the Gospel of S. Matthew which the Nazarens of 〈◊〉 used and which it is likely themselves added out of report for there is nothing of it in our Greek Copies The words are these When the Lord had given the linen in which he was wrapped to the servant of the High Priest he went and appeared unto James For James had vowed after he received the Lord's Supper that he would eat no bread till he saw the Lord risen from the grave Then the Lord called for bread he blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said My Brother eat bread for the Son of man is risen from the sleep of death So that by this it should seem to be done upon the day of the Resurrection But the relation of it by S. Paul puts it between the appearance which he made to the five hundred and that last to the Apostles when he was to ascend into Heaven Last of all when the Apostles were at dinner he appeared to them upbraiding their incredulity and then he opened their understanding that they might discern the sence of Scripture and again commanded them to preach the Gospel to all the world giving them power to do Miracles to cast out Devils to cure 〈◊〉 and instituted the Sacrament of Baptism which he commanded should together with the Sermons of the Gospel be administred to all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Then he led them into Judaea and they came to Bethany and from thence to the mount Olivet and he commanded them to stay in Jerusalem till the Holy Ghost the promise of the Father should descend upon them which should be accomplished in few days and then they should know the times and the seasons and all things necessary for their ministration and service and propagation of the Gospel And while he discoursed many things concerning the Kingdom behold a Cloud came and parted Jesus from them and carried him in their sight up into Heaven where he sits at the right hand of God blessed for ever Amen 6. While his Apostles stood gazing up to Heaven two Angels appeared to them and told them that Jesus should come in like manner as he was taken away viz. with glory and majesty and in the clouds and with the ministry of Angels Amen Come Lord JESUS come quickly Ad SECT XVI Considerations upon the Accidents happening in the intervall after the Death of the Holy JESUS untill his Resurrection Jesus and Mary in the Garden Joh. 20. 14. 15. 16. Mary turning about saw Jesus standing knew not y t it was Jesus Jesus saith woman whom seekest thou Shee supposing him to be the garidner saith sir if thou have born him hence tell me etc. Jesus saith unto her Mary she turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is Master Jesus saith unto her touch me not for etc. Mary Magdalen came and told the desciples that she had seen the Lord. Our Lords Ascension Acts. 1. 9. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up a Cloud received him out of their sight 10. And while they stedfastly looked toward heaven behold two men stood by them in white apparell 11. Which also said this same Iesus shall so come as you have seen him go into heaven 1. THE Holy Jesus promised to the blessed Thief that he should that day be with him in Paradise which therefore was certainly a place or state of Blessedness because it was a promise and in the society of Jesus whose penal and afflictive part of his work of Redemption was finished upon the Cross. Our Blessed Lord did not promise he should that day be with him in his Kingdom for that day it was not opened and the everlasting doors of those interiour recesses were to be shut till after the Resurrection that himself was to ascend thither and make way for all his servants to enter in the same method in which he went before us Our Blessed Lord descended into Hell saith the Creed of the Apostles from the Sermon of Saint Peter as he from the words of David that is into the state of Separation and common receptacle of Spirits according to the style of Scripture But the name of Hell is no-where in Scripture an appellative of the Kingdom of Christ of the place of final and supreme Glory But concerning the verification of our Lord's promise to the beatified Thief and his own state of Separation we must take what light we can from Scripture and what we can from the Doctrine of the Primitive Church S. Paul had two great Revelations he was rapt up into Paradise and he was rapt up into the third Heaven and these he calls visions revelations not one but divers for Paradise is distinguished from the Heaven of the blessed being it self a receptacle of holy Souls made illustrious with visitation of Angels and happy by being a repository for such spirits who at the day of Judgment shall go forth into eternal glory In the interim Christ hath trod all the paths before us and this also we must pass through to arrive at the Courts of Heaven Justin Martyr said it was the doctrine of heretical persons to say that the Souls of the Blessed instantly upon the separation from their Bodies enter into the highest Heaven And Irenaeus makes Heaven and the intermediate receptacle of Souls to be distinct places both blessed but hugely differing in degrees Tertullian is dogmatical in the assertion that till the voice of the great Archangel be heard and as long as Christ sits at the right hand of his Father making intercession for the Church so long blessed Souls must expect the assembling of their brethren the great Congregation of the Church that they may all pass from their outer courts into the inward tabernacle the Holy of Holies to the Throne of God And as it is certain that no Soul could enter into glory before our Lord 〈◊〉 by whom we hope to have access so it is most agreeable to the proportion 〈◊〉 the mysteries of our Redemption that we believe the entrance into Glory to have been made by our Lord at his glorious Ascension and that his Soul went not thither before 〈◊〉 to come back again
helped by none comforted by none and he makes himself a companion of Devils to everlasting ages but in the judgment of Repentance and Tribunal of the Church the penitent sinner is prayed for by a whole army of militant Saints and causes joy to all the Church triumphant And to establish this Tribunal in the Church and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime and to appoint Physicians and Guardians of the Soul was one of the designs and mercies of the Resurrection of Jesus And let not any Christian man either by false opinion or an unbelieving spirit or an incurious apprehension undervalue or neglect this ministery which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the Church is built that the Church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck and the shivers of the broken heart may re-unite them pouring Oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin and restoring with meekness gentleness care counsel and authority persons overtaken in a fault For that act of Ministery is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in Heaven and that Authority is not contemptible which the Holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his Church the Holy Ghost But Christ intended that those whom he had made Guides of our Souls and Judges of our Consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon should also be used by us in all cases of our Souls and that we go to Heaven the way he hath appointed that is by offices and ministeries Ecclesiastical 17. When our Blessed Lord had so confirmed the Faith of the Church and appointed an Ecclesiastical Ministery he had but one work more to do upon earth and that was the Institution of the holy Sacrament of Baptism which he ordained as a solemn Initiation and mysterious Profession of the Faith upon which the Church is built making it a solemn Publication of our Profession the rite of Stipulation or entring Covenant with our Lord the solemnity of the Paction Evangelical in which we undertake to be Disciples to the Holy Jesus that is to believe his Doctrine to fear his Threatnings to rely upon his Promises and to obey his Commandments all the days of our life and he for his part actually performs much and promises more he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days purging our Souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence promising withall that if we perform our undertaking and remain in the state in which he now puts us he will continually assist us with his Spirit prevent and attend us with his Grace he will deliver us from the power of the Devil he will keep our Souls in merciful joyful and safe custody till the great Day of the Lord he will then raise our Bodies from the Grave he will make them to be spiritual and immortal he will re-unite them to our Souls and beatifie both Bodies and Souls in his own Kingdom admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories All which that he might verifie and prepare respectively in the presence of his Disciples he ascended into the bosome of God and the eternal comprehensions of celestial Glory The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast overcome Death and triumphed over all the powers of Hell Darkness Sin and the Grave manifesting the truth of thy Promises the power of thy Divinity the majesty of thy Person the rewards of thy Glory and the mercies and excellent designs of thy Evangelical Kingdom by thy glorious and powerful Resurrection preserve my Soul from eternal death and make me to rise from the death of Sin and to live the life of Grace loving thy Perfections adoring thy Mercy pursuing the interest of thy Kingdom being united to the Church under thee our Head conforming to thy holy Laws established in Faith entertained and confirmed with a modest humble and certain Hope and sanctified by Charity that I engraving thee in my heart and submitting to thee in my spirit and imitating thee in thy glorious example may be partaker of thy Resurrection which is my hope and my desire the support of my Faith the object of my Joy and the strength of my Confidence In thee Holy Jesus do I trust I confess thy Faith I believe all that thou hast taught I desire to perform all thy injunctions and my own undertaking my Soul is in thy hand do thou support and guide it and pity my infirmities and when thou shalt reveal thy great Day shew to me the mercies and effects of thy Advocation and Intercession and Redemption Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God for in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Thou art just thou 〈◊〉 merciful thou art gracious and compassionate thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective but make me capable and receptive of thy Mercies and then I am certain to receive them I am thine O save me thou art mine O Holy Jesus O dwell with me for ever and let me dwell with thee adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THE END 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE TABLE OF The Life of CHRIST Where are more Numbers than one the first Number denotes the Page the latter the Number of the Section A. ABsolution of dying Persons of what benefit 407. 23. Whether to be given to all that desire it 408. 24. Acceptable Year of the Lord what it means 186. 22. Actions of Jesus confuted his Accusers 390. 2. Acts of Vertue to be done by sick and dying Persons 405 406. 19 20. Accusation of Criminals not to be aggravated odiously 393. 8. It ought to be onely for purposes of Charity ibid. Accusation of innocent persons ought to be born patiently by the innocent 393. 9. Accusation of Jesus 352. 24. Adam buried in Golgotha 354. 31. Adoption of Sons 316. 7. Advent of our Lord must be entertained with joy 156. 3. Adultery made more criminal under the Gospel than under the Law 249. 37 c. Adultery of the eyes 250. 36. Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in the place of Christ's Birth 14. 6. Agony of Jesus in the Garden 350. 20. Agesilaus was more commended for his modesty and obedience than for his prosperous good Conduct 50. 25. Albes or white garments wore by the Church and why 393. 9 10. Alms intended for a defensative against Covetousness 258. 1. Ordinarily to be according to our ability ibid. Sometimes beyond in what cases ibid. Necessities of all indigent people are the object of our Alms 259. 3. Manner of Alms an office of Christian prudence ibid. The two Altars in Solomon's Temple what they did represent 83. 4. Ambitious seeking Ecclesiastical Dignities very criminal 96. 2. Ambition is
of Visions 61. 23. Sins of Infirmity explicated 105. 10. seq Intentions though good excuse not evil Actions 107. 13. Incontinence destroys the Spirit of Government 189. 5. Instruments weak and unlikely used by GOD to great purposes 197. Incarnation of Jesus instrumental to God's Glory and our Peace 31. Inevitable Infirmities consistent with a state of Grace 207. Injuries great and little to be forgiven 252. Intention of Spirit how necessary in our Prayers 267. 17. Images their Lawfulness or unlawfulness considered 237. 16. Admitted into the Church with difficulty and by degrees 237. 16. Images of Jupiter and Diana Cyndias did ridiculous and weak Miracles 279. 7. Imprisonment sanctified by the binding of Jesus 387. Ingratitude of Judas 360. 9. John the Baptist his Life and Death 66. 5. 77. 78. and 79. 93. 292. 18. His Baptism 93. Whether the form of it were in the Name of Christ to come ibid. Joyes spiritual increase by communication 156. 3. Joyes of Eternity recompense all our Sorrowes in every instant of their fruition 426. Joyes sudden and violent are to be allayed by reflexion on the vilest of our Sins 196. 7. John Patriarch of Alexandria appeased the anger of Patricius 245. 30. Innocence is security against evil Actions 10. Justice of GOD in punishing Jesus cleared 415. 7 8. Several degrees of Justification answerable to several degrees of Faith 162. 7. Judgment of Life and Death is to be only by the supreme Power or his Deputy 253. A Jew condemned of Idolatry for throwing stones though in detestation at the Idol of Mercury 354. 32. Judging our Brother how far prohibited 260. 5. Judas's name written in Heaven and blotted 〈◊〉 again 313. 1. His manner of death 352. 25. Ingrateful 360. 8. He valued the Ointment at the same rate he sold his Lord 361. 11. He enjoyed his Money not Ten Hours 386. 7. Julian desired but could not be a Magician 361. 10. Judgment of GOD upon Sinners their causes and manner 336. 1. seq Judgments National 340. 8. Not easily understood by Men 339. 5. Joseph of Arimath embalmed the Body of Jesus 356. 38. Whether Judas received the Holy Sacrament 375. 13. K. KIng and Church have the same Friends and Enemies 336. Kingdom of Christ not of this World 352. What it is 392. 8. Kingdom of God what 263. 5. Kingdom of Grace and Glory ibid. A King came to Jesus in behalf of his Son 182. 6. Kings specially to be prayed for 365. 13. King's Enemies how to be prayed against ibid. To Kill the assaulting Person in what cases lawful 253. 3. L. LAws evil make a National Sin 341. 10. Law of Nature Vide Pref. per tot 20. 7. Laws of Man to be obeyed but not always to be thought most reasonable 42. 7. 48. 21. Laws of God and Man in respect of the greatness of the subject matter compared 46. 49. Laws of Men bind not to Death or an insufferable Calamity rather than not to break them 48. 21. Laws of Superiours not to be too freely disputed by Subjects 49. 23. Laws of order to be observed even when the first reason ceases 52. 1. It is not safe to do all that is lawful 45. 15 16. Law and Gospel how differ 194. 3. 232. 3. 295. S. Paul often by a Fiction of Person speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but as under the imperfections of the Law 104. 8. Law of Nature perfected by Christianity Pref. Law of Moses a Law of Works how 232. Law of Jesus a Law of the Spirit and not of Works in what sence ibid. Law-Suits to be managed charitably 256. When lawful to be undertaken ibid. Lazarus restored to Life 345. 2. Leonigildus kill'd his Daughter for not communicating with the Arians 188. 2. Leven of Herod what 321. 8. Lepers cured 324. 18. Sent to the Priest ibid. Unthankful ibid. The Levantine Churches afflicted the cause uncertain 338. 4. S. Laurence his Gridiron less hot than his Love 358. 2. 7. 〈◊〉 17. Life of Man cut off for Sin 303. 305. It hath several periods ibid. 274. Good life necessary to make our Prayers acceptable 266. 13. A comparison between a Life in Solitude and in Society 80. 5. Lord's Supper the greatest of Christian Rites 369. It manifests God's Power 371. 4. His Wisdome and his Charity 371. 5 6. It is a Sacrament of Union 371. 5 6. A Sacrament and a Sacrifice in what sence 372. 7. As it is an act of the Ecclesiastical Officer of what efficacy 373. 8. It is expressed in mysterious words when the value is recited 373. Not to be administred to vicious persons 374. 12. Whether persons vicious under suspicion only are to be deprived of it 376. 13. How to be received 377. 15. What deportment to be used after it 378. 17. To be received by dying Persons 407. 23. Of what benefit it is to them ibid. Love and Obedience Duties of the first Commandment 234. 8. Love and Obedience reconciled 427. 9. Love of God its extension 234. 9. It s intension ibid. n. 11. Love the fulfilling of the Law explicated 233. 5. It consists in latitude 236. 13. It must exclude all affection to sin ibid. 14. Signs of true love to God 236. 14. Love to God with all our hearts possible and in what sence ibid. Love of God and love of money compared 361. 11. Lord's Day by what authority to be observed 244. 24. And how ibid. Lucian's Cynick an Hypocrite 366. 7. Likeness to God being desired at first ruined us now restores us 364. 3. Lying in that degree is criminal as it is injurious 250. 40. M. MArriage honoured by Christ's presence and the first Miracle 154. Hallowed to a Mystery 158. 8. Marriage-breakers are more criminal now than under Moses's Law 158. The smaller undecencies must be prevented or deprecated Of Martyrdom 229. 18. Magi at the sight of Christ's Poverty renounce the World and retire into Philosophy 28. 13. Mary a Virgin alwayes 14. 2. An excellent Personage 2 3. 8. She conceived Jesus without Sin and brought him forth without Pain 13. Her joy at the Prophecies concerning her Son attempered with Predictions of his Passion 30. 4. Full of Fears when she lost Jesus 73. 1. She went to the Temple to pray and there found him ibid. Full of Piety in Her countenance and deportment 113. 32. She converted many to thoughts of Chastity by her countenance and aspect ibid. Mary Magdalen's Story 377. 9. 360. 5. 391. 9. 346. 5. 349. 13. Mary's Choice preferred 326. 26. Mark for sook Jesus upon a Scandal taken but was reduced by S. Peter 320. 3. Malchus an Idumaean Slave smote Jesus on the Face 389. 1. Meditation described 54. It turns the understanding into spirit 55. Its Parts Actions manner of Exercise Fruits and Effects Disc. 3. per tot 54. Men ought not to run into the Ministery till they are called 99. 3.
Praef. n. 40. Recidivation or Relapse into a state of sin unpardonable and how 156. Reproachful Language prohibited 247. Reprehension of evil Persons may be in Language properly expressive of the Crime ibid. Resisting evil in what sence lawful 225. Reverence of posture to be used in Prayer 271. 23. Remedies against Anger 248. 35. Repetition of Prayers 270. Relations secular must be quitted for Religion in what sence 320. They must not hinder Religious Duties 236. Reformation begins ill if it begins with Sacrilege 171. 5. Reward propounded in the beginning and end of Christian Duties 222. It makes the labour easie 295. 1. Restitution to the state of Grace is divisible and by parts 314. Restitution made by Zacchaeus 346. 4. Resurrection proved and described by Jesus 348. 11. All Relations of Kindred or 〈◊〉 cease then ibid. Resurrection of Jesus 393. Given for a sign 160. 279. It is the support of Christianity 428. Resignation of himself to be made by a dying or sick person 405. 17. Rich men less disposed for reception of Christianity 29. Riches are surest and to best purposes obtained by Christianity 301. 10. Rites of Burial among the Jewes lasted Fourty days 419. S. SArabaitae great Mortifiers but not obedient 49. 24. Sacrilege a robbing of God 52. Saints to inherit the Earth in what sence 224. 9. Sacraments ineffectual without the conjunction of something moral 97. They operate by way of Prayers ibid. Sacrament of the Lord's Supper instituted 349. 17. It s manner ibid. To be received Fasting 272. Of the Presence of Christ's Body in it 370. 3. Sabbath of the Jewes abolished 327. 28. 243. 25. Primitive Christians kept both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day 243. 24. Second Sabbath after the first what it means 290. 2. Sabbatick pool streamed onely upon the Sabbath 327. 28. Salome presented John Baptist's Head to her Mother 169. She was killed with Ice ibid. Samaritans were Schismaticks 182. 3. They hated the Jewes ibid. They were cast in their Appeal to Ptolemy ibid. Samaritan 〈◊〉 a Concubine after the death of her fifth Husband 187. 1. Scandal cannot be given by any thing that is our Duty 328. 334. 13. Sin of Scandal and the indiscretion of Scandal 330. 6. Scandalous persons who 328. 334. 13. No Man can say that himself is scandalized 333. 10. The Rules Measure and Judgement of Scandal 328. Between a Friend and an Enemy how we are to doe in the question of Scandal 334. 12. Scandal how to be avoided in making and executing Laws 334. 14. State of Separation 423. 429. 15. The Pool of Siloam 325. 21. Scorn must not be cast upon our calamitous Brother 339. Secular Persons tied to a frequent Communion 379. 19. Secular and Spiritual Objects their difference 380. 21. Serapion's Reproof of a young proud Monk 366. 7. Sepulchre of Jesus sealed 501. 39. Sermon of Christ upon the Mount 183. 11. His Farewell-Sermon 350. 19. Severity to our selves and Gentleness to others a Duty 324. 17. Sensuality Vide Temptations Simon' s name changed 151. 2. His Wifes Mother cured 184. 12. Simeon Stylites commended for Obedience 49. 24. Simon Magus brought a new Sin into the world 104. 6. Sins of Infirmity Vide 〈◊〉 Sins small in themselves are made great when they come by design 44. 12. When they are acted by deliberation ibid. When they are often repeated and not interrupted by Repentance ibid. 13. When they are 〈◊〉 45. 14. Sin pleasant at the first bitter in the end 159. It carries a whip with it 170. They are forgiven when the Punishment is remitted 184. After Pardon they may return in guilt 211. It is more troublesome than Vertue is 297. 4. Not cared for unless it be difficult 299. 6. It shortens our lives naturally 305. 19. It made Jesus weep 359. To be accounted as great Blemishes to our selves as we account them to others 365. 6. Sinners Prayers not heard in what sence 266. 13. Sinners in need are to be relieved 258. Sinners are Fools 310. 28. State of Sin totally opposed to the Mercies of the Covenant 200. Sin against the Holy Ghost what it is 201. 10. Simplicity of Spirit a Christian Duty 157. Shame of Lust more violent to Nature than the Severities of Continence 295. The good Shepherd 325. Shepherds by Night watchful had a Revclation of Christ 29. Spiritual Shepherds must be watchful ibid. Spiritual Sadness is often a Mercy and a Grace 236. When otherwise 160. Spiritual persons apt to be tempted to Pride 86 100. Spiritual Mourning 224. Spiritual Pleasures distinguished from Temporal 191. Spiritual good things how to be prayed for 266. 262. Spiritual 〈◊〉 360. 8. Spirit makes Religion 〈◊〉 295. It is the earnest of Salvation 316. Spirit of Adoption ibid. It is quenched by some ibid. Spirit is 〈◊〉 to be offered to God 176. Solemnities of Christ's Kingdom 392. Souldiers plunged Jesus into the Brook Cedron 388. 11. They pierced his Side 355. They mock and beat Him 351. 353. They cover his Face at his Attachment 351. They fell to the ground at the glory of his Person ibid. Sun's Eclipse at the Passion miraculous 354. Stones of the Temple of what bigness 348. 12. Star at Christ's Birth moved irregularly 27. 9. That the Star appearing to the Wise Men was an Angel the Opinion of the Greeks 27. 8. Swine kept by the Jews and why 194 Statue of Brass erected by the Woman cured of her Bloudy issue 185. 20. Success of our endeavours depends on God 196. 5. Sudden Joys are dangerous 196. 7. Schism to be avoided in the Occasions 194. Swearing in common Talk a great Crime 304. By Creatures forbidden ibid. Suits at Law with what Cautions permitted 264. Syrophoenician importunate with Jesus for her Daughter 321. 6. Solomon's Porch a fragment of the first Temple 327. 29. Sweat of Christ in the Agony as great as drops of Bloud 350. 20. 385. 6. T. TAble with Nails fastned to Christ's Garment when he bore the Cross 413. 2. Teachers of others should be exemplary 33. 79. They should learn first of their Superiours 75. Not to make too much haste into the Imployment 79. Teresa à Jesu her Vow 235. 22. Temporal Priviledges inferiour to Spiritual 292. Temporal good things how to be prayed for 261. Temptation not alwayes a sign of immortification 91. Not to be voluntarily entred into 91. 110. Not alwayes an argument of GOD's Disfavour 97. 361. It is every Man's Lot 105. Not alwayes to be removed by Prayer 102. The several manners of Temptation ibid. Remedies against it 112. 29. seq 1. Consideration 1. Of the Presence of God 112. 29. 1. Consideration 2. Of Death 114. 34. 2. Prayer 115. 37. Temple of Jerusalem how many High-Priests it had in Succession 303. 14. Transmigration of Souls maintained by the Pharisees 321. 8. Tribute to be paid 347. Traitor discovered by a Sop 350. Trinity meeting at the 〈◊〉 of our Blessed Lord by some manners of exteriour
passions ready to over-run the banks not able to endure a thought that so much evil should befall his Master broke out into an over-confident and unseasonable interruption of him He took him and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee Besides his great kindness and affection to his Master the minds of the Apostles were not yet throughly purged from the hopes and expectations of a glorious reign of the Messiah so that Peter could not but look upon these sufferings as unbecoming and inconsistent with the state and dignity of the Son of God And therefore thought good to advise his Lord to take care of himself and while there was time to prevent and avoid them This our Lord who valued the redemption os Mankind infinitely before his own ease and safety resented at so high a rate that he returned upon him with this tart and stinging reproof Get thee behind me Satan The very same treatment which he once gave to the Devil himself when he made that insolent proposal to him To fall down and worship him though in Satan it was the result of pure malice and hatred in Peter only an error of love and great regard However our Lord could not but look upon it as mischievous and diabolical counsel prompted and promoted by the great Adversary of Mankind A way therefore says Christ with thy hellish and pernicious counsel Thou art an offence unto me in seeking to oppose and undermine that great design for which I purposely came down from 〈◊〉 In this thou savourest not the things of God but those that be of men in suggesting to me those little shifts and arts of safety and self-preservation which humane prudence and the love of mens own selves are wont to dictate to them By which though we may learn Peter's mighty kindness to our Saviour yet that herein he did not take his measures right A plain evidence that his infallibility had not yet taken place 5. About a week after this our Saviour being to receive a Type and Specimen of his future 〈◊〉 took with him his three more intimate Apostles Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and went up into a very high mountain which the Ancients generally conceive to have been Mount Thabor a round and very high mountain situate in the plains of Galilce And now was even literally fulfilled what the Psalmist had spoken Tabor and Hermon shall rejoyce in thy Name for what greater joy and triumph than to be peculiarly chosen to be the holy Mount whereon our Lord in so eminent a manner received from God the Father honour and glory and made such magnificent displays of his Divine power and Majesty For while they were here earnestly imployed in Prayer as seldom did our Lord enter upon any eminent action but he first made his address to Heaven he was suddenly transformed into another manner of appearance such a lustre and radiancy darted from his face that the Sun it self shines not brighter at Noon-day such beams of light reflected from his garments as out-did the light it self that was round about them so exceeding pure and white that the Snow might blush to compare with it nor could the Fullers art purifie any thing into half that whiteness an evident and sensible representation of the glory of that state wherein the just shall walk in white and shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father During this Heavenly scene there appeared Moses and Elias who as the Jews say shall come together clothed with all the brightness and majesty of a glorified state familiarly conversing with him and discoursing of the death and sufferings which he was shortly to undergo and his departure into Heaven Behold here together the three greatest persons that ever were the Ministers of Heaven Moses under God the Instituter and promulgator of the Law Elias the great reformer of it when under its deepest degeneracy and corruption and the blessed Jesus the Son of God who came to take away what was weak and imperfect and to introduce a more manly and rational institution and to communicate the last Revelation which God would make of his mind to the World Peter and the two Apostles that were with him were in the mean time fallen asleep heavy through want of natural rest it being probably night when this was done or else over-powred with these extraordinary appearances which the frailty and weakness of their present state could not bear were fallen into a Trance But now awaking were strangely surprised to behold our Lord surrounded with so much glory and those two great persons conversing with him knowing who they were probably by some particular marks and signatures that were upon them or else by immediate revelation or from the discourse which passed betwixt Christ and them or possibly from some communication which they themselves might have with them While these Heavenly guests were about to depart Peter in a great rapture and ecstasie of mind addressed himself to our Saviour telling him how infinitely they were pleased and delighted with their being there and to that purpose desiring his leave that they might erect three Tabernacles one for him one for Moses and one for Elias While he was thus saying a bright cloud suddenly over-shadowed and wrapt them up out of which came a voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him which when the Apostles heard and saw the cloud coming over them they were seised with a great consternation and fell upon their faces to the ground whom our Lord gently touched bade them arise and disband their fears whereupon looking up they saw none but their Master the rest having vanished and disappeared In memory of these great transactions Bede tells us that in pursuance of S. Peter's petition about the three Tabernacles there were afterwards three Churches built upon the top of this Mountain which in after times were had in great veneration which might possibly give some foundation to 〈◊〉 report which one makes that in his time there were shew'd the ruines of those three Tabernacles which were built according to S. Peter's desire 6. After this our Lord and his Apostle's having travelled through Galilce the gatherers of the Tribute-money came to Peter and asked him whether his Master was not obliged to pay the Tribute which God under the Mosaick Law commanded to be yearly paid by every Jew above Twenty years old to the use of the Temple which so continued to the times of Vespatian under whom the Temple being destroyed it was by him transferred to the use of the Capitol at Rome being to the value of half a Shekel or Fifteen pence of our money To this question of theirs Peter positively answers yes knowing his Master would never be backward either to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's or to God the things that are God's Peter going into the house
and to bring him word pretending that he would come and worship him also 11. The Wise men prosecuted the business of their journey and having heard the King they departed and the Star which as it seems attended their motion went before them until it came and stood over where the young Child was where when they saw the Star they rejoyced with exceeding great joy Such a Joy as is usual to wearied Travellers when they are entring into their Inne such a joy as when our hopes and greatest longings are laying hold upon the proper objects of their desires a joy of certainty immediately before the possession for that is the greatest Joy which possesses before it is satisfied and rejoyces with a joy not abated by the surfeits of possession but heightned with all the apprehensions and fancies of hope and the neighbourhood of fruition a joy of Nature of Wonder and of Religion And now their hearts laboured with a throng of spirits and passions and ran into the house to the embracement of Jesus even before their feet But when they were come into the house they saw the young Child with Mary his mother And possibly their expectation was something lessened and their wonder heightned when they saw their hope empty of pomp and gayety the great King's Throne to be a Manger a Stable to his Chamber of presence a thin Court and no Ministers and the King himself a pretty Babe and but that he had a Star over his head nothing to distinguish him from the common condition of children or to excuse him from the miseries of a poor and empty fortune 12. This did not scandalize those wise persons but being convinced by that Testimony from Heaven and the union of all Circumstances they fell down and worshipped him after the manner of the Easterlings when they do veneration to their Kings not with an empty Ave and gay blessing of fine words but they bring presents and come into his Courts for when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him gifts Gold Frankincense and Myrrh And if these Gifts were mysterious beyond the acknowledgment of him to be the King of the Jews and Christ that should come into the world Frankincense might signifie him to be acknowledged a God Myrrh to be a Man and Gold to be a King Unless we chuse by Gold to signifie the acts of Mercy by Myrrh the Chastity of minds and Purity of our bodies to the incorruption of which Myrrh is especially instrumental and by 〈◊〉 we intend our Prayers as the most apt presents and oblations to the honour and service of this young King But however the fancies of Religion may represent variety of Idea's the act of Adoration was direct and religious and the Myrrh was medicinal to his tender body the Incense possibly no more than was necessary in a Stable the first throne of his Humility and the Gold was a good Antidote against the present indigencies of his Poverty Presents such as were used in all the Levant especially in Arabia and Saba to which the growth of Myrrh and Frankincense were proper in their addresses to their God and to their King and were instruments with which under the veil of Flesh they worshipped the Eternal Word the Wisdom of God under infant Innocency the Almighty Power in so great Weakness and under the lowness of Humane nature the altitude of Majesty and the infinity of Divine Glory And so was verified the prediction of the Prophet Esay under the type of the son of the Prophetess Before a child shall have knowledge to cry My Father and my Mother he shall take the spoil of Damascus and Samaria from before the King of Assyria 13. When they had paid the tribute of their Offerings and Adoration Being warned in their sleep by an Angel not to return to Herod they returned into their own countrey another way where having been satisfied with the pleasures of Religion and taught by that rare demonstration which was made by Christ how Man's Happiness did nothing at all consist in the affluence of worldly Possessions or the tumours of Honour having seen the Eternal Son of God poor and weak and unclothed of all exteriour Ornaments they renounced the World and retired empty into the recesses of Religion and the delights of Philosophy Ad SECT IV. Considerations upon the Apparition of the Angels to the Shepherds 1. WHen the Angels saw that come to pass which Gabriel the great Embassador of God had declared that which had been prayed for and expected four thousand years and that by the merits of this new-born Prince their younger brethren and inferiours in the order of Intelligent creatures were now to be redeemed that Men should partake the glories of their secret habitations and should fill up those void places which the fall of Lucifer and the third part of the Stars had made their joy was great as their understanding and these mountains did leap with joy because the valleys were filled with benediction and a fruitful shower from Heaven And if at the Conversion of one sinner there is jubilation and a festival kept among the Angels how great shall we imagine this rejoycing to be when Salvation and Redemption was sent to all the World But we also to whom the joy did more personally relate for they rejoyced for our sakes should learn to estimate the grace done us and believe there is something very extraordinary in the Piety and Salvation of a man when the Angels who in respect of us are unconcern'd in the communications rejoyce with the joy of Conquerors or persons suddenly 〈◊〉 from tortures and death 2. But the Angels also had other motions for besides the pleasures of that joy which they had in beholding Humane nature so highly exalted and that God was Man and Man was God they were transported with admiration at the ineffable Counsel of God's Predestination prostrating themselves with adoration and modesty seeing God so humbled and Man so changed and so full of charity that God stooped to the condition of Man and Man was inflam'd beyond the love of Seraphims and was made more knowing than Cherubims more established than Thrones more happy than all the orders of Angels The issue of this consideration teaches us to learn their Charity and to exterminate all the intimations and beginnings of Envy that we may as much rejoyce at the good of others as of our selves for then we love good for God's sake when we love good whereever God hath placed it and that joy is charitable which overflows our neighbours fields when our selves are unconcerned in the personal accruements for so we are made partakers of all that fear God when Charity unites their joy to ours as it makes us partakers of their common sufferings 3. And now the Angels who had adored the Holy Jesus in Heaven come also to pay their homage to him upon Earth and laying aside their flaming swords they
take into their hands instruments of musick and sing Glory be to God on high First signifying to us that the Incarnation of the Holy Jesus was a very great instrument of the glorification of God and those divine Perfections in which he is chiefly pleased to communicate himself to us were in nothing manifested so much as in the mysteriousness of this work Secondly And in vain doth man satisfie himself with complacencies and ambitious designs upon earth when he sees before him God in the form of a servant humble and poor and crying and an infant full of need and weakness 4. But God hath pleased to reconcile his Glory with our eternal Benefit and that also was part of the Angels song In earth peace to men of good will For now we need not with Adam to fly from the presence of the Lord saying I heard thy voice and I was afraid and hid my self for he from whom our sins made us once to flie now weeps and is an infant in his Mother's arms seeking strange means to be reconciled to us hath forgotten all his anger and is swallowed up with love and 〈◊〉 with irradiations of amorous affections and good will and the effects of this good will are not referred only to persons of heroical and eminent graces and operations of vast and expensive charities of prodigious abstinencies of eremitical retirements of ascetical diet of perfect Religion and canoniz'd persons but to all men of good will whose Souls are hallowed with holy purposes and pious desires though the beauties of the Religion and holy thoughts were not spent in exterior acts nor called out by the opportunities of a rich and expressive fortune 5. But here we know where the seat and regiment of Peace is placed and all of it must pass by us and descend upon us as duty and reward It proceeds from the Word Incarnate from the Son of God undertaking to reconcile us to his Father and it is ministred and consigned unto us by every event and act of Providence whether it be decyphered in characters of paternal Indulgence or of Correction or Absolution For that is not Peace from above to have all things according to our humane and natural wishes but to be in favour with God that is Peace always remembring that to be chastised by him is not a certain testimony of his mere wrath but to all his servants a character of love and of paternal provision since he chastises every son whom he receives Whosoever seeks to avoid all this world's Adversity can never find Peace but he only who hath resolved all his Affections and placed them in the heart of God he who denies his own Will and hath killed Self-love and all those enemies within that make Afflictions to become Miseries indeed and full of bitterness he only enjoys this Peace and in proportion to every man's Mortification and Self-denial so are the degrees of his Peace and this is the Peace which the Angel proclaimed at the enunciation of that Birth which taught Humility and Contempt of things below and all their vainer glories by the greatest argument in the world even the Poverty of God incarnate And if God sent his own natural only-begotten and beloved Son in all the 〈◊〉 of Poverty and contempt that person is vain who thinks God will love him better than he loved his own Son or that he will express his love any other or gentler way than to make him partaker of the fortune of his eldest Son There is one other postern to the dwellings of Peace and that is good will to Men for so much Charity as we have to others such a measure of Peace also we may enjoy at home For Peace was only proclaimed to Men of good will to them that are at peace with God and all the World 6. But the Angel brought the Message to Shepherds to persons simple and mean and humble persons likely to be more apprehensive of the Mystery and less of the Scandal of the Poverty of the Messias for they whose custom or affections dwell in secular Pomps who are not used by Charity or Humility to stoop to an Evenness and consideration of their brethren of equal natures though of unequal fortunes are persons of all the world most indisposed and removed from the understanding of spiritual excellencies especially when they do not come clothed with advantages of the world and of such beauties which they admire God himself in Poverty comes in a prejudice to them that love Riches and Simplicity is Folly to crafty persons a Mean birth is an ignoble stain Beggery is a scandal and the Cross an unanswerable objection But the Angel's moral in the circumstance of his address and inviting the poor Shepherds to Bethlehem is That none are fit to come to Christ but those who are poor in spirit despisers of the world simple in their hearts without craft and secular designs and therefore neither did the Angel tell the story to Herod nor to the Scribes and Pharisees whose ambition had ends contradictory to the simplicity and poverty of the Birth of Jesus 7. These Shepherds when they conversed with Angels were watching over their flocks by night no Revellers but in a painful and dangerous imployment the work of an honest Calling securing their Folds against incursions of wild beasts which in those Countries are not seldom or infrequent And Christ being the great Shepherd and possibly for the analogie's sake the sooner manifested to Shepherds hath made his Ministers overseers of their Flocks distinguished in their particular Folds and conveys the mysteriousness of his Kingdom first to the Pastors and by their ministery to the Flocks But although all of them be admitted to the ministery yet those only to the interiour recesses and nearer imitations of Jesus who are watchful over their Flocks assiduous in their labours painful in their sufferings present in the dangers of the Sheep ready to interpose their persons and sacrifice their lives these are Shepherds who first converse with Angels and finally shall enter into the presence of the Lord. But besides this symbol we are taught in the significations of the letter That he that is diligent in the business of an honest Calling is then doing service to God and a work so pleasing to him who hath appointed the sons of men to labour that to these Shepherds he made a return and recompence by the conversation of an Angel and hath advanced the reputation of an honest and a mean imployment to such a testimony of acceptance that no honest person though busied in meaner offices may ever hereafter in the estimation of Christ's disciples become contemptible 8. The signs which the Angel gave to discover the Babe were no marks of Lustre and Vanity but they should find 1. a Babe 2. swadled 3. lying in a Manger the first a testimony of his Humility the second of his Poverty the third of his Incommodity and uneasiness for Christ came to combate