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
of his Neighbour-creatures the skins of Beasts 〈◊〉 hair and a Leathern girdle and herein he literally made good the character of Elias who is described as an hairy man girt with a Leathern girdle about his Loins His Diet suitable to his Garb his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Locusts accounted by all Nations amongst the meanest and vilest sorts of food wild honey such as the natural artifice and labour of the Bees had stored up in caverns and hollow Trees without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up Indeed his abstinence was so great and his food so unlike other Mens that the Evangelist says of him that he came neither eating nor drinking as if he had eaten nothing or at least what was worth nothing But Meat commends us not to God it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of Heaven The place of his abode was not in Kings houses in stately and delicate Palaces but where he was born and bred the Wilderness of Judaea he was in the Desarts until the time of his shewing unto Israel Divine grace is not consined to particular places it is not the holy City or the Temple at Mount Sion makes us nearer unto Heaven God can when he please consecrate a Desart into a Church make us gather Grapes among Thorns and Religion become fruitful in a barren Wilderness 4. PREPARED by so singular an Education and furnished with an immediate Commission from God he entred upon the actual administration of his Office In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr calls him the Herald to Proclaim the first approach of the Holy Jesus his whole Ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him For this is he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias saying The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight He told the 〈◊〉 that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand and his Kingdom ready to appear that the Son of God was come down from Heaven a Person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest Offices that he came to introduce a new and better state of things to enlighten the World with the clearest Revelations of the Divine will and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaic Dispensation and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows and to open a Fountain of grace and fulness to Mankind to remove that state of guilt into which humane nature was so deeply sunk and as the Lamb of God by the expiatory Sacrifice of 〈◊〉 to take away the sin of the World not like the continual Burnt-offering the Lamb offered Morning and Evening only for the sins of the House of Israel but for Jew and Gentile Barbarian and Scythian bond and free he told them that God had a long time born with the sins of Men and would now bring things to a quicker issue and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the Gospel that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external priviledges the Fatherhood of Abraham and their being God's select and peculiar People that God would raise up to himself another Generation a Posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles who should walk in his steps in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience and that if all this did not move them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance the Axe was laid to the root of the Tree to extirpate their Church and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable Fire His free and resolute preaching together with the great severity of his life procured him a vast Auditory and numerous Proselytes for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and the Region round about Jordan Persons of all ranks and orders of all Sects and Opinions 〈◊〉 and Sadducees Souldiers and Publicans whose Vices he impartially censured and condemned and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations Those whom he gained over to be Proselytes to his Doctrine he entred into this new Institution of life by Baptism and hence he derived his Title of the Baptist a solemn and usual way of initiating Proselytes no less than Circumcision and of great antiquity in the Jewish Church In all times says Maimonides if any Gentile would enter into Covenant remain under the wings of the Schechina or Divine Majesty and take upon him the yoke of the Law he is bound to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering and if a Woman Baptism and an Oblation because it is said As ye are so shall the stranger be as ye your selves 〈◊〉 into Covenant by Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering so ought the Proselyte also in all Ages to enter in Though this last he confesses is to be omitted during their present state of desolation and to be made when their Temple shall be rebuilt This Rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the Law So Maimonides By three things says he the Israelites entred into Covenant he means the National Covenant at Mount Sinai by Circumcision Baptism and an Oblation Baptism being used some little time before the Law which he proves from that place 〈◊〉 the People to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes This the Rabbines unanimously expound concerning Baptism and expresly affirm that where-ever we read of the Washing of Clothes there an obligation to Baptism is intended Thus they entred into the first Covenant upon the frequent violations whereof God having promised to make a new and solemn Covenant with them in the times of the Messiah they expected a second Baptism as that which should be the Rite of their Initiation into it And this probably is the reason why the Apostle writing to the Hebrews speaks of the Doctrin of Baptisms in the plural number as one of the primary and elementary Principles of the faith wherein the Catechumens were to be instructed meaning that besides the Baptism whereby they had been initiated into the Mosaic Covenant there was another by which they were to enter into this new 〈◊〉 that was come upon the World Hence the Sanhedrim to whom the cognizance of such cases did peculiarly appertain when told of John's Baptism never expressed any wonder at it as a new upstart Ceremony it being a thing daily practised in their Church nor found fault
with the thing it self which they supposed would be a federal Rite under the dispensation of the Messiah but only quarrelled with him for taking upon him to administer it when yet he denied himself to be one of the prime Ministers of this new state They said unto him why baptizest thou then if thou be not that Christ nor 〈◊〉 neither that 〈◊〉 Either of which had he owned himself they had not questioned his right to enter Proselytes by this way of Baptism It is called the Baptism of Repentance this being the main qualification that he required of those who took it upon them as the fittest means to dispose them to receive the Doctrine and Discipline of the Messiah and to intitle them to that pardon of sin which the Gospel brought along with it whence he is said to baptize in the Wilderness and to preach the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And the success was answerable infinite Multitudes flocking to it and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins Nor is it the least part of his happiness that he had the honour to baptize his Saviour which though modestly declined our Lord put upon him and was accompanied with the most signal and miraculous attestations which Heaven could bestow upon it 5. AFTER his Preparatory Preachings in the Wilderness he was called to Court by Herod at least he was his frequent Auditor was much delighted with his plain and impartial Sermons and had a mighty reverence for him the gravity of his Person the strictness of his Manners the freedom of his Preaching commanding an awe and veneration from his Conscience and making him willing in many things to reform But the bluntness of the holy Man came nearer and touched the King in the tenderest part smartly reproving his adultery and incestuous embraces for that Prince kept Herodias his Brother Philip's Wife And now all corrupt interests were awakened to conspire his ruine Extravagant Lusts love not to be controll'd and check'd Herodias resents the asfront cannot brook disturbance in the pleasures of her Bed or the open challenging of her honour and therefore by all the arts of Feminine subtlety meditates revenge The issue was the Baptist is cast into Prison as the praeludium to a sadder fate For among other pleasures and scenes of mirth performed upon the King's Birth-day Herod being infinitely pleased with the Dancing of a young Lady Daughter of this Herodias promised to give her Her request and solemnly ratified his promise with an Oath She prompted by her Mother asks the Head of John the Baptist which the King partly out of a pretended reverence to his Oath partly out of a desire not to be interrupted in his unlawful pleasures presently granted and it was as quickly accomplished Thus died the Holy man a man strict in his conversation beyond the ordinary measures of an Anchoret bold and resolute faithful and impartial in his Office indued with the power and spirit of Elias a burning and a shining light under whose light the Jews rejoyced to sit exceedingly taken with his temper and principles He was the happy Messenger of the Evangelical tidings and in that respect more than a Prophet a greater not arising among them that were born of Women In short he was a Man loved of his Friends revered and honoured by his Enemies Josephus gives this character of him that he was a good man and pressed the Jews to the study of vertue to the practice of picty towards God and justice and righteousness towards men and to joyn themselves to his Baptism which he told them would then become effectual and acceptable to God when they did not only cleanse the body but purifie the mind by goodness and vertue And though he gives somewhat a different account of Herod's condemning him to dic from what is assigned in the Sacred History yet he confesses that the Jews universally looked upon the putting him to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod's Army and an evident effect of the Divine vengeance and displeasure The Jews in their Writings make honourable mention of his being put to death by Herod because reproving him for the company of his Brother Philip's Wife stiling him Rabbi Johanan the High-Priest and reckoning him one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the wise men of Israel Where he is called High-Priest probably with respect to his being the Son of Zachariah Head or Chief of one of the XXIV Families or courses of the Priests who are many times called Chief or High-Priests in Scripture 6. THE Evangelical state being thus proclaimed and ushered in by the Preaching and Ministry of the Baptist our Lord himself appeared next more fully to publish and confirm it concerning whose Birth Life Death and Resurrection the Doctrine he delivered the Persons he deputed to Preach and convey it to the World and its success by the Ministry of the Apostles large particular accounts are given in the following work That which may be proper and material to observe in this place is what the Scripture so frequently takes notice of the excellency of this above the preceding dispensations especially that brought in by Moses so much magnified in the Old Testament and so passionately admired and adhered to by the Jews at this day Jesus is the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls it of a better Covenant And better it is in several regards besides the infinite difference between the Persons who were imployed to introduce and settle them Moses and our Lord. The preheminence eminently appears in many instances whereof we shall remark the most considerable And first the Mosaick dispensation was almost wholly made up of types and shadows the Evangelical has brought in the truth and substance The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Their Ordinances were but shadows of good things to come sensible representations of what was to follow after the Body is Christ the perfection and accomplishment of their whole ritual Ministration Their Ceremonies were Figures of those things that are true the Land of Canaan typified Heaven Moses and Joshua were types of the Blessed Jesus and the Israelites after the flesh of the true Israel which is after the Spirit and all their Expiatory Sacrifices did but represent that Great Sacrifice whereby Christ offered up himself and by his own bloud purged away the sins of mankind indeed the most minute and inconsiderable circumstances of the Legal Oeconomy were intended as little lights that might gradually usher in the state of the Gospel A curious Artist that designs a famous and excellent piece is not wont to complete and finish it all at once but first with his Pencil draws some rude lines and rough draughts before he puts his last hand to it By such a method the wise God seems to have delivered the first draughts and Images of those things by Moses to the Church the substance
the whole body of Sin and to destroy every Province of Satan's Kingdom for these are direct antinomies to the Lusts of the flesh the Last of the eyes and the Pride of life Against the first Christ opposed his hard and uneasie Lodging against the second the poorness of his Swadling-bands and Mantle and the third is combated by the great dignation and descent of Christ from a Throne of Majesty to the state of a sucking Babe And these are the first Lessons he hath taught us for our imitation which that we may the better do as we must take him for our pattern so also for our helper and pray to the Holy Child and he will not only teach us but also give us power and ability The PRAYER O Blessed and Eternal Jesu at whose Birth the Quires of Angels sang praises to God and proclaimed peace to Men sanctifie my Will and inferiour Affections make me to be within the conditions of Peace that I be holy and mortified a despiser of the world and exteriour vanities humble and charitable that by thy eminent example I may be so fixed in the designs and prosecution of the Ends of God and a blissful Eternity that I be unmoved with the terrors of the world unaltered with its allurements and seductions not ambitious of its honour not desirous of its fulness and plenty but make me diligent in the imployment thou givest me faithful in discharge of my trust modest in my desires content in the issues of thy Providence that in such dispositions I may receive and entertain visitations from Heaven and Revelations of the Mysteries and blisses Evangelical that by such directions I may be brought into thy presence there to see thy Beauties and admire thy Graces and imitate all thy imitable Excellencies and rest in thee for ever in this world by the perseverance of a holy and comfortable life and in the world to come in the participation of thy essential Glories and Felicities O Blessed and Eternal Jesus Considerations of the Epiphany of the B. Jesus by a Star and the Adoration of Jesus by the Eastern Magi. 1. GOD who is the universal Father of all Men at the Nativity of the Messias gave notice of it to all the World as they were represented by the grand Division of Jews and Gentiles to the Jewish Shepherds by an Angel to the Eastern Magi by a Star For the Gospel is of universal dissemination not confined within the limits of a national Prerogative but Catholick and diffused As God's Love was so was the dispensation of it without respect of persons for all being included under the curse of Sin were to him equal and indifferent undistinguishable objects of Mercy And Jesus descended of the Jews was also the expectation of the Gentiles and therefore communicated to all the Grace of God being like the air we breathe and it hath appeared to all men saith S. Paul but the conveyances and communications of it were different in the degrees of clarity and illustration The Angel told the Shepherds the story of the Nativity plainly and literally The Star invited the Wise men by its rareness and preternatural apparition to which also as by a foot-path they had been led by the Prophecy of Balaam 2. But here first the Grace of God prevents us without him we can do nothing he lays the first Stone in every Spiritual Building and then expects by that strength he first gave us that we make the Superstructures But as a Stone thrown into a River first moves the water and disturbs its surface into a Circle and then its own force wafts the neighbouring drops into a larger figure by its proper weight so is the Grace of God the first principle of our spiritual motion and when it moves us into its own figure and hath actuated and ennobled our natural Powers by the influence of that first incentive we continue the motion and enlarge the progress But as the Circle on the face of the waters grows weaker till it hath smoothed it self into a natural and even current unless the force be renewed or continued so does all our natural endeavour when first set a-work by God's preventing Grace decline to the imperfection of its own kind unless the same force be made energetical and operative by the continuation and renewing of the same supernatural influence 3. And therefore the Eastern Magi being first raised up into wonder and curiosity by the apparition of the Star were very far from finding Jesus by such general and indefinite significations but then the goodness of God's Grace increased its own influence for an inspiration from the Spirit of God admonished them to observe the Star shewed the Star that they might find it taught them to acknowledge it instructed them to understand its purpose and invited them to follow it and never left them till they had found the Holy Jesus Thus also God deals with us He gives us the first Grace and adds the second he enlightens our Understandings and actuates our Faculties and sweetly allures us by the proposition of Rewards and wounds us with the arrows of his Love and inflames us with fire from Heaven ever giving us new assistances or increasing the old refreshing us with comforts or arming us with patience sometimes stirring our affections by the lights held out to our Understanding sometimes bringing confirmation to our understanding by the motion of our Affections till by variety of means we at last arrive at Lethlehem in the service and entertainments of the Holy Jesus Which we shall certainly do if we follow the invitations of Grace and exteriour assistances which are given us to instruct us to help us and to invite us but not to force our endeavours and cooperations 4. As it was an unsearchable wisdom so it was an unmeasurable grace of Providence and dispensation which God did exhibit to the Wise men to them as to all men disposing the Ministeries of his Grace sweetly and by proportion to the capacities of the person suscipient For God called the Gentiles by such means which their Customs and Learning had made prompt and easie For these Magi were great Philosophers and Astronomers and therefore God sent a miraculous Star to invite and lead them to a new and more glorious light the lights of Grace and Glory And God so blessed them in following the Star to which their innocent Curiosity and national Customs were apt to lead them that their Custom was changed to Grace and their Learning heightned with Inspiration and God crowned all with a spiritual and glorious event It was not much unlike which God did to the Princes and Diviners among the Philistines who sent the Ark back with five golden Emrods and five golden Mice an act proportionable to the Custom and sense of their Nation and Religion yet God accepted their opinion and divination to the utmost end they designed it and took the plagues of Emrods and Mice from them For
oftentimes the Custom or the Philosophy of the opinions of a Nation are made instrumental through God's acceptance to ends higher than they can produce by their own energy and intendment And thus the Astrological Divinations of the Magi were turned into the order of a greater design than the whole Art could promise their imployment being altered into Grace and Nature into a Miracle But then when the Wise men were brought by this means and had seen Jesus then God takes ways more immediate and proportionable to the Kingdom of Grace the next time God speaks to them by an Angel For so is God's usual manner to bring us to him first by ways agreeable to us and then to increase by ways agreeable to himself And when he hath furnished us with new capacities he gives new Lights in order to more perfect imployments and To him that hath shall be given full measure pressed down shaken together and running over the eternal kindness of God being like the Sea which delights to run in its old Chanel and to fill the hollownesses of the Earth which it self hath made and hath once watered 5. This Star which conducted the Wise men to Bethlehem if at least it was proproperly a Star and not an Angel was set in its place to be seen by all but was not observed or not understood nor its message obeyed by any but the three Wise men And indeed no man hath cause to complain of God as if ever he would be deficient in assistances necessary to his Service but first the Grace of God separates us from the common condition of incapacity and indisposition and then we separate our selves one from another by the use or neglect of this Grace and God doing his part to us hath cause to complain of us who neglect that which is our portion of the work And however even the issues and the kindnesses of God's Predestination and antecedent Mercy do very much toward the making the Grace to be effective of its purpose yet the manner of all those influences and operations being moral perswasive reasonable and divisible by concourse of various circumstances the cause and the effect are brought nearer and nearer in various suscipients but not brought so close together but that God expects us to do something towards it so that we may say with S. Paul It is not I but the Grace of God that is with me and at the same time when by reason of our cooperation we actuate and improve God's Grace and become distinguished from other persons more negligent under the same opportunities God is he who also does distinguish us by the proportions and circumstantiate applications of his Grace to every singular capacity that we may be careful not to neglect the Grace and yet to return the intire glory to God 6. Although God to second the generous design of these wise personages in their Enquiry of the new Prince made the Star to guide them through the difficulties of their journey yet when they came to Jerusalem the Star disappeared God so resolving to try their Faith and the activity of their desires to remonstrate to them that God is the Lord of all his Creatures and a voluntary Dispenser of his own favours and can as well take them away as indulge them and to engage them upon the use of ordinary means and ministeries when they are to be had for now the extraordinary and miraculous Guide for a time did cease that they being at Jerusalem might enquire of them whose office and profession of sacred Mysteries did oblige them to publish the MESSIAS For God is so great a lover of Order so regular and certain an exactor of us to use those ordinary ministeries of his own appointing that he having used the extraordinary but as Architects do frames of wood to support the Arches till they be built takes them away when the work is ready and leaves us to those other of his designation and hath given such efficacy to these that they are as perswasive and operative as a Miracle and S. Paul's Sermon would convert as many as if Moses should rise from the grave And now the Doctrines of Christianity have not only the same truth but the same evidence and virtue also they had in the midst of those prime demonstrations extraordinary by Miracle and Prophecy if men were equally disposed 7. When they were come to the Doctors of the Jews they asked confidently and with great openness under the ear and eye of a Tyrant Prince bloudy and timorous jealous and ambitious Where is he that is born King of the Jews and so gave evidence of their Faith of their Magnanimity and fearless confidence and profession of it and of their love of the mystery and object in pursuance of which they had taken so troublesome and vexatious journeys and besides that they upbraided the tepidity and 〈◊〉 baseness of the Jewish Nation who stood unmoved and unconcerned by all the Circumstances of wonder and stirred not one step to make enquiry after or to visit the new-born King they also teach us to be open and confident in our Religion and Faith and not to consider our temporal when they once come to contest against our Religious interests 8. The Doctors of the Jews told the Wise men where Christ was to be born the Magi they address themselves with haste to see him and to worship and the Doctors themselves stir not God not only serving himself with truth out of the mouths of impious persons but magnifying the recesses of his Counsel and Wisdom and Predestination who uses the same Doctrine to glorifie himself and to confound his enemies to save the Scholars and to condemn the Tutors to instruct one and upbraid the other making it an instrument of Faith and a conviction of Infidelity the Sermons of the Doctors in such cases being like the spoils of Bevers Sheep and Silk-worms design'd to clothe others and are made the occasions of their own nakedness and the causes of their death But as it is a demonstration of the Divine Wisdom so it is of humane Folly there being no greater imprudence in the world than to do others advantage and to neglect our own If thou dost well unto thy 〈◊〉 men will speak good of thee but if thou beest like a Chanel in a Garden through which the water runs to cool and moisten the herbs but nothing for its own use thou buildest a fortune to them upon the ruines of thine own house while after thy preaching to others thou thy self dost become a cast-away 9. When the Wise men departed from Jerusalem the Star again appeared and they rejoyced with exceeding great joy and indeed to new Converts and persons in their first addresses to the worship of God such spiritual and exterior Comforts are often indulged because then God judges them to be most necessary as being invitations to Duty by the entertainments of our affections with such
our necessity be great and our sin clamorous and our Conscience loaden and no peace to be had without it and it is well if upon any reasonable grounds we can be brought to suffer contradictions of nature for the advantages of Grace But it would be remembred that the Baptist did more upon a less necessity and possibly the greatness of the example may entice us on a little farther than the customs of the World or our own indevotions would engage us 4. But after the expiration of a definite time John came forth from his Solitude and served God in Societies He served God and the content of his own spirit by his conversing with Angels and Dialogues with God so long as he was in the Wilderness and it might be some trouble to him to mingle with the impurities of Men amongst whom he was sure to observe such recesses from perfection such violation of all things sacred so great despite done to all ministeries of Religion that to him who had no experience or neighbourhood of actions criminal it must needs be to his sublim'd and clarified spirit more punitive and affictive than his hairen shirt and his ascetick diet was to his body but now himself that tried both was best able to judge which state of life was of greatest advantage and perfection 5. In his Solitude he did breath more pure inspiration Heaven was more open God was more familiar and frequent in his visitations In the Wilderness his company was Angels his imployment Meditations and Prayer his Temptations simple and from within from the impotent and lesser rebellions of a mortified body his occasions of sin as few as his examples his condition such that if his Soul were at all busie his life could not easily be other than the life of Angels for his work and recreation and his visits and his retirements could be nothing but the variety and differing circumstances of his Piety his inclinations to Society made it necessary for him to repeat his addresses to God for his being a sociable Creature and yet in solitude made that his conversing with God and being partaker of Divine communications should be the satisfaction of his natural desires and the supply of his singularity and retirement the discomforts of which made it natural for him to seck out for some refreshment and therefore to go to Heaven for it he having rejected the solaces of the World already And all this besides the innocencies of his silence which is very great and to be judged of in proportion to the infinite extravagancies of our language there being no greater perfection here to be expected than not to offend in our tongue It was solitude and retirement in which Jesus kept his Vigils the Desart places heard him pray in a privacy he was born in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he fed his thousands upon a Mountain apart he was transfigured upon a Mountain he died and from a Mountain he 〈◊〉 to his Father in which Retirements his Devotion certainly did receive the advantage of convenient circumstances and himself in such dispositions twice had the opportunities of Glory 6. And yet after all these Excellencies the Spirit of God called the Baptist forth to a more excellent Ministery for in Solitude pious persons might go to Heaven by the way of Prayers and Devotion but in Society they might go to Heaven by the way of Mercy and Charity and dispensations to others In Solitude there are fewer occasions of Vices but there is also the exercise of fewer Vertues and the Temptations though they be not from many Objects yet are in some Circumstances more dangerous not only because the worst of evils spiritual Pride does seldom miss to creep upon those goodly Oaks like Ivy and suck their heart out and a great Mortifier without some complacencies in himself or affectations or opinions or something of singularity is almost as unusual as virgin-purity and unstained thoughts in the Bordelli S. Hierom had tried it and found it so by experience and he it was that said so but also because whatsoever temptation does invade such retired persons they have privacies enough to act it in and no eyes upon them but the eye of Heaven no shame to encounter withal no fears of being discovered and we know by experience that a Witness of our conversation is a great restraint to the inordination of our actions Men seek out darknesses and secrecies to commit a sin and The evil that no man sees no man reproves and that makes the Temptation bold and confident and the iniquity easie and ready So that as they have not so many tempters as they have abroad so neither have they so many restraints their vices are not so many but they are more dangerous in themselves and to the World safe and opportune And as they communicate less with the World so they do less Charity and fewer offices of Mercy no Sermons there but when solitude is made popular and the City removes into the Wilderness no comforts of a publick Religion or visible remonstrances of the Communion of Saints and of all the kinds of spiritual Mercy only one can there properly be exercised and of the corporal none at all And this is true in lives and institutions of less retirement in proportion to the degree of the Solitude and therefore Church story reports of divers very holy persons who left their Wildernesses and sweetnesses of Devotion in their retirement to serve God in publick by the ways of Charity and exteriour offices Thus S. Antony and Acepsamas came forth to encourage the fainting people to contend to death for the Crown of Martyrdom and Aphraates in the time of Valens the Arian Emperor came abroad to assist the Church in the suppressing the flames kindled by the Arian Faction And upon this ground they that are the greatest admirers of Eremitical life call the Episcopal Function the State of perfection and a degree of ministerial and honorary excellency beyond the pieties and contemplations of Solitude because of the advantages of gaining Souls and Religious conversation and going to God by doing good to others 7. John the Baptist united both these lives and our Blessed Saviour who is the great Precedent of Sanctity and Prudence hath determined this question in his own instance for he lived a life common sociable humane charitable and publick and yet for the opportunities of especial Devotion retir'd to prayer and contemplation but came forth speedily for the Devil never set upon him but in the Wilderness and by the advantage of retirement For as God hath many so the Devil hath some opportunities of doing his work in our solitariness But Jesus reconcil'd both and so did John the Baptist in several degrees and manners and from both we are taught that Solitude is a good School and the World is the best Theatre the Institution is best there but the Practice here the Wilderness hath the advantage
Man if they pass through an even and an indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course they are little and within command but if they pass upon an end or aim of difficulty or ambition they duplicate and grow to a 〈◊〉 and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of Innocence but the Temptation of busie designs is too great even for the best of dispositions 7. But these Temptations are crasse and material and soon discernible it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial For he hath Apples to cousen Children and Gold for Men the Kingdoms of the World for the Ambition of Princes and the Vanities of the World for the Intemperate he hath Discourses and fair-spoken Principles to abuse the pretenders to Reason and he hath common Prejudices for the more vulgar understandings Amongst these I chuse to consider such as are by way of Principle or Proposition 8. The first great Principle of Temptation I shall note is a general mistake which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of Infirmity calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined though by carelesness and evil customs they are heightned to a habit by the name of Sins of infirmity to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend If when they have committed a crime their Conscience checks them and they are troubled and during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire resolve against it and commit it readily at the next opportunity then they cry out against the weakness of their Nature and think as long as this body of death is about them it must be thus and that this condition may stand with the state of Grace And then the Sins shall return periodically like the revolutions of a Quartan Ague well and ill for ever till Death surprizes the mistaker This is a Patron of sins and makes the Temptation prevalent by an authentick instrument and they pretend the words of S. Paul For the good that I would that I do not but the evil that I would not that I do For there is a law in my members 〈◊〉 against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin And thus the 〈◊〉 of Sin is mistaken for a state of Grace and the imperfections of the Law are miscalled the affections and necessities of Nature that they might seem to be incurable and the persons apt for an excuse therefore because for Nature there is no absolute cure But that these words of S. Paul may not become a 〈◊〉 of death and instruments of a temptation to us it is observable that the Apostle by a siction of person as is usual with him speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but under the 〈◊〉 obscurities insufficiencies and imperfections of the Law which indeed he there contends to have been a Rule good and holy apt to remonstrate our misery because by its prohibitions and limits given to natural desires it made actions before indifferent now to be sins it added many curses to the breakers of it and by an 〈◊〉 of contrariety it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful but it was a Covenant in which our Nature was restrained but not helped it was provoked but not sweetly assisted our Understandings were instructed but our Wills not sanctified and there were no suppletories of Repentance every greater sin was like the fall of an Angel irreparable by any mystery or express recorded or enjoyned Now of a man under this Govenant he describes the condition to be such that he understands his Duty but by the infirmities of Nature he is certain to fall and by the helps of the Law not strengthened against it nor restored after it and therefore he calls himself under that notion a miserable man sold under sin not doing according to the rules of the Law or the dictates of his Reason but by the unaltered misery of his Nature certain to prevaricate But the person described here is not S. Paul is not any justified person not so much as a Christian but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of Grace as will manifestly appear if we observe the antithesis from S. Paul's own characters For the Man here named is such as in whom sin wrought all concupiscence in whom sin lived and slew him so that he was dead in trespasses and sins and although he did delight in the Law after his inwardman that is his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions which afterwards he calls serving the Law of God with his mind that is in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit yet he could act nothing for the law in his members did inslave him and brought him into captivity to the law of sin so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts he was a slave to sin and dead in trespasses But the state of a regenerate person is such as to have 〈◊〉 the flesh with the affections and lusts in whom sin did not reign not only in the mind but even also not in the mortal body over whom sin had no dominion in whom the old man was crucified and the body of sin was destroyed and sin not at all served And to make the antithesis yet clearer in the very beginning of the next Chapter the Apostle saith that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death under which law he complained immediately before he was sold and killed to shew the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments No man in the state of Grace can say The evil that I would not that I do if by evil he means any evil that is habitual or in its own nature deadly 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation though but in a single act it is a condition of Carnality not of spiritual life and those are not the infirmities of Nature but the weaknesses of Grace that make us sin so frequently which the Apostle truly affirms to the same purpose The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot or that ye do not do the things that ye would This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh and weakness of the spirit For he adds But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law saying plainly that the state of such a combate and disability of doing good is a state of a man under the Law or in the flesh which he accounts all one but every man that is sanctified
under the Gospel is led by the Spirit and walks in the Spirit and brings forth the fruits of the Spirit It is not our excuse but the aggravation of our sin that we fall again in despite of so many resolutions to the contrary And let us not flatter our selves into a confidence of sin by supposing the state of Grace can stand with the Custom of any sin for it is the state either of an animalis homo as the Apostle calls him that is a man in pure naturals without the clarity of divine Revelations who cannot perceive or understand the things of God or else of the carnal man that is a person who though in his mind he is convinced yet he is not yet freed from the dominion of sin but only hath his eyes opened but not his bonds loosed For by the perpetual analogy and frequent expresses in Scripture the spiritual person or the man redeemed by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus is free from the Law and the Dominion and the Kingdom and the Power of all sin For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace 10. But sins of Infirmity in true sence of Scripture signifie nothing but the sins of an unholy and an unsanctified nature when they are taken for actions done against the strength of resolution out of the strength of natural appetite and violence of desire and therefore in Scripture the state of Sin and the state of Infirmity is all one For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly saith the Apostle the condition in which we were when Christ became a sacrifice for us was certainly a condition of sin and enmity with God and yet this he calls a being without strength or in a state of weakness and infirmity which we who believe all our strength to be derived from Christ's death and the assistance of the holy Spirit the fruit of his Ascension may soon apprehend to be the true meaning of the word And in this sence is that saying of our Blessed Saviour The whole have no need of a Physician but they that are weak for therefore Christ came into the world to save sinners those are the persons of Christ's Infirmary whose restitution and reduction to a state of life and health was his great design So that whoever sin habitually that is constantly periodically at the revolution of a temptation or frequently or easily are persons who still remain in the state of sin and death and their intervals of Piety are but preparations to a state of Grace which they may then be when they are not used to countenance or excuse the sin or to flatter the person But if the intermediate resolutions of emendation though they never run beyond the next assault of passion or desire be taken for a state of Grace blended with infirmities of Nature they become destructive of all those purposes through our mistake which they might have promoted if they had been rightly understood observed and cherished Sometimes indeed the greatness of a Temptation may become an instrument to excuse some degrees of the sin and make the man pitiable whose ruine seems almost certain because of the greatness and violence of the enemy meeting with a natural aptness but then the question will be whither and to what actions that strong Temptation carries him whether to a work of a mortal nature or only to a small irregularity that is whether to death or to a wound for whatever the principle be if the effect be death the man's case was therefore to be pitied because his ruine was the more inevitable not so pitied as to excuse him from the state of death For let the Temptation be never so strong every Christian man hath assistances sufficient to support him so as that without his own yielding no Temptation is stronger than that grace which God offers him for if it were it were not so much as a sin of infirmity it were no sin at all This therefore must be certain to us When the violence of our Passions or desires overcomes our resolutions and fairer purposes against the dictate of our Reason that indeed is a state of Infirmity but it is also of sin and death a state of Immortification because the offices of Grace are to crucifie the Old man that is our former aud impurer conversation to subdue the petulancy of our Passions to reduce them to reason and to restore Empire and dominion to the superiour Faculties So that this condition in proper speaking is not so good as the Infirmity of Grace but it is no Grace at all for whoever are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts those other imperfect ineffective resolutions are but the first approaches of the Kingdom of Christ nothing but the clarities of lightning dark as 〈◊〉 as light and they therefore cannot be excuses to us because the contrary weaknesses as we call them do not make the sin involuntary but chosen and pursued and in true speaking is the strength of the Lust not the infirmity of a state of Grace 11. But yet there is a condition of Grace which is a state of little and imperfect ones such as are called in Scripture Smoaking flax and bruised reeds which is a state of the first dawning of the Sun of Righteousness when the lights of Grace new rise upon our eyes and then indeed they are weak and have a more dangerous neighbourhood of Temptations and desires but they are not subdued by them they sin not by direct election their actions criminal are but like the slime of Nilus leaving rats half formed they sin but seldom and when they do it is in small instances and then also by surprise by inadvertency and then also they interrupt their own acts and lessen them perpetually and never do an act of sinfulness but the principle is such as makes it to be involuntary in many degrees For when the Understanding is clear and the dictate of Reason undisturbed and determinate whatsoever then produces an irregular action excuses not because the action is not made the less voluntary by it for the action is not made involuntary from any other principle but from some defect of Understanding either in act or habit or faculty For where there is no such defect there is a full deliberation according to the capacity of the man and then the act of election that follows is clear and full and is that proper disposition which makes him truly capable of punishment or reward respectively Now although in the first beginnings of Grace there is not a direct Ignorance to excuse totally yet because a sudden surprise or an inadvertency is not always in our power to prevent these things do lessen the election and freedom of the action and then because they are but seldom and never proceed to any length of time or any great instances of
crime and are every day made still more infrequent because Grace growing stronger the observation and advertency of the spirit and the attendance of the inner man grows more effectual and busie this is a state of the imperfection of Grace but a state of Grace it is And it is more commonly observed to be expressed in the imperfection of our good actions than in the irregularity of bad actions and in this sence are those words of our Blessed Saviour The Spirit 〈◊〉 is willing but the flesh is weak which in this instance was not expressed in sin but in a natural imperfection which then was a recession from a civility a not watching with the Lord. And this is the only Infirmity that can consist with the state of Grace 12. So that now we may lay what load we please upon our Nature and call our violent and unmortified desires by the name of an imperfect Grace but then we are dangerously mistaken and flatter our selves into an opinion of Piety when we are in the gall of bitterness so making our misery the more certain and irremediable because we think it needs nothing but a perpetuity and perseverance to bring us to Heaven The violence of Passion and Desires is a misery of Nature but a perfect principle of Sin multiplying and repeating the acts but not lessening the malignity But sins of Infirmity when we mean sins of a less and lower malice are sins of a less and imperfect choice because of the unavoidable imperfection of the Understanding Sins of Infirmity are always infirm sins that is weak and imperfect in their principle and in their nature and in their design that is they are actions incomplete in all their capacities but then Passions and periodical inclinations consisting with a regular and determined and actual understanding must never be their principle for whatsoever proceeds thence is destructive of spiritual life and inconsistent with the state of Grace But sins of infirmity when they pretend to a less degree of malignity and a greater degree of excuse are such as are little more than sins of pure and inculpable ignorance for in that degree in which any other principle is mixt with them in the same degree they are criminal and inexcusable For as a sin of infirmity is pretended to be little in its value and malignity so it is certain if it be great in the instance it is not a sin of infirmity that is it is a state or act of death and absolutely inconsistent with the state of Grace 13. Secondly Another Principle of Temptation pregnant with sin and fruitful of monsters is a weaker pretence which less wary and credulous persons abuse themselves withall pretending as a ground for their confidence and incorrigible pursuance of their courses that they have a Good meaning that they intend sometimes well and sometimes not ill and this shall be sufficient to sanctifie their actions and to hallow their sin And this is of worse malice when Religion is the colour for a War and the preservation of Faith made the warrant for destruction of Charity and a Zeal for God made the false light to lead us to Disobedience to Man and hatred of Idolatry is the usher of Sacriledge and the 〈◊〉 of Superstition the introducer of Profaneness and Reformation made the colour for a Schism and Liberty of conscience the way to a 〈◊〉 and saucy Heresie for the End may indeed hallow an indifferent action but can never make straight a crooked and irregular It was not enough for Saul to cry for God and the Sacrifice that he spared the fat flocks of Amalek and it would be a strange zeal and forwardness that rather than the Altar of incense should not smoak will burn Assa foetida or the marrow of a man's bones For as God will be honoured by us so also in ways of his own appointment for we are the makers of our Religion if we in our zeal for God do what he hath forbidden us And every sin committed for Religion is just such a violence done to it as it seeks to prevent or remedy 14. And so it is if it be committed for an end or pretence of Charity as well as of Religion We must be curious that no pretence engage us upon an action that is certainly criminal in its own nature Charity may sometimes require our Lives but no obligation can endear a Damnation to us we are not bound to the choice of an eternal ruine to save another Indeed so far as an Option will go it may concern the excrescences of Piety to chuse by a tacite or express act of volition to become Anathema for our brethren that is by putting a case and fiction of Law to suppose it better and wish it rather that I should perish than my Nation Thus far is charitable because it is innocent for as it is great love to our Countrey so it is no uncharitableness to our selves for such Options always are ineffective and produce nothing but rewards of Charity and a greater glory And the Holy Jesus himself who only could be and was effectively accursed to save us got by it an exceeding and mighty glorification and S. Paul did himself advantage by his charitable Devotion for his Countreymen But since God never puts the question to us so that either we or our Nation must be damned he having xt every man's final condition upon his own actions in the vertue and obedience of Christ if we mistake the expresses of Charity and suffer our selves to be damned indeed for God's glory or our Brethrens good we spoil the Duty and ruine our selves when our Option comes to act But it is observable that although Religion is often pretended to justifie a sin yet Charity is but seldom which makes it full of suspicion that Religion is but the cover to the Death's-head and at the best is but an accusing of God that he is not willing or not able to preserve Religion without our irregular and impious cooperations But however though it might concern us to wish our selves rather 〈◊〉 than Religion or our Prince or our Country should perish for I find no instances that it is lawful so much as to 〈◊〉 it for the preservation of a single friend yet it is against Charity to bring such a 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 and by sin to damn our selves really for a good end either 〈◊〉 Religion or Charity 15. Let us therefore serve God as he hath 〈◊〉 the way for all our accesses to him being acts of his free concession and grace must be by his 〈◊〉 designation and appointment We might as well have chosen what shape our 〈◊〉 should be of as of what instances the substance of our Religion should consist 16. Thirdly a third Principle of Temptation is an opinion of prosecuting actions of Civility Compliance and Society to the luxation of a point of Piety and 〈◊〉 Duty and good natures persons of humane and sweeter dispositions are
sayings of the Apostle of putting on Christ in Baptism putting on the new man c. for these only signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the design on God's part and the endeavour and duty on Man's we are then consigned to our Duty and to our Reward we undertake one and have a title to the other And though men of ripeness and Reason enter instantly into their portion of Work and have present use of the assistances and something of their Reward in hand yet we cannot conclude that those that cannot do it 〈◊〉 are not baptized rightly because they are not in capacity to put on the New man in Righteousness that is in an actual holy life for they may put on the New man in Baptism just as they are risen with Christ which because it may be done by Faith before it is done in real event and it may be done by Sacrament and design before it be done by a proper Faith so also may our putting on the New man be it is done sacramentally and that part which is wholly the work of God does only antedate the work of man which is to succeed in its due time and is after the 〈◊〉 of preventing grace But this is by the bye In order to the present Article Baptism is by 〈◊〉 called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a participation of the Lord's Resurrection 25. Fifthly and lastly By Baptism we are saved that is we are brought from death to life 〈◊〉 and that is the first Resurrection and we are brought from death to life hereafter by virtue of the Covenant of the state of Grace into which in Baptism we enter and are preserved from the second Death and receive a glorious and an eternal life He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved said our Blessed Saviour and According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renowing of the Holy Ghost 26. After these great Blessings so plainly testified in Scripture and the Doctrine of the Primitive Church which are regularly consigned and bestowed in Baptism I shall less need to descend to temporal Blessings or rare contingencies or miraculous events or probable notices of things less certain Of this nature are those Stories recorded in the Writings of the Church that Constantine was cured of a Leprosie in Baptism Theodosius recovered of his disease being baptized by the Bishop of Thessalonica and a paralytick Jew was cured as soon as he became a Christian and was baptized by Atticus of CP and Bishop Arnulph baptizing a Leper also cured him said Vincentius Bellovacensis It is more considerable which is generally and piously believed by very many eminent persons in the Church that at our Baptism God assigns an Angel-Guardian for then the Catechumen being made a Servant and a Brother to the Lord of Angels is sure not to want the aids of them who pitch their tents round about them that fear the Lord and that this guard and ministery is then appointed when themselves are admitted into the inheritance of the Promises and their title to Salvation is hugely agreeable to the words of S. Paul Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of Salvation where it appears that the title to the inheritance is the title to this ministery and therefore must begin and end together But I insist not on this though it seems to me hugely probable All these Blessings put into one Syllabus have given to Baptism many honourable appellatives in Scripture and other Divine Writers calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacramentum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 salutis A New birth a Regeneration a Renovation a Chariot carrying us to God the great Circumcision a Circumcision made without hands the Key of the Kingdom the Paranymph of the Kingdom the Earnest of our inheritance the Answer of a good Conscience the Robe of light the Sacrament of a new life and of eternal Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is celestial water springing from the sides of the Rock upon which the Church was built when the Rock was smitten with the Rod of God 27. It remains now that we enquire what concerns our Duty and in what persons or in what dispositions Baptism produces all these glorious effects for the Sacraments of the Church work in the virtue of Christ but yet only upon such as are servants of Christ and hinder not the work of the Spirit of Grace For the water of the Font and the Spirit of the Sacrament are indeed to wash away our Sins and to purifie our Souls but not unless we have a mind to be purified The Sacrament works pardon for them that hate their sin and procures Grace for them that love it They that are guilty of sins must repent of them and renounce them and they must make a profession of the Faith of Christ and give or be given up to the obedience of Christ and then they are rightly disposed He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved saith Christ and S. Peter call'd out to the whole assembly Repent and be baptized every one of you Concerning this Justin Martyr gives the same account of the Faith and practice of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Whosoever are perswaded and believe those things to be true which are delivered and spoken by us and undertake to live accordingly they are commanded to fast and pray and to ask of God remission for their former sins we also praying together with them and fasting Then they are brought to us where water is and are regenerated in the same manner of Regeneration by which we our selves are regenerated For in Baptism S. Peter observes there are two parts the Body and the Spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the putting away the 〈◊〉 of the flesh that is the material washing and this is Baptism no otherwise than a dead corps is a man the other is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the answer of a good conscience towards God that is the conversion of the Soul to God that 's the effective disposition in which Baptism does save us And in the same sence are those sayings of the Primitive Doctors to be understood Anima non lavatione sed 〈◊〉 sancitur The Soul is not healed by washing viz. alone but by the answer the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Peter the correspondent of our part of the Covenant sor that 's the perfect 〈◊〉 of this unusual expression And the effect is attributed to this and denied to the other when they are distinguished So Justin Martyr affirms The only Baptism that can heal us is Kepentance and the knowledge of God For what need is there of that Baptism that can only 〈◊〉 the flesh and the body Be washed in your flesh from wrath and 〈◊〉 from envy and hatred and behold the body is pure And Clemens Alexandrinus upon that Proverbial saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
as many persons and in as many capacities and in the same dispositions as the Promises were applied and did relate in Circumcision to the same they do belong and may be applied in Baptism And let it be remembred That the Covenant which Circumcision did sign was a Covenant of Grace and 〈◊〉 the Promises were of the Spirit or spiritual it was made before the Law and could not be rescinded by the Legal Covenant nothing could be added to it or taken from it and we that are partakers of this grace are therefore partakers of it by being Christ's servants united to Christ and so are become Abraham's seed as the Apostle at large and prosessedly proves in divers places but especially in the fourth to the 〈◊〉 and the third to the Galatians And therefore if Infants were then admitted to it and consigned to it by a Sacrament which they understood not any more than ours do there is not any reason why ours should not enter in at the ordinary gate and door of grace as well as they Their Children were circumcised the eighth day but were instructed afterwards when they could enquire what these things meant Indeed their Proselytes were first taught then circumcised so are ours baptized but their Infants were consigned first and so must ours 16. Thirdly In Baptism we are born again and this Infants need in the present circumstances and for the same great reason that men of age and reason do For our natural birth is either of it self insufficient or is made so by the Fall of Adam and the consequent evils that Nature alone or our first birth cannot bring us to Heaven which is a supernatural end that is an end above all the power of our Nature as now it is So that if Nature cannot bring us to Heaven Grace must or we can never get thither if the first birth cannot a second must but the second birth spoken of in Scripture is Baptism A man must be born of 〈◊〉 and the Spirit And therefore Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laver of a new birth Either then Infants cannot go to Heaven any way that we know of or they must be baptized To say they are to be left to God is an excuse and no answer for when God hath opened the door and calls that the entrance into Heaven we do not leave them to God when we will not carry them to him in the way which he hath described and at the door which himself hath opened we leave them indeed but it is but helpless and destitute and though God is better than man yet that is no warrant to us what it will be to the children that we cannot warrant or conjecture And if it be objected that to the New birth are required dispositions of our own which are to be wrought by and in them that have the use of Reason Besides that this is wholly against the Analogy of a New birth in which the person to be born is wholly a passive and hath put into him the principle that in time will produce its proper actions it is certain that they that can receive the new birth are capable of it The effect of it is a possibility of being saved and arriving to a supernatural felicity If Infants can receive this effect then also the New birth without which they cannot receive the effect And if they can receive Salvation the effect of the New birth what hinders them but they may receive that that is in order to that effect and ordained only for it and which is nothing of it self but in its institution and relation and which may be received by the same capacity in which one may be created that is a passivity or a capacity obediential 17. Fourthly Concerning pardon of sins which is one great effect of Baptism it is certain that 〈◊〉 have not that benefit which men of sin and age may receive He that hath a sickly stomach drinks wine and it not only refreshes his spirits but cures his stomach He that drinks wine and hath not that disease receives good by his wine though it does not minister to so many needs it refreshes though it does not cure him and when oyl is poured upon a man's head it does not always heal a wound but sometimes makes him a chearful countenance sometimes it consigns him to be a King or a Priest So it is in Baptism it does not heal the wounds of actual sins because they have not committed them but it takes off the evil of Original sin whatsoever is imputed to us by Adam's prevarication is washed off by the death of the second Adam into which we are baptized But concerning original sin because there are so many disputes which may intricate the Question I shall make use only of that which is confessed on both sides and material to our purpose Death came upon all men by Adam's sin and the necessity of it remains upon us as an evil consequent of the Disobedience For though death is natural yet it was kept off from man by God's favour which when he lost the banks were broken and the water reverted to its natural course and our nature became a curse and death a punishment Now that this also relates to Infants so far is certain because they are sick and die This the Pelagians denied not But to whomsoever this evil descended for them also a remedy is provided by the second Adam That as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive that is at the day of Judgment then death shall be destroyed In the mean time Death hath a sting and a bitterness a curse it is and an express of the Divine anger and if this sting be not taken away here we shall have no participation of the final victory over death Either therefore Infants must be for ever without remedy in this evil consequent of their Father's sin or they must be adopted into the participation of Christ's death which is the remedy Now how can they partake of Christ's death but by Baptism into his death For if there be any spiritual way 〈◊〉 it will by a stronger argument admit them to Baptism for if they can receive spiritual effects they can also receive the outward Sacrament this being denied only upon pretence they cannot have the other If there be no spiritual way extraordinary then the ordinary way is only left for them If there be an extraordinary let it be shewn and Christians will be at rest concerning their Children One thing only I desire to be observed That Pelagius denied Original Sin but yet denied not the necessity of Infants Baptism and being accused of it in an Epistle to Pope Innocent the First he purged himself of the suspicion and allowed the practice but denied the inducement of it which shews that their arts are weak that think Baptism to be useless to Infants if they be not formally guilty of the prevarication of Adam
proof of their earnest and need an earnest of the earnest For all that have the Spirit of God cannot in all instants prove it or certainly know it neither is it defined by how many indices the Spirit 's presence can be proved or figâ—â—ed And they limit the Spirit too much and understand it too little who take acâ—â—unts of his secret workings and measure them by the material lines and methods of natural and animal effects And yet because whatsoever is holy is made so by the Holy Spirit we are certain that the Children of believing that is of Christian Parents are holy S. Paul affirmed it and by it hath distinguished ours from the Children of unbelievers and our Marriages from theirs And because the Children of the Heathen when they come to choice and Reason may enter into Baptism and the Covenant if they will our Children have no priviledge beyond the Children of Turks or Heathens unless it be in the present capacity that is either by receiving the Holy Ghost immediately and the Promises or at least having a title to the Sacrament and entring by that door If they have the Spirit nothing can hinder them from a title to the 〈◊〉 ater and if they have only a title to the water of the Sacrament then they shall receive the promise of the Holy Spirit the benefits of the Sacrament else their priviledge is none at all but a dish of cold water which every Village-Nurse can provide for her new-born babe 20. But it is in our case as it was with the Jews Children Our Children are a holy seed for if it were not so with Christianity how could S. Peter move the Jews to Christianity by telling them the Promise was to them and their Children For if our Children be not capable of the Spirit of Promise and Holiness and yet their Children were holy it had been a better Argument to have kept them in the Synagogue than to have called them to the Christian Church Either therefore 1. there is some Holiness in a reasonable nature which is not from the Spirit of Holiness or else 2. our Children do receive the Holy Spirit because they are holy or if they be not holy they are in worse condition under Christ than under Moses or if none of all this be true then our Children are holy by having received the holy Spirit of Promise and consequently nothing can hinder them from being baptized 21. And indeed if the Christian 〈◊〉 whose Children are circumcised and made partakers of the same Promises and Title and Inheritance and Sacraments which themselves had at their Conversion to the Faith of Christ had seen their Children now shut out from these new Sacraments it is not to be doubted but they would have raised a strom greater than could easily have been suppressed since about their Circumcisions they 〈◊〉 raised such Tragedies and implacable disputations And there had been great reason to look for a storm for their Children were circumcised and if not baptized then they were left under a burthen which their fathers were quit of for S. Paul said Whosoever is circumcised is a debtor to keep the whole Law These Children therefore that were circumcised stood obliged for want of Baptism to perform the Law of Ceremonies to be presented into the Temple to pay their price to be redeemed with silver and gold to be bound by the Law of pollutions and carnal Ordinances and therefore if they had been thus left it would be no wonder if the Jews had complained and made a tumult they used to do it for less matters 22. To which let this be added That the first book of the New Testament was not written till eight years after Christ's Ascension and S. Mark' s Gospel twelve years In the mean time to what Scriptures did they appeal By the Analogy or proportion of what writings did they end their Questions Whence did they prove their Articles They only appealed to the Old Testament and only added what their Lord superadded Now either it must be said that our Blessed Lord commanded that Infants should not be baptized which is no-where pretended and if it were cannot at all be proved or if by the proportion of Scriptures they did serve God and preach the Religion it is plain that by the Analogy of the Old Testament that is of those Scriptures by which they proved Christ to be come and to have suffered they also approved the Baptism of Infants or the admitting them to the society of the faithful Jews of which also the Church did then principally consist 23. Seventhly That Baptism which consigns men and women to a blessed Resurrection doth also equally consign Infants to it hath nothing that I know of pretended against it there being the same signature and the same grace and in this thing all being alike passive and we no way cooperating to the consignation and promise of Grace and Infants have an equal necessity as being liable to sickness and groaning with as sad accents and dying sooner than men and women and less able to complain and more apt to be pitied and broken with the unhappy consequents of a short life and a speedy death infelicitate priscorum hominum with the infelicity and folly of their first Parents and therefore have as great need as any and that is capacity enough to receive a remedy for the evil which was brought upon them by the fault of another 24. Eightly And after all this if Baptism be that means which God hath appointed to save us it were well if we would do our parts towards Infants final interest which whether it depends upon the Sacrament and its proper grace we have nothing to relie upon but those Texts of Scripture which make Baptism the ordinary way of entring into the state of Salvation save only we are to add this that because of this law since Infants are not personally capable but the Church for them as for all others indefinitely we have reason to believe that their friends neglect shall by some way be supplied but Hope hath in it nothing beyond a Probability This we may be certain of that naturally we cannot be heirs of Salvation for by nature we are children of wrath and therefore an eternal separation from God is an infallible consequent to our evil nature either therefore Children must be put into the state of Grace or they shall dwell for ever where God's face does never shine Now there are but two ways of being put into the state of Grace and Salvation the inward by the Spirit and the outward by Water which regularly are together If they be renewed by the Spirit what hinders them to be baptized who receive the Holy Ghost as well as we If they are not capable of the Spirit they are capable of Water and if of neither where is their title to Heaven which is neither internal nor external neither spiritual nor sacramental neither secret nor manifest neither
which in a greater measure and upon more variety of rules the Governours of Churches are obliged But that which Christian Simplicity prohibits is the mixing arts and unhandsome means for the purchase of our ends witty counsels that are underminings of our neighbour destroying his just interest to serve our own stratagems to deceive infinite and insignificant answers with fraudulent design unjust and unlawful concealment of our purposes fallacious promises and false pretences flattery and unjust and unreasonable praise saying one thing and meaning the contrary pretending Religion to secular designs breaking faith taking false oaths and such other instruments of humane purposes framed by the Devil and sent into the world to be perfected by man Christian Simplicity speaks nothing but its thoughts and when it concerns Prudence that a thought or purpose should be concealed it concerns Simplicity that silence be its cover and not a false vizor it rather suffers inconvenience than a lie it destroys no man's right though it be inconsistent with my advantages it reproves freely palliates no man's wickedness it intends what it ought and does what is bidden and uses courses regular and just sneaks not in corners and walks always in the eye of God and the face of the world 7. Jesus told Nathanael that he knew him when he saw him under the Fig-tree and Nathanael took that to be probation sufficient that he was the 〈◊〉 and believed rightly upon an insufficient motive which because Jesus did accept it gives testimony to us that however Faith be produced by means regular or by arguments incompetent whether it be proved or not proved whether by chance or deliberation whether wisely or by occasion so that Faith be produced by the instrument and love by Faith God's work is done and so is ours For if S. Paul rejoyced that Christ was preached though by the 〈◊〉 of peevish persons certainly God will not reject an excellent product because it came from a weak and sickly parent and he that brings good out of evil and rejoyces in that good having first triumphed upon the evil will certainly take delight in the Faith of the most ignorant persons which his own grace hath produced out of innocent though insufficient beginnings It was folly in Naaman to refuse to be cured because he was to recover only by washing in Jordan The more incompetent the means is the greater is the glory of God who hath produced waters from a rock and fire from the collision of a sponge and wool and it is certain the end unless it be in products merely natural does not take its estimate and degrees from the external means Grace does miracles and the productions of the Spirit in respect of its instruments are equivocal extraordinary and supernatural and ignorant persons believe as strongly though they know not why and love God as 〈◊〉 as greater spirits and more excellent understandings and when God pleases or if he sees it expedient he will do to others as to Nathanael give them greater arguments and better instruments for the confirmation and heightning of their 〈◊〉 than they had for the first production 8. When Jesus had chosen these few Disciples to be witnesses of succeeding accidents every one of which was to be a probation of his mission and Divinity he entred into the theatre of the world at a Marriage-feast which he now first hallowed to a Sacramental signification and made to become mysterious he now began to chuse his Spouse out from the communities of the world and did mean to endear her by unions ineffable and glorious and consign the Sacrament by his bloud which he first gave in a secret 〈◊〉 and afterwards in 〈◊〉 and apparent effusion And although the Holy Jesus did in his own person consecrate Coelibate and Abstinence and Chastity in his Mother's yet by his 〈◊〉 he also hallowed Marriage and made it honourable not only in civil account and the rites of Heraldry but in a spiritual sence he having new sublim'd it by making it a Sacramental representment of the union of Christ and his 〈◊〉 the Church And all married persons should do 〈◊〉 to remember what the conjugal society does represent and not break the matrimonial bond which is a 〈◊〉 ligament of Christ and his Church for whoever dissolves the sacredness of the Mystery and unhallows the Vow by violence and impurity he dissolves his relation to Christ. To break faith with a Wife or Husband is a divorce from Jesus and that is a separation from all possibilities of Felicity In the time of the 〈◊〉 Statutes to violate Marriage was to do injustice and dishonour and a breach to the sanctions of Nature or the first constitutions But two bands more are added in the Gospel to make Marriage more sacred For now our Bodies are made Temples of the Holy Ghost and the Rite of Marriage is made significant and Sacramental and every act of Adultery is Profanation and Irreligion it 〈◊〉 a Temple and deflours a Mystery 9. The Married pair were holy but poor and they wanted wine and the Blessed Virgin-Mother pitying the 〈◊〉 of the young man complained to Jesus of the want and 〈◊〉 gave her an answer which promised no satisfaction to her purposes For now that Jesus had lived thirty years and done in person nothing answerable to 〈◊〉 glorious Birth and the miraculous accidents of his Person she longed till the time 〈◊〉 in which he was to manifest himself by actions as miraculous as the Star of his Birth She knew by the rejecting of his Trade and his going abroad and probably by his own 〈◊〉 to her that the time was near and the forwardness of her love and holy desires 〈◊〉 might go some minutes before his own precise limit However 〈◊〉 answered to this purpose to shew that the work he was to do was done not to satisfie her importunity which is not occasion enough for a Miracle but to prosecute the great work of Divine designation For in works spiritual and religious all exteriour relation ceases The world's order and the manner of our nature and the infirmities of our person have produced Societies and they have been the parents of Relation and God hath tied them fast by the knots of duty and made the duty the occasion and opportunities of reward But in actions spiritual in which we relate to God our relations are sounded upon the Spirit and therefore we must do our duties upon considerations separate and spiritual but never suffer temporal relations to impede our Religious duties Christian Charity is a higher thing than to be confined within the terms of dependence and correlation and those endearments which leagues or nature or society have made pass into spiritual and like Stars in the presence of the Sun appear not when the heights of the Spirit are in place Where duty hath prepared special instances there we must for Religion's sake promote them but even to our Parents or our Children the charities
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
to relinquish the paths of darkness this is the way of the Kingdom and the purpose of the Gospel and the proper work of Faith 6. And if we consider upon what stock Faith it self is instrumental and operative of Salvation we shall find it is in it self acceptable because it is a Duty and commanded and therefore it is an act of Obedience a work of the Gospel a submitting the Understanding a denying the Affections a laying aside all interests and a bringing our thoughts under the obedience of Christ. This the Apostle calls the Obedience of Faith And it is of the same condition and constitution with other Graces all which equally relate to Christ and are as firm instruments of union and are washed by the bloud of Christ and are sanctified by his Death and apprehend him in their capacity and degrees some higher and some not so high but Hope and Charity apprehend Christ in a measure and proportion greater than Faith when it distinguishes from them So that if Faith does the work of Justification as it is a mere relation to Christ 〈◊〉 so also does Hope and Charity or if these are Duties and good works so also is Faith and they all being alike commanded in order to the same end and encouraged by the same reward are also accepted upon the same stock which is that they are acts of Obedience and relation too they obey Christ and lay hold upon Christ's merits and are but several instances of the great duty of a Christian but the actions of several faculties of the 〈◊〉 Creature But 〈◊〉 Faith is the beginning Grace and hath insluence and causality in the production of the other 〈◊〉 all the other as they are united in Duty are also united in their Title and appellative they are all called by the name of Faith because they are parts of Faith as Faith is taken in the larger sence and when it is taken in the strictest and distinguishing sence they are 〈◊〉 and proper products by way of natural emanation 7. That a good life is the genuine and true-born issue of Faith no man questions that knows himself the Disciple of the Holy Jesus but that Obedience is the same thing with Faith and that all Christian Graces are parts of its bulk and constitution is also the doctrine of the Holy Ghost and the Grammar of Scripture making Faith and Obedience to be terms coincident and expressive of each other For Faith is not a single Star but a Constellation a chain of Graces called by S. Paul the power of God unto salvation to every believer that is Faith is all that great instrument by which God intends to bring us to Heaven and he gives this reason In the Gospel the 〈◊〉 cousness of God is revealed from faith to faith for it is written The 〈◊〉 shall live by Faith Which discourse makes Faith to be a course of Sanctity and holy 〈◊〉 a continuation of a Christian's duty such a duty as not only gives the first breath but by which a man lives the life of Grace The just shall live by Faith that is such a Faith as grows from step to step till the whole righteousness of God be fulfilled in it From faith to faith saith the Apostle which S. 〈◊〉 expounds From Faith believing to Faith obeying from imperfect Faith to Faith made perfect by the animation of Charity that he who is justified may be justified still For as there are several degrees and parts of Justification so there are several degrees of Faith answerable to it that in all sences it may be true that by Faith we are justified and by Faith we live and by Faith we are saved For if we proceed from Faith to Faith from believing to obeying from Faith in the Understanding to Faith in the Will from Faith barely assenting to the revelations of God to Faith obeying the Commandments of God from the body of Faith to the soul of Faith that is to Faith sormed and made alive by Charity then we shall proceed from Justification to Justification that is from Remission of Sins to become the Sons of God and at last to an actual possession of those glories to which we were here consigned by the fruits of the Holy Ghost 8. And in this sence the Holy Jesus is called by the Apostle the Author and 〈◊〉 of our Faith he is the principle and he is the promoter he begins our Faith in Revelations and perfects it in Commandments he leads us by the assent of our Understanding and finishes the work of his grace by a holy life which S. Paul there expresses by its several constituent parts as laying aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us and running with patience the race that is set before us resisting unto bloud striving against sin for in these things Jesus is therefore made our example because he is the Author and Finisher of our Faith without these Faith is imperfect But the thing is something plainer yet for S. James says that Faith lives not but by Charity and the life or essence of a thing is certainly the better part of its constitution as the Soul is to a Man And if we mark the manner of his probation it will come home to the main point For he proves that Abraham's saith was therefore imputed to him for Righteousness because he was justified by Works Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works when he offered up his son And the Scripture was fulfilled saying Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness For Faith wrought with his Works and made his Faith perfect It was a dead and an imperfect Faith unless Obedience gave it being and all its integral or essential parts So that Faith and Charity in the sence of a Christian are but one duty as the Understanding and the Will are but one reasonable Soul only they produce several actions in order to one another which are but divers 〈◊〉 and the same spirit 9. Thus S. Paul describing the Faith of the Thessalonians calls it that whereby they turned from Idols and whereby they served the living God and the Faith of the Patriarchs believed the world's Creation received the Promises did Miracles wrought Rightcousness and did and suffered so many things as make up the integrity of a holy life And therefore disobedience and unrighteousness is called want of Faith and Heresie which is opposed to Faith is a work of the flesh because Faith it self is a work of Righteousness And that I may enumerate no more particulars the thing is so known that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in propriety of language signifies 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 is rendred disobedience and the not providing for our families is an act of 〈◊〉 by the same reason and analogy that 〈◊〉 or Charity and a holy life are the duties of a Christian of a justifying
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
served their present design and his own great intendment The Devil never fails to promote every evil purpose and except where God's restaining grace does intervene and interrupt the opportunity by interposition of different and cross accidents to serve other ends of Providence no man easily is fond of wickedness but he shall receive enough to ruine him Indeed Nero and Julian both witty men and powerfull desired to have been Magicians and could not and although possibly the Devil would have corresponded with them who yet were already his own in all degrees of security yet God permitted not that lest they might have understood new ways of doing despight to Martyrs and 〈◊〉 Christians And it concerns us not to tempt God or invite a forward enemy for as we are sure the Devil is ready to promote all vicious desires and bring them out to execution so we are not sure that God will not permit him and he that desires to be undone and cares not to be prevented by God's restraining grace shall finde his ruine in the folly of his own desires and become wretched by his own election Judas hearing of this Congregation of the Priests went and offered to betray his Lord and made a Covenant the Price of which was Thirty Pieces of Silver and he returned 11. It is not intimated in the History of the Life of Jesus that Judas had any Malice against the Person of Christ for when afterwards he saw the matter was to end in the death of his Lord he repented but a base and unworthy spirit of Covetousness possessed him and the reliques of 〈◊〉 for missing the Price of the Ointment which the holy Magdalen had poured upon his feet burnt in his bowels with a secret dark melancholick 〈◊〉 and made an eruption into an act which all ages of the world could never parallel They appointed him for hire thirty pieces and some say that every piece did in value equal ten ordinary current Deniers and so Judas was satisfied by receiving the worth of the three hundred pence at which he valued the Nard pistick But hereafter let no Christian be ashamed to be despised and undervalued for he will hardly meet so great a reproach as to have so disproportioned a price set upon his life as was upon the Holy Jesus S. Mary 〈◊〉 thought it not good enough to aneal his sacred feet Judas thought it a sufficient price for his head for Covetousness aims at base and low purchaces whilest holy Love is great and comprehensive as the bosome of Heaven and aims at nothing that is less than infinite The love of God is a holy fountain limpid and pure sweet and salutary lasting and eternal the love of Mony is a vertiginous pool sucking all into it to destroy it it is troubled and uneven giddy and unsafe serving no end but its own and that also in a restless and uneasie motion The love of God spends it self upon him to receive again the reflexions of grace and benediction the love of Money spends all its desires upon it sell to purchase nothing but unsatisfying instruments of exchange or supernumerary provisions and ends in dissatisfaction and emptiness of spirit and a bitter curse S. Mary Magdalen was defended by her Lord against calumny and rewarded with an honourable mention to all Ages of the Church besides the unction from above which she shortly after received to consign her to crowns and sceptres but Judas was described in the Scripture the Book of life with the black character of death he was disgraced to eternal Ages and presently after acted his own tragedy with a sad and ignoble death 12. Now all things being fitted our Blessed Lord sends two Disciples to prepare the Passeover that he might fulfill the Law of Moses and pass from thence to institutions Evangelical and then fulfill his Sufferings Christ gave them a sign to guide them to the house a man bearing a pitcher of water by which some that delight in mystical significations say was typified the Sacrament of Baptism meaning that although by occasion of the Paschal solemnity the holy Eucharist was first instituted yet it was afterwards to be applied to practice according to the sence of this accident only baptized persons were apt suscipients of the other more perfective Rite as the taking nutriment supposes persons born into the world and within the common conditions of humane nature But in the letter it was an instance of the Divine omniscience who could pronounce concerning accidents at distance as if they were present and yet also like the provision of the Colt to ride on it was an instance of Providence and security of all God's sons for their portion of temporals Jesus had not a Lamb of his own and possibly no money in the bags to buy one and yet Providence was his guide and the charity of a good man was his Proveditore and he found excellent conveniences in the entertainments of a hospitable good man as if he had dwelt in Ahab's Ivory-house and had had the riches of Solomon and the meat of his houshold The PRAYER O Holy King of Sion Eternal Jesus who with great Humility and infinite Love didst enter into the Holy City riding upon an Asse that thou mightest verisie the Predictions of the Prophets and give example of Meekness and of the gentle and paternal government which the eternal Father laid upon thy shoulders be pleased deares̄t Lord to enter into my Soul with triumph trampling over all thine enemies and give me grace to entertain thee with joy and adoration with abjection of my own desires with lopping off all my supersluous branches of a temporal condition and spending them in the offices of Charity and Religion and devesting my self of all my desires laying them at thy holy feet that I may bear the yoke and burthen of the Lord with alacrity with love and the wonders of a satisfied and triumphant spirit Lord enter in and take possession and thou to whose honour the very stones would give testimony make my stony heart an instrument of thy praises let me strew thy way with flowers of Vertue and the holy Rosary of Christian Graces and by thy aid and example let us also triumph over all our infirmities and hostilities and then lay our victories at thy feet and at last follow thee into thy heavenly Jerusalem with palms in our hands and joy in our hearts and eternal acclamations on our lips rejoycing in thee and singing Hallelujahs in a happy Eternity to thee O holy King of Sion eternal Jesus Amen 2. O Blessed and dear Lord who wert pleased to permit thy self to be sold to the assemblies of evil persons for a vile price by one of thy own servants for whom thou hadst done so great favours and hadst designed a crown and a throne to him and he turned himself into a sooty coal and entred into the portion of evil Angels teach us to value thee above all the joys of men to prize
to God and even holy purposes are good actions of the Spirit and Principles of Religion and though alone they cannot do the work of Grace or change the state when they are ineffectual that is when either we will not bring them into act or that God will not let us yet to a Man already in the state of Grace they are the additions of something good and are like blowing of coals which although it can put no life into a dead coal yet it makes a live coal shine brighter and burn clearer and adds to it some accidental degrees of heat 23. Having thus disposed himself to the peace of God let him make peace with all those in whom he knows or suspects any minutes of anger or malice or displeasure towards him submitting himself to them with humility whom he unworthily hath displeased asking pardon of them who say they are displeased and offering pardon to them that have displeased him and then let him crave the peace of Holy Church For it is all this while to be supposed that he hath used the assistence and prayers the counsel and the advices of a spiritual man and that to this purpose he hath opened to him the state of his whole life and made him to understand what emendations of his faults he hath made what acts of Repentance he hath done how lived after his fall and reparation and that he hath submitted all that he did or undid to the discerning of a holy man whose office it is to guide his Soul in this agony and last offices All men cannot have the blessing of a wise and learned Minister and some die where they can have none at all yet it were a safer course to do as much of this as we can and to a competent person if we can if we cannot then to the best we have according as we judge it to be of spiritual advantage to us for in this conjuncture of accidents it concerns us to be sure if we may and not to be deceived where we can avoid it because we shall never return to life to do this work again And if after this entercourse with a Spiritual guide we be reconciled by the solemn prayer of the Church the prayer of Absolution it will be of great advantage to us we depart with our Father's blessing we die in the actual Communion of the Church we hear the sentence of God applied after the manner of men and the promise of Pardon made circumstantiate material present and operative upon our spirits and have our portion of the promise which is recorded by S. James that if the Elders of the Church pray over a sick person fervently and effectually add solemnly his sins shall be forgiven him that is supposing him to be in a capacity to receive it because such prayers of such a man are very prevalent 24. All this is in a spiritual sense washing the hands in innocency and then let him go to the altar let him not for any excuse less than impossibility omit to receive the holy Sacrament which the Father 's assembled in the great Nicene Council have taught all the Christian world to call the most necessary provisions for our last journey which is the memory of that Death by which we hope for life which is the seed of Immortality and Resurrection of our bodies which unites our spirit to Christ which is a great defensative against the hostilities of the Devil which is the most solemn Prayer of the Church united and made acceptable by the Sacrifice of Christ which is then represented and exhibited to God which is the great instrument of spiritual increase and the growth of Grace which is duty and reward food and Physick health and pleasure deletery and cordial prayer and thanksgiving an union of mysteries the marriage of the Soul and the perfection of all the Rites of Christianity dying with the holy Sacrament in us is a going to God with Christ in our arms and interposing him between us and his angry sentence But then we must be sure that we have done all the duty without which we cannot communicate worthily For else Satan comes in the place of Christ and it is a horrour not less than infinite to appear before God's Tribunal possessed in our Souls with the spirit of darkness True it is that by many Laws of the Church the Bishop and the Minister are bound to give the holy Eucharist to every person who in the article or apparent danger of death desires it provided that he hath submitted himself to the imposition and counsels of the Bishop or Guide of his Soul that in case he recovers he may be brought to the peace of God and his Church by such steps and degrees of Repentance by which other publick sinners are reconciled But to this gentleness of Discipline and easiness of Administration those excellent persons who made the Canons thought themselves compelled by the rigour of the 〈◊〉 and because they admitted not lapsed persons to the peace of the Church upon any terms though never so great so publick or so penal a Repentance therefore these not onely remitted them to the exercise and station of Penitents but also to the Communion But the Fathers of the Council of Eliberis denied this favour to persons who after Baptism were Idolaters either intending this as a great argument to affright persons from so great a crime or else believing that it was unpardonable after Baptism a contradiction to that state which we entred into by Baptism and the Covenant Evangelical However I desire all learned persons to observe it and the less learned also to make use of it that those more ancient Councils of the Church which commanded the holy Communion to be given to dying persons meant only such which according to the custome of the Church were under the conditions of Repentance that is such to whom punishment and Discipline of divers years were injoyned and if it happened they died in the intervall before the expiration of their time of reconciliation then they admitted them to the Communion Which describes to us the doctrine of those Ages when Religion was purer and Discipline more severe and holy life secured by rules of excellent Government that those only were fit to come to that Feast who before their last sickness had finished the Repentance of many years or at least had undertaken it I cannot say it was so always and in all Churches for as the Disciples grew slack or mens perswasions had variety so they were more ready to grant Repentance as well as Absolution to dying persons but it was otherwise in the best times and with severer Prelates And certainly it were great charity to deny the Communion to persons who have lived viciously till their death provided it be by competent authority and done sincerely prudently and without temporal interest to other persons who have lived good lives or repented of their bad
it self but in order to certain ends 272. 1. Why Jesus fasted Forty Dayes 128. 9. Vide Disc. of Fasting per tot Fear hallowed by Christ's fear 384. 3. It is the first of Graces 171. 5. Farewell-Sermon made by Jesus 350. 19. Flaminius condemned to Death for wanton Cruelty 168. 5. Fornication against the Law of God in all Ages 249. 37. Permitted to Strangers among the Jews ibid. Forgiving Injuries a Christian duty 252. G. GAdara built by Pompey 184. 15. Full of Sepulchres and Witches ibid. Gabriel ministers to the exaltation of his inferiours 3. 4. Galilaeans why slain by Pilate and what they were 326. 27. Garden why chosen for the place of the Agony 364. 383. 2. Gentleness a duty of Christians 323. 16. Giacchetus of Geneva his Death in the midst of his Lust 338. 5. God his Gifts effects of Predestination 156. 5. Those Gifts how to be prayed for 261 264. Consideration of his Presence a good remedy against Temptations 112. 29. The Vision of God preserveth the Blessed Souls from Sin ibid. 30. GOD's method in bringing us to him and treating us after 32. 4. He gives his Servants more than they look for 155. He gives more Grace to them that use the first well ibid. 32. 6. He rejoyces in his own works of mercy 187. 1. And in ours 227. 13. He requires not always the greatest degree of Vertue 234. 11. He is never wanting in necessaries to us 32. He changeth his purpose of the death of a Man for several reasons 308. 24. He works his ends by unlikely means 427. GOD certainly supports those in their necessities who are doing his work 68. 3. Gold and Frankincense and Myrrhe what signification they had in the gift of the Magi 34. 11. 28. 12. Grace it helps our Faculties but creates no new ones 31. 2. It works severally at several times 32. Being refused it hardens our Hearts 387. 369. Government supported by Christianity 68. 7. Gospel and the Law how they differ 193. 3. 296. 232. 3. H. HAsty persons and actions always unreasonable sometimes criminal 15. 1. Herod mock'd by the Magi 65. 1. 84. 1. His stratagem to surprize all the male children 66. The cause why he slew Zecharias 66. 5. Caesar's saying concerning him 66. 3. He felt the Divine vengeance 67. 6. His Malice near his Death defeated 67. 7. He pretended Religion to his secret design 68. 1. He slew 14000 Infants 66. 4. Fear of the Child Jesus proceeded from his mistake 70. 7. The Tetrarch overthrown by the King of Arabia 169. 6. His reception of Christ 352. 26. Is careless of inquiring after Christ 393. 9. Herodians what they were 290. 3. Herodias Daughter beheaded with Ice 169. 6. She and Herod banished ibid. Heron the Monk abused with an illusion 61. 23. Herminigilda refused to communicate with an Arian Bishop 188. 2. Hereticks served their ends of Heresie upon Women upon whom also they served their Lust 189. 5. Heroical actions of Repentance at our Death-bed more prevalent than any other hope then left 217. 49. Health promised and consigned in the Gospel by Miracles and by an ordinary Ministery 304. 15 16. There were two High-Priests the one President of the Rites of the Temple the other of the great Council 351. 23. Honour done to us to be returned to God 9. 6. It is due to what the Supreme power separates from common usages 172. 3. How it is to be estimated 253. 5. Honourable and Sacred all one 173. S. Hilarion a great Faster 273. 2. S. Hierom's advice concerning Fasting ibid. Holy Ghost descending upon Jesus at his Baptism 94. 3. Holiness of Religious places 172. It is a great preservative of Life 302. 13. Hope of Salvation encreases according to degrees of holy walking 315. Necessary in our Prayers 267. House of John Mark consecrated into a Church 174. 5. Hosanna what it signifies 347. 6. Onely sung to God ibid. Humane Nature by the Incarnation exalted above the Angels 3. Humane infirmity to be pitied not to be upbraided 384. Humility of Jesus 14. The surest way to Heaven 37. Of the Baptist 68. It makes good men more honourable 186. Its excellencies 302. 11 12. 367. Its Properties and Acts 364. seq Humility of the young Mar. of Castilion 367. 9. Hunger after Righteousness 373. 11. Hunger and Thirst spiritual how they differ ibid. Its Acts and Reward ibid. Husbands converted by their Wives 189. 3. J. JAirus begs help of Jesus for his Daughter 185. 20. His Daughter restored to Life 186. 21. Jesus discoursing wonderfully with the Doctors 75. 1. He wrought in the Carpenter's Trade before and after Joseph's death 76. 6. Baptized by John 93. 1. Attended by good Angels in the Wilderness 95. Was angry when the Devil tempted him to dishonour God 95. 8. 101. 15. He slept in a Storm 184. 14. Preached the first Year in peace 186. 22. Appeared several times after his Resurrection 419. He was known in the breaking of Bread ibid. He had but two days of Triumph all his Life 359. 5. And they both allayed with Sorrow ibid. 360. He was used inhospitably at Jerusalem ibid. Infinitely loving 360. He received all his Disciples with a Kiss 386. 8. Civil to his Enemies and beneficial to his Friends ibid. He was stripp'd naked and why 394. 10. He came eating and drinking and why 291. He invites all to him ibid. The Pharisees report him mad 291. He refused to be made a King 319. 1. Transfigured 322. 13. He shamed the Accusers of the Adulteress 324. 20. He teaches his Disciples to pray the second time 326. 26. Refuses to judge a Title of Land ibid. Blesseth 〈◊〉 327. 30. The Price of him 349. 14. All his great Actions in his Life had a mixture of Divinity and Humanity 387. 9. He was not compelled to bear the transverse Beam of the Cross 354. 30. He wept for Lazarus 345. And over Jerusalem 347. 7. Answered the Pharisees concerning Tribute to Caesar 347. 10. Prayed against the bitter Cup 450. 20. Smitten upon the Face 351. Accused of Blasphemy before the High-Priest ibid. Of Treason bëfore Pilate 352. 26. Nailed with Four Nails 354. 31. Provided for his Mother after his Death 355. 33. Recited the two and twentieth Psalm or part of it upon the Cross ibid. He felt the first Recompence of his Sorrows in the state of Separation 426. At the Resurrection he did redintegrate all his Body but the five Wounds ibid. He arose with a glorified Body 427. But veil'd with a Cloud of common Appearance ibid. Jewish Women hoped to be the Mother of the Messias 2. 5. Jews looked to be justified by external Innocence 243. 26. They were scrupulous in Rites careless of Moral Duties 392. 7. Could not put any Man to Death at Easter 352. 26. They eat not till the Solemnities of their Festival is over 272. 1. Jezabel pretended Religion to her design of Murther and Theft 68. 1. Illusions come often in likeness
there but the Grave clothes which he had left behind him To all which let me add while my hand is in these things what Ephrem relates that from this Grave wherein he rested so short a time a kind of Sacred Oil or Unguent was wont to be gathered Gregory of Tours says 't was Manna which even in his time like flour was cast up from the Sepulohre and was carried up and down the World for the curing of diseases This report of our Apostles being yet alive some men made use of to wild and phantastick purposes Beza tells us of an Impostor in his time whom Postellus who vainly boasted that he had the Soul of Adam was wont to call his Brother who publickly prosessed himself to be our S. John and was afterwards burnt at Tholose in France Nor was this any more than what was done in the more early Ages of Christianity For Sulpitius Severus giving us an account of a young Spaniard that first professed himself to be Elias and then Christ himself adds That there was one at the same time in the East who gave out himself to be S. John So fast will Error like circles in the water multiply it self and one mistaken place of Scripture give countenance to an hundred stories that shall be built upon it I have no more to add but what we meet with in the Arabick writer of his life though it little agrees with the preceding passages who reports that there were none present at his burial but his disciple Phogsir probably Proghor or Prochorus one of the seven Deacons and generally said to have been S. John's companion and assistent whom he strictly charged never to discover his Sepulchre to any it may be for the same reason for which it is thought God concealed the body of Moses to prevent the Idolatrous worshipping of his Reliques And accordingly the Turks who conceit him to be buried in the confines of Lydia pay great honour and veneration to his Tomb. 10. S. JO H N seems always to have led a single life and so the Ancients tell us nay S. Ambrose positively affirms that all the Apostles were married except S. John and S. Paul There want not indeed some and especially the middle Writers of the Church who will have our Apostle to have been married and that it was his marriage which our Lord was at in Cana of Galilee invited thither upon the account of his consanguinity and alliance But that being convinced by the Miracle of the Water turned into Wine he immediately quitted his conjugal relation and became one of our Lord's Disciples But this as 〈◊〉 himself confesses is trifling and the issue of fabulous invention a thing wholly unknown to the Fathers and best Writers of the Church and which not only has no just authority to support it but arguments enough to beat it down As for his natural temper he seems as we have observed in his Brother's Life to have been of a more eager and resolute disposition easily apt to be inflamed and provoked which his reduced Age brought to a more staid and a calmer temper He was polished by no study or arts of Learning but what was wanting in that was abundantly made up in the excellent temper and constitution of his mind and that furniture of Divine graces which he was adorned withall His humility was admirable studiously concealing his own worth and honour in all his Epistles as Eusebius long since observed he never puts down the honourable Titles of Apostle or Evangelist but only stiles himself and that too but sometimes Presbyter or Elder alluding probably to his Age as much as Office in his Gospel when he speaks of the Disciple whom Jesus loved he constantly conceals his own name leaving the Reader to conjecture who was meant Love and Charity he practised himself and affectionately pressed upon others our Lord 's great love to him seems to have inspired his Soul with a bigger and more generous charity than the rest 'T is the great vein that runs through his writings and especially his Epistles where he urges it as the great and peculiar Law of Christianity and without which all other pretences to Christian Religion are vain and frivolous useless and insignificant And this was his constant practice to his dying day When Age and weakness grew upon him at Ephesus that he was no longer able to preach to them he used at every publick meeting to be led to the Church and say no more to them than Little children love one another And when his Auditors wearied with the constant repetition of the same thing asked him why he always spoke the same he answered Because it was the command of our Lord and that if they did nothing else this alone was enough 11. BUT the largest measures of his Charity he expressed in the mighty care that he shewed to the Souls of men unweariedly spending himself in the service of the Gospel travelling from East to West to leaven the World with the principles of that holy Religion which he was sent to propagate patiently enduring all torments breaking through all difficulties and discouragements shunning no dangers that he might do good to Souls redeem mens minds from error and idolatry and reduce them from the snares of a debauched and a vicious life Witness one famous instance In his visitation of the Churches near to Ephesus he made choice of a young man whom with a special charge for his instruction and education he committed to the Bishop of that place The 〈◊〉 man undertook the charge instructed his Pupil and baptized him And then thinking he might a little remit the reins of discipline the youth made an ill use of his liberty and was quickly debauched by bad companions making himself Captain to a company of High-way men the most loose cruel and profligate wretches of the Country S. John at his return understanding this and sharply reproving the negligence and unfaithfulness of his Tutor resolved to find him out And without any consideration of what danger he entred upon in venturing himself upon persons of desperate fortunes and forfeited consciences he went to the mountains where their usual haunt was and being here taken by the Sentinel he desired to be brought before their Commander who no sooner espied him coming towards him but immediately fled The aged Apostle followed after but not able to overtake him passionately intreated him to stay promising him to undertake with God for his peace and pardon He did so and both melted into tears and the Apostle having prayed with and for him returned him a true Penitent and Convert to the Church This story we have elsewhere related more at large out of 〈◊〉 as he does from Clemens Alexandrinus since which that Tract it self of Clemens is made publick to the World 12. NOR was it the least instance of his care of the Church and charity to the Souls of men
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