handle the improbability of this formal Tale and Fiction of what contradictions the Plot consists never to be pieced together for all this if it like you must be done while they stept Say ye c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was a Proverb in Greece if a man talked idly that he told a tale as if he crept out of a Tomb. I am sure this story about our Saviour stoln out of his Tomb is as doting a Dream as ever was told out of a Tomb no part hanging together with congruity to another Certainly it was with them as God said He would deal with them that built Babel Go to let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one what another says The error of those Jews was affected and very wilful they knew that Christ was risen and they would not know it and voluntary errors are ever punished with great blindness they that will believe a lie shall fall into strong delusions First why would the Souldiers say they slept why would they be brought to put themselves into such infamy and danger Infamy that such a crew of them would be talked of to have slept and snorted on the ground about the Sepulcher like Swine in their drunkenness but danger also admit the High Priests for all their fair promises could not have pacified the Governour where had they been according to the Laws of some Countries they that were to watch the Corpses of Malefactors executed were to answer Body for Body When Herod sought for Peter and found him not he commanded the Keepers should be put to death yet they could not help it will these Souldiers say they lost the Body by negligence which they should have kept and do they look to be rewarded ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit hic diadema This forgery would have cost them dear if Pilate had been a just Magistrate But the High Priests knew what a notable Ruler should sit upon the cause they could tell the Souldiers before hand how he should shuffle up all and pronounce as they would have him but it had been justice they should have suffered for this fault which they never committed I mean for sleeping in the time of their charge as David kill'd the Amalekite who made a formal tale that he slew King Saul when indeed he did not One wonders at it and for very good reason that all of the conspiracy were not afraid lest in the very moment that they began to publish their fiction Christ should have appeared and stood before them and convinced them for their forgery As when Athanasius was accused at a Council for breaking of Arsenius his Readers arm in his rage just at the nick Arsenius came in presence of the Council and it appeared upon his body that he had suffered no such violence But such cautions were so little in their thoughts at that time that they consider'd nothing at all a thick darkness which might be felt was faln upon them for who would ever produce witnesses that were a sleep would their testimony be ever taken unless the Judg were asleep too and if the body was stoln away while they slept which way did they come by the spirit of Prophecy to know the Disciples did it rather than other men or why did they not follow them and take it from them or why did they not crave Pilates Warrant to search for it where they had conveyed it durst they not abuse Pilates Authority so far and durst they mock God Into what confusions and inextricable errors a man falls that sins against his own conscience I could waken them with many questions more but I will not be tedious But who will believe them that in such a great Court of Guard as no doubt this was all the Band slept at once and not one of them so careful as some say a Flock of Cranes are by nature to watch by course or how could they all sleep when that which they had in charge was of so much rumour and expectation or is it possible such a deep Lethargy was faln upon them the air being so sharp that anon before they had a fire of coals within doors that none of them should waken either when the Disciples went in or came out of the Sepulcher the creaking which the stone would make when it was rolled off from the door must needs be heard a far off Answerable to this too the linnen cloaths which were about the Body were in the Sepulcher by themselves Had they such leisure to strip those off and stay longer by far than they needed had it not been a better concealment for the Body to bear it away wrapt than naked Beside Myrrh and Alloes which were cast about Christs Body were most glutinous things and would stick to the flesh so fast that they could not be taken off without much cunning and long patience Unless witnesses which were asleep may say any thing these things were impossible to be reconciled And his observation was right true that made it that the Priests might have spread this rumour with far more safety and likelihood if they had never trusted the Souldiers to tell the lie for them But God would not let them see their way that all Ages might be astonisht at their folly For this Guard of Souldiers was not begged of Pilate to compass the Sepulcher about till Christ had lain one night in the Grave till the day after he was crucified If they had said his Disciples stole him away the first night before the Watch was set the lye had been the stronger but with far less cunning they impute the loss of the Body to the Souldiers negligence not looking well to their charge the second night Say ye his Disciples came and stole him away while we slept A sleepy Project Nec fide constantes nec in perfidiâ men of no faith and of most foolish infidelity I reduce the Use of it to that notable Memorandum Where men are averse from hearing truth God dazles their mind with gross and senseless deceipts yea though they be High Priests as we know who they are that entangle themselves with a thousand absurd questions about the Sacrament because they will not be driven from their idolatrous practice to adore the Elements But let us approach unto it with simplicity of heart setting aside all contention and frowardness let us believe in Christ in this breaking of bread that our eyes may be opened let us drink of the fruit of the Vine in remembrance of his blood-shedding here that we may eat and drink with him in his Kingdom Finally as being risen with Christ let us seek those things which are above AMEN FIVE SERMONS UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 1. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one
had dedicated unto his name the most augustious Temple in the world Was a question made concerning such a Magnificent house whether it were fit for the Lord Then what say you to this grot This Manger of the Stable As Seneca said of Caius Marius when he was turned abroad to seek his lodging among the flags of the Fens Quis eum fuisse consulem aut futurum crederet Who would ever think that a man who shrowded his head in so mean a place had been the great Consul of Rome before or should be Consul again So he that should find Christ in such a despicable corner of a Room where beasts did feed who could think that it was that God that created the World before or should judge the World hereafter But to say the truth was he not safer among the beasts than he could be elsewhere in all the Town of Bethlem His enemies perchance would say unto him as Jael did to Sisera Turn in turn in my Lord when she purposed to kill him as the men of Keilah made a fair shew to give David all courteous hospitality but the issue would prove if God had not blessed him that they mean to deliver him into the hands of Saul that sought his bloud So there was no trusting of the Bethlemites who knows but that they would have prevented Judas and betrayed him for thirty pieces of Silver unto Herod More humanity is to be expected from the beasts than from some men and therefore she laid him in a Manger Do not your bowels yearn Beloved to make Christ some amends for this poor entertainment Do not you perswade your selves if you had been in Bethlem it should not have been so as it was Your Zeal is good and there is no time lost to do it yet Non erat ei nisi angustia in terris ut tu ei locum cordis tui proprium dilatares Christ was streightned for room in the Inn and thrust into the Stable that you might open your heart wide and enlarge it to give him an habitation to content him The heart of an Heretick the heart of a profane person is more loathsom more unfit for Christ than any Manger in the world between such a polluted sink of iniquity and this Manger as it was adorned there was no comparison It was the recreation which the old Friers had in their Monastical Cells to write lies Legends are for the most part fabulous and I had as lieve believe the dreams of a sick man as believe all the story of our Saviours birth which goes under the name of St. Bridget Yet I am altogether inclined to think that the Stable wherein Christ was born was so beautified for the time with the light of heaven which did shine in the place that a Palace of beaten gold could not seem to be half so rich and precious my reason is that if the glory of the Lord did shine about the Shepherds in the field with such an heavenly luster when the Angels came to sing their Carol most likely it is that the same glory seven fold brighter did cast celestial beams upon this place where this Child was laid in a Manger But no such beams of Heaven ever did shine upon the heart of a profligate sinner and therefore I have good reason to say that a Manger amongst beasts was fitter for our Saviour O praesepe splendidum in quo panis inventus est Angelorum O holy and venerable Cratch which was the repository to receive the bread of Angels Reclinavit is the strangest word to me in all the Text that Mary could part with him out of her arms and lay him aside in the Manger I did ever think old Simeon much indebted to her for that favour that he was permitted to take him up in his arms but what did the Stable and Cratch deserve to be the Throne of the Son of God Surely if Jacob understood that there was a Mystery in it when he laid his head upon a stone to sleep then it cannot be without many Mysteries that this Infant was laid in a Manger I will separate all the Meditations which the Fathers raise upon it that he was born in an Inn and confine my self only to express why this homely Room was lent him in a Stable First Beloved Periculosum est inter delicias poni 't is full of peril to rest among pleasures and delights It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting Eccl. 7.2 Adam had his habitation among the sweet savours and most delightful recreations of the Garden of Eden his senses were so filled with objects of pleasures that he forgot the Lord Therefore Jesus Christ the Second Adam who came to restore all that was lost pitcht upon the worst corner of the house where there were no delights at all to move tentation Shall I tell you a paradox which St. Chrysostome held He said he had rather be cast into Prison with St. Paul into the house of affliction than be wrapt up with him into the third Heavens Kings houses and well furnisht Mansions have their occasions of Lewdness but she laid her Son in a Manger Secondly Omnis caro sicut foenum all flesh is grass and our beauty is as a flower of the field this caused the flesh of Christ to be laid in the part of the Stable where the grass is cut down and withered Corruption sorts with Corruption the Saints that are in glory and can dye no more their dwellings are in the highest heavens which are free from change and alteration but the Son of man hath put on mortality and to signifie that his body is like unto ours which shall wither like grass Reclinavit in praesepi he was laid in a Manger Thirdly Learn from hence to condescend unto the Humility of Christ if you mean to ascend unto his glory for as the custom of those Regions was this Manger was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Vault cut out of a Rock as low a place as he could cast himself into but no man projects so wisely to raise up a mighty building as he that lays a low foundation It is reported of Sixtus Quintus how he was so far from shame that he was born in a poor Cottage that he would sport with his own fortune and say he was Familiâ illustri natus born in a bright resplendent Family because the Sun lookt in at every cranny of the house it is not the meanness of the place that can justly turn to any mans scorn nor doth a magnificent Palace build up any mans reputation Holofernes had a costly Tent to cover him and yet was never the honester and it was a pretty objection of Plutarchs against the vain consumption of cost upon the decking of our houses Quare homines in auratis lectis somnum capiunt quem Dii gratis dederunt What do we mean says he to be at such cost to deck our Chambers Why will we pay
sidepieces of the tree do resemble horns he might as well have said that the Metaphor was taken from the Altar in the Old Law upon which the Sacrifices were presented because the Psalmist says bind the Sacrifice with cords unto the horns or extremities of the Altar Into the number of these that are more elegant than litteral in their allusions let me cast in Lombard thus he an horn is an altitude above the flesh and because it grows higher than the flesh therefore Christ is called an horn rather than a buckler of salvation because our hope in him is not carnal but spiritual and it is he that gives us grace and power to overcome the flesh These and such like subtilties I think it fit rather to name than to prosecute But Theophylact hath collected the solid reasons of this Appellation into few words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it betokens either the mighty power or the Kingdom of salvation An horn is the weapon and strength of that Creature out of which it brancheth and therefore it is usual almost in every book of Scripture to borrow a Metaphor from it as the Lord shall give strength to his King and exalt the horn that is the power of his Anointed 1 Sam. ii 10 and Psal lxxxviii In my name shall his horn that is his strength and fortitude be exalted and to break the horns of sinners is to pull down their pride and dominion Psal lxxiv. I spare to recite innumerous quotations which are extant every where in Scripture but in this phrase the Holy Ghost intends that according to the translation which is in our Morning Service God hath raised up a mighty salvation in the house of his servant David O puissant Lord and Saviour who is able to comprehend what infinite power did concur to this effect that the everlasting God should be incarnate and become man This birth may seem to the outward man to be nothing but a spectacle of weakness and misery Look upon an Infant laid in a Manger wrapt in swadling clouts the Son of a poor Maid espoused to a Carpenter and from these circumstances the question might be askt Where is this horn Where is this strength which Zachary hath laboured to express so emphatically I answer That the Nativity of Jesus was the greatest demonstration of the power of God that ever the world received The Virgin Mary hath commended it to be very true in her Song verse 49 of this Chapter He that is mighty hath done unto me great things And St. Basil says that the Incarnation was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the evidence of the Divine Omnipotency It is a strange efficacy of nature to conjoyn repugnant Elements in the composition of our flesh as fire and water It is yet more strange to put an Elementary body and an immaterial soul into one composition but to joyn an increated and eternal God in one union of person with these things it exceeds all other marvels Neque Adami de limo terrae formatio neque Evae de viri carne plasmatio Iesu Christi potest ortui comparari says Leo the creation of Adam from the dust of the earth the efformation of Eve from the rib of Adam both are things to astonish our weak understanding but neither of these are comparable to his Nativity that was the Son of God and the Son of Mary this is the very firmitude of the horn whereof I am to speak there are other rights and branches of it For as Gods power doth astonish us that the Word should be made Flesh so it brings our admiration to more excess that he should become a Saviour he did overcome his own justice in that act and an Orator would say he grew mightier than himself if it were possible by sparing us Certainly there is good reason in that Axiom of the School that it was more to save a sinner than to create a world The heathen had their Saviours from wasteful diseases and pestilentious contagions as Pandion and Esculapius the Israelites had their Saviours from thraldom and the peril of the Sword as Moses and Joshuah But he that delivers us from the wrath of God and from the pit of hell he is the strong deliverer he is the horn of salvation Finally The Salvation which he hath brought us hath not only set us free but it hath put vigour and animosity in us to subdue our Adversaries that held us in thraldom What the Heathen spake of another thing I may fitly apply to Christ Tu spem reducis mentibus anxiis viresque addis cornua pauperi such as were poor and in misery being fast bound in the fetters of their sins thou hast refresht them with joy and given them horns to push down their enemies The dominion of sin is abated the edge of infernal tentations is rebated Death is swallowed up in victory the Devil cries out in the Gospel that he is tormented the gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church this is salvation obtained for us not by compounding with our Foes and asking their leave but by strong force and puissant victory Cornu salutare nobis sed impiis terrificum It is a soveraign horn to us but an instrument of offence against the wicked His horns are the horns of an Vnicorn with them shall he smite the heathen even the ends of the world Deut. xxxiii 17. the false flattering Prophet Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah put on horns to sooth up Ahab Antichrist is described with ten horns and seven heads Revel xvii 3. to denote that he is armed to bring destruction upon those that cleave in sincerity of truth unto the Lord. The Goat and the Ram which Daniel saw in his Vision chap. viii had terrible horns rising up between their eyes These were outragious tyrants whom God permitted to goar the innocent like mad Oxen but here 's an horn in my Text to break their malice as if it were but a slender reed The Judge that trieth the cause of the helpless against oppressors and casts them down for ever but our horn of salvation Indeed that 's his proper work to save and help his chosen it is by accident that for their sakes he wounds and offends their enemies he came not to destroy but to seek and to save that which is lost he would not the death of a sinner but that he should repent and be saved therefore it is due to be called not an horn of mischief but an horn of salvation Nor doth this word betoken his power only but his kingdom likewise as if Zachary had said God hath raised up a King of salvation to us in the house of his servant David So said St. Peter before the Council of the Scribes Acts v. 31. Him hath God lift up with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour The Chaldee Paraphrast who is very ancient agrees greatly with this for what the Psalm hath I will make the horn of David to flourish
resolution into his humane nature to fight with and to overthrow the tentations of the Devil I shall reach this doctrine unto you the better upon certain questions And first what needed this Preface of all other before this mighty work that he was guided by the Spirit What action throughout all his life did not deserve the same commendation A young Rhetorician dedicated an Oration to one Antalcidas What is the subject of your Oration quoth he Says the young Orator the praise of Hercules Fie man says Antalcidas what needless pains have you taken Who did ever dispraise Hercules So it may seem as redundant an expression to say that Christ was led by the Spirit at this time for through the grace of Union and the grace of Unction he was always conducted by the Spirit It is sufficient for answer to this that this was the first exploit of those that Christ did act to shew he was the Christ and the Mediator of God and man therefore this clause being prefixt to the formost of his actions is a title to all the rest he was led of the Spirit 2. It is not to be taken per modum inhaerentiae that he was now full of the Holy Ghost as if he had received a larger measure than he had before but by way of manifestation for the Spirit even now had visibly descended upon him in the shape of a Dove Semper fuit actus à spiritu sed jam maximè ejus vis apparuit the common gloss of the best Writers The Spirit did always lead him and dwel in him but now it did appear and put forth its strength I move another question be not offended that I move these hard things as it were by way of Catechism are the leadings of the Spirit of more sorts than one Yea these two are degrees one above another The first is general to all the Sons of God for they are all stirred up to faith and hope and good works by a divine illumination If ye be led by the Spirit then are ye not under the Law of the flesh Gal. v. 18. The second is special to the chiefest and principal Ministers of God as Kings Prophets and Apostles when Saul was anointed King over Israel the Lord gave him another heart his Spirit came upon him and he Prophesied So Christ our anointed Prophet prepared himself for a famous enterprize and he had the badge of Gods good liking The Spirit came upon him or he was led by the Spirit Suffer but one interrogatory more and it is this Did the Spirit thrust on Christ and as it were hale him with compulsion at this time So a man might hap to fall into that error by St. Marks words The Spirit driveth him into the Wilderness And the Vulgar Latine gives the same offence Luk. iv 1. Agebatur a spiritu he was pusht on by the Spirit For answer hard words are soon mollified by good construction The very Heathen could say Generosus est animus hominis magisque ducitur quà m trahitur Mans will is a free generous thing and had rather be led fairly than drawn forcibly Therefore the other Evangelists must be expounded by St. Matthew that the Spirit led him by illumination and propounding the will of his Father unto him not by violence and coaction So Cajetan Non vis significatur sed efficientia impulsus spiritus All was done by the efficacy and motion of the Spirit nothing by compulsion Some there are who care not what old Pillars of Divinity they pull down to set up their new devises that hold that Christ did obey his Father and the Divine Law with so much liberty and freedom that it were no offence to say Christ could not have obeyed his Father not have kept the Law and so by consequent have sinned and whereas it is certain he did not sin they will neither allow that the Hypostatical Union was the cause of it O strange Theologie nor yet the grace of Unction wherewith he was anointed above his fellows O strange impudency Neither of these was fundamentum impeccabilitatis And all this to maintain that because he did merit by his obedience his will was not determined to do good but left indifferent to good or evil Away with this over audatious disputing Christ could not but fulfil all righteousness I must do the works of him that sent me Joh. iv 9. All good things conducible to the work of a Mediator were necessary to be done And it was necessary Gods will being declared that it should be fulfilled of Christ although he was not necessitated by a violent determination but moved willingly and obediently unto it by a certain perswasion Non necessitatus erat sed propter illud quod necessarium erat sponte motus says Abulensis The object propounded was necessary to be done of him though he accepted it with much alacrity and desire and no way driven by constrainment Therefore this was not like Peters case Another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not Joh. xxi 18. But the hand of the Lord was with him and carried him whither he liked himself Non invitus aut captus sed sponte liberè venit says St. Hierom He was not drawn on as if his own will drew back but rejoyced as a Giant to run his course To say no more but this Oblatus est quia voluit It was his own good will that he was slain for the sins of the world it was his own pleasure not to dread death and it was as much his own pleasure to grapple with tentations And so much for that question how the Spirit did lead him into the Wilderness You shall now be partakers of the third thing why this passage is inserted into the story that he was led up of the Spirit Good reasons are rather to be esteemed by their weight than their multitude take these few to content you 1. The Spirit is said to lead him because de did not run on blindfold but knew the task which he undertook he foresaw the difficulties that he would meet and weighed them in the balance of judgment and discretion Non ignarus sed consilio ducebatur says St. Ambrose The counsel of the Spirit did enlighten him to see what he had in hand Saul thought that David was but a fool-hardy Stripling and knew not what a perilous thing it was to fight with such a Giant as Goliah Thou art but a youth and he a man of War from his youth thou art not able to go against this Philistine But David shewed the reason of his confidence the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the Lion and out of the paw of the Bear he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine He had considered Gods mercies and protection therefore he was led by the Spirit into that noble action Beware to plod on like Balaam with our eyes shut never discerning what is
they felt his mind whether he held it lawful to give Tribute unto Caesar or not and the like there he was Vitis circumfossa a Vine which was under-digged But when subtil questions proved too weak to undermine his Wisdom then he was Vitis perfossa the last malice was to bore the Vine quite through the heart that it might utterly wither away and reflourish no more Weak inventions and the devices of them that knew not the Scripture nor the power of God for it was impossible that he should be held of death He laugheth at the shaking of a Spear as Job says of Leviathan The vulgar Translation reads my Text miles aperuit that the Souldier opened his side as if the gate of Paradise was now set open which was shut before against the Sons of men We read not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he opened but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he pierced him He made a Schism in the body of Christ and divided one part of it from the other O labour for the unity of the Church decline Faction as you would shun a Serpent in the path Every division pierceth through the skin of my Saviour through the side into the heart For the divisions of Reuben are great thoughts of heart But Fodit lanceâ so St. Hierom reads He digged into him with a Spear a word of Husbandry and fructification The Plowers plowed upon my back and made long furrows meaning the scourging that he suffered Sputis sicut fimo impinguatus His face was laid over with Spittle as tilth is spread to fatten the Land He was drencht in bloud like a field that is watered with wholsom springs They digg'd into his body like as the ground is turned up to make it fruitful They digged and there they found a Treasury which had been long hid the salvation of the Gentiles says the Father That you may see Abner a great Prince in Israel in the hands of Joab who smote him into the fifth rib here is Christ wounded with the same kind of cruelty his side was pierced with a Spear I have told you what it is to be a Souldier in Arms against God and what it is to open and divide the flesh of the Son of God but what sins are their Spears that are bent against his breast Producta peccata sins of long custom and continuance extensive impieties such as St. Paul calls the old man when a sin waxeth upon us like the gray hairs of our age that is a long Spear in Satans Artillery When Saul did first malign at David he cast a Javelin at him Jaculum Saulis that was but short and a hasty fit of anger but when he would never cease to persecute the man of Gods right hand then you shall read of Hasta Saulis a Spear which David took from the head of Saul Inveterate malice which will not be reconciled it is Homers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I may say a Spear of such a length that one end is above ground and the point in Hell one fit of Intemperance in Noah one Oath in Joseph one Superstision in John when he fell down before the Angel these have their turn and they return no more Happy Saints which dasht the Babylonish Children against the wall But there is a sin which doubles in the mouth of the sinner like that of the Edomites against Sion Down with it down with it unto the ground Like Crucifige crucifige Crucifie crucifie him as if once would not serve the turn And there is a treble sin like St. Peters denial three times over And there is iniquity of four links as Amos said For three transgressions and for four I will not turn away my wrath from Damascus saith the Lord. Seven Devils went out of Mary Magdalen Ten times the heart of Pharaoh was hardned Our Saviour puts the case if one man offend another Septuagies septies Seventy times seven times There are sins like the staff of Goliah's Spear as big as a Weavers Beam I will tell you what other sins Leo likens unto Spears and so I will finish this Point In vain says he did the Jews keep their own hands from violence in vain do they think that they made not the wound because a Souldier digged his side Qui venenata vocum spicula letalia verborum tela jaciebant Their teeth were Spears and Arrows and their tongue a sharp Sword They shot reproachful speeches like shafts of death as out of a well drawn bow all blasphemers that revile the Saints are as guilty of this wound as the Souldier that pierced his side with a Spear I must now speak of that part of his body whereon the Spear did light and to use the Fathers Elegancy Venimus ad cor dulcissimum Iesu bonum est nobis esse hic We are come even unto the place where the heart of Jesus lies and it is good for us to be here O sacred Passion O dearest wound This is a breach for the righteous to enter in This is none other as Jacob said but the gate of heaven Why did the Watchmen smite thee as the Spouse said What did direct their arm to touch that place How durst an uncircumcised Souldier dare to enter upon thy heart even upon the Holy of Holies Literally all this was done lest they had not finished their work of damnation For no mortal wound had been given to our Saviour before as some think and therefore when Joseph came to beg the body for burial Pilate marvelled if he were dead already the Jews mistrusted some delusion and to be sure to dispatch him a Souldier was suborned to thrust a Spear into his side As who should say he talked when he was alive of going to his Father and that from thenceforth we should see him in power and great glory no matter whither he go so we be rid of him as Bassianus said of his brother Geta Sit divus frater meus dum non sit vivus Strike him to the heart and then let God deliver him if he will have him Delilah enquired diligently of Samson where his strength lay that she might maim that part of the body and leave him weak like another man So these implacable enemies ransacked every part of the body to let out life If life be in the bloud of man the bloud was exhausted many ways If life be in the brains as others say the Crown of thorns was sufficint to offend them If life be in the heart there it should have no refuge for one of the Souldiers pierced his side with a Spear Now you that are babes in Christ like young ones in the nest implumes pulli hatcht under the wings of Christ untill you be fledg'd with feathers of Gold Behold the tender affection of a true Pelican hath drawn most precious bloud from his breast to revive his young ones And all you that will enter into the Ark and be saved from
upon the Jews until times of reformation Heb. ix 10. Nay whereas the Jewish Sacraments were nicely tied to days as the Child must be circumcised on the Eighth day and the Paschal Lamb must be eaten on the Fourteenth day of the First Month these Ceremonies being expired and Christ giving new Sacraments in their place Baptism and the Lords Supper no days are punctually prescribed for the use of them but in all Ages it hath been left to the liberty of the Church and that liberty hath been used piously and prudently without all manner of Scandal For there are no particular Laws for Circumstantial observations of what time and place with what Garments with what Liturgie of Prayers The reason is Christ hath called us to liberty and we are not hedged in such streights as the Jews were Yet if the right of the day be founded in any Apostolical Precept it is all one as if it were the immediate voice of God for they had the Spirit of Christ and they had his Commission Mat. xxviii 20. Go and baptize all Nations teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you If they have taught us any thing this way it is commanded by Christ Now in all the Epistles Apostolical there is but one place that hath any seeming to speak Imperatively 1 Cor. xvi 1. Concerning the collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia even so do ye Vpon the first day of the Week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him c. Here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Constitution from St. Paul but about what Not for Church Assemblies to meet together on the first day of the week He doth not say when you are together give to the poor but let every one lay somewhat by him And that imports that they were to deduct somewhat from their gains in their private Family Apud te repone domum tuam fac Ecclesiam lay by your Alms at home and make your own house the Church says St. Chrysostome But admit that this were a solemn day as I will not stand in it but it was as well for religious Assemblies as for charitable Contributions yet St. Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the order he took was for Alms and not for appointment of the Lords day that must come in by way of Practice of which I shall speak by and by and not by way of Precept Shall I conclude then that no Commandment can be found in the New Testament which will reach to the imposition of this day Not so neither It is enough if we have general warranty for it though not particular The Church hath ratified it to be kept holy in all Ages And Christ hath confirmed their act to be most obligatory He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me None can appoint a day but God by way of excellency or original authority but the Fathers of the Church being appointed Rulers by Christ may do this by delegate and derivative authority and by vertue of their Commission It is as slender as a rush to object that the Lord is the immediate founder of that holy time because it is called the Lords day If it be Gods own immediate assignation point it out Neither is there any impediment but that the Church may give the name Lords day to any holy day as well as a Bishops Consecration of some fair structure may cause it to be called the Lords house or as the laying on of his hands may make one that is a Lay-man be called a Minister of our Lord Jesus Christ But you will say it were a faster tye to hold that the Injunction is immediately from God then mediately from the Church Beloved Saul was appointed a King immediately from God and Hezekiah came not so to the Crown as Saul did but by succession of bloud Yet were not the People as much subject in conscience to Hezekiah as to Saul I trow they were So Aaron was called by God to be the High Priest Zadok was put into the place by Solomon he reigning under God And was not Zadok to be obeyed in his Priesthood as well as Aaron It is a common but a dangerous error to think that pious Ordinations are but weak and impotent if they be conveyed by the mediation of the voice of the Church Whereas if they be convenient means to the better fulfilling of the Commandment of God they are subordinate to the Divine Law nay they are incorporate into it and become sacred and venerable And remember that the Composers of them are sacred Persons and authorized to that Office by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and the Commission of Christ The last Member of our enquiry is what ground we have for sanctifying this day in the name of the Lord from the practice of the Apostles and from the practice of the Church in all Ages And this tenure as I conceive will prove so strong that it will make it not only a firm Ecclesiastical Sanction but also a Divine Institution There are manifest footsteps that the Apostles were occupied in Sacred Offices upon this day that is uncontroulable The first day of the Week the Disciples came together to break bread that is to celebrate the Supper of the Lord and Paul preached unto them Acts xx 7. I know that Paul taught every day of the Week sometimes Acts xix 9. But this preaching joyned with the breaking of bread and that eye which the Church in all Ages hath cast upon this place as a pattern fit to be followed it makes it eminent and remarkable Again the first day of the Week being signed out in the Churches of Corinth and Galatia for relieving the poor it may well be inferred that it was the practice of the Apostle and Apostolical men to exercise Religious duties upon that day then the day was graced with this name of dignity to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords day Rev. x. 10. For though it may be put off that the recurrent day wherein Christ rose is called by St. John the Lords day yet that evasion is taken off because Apostolical men who no doubt did keep the sound form of words did use the very same word while the Apostles were living and immediatly after Ignatius whose felicity it was to be St. Johns Scholar says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let every one that loves Christ keep the Lords day holy And as he speaks so did all others that were near his age The practice of the Apostles is so pregnant for it in Scripture that all the Fathers of the nearest times unto them call it their Institution and Tradition So doth Irenaeus St. Basil and a multitude of the same rank To put this Point home because it especially concerns the Doctrine which I have in hand it may be truly opposed that the practice of the Apostles doth not always make a
the Arms of the City to this day Therein before the Wars had been a most beautiful and comely Cathedral Church which the Bishop at his first coming found most desolate and ruin'd almost to the ground the Roof of Stone the Timber Lead and Iron Glass Stalls Organs Utensils of rich value all were embezell'd 2000 shot of great Ordnance and 1500 Granadoes discharged against it which had quite batter'd down the Spire and most of the Fabrick so that the Old man took not so much comfort in his new Promotion as he found sorrow and pity in himself to see his Cathedral Church thus lying in the dust so that the very next morning after his Lordships arrival he set his own Coach-horses on work together with other Teems to carry away the Rubbish which being cleared he procured Artisans of all sorts to begin the new Pile and before his death set up a compleat Church again better than ever it was before the whole Roof from one end to the other of a vast length all repaired with stone all laid with goodly Timber of our Royal Soveraign's gift all leaded from one end to the other to the cost of above 20000 l. which yet this zealous and laborious Bishop accomplished a great part out of his own bounty with 1000 l. help of the Dean and Chapter and the rest procured by Him from worthy Benefactors by incessant importunity the Gentry of Staffordshire Derbyshire Warwickshire contributing like Gentlemen whose names are entred into the Registry of the Cathedral unto which work none were backward but the Presbyterians whom our Reverend Bishop yet treated with more civility than their cross-grain'd humours deserved This rare Building was finished in eight years to the Admiration of all the Country the same hands which laid the Foundation laying the Top-stone also All which owes it self to his great fidelity incredible prudence in contriving bargaining with workmen unspeakable diligence in solliciting for money paying it and overseeing all Nehemiah's eye was ever upon the building of the Temple and therefore the work proceeded with incredible expedition The Cathedral being so well finished upon Christmas Eve Anno 1669 his Lordship dedicated it to Christs honour and service with all fitting solemnity that he could pick out of antient Rituals in the manner following His Lordship being arrayed in his Episcopal Habiliments and attended upon by several Prebends and Officers of the Church and also accompanied with many Knights and Gentlemen as likewise with the Bailifs and Aldermen of the City of Lychfield with a great multitude of other people entred at the West door of the Church Humphry Persehouse Gent. his Lordships Apparitor General going foremost after whom followed the Singing-boyes and Choristers and all others belonging to the Choir of the said Church who first marched up to the South Isle on the right hand of the said Church where my Lord Bishop with a loud voice repeated the first verse of the 24. Psalm and afterward the Quire alternately sung the whole Psalm to the Organ Then in the same order they marched to the North Isle of the said Church where the Bishop in like manner began the first verse of the 100 Psalm which was afterward also sung out by the Company Then all marched to the upper part of the Body of the Church where the Bishop in like manner began the 102. Psalm which likewise the Choire finisht Then my Lord Bishop commanded the doors of the Quire to be opened and in like manner first encompassed it upon the South side where the Bishop also first began to sing the first verse of the 122 Psalm the Company finishing the rest And with the like Ceremony passing to the North side thereof sung the 132. Psalm in like manner This Procession being ended the Reverend Bishop came to the Faldistory in the middle of the Quire and having first upon his knees prayed privately to himself afterwards with a loud voice in the English Tongue call'd upon the People to kneel down and pray after him saying Our Father which art c. O Lord God infinite in power and incomprehensible in all goodness and mercy we beseech thee to hear our prayers for thy gracious assistance upon the great occasion of this day This sacred House dedicated of old time to thine honour hath been greatly polluted by the long Sieges and dreadful Wars of most prophane and disloyal Rebels Thine holy Temple have they defiled and made it an heap of rubbish and stones yea they did pollute it with much bloud in all manner of hostility and cruelty We beseech thee good Father upon our devout and earnest prayers to restore it this day to the use of thy sacred Worship and make us not obnoxious to the guilt of their sins who did so heinously dishonour this place which was set apart for thy glory Thou art the God of peace of meekness and gentleness and wouldst not let thy Servant David build a Temple to thee because his hands were stained with the bloud of war we beseech thee that this thy Sanctuary having long continued under much pollution may be reconciled to thee and from henceforth and for ever be acceptable unto thee and that the spots of all bloud prophaneness and sacriledge may be washed out by thy pardon and forgiveness and that we and all thy faithful servants that shall succeed us in any religious Office in this place may be defended for ever from our enemies and serve thee alwayes with thankeful hearts and quiet minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen ALmighty Lord the restorer and preserver of all that is called thine since this Cathedral Church is once again made fit for thy Service and reconciled to thy Worship and Honour preserve it henceforth and for ever that it may never even to the second coming of Jesus Christ suffer the like devastation again that befel it by the impiety and disloyalty of a long and most pernicious Rebellion Save it from the power of violent men that such as are enemies to thy Name and to the beauty of holiness may never prevail to defile it or erace it Confound those ungodly ones that shall say of it down with it even to the ground Let the true Protestant Religion be celebrated in it as long as the Sun and Moon endure And we implore thee with confidence of thy love and with all vehemency of zeal that thy heavenly Spirit may fill thy hallowed Temple with thy Grace and heavenly benediction Hear the faithful prayers which thy Congregation of Saints shall daily pour out here unto thee And accept their sorrowful contritions in fastings and humiliations and in the days of joyful thanksgivings let their spiritual and gladsome offerings ascend up unto thee and be noted in thy Book Receive all those into the Congregation of Christs Flock with the pardon of their sins and the efficacy of thy Spirit to suppress the dominion of sin in them that shall here be presented to be baptized Let
condition of the child Et illa peperit promigenitum c. It was Nicodemus his problem which he propounded to our Saviour Iterum potest homo nasci Can a man be born again or the second time that which is impossible to Nicodemus is true in the person of our Saviour for he that was the first begotten of God before all worlds is Ejus primogenitus at a second birth he is become the first born Son of Mary De victo genere sumsit hominem per quem generis humani vinceret inimicum says St. Austin The Devil thought that at one skirmish in the Garden of Eden he had made a perfect conquest over the poor nature of man flesh and blood could never rise up again to take arms against him His malice was like Caligula's that wisht all the subjects of the Roman Empire had but one head upon their shoulders that at one blow he might destroy the whole generation but de Victo genere as the Father said Christ mannageth the quarrel between us and Satan so fairly and indifferently that he took upon him not the substance of Angels but even the flesh which was overcome that in the same Nature he might destroy our enemies The Potter may make what vessels do like him best out of his own clay But how strangely was the wheel turn'd about when the Clay did make the Potter was it not enough to make man after the image of God but moreover to make God after the image and likeness of man was it not enough that the breath of the Lord should be made a living soul for man but that the eternal word of God should be made Flesh Vtinam sicut verbum caro factum est ita cor nostrum fiat carneum O that as the word was made flesh so our stony hearts as the Prophet says may be made flesh that we may believe and glorifie this wonderful generation but the manner of this generation is a secret of God within the rail and I will not touch it Let it suffice us to know concerning her first-born 1. That he was never called the Son of the Holy Ghost though he were conceived by him 2. That among all those of the genealogy from whom he descended especially he is called the Son of David and Abraham But 3. by the nearest interest he was Ejus primogenitus the first-born Son of Mary Touching the first it is an Article of our Creed that the Holy Ghost was the active principle of the generation of Christ and why then was he not called his Father because to be the father of another thing is not enough to be the active principle of it for even the Sun is the active cause that produceth Worms and Flies and all those which are called insecta animalia and yet it is not called the father of those creatures but a father must beget a thing according to his own kind and species and therefore Christ was born after the species and nature of the Woman whereby he is called not the Son of the Holy Ghost but the Son of Mary Again as for the next thine observed in the Preface of St. Matthew's Gospel among all those that belong to the line of our Saviours Parentage the persons especially pickt out are David and Abraham which was the Son of David which was the Son of Abraham and that for this reason though Christ came from the loins of many others St. Luke counts 77 descents between Adam and Christ yet the words of promise benedicentur in semine tuo it was only spoke unto Abraham and David that in their seed that is in Christ all the Kingdoms of the earth should be blessed And therefore Abraham and David were known by name above others It was in every mans mouth that the Messias should come out of their stock the Oath which he swore to our fore-father Abraham says Zachary in his Song and blind men and beggars had it at their fingers end Son of David have mercy on us The more to illustrate this you must know that there was a twofold root or foundation of the Children of Israel for their temporal being Abraham was the root of the people the Kingdom was rent from Saul and therefore David was the root of the Kingdom among all the Kings in the Pedigree none but He hath the name and Jesse begat David the King and David the King begat Solomon and therefore so often as God did profess to spare the people though He were angry He says he would do it for Abrahams sake So often as He professeth to spare the Kingdom of Judah He says he would do it for his Servant Davids sake So that ratione radicis as Abraham and David are roots of the People and Kingdom especially Christ is called the Son of David the Son of Abraham and to say no more their Faith in the Incarnation of Christ is of some moment in this point David having obtained the name to be called the Prophet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he doth so fully express the Birth and Passion of our Saviour and Abrahams faith is most notable in that one instance says Fulgentius when He made Eleezer his Steward put his hand under his thigh and take an oath in the name of the Lord not that he thought there was any connexion between his own flesh and the God of heaven Sed ut ostenderet Deum coeli ex eâ carne nasciturum but to shew that the blessed Babe of Mary should descend lineally from his Loyns Who in the third place by the nearest interest is called Ejus primogenitus the first-born Son of Mary Non quod post eum alius sed quod ante eum nemo says St. Austin not called the first-born Son as the eldest of them Sons that followed but as being the first fruits of a Virgin-womb that had none before nor after here is Isaiahs Prophesie Puer natus nobis a Child born unto us Natus est non sibi Christus sed mihi for He was born not for himself but for me and for all the Faithful Here is Jeremies Prophesie Mulier circundabit virum that a woman shall compass a man Jer. 31.22 The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth a woman shall compass a man For Isaiahs Child is called a Man in Jeremiah Insinuans ei nunquam defuisse virtutem because in the very swadling clouts he came forth not as a weak Infant but full of power and virtue as a Giant to run his course He grew on indeed says St. Austin from an infant to a man but never to be an old man Crescat fides tua robur inveniat vetustatem nesciat So let thy faith wax more and more let it come to perfection and maturity but never unto old age as if it droopt and were declining I come to the third strange condition of the Birth it was without travel or the pangs of woman as I
David What 's this inclination of the ear we cannot bow or stir that part as we may the hand and the knee Aures hominum sunt immotae ut sit velox ad audiendum says one the ears of man are not to be wagg'd and mov'd like the ears of a beast to the end there may be no impediment in attention but that he may be swift to hear But he is said to incline his ear who hath a submissive heart and listens diligently to that which is spoken If a frivolous tale suppose the feigned pilgrimage of some Errant Knight be told us every syllable shall be markt so heedily that you will be able to repeat it Conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant But if God do send his servants to narrate his will and pleasure how many disturbances shall they find in their relation of heavenly things Sarah laught at the Angel Pharoah chafed and interrupted Moses the Jews mis-interpreted Christ himself Gallio marks not a word that 's said Eutyches sleeps the Athenians flout at Paul and say what means this babler who will take the pains to tell a message any more to him that will abuse it so neglectfully and if God should take away the preaching of his word from this people let them thank themselves who were so defective in all due and reverent attention But says John the Baptist The Friend of the Bridegroom standeth and heareth him and rejoyceth greatly because of the Bridegrooms voice John iii. 29. And so much for this word behold as it is a note of admiration of demonstration and lastly of attention Behold I bring c. Now the first of seven things which are remarkable in the message is that which hath met us often before in all the Texts upon this Gospel the consideration of the person that the Angel is sent unto us upon a peaceable entreaty Ecce ego Behold I bring you good tidings The children of men have so often provoked God to send Angels with a sword of vengeance to the earth that no doubt Gabriel was pleased to bring a welcome message with him A messenger cannot help it if he come with sorrowful news and yet for the most part men will be displeased at such a one whose tongue doth bode discomfort and infelicity Joab did tender the welfare of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok when he would not let him be the first that should certifie David how Absalom was dead says he Thou shalt bear tidings another day but this day thou shalt bear no tidings because the Kings Son is dead Therefore if you mark it Angels that came to inflict punishment or to threaten some ensuing mischief came single for the most part or never above two at once but to do a good office to men upon earth to protect Elisha from the Aramites to annuntiate that the Messias was come into the world they came by troops and multitudes no less in this chapter then a multitude of the heavenly host There were three with Abraham in his tent to tell him that Isaac the son of promise should be born unto him of Sarah in their old age and we cannot but take notice how one of the three vanisht and was gone when they went into Lot's house to warn him that Sodom should be destroyed with fire and brimstone How far are they from this Angelical benevolence that gird other men with the remembrance of their misfortunes and insult over their miseries as Shimei us'd David in his affliction a curse will fall upon them that love to be instruments to undo men rather than to raise them up that delight in the crosses of their brother rather than in their consolation Miserable comforters as Job said of his Friends that powred vinegar into his wounds to vex them not to heal them But these holy ones that are sent from above delight to be the Embassadors of joy the first of them all that I read of in holy Scripture came to administer help and succor to the distressed and that was the Angel that came to Hagar to chear up her drooping spirits and to put her into the way of safety when she and Ishmael the child were almost ready to perish And now one of them comes in my Text with good news to shew that a perfect friendship was made up between all parties in this verse between Angels and Men for Ego Evangelizo I come to rejoyce with you as a friend I bring you good news 2. A friendship between God and man for a Saviour is born unto you which is Christ the Lord. 3. Friendship and amity between man and man between Kingdom and Kingdom between one Nation and another people at the 14. verse On earth peace and good will towards men Yet when our sins cry out for vengeance this truce is broke of all sides The sword of our enemies shall be unsheath'd and all peace shall be dissolv'd between man and man our Saviour shall become our angry Judge neither shall the blessing descend from God to Man Lastly the Angel shall draw his sword and cause the pestilence to cut down thousands upon thousands as the Mower shears down the grass of the field I am sure the fury of such an angry Angel sticks still in our remembrance Therefore let every man for his part keep fast the bond of his tripartite friendship by sanctification and obedience then the Angels will come unto us not in fury but in mercy saying Ecce ego c. I proceed to the next circumstance Ecce Evangelizo we render it to bring good tidings but it is as if he had said I come to be an Evangelist I am no Law-giver whose voice was terrible I am a messenger of a better Covenant of the Gospel of Grace At this Text beloved the Spirit of God doth enter the word Gospel or Evangel quite to alter the state of the Church from what it had been before For the better understanding hereof I pray you mark it attentively in what manner God did dispence his will and pleasure to his Church from the beginning of the world to the end of all times And for order sake I will reduce it all to three heads to a Law which was given by God to Adam to a Law which was given by Moses to Israel and to these glad tidings to wit the Gospel of the New Testament which was given by Christ to all Nations from one end of the earth to the other 1. Now I buckle to the first of these a Law was given by God to Adam That Law was short and commandatory fac vive do this and live therefore that is rightly called the Law of Works but the Gospel says if thou believest thou shalt be saved therefore that 's called the Law of Faith The same God was the author of both these both were revealed to men and to no other creature both of them according as we perform them promise the same reward both of them have
day or in that year he did not learn the Shepherds nay I speak it with modesty I do not think he could teach himself Therefore I recoil back from that nicety and lay down my doctrine in this large lesson it was expedient that many revolutions of years should run out from the promise of Christs Birth unto the actual accomplishment 1. So great a matter was worthy much expectation and many predictions of the Prophets So St. Austin Quanto major Judex veniebat tanto praeconum series longior praecedere debebat the greater the Judge that was to come the greater troop of Harbingers and Apparitors should go before him 2. His Incarnation is fitted to the fulness of time because it falls out equally to try their Faith that should believe in Christ to come and to try their Faith who ought to believe that he is come that he is dead and risen again and ascended into glory 3. Between the time of Adams disobedience and the Birth of the Lamb of God a long space of years doth interlope that man might have time enough to see and feel his misery before the medicine was made to apply unto his sore 4. God is pleas'd to confer great honour upon our humane nature at three extreme distances in the beginning of the world toward the midst of it and in the end of all things In the first creation God made man after his own Image so began our excellencies then he made his own Son in the similitude of man a long distance went between these two Hereafter at the period of all things we are sure to have a glorified body and that our mortal shall put on immortality Now Christs Incarnation comes in the midst because he is the center of all Gods mercies towards us 5. The Jews whom Christ above all others calls his own He came unto his own c. they did sustain at this time and for some years had sustain'd a bondage under the Roman Conquest perhaps it is our Saviours pleasure that a great part of the Church shall be under a Romish thraldom against his second coming But this bondage was bitter to the Jews even at this day when Christ was born Caesars taxes were very grievous for Mary being ready to lie down was compell'd to come to Bethlehem to be taxed now in this day of oppression when the Jews I believe thought the yoke of captivity to be more intolerable than their sins and that they wisht for a victorious champion to fight for them then did God send them a greater Saviour than they wisht or lookt for not to acquit them from the Roman Dominion but from the pit of Hell And this is all that can be modestly conjectured about the opportunity of time c. This day is born unto you and as near as we can observe the course of the year by Astronomical skill this was the very day yet it is not that hodie of which the Angel spake unto the Shepherds then is not this part of the Text utterly unappliable to us no beloved but appliable to us also in the nearest degree for as we say of the sin of Adam Actu transiit manet reatus the act past away at the first but the guilt remains upon his posterity so our Saviour was born upon one particular day which is past but the merit and virtue of it is never past but abides for ever Wherefore to them that make the right use of this blessing St. Paul says it is out of date at no time but now is the acceptable time now when you will your self now is the day of salvation The Prophet Isaiah says the joy of this birth it like the joy of men in harvest that 's for the universality of all those that belong unto the field but for the extension of time it is not for the season of harvest alone but for all the year not gaudium in annum but gaudium in sempiternum Not an harvest joy for the plenty of one year but this is the bread of life whose plenty rejoyceth the eartn unto all ages It is as good news upon any day as it was upon one day says Bernard that Christ is born That day comes always anew to them that are renewed in the spirit of their mind and he is born every day to them in whose hearts he lives by Faith I must here cut off the circumstance of time and because the Sacrament must have a time to be celebrated I will speak but a few words upon the place and conclude The Angel directs the Shepherds to the City of David and thither did all the Scribes and High Priests direct Herod with full consent Bethlehem of Judea was the place where Christ must be born for so it was spoken by the Prophet Now Bethlehem is that City of David I know in the Old Testament the Tower of Sion is sometimes called the City of David a strong fortress in Jerusalem which David built to curb the Jebusites but that famous Metropolis of Jerusalem had nothing to do with this birth Little Bethlehem is here called the City of David where David was born Take notice I pray you that the Angel could have call'd it Bethlehem to take away all mistaking but it makes more to the matter to shew that Christ came of the house and lineage of David which was foretold Psal cxxxi Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy seat And mark how it falls out agreeably that Joseph and Mary came to no other Town but this to pay Tribute unto Caesar Had they been only of the Tribe of Judah as David was no nearer allied unto him they might have gone up to many other Cities much more famous than this to be taxed but being of the stock of David and indeed the nearest living in blood unto him therefore they go up to no City but to Bethlehem the City of David And thus you see the Angel conferr'd with the Shepherds in such words as were very proper they knew the place it was the next at hand they knew it belong'd to him that should be the Saviour of his people who according to the Scriptures belong'd to David by blood and to the City of David for his Country A poor caskenet to contain so great a Jewel Thou Bethlehem says the Prophet Micaiah the least among the Princes of Judah yet big enough to contain the Prince of Heaven and Earth Little Zoar says Lot and yet Zoar was big enough to receive him and his Children safe out of the fire of Sodom Poor Bethlehem which had but one Inn for strangers in it all it seems and that of small capacity which had no room no by-corner for a woman to be delivered in but only the manger of the stable Mean Bethlehem unless the Angel had spoke it the Prophet foretold it and the Star had shewed it to the Wise men who would not have gainsaid that the Saviour of all men could be
commanded to be made unless he had dominion over them that is unless he were Lord over them before they were made Rom. iv he calleth things that are not as things that are therefore he hath authority as a Lord over things that are not as much as over things that are The fair conclusion of it is the actual relation of the Creatures to his dominion began in time but their subjection to his will and power is for ever therefore God is the Lord from all eternity Whatsoever distinction may be put between these names yet when we praise God let us do as Zachary doth joyn them both together when we confess him let us do so likewise as Jonas did I am an Hebrew who worship the Lord God that made heaven and earth When we say our Belief let us do the same even as the Nicene Fathers did before us I believe in one God and in one Lord Jesus Christ And if you please your selves to distinguish accurately upon such Titles because St. Paul hath said that there be Gods many and Lords many let us distinguish between them and this supreme one the Lord God of Israel who is blessed for ever more Christ says the Scripture calleth them Gods to whom the word of God came Joh. x. 34. That Scripture is Psal lxxxii 6. I have said ye are Gods and ye are all the children of the most high From thence and from my Text you may state a profitable difference 1. Dixi I have said ye are Gods he hath said it and that made them so unless he had Godded them they had had no such pre-eminence What they have it is by entitling and nuncupation 2. Dixi Dii estis there are many of those Gods not only every Prince and Ruler chalengeth it by his Crown but every Christian hath his interest in it by adoption of filiation So I cited it from the mouth of our Saviour before the Scripture hath said they are Gods to whom the Word of God came 3. Estis ye are for a while ye are and after a while ye shall go from hence and be no more seen ye shall die like men but the true God abideth for ever 4. These heathen Semi-gods these that carry that badge upon earth shall not only die like men but like sinful men for it follows in the Psalm that when they fall God shall arise to judge the earth after they have judged they shall be judged upon it hereafter how they have judged But O man thou must not reply against the God of heaven his judgments are indisputable 5. The ever blessed God is praised in every thing that pertains unto him he is praised in all places of his dominion he is praised in all his works He hath done all things well say the people of Christ but among the actions of the best men Sunt bona sunt quaedam mediocria sunt mala plura Among some good there is much evil among some flourishing sprigs of praise there are divers dead boughs of frailty 6. These Nuncupative Gods preside over Civil Governments each of them is a golden head over his own Political body but Christ only is head of the whole Church from whence the whole body increaseth with the increase of God he alone is the Lord. And it is likewise upon some remarkable appropriation that the Psalmist says the Lord is his name he bears it certainly with many notorious marks of difference from all the Lordlings in the world First The dominion of man is joyned with some servitude in the Master for he that stands in need is a servant to his own necessities and the Master stands in need of the drudgery of the labouring man as much or more perhaps than that drudge stands in need of the wages of the Master But all our service is of no use or benefit to the King of heaven I said unto the Lord thou art my God my goods are nothing unto thee Psal xvi and therefore says St. Austin God did not make the world from all eternity to shew that he did not want the help of his Creature Secondly All things serve the Lord above nothing is hidden from the Scepter of his dominion but man in the highest Office upon earth is confined to a small scantling of authority he can command the body of his Vassal but not his soul He cannot command his Grass to grow or his Trees to bear or his Cattel to encrease or the weather to be seasonable But as the people said in admiration of the Miracles of the Son of God Who is this that commandeth the Winds and Seas and they obey him Thirdly All the Lordship upon earth is subalternate and dependant from a greater command Masters do that which is just unto your Servants knowing that you also have a Master in heaven Col. iv There is but one Lord and none but he that is responsive to no other the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Our Saviour though an unscrutable Abyssus of humility assumed that unto himself Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am Joh. xiii 13. Such a Lord to whom all the Sons of men do bow and obey Such a Lord that though he were Davids Son yet David in spirit calleth him Lord The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstoole Lord of all things by the Essence of his Godhead Lord of all things in his Manhood by the Hypostatical Union but by special interest Lord of all those whom he redeemed with his most precious bloud Lord God of Israel in which numbers as soon as ever he believed Thomas concluded himself saying My Lord and my God As we have the Humanity of Christ expressed in the two subsequent actions so we have as surely his Divinity set forth in these Titles the Lord God of Israel But that God that filleth the heaven of heavens and that Lord who hath stretcht out the line of his power over the whole earth he is Canton'd in this Text to a little Region of the earth but a Molehill in respect of the extent of his Majestie the Lord God of Israel It was not with Zachary the Priest in this elegant Canto as it useth to be with other Poets who out of affectation do strain their Poetry to make honourable mention of their own Country where there was neither cause nor merit But this holy Prophet had sufficient warrant from the Spirit which cannot err to nominate him the Patron of this people rather than of any other the God of Israel and that for two reasons Propter notitiam verbi propter promissiones seminis benedicti First The Oracles of the Scriptures were committed to them and God was not truly worshipped any where but in the Synagogues of the Hebrews and therefore says the Psalmist Notus Deus in Israele God is well known in Israel there they knew him that he was to be adored that he
truth that the very God became a perfect man and was Immanuel God with us says David Psal viii 4. When I consider the heavens the work of thy hands the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained what is man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of man that thou visitest him as who should say he that hath such rare and excellent heavenly bodies to delight in what should he do on earth what is the Son of man who is nothing but sin and misery that the Son of God should visit him O first let it be remembred with faith and thankfulness lest desolation come upon us as it did upon the Jews because we knew not the time of our visitation Luke xix 44. Secondly Let us answer the humility of our Saviour with all possible humility and say as the Centurion did Lord we are not worthy that thou shouldest come under our roof well deserved that all the succors of heaven should have fled from us and abhorred our face therefore blessed be his name for evermore that brought us peace from his Father sanctification from the Holy Ghost justification by his own merits humble your selves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in the day of his visitation as the vulgar Latin reads it 1 Pet. v. vi Thirdly Abraham made a feast to the three Angels when they visited him at his tent door Gen. xviii so let us prepare a table to entertain our blessed Lord that is come unto us not a feast of junckets and costly viands but let us receive him piously and devoutly as befitteth such a guest at his own Table Ipse est conviva convivium He is come to be feasted and he hath giuen us his own body to make us a feast and blessed be the Lord God of Israel that hath visited us and given himself to be the true spiritual food for the nourishment of our souls And so much of that act which is most conjunct with the festivity of this day Christ hath visited us yet peradventure we should esteem that work of courtesie and friendship but of no benefit at all unless it did extend it self to some further end and what can our desires wish to follow better than that which comes after in this place visitavit redemit by visiting he hath redeemed his people It is of such consequence above all things else that are needful to our well-being that St. Cyprian doth quite drown the former act in the latter and reads my Text thus Prospexit Deus redemptionem populo suo not a tittle about visiting but he hath provided redemption for his people Now captivity must be presupposed on our part because we did await and expect redemption Miseri sunt quos visitavit captivi quos redemit as I said before our soul was filled with a sore disease and therefore we were visited we were also under the captivity of sin and the Devil and lamentable were our case if we had not been redeemed Look upon the bondage out of which we were pluckt and it will make us more thankful for the freedom unto which we are called Ad servum rex descendisti ut servum redimeres says St. Austin thou didst descend to be a servant O King of Heaven to enfranchise a servant and to bring him out of thraldom Remember therefore at once for all since we all desire to have our part in this redemption we must all confess we were envassalled in a servitude So St. Austin against the Pelagians who denied the traduction of natural corruption from Adam says he How can Infants be said to be redeemed in Baptism unless they were captives before by original sin Therefore in imitation of our Saviours mercy as the Ancient Church 1200. years ago was copious in all deeds of Charity so their greatest care was to dispend their treasury to redeem captives and Paulinus a Pious Bishop as some stories say when all the stock of the Church was spent put himself into captivity to redeem a poor Christian miserably chained under the yoke of Infidels But this charitable deliverance of their brethren from temporal bondage was to shew how gratefully we should take it that Christ had redeemed all those that would lay hold of his mercies from eternal captivity Secondly As his goodness is amplified from our captivity so the redemption is the more valuable because none else could have pluckt us out of those fetters but the Holy One our Lord and Master Says David no man can deliver his Brother nor make a ransom to God for him for it cost more to redeem their souls so that he must let that alone for ever Psal xlix 7. when we had all incurred everlasting misery and mercy did so far prevail that the Divine Justice was content to forgive us the wisdom of God held the scale and arbitrated the case that when a law was broken and a mediation for pardon was entertained the best way was not to pass by the fault with a total indulgence but with a commutation of punishment And when men and Angels were unfit for that service then steps in the Son of God and undergoes the condition in his own person and became our brother flesh of our flesh that according to the Law being next of kindred to us he might redeem that which we had morgaged Lev. xxv 25. we had sinned and so needed a Redeemer and not so sinned but God the Father being placable a Redeemer would serve the turn And there the point had stuck for ever and we for ever had been helpless unless Christ had given himself a ransom for many Alius solvit pro debitore aliud solvitur quam debebatur one was the debtor and another satisfied one thing was owed to God I mean the life of sinners but another thing was payed I mean the life of an Innocent And let it make a third animadversion that the manner of our redemption doth greatly exaggerate the most meritorious compassion of the Redeemer there hath been redemption wrought by force and victory so Moses brought the Israelites with an high hand out of the slavery of Egypt There is a redemption which is wrought by intercession and supplication so Nehemiah prevailed with King Cyrus to dismiss the Jews out of the Babylonish captivity or thirdly either gold or silver or somewhat more precious is laid down to buy out the freedom of that which is in thraldom that 's the most costly and estimable way when value for value is payed or fourthly the body of one is surrendred up for the ransom of another life for life blood for blood and greater charity cannot be shewn than to bring redemption to pass by such a compensation So St. Peter extolls that act in our Saviour says he ye were not redeemed with corruptible things but with the Blood of Christ as a lamb undefiled So out of his own mouth Matth. xx 28. the Son of man came not
they believed him to be more than that little one or they had not worshipped him To make a full choir of consent thus St. Austin Adorant in carne verbum in infantiâ sapientiam in infirmitate virtutem They adored in the flesh that Word that was made flesh they adored in that Infant the Wisdom of the Father they adored in that infirmity the mighty power of God To whom c. SIX SERMONS UPON THE BAPTISM OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him YOU shall hear a Story beginning at this Verse and so ending with the Chapter how christ did enter into his Office of Mediatorship and how he began to make himself known to be the Promised Seed who should reconcile God and Men together It was as I have read unto you at a solemn Baptism which he received from the hand of John A happy beginning for us men and for our Salvation and a Baptism as useful for the spiritual liâ—e of all Christians as the Air conduceth to our natural conservation For as the same Air which God created in the beginning is the breath which our Fore-fathers did draw and which sustains us and shall serve the Generations of men which are yet unborn So the Baptism of our Saviour it purged all true believers that have gone before us it cleanseth us according to our Faith and shall work the same good work upon our childrens children for ever It stands us under the Gospel instead of the same comfort which the Rainbow afforded unto the old world The Rainbow is a reflexion of the Sun-beams in a watry cloud and was ordained as a sign of pacification that Gods anger should no more strive with man Such a Rainbow was Christ Jesus and therefore it encompasseth his Throne round about Apoc. 4. look upon him not standing majestically in a cloud above but wading like an humble servant into the waters of Jordan beneath look upon him how he sanctifies that Element which was once a means to drown the World and now is made a means to save it look upon him in that posture as a Rainbow in the water and you may read Gods sure Covenant made with his whole Church that his anger is pacified in his well beloved Son and that he will be gracious with his Inheritance A brave beginning and worthy to be the first work of his Mediatorship which is enough to say it will be most worthy your best attention Theodorus in Aristotle would never play a part in any histrionical sport unless he might be the first that came upon the stage He thought the first entrance in any person made the deepest impression in the Spectators And surely a good onset is no small grace to all that follows The first-born were sanctified to the Lord. God smelt a sweet savour out of the first Sacrifice that Noah offered unto him a distinct mark is set upon the first miracle which our Saviour wrought at Cana in Galilee by turning water into wine And this being the first work of his Prophetical Office is transcendently observable that he came from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him Which verse is but the preparatory to that which follows and therefore it affords no more than three circumstances of the main matter which lies behind at ver 16. First It refers us to inquire into the circumstance of time Then cometh Jesus from Galilee surely it was some very fit season and opportunity Secondly After what manner he would be baptized with the Baptism of John it will be necessary therefore to examine the dignity of Johns Baptism Thirdly The place must not be omitted which was the fortunate seat where this work was done not in Galilee but in Jordan Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan c. For the first of these we need not divine or follow conjectures of our own invention how seasonable it was for the Son of God to declare himself just at this present to be the Messias that would save his people three reasons may be drawn out of express Scripture and we can have no better 1. You may read in this Chapter the men of Judea and all Jerusalem round about were baptized in Jordan confessing their sins John preacht the doctrine of Repentance before them and wrought great compunction of heart in many that heard him they were afflicted for their sins and grieved for the days that were past Then did the Son of God present himself to be baptized in Jordan In the midst of their contrition when their souls were filled with the desire of grace Then said I loe I come Poor People they began to know themselves in what miserable condition they were even sick unto death and when their bowels did yearn O is there none to deliver us Then steps in the peace of heaven and earth as who should say Is it I that you look for Is there any beside me that can cure your miseries Observe my beloved how pat the comfort of Salvation comes in after true repentance David said unto Nathan I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan said unto David in the same line The Lord also hath put away thy Sin As soon as ever Stephen was besmeared with the bloud of Martyrdom then he saw the heavens opened and Christ standing at the right hand of God And Repentance comes but thus short of Martyrdom that it fetcheth bloud from the soul and killeth the old man with his concupiscence When tears of godly sorrow trickle down or at such time as compunction hath a bleeding heart within though the eyes be dry without then it hath an imaginary vision that it sees the Son of God making intercession for us to his Father and beckoning with his right hand to our wounded conscience that we should be comforted No man can ever say he languisht long in desire to obtain Gods grace and could not find it Let Mary Magdalen weep and wring her hands that Christ is taken away and if she turn about glad woman she shall perceive how near he is unto her He was born indeed at Bethlehem Angelis cantantibus when the Angels of heaven did sing for joy But being lost as it were to the knowledge of the world for a long space at the end of thirty years he manifests himself again hominibus plorantibus when men were broken in heart with Mortification and Repentance at the preaching of John Then cometh Jesus from Galilee c. Secondly The austerity of Johns life and the divinity of his preaching did amuze the world therefore the Priests and Levites sent to him from Jerusalem to know if he were the Christ Joh. i. 19. And another Evangelist says all the people were in suspence in their hearts whether John were the Christ Luke iii. 15. Now at this instant that the servant might no longer rob the
since he was tempted of Satan Lord let me not fight alone lest my foes prevail against me Thus tentation begets fear and fear begets prayer and prayer calls for succour and heavenly succour will assist us to be conquerours Gregory incloseth it in his meditation Vnde pertimescit homo enerviter cadere inde accipit fortiter stare that tentation which makes a just man distrust he shall fall affordeth him occasion to set his feet upon a sure place Cast not your selves therefore into tentation Brethren but when you are in them endure them with joy and courage as it is said of the Machabees that they fought with chearfulness the battels of Israel so go on with alacrity against those innumerable evils that take hold upon you The just man triumphs with David against the powers of darkness as if he saw them already made subject unto him they are cast down and faln but we are risen and stand upright Pelopidas being environed with an Ambush alas says his Lieutenant we are faln into the hands of our enemies And why not rather our enemies faln into our hands says Pelopidas So let not the name of Satan and tentation be dreadful unto you he hath more cause to fear he shall be repulsed than you have reason to fear he shall prevail since Christ hath blunted his weapons in this conflict The Fathers call that verse the Saints Jubilee after their trial with the evil one Psal lxvi 12. We went through fire and water but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place And therefore I bequeath St. Pauls exultation to your use Thanks be to God who hath given us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Fourthly Christ was tempted to give us an example how to encounter with the roaring Lion and to win the Mastery As a young Learner will observe diligently every ward and thrust that an experienced Gladiator makes so the Holy Ghost hath set down for our advertisement every passage how Christ did turn and wind the delusions of the Serpent These things had need to be scanned beloved we had need to be cunning at our fence for if the Devil sought our overthrow in Christ how much more will he do it in our selves If these things were done to the green wood what will be done to the dry But mark how the man of Gods right hand chased away the enemy mark how he demeaned himself from first to last and you are fortified with the best president that ever the world afforded Ut cujus munimur auxilio ejus erudiremur exemplo says Leo he looks upon our conflicts from heaven and helps the weaker side both by the presence of his grace and by the president of his example Observe him that we might instance in all his ways retiring into a desart from the contagion of the world observe him fasting observe him drawing his shafts out of the quiver of the holy Scripture to maintain his cause and say this is the true Charm to make the evil Serpent break as Daniel in the Apocryphal story choakt the Dragon with lumps of strong confection Christ himself could not receive increase of the Spirit either by being baptized or by being tempted for he had the fulness not of sufficiency but of abundancy before without measure but it was for the proficiency of his members that were under him And therefore the Schoolmen have a disceptation since Christ was much greater than the Angels and did far excel them in grace why he should be tempted of the Devil For we do not read that any of the Angels confirmed in grace were ever tempted One of them answers Quia Angelus non habet membra sub se quomodo Christus habet Christ is head of a body and hath members under him to give erudition unto by his example and so have not the elect Angels Wherefore if the Children of Israel lookt up by faith upon the brazen Serpent in the Wilderness that they might be healed when they were wounded how much more should we look attentively upon Christs Tentation in the Wilderness that we may not be wounded of the Serpent The Fathers in their piety say it is easier to avoid ten sins that compass us round about and have not yet taken hold of us than to recover our selves sound again from any one sin that we have committed It is the Angelical part of Christianity to take out this Lesson Prevent us O Lord from evil in all our doings There is a great deal of the old man and his ragged lining in the best repentance You may learn repentance from Christs Gospel but not from Christ himself but innocency and clearness of life and to be impregnable against tentations not Verbum Christi but Christus Verbum not the Word of Christ but Christ the eternal Word makes you cunning in that by his own example He that knows not the experience of many tentations doth not well know himself says St. Austin Nescit se homo nisi in tentatione discat se But he that knows not the experience of Christs combate will not know how to deal with tentation Fifthly Says Bonaventure very acutely he began in the ministry of the Gospel first to refute the false Doctors before he taught his Disciples the truth first to beat down the Synagogue of Satan and then to build the City of God First root up the Tares and bind them in bundles and then dress the Wheat A Bishop must be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince gainsayers Tit. i. 9. Conviction of falshood requires the greater care and diligence and the great Bishop of our souls begins with that How soon were all divinity learnt What little pains would go to Preaching and Exhortation if it were not that Heresies and Falshoods beget us a most laborious drudgery to refute them Innumerable errors are disseminated that they are like Augias his Stable so foul that they are never to be cleansed It held our Saviour forty days in the Wilderness to untie all the knots of Satan and thus we must build up Hierusalem like Nehemiahs builders with the Sword in one hand with the Trowel in the other Having the Sword of the Spirit to cut in twain the snares of the wicked one you shall the sooner build up the walls of Sion Sixthly And then I take off my hand from this Point Let no man say I am cast out from the face of the Lord because he is beset with daily tentations God had one Son that was free from sin but he hath no Son that is free from the incumbrances of Satan If there be no more in it than an outward occasion cast before you to try if you will bite which is Exterior pulsatio as a man that comes not into the house but stands without and knocks at door This is your praise in the highest respect that your vertue is impenetrable As the Lord sent a blast upon Sennacharib and made him return to his
than the man that rides him And in this circumstance likewise Satan was egregiously cozened to his exceeding contumely for when Christ permitted himself to be lifted up from the earth it seemed to Satan that it was his strength and power which carried him away and though much unwilling to be caught up in that wise yet being an impotent man he could not help it Thus the evil Spirit was deluded to ascribe that to his own power that came to pass by the hand of God Like the Fly in the Fable sitting upon the Axeltree of the Cart when it was moved apace took it to it self that the Cart was driven so fast and cries out see what a dust I make So this evil Angel either took up Christ in his hands in that body which he had assumed and thought it was in his power to stay him from falling or as spiritual substances in some mens Philosophy can move a corporeal thing by emanation of vertue which goes from them though they do not touch it as the intelligences move the heavens and so Satan not touching Christ at all might think it was his force and efficacy that snatcht him up from the earth to a Pinacle of the Temple But the former way is more likely as if he would shew him how the Text of David was literally meant He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up Beloved as the Divel did arrogate that he took up Christ on high by his own force and arm yet it was nothing so In like manner he thinks that all those hold their tenure of him who are exalted by wicked means he took them up to a Pinacle of the Temple he raised them up to civil honour Indeed wicked persons live as if they owed their service rather to Satan than to God for their preferment but it is the Lord that sets both good and bad in the seat of dignity the powers that be they are from God For this cause I have raised thee up he spake it to wicked Pharaoh that I might make my power known in thee Let mighty ones therefore remember they are Gods liege men and not the Devils And they that rise up like smoke from hell fire like smoke they shall vanish into nothing So I have shewed it was not in the power of Satan to carry our Lord whither he would but Christ suffered this Assumption of Satans out of patience not out of infirmity and suffered himself to be lifted up on the Cross and at last he came to the third Assumption to be received up into glory There is a third thing remains to be satisfied which every one will expect what a gazing sight would this be for all the Region over which Christ did fly and for the populous City of Jerusalem It must needs be an object upon which all men would cast their eyes and why is it not more spoken of in the Gospel and objected to our Saviour by his enemies It is no solid answer to say it hapned in the night and none were aware of it For the tentation which follows must needs be done in the clear light when he shewed the Son of God all the Kingdoms and glory of the world in the twinkling of an eye The true answer is that Satan was more over-reach'd in this surmise than in all the rest For he thought by this hovering aloft in the Air to make Christ a spectacle to all the world that men might think him some Inchantor or Magician by riding above in the clouds in the mean time says St. Chrysostome Christ made himself invisible that he was seen of no man the Devil being no way privy to it that he did abide invisible So Joh. viii ult the Jews took up stones to cast at Christ but he hid himself and went out of the Temple going through the midst of them what was this to hide himself and to go through the midst of them But to pass through the throng invisible as among others Euthymius noteth No point of cozenage and sorcery was practised more of old by the Impes of Satan than these flyings aloft these aereal supervolitations to the wonder of the world Nero Caesar was given much to Incantations and to experiments above nature especially in this kind Suetonius says that one of his Flatterers would undertake to fly up to heaven at his command but got a tumbling cast for his labour insomuch that some of the parties bloud did light upon Nero himself as he sate to behold this new sight in the Theater I will not say that this was Simon the Sorcerer spoken of Acts viii because he in the Theater did personate Icarus in sport but Simons was a solemn undertaking to confute the Doctrine of Peter and Paul by flying up to heaven So it is in the book called Clemens his Constitutions that this child of the Devil began to take his flight up on high openly before all the people of Rome and at the instant Prayers of the Apostle Peter he fell down headlong and brake his legs Because that Book is justly suspected for an adulterate work Arnobius who wrote in the Reign of Dioclesian to all the Gentiles says as much Cursum Simonis Magi nominato Christo evanuisse The flight of Simon Magus was cross'd in the name of Jesus Christ This was grown so common either by Mathematical engines or by Witchcraft that every Impostor did begin to profess it Graeculus esuriens in Coelum jusseris ibit says the Satyrist The Prince of the Air thought to amuse the world and to do stupendious works in his own Territories but he that sits on high shall laugh them to scorn the Lord shall have them in derision These are but foolish Antiques and Mimicks of the proper sending up of our spirit to God by desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ by having our conversation in heaven and delighting in those joys which are laid up for the Saints and by fervent Prayer which carries up the heart to God upon the wings of Zeal and Innocency so the Psalm mentions how a man may raise himself even unto the top of the holy City which is the new Jerusalem in heaven My soul flyeth unto the Lord before the morning watch I say before the morning watch And so much for the second general Point the manner of this tentation which was by Assumption Then the Devil taketh him up c. The holy City is the Locus communis the place largely taken to which he was carried out of the Wilderness and that is the ground to work upon for the third general Observation of the Text. This must needs be the Periphrasis of Jerusalem because God had a Temple no where else but there and St. Luke hath spared this Periphrasis and named the place he took him to Jerusalem and set him on a Pinacle of the Temple The eminent honour which this place had for many Sacred
Angel if his Superiour called him he must come instantly away These are whimsies in the head when the Devil prompts them to do some strange tricks more than ordinary Christians are able even as he would have put our Saviour upon a supernatural shall I say Nay upon a contra-natural exploit because he was the Son of God Whereas the true marks of Filiation and Adoption are these Humility awful Fear Faith that works by Love hate of Vain-glory Denying of our selves giving all honour to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost AMEN THE TWELFTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 6. For it is written He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone THey that meditate mischief against others usually they begin with perswasion and end in hostility their first way is subtilty and their last is violence As Themistocles told the men of Andria that he had brought two great Goddesses with him to exact Tribute of that Island 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perswasion and Necessity First I pray do it and then you must do it The Devil held our Saviour play all the while he was on the Earth with the same method For a long space he laid his train privily to overcome him with Art and Tentation at length he made his assault openly to bring him to his Death and Passion Vulpes in primo congressu leo in crucifixione at this bout he made towards him like a Fox with many trim perswasions but when he stood out perswasions he rose against him like a Lion as David prophesied They would tear my soul in pieces like a lion while there is none to deliver me In this story of Scripture upon which I insist he practiseth the Arts of the Fox upon which subtil creature Gregory lends this Observation to our present matter Nunquam rectis itineribus sed tortuosis anfractibus currunt they never run straight on when they are hunted but make an hundred windings and doublings that it may be more difficult to trace them So Satan never went right on with any Proposition which he made to our Saviour sometimes he urgeth one way sometimes another comes forward and falls back practiseth like Pharaoh with Moses who profess'd he would deal subtilly with the people of Israel One while Pharaoh makes an offer to let the men of Israel go serve the Lord in the Wilderness but not their Children nor their Cattel then he changeth his Sentence and detains them all Then he gives them leave to take their Children with them but nothing else at last he gives order to let them all be gone Children and Herds and Flocks Bag and Baggage they should have all to be rid of them Beloved there can be no good meaning where there is so much alteration and inconstancy Square dealing stands upon one firm base hold fast to that without being removed Delusions and devices hop about like Ignis fatuus This holds very right on the Tempters part in my Text. You see he shifted ground from the Wilderness to the Temple and then he flies back from the Temple to the Mountains in the Wilderness He tries if he can make him despair then he falls off and ventures to make him presume Upbraids him at first that God would give him no bread Perswades with him by and by that God will give him all his Angels First he would put the working of a miracle into Christs hands command that these stones be made bread Next he refers the work of power to the Angels He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up Thirdly He assumes the doing of great matters to himself All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me He laboured with our first Parents neither to believed God nor the Word which he spake now he makes a shew that he would have Christ both trust in God and in his Angels and in his Word the holy Scripture For it is written He shall give his Angels charge c. The whole verse was thus distributed to you before First in order I propounded the demand which Satan made Cast thy self down 2. Upon what supposition If thou be the Son of God there I ended with the hour 3. Upon what Authority Why upon the warrant of the holy Scripture For it is written 4. Upon what assistance Why the best in the world which here is twofold Supreme and Instrumental The Supreme is God He will give his Angels charge concerning thee The Instrumental helps are the first Instruments of all Creatures the whole host of good Angels In their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone And first I must meditate hereupon at this time that the wicked one hath quoated the best Authority which the Church hath to justifie the lawfulness of his demand Scriptum est enim for it is written Perhaps he had never thought of Scripture at this time but that Christ put him in mind of it in the fomer Tentation and it was his old sin Ero similis altissimo I will be like the most High do every thing as Christ did not out of pious imitation but out of perverse affecting an equality And because Christ had the start of him to fly first to the Word of God therefore the Devil doth both quote Scripture and carry him to the Temple as if he would shew Religion and Sanctity double as much as our Saviour did Joab in his necessity will fly to the horns of the Altar for sanctuary as if the Lord would protect a Rebel that had set up a concurrent against his lawful King So the Devil will fly to the Scripture for a need as if there were any refuge there for him that had been a Traitor to his God Occasio fallendi est maxima ubi est maxima authoritas says St. Ambrose the most perilous way to deceive is under pretence of the greatest authority Therefore the Tempter comes like a Divine with a Psalter in his hand you know how well he counterfeited Samuel putting on the shape of that good Prophet to abuses Saul and here he counterfeits David nay therein he counterfeits the very Spirit of God A man would have thought Satan would have skipt the Book of the Psalms though he had search'd over all the Scripture beside It is the Volume of joy of consolation of alacrity the very Songs of Angels Is any man merry Let him sing Psalms says St. James Is there any use of that sweet harmony for him that lives in perpetual torment But they that mean to abuse the Sacred Text instance in those places where you would least expect to find them From the Commandment to sanctifie the Sabbath day the Pharisees wrung in their exception that it was not lawful for Christ on that day to
will The Tongue of man the Knee the Heart nay Body and Soul together are to be purchased As you bring with one hand you shall carry away Favour and Justice in the other The access of profit carries the main stroke in every thing The Heads judge for reward and the Prophets divine for money Mich. iii. 11. They that should be most clear from this fault you see are chiefly in the reprehension No man knows with what stint he would spend or how much he would lay up therefore unless where the conscience is much refined from greediness it is a pleasure to sacrifice to our net and above all things to catch at that which comes in with so much easiness as Dabo I will give thee Hazael King of Syria must have a present even all the hallowed things that were dedicated to the Lord that he might not come up against Jerusalem Felix the Governour without a feeling would not set Paul at liberty The corruption of the times was such in Israel that men thought the Prophets as greedy as themselves and would not ask them counsel of the Lord without a gift in their hand Benhadad sent a Present of all the good things in Damascus even forty Camels burdens to Elisha to enquire if he should recover of his sickness And Saul more apparently being counselled to go to Samuel to ask which way he should return home made a stand at it saying What shall we give to the man of God There is not a present left This polling Covetousness was very ordinary no doubt in that Land when the People knew nothing but the Prophets were devourers of gifts and would not open the Oracles of God unto them without Satans complement Dabo I will give thee The giver that would corrupt another such as the High Priests that delivered Judas thirty pieces of Silver to betray his Master such a one you see by the instance of my Text doth supply the place of the Devil I am sure God gave no man wealth to this end to buy another out of his honesty the eternal Law says that vertue only should be rewarded and he that keeps the Commandments therefore to give a Pension to man or woman to be vicious is to cross that supreme fundamental Law by which heaven and earth are governed Fie that so good a vertue as Liberality should be so scornfully imitated No vertue is more often commended by God than bounty and giving but above all moral qualities it is most plausible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle hit the reason in a word it redounds to the common benefit of others more than any other vertue which begets it favour and affections Now to cast dirt in the face of this vertue Satan sets up a liberality which is of a most different condition and nothing of kin to it when the great Patrons of sin care not what they bestow upon them that serve their turn for flattery for injustice for lust for sensuality When poor Lazarus wants a draught of cold water a shower of Gold shall rain down into the Lap of Danae the wages of an Harlot are far greater for the most part than the recompence of most faithful and honest service The Egyptian Rhodope out of the gifts of her Lovers was able to dispend enough to build a Pyramis an expence so great that few Kings in Egypt could accomplish it If the Daughter of Herodias shew her self lascivious and immodest Herod will cast away half his Kingdom upon her or if that be too little he leaves her to be her own carver she may ask any thing Dabo quodcunque volueris I will give thee whatsoever thou wilt ask O that noble qualities were as sure of Patronage as Instruments of wickedness are sure of means and maintenance As Suetonius said of his Nero Pecuniae fructum non alium putabat quà m profusionem He thought there was no use of riches but waste and profusion So in the Line that Satan draws out there is no use of giving but to procure Idolatry to fall down and worship him Cursed be those hands that open themselves wide to any one man or woman to make them the child of perdition Judah gave his Ring to Thamar to hire her unto Fornication I believe he repented him with many tears of bitterness because old Jacob did so abundantly bless him but let me propound unto him that is prone to do the like will you abuse those blessings those temporary blessings which God hath given you to buy Souls for the Devil Christ hath given a ransom out of his bloud to redeem that soul from Hell and will you give Gold and Silver to buy it into Hell again Was there no poor Member of Christ whose body you might save with that money wherewith you destroy a soul He that giveth to the needy lendeth to the Lord but he that purchaseth any one to be sinful by his bounty he lendeth to the Devil This that I have spoken of was the sin of Balaac to barter and be at a price with Balaam to do an evil act to curse them whom the Lord had blessed and it is the Chapman that makes the Market woe be to the giver that tempts the weakness of man with such a forcible provocation Aureo pugillo ferreus murus frangitur says the Heathen A Hammer of Gold will beat down a Wall of Iron Yet is there nothing to be said to the receiver Shall his hand be clear that hath taken when he is called to answer Nay none more accused by the Spirit of God none more criminous They are companions of thieves every one loveth gifts and followeth after reward Isa i. 23. Neither is robbery their alone enditement but the worst of sins against the Second Table Bloud and Murder Shut not up my life with the bloud-thirsty in whose hands is wickedness and their right hand is full of gifts Psal xxvi 9. He that takes reward to do evil takes a fee to lose his own salvation Nay what toil and drudgery some will undergo to earn the wages of iniquity Minori labore margarita Christi emi poterat says St. Hierom You might accompass that invaluable Pearl in the Gospel whereof the Parable speaks that the Merchant sold all he had to buy it I say that Pearl might have been gained with less danger and industry the whole treasure of the Kingdom of heaven Espencaeus being a Romish Doctor and a most learned may be bold with his own friends who hath revealed more corruption and bribery in the Roman Court than a modest Protestant could almost believe As Pensions taken not only for the punishment of incontinence past but to lay down somewhat before-hand for the time to come What if the Visitors met with such as resolved to be chaste yet the common Levy was exacted of such a one Habeat si velit O shameless word he may use the sin if he will Then the Taxa Camerae as they call it
worship the Lord there with pure and undefiled service he wandred away from this regal fortune to keep sheep in the Wilderness O most magnanimous servant of God that had rather keep sheep with a pure conscience than be a King among Idolaters for how much wiser is it to purchase eternal felicity with a little miserie than to heap up eternal miserie by enjoying a little felicity There are things to come far more precious than these which the tempter extols but alass he did offer nothing to speak of to countervail the loss of a soul when he mouthed these words as a donative which could not be refused all these things will I give thee Finally to go but one deliberation further though Satan was incredulous and would not be perswaded that Christ was the eternal Son of God consubstantial with the Father that had taken our flesh in the Virgins womb to redeem us yet he could not but observe how holy and zealous He was in all his waies endowed with sanctity beyond all the Prophets that ever liv'd therefore this Tentation must needs be ill placed and most unseasonable for God is all manner of riches to those that serve him unfeinedly and with an upright heart Plenitudo deliciarum sufficientia divitiarum Deus est no strong line but a sweet and most emphatical meditation of St. Austins Where God abides there goes with him the alacrity of all delight and the inheritance of all riches Where was St. Pauls Exchequer think you in what corner of the world did his rents lye that he wrote to the Philippians I have all and abound Philip iv 18. Satan cannot be so shameless to offer any thing to him that hath all already there 's work for an Auditor let him cast up those sums if he can and make them even 2 Cor. vi 10. as having nothing and yet possessing all things such Apostolical spirits those few that are measure themselves wealthy not by the weight of silver and gold but by the grace of God which inhabits in them and doth enable them to refuse more than Satan can pretend to give There was somewhat else which St. Peter lookt for that was not in the Inventory of all this baggage which the tempter would impart to Christ these are his words Lo we have left all and followed thee what shall we have Mark x. 28. this is odd you will say to leave all and then to fall a demanding and looking for more but first he lookt for the promise of the coming of the Holy Ghost which David pray'd for Encline my heart unto thy law and not to covetousness rather a dram of virtue than a talent of fortune Secondly he lookt for the glorification of body and soul where Satan shall no more stand at our right hand to tempt us where the spirit shall be ready and the flesh as willing to fall down and worship the Lord for evermore Amen THE SIXTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 9. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me St. Luke more largely renders it thus chap. iv 6. All this power Will I give thee and the glory of them for that is deliver'd unto me and to whom soever I will give it if thou therefore Wilt Worship me all shall be thine YOU heard before what vast sums of wealth the great Prince of the riches of this World did commend out of his most abundant but deceitful liberality to our Saviour all these things will I give thee Solomon had a mighty Tribute 666 talents of gold yearly and silver as the stones of the street all his vessels were of pure gold silver was not anything accounted of in the daies of Solomon Yet the whole revenue of Solomon was but beggerie to those comings in which Satan promised in this place haec omnia whatsoever the globe of the earth conteins without exception or deduction But as if the Tempter would exceed himself and rise above all expectation his mouth speaks greater things by far in that which follows now to be handled than in those particulars which I opened before for he will engage to make our Saviour Lord of all the Kingdoms in the World all this power will I give thee and the glory of them he should have that into the bargain Pompey the great saith Livie made the Romans Lords of so much land by his successful victories that unless he had taken so many captives as he did the land could not have been till'd and occupied and again he made them Lords of so many captives that unless he had seiz'd upon so much land the captives could not have been received and harbour'd So the Devil offer'd our Saviour so much wealth that unless he had promis'd to give him all the honour of the world it could not have been spent and again he offer'd him so much honour that unless he had promised him all the wealth in the world it could not have been maintein'd But what will all this come to here 's a shower of wealth and glory pour'd down what thunderbolt comes after it timeo Daneos dona ferentes shut the gift out of doors till ye know the condition why it should be receiv'd a wise man will be as careful lest any thing should be basely given him as he will be circumspect that nothing be unjustly taken from him for many times the intent of pernicious liberality is to make a man incur the foulest sins in the world to avoid ingratitude The woman had a cup of gold in her hand but it was full of abomination Rev. 17.14 so the purpose of this great gift is to take the Devils Damm with a Dowry to be raised up on high above all the Dominions of the Earth ut lapsu graviore ruat then to fall down from that height and to commit Idolatry What were the several particulars which I charged upon the whole Text the last time it will be fit for me to repeat and for you to hear First wherein the forcible enticement of this last Tentation consists in giving a speeding word I told you and very provocative dabo I will give thee Secondly what and how much he would give and that 's twofold First as a Mammon of iniquity all riches and possessions that the eye could see and as a Lucifer of pride the power of all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them Thirdly he shews Christ his evidences quo jure by what right and authority he can make over all this unto him in those words for that is deliver'd unto me and to whomsoever I will give it Fourthly and lastly every bait hath his hook under it this promise hath a most impious condition annext unto it if Christ will fall down and worship him I have spoken of the former part of the gift which this insolent Braggart made ostentation to bestow he would put all the riches of the world into one donative
of the Serpent and nothing can be truer than the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or application that one sin is never hatcht alone especially if it be a great one but it hath a train to follow it God challeng'd his people that they had broken the bond of marriage between him and their soul not with one adultery and no more but the Prophet chargeth Jerusalem fornicata es cum multis amatoribus thou hast committed fornication with many lovers that is with many sensual pleasures Upon this consideration virtue is compared to salt have salt in our selves sayes Christ to his Disciples of which you cannot take up one corn alone upon your knifes point but many grains will cleave together and upon the same respect wickedness is compared to the sands of the sea one mote is very rarely severed by it self sand is a Noun Collective which supposeth many motes of dust for there is not any sin but respectively to divers parts of disobedience it may be call'd by divers names David emplung'd himself into many crimes what with Bathsheba what with Vriah what with Joab whom he made his evil instrument Peter fell into three denials one after another He that will praise the Lord as he ought in the uprightness of his life must honor him upon a ten-stringed Lute upon all the Commandments and he that wilfully fails in one instance will put every string out of tune for he that committeth one sin is guilty of the whole law These funiculi peccatorum cords of vanity sins entwisted one within another come into my mind from this third Tentation in my Text so that Tertullian is justified in his saying by this practice multiplicia spiritus incitamenta jaculantis the rebellious spirit hath more than one shaft for his bow a quiver full at least as it is Psal xi 2. For lo the ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrows within their quiver For what sin hath not the Devil committed in these words All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me furtum perduellio mendacium blasphemia they are all here in the height of their offence Furtum the largest theft that ever was committed he would give all the substance in the world to Christ but then he must rob the right owners Perduellio a most foul attempt of treason he would give him all Kingdoms and honour but then he must depose all just and lawful Princes Mendacium not a plain lie but a very monster of untruth as St. Luke hath it in large for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give it Lastly Blasphemia a blasphemy that vies beyond all the rest if thou therefore wilt worship me all shall be thine Now I have added to make up my Text at this time how easily God doth cut off all these heads of Hydra at once with his revenge and justice for this short rebuke of Christ is enough to controul the Devil with all his sins about him Get thee hence Satan or as St. Luke Get thee behind me Satan The words then which I have read amount to four parts the Gift which I have entirely dispatcht the Giver the Condition the Repulse The Gift furtum both to rob private men of their peculiar and Kings of their Royalty The Giver mendacium a lye without all shame that all the honors of the world were at his dispose The Condition blasphemia he bargains that Christ should earn all this by falling down to worship him But the Repulse is justitia Gods vindicative justice Get thee hence Satan words of anger and revenge as I will shew anon but first I will disclose what a great giver Satan would make himself All these things will I c. Twice as it appears in the two former Tentations the Devil used all his cunning to discover if Christ were the Son of God and since our Saviour would not reveal what He was Satan is the more bold to make himself the Son of God as if he were that holy one to whom the Father had committed all power in Heaven and in Earth All these things will I give thee This will be the easiest way to sift this saying wherein the wicked one usurps to himself that he advanceth to all honors to consider what likelihood of truth there is in those words by accident and secondly what great unlikelihood Marvel not that I give it for a conclusion granted that there is some colour and likelihood for Satan to say this is deliver'd to me and to whomsoever I will give it for he is the Prince of the power of the air that spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience and whosoever is successful in promotion by iniquity the Devil did sway the event so far that he calls himself their Benefactor Abimelech and Zimri got Kingdoms by treachery Joab wrought himself into Abners honor to be Captain of King Davids Host by murder Jason and Menelaus in the book of Machabees strived one against another for the High Priest-hood by Simony there are not so many names of honour as there are sins crying sins sins died in scarlet that have purchast them The infelicity of it is so general of such long continuance and so desperate against all hope of redress that Satan speaks as if he had forgot that this power was ever out of his hand For upon the event we may lament it but cannot deny it he brings the basest instruments into private favour with mighty men he bestows offices he presents to Churches Difficile est Satyram non scribere no abuse in the world will provoke a suffering spirit sooner than this to be satyrical nostrâ miseriâ magnus factus es we may be asham'd and our ambition blush for it that the most hateful of all Gods creatures should have cause to boast that all manner of dignities and titles depend on his beneficence yet the world is not so bad but that he is a shameless slanderer in that saying far be it from us to number the righteous with the wicked to bestain all dignified persons with an evil reproach as he doth to condemn all the worthies of David that wickedness was their original because sometimes Satan hath a predominant faction among them He was a great Prince indeed in the Emperor Tiberius his Court scarce any advancement escapt him but went through his hands ad Consulatum non nisi per Sejanum aditus neque Sejani voluntas nisi scelere quaerebatur Every one that would be Consul us'd Sejanus for his preferment and every one that would have preferment Sejanus us'd him for some criminous villany Thus the eloquence of the Historian exaggerates the naughtiness of the times yet a little after when things grew much worse rather than mended in the reign of Nero Paul had many friends and Christ had many faithful servants even in Caesars Houshold The Spirit of God in the holy Scripture doth but very rarely amplifie
the Torturer Is John Baptists head so soon forgotten that it could be suspected of this Herod he would pitty Christ could it be imagined so chast a person could find good usage before such a man whose Marriage was incestuous This was like the removing of the Prophet Jeremy from the Kings Prison to the Dungeon of Malchal Jer. xxxviii But thus it was fit to be say the Fathers to toss Christ between Annas and Caiaphas Herod and Pilat that he might be reviled by four slanderous Judges as his glory should be revealed in the Gospel by four Evangelists yea Pilat and Herod interchangeably made another mystery flat against themselves For Herod clad our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a white shining Robe says St. Luke as the Ancients read it Pilat did alter the colour and made it purple says St. Matthew to express against their own corrupt proceedings that he was candidus innocentiâ rubicundus martyrio that his Soul was white with innocency and his Body died purple with passion according to that which Solomon spoke mystically of Christ I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lilly of the Valleys the White Lilly of the Valleys in his sanctified life the Red Rose of Sharon in his bloody sufferings There is a superstition in some men and perchance it is all the Religion which they have they will not put their own finger into an ill Cause but they make no scruple to sollicit and procure it by their Instruments This was a piece of Statism which Saul observed against David let not my hand do him hurt but let the hand of the Philistins be upon him Like our lascivious Gallants who call them Bawds and Panders who deal for other mens sins and are Officers for these voluptuous Markets but to enjoy that sin which their Instruments compounded for as they think it is no stain to their reputation So Pilat in my Text shifts our Saviour from his own Tribunal Justice forbid that He should hurt him but he removes him into Herods Court to receive his Sentence from a Tyrant Alas then this was not enough to make Pilat innocent But thirdly his Apologie stands upon one point more for perceiving the insatiate rancour of the Jews that nothing would content them except they had revenge upon the Body of Christ he stript him naked and scourged him that his stripes might give satisfaction and his life be saved Debilem facito manu debilem coxa pede vita dum superest bene est says Mecaenas a smart in the hand or in the head may be patiently taken to save our vitals 'T is true that such pitty is in the wisdom of the Judg when a lesser offence is compared with a greater but it is more injustice to chastise an innocent like a petty malefactor than to punish a petty Malefactor like a notorious Offendor The Jews cried out that if he spared his life but I say if he race his skin he is no Friend to Caesar but as it happens unto some Beasts that if they taste of blood it puts a thirst into them to make them raven and devour every prey that they catch So the drops that trickled from his shoulders put a ravenous appetite into the Jews to thrust a Spear into his side as deep as to his heart to make a passage for a greater effusion the very nakedness of his body when he was stript to be scourged and to be crucified says St. Austin was irksom to a modest man Obtenebratus est sol ut celaret pudicitiam creatoris in nudo corpore says the Father but to take such a scourging that Pilat himself shook his head to behold the man Et fuit in toto corpore sculptus amor says a Christian Poet that the testimony of his love was enameled or engraven in every part of his body to fall into the hands of such Executioners that did over-do their Commission and would gratifie the People in their Function as much as their Master had done in his Sentence before them will this defence hold water to make Pilat innocent Then let us hear his fourth Allegation When he had made a Protestation of Christ's integrity but it would not be believed when he had tempted Herod to end the Trial but the Cause was returned to his own Court when scourges were applied to take off the edg of his Enemies cruelty yet nothing was heard but crucifie him in the voice of the Multitude he casts about to save him by the priviledg of the Passover choose you who shall be released Barabbas that seditious Murderer or Jesus that is called Christ Is it come to the choice and the People made Arbiters then no doubt Christ must prepare for the Altar and Barabbas shall be hircus emissarius the Scape-goat let to run away into the Wilderness Et mecum certasse feretur may the Son of God say shall the Joy of Heaven and Earth come in scrutiny with Barabbas but we have no quarrel against him Non reprehendimus O Judaei quod per Pascha liberastis nocentem sed quod occidistis innocentem says St. Austin If you have a mind O ye Israelites to save a sinner at the Passover spare not to shew mercy who can be offended at it But if that be a business fit for the day it cannot be a good work to kill an innocent Upon what occasion the custom was grounded to acquit a Thief at the Passover it is not upon record Some are confident that it was very ancient in memory of their own deliverance out of the Land of Egypt some think it was later begun after the Roman Conquest upon this occasion Their Cities of Refuge were quite taken from them because the crimes of blood and death were translated from the Law of Moses to the Tribunal of Caesar wherefore this courtesie was instead of a recompence to release unto them one Prisoner at the Passover Now I strike at Pilats hypocrisie for this custom says Lyra was not ex imperiali sanctione sed consuetudine the surrender of one Malefactor was not strengthened by the Imperial Law but by courtesie Why did not Pilat then confine the Roman mercy to this just person but leave it indifferent as well for him as for the benefit of a Murderer There is no such Beast in the World as Demetrius and the City of Ephesus broke loose into a mutiny what they choose or what they refuse the greater part are always ignorant take the people in this wild phrensie and they would like the company of Barabbas before any man such an hair-brain would make a Ringleader fit to cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him be crucified Had Antiochus the chief Enemy of their Nation been living and set up against our Saviour surely the voice had gone not Him but Antiochus wherefore to propound Christ and Barabbas it was a delusion and will not hold to make Pilate innocent Give him water now to wash his hands manus lavet
sed facta non diluit says St. Ambrose he will never wash off his crimes yet certainly it was a Ceremony which will rise up in judgment to the confusion of the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they could not but be prickt in conscience says St. Chrysostom for it was no Roman Custom but the Ceremony of their own Law Deut. xxi that if a man were found slain in the Feild and it was not known who had slain him the Elders of the next City should behead an Heifer in the Valleys and wash their hands upon it saying our hands have not shed this blood neither our eyes seen it And according to this Ordinance David did meditate Psal xxv 6. I will wash my hands in innocency and so will I go to thine Altar And to this Statute Pilat did allude but as one objected to Cicero that his Accusations were powerful and his Defences slender so this was as sharp as the sting of a Cockatrice to wound the Jews but as weak as paper proof to defend Pilat Xanthe retro propera never let water have the operation so much as to clense his hands since he condemned Christ who was the fountain of living water springing up into everlasting life Yet in every circumstance that I have laid open I must confess he doth shew some motion of a relenting heart and I think he would have been constant if the People had not took upon them to over-rule the Judg qui me tradidit tibi majus peccatum habet Pilat hath his share in the sin but the death of Christ will be most burdensome to his own Nation This is the preposterous course of the world when the Tail must lead the Head and the Head go backward yet the inconsiderate many had rather wander so they may go formost than keep the right way and let others go before them that know how to lead In the multitude of counsel there is peace and a good Senate is stronger than a wall of brass but to be carried away as Moses was with the murmuring of these people at Massah and Meribah to save Amalech and the fattest of the Sacrifice as Saul did because it went by most voices this is a dangerous popularity The greatest sedition in the Roman State fell out in the Tribunship of the Gracchi when they rather chose to give attentive ear to those that walked in the Market-place than to the sage and prudent Body of the Senate-house They both made an unfortunate end and better cannot come of it says Plutarch when the same man will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both the Magistrate and the Servant of a multitude There are two things which David wondred at in the power of God to still the raging of the waves and the madness of the people Psal lxv 7. both will swell as high as the clouds in an hour and grow calm in a minute If there had not been a wiser Captain in Jerusalem when Paul preached in the Temple Act. xxi that ruled his place with authority Paul had been stoned to death for his Doctrine but he commanded the multitude and they obeyed I would Pilat had learnt but one lesson from his own Master Tiberius these are his words in Tacitus I will endeavour ut offensionum pro utilitate publicâ minimè pavidum me credant the Fathers of the Senate-house should know he was not afraid in a good Cause to offend the multitude This Precept had qualified Pilat not to give up the Messias of the World unto the rage of the people then not so much had troubled him as his Wife suffered in a dream as innocent had he been of the blood shed upon the Cross as he was clear of the bloody sweat which our Saviour cast himself into by a miraculous agony in the Garden Somewhat there was in it beside the rude importunity of the people why Pilat had but half an heart either to absolve or to crucifie our Saviour Somewhat was in it indeed for Satan was in it if we may believe Alexander Ales. It was the Devil that tempted Judas to betray his Lord and there his tentation prevailed but being suspicious upon some alteration that Christ was the Eternal Son of God and ready to suffer death for the redemption of Man collecting it as we conjecture out of Isaiahs Prophecy that this was the Lamb standing dumb before the Shearers now he casts jealousies into Pilats mind to save his life as I have read concerning the Parthians that although they hated the flourishing Common-wealth of Rome yet nothing did displease them worse than to hear of any great casualty of fire that had wasted the City because the ruins were but an occasion to make the reparation more glorious So the old Serpent bestirs himself that the sentence of death may not be denounced against our Saviour lest his ruin be an occasion to build up mankind with an everlasting reparation Therefore horror is struck into Pilats mind but the suggestion prevails not the Sacrifice is offered upon the Altar of the Cross suggerendo vicit suggerendo vincitur he suggests a motion into Judas his mind and was a Conqueror he suggests a motion into Pilats mind but himself is conquered This opinion of Ales glisters but it is not gold for the Revelation which Pilats Wife did suffer in a dream to warn her Husband not to meddle with this just man it came from God it is St. Austins opinion in somniis patitur ut ne ampliùs pateretur she that suffered that good motion in a dream shall not suffer any more for ever Nay if the Devil were so forward to cast in hinderances that our Saviour might not suffer why did he not turn the stream among the vagabond multitude that cried out Let him be crucified I am sure they did rather run headlong as if their heads did swim with such a spirit as was in the Swine of the Gergasens Therefore I leave this opinion as fidei dubiae if not as false yet at least as suspected and apocryphal What need any other cause be given why Pilat should halt between Justice and Popularity why he should be half for Christ half for Barabbas but the modest answer of St. Paul Deus quos vult indurat he was a Vessel of dishonour and therefore to be dasht and broken To open the heart of a Thief upon the Cross non minus suit quà m petras concutere it was as great a wonder as to open the Graves of the dead Pilats heart was only rent in twain like the Veil of the Temple but it was not opened The Fathers have a subtle resolution of this case and yet a profitable Pilat bore the person of the Gentils and in their person his bowels did a little earn to pluck the Son of God out of the hand of his Enemies but when he grew unstable and was vanquisht he cast the curse upon the Jews vos videbitis you shall see to it It was the providence
glory Put thy fear into us all that we do not crucifie our Lord anew by Blasphemies by Vncharitableness by an Impenitent heart lest we be brought into the bondage of sin lest our heart wax gross and want understanding lest we lose thy favour as thine own Israel did upon earth lest we lose the light of thy countenance in heaven for ever O Lord hear us and be merciful to us for his sake who died upon the Cross c. THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE PASSION JOHN xix 34. But one of the Souldiers with a Spear pierced his side and forthwith came there out Bloud and Water WE cannot meddle with any part of our Saviours Body this day but we shall touch a wound and the greatest of them all without controversie is this in my Text. Thomas might put a finger in where the nails had entred but where the Spear had opened his side Christ bad him thrust in his hand Of Evils be sure to choose the least as David did but of Blessings such were all the wounds of Christs Passion wisdom without art will lead our meditations to the greatest And as Lot chose the Plain of Jordan to dwell there before all the Land of Canaan besides because it had variety of Springs of waters so this wound was the moistest and had the most plentiful issue of all the five it gushed out into two streams of blood and water I have not found such a passage in the Meditations of the Ancients that they came to drink at the hands or feet of Christ although the bloud trickled down from them also But it is usual with them in their Allegories to speak unto their Soul as if they laid their mouth unto the side of our Lord and did draw at it for the Fountain of everlasting life Did they suppose said I that they laid their lips there Nay Bernard could not satisfie his desire till he found a way to lay his heart upon the place and at length thus he hit upon it he believed as he had received that this Souldiers Spear entred at the right side of our Saviour Now says he that Elisha stretcht his living Body upon the dead Corps of the Child to raise it again to life it is a figure that Christ should apply his Body to our body which is dead in sin that it might live unto God his mouth which bled with buffeting upon our mouth that hath been full of deceit and bitterness his brows enameld with the pricks of thorns upon our heads which have contrived mischief and malice his hands which were riveted with nails upon ours that they may be washt in innocency his feet upon ours that have trod in the crooked ways of the Serpent then the Orifice of this Wound laying his right side to our left shall ly directly upon our heart and cure that part which disperseth iniquity to all the body The other three Evangelists exact in most circumstances of the Passion have all omitted this violence done to the dead Body of Christ surely had they wrote like meer men you might have thought the long story of these sufferings to be so lamentable that they could not for very compassion draw it quite out to an end John says in the next verse that he saw it done and that he knows he speaks the truth Amatus amans vulnera Domini the beloved Disciple that loved the wounds of his Master and would not let one of them be unrecorded this is the last wound that the Son of God received and therefore it is recorded by the last Evangelist The whole Story is comprized in this one verse and it will yield us these two points the malice of the living and the blessing that came from the dead The malicious action conteins four circumstances 1. Who was that evil person who did offer ignominy to the Body of Christ one of the Souldiers 2. What was the violence he offered he pierced him with a spear 3. Upon what part of his Body this fury did light upon his side 4. When he smote him you shall find by the thirtieth verse when he had given up the ghost In the second general branch which is the blessing that came from the dead there is the mystical opening of the Fountain of life wherein I consider first the two streams severally Bloud and Water 2. Their Conjunction Bloud and Water together 3. Their Order first Bloud and then Water 4. The Readiness of the Fountain that gushed out the stream could not be stopped no not for a minute forthwith there came out Bloud and Water Of these in their order Vnus militum one of the Souldiers did a despiteful fact upon the Body of Christ The Romans having the whole Nation of the Jews under their subjection at this time did gratifie them notwithstanding in many things to prevent rebellion and to satisfie their Law which forbids their dead to hang upon a tree after Sun-set lest the Land should be defiled Pilate gave them leave to take away the Bodies this day crucified from the Cross Wherefore to dispatch the Malefactors that they might be taken down two Thieves had their legs broken in whom there was life remaining It seems the chief Centurion would not be more rigid than the Law to do any further despite to Christ when he was dead already yet the cracking of his bones to splinters was the chief thing the Jews intended but one of the Souldiers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certainly says the Father for a fee to please the people thrust a spear into his side I doubt me that those who delighted in war bore no good will unto our Saviour His birth was destinated by providence unto the days of peace his Name was the Prince of Peace his Doctrin was utterly against the Sword qui gladium sumpserit gladio ferietur now see what comes of it when he is faln into the hands of Souldiers Joab and the mighty men of the Camp were all for Adoniah and all against Solomon Adoniah was like to live in the field as his Father David had done but Solomon's hand must spill no blood that it may build up a Temple The Emperor Probus let a word of meekness slip from him equus nascetur ad pacem he hoped to have horses brought up to do service in peace and not in war and the Captains of the Host cut short his dayes and so it far'd with the great Preacher of Peace Christ had as good be guarded by one of the Pharisees as by one of the Souldiers As Aristotle said of Bees and Swallows Nec feri sunt generis nec mansueti they were neither reckoned among those creatures that were wild nor those that were tame but of a middle sort Such was the condition of these Spear-men somewhat ruder than civil men somewhat tamer than Savages but violent in their disposition as they are pleased or provoked Yet I am not of Tertullian's mind to
Et fuit in toto corpore sculptus amor says a Christian Poet the thorns of the field catch the Fleece and tear off locks sometimes that is more the Shepherds loss than the Sheep but Blessed Jesus thou wert stript of thy Garments and the skin was flaid off and then the thorns were dinted into the flesh the least touch of pain was too much for thee but let not thy Cup seem too sower to thy Children the greatest dose that can be given is not too much for us Secondly as Tertullian said abstulit omnes aculeos mortis dominici capitis tolerantia there will be tribulations there will be sorrows in the world but the mortal sting is gone the thorns of all our persecutions and vexations are stuck in the Temples of our Saviour his sufferance hath blunted their sharp points that they shall not run in so far as to our heart to make our spirit sad and heavy within us quite contrary to Synesius his Art of Gardening 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he would have strong and unsavoury roots planted neer to Rose-trees that the neglected root might draw the ill sap and venom of the earth into it self and save the Rose-trees harmless but here the Rose of Sharon did save the Garlick and the wild Roots harmless and drunk up the bitter juice into it self lest God should come and root us out of his Vineyard Thirdly we read of a purple Robe put upon the back of Christ of bowing and bending to him of a Reed in his hand of a Crown upon his head alas it was thorns all these Ensigns of Majesty were put upon him in scorn What doth this mockery express Quod regnum Christi in hoc mundo ludibrio futurum sit because the Kingdom of Heaven in this world that is the Kingdom of Christ in his Church should be made a taunt and a by-word to them that sit in the Chair of the scorner the Power Ecclesiastical and the Hierarchical Dignity of it is flouted at by them that would neither allow the Head of it a Crown nor the supreme Priests their Miters but trample all Rule and Order under their feet Fourthly and lastly to end this part the place where the Ram is caught is a Thicket of thorns but what place was this afterward Quantum mutatus ab illo as I told you before from St. Hierom that the Cross was set up upon the very plot of ground where the Ram was sacrificed so upon the next part of this Hill of Moriah Solomon built the Temple for so it is 2 Chron. iii. 1. Then Solomon began to build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah and why may it not be that the Jebusites who inhabited that Hill are called thorns in the eys of Israel why may not that be their Nick-name because thorns had overgrown their Habitation certainly in the Thickets of thorns there are the Walls of the Church reared up such a choice was made as the famous Antiquary of this Island hath wrote for the foundation of the Abbey which is the next to this place the ground was sometime called Thornega Thus you see we must lay our foundation in thorns we must sow in tears the higher we build from earth the further from the briars then our sorrows will be trampled down and we shall reap in joy and though thorns were a curse which was laid upon the vast World yet to plant in thorns shall be a blessing to the Church whose faith shall be refined in affliction as Gold is tried in the furnace Remember how St. Paul stil'd himself to Philemon Vinctum Christi a Prisoner of Christ not the Jews Prisoner not Festus his Prisoner not Caesars Prisoner but rejoycing in his Bonds for the Gospel a Prisoner of Jesus Christ And so far of the second General Part praesens auxilium Abrahams necessities were supplied at an instant Behold behind him a Ram caught in a Thicket by his horns In the handling of the last Part I must obey the time I called it Sacrificium succedaneum one Sacrifice answering for another or coming in the place of another And Abraham went and took the Ram and offered him up for a Burnt-offering in the stead of his Son 1. Abraham went and took the Ram so to apprehend and lay hold upon Christ that 's our duty 2. And offered him up that 's only consonant to God the Father 3. For a Burnt-offering there comes in Christs part 4. Instead of his Son there 's the redemption of the Elect I hope there comes in our part The hand of faith the good will of God the Father the full satisfaction of God the Son The full redemption of all that shall be saved With these four Points briefly we will end And Abraham went and took the Ram. It was the comfortablest hand that ever Peter felt when upon the danger to sink and perish in the Sea Christ stretched forth his hand and caught him So it was the most comfortable thing that ever Abraham caught hold of to apprehend this Ram in the Thicket partly out of natural affection partly supernatural the life of Isaac lay at the stake just before all the Sons of promise that he had and if he be cut off call him no more Abraham call him Abram again for how can he be the Father of many Nations or if that be made good in Ismael yet shall Isaac die the joy and laughter of his Father as his name goes quasi nusquam alibi gaudium ei restaret as if there were no joy without him Once Abraham had fought valiantly against five Kings when He was young 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom what a hard thing was it for him in his old age to fight against nature O had not his natural affections a brave occasion of joy to work upon when a Ram was put into his hands instead of Isaac and all this sorrow prevented but the Spirit 's comfort is the eye-sight of the Spirit into supernatural blessings hereby there was the gladness as Jacob laid hold of an Angel so did Abraham of this Ram the principal of the Flock the Leader of all the Sheep in the Pasture he was sure of a blessing before he parted with him Joabs hands may be pluckt from the Altar of refuge Sauls hand may be rent from the Garment of Samuel the Children of Bethlem may be pluckt from the arms of their own Mothers and slain before their eyes but who so apprehendeth the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ he that doubteth not as Thomas did and yet approacheth by faith so near as to put his hand into his wounds as if he would bury his sins in that Grave he shall lie safe in that Harbour and never be removed from the love of God in Christ Caius Caesar his foot slipt landing upon Affrica and the palm of his hand fell upon the ground verso in meliùs omine teneo te inquit Affrica turning it to the
the people owe in the audience of the King and again they will preach how the King is tied to justice and equity far from Court in the audience of the People Inveigh against ingrossers of Grain in the City and against false Merchandise in the Country This is a most preposterous course and no way intended to edifie their Auditors So St. Peter might have tax'd the Idolatry of the Gentiles in the hearing of the Jews and the sin of the Jews that they killed Christ in the hearing of the Gentiles but that partition had been very ill divided For it were like that Paradox in Chirurgery called Vnguentum armarium to cure a man without application of the remedy at an hundred miles distance No St. Peter had no such Quacksalver tricks in Divinity but directs his reprehension to them that were before him Ye have taken c. And all the Jews were rightly thus accused except those few of men and women that were his Disciples and followed him for if they were not such as accused him falsely yet they were such as suborned Catives to betray him If they were not in the plot of betraying they were in the sin of delivering up to Pilate if not among those that delivered him up to judgment yet among those that cried out Crucifie him in the time of judgment Nay though they did not cry out nor so much as in their hearts consent to his unjust trial yet they held their peace they suffered wrong to prevail and did not resist it They did not put off the Roman Souldiers and stay their fatal hands in one respect or other they were all as guilty as St. Peter chargeth them By wicked hands ye have crucified and slain him Some of the Jewish Rabines slout at these words of St. Peters to this day saying the Christians are quite mistaken to impute unto them the crucifying of Christ for they had no such kind of death in their Law and they did all things à punto according to their Law they crucified no man They had but four capital punishments for Malefactors says Maimonides after the tradition of Moses killing with the Sword stoning to death hanging on a tree by the neck and burning But the infliction of crucifying was unheard of to their Nation Thus they And whereas Cardinal Baronius Cardinal Sigonius Justus Lipsius and some other learned men contradict the Rabbines in this I think they did amiss not to believe their great Doctors in their own Laws and Customs wherein they were most expert The true retortion is that in the days of Christ the power of life and death was taken out of the hands of the Jews by their Lords the Romans that reigned over them therefore they implore the Roman Magistrate that he would condemn and execute their Prisoner after the Roman Laws and the Romans did deal with him after the rigour of their Laws which sentenced all those that were convicted of sedition and raising tumults to the bitter death of the Cross So Christ foretold to his Disciples anon before he entred into Jerusalem That the Son of man should be betrayed unto the chief Priests and Scribes and they shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucifie him Mat. xx 19. It was not the custom in Israel to strike nails through the feet or hands of any that were hanged up says Maimonides Nay the most accurate Casaubon says that there is not one word in all the Hebrew tongue for being nailed to the Cross so little were they acquainted with the punishment This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text affigentes which the Vulgar Latine most ignorantly reads affligentes is heathen Language and unknown to the Jews The Rabbines in contempt of our Saviour call him in their Tongue sometimes as you would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that was hanged but their Tongue could not furnish them with a word to say he that was fastned to a tree There may be divers ways of hanging on a tree beside crucifying and the Old Testament useth ever the general phrase Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree The only place in the Old Law which hath respect particularly to the death of the Cross is Psal xxi 17. They pierced my hands and my feet Therefore the Rabbines have endeavoured to corrupt that place more than any other in all the Bible But the Psalmist alludes to that which the Jews should procure and the Romans execute One only place selected out of Sozomen by Casaubon avails much to prove that crucifying was not a Jewish but a Roman fashion For Constantine thought that no Malefactor was worthy to die on a Cross because our Lord had so suffered the just for the unjust therefore he took away that penalty of crucifying used before by the Romans says Sozomen Therefore the vulgar Latine Translation mistakes the words of my Text but hits the sense very well for it hath not Per manus impias by wicked hands but Per manus impiorum by the hands of the wicked as if it were in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Article which would make it personal But then the meaning is ye Jews have taken him and by the hands of the wicked that is of the Gentiles have crucified him and slain him So Christ foretold The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of sinners that is into the hands of the Gentiles We that are by nature Jews and not sinners of the Gentiles says St. Paul Gal. ii St. Chrysostome understands it two ways either by the hands of Judas or by the hands of the Souldiers It is all one for consider it well and it is rather the worse on their side than the better They suborned Judas they importuned Pilate they stirred up the Souldiers St. Peter passeth over these instrumental accidental coadjutors and directs his invectives against them that had the chief finger in the murder that set all the wheels a going Ye have taken him and crucified him If David could discern the hand of Joab in the woman of Tekoahs Parable then be sure the Lord doth espy the chief Actors and Complotters of all mischief and rebellion though others appear in the fact whom they have exposed to censure and dangers Statists love to bring about odious projects by the hands of underlings as the Ape in the Fable would take the Chesnut out of the hot Embers with the Cats foot But God will send his Angels to gather up the Tares in bundles all that were Complices in the same sin shall make one bundle both Jew and Gentile For there is no connivence in Gods justice no ignorance in his wisdom no partiality in his sentence To him therefore be glory for ever AMEN NINE SERMONS UPON THE RESURRECTION OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION ACTS ii 24. Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be
loud voice Lazarus come forth AMong all the miracles that our Saviour wrought this suscitation of Lazarus or raising him up from the dead it was his true Benoni or Son of sorrow None came off with so much anxiety none cost him so dear in all the Gospel Twice he groaned in Spirit and once he wept his Passions were as variable as the life and death of Lazarus Look back to the fifteenth verse and you shall see it wrought comfortably I am glad for your sakes that Lazarus is dead Look unto the 35 verse and you shall see it wrought bitterly Jesus wept What alterations are there says St. Austin Gaudebat propter discipulos flebat propter Judeos horum fides confirmabatur horum incredulitas augebatur It joyed him for the Disciples sake that their faith would be confirmed and revived It grieved him for the Jews sake whose hearts were hardened The preparation then of this Miracle was not without sorrow but the event and sequel was worst of all For although the Counsel of the High Priests stomach'd at our Saviour long before yet they wisht his life no hurt till he had wrought this wonder which all the world were amazed at From that time Caiaphas began to talk like a Wizard That one man must die for the people and Christ must suffer Now you see good cause why our Lord might groan and weep Israel shall pass over into Canaan but Moses must die upon Mount Nebo the birth of Benjamin shall be Rachels funeral Lazarus shall be revived and Jesus crucified Yet I can tell you one thing Beloved how the Son of God shall neither groan nor weep for Lazarus but rejoyce in Spirit and be glad even at this day be glad as he stands at the right hand of God and it lies upon you to do it Did he then groan for the infidelity of the Pharisees Then sure he will now rejoyce if we believe in his works and have faith in the Resurrection Did he then weep because his own death was contrived for doing good Then he will now be comforted if you take heed that you do not again crucifie the Lord of life Tâ—llite lapidem as it is in verse 39 remove the stone the hardness of your heart and joy will follow in heaven for the conversion of a sinner Do you consider that the days past were a time of mourning and sad contrition Why here is a Text which was not preach'd without Christs mourning and lamentation Do you remember his Passion but the other day Why this is the Text which was an occasion to bring him to his Cross and Passion What do you meditate upon this day but our Saviours issuing out of the Grave Why here is Lazarus broke out of the Tomb Lazarus come forth Which words as I have read them rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon You shall perceive that the business in my Text is a work of great dignity that is one part and a work of great Divinity that is the other part The dignity consists in these two Points 1. In that which Christ had spoken before when he had said thus And what was that He pray'd unto his Father wherefore it is dignum oratione a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation 2. It is Dignum proclamatione it was cried with a loud voice and fit to be published to all the world The Divinity appears in these three circumstances 1. Exeat mortuus that a dead man is summoned to appear 2. Exeat Lazarus Lazarus after four days departure comes forth 3. Exeat ligatus one who was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths walks upon his feet O strange Divinity the Monuments which were shut did open for Christ did call who had the Key of David The dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds bring forth young ones and called Adam from the dust of the earth The body which lay putrified four days gave no offence in the smell Christ was at hand who is a sweet savour for us unto God The feet which were bound with Grave-cloaths could walk before him for in him we live and move and have our being Was not this excellent work worthy of a Prayer So far we have gone this day in our morning Sacrifice Was it not worthy of the proclamation of a loud voice fit to be preached that the world may hear of it and believe and be saved And that is the business which doth now take up your attentions With these two circumstances of the Miracle I must first begin the preparation of our Saviours Prayer and the promulgation of his loud voice or preaching And when he had thus said c. That is when he had prayed unto the Father Dimidium facti qui benè caepit habet And he that begins his work with Prayer as Christ did hath half dispatch'd it Vox clamantis the voice of a Crier was the fore-runner of Christ when he came upon the earth Vox orantis the voice of Prayer must be the fore-runner of our necessities when we look for any thing from heaven As the people shouted when the foundation of the Temple was laid grace grace be unto the first stone of the building so let the foundation of every thing be laid with shouting and strong Ejaculations to our God that he may say upon the moving of the first stone Grace be to the building In Gen. xii Abraham removed three times to several quarters and still before he pitcht his Tent he built an Altar to Jehovah remove not stir not enter upon no new task before you have built an Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom wheresoever you are pray and your own heart is a Temple or the Alter of Jehovah Religion is the Bow and the heart is the String but Prayer is that which bends the Bow Religion is unbent as it were and the Shafts cannot fly untill Prayer dispatch them Well might Peter who was prompt of tongue and ready to speak upon all occasions be counted a chief Apostle for Prayer which is the tongue of Religion and our Consciences Orator is the chief of all our vertues Debilem facito manu debilem coxâ pede no matter for infirmities in the feet for diseases in the hands so the dumb Devil be not in our tongues The penitent Thief had no hands to hold up they were nailed to the Cross no knees to bend for his legs were broken he had a tongue to say Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom and it did him service enough to open Paradise O the delusions of the Devil For all this that I have said you shall sooner make ignorants and vain people believe that Diseases are curable by unsignificant Charms by unhallowed mutterings than by godly Prayers As if the Devil could go further with Non-sense than a good Christian with Faith and Prayer One Talent in
Jordan his Disciples being with him What did this advantage them why Mors Lazari cum Lazaro discipulorum fides surgit cum sepulto says Chrysologus Lazarus was translated from death to life and this did increase the Disciples faith which lay half dead before 2. Martha sollicits for her Brother and 't is strange that Christ came to Bethany on purpose for Lazarus sake and yet spent more time with Martha than with them all The case is plain says Theophylact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alas her belief was near unto death almost quite gone and Christ came especially to quicken her with his grace that was Martha's resurrection 3. Her Sister Mary was a woful woman and she falls down in compassion about out Saviours feet St. Austin takes her to be the very same Mary that was the publick sinner which washt his feet with her tears and wip'd them with the hairs of her head Luke 7. whereupon he infers Maria peccatrix magis resuscitabatur quà m Lazarus Mary the Sinner was more revived when she was made a penitent Saint than Lazarus was when he was made a living man that was Marries resurrection 4. Here were divers Jews that came to comfort the two Sisters they were witnesses of this work and did glorifie God and believe Christ thanked his Father for it Whereupon says St. Ambrose Non unum Lazarum sed fidem omnium suscitavit it was a Resurrection day not for Lazarus alone but for the faith of all the multitude that were present whether they were the Disciples or Martha or Mary or the multitude of the Jews they had not been as they were if Christ had not made one in every part of the Miracle wherefore let us make a difference between them that came to gaze and them that came to believe a Miracle from the twelfth of this Gospel and the ninth verse The Jews came not only for Jesus sake but to see Lazarus also We come not together this day so much to see Lazarus reviv'd as to see the strength of Jesus above the power of death I have entred once before into this verse and the former both which rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon First it is a work of great Dignity that 's one part and a work of great Divinity that 's the other part The Dignity consists in these two points First in that which Christ had spoken before when he had thus said and what was that he prayed unto his Father wherefore it is dignum oratione a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation Secondly it is dignum proclamatione it was cried with a loud voice and fit to be publisht to all the world The Divinity appears in these three Circumstances 1. Exeat mortuus that a dead man was summon'd to appear 2. Exeat quatriduanus Lazarus after four days departure comes forth 3. Exeat ligatus he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin he comes forth of the Monument O strange Divinity the Sepulchers which were shut did open for Christ did call who had the key of David the dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds to bring forth young ones the Body which lay putrified four days gave no offence in the smel Christ was at hand who is a sweet favour for us unto God the feet which were bound with Grave-cloaths could walk before him for in him we live and move and have our being Was not this work worthy of a Prayer was it not worthy of a Proclamation so far I have gone already as likewise into the first Circumstance of the Divinity that a dead man was raised up As Aelian says of the Sybarites that they invite their Guests to a Feast a just year before the day of the Feast so long is it since I promised you the dispatch of this Text and now I am come to perform it you see what remains for this hours employment the two latter Circumstances Quatriduanus excitatur Lazarus is raised up after he had been four days in the Grave and 2 ligatus excitatur it was he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin two strange parts of his resurrection not lightly to be passed over for to speak of a Miracle suddenly and in a word non dat lucem videntibus sed pavorem it is like lightning says one the flash that glides by of a sudden it may terrifie the eye but not enlighten it First of ille quatriduanus he came forth alive who had been four days asleep in the Monument It is hard to perswade death to part with any thing it hath gotten The Devil strove with the Angel about the Body of Moses think you that Death would not strive with Christ much more about the Soul of Lazarus what a Guest of four dayes continuance and let him go I may say to the Grave as the Prophet said to Ahab for letting Benhadad escape Why hast thou let a man go out of thy hand who was appointed to utter destruction Wherefore St. Chrysostom brings in Death to complain of this fact for a sore grievance on this wise Elias rais'd up a Child whose soul was departed for a time Elisha did as much likewise this I took for a violence done to nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but here 's a Conqueror that 's more violent than them both he takes a dead man out of my chaws who stinks and hath been four days in the Sepulcher The same Father replies again this is a small thing to raise up one from burial after four days do you complain of that what if he were putrified what if he were dry bones what if he were dust and clay yea what if that dust were converted into other creatures Adam shall be cloathed again with flesh Noah hath lived in two Worlds he shall live again in a third And according to the Basil Edition of the 72. Job was one of those that rose and appeared in the holy City unto many Matth. 27. Si attendamus quis fecit delectari debemus potiùs quà m mirari says St. Austin If we do but attend who it is that doth all these things we shall rather break out into a passion of Joy than into Admiration For Christ that died for us and rose again for our Justification he hath the Keys of Life and Death and therefore we shall not see corruption for ever Martha had a faith that God could raise up her Brother again and that He would do it if Christ would pray unto him I know even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God God will give it thee O Woman says Chrysologus thou art yet but of little faith Judex ipse est quem tu postulas Advocatum Wouldest thou make Christ thine Advocate to plead thy Cause Nay Comfort is nearer at hand he is the Judge whom thou
you will leave at that Idem facis ac qui è monte se praecipitans velit sistere says Tully You are unwise as he that did cast himself headlong from a steepy rock and thought he could stop before he lost his breath Sin hath no moderation Qui facit peccatum est servus peccati He that commits sin is the servant of sin you cannot play fast and loose with the Devil If you be once bound it will ask you plenty of tears and many groans of repentance that Christ may make you free Sin is not like the green wit hs that tied Samson and brake like a thread of Tow but like the fetters cast upon poor Joseph The Iron entred into his soul says David It is such a long captivity as the Jews suffred in Babylon it trusseth you up as the tares were bound in bundles for everlasting fire Mat. xiii Can the Ethiopian change his skin Or the Leopard his spots Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil Jer. xiii 23. Now because sin is a bond especially sin that is enormous and scandalous not only Satan by inclining them to evil but God in his justice holds them fast to it that they cannot get loose For the Priest he casts another bond upon that Quodcunque lig averitis whatsoever you bind upon earth they bind none but incorrigible and contumacious sinners that is one bond for another and then the Lords bond is thrown upon them both whatsoever you bind upon earth it is bound in heaven the bond of iniquity is upon the sinner the bond of Ecclesiastical Censure is upon the bond of iniquity the bond of Gods judgment ratifies the bond of Ecclesiastical Censure How can the planchers fly out when they are thus hoopt about A threefold cord is not easily broken Ligantur poenâ qui ligati fuerunt culpâ à bonis operibus says Lira They are bound over to eternal punishment in the life to come who in this life bound themselves from doing good Thirdly Let us understand what it is for a sinner to be bound hand and foot Manus non extensae ad eleemosynam pedes tardi ad bonum so says the Gloss Hands that were shut to the poor and gave no Alms feet that have not frequently walked to the house of God these were bound in this life when they should have executed their Function and then follows Take him and bind him hand and foot and cast him into utter darkness Mat. xxii The hand is the principal Engine of all other instruments and if it be bound we may direct much perchance yet can execute nothing But there is no musick in that eloquence where the tongue perswades enough but the hand is like the hand of Jeroboam dried up and withered He that takes upon him to teach and direct let his hands be loose that he may give a demonstration of his Doctrine in his own works and then it is powerful Dux consilio miles exemplo as it was said of Caesar He gave the counsel of a General he did the work of a Common Souldier The Sun under a Cloud looks as if his glorious beams were shut up and imprisoned So it is a dark and a gloomy Profession of Piety to cast no beams abroad let your light shine before men that they may see your good works If your hands I mean your good deeds be bound up the bonds are such as Lazarus had and worse the swadling bonds of eternal death Pedes sunt affectus sensuales qui terrae adhaerent that is the usual Moral by feet are understood our sensual Passions and Affections which cleave unto the earth Indeed Lazarus will walk better with those feet when they are obedient to reason and bound to her Law than when they are loose and run their own ways Excellent Servants to be guided but unruly Masters to command O let your affections be set upon heaven above and not fix themselves upon earth beneath and then you may say with David I will run the way of thy Commandments So much for the binding of the hands and feet The last Point and that which shuts up all is to open this Mystery that Lazarus his face was bound with a Napkin Lazarus came forth with his winding-sheet about his body with his Napkin about his face here again is the Resurrection of Lazarus distinguished from the Resurrection of Christ As for Christs grave cloaths Peter look'd in and saw them wrapt together when his body was without And what caused this difference Beloved Why first to answer a false rumour which belied both Christ and his Disciples at once even for that cause our Saviours linnen cloaths were left behind in the Monument You will say his Disciples came by night and stole him away But if they took out the body why did they leave the linnen cloaths behind Had desperate thieves such leisure to uncase him and to fold up several parcels by themselves when a guard of Souldiers were round about them Now when as no such objection should be made against Lazarus he came forth with his winding sheet knit about his hands and feet and his face with a Napkin 2. Lazarus rose out of the Grave but to die again he was virbius One poor life served him to change it for two deaths and therefore he came abroad like a mortal man with his raggs wrapt about him to cover his nakedness But Christs says Nissen rose to immortality and therefore left those clouts in the grave which had been cast about him That blessed life which we shall enjoy needs not garments to cloath the body In the days of innocency Adam and Eve walked naked and were not ashamed they saw no uncomliness in it Then shall apparel much less be an ornament to a glorified body And therefore Elias mounting up to heaven in the fiery Chariot left his Mantle with Elisha But he in our Text returned to the estate of frailty and corruption his face was covered with a Napkin Thirdly says St. Austin Lazarus in the Tomb was the figure of a sinful man Lazarus coming forth was the type of one that was born again and is regenerate But as touching a man new born and regenerate still there remain in him Vinculum peccati velumignorantiae The intanglements of some sins and the vail of ignorance The bonds about the feet and the Napkin about the face But as for Christs linnen cloaths in whom there was nor sin nor ignorance but a soul full of grace and truth why should he carry away his Shrowd or his Kercher No he bequeathed them to the earth and left them to the Monument Let us be wise unto salvation and not too curious in searching these things the Text doth admonish us For why was Lazarus his face covered though his Spirit was returned unto him again St. Austin answers Quod in hâc vitâ per speculum videmus in aenigmate postea autem facie ad
subtilties against David who advanced him to the highest honour of his counsel I will say that there is no mouth but doth bless him that feeds it no needy soul but doth pray for him that relieves it rather than discourage the liberal Benefactors weaken the hands of them whose hearts are enlarged to help the poor with their plenteousness Again the truly charitable delights in his own good deed because it is given and bestowed not because it is returned The glory of the Roman Commonwealth says M. Antony in Plutarch appears not by the rich tributes they receive but by the chargeable succours which they afford to their distressed Confederates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly If you shut up your compassion against all men because a few unthankful have put up your kindness in the dark taking no notice of your hand that gave it you commit not only rigour but great injustice to punish more than have offended As for him that rewards evil for good leave him to God to receive his judgment Serpents can bear poison to envenom others which doth not harm themselves but the venom of the malicious shall be his own bane The Viper dropt into the fire which hung upon St. Pauls hand Acts xxviii as if it had taken punishment of it own self Quod nihil ad se attinens corpus attigisset because it light upon a body which it should not have assaulted but Achitophel not so conscionable as this Viper whom it irkt to have toucht the Saint of God broke his own neck for madness because he could not supplant David When Scevola ran his Weapon at King Porsenna but missed his mark the good King intreated him so courteously that he made his enemy to say Ego fortunae non succenseo quòd à bono viro aberraverim I am not angry at Fortune which turn'd away my Sword from so good a man But this Politician in my Text had not the grace to rejoyce and be glad that his Lord and King did escape his pernicious stratagem but ambitious of nothing but to seem wise disposeth his house in a prudent order and hangs himself And because I cannot leave such a miscreant in a better place here ends my treatise of Achitophel of Davids complaint and the first part of this exercise Yea mine c. And as Achitophel left himself hanging between heaven and earth for all men to gaze upon so likewise hath Judas in the second part of the Text. I am now come from the complotting Statesman to the Apostaticall Churchman from him that dealt perfidiously with David to him that was the traitor against Davids Lord The Lord said unto my Lord Psal cx Corruptio optimi est pessima That which is sweetest when it is corrupted is most unsavoury and by how much an Apostle of Christ was an office of more sanctity and faith than a Counsellour of King David by so much the corruption of Judas is more soul than the corruption of Achitophel To be called the Friend of his Creator to be trusted by him who was the wisdom of the Father to eat of the Paschal Lamb with him who was the Lamb of God and yet to be the man that did ensnare his life methinks the Devil did not enter into Judas but Judas was more likely to enter and possess the Devil Of every branch let me speak a little as I did in the former complaint Yea mine own familiar friend Origen was so astonied to see Judas have this honourable compellation that he would make us believe in his 35. Hom. upon St. Matthew that no good man is so called in the Scripture Friend how camest thou hither not having a wedding garment he was bad to him that grudg'd that he received but one peny in the Parable Friend I do thee no wrong take that which is thine own and depart he was stark naught But Origen did not remember that Abraham was called the friend of God or that the Lord talked with Moses as one doth with his Friend or that John Baptist was called the Friend of the Bridegroom for the honour of these Saints be it spoken it is strange that Judas should be stiled his own familiar friend But such reasons as I have pickt up I will briefly lay down before you 1. Judas did bear himself as the friend of Christ like a false dissembler I will instance only in that profane kiss a sign unto those that should lead him bound unto Caiaphas Why did not the Traitor say him whom you shall see chiding and reproving me him that spits upon me and accurseth me no he trusted too much to the lenity and gentleness of his Lord therefore him whom you see me kiss hold him fast St. Chrysostome knows not which he should blame most whether the High Priests for sending their Servants with swords and staves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sweet muster for Priests to make says the Father I would the High Priest of Italy would mark it or whether Judas that came to betray his Master with a kiss If thou wert not ashamed of the fact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is it possible thou shouldst not be ashamed to give thy accomplices such a token But out of that mouth which had bargained for the wages of iniquity nothing could come from those lips but a sign of mischief O let no false Brother be encouraged that the Son of God did not detest the kiss of an hypocrite Non ut simulare nos doceat sed ne proditionem fugere videatur It was not to embrace a false friend but he would not thrust him back lest he should seem to decline and avoid his Passion Would you not think but as Elisha put life into the Shunamites Child by laying mouth to mouth so Judas much more might have received life by laying his mouth to our Saviours Had it not been probable that since the woman was cured of her bloudy issue by touching the Hem of his Garment much more Judas should be cured of a bloudy heart by this royal favour No beloved they are not the lips that kiss him nor the womb that bare him nor the paps that gave him suck that make any one happy but a heart without guile and love unfained Small comfort it is to Judas that upon this outward sign of courtesie he is called his own familiar friend Secondly Judas doth pass current with this mighty name because Christ did use him as a friend Bad as he was the Spirit of God is not ashamed to call him one of the Twelve Ne tam exiguus numerus esset sine malo says St. Austin that we may see how corrupt the world is since in so small a flock there is a Wolf in sheeps cloathing The time will give me leave to make but one instance of our Saviours good offices unto Judas and that is the washing of his feet Nay Lorinus tells it as a received tradition of the Church that among all the Disciples Judas was
punishment says Nazianzen is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Pillar of Salt erected up like a Trophy of his vengeance and their impiety Not so the righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is enough to chastise them to be wise and wary St. Austin compares a regenerate man with Adam in innocency by an excellent parallel Adam was priviledged to be secure in all present delights and comfort while he was in Paradise and so the faithful are not but every regenerate man is sure of heaven in his greatest Agony and so Adam in his pleasant Garden was not O could an heathen man preach so much Gospel as this Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis securitatem Dei O what a royal thing it was to be corruptible as man and yet to be secure as God! Expect not then from the Lord that he should always turn aside his hand as Vlysses did from his Son Telemachus What if he make his furrow upon the back of his own Children if they lie in the way Is there no time but the instant to be saved Yes St. Paul hath declined deliverance through all Tenses 2 Cor. i. Who hath delivered us Have you forgotten it And doth deliver us Perhaps you do not feel it And will deliver us I speak not I hope to such as do distrust it Wherefore let this suffice for excussit the deliverance of Paul The third thing follows which makes it mel in cuspide honey on the point of Jonathans Spear and pleasant to be in jeopardy his eye saw his desire upon his enemy excussit in ig nem he shook the beast into the fire c. If there be Songs of deliverance as David says there are and that he was compassed about with songs of deliverance then this is Canticum salutis The Viper did not only lose her sting like the angry Bee that loseth her weapon when she pricks her Adversary and lives a Drone ever after but Paul warms his hands at the fire whose fuel was the Viper which even now would have slain him Fire indeed by the judgment of our own Laws is a death appointed for Poysoners and it is but one fire for another only dry for moist Paul was ready to be inflamed so we read in the next verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was that the Islanders look'd for and therefore good reason the beast should fall into the fire Who doth not count it a monument worth the seeing to read his jacet an Epitaph upon his Enemies Tomb The subtil Graecians would not live in fear to see the Infants of Troy survive their Father they would see every thing in ashes Et nunquam satis Trojam jacentem it is safety to escape but security to want an adversary Break their teeth O Lord in their mouths saith the Psalmist but lest new ones come up in their room smite the jaw bones of the Lions and when they shoot out their arrows let them be rooted out If Shemei had lived happily he might have cursed Solomon as well as David and if Judas had not come quickly to his end he might have betrayed St. Peter as well as Jesus Iniquity of it self is infinite says Job xxii 5. Wherefore says Aquinas Homo peccat in suo aeterno quia voluntatem habet in infinitum peccandi Every sinner hath a good will to sin for ever In circuitu ambulat says David and the way of him that goes in a circle is as new to begin to morrow as it was to day Qui vitio modum ponit idem facit ac qui è Leucade se praecipitans velit sistere says the Stoick A sinner falls down headlong and Hell hath no bottom Then God puts in his Sickle and cuts down the Tares that they may not overgrow the Wheat Be of courage then O little Flock that flies away into the Wilderness and think that the voice of the Angel unto Joseph is still in your ears Return for they are dead that sought the life of Jesus And reason good that inquisitors after the bloud of Christ wilful sinners should be cut off or else the dumb beasts were hardly dealt with the Viper knew not Paul nor the mark of God upon him she did but her kind and yet she is consumed The Lion knew not Samson nor the Judge of Israel hunger made him roar after his prey and yet he died for it Why should David wish revenge upon the pleasant grass for his beloved Jonathan How could a Figtree trespass when it bore not plenty of fruit for Christ and his disciples that it withered and deflourished utterly All these died to make up one lesson for us that nothing can offend the Saints of God without an evil recompence Some revengeful Spirit perchance would ask here whether this be an Emblem for every man to endeavour to be as fortunate as Paul was and to make away his enemy with his own hand No Beloved there is no such moral in this Text and it were unchristian to attempt it Wrath is as a Serpent revenge is like a Viper shake them off a Gods name and then if Pauls hand were not moved the finger of God will deliver us from our enemies There is great difference in this point between heathen moral men and praise-worthy Christians Junius Brutus the darling of the Romans fained himself mad before but then he was mad indeed Quando expiravit super Tarquinii filium quasi ad inseros sequeretur when he bore malice unto death against his enemy and died upon him as if he would follow him to Hell Like the young Son of Thyestes wounded by his unnatural Uncle cast the trunk of his body upon the murderer as if he would have pressed him down like a Mountain Cumque dubitasset dia hâc parte an illâ caderet in patruum cadit says the Tragedian So did not Zacharias the Son of Barachias that fell between the Temple and the Altar It may seem there rather than in another place for a Peace-offering to be reconciled to his adversary So did not Stephen who kneeled among the stones which were cast at his head like a Statue in a Monument and prayed with more devotion for his enemies than for his own spirit We must feed them that hate us I keep open hospitality for such according to our Saviours construction Si inimicus if thou have an enemy feed him whosoever he be if he hunger then wretched are they who feed themselves rather with the hunger of their enemy As Vitellius boasted in Tacitus Inimici morte spectatâ se pavisse oculos that it glutted his eyes with delight to see his enemy tormented They that feed so shall digest Gods anger till it come like water into our bowels and like oyl into our bones We must not call for fire from heaven if we love not the Samaritans but forgive them and thou shalt heap coales of fire upon their head Chiefly let my speech drop as the soft dew upon the head of
walk with God is to let him draw us after him as far as his Commandments reach and no further It is not material that there were neither Scriptures extant nor the Tables of the Law divulged in the days of Enoch certainly the Children of God in that Age were not left to themselves to woship in a wild undistinct way without some divine prescription Some Canon of Faith and good Works they had delivered them it concerns the Providence of God and that order which must necessarily be among them to say so and by the extent of that revealed rule Enoch walked with God Let all things be done according to the pattern which thou sawest in the Mount so the Law-giver himself to Moses Nothing must be changed though you think for the better but keep you close to the Pattern in every part and proportion Honorato jucundissimus honor est quem ipse vult it is St. Chrysostome's The Majesty of God takes it for an honour to do him honour by his own Commandment Peter thought he had shewed himself a most obsequious Disciple and reverenced his Master more than all the rest when he would not let him wash his feet but Christ shewed him it must be so and that particular recusancy of his was to dishonour him above his fellows If you think that God will bate you one inch of that he hath commanded you walk by your self without him Alas for that poor soul that is so deceived whither will his feet carry him Heaven and earth shall pass away before one tittle of the Law doth perish Repent and turn to the Lord and he will run forth to meet you forgive one another and Christ will forgive you there he concurs with you defraud no man and the righteous Lord will give you an inheritance there he joyns with you Hold him fast to you in continual Prayer and let him not go away till he give you a blessing there he dwels with you In all things bear in mind the will of the Lord be done for no man walks with God unless he be a complete obedient Above all other aberrations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or will-worship is that which strides quite over the way and walks solitary by it self and not with God All holy service is fitly called new obedience But can Will-worship which is a start of a mans own invention be called obedience in any latitude I think not For how can a man be said to obey in that which was never enjoyned him Obedience and somewhat bidden and imposed to be done are relatives His servants ye are to whom you obey says St Paul Wherefore if you frame a Religion or a part of Religion after your own fancy you are your own servants and not God's and you have no reason to look for wages from our heavenly Master In vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of men Vanum est quod fine suo destituitur They that serve serve for a reward therefore a rewardless service which is threatned against Will-worship is a vanity But who are comprised in this crime of Will-worship not to walk with God Such as profess a proper immediate essential Worship of God of their own coining but they want a great measure of understanding or charity that inveigh against arbitrary Ceremonies in that name which are imposed as mere accidental and circumstantial parts of Religion wherein not the proper Worship of God but the manner of using the same is intended Proper Worship of God is an action done immediatly to the honour of God in the act it self as Prayer and Preaching Improper Worship is an act done with Gods Service not directly and by it self but in conjunction with some proper act of Worship as kneeling holding up the hands and eyes sever these by themselves and they are no service of God at all David danced before the Ark in a Linnen Ephod To dance to wear a Linnen Garment are things of a mixt use and therefore can be no parts of Gods proper immediate Worship neither did David mean them so but they are decencies and laudable adjuncts of the very true Worship and for their sakes far be it from us to think that Enochs example is violated who walked with God You have heard now that there is a familiar heavenly friendship and a complete obedience without all admixtion of Will-worship in the holy life of this Patriarch that kept even with God in all his ways Now thirdly it makes this sense that Enoch was a principal upholder of that side that did sincerely profess the true faith he opposed himself stiffly to the Cainites that is to the Sinagogue of Satan and he that condemns the evil world and defies the faction of it deserves this praise that he walks with God In vitia alter alterum trudimus says the heathen Every wicked man draws his next fellow after him and the most live rather by custom than by rule and reason running like those Swine in the Gospel into which the Devil had entred by whole herds into the Sea But a man that esteems his soul by that price which his dear Redeemer paid for it will dare to set his face in a good cause against plurality and multitudes and fears not to stand up alone against an host of the Priests of Baal like Elias that walked solitary in the wilderness with the Lord when Ahab and Jezabel had won the whole Land of Israel to Idolatry Singularity when it proceeds from self opinion and pertinacy it deserves to be hooted at but to divorce from men of erroneous minds of malicious and filthy conversation to be cast off from such like a Pelican in the Wilderness and like an Owl that is in the Desart is a singularity to be admired As soon as ever the Devil left our Saviour at the end of the three Tentations the words following are Behold Angels came and ministred unto him Whereupon one doth thus meditate Qui expelllit à se Satanam allicit ad se Angelos Sort not your self with those that have not the fear of God before their eyes abandon impious Society and you shall find heavenly comforters in your soul Bid Satan get him hence and the Angels take it for an invitation to come and walk with you Lot lived like a stranger in his own City he shut himself up and barred his doors against those filthy people What could he do more to keep the ungodly from his vexy sight As David said Thus estranging himself from the evil doings of those that were round about him he was thought fit to give hospitality to Angels and walkt out of Sodom with those Angels and when he lingred in that place they laid hold of his hand and pulled him away with some violence of love Thus Enoch could not endure the Cainites perhaps persecuted them perhaps was persecuted by them he would not partake of their fellowship but shook off their dust from his feet and so
Creature rather than a worshiping of the Creator that he esteemed it was granted the Ceremonial Church because it could not be shifted For since it was to be feared that the Israelites had cast their eye upon those fond customs of the Gentiles and did affect to imitate them rather than they should sacrifice to false Gods God did permit they should sacrifice to his name to prevent Idolatry But I answer The most ancient and primitive use of sacrificing such as Noahs was in my Text is not so to be slighted For a bad thing by a toleration is not made half a vertue nay after toleration it still remains more than half a Vice Moses did allow a Bill of divorce for the hardness of mens hearts but that which is allowed for the hardness of the heart is yet a sin after the allowance the connivance of the Law cannot make any fashions of pride excusable and the farming out of Stews for Pensions cannot make Fornication venial But I pray you what Idolatry was suspicious in Abels time or at this time when Noah came new out of the Ark And yet even then Sacrifice was and was a sweet savour And the ground of the objection is mistaken for who can ever prove that the Children of Israel had learnt the formes of sacrificing in the Land of Egypt It is impossible For the Egyptians hated sacrificing and killing of Cattel wherefore Moses would not consent to Pharaoh to sacrifice to God in that Land Says he Shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us And the Egyptians continued such long after Christ when the Satyrist fell thus upon them Nefas illic foetum jugulare capellae carnibus humanis vesci licet c. This hath declared that the Ordinance of Sacrificing from the beginning was not a bare toleration to divert men from laying their Offering upon the Altars of their Idols But to make all perspicuous we are to harken to the judgment of Irenaeus and St. Hierom that Sacrificing was an holy Worship which God did like and allow from the beginning of the world and for many Ages there was no prescription for the manner all holy men had their freedom for quantùm and quomodo for how much for when it should be done but when the seed of Abraham proved recreants and fell in love with the superstition and worse than superstition then and not before was the Levitical Law drawn out at large to command all the true Worshipers of God to follow that written prescription in all their Sacrifices That is when the Molten Calf was set up by Aaron and the People to provoke God when they offered burnt-offerings and Peace-offerings unto it the Lord saw it was time no more to leave them to themselves to offer indefinitely and indeterminately how they list but after that he bound them to those Levitical rules whereof Moses made an entire book Says God ye shall break down the Altars and Groves of the Gods of the heathen but the Lord will chuse a place for you and thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings ye shall not do after all things that we do here this day every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes That is their ancient liberty in sacrificing after what manner they pleased was restrained after the adoration of the Calf for fear of further Idolatry Sacrifice therefore was not barely a toleration for avoidance of Idolatry in the first institution but properly had many parts of Religious Worship in it which are these First the mind of him that brought the offering was bent to honour God that he was the giver of all things and the end to which all things were to be referred Which reason the Schoolmen very well put into this Proposition Emanant ex fide sacrificia quae amplissimè de Deo sentit The Religion of Sacrificing proceeds out of Faith which esteems most devotionately of Gods excellent greatness and in the act of Sacrificing it is carried up to worship God in his invisible glory And surely some Litany or Collects of Prayers were said at the same time with such like Ejaculations in them as these We lay this gift on thy Altar O Lord to acknowledge that every living thing is thine this is a Testimony that thine is the Power and the Dominion over all things let every thing do thee service for thou art the Saviour both of Man and Beast the life of every thing upon earth is in thy hand but thou alone art immortal thou art the same and endurest for ever or such a form of supplication as came from Davids mouth when he offered for the building of the Temple Who am I and what is my people that we shall be able to offer so willingly after this sort for all things come of thee and of thine own hand have we given thee Now the rudeness of the old World I may say did require these lessons to be taught and repeated often in visible figures in lessons that might be felt as well as heard which were fit to be written not in ink alone but even in the bloud of Sheep and of Goats A visible sign is a fair mark of remembrance for them that are slow to learn They that distrust their memory will wear a gimmal ring nay a thread or a rush about the finger to bring business into mind which might have been forgotten And God distrusting mans memory put him into the way of sacrificing a good shore or support for such a use so by that object which did incur into all the senses the Divine honour was kept in an everlasting remembrance Well then in this very service wherein they brought somewhat unto the Altar yet it was the Lords purpose to give and not to take Nothing is left to him in an whole Burnt-offering no more than a Prince gets when his Subjects make Bonfires at or upon the memory of his Inauguration Julian the Emperor scoffing at all the Royal Cesars that had been before him gives Antoninus Pius the praise before them all for this saying He being askt by Silenus what was the end of his life and of all his actions he answered to imitate the Gods And wherein consists that imitation says Silenus Antoninus rejoyns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stand in need of little and to be beneficial to many that 's the true blazon indeed of the Divine dignity to want nothing and to do good to all Gods honour was recognized in sacrifice that was the end of it but our Goods and Oblations were nothing to him and therefore the elementary part of their gratitude was consum'd to nothing It was a Law not to be broken for the bloud of every Sacrifice to be spilt before the Altar and the fat to be burnt in the fire the bloud stood for the life which we breath the fat for the abundance of all increase which we enjoy now we ought to
in the Reign of Edward the Sixth the name of Altar is throughout retained to comply with the Figurative phrase of good Antiquity and the next Edition of Liturgies to keep an wholsom form of words as St. Paul says and to give no place to misconstruction doth every where throughout call it the Lords Table And in the Injunctions of another blessed Prince whereas by order of Law Altars were to be removed and Tables placed for the ministration of the holy Communion it is said saving for Uniformity sake there was no matter of great moment so the Sacrament was duly and reverently celebrated and that the holy Table in every Church should be set in the place where the Altar stood We dare therefore and will speak according to Antiquity in the Figurative meaning of Antiquity calling it an Altar but lest the Supper of the Lord should be called the external and real crucifying of our Lord again we neither dare nor will speak after the sense of the Roman novelty to call it an Altar but we come to that holy Supper to be partakers of the Table of the Lord. These are not times to offer Sacrifice as Noah did and therefore not to build an Altar but only to commemorate that Sacrifice after which all true Sacrifices ceased and all properly called Altars fell to the ground And so much for the place which Noah sanctified he builded an Altar to the Lord. I am past the visible part of this good work I come now to the invisible part the life the soul of it And the Lord smelled a sweet savour What this delicate Odour and fragrancy was which the Sacrifice did exhale up to heaven I will not defraud you of it hereafter but I will defer it now and make my self room enough to speak of that quick sense which did apprehend this sweet Odour the Lord smelled a sweet savour A remnant or portion of living things had entred into the Ark to escape those were given unto the new World to multiply but Noah would be more severe against the sins of the World than the Lord was he would not spare so much as the merciful God had spared Nay the Lord thought it enough to overwhelm the iniquities of men with water but Noah presented Burnt-offerings on the Altar to confess that the wicked works of the World deserved likewise to be consumed with Fire A most depressing humility in the good Patriarch a most mortified Confession This won far upon the Lords compassion and changed the rugged brow of Justice into the smiles of mercy and benevolence It grieved him before that he had made man now he rejoyceth for the Remnant alive that he had preserved them As a Kingly Expositor said upon the Lords Prayer the most generous are the most gentle and a magnanimous courage is never vindicative of a wrong never retentive The time was but even now over that God had destroyed the whole World and see how placable he is from what a little pittance of true devotion he smelled a sweet savour Before the King of Ninivey had worn out his Sackcloth nay almost before he had put it on God saw their works and repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them and did it not Zachaeus did but profess to make restitution of all things ill-gotten and before he had made restitution of one peny says Christ this day yea Lord what if thou hadst said this minute is salvation come into thy house Nathan charged David with most bitter offences Lord keep us from the like David begins to reply I have sinned against the Lord it was but a beginning surely he would have said more but Nathan takes him off at a few words the Lord also hath taken away thy sin thou shalt not die It is accounted so great a matter to follow and sollicit Christ thrice together like she of Canaan that she had her Garland for it O woman great is thy faith Our loving Father will wait long for our Repentance but we shall not wait long for his Forgiveness As the Historian noted in Romulus that inveagled the Sabines with such courteous usage Quod eodem die hostes cives habuit in the Morning they came against him with hostility before Evening he had incorporated them all into his City So the Lord upon good tokens of their humiliation looked upon some in the Morning as excluses from the upper Jerusalem and presently he enroles their names in the Book of life Upon that mournful cry of David Have mercy upon me O Lord according to thy great goodness Thus Cassiodor Vox est quae nunquam discutitur sed tranquille semper auditur It is a voice which is never examined never suspended or delaid never deliberated upon it penetrates far it will be heard and it shall be answered It meets with Gods mercy as quick as a strong Perfume comes to the Nostril and therefore his complacency so ready to forgive is called smelling a sweet savour nay let me not forget that the Hebrew read it Odorem quietis the Lord smelled a savour of rest All sensible smells be it the Rose among the Flowers or Cassia among the Spices must be often put to the sense and often taken away to please it hold them long to the Nostril and they will prove faint and tedious Nullus odor sensibilis est odor quietis bodily sents are not sents of rest and quietness but to shew that our gracious Father is suddenly reconciled and long pleased very tenacious of his mercy our Sacrifice our Prayers our Alms all our Christian Offices are odores quietis their smell stays long with God they are an odour of rest he never loaths or disdains them O Lord thy placable compassions are exceeding sweet ten thousand times sweeter than the Sacrifice of Noah It should be thus with all that will follow Christ like Lord like Servants but it seems it is not David had no heart to stand to any bodies courtesie but the good God's O let me not fall into the hands of men We smother rancour in our breast like fire in touchwood or like fire in iron touch and you shall feel it burn though you cannot see it We are the Children of Eve and our great Mother you know was made of a stiff and a crooked rib we take after it too much We must be courted rather like Mistresses than Christians be wooed be presented be supplicated and after all this may be scarce obtain so much kindness as a merciful man would shew to his Beast Like the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa his humiliation he stood at doors three days barefoot for an apparition of his Holiness and the favour which all this patience and expectation procured was to stoop to the earth and to have his neck trode upon by Pope Alexander the Third a disdain which the Royal spirit of Alexander the Great did never put upon Darius Some do keep such long distance from this Doctrin that I may
sands of bondage and slavery Vbi desinit Pharisaeus ibi incipit Monachus the Pharisees if they took an oath upon the Altar not to relieve their Parents thought it enough to say I know you not to the Grey head which gave them education and to the paps which gave them suck Philo the Jew had it from hence when he concluded doctrinally that a man was bound to provide sustenance for his Parents unless he had vowed the contrary Not one jot more charitable are those shaven Crowns who afford their Parents no remembrance of their Birth but to repent that they bore Children Moreover what obligements did lie upon the Rechabites but such as were calculated for common frailty A Shepherds life the drink of an abstemious man the Estate of a Foreiner to have neither Lands nor Possession this doth neither press nor overload Obedience But Sulpitius tells another tale for Monastical duty nullum unquam recusaturus quamvis indignum toleratu imperium to be commanded to sow the wind and to reap folly this is to abuse our Creation which gave us bodies to do something not to be set on work to lose good hours and do nothing to please a Superior Besides thus the Rechabites continued their life to follow the Statutes of Jonadab that they might be accepted for their harmlesness and innocency as Strangers and Pilgrims in Israel Are the Jesuits so those undertakers of State affairs who endenison themselves in every Kingdom whose eyes as one said very well are like Burning-glasses which fire all things upon which they look But this is their practice to entitle the Worthies of the Scripture by the name of their own Orders to whose conversation their life was nothing agreeable Baronius makes the Mother of our Lord to live a cloistred Virgin in the Sanctum Sanctorum until she was betrothed to Joseph and there was fed familiarly with Angels Do you not believe it when she trembled to hear one bring that good salutation Ave Maria In Nyssens time this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a report that knew not the Author and out of doubt a Fable John the Baptist is tossed about in the Schools for the example of a contemplative Anchorite because he lived in the Wilderness But to be abroad in the Desert did no more make him an Hermite than it made Nebuchadonosor who was mad seven years among the wild beasts They presume also that Philip the Evangelists Daughters were Nuns and had entred into some Covenant of Virginity whereas in the third Book of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History and the thirtieth chapter the story is upon record that they were all happily married St. Chrysostom conjoyns an Eremite and Elias in some similitude but to what purpose I would our Adversaries would heed it better that although an Eremite were as devout as Elias in the Wilderness yet he would prefer a Bishop before him who in the Cities of God taught the Word and dispensed the Sacraments St. Hierom I find calls the Rechabites Monks in the 13. Epist ad Paulinum not as if the causes or institution of both their lives were alike but because they concurred in some points of austerity If there be such sutableness between our Predecessors in the Law and the Religious Orders of Rome now adayes methinks Balaam should carry these marks of a Jesuit First Balaam died in Arms Jos 13. and Loiola was a Souldier in the Field Balaam was a great complotter with the King of Moab they are busy and factious in all Kingdoms of Europe Balaam was ready to curse Gods Inheritance for a reward this pernicious Fatherhood have laid their heads together to root out our reformed Israel Balaam had the good gifts of Prophesie but wanted grace and so confer the Writings of the Jesuits and their practice and you will say as Isaac did to his Father Here 's a pile of wood but where is the Sacrifice In like manner we may say here 's a Volume of Divinity in our works learned Fathers but in your lives not an ABC of Religion To conclude this point Howsoever they bear the World in hand that Vows of Monastical perfection are expressed in the Word of God yet the alleged Examples are either such as never did vow I mean the Virgin Mary John Baptist Elias and Ananias says Cardinal Cajetan or such as vowed rashly out of precipitant zeal like Saul and Jephta or such as made no such Vow as they contrive by the Pattern I mean the Nazarites the Rechabites and St. Pauls Widows Who kept a College to entertain Disciples and to tend the Funeral of Christians like those Widows who washt the Body of Tabatha Acts 9. If you will needs know from what Quiver they draw their Shafts sift the Pythagoraeans and their captive obedience sift the Vestal Maids and their Devoted Virginity sift the Pagan Philosophers and their Obstinate Poverty is not the very Name to be found that Cloister Lubbers were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Heathen appellations Search the Scriptures and search Pagan Education and the case will appear on our side that the Romish Votaries enter into Orders not by the Door of the good Shepherd but by the dark Entry of Philosophers And so much I have spoken to shew that the Patrons of Monastical Perfection are much mistaken though we praise the Rechabites The end and last part of all is this That forasmuch as God was well pleased with these abstemious People that would drink no Wine therefore promise unto the Lord and do the deed for that is my final conclusion that a Vow justly conceived is to be solemnly performed When we have breathed out nunquam bibemus a resolved Protestation before God it is like the hour we spake it in past and gone and can never be recalled Effudi animam says David I have poured out my soul in prayer as if upon his supplication it were no longer his but Gods for ever Surely if our Soul be gone from us in our Prayers then much more in our Vows they are flown up to Heaven like Lazarus to the Bosom of Abraham they cannot they should not return to earth again He that changed his Sex in the Fable is not so great a wonder as he that changeth any Covenant which is drawn between God and his Conscience He that hath consecrated himself to God doth as it were carry Heaven upon his shoulders Support your burdens in Gods name lest if you shrink the wrath of God press you down to the nethermost pit I admonish the Friers of Italy to look to this they cast a colour upon their Vow of Lenten fasting but they lie unto the Holy Ghost whereas their Vow is not to eat bread till toward the Evening as if God knew not how the day went but by the Church Saints-Bell they read Even-song before twelve a clock at Noon that the Clergie may go to Supper Right Judas quicquid facis fac citò he had his sop
if he had pleased but to grasp the Loaves or to hold them in his Palm it was a full signification that his power and liberality were eminently met together for it is that hand which openeth and filleth all things The Apostles knew where these Loaves were forth-coming but they set not their mind upon them they would not meddle with them The People were an hungry and far from home in a desart place where there was nothing but grass Two hundred penyworth of bread perchance would have staid their stomachs and Philip thought that would be too little Howsoever they had not the money to buy it Five barly Loaves and two Fishes were all they had in store and who durst take them forth and shew them openly lest they should scramble and quarrel for them The People were ready to stone Moses and Aaron in the Wilderness when they were pinched with scarcity of food Therefore some gave counsel to send them away betimes certainly suspecting a mutiny But here is an accepit which runs cross to all their imaginations Christ betakes himself to those means which they contemned instead of dismissing the Congregation he calls them closer together instead of referring them to the Villages round about he contents them amply in that barren place Instead of the Tumult which was dreaded the issue came to great applause and admiration In all their days they had never seen such a Feast as this Table in the Wilderness where every Crum became an Handful Great things became vile and vile things became great by the dispensation of Christ In his own Person the stone which the builders refused became the head of the corner and in his own hand the Loaves which the Disciples refused became such a Banquet as never was prepared Lord take it first into thine own hand whatsoever we receive and then it will increase and prosper Give us our daily bread and if it be thy gift for no more than one day the vertue of it will last a year Labour not then so much to have good things as to have them of God As David did quickly cast up a chearful account of all his estate O Lord my God all the store that we have it cometh of thine hand 1 Chron. xxix 16. whatsoever drops from his fingers is sweet smelling Myrrh Cant. v. 5. but all false ways he utterly abhors and whatsoever comes in by fraud by extortion by cavillation it will consume away as fast as ever the Loaves and Fishes increased But surely the whole quaternion of Evangelists have set down this Preamble to the Miracle with such joynt consent He took the Loaves that it cannot choose but have some depth of observation in it St. Chrysostome hath reacht it so far that great numbers follow him namely that our Saviour did impatronize himself thereby to the work which followed and published himself from thence to be the Author of the Miracle It was alike easie to his Omnipotency to say the word and to make bread of nothing Or to take a little into his hand and to amplifie it into a great quantity Depend upon this what we have he can increase and what we have not he can create it is all one to him But by handling the lump and so giving vertue to the augmentation the People might behold him as the Fountain of all Power and Majesty and say with the Lycaonians God is come down unto us in the likeness of man Hear what that Father says more unto it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was very expedient that the People should be taught these two Articles of their belief that Christ came from the Father and that he was equal with the Father The one must be proved by power the other by holiness The one by taking the Loaves the other by giving thanks The one by doing all the other by calling upon God when he did all Put the case he had looked up to Heaven and furnished them with satiety of victuals out of nothing what would the multitude have said why this comes from above this is Gods doing and this Jesus is a Prophet that 's come from God O but can humane reason be brought to no better opinion of him 't is true whatsoever can be done they that are unbelievers may gain-say it yet to subdue all contradiction in them that are willing to obey the truth he took the bread and took the glory to himself to make every loaf content a thousand that they might cry out with the Centurion this is of a Truth the Son of God and it is no robbery to say he is equal with the Father So at Cana in Galilee he did not create wine when they wanted and supplied them out of nothing but he turned water into wine water of their own fetching as this was bread of their own bringing a pre-existent matter whose substance they knew to be vulgar and natural he wrought upon these sensible things before their eyes that they might impute the transmutation to his own Divinity Unto which of the Prophets therefore can you liken him in this Miracle Moses obtained Manna from Heaven by prayer and supplication Christ did this by his own hand The Widows Barrel of Meal did not waste nor her Cruise of Oyl fail it was Elias his prediction not his immediate operation Elisha bad his Servant set twenty barley loaves before an hundred men they did eat and left thereof yet for his own part he did not meddle with it because he would have the children of the Prophets ascribe all to the Word of the Lord they did according to that spirit upon them which was circumscribed and limited God had lent them a tongue to declare his noble acts but the hand which did all was far above the hand of power was radical in Heaven therefore this is a distinctive note to know the Master from his Servants he took the loaves He took them indeed but for justice sake it is fit to ask unde habuit from whence he had them A mean question many times hath found a grave resolution it may prove so in this Whence he had them Why some say the Disciples did own them for they answer him Matt. xiv 17. We have here but five loaves and two fishes The words bear it as if they were theirs because their Master was wont to carry them into desolate places and to detein them there all night it was their wonted providence to carry some small refection with them in their journey as it appears Matth. xvi 7. When our Saviour bad them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Saducees they reasoned among themselves saying it is because we have taken no bread Then they had not yet usually they do not forget it and it may be this was their provision for the present season But the votes of them are more that conceive they did belong to some other In the nineth verse Andrew says there is a Lad here
viluerunt Lesser things are admired which happen rarely the greater works of God because they are frequent are heeded carelesly Say not now but ye see cause enough why Christ did actuate this Miracle of the loaves no oftner than twice he would not stretch his Creatures beyond their natural size to please their idle curiosity And yet I will tell you of a miraculous multiplication but I do not wish you to believe that is done toties quoties as they think fit that have the Relique in their custody It is the Cross on which our Saviour was crucified you must not question the Story but that Helen found it in an heap of rubbish at Jerusalem many did desire Chips of it out of their devotion and though innumerous slices of it were cut away yet it kept its just magnitude and never varied The thing was divulged by some but none of the famous Doctors one thousand three hundred years ago One of them that is said to write extemporary Catechisms when he was a young man compares the Cross which wasted not for all the shivers that were borrowed from it to these Loaves and Fishes Another says out of his credulous good meaning that it got this solidity because the bloud of him was spilt upon it who saw no corruption And to this hour say such as get their living by this craft this holy wood is not consumed though it be abundantly imparted Is this credible that Christ did dispense this power unto any to work a Miracle when they would as if there were an Office erected to do signs and wonders Qui Bavtum non odit he that hath so strong a stomach to disgest this let him swallow such an other that out of three or four nails that pierced our Saviours hands and feet the Friers can direct you to Churches and Religious Houses where an hundred instead of four are exposed to adoration What though the Beam of the Cross did not diminish for the portions cut away yet which way did the Nails increase Did one Nail spawn another as big as it self None is so frontless to defend it But to cut off further process upon the matter It is best to bind the Legend how the Cross and the Nails have multiplied into volumes and believe them together But the sure way is not to parallel the glorious works of our Master with such Apocryphal fictions There is a great difference between Juggling and Miracles Hitherto touching the Act of his power in producing this admired work go onward to the next Point and we shall encounter his goodness Our Saviour did not use to do tricks to shew his skill but that some might be the better for him therefore his power was joyned with Beneficence Vt potestas non terreat sed amorem excitet says St. Austin That he might not astonish them with his greatness but endear them with his liberality Leaf gold is drawn out a great way and then it is fit for nothing but Ostentation So the multiplying of the Loaves and Fishes had served barely for the pomp of the eye but that the wonderful encrease thereof concluded in a benefit And first I note though the love of Christ to mankind was excessive strong unto death yet going in the Tract of reason they had little cause to look for this at his hands Alas he had no home to entertain them no Revenues wherewith to feast them no Olive yards or Vineyards to bestow upon them Could five thousand look for a Supper of his bestowing For our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might become rich that is says Nazianzen he put on the poverty of my wretched flesh that I might gain the riches of his glorious Divinity They that followed him had not their wages in Meats and Drinks in Silver and Gold but in Sanctity and Justification in peace of Conscience and in the earnest of the Spirit to be heirs of Salvation And he whose Profession it was to open the Treasures of Heaven to his Disciples and to possess naught of Earth no not so much as to set his foot upon doth he strain himself to give entertainment to so many in the Wilderness What was this but to yield as it were to the time to be beneficial to the Jews in a temporal way that by all means he might win their love He had fed their Spirit with the Word of life and satiated them one would think with the promise of eternal Joy and Immortality if they believed in his name but he knoweth whereof we are made he considereth the Worm in our corruptible appetite which is always craving He remembred that a little in hand goes a great way with them that cannot abide to have all their state in reversion therefore he distributed unto the necessity of their body though his Errand for which he came into the world was to be the Saver of Souls as you would say he stept a little out of his own way to bring them into the right way I cannot but revolve it in my fancy that the Jews were more transported with this curtesie of our Saviours than with all that had preceded Hereupon they cry out This is the Messias this is he that should come into the world Let us take him up and make him a King How ignorantly and unequally doth flesh and bloud set a price upon the works of God I durst almost say that this was one of the least good turns that ever he did them When a Miracle came off graciously indeed it had such a tang at the end of it as Son thy sins be forgiven thee or This day is Salvation come to thine house This had no such heavenly adjunct but was a frank Feast among a promiscuous company as his rain falls upon the just and unjust Well though the grudgings of this disease are become natural to us all to like the heavenly offices of the Gospel the better if Christ befriend us a little with these corruptible things yet carnal Companions are most odious to apprice things momentary before coelestial How much better doth Solomon distinguish Length of days meaning endless days are in his right hand and in his left hand riches and honour Wherefore David describes evil affected men that value earth before heaven that their right hand is a right hand of iniquity because they grasp transitory things in their right hand fixing their chiefest complacency in them which are favours of much later digress and to be received in the left And the same Metaphor is prosecuted in another sacred Song Cant. ii 6. His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me Sinistra capiti non praeponitur sed supponitur says Bernard The left hand which bestows Loaves and Fishes must be under our head not above it as if it were the top of our desires but the right hand should compass us about at the very heart To this Point but a word more Christ produced
this Amplitude of sustenance even out of his penury when he had nothing and possessed nothing Quid facturae sunt ejus divitiae cujus paupertas nos divites fecit says St. Austin What great thing will he confer upon us out of the riches of his glory who made such generons welcom to so many thousands with his poverty May this suffice to unfold our Lords goodness in this distribution with respect to himself and his own humiliation Lay the present condition of the people in another balance to whom he opened his hand of liberality and you shall find him that faithful Steward that gives the portion of meat in due season to the Family Luk. xii The people were many thousands of men beside women and children These had given diligent attention to Christs Doctrine from morning to night It was in the Spring time much about the Passeover when the body is most lusty and the appetite most sharp and yet in all that space none of these no not so much as they or the weaker Sex and the tenderer Age had taken any refection As the Poet made a fancy of it that while Orpheus touch'd his Lute the Deer listened and had no leisure to drink or graze Neque amnem libavit quadrupes nec graminis attig it herbam So the throng that pressed about Jesus hung at his lips and hungerd so much for grace that they forgat the refreshing of nature The Disciples being not ill advised that faintness and infirmity must ensue upon it out of instancy and passion command their Lord send the multitude away and their Allegations indeed are pitiful this is a desart place it affords nothing these good men and women are unfurnished and have brought nothing to eat Dismiss them to seek their Supper in the adjacent Villages there is no other way and ten to one such poor Hosteries had nothing in store to entertain them With their leave this was counsel but no charity If a brother be destitute of food and one of you say be filled notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body what doth it profit Jam. ii 16. Yet to purge the Disciples from such luke-warm love I profess in their behalf they did to their utmost what they were able All the commiseration on earth set God aside could not just at the nick afford what they wanted the distress was such that it did as it were make an out-cry to all the world Is there any one that can relieve you I may say it truly without lightness this was Christs qu to come in and no opportunity like it it is his manner to be most propitious in an extreme plunge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Philo this is proper to God to be strong in weakness to abound in scarcity and to be most comfortable in a desperate necessity If things feasible or facile were only brought to pass Infidels would say Who could not do this Therefore God doth reserve his power and his rescue for hopeless miseries And David calls it articulately the time wherein he may be found Psal xxxii 7. As he called out to Abraham to stay his hand in the latest minim of the moment when there was not an hairs breadth between Isaac and death As the Israelites were disappointed of Manna till they were weary of their life and made that dismal moan Would to God we had died in Egypt And as Elias had no answer from heaven nor Ravens to feed him till he was at the pitch of discontent It is enough Lord take away my life for I am not better than my Fathers When these immediate natural causes which work strongest upon our senses when these fail and can cast no influence of succour upon our afflictions then God acts his part alone and arrests our Faith and challengeth it to give thanks to nothing but to his Omnipotency So he preached to Gideon The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands lest Israel vaunt themselves against me saying Mine own hand hath saved me Judg. vii 2. Let them be reduced to three hundred and their paucity will confess that it is the Sword of the Lord that got the victory But nothing more proper to illustrate this than my Theme in hand Christ could have led this people forth far from a Desart into a wealthy place where the fields were laden with fruits This is his usual way as he made man of the dust of the earth so to feed him with the fruits of the earth that she which was our Mother might be our Nurse likewise But so long as Nature is free and peremptory in this course we sacrifice to our own seed and our own labour Again he could have staid their appetite and prevented all hunger and faintness though they had gone away empty from the Wilderness I would not say it of this people I know some that would have grown insolent in such a case upon the merit of their fasting But best of all that they wanted and had not till Christ provided them a Table For lest we should forget God if we had not special use of him he hath laid extremities upon us such as these to make us remember him And as his glory doth triumph in helping his Creatures at special need so it captivates the Soul of man to very moderate contentation and brings it low like a weaned child When we wallow in abundance and have all manner of store at our command we are so wanton in our choice that the best will not please us but thrust us into the Desart where we are begirt with hard necessity then we grow supple and indifferent to any thing if the Lord will help us Our Saviour need not study to satisfie any mans licorish longing in this extremity of hunger he found five barley Loaves to break among them and he made them no better he did not turn them into sugar-plates or Marchpane Wherefore if any man find himself voluptuously transported let him pray to God that his prosperity may go a little backward like the Sun upon the Dial of Ahaz let him wish that he were come to the exigence of some extremity like the Prodigal that he were faln from the honey-comb to the husk which the Swine eat The Syrian Paraphrast intended this I believe in the Lords Prayer when it framed our tongue to supplicate on this wise Give us this day the bread of our necessity Now this Point for an upshot shall thus expire Our soul is in the same plight as their bodies were that had come a far journey and continued with our Saviour and had not one fragment of food to content their stomach So our Soul is streightned and wants blessedness it passionately longs to obtain it This world is a barren Wilderness there is nothing but grass in the place and that which fadeth like the flower of grass We are far from him as this
such alas as are very scandalous dispense them The Carpenters may make an Ark for Noah though themselves were drowned in the Floud An Iron Seal can imprint a stamp as well as one of Gold The Seed may come up and do well though the hand were leprous that sowed it Be comforted therefore that although such as Hophni and Phinehas are unworthy of their Ephod that make the Offerings of the Lord to be abhorred yet the High Priest Jesus is present not for the workmans sake but for the works sake at those Ordinances which himself hath constituted I have now dispatcht the two great Limbs of this Miracle the distribution and the sub-distribution the Givers principal and less principal I will touch upon the Receivers and then no more And first Their posture they sate down is not put for a Cipher into this business to portend nothing neither did Christ use to command any thing in vain but in the verse before my Text he bids the Disciples make the men sit down and they did so And that did intimate a great branch of their Pastoral dignity I think To break the Loaves and Fishes among them was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed the Lambs an act issuing from their power of order but to make them sit down was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and betokened their power of jurisdiction And happy were they that being appointed by their Lord to look to good order to make the men sit down did light upon those that were so willing and ready to do as they were bidden no replications or non-conformity I warrant you among them all but instantly they sate down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties Mar. vi 40. And they that sat down with so much obedience to eat this bread would have kneeled with no less obedience if they had been appointed to eat the bread of life But wherefore did they take their places in ranks thus upon the grass You cannot impute the Spirit of Prophesie unto them that they could guess what would follow Me thinks some Jesuit should say that this is even the same which they call by that inauspicious term blind obedience When a Novice surrenders up his judgment to the will of his Superiour and examines not the quality of the thing which is enjoyned but with undiscoursed allegeance stoops to the Authority of him that commands If he be bidden to water a dead stake in a hedge or set his shoulders to remove a Castle or tell the number of the Stars he undertakes it obsequiousness hath devoured his judgment and he controverts nothing that is commanded though he sees no reason for it The more Ideot he to extinguish the light which God hath given to his soul and to follow frail men in their dark paths who may lead him into precipices of confusion For to pierce no farther into this mystery of iniquity than into the instances I named even now Shall any man be excused before God that spends his time in trifles to no use He that will require an account of idle words will he not require it of idle and vain actions Doubtless he that allows a mortal man an absolute soveraignty over his understanding to stoop to any thing he bids him do without examination of the fact puts him into that priviledge which is due to God alone Therefore these that sate down in my Text are not of that Livery with those blind obedients They received a Precept in Christs name to whom they owed the Abnegation of their own Judgment and they put themselves into that order which he appointed They had seen the proof of his Power so often that they durst not dis-believe but it they waited patiently they should see the glory of God in his mighty works Their eyes were fastened upon him and though they saw nothing to feed so many ranks of men yet now they were confident they should not be dismissed without a taste of his liberality We furnish our Tables usually and then sit down but these did first sit down with nothing before them and afterward Christ did furnish the Table O how the unbelieving Pharisees would have jeared them if they had sate down and got no sustenance as they expected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Homer it is an ignominious thing to wait long and be sent away with nothing but the hope of a good man is never fruitless it never makes ashamed for since these sate down with such patience and obsequiousness they had as much as they would As David says The meek shall eat and be satisfied they shall praise the Lord Psal xxii 26. It is St. Hilaries conjecture that this food which enlarged strangely first in Christs hand and then in the Disciples multiplied the third time in the hands of all that received it It is true which that Father says that then as many as were present might discern the Miracle the better and it holds with reason that the bread should stretch out bigger according as one mans appetite was sharper than another I will not contend for this that every one in the ordinary throng should be so happy as to promote a miracle For Jesus I know and the Disciples I know but who are ye This I shall obtain without contention that they had as much as they would Look upon the number of the men about five thousand the Women and Children mentioned indefinitely as if they were numberless and all these had refection to content them with that which one glutton would easily have devoured O stupendious the old scoff was that there were no Friars among them there were of all Ages Vigours and Complexions and yet no lack Nay says St. Austin Panes sufficiunt homines deficiunt They gave over to eat before the bread gave over to increase and as Pliny said of them that got much by Trajan their own modesty circumscribed their desires not his benignity so these that sate down did leave to feed before God did leave to give The Wine which Christ supplied at Cana in Galilee it was not modicum but enough to feast a Prince Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy says the Apostle 1 Tim. vi 17. And though the quantity of his gift be ample yet the quality is more than it for it makes the appetite acquiesce and lie still that it asks no more All that have store in abundance are not content with their share all that are filled to the brim do not think it sufficient But the condition of this meat which Christ blessed was That they were all filled and they had as much as they would Therefore when you meet with such as are well pleased to have their honours stay at a growth and to wax no higher to have their riches hoopt within a moderate size and to swell no bigger you may say they have eat some of God Almighties Loaf they have as much as they would But when you light upon such and they are not hard to
dwell on the earth Haec commemoratio est quaedam necessitas exaudiendi How can this great King to whom they supplicate choose but grant them their asking when his own Attributes intercede in their behalf How can their Enemies choose but fall before them when they sound out these awful names of God as with the blast of a Trumpet As a Christian Poet says of Satan who was cast out of the Possessed in the name of Jesus Nec fulmina verbi ferre potest that blessed word was like Thunder in his ears he could not endure the noise of it So when the men of the earth have exalted themselves To run over the Attributes of God against them is as it were to give fire to a peal of Ordnance and their Pride will totter before them Religion hath its name à religando it binds man to God and it binds God to man The Martyrs were bound by their Vow in Baptism to stand to their Faith to the death and the Lord hath bound himself by his Truth and Holiness to avenge his Saints that cry day and night unto him With much confidence may we appeal unto him in the name of the Lord. Magnum nomen sub quo nemini desperandum says St. Austin Who can be discouraged that can recite that word with a true feeling in the Preface of his Prayer It is in effect to say Rise up thou arm of the most High Isa li. 9. Stir up thy strength and come and help us Psal lxxx 2. Let all the Kingdoms of the earth know that thou art the Lord Isa xxxvii 20. It is to challenge protection from the relation which can never be dissolved as who should say Thou art our King and we are thy Subjects therefore we claim our Copy that thou shouldst guard and defend us at least that thou shouldst pluck down the arrogance of those that have offended us But what passionate Advocates are the other two sacred terms that go together with it Holy and True Which is in effect to plead Thou hast made us holy as thou art holy thou hast kept us in the truth even as thou art truth thou hast given us such gifts as are in thine own Titles therefore we are sure thou dost love us with an everlasting love thou that art holy and true wilt pluck thine arm out of thy bosom to avenge them that are holy and true against their oppressors The Holiness of God calls upon him to hate the ungodly that have devoured Jacob and laid wast his dwelling place His Truth calls upon him to put them to confusion because he hath promised to recompence them for the evil which they have done unto his Servants He that is holy cannot favour their part that are ambitious bloud-suckers invaders of the Possessions of the Innocent He that is truth it self cannot support them that are dissemblers truce-breakers full of fraud and equivocation The Holy One will be sanctified the True One will be justified the Lord will be glorified I will hold you no longer in the Porch of the Text for the Invocation is no more I come to the Prayer it self the Souls under the Altar cry out unto the Lord to judge and avenge their bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Verb to judge may belong to the sifting of the Cause the other Verb to avenge may import the dispatch of the sentence against the Delinquents but I take them both to be an amplification of one thing urged that vengeance may fall upon the head of them that have spilt the bloud of the Saints a Prayer that a mild man perhaps will stand amazed at His Lesson is Bless them that curse you pray for them that despitefully use you Whence comes it that the Saints in Heaven take the liberty to perform Christs will not so charitably as the poor Disciples on earth But good words and all grace and piety be ascribed to the Spirits which are in the bosom of God We cannot say to them as our Saviour did to the Sons of Zebedee You know not what ye ask This is a voice which came not from Earth but from Heaven and therefore we must maintain it And it is as easie a task as a man can put his Pen to because it will admit such variety of Apology First of all Vengeance being not usurpt by the hand of a private man but prosecuted under the shelter of lawful authority like Vsque quo Domine In this place it is not unlawful It is pars justitiae punitivae a stirring up of that part of justice which distributes punishments to them that deserve them and to demand it in a regular way is in no wise rugged to the Law of charity The Schoolmen comprize the right use and the abuse of it in one short distinction Velle vindictam ad odium saturandum pessimum est ex amore justitiae bonum It is honest sometimes to claim revenge for wrongs out of the love of Justice it is abominable when we aim at nothing but to glut our spleen and hatred with the ruine of our enemy St. Austin puts it better home with two exceptions Revenge is strictly repressed in the Gospel Non ut correctionem hominum negligamus sed ne alieno malo animum pasceres not quite repressed so that offenders must not be called to account to be corrected but when a rankerous mind would be fed and fatted with the penalty of another Again says he Non ut praeterita vindicemus sed in futurum consulamus The injuries that are past and done might be friendly put up but recompence must be required sometimes that the times to come may be more peaceably ordered Many stumbled at this Doctrine because they made not a clear difference between the affections of malice and justice Origen against Celsus disputes that if is not lawful for Christians to go to war yet David praiseth God for teaching his hands to war and his fingers to fight The Manichaeans brooked not Moses for those words An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth yet he saith Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people Lev. xix Julian charged the Christians that they were enemies to Civil Courts and all Political Orders for they held that no wrong was to be called in question And they that replied unto him defended it coldly that it was a thing adiaphorous and better let alone St. Austin in one place says that the Old Law did license the Jews to commence suits against their Enemies but it was a permission to the hardness of their hearts this mistake came upon a slip of memory for he thought there had been such words in the Text of the Old Law Thou shalt hate thine enemy Hugo taught that the Precepts of strict charity which Christ taught agreed to the suffering times of the Primitive Church but were now expired Some of the School Divines would have the Prayer for our