or unworthy But be you irreprehensible Labourers faithfull Stewards sincere Embassadors of our Lord for it is by you that he declares his will to men and it is at your hands hee will demand their soules Think of feeding your Flock and not how to cloath your selves with their wooll and drink of their milk There is nothing more shamefull to a Bishop or Priest then covetousness and the desire of sordid gain that justly takes away all credit from them and much weakens the force of their preaching We brought nothing with us into the world and must go out of it naked Therefore â—â—udy not to hoord up any thing but be content with moderate food and clothing seeking only to get riches of piety which is a great treasure and sufficient to satisfie a heart that is truely Christian They who desire to be rich do easily fall into the snares of the Divel and open a gap in their soules to temptation and to all sorts of bad desires and disquiets For covetousness of money is the root of all evils Yet for this we must not condemn rich men but put them often in minde that they be not proud nor put their trust too much in riches which many accidents may ravish from â—hem but rather to confide in the living God whose enjoyment can only render us truly happy You must also avoid another extremity which is the neglect of your own families for how shall he that cannot govern his own house govern well the Church Your family must be like a Church by the exemplar life of all those that are in it and your children born before your ordination must preach in silence to all the faithfull under your charge by their modesty and by the sanctity of their lives After you have been heard speak men will cast their eies upon the manner of your life and if your actions do not correspond with your words your preaching will be unprofitable Be you your selves sober to persuade sobriety chast to teach others continency patient when you suffer injuries to learn others how to bear them and modest to invite others to modesty Let your humility confound the proud and the contempt you have of riches reprove the covetous and make them ashamed use hospitality to the end you may encourage your Brethren that are able to practise it Love the poore and be ye first in their assistance that by your example others may respect help them Keep a watchfull guard upon your anger that your hands which are consecrated to bless the people never strike any body Above all avoid temporall affairs for you are Souldiers of a militia that requires you intirely and you serve a Master whom only you must study to please The sanctification and conduct of souls which he has redeemed the establishment of his kingdome by preaching his word are so glorious imployments that you ought to contemne all others though presented to you by the greatest Prince of the earth When either the glory of our Lord or charity requires you to undertake any affair be not negligent but presently quit your own repose and quiet Without such like occasions attend to cultivate the field which is appointed for you For Christians are the fields of God planted and watered by him and to him it belongs to give the encrease It suffices for your part that you omit nothing to make the Gospel flourish Be watchfull for after my departure ravenous wolves will fall upon your flocke and devoure them without pity and many false doctours shall rise amongst you who will seduce a great number of the faithfull by their false doctrine They will come with the name of our Lord in their mouthes their lookes will be modest their words Saint-like their actions wary their lives severe and they will teach nothing that is not delightfull But indeed they will be wolves in the skinnes of sheep They will be men that are lovers of themselves fraught with inordinate desires puffed up with pride obstinate in what they hold jealous of their opinions and unsatiable in praise honor and respect They will be called Masters give rules to all and concerning all things have the first place and be considered as men that had nothing of earth in them These blinde guides will lead many others so all fall into the ditch you shall see them come into houses and inquire into the greatest secrets of families not to reform the disorders but to soment them so to make benefit of their indulgence They will abuse men by their false Maxims they will make use of the simplicity of women whom they will lead by flocks aud make them believe they will free them from the burthen of their sinnes they will entertain them with a thousand vain superfluous things which shall render them alwaies more curious but never more learned in the doctrine of piety which they ought chiefly to know In fine they will oppose truth which is never favourable to them and will rise up against you without any respect to the power which Jesus Christ has given you as Jannes and Mambres did against Moyses You are not the work of men but the work of Jesus Christ that Sovereign Priest who has made you Priests to the end you continue the functions of his royall Priesthood He who is the head of Men and Angels will have you receive from him the influences of his graces to communicate them to his members you are the head of his mystical body which cannot subsist without you you are the eye to enlighten it the tongue to instruct it and the bosome to harbor it untill our Lord J. Christ be there formed Labor faithfully in a work that is so admirable be not weary to behold after a long time you have not much advanced resolve to sustain in your selves continual throws that you may beget soules to our Lord. Whilest a woman feels the pains of her childe-bearing she cries out aloud but no sooner is she delivered when she forgets all her dolours rejoices because she has brought a man into the world What then will be your joy when you shall have given children to God and how can all those agonies those disquiets those persecutions which you are to suffer before seem troublesom to you For my self I do neither glory that I am an Israelite or that I am skilful in the law nor that I have been elevated up to heaven nor that I am an Apostle nor in any other quality of my person But all my glory is that I have suffered incredible persecutions for Jesus Christ The most glorious badges of my Apostleship is to see me in nakedness to see me in want of food of drink in misery in prisons in chaines in affronts and scorns for the salvation of those to whom God has destinated the light of his Gospel It is now time that I leave you yet awake a while and call to minde the verities which I have declared unto you
repentant By his study and diligence he learnt the letter of the Law at the feet of Gamaliel by the light of Grace he knew the insufficiency of it to mans justification he concealed it not to the Jewes that hee might beat down their pride and teach them they were to have recourse to the Faith of Jesus Christ if they meant to be delivered from the yoke of sin and concupiscence These verities which they ought to have respected put them into a fury and publication of irreconciliable enmity against him In what place soever he went he found them prepared to cross his designes and raise persecutions against him they laid ambushes for him both by land and sea where horrid tempests seemed to him less terrible then their hatred To ruine him they made use of the authority of Goveruours and imployed their credit with Princes they abused the simplicity of pious women to chase him out of Cities where he preached with success In Lystris they made those throw stones at him who but two hours before would have adored him for a God Hee bare the marks of their cruelty upon his back in the many stripes hee received and had hee laid open to us all the other afflictions which he suffered by their persecution wee might behold the most admirable example of a perfect patience that ever has been and the most horrid fury whereof men are capable In these few things which he relates of himself we may behold his modesty and courage both tegether He was wearied with no pains and hee compared not himself with the other Ministers of the Gospel but in his great sufferings for the defence of it He was oftner imprisoned then any other and turned over to executioners who loaded him with stripes He often suffered shipwrack at sea and ran dangers in the calmest rivers In Cities the people defamed him with calumnies and treated him rudely in his person nor was hee secure in solitude His patience was tryed both in hunger and thirst and he was so far from yielding any pleasures to his senses that hee wanted necessaries for the sustaining of his life He felt the violence of cold in his voyages nor could the ice abate the heat of his zeal He had not wherewith to defend himself from the injury of the weather and the poorest persons would have been ashamed to wear his garments Hee was an invincible Champion that fought naked against his naked enemies the devils But whatsoever injuries he suffered by the Jews Gentiles those hee endured from false brothers were more dangerous and more insupportable The profession which they made of the Gospel in outward shew covered their hatred ambition and covetousness and being not the least suspected of any ill designe were by that the more able to doe him harm His great reputation made his greatest crimes they could not endure his sublime doctrine which had nothing of terrestrial in it nor the discretion of his zeal which was according to knowledge nor the constancy of his courage which would not bow in any thing that concerned the glory of God nor his disinteressed charity that sought no advantages to himself There were no calumnies so black which they cast not upon him or dispersed not cunningly amongst those who knew not the ground of their malice the motives of their hatred To hear them speak they seemed to be no waies interessed but in the defence of truth and regarded only the salvation of souls But they vented their passion and many times those were the instruments of their vengeance who ought to have been the Judges But their fury found it self deceived in all designes hurt none but those who had so unjustly entertained and so cruelly nourished it The Mystery of iniquity was discovered and every one saw that the false Apostles who persecuted him with so much obstinacy and fury were true Wolves in Sheep-skins and that they hated him as offenders hate their Judges All their injuries could not move him to any bitternesse he always rendering blessings for the maledictions they charged upon him He remembred that he was Apostle to him who bore the name of Impostor Seducer and Samaritan All things seemed sweet to him if tending to the progresse of the Gospel and all his care was that it might have no obstacle Although in his rapture he had seen the most profound mysteries of God yet he accommodated himself to the weakness of his disciples and stammered it out with them His Charity comprehended all the world and his care was extended unto Slaves as well as Princes His preaching was plain and he corrupted not the words of Jesus Christ by the ornaments of humane learning His reasons were so forcible that the most learned if not perswaded by them were at lest confounded His Epistles are Abysses of Divine knowledge one may see the light of his understanding there to sparkle and in every line the fire of his Charity The proud are there dazeled and the humble may finde wholsom instructions The Flower of human Eloquence are not seen there but all the beauties of Heavenly rhetorick shine in them This stile is not always elegant but the art in discussing matters and managing the Spirits of men is there admirable Prudence appears in all his precepts and all the profane Politiques come not near them Christian morality is found there in its purity and every one may there learn the duty of his condition without disguise without subtilty and without those pernicious imitations which have corrupted the good manners of these latter ages He neither sought his own reputation nor the applause of men and one of his chief maxims was that we could not please them and be servants of Jesus Christ He regarded not men but as they bore the image of his Master and all his cares were but to imprint that in their souls He having received the Evangelical verity as a sacred pledge he would never alter it out of any complacence He stooped to the capacity of his Disciples but he made not their capacity the rule of his Doctrine as if he were onely to tell them what they could comprehend In stead of satisfying humane reason which is very fecund and insolent in her doubts he placed it under the yoak of faith remitting it to the secrets of Gods Divine judgements The beloved Disciple reposed upon the bosome of Jesus Christ but we may say that Saint Paul entred into it and saw the operations of his Divine life and the influences diffused from thence upon his members Never any one better knew the Oeconomy of the mystical body and her correspondence with the head Never was the ardor of zeal so admirably mixt with prudence for the framing and sanctifying of this body proper interest was unknown to him He was so far from making any sordid commerce of the Gospel as he would not accept of necessaries for his life His charity towards the faithful governed his power and he had rather diminish his authority then give the least cause of murmur His poverty was the more Evangelical in that it was despised He was not ashamed to take pains for his living with the same hands that wrought miracles and write instructions to all the Church He complied with all men by an admirable condescension and never had Father more tenderness for his Children then he for his disciples The Pharisees the Scribes the Priests were not able to speak before him Athens was astonished to hear him the Are page admired him and there he made conquest of the most renouned of their Judges At Rome he set upon Idolatry in the Throne and of a Mistress of error he made her a Mistress of truth over all the earth He who first founded it soyled it presently with the blood of his brother and the Apostle consecrated it with his blood to establish there the Empire of Jesus Christ Her authority is more extended by a religion of humility which he taught then for many ages she could bring to pass by force of armes He advanced his conquests even to the Palace of Nero making the domesticks of a most cruel and infamous Tyrant to become the servants of Jesus Christ Once he escaped the Jawes of this Lyon because God had shut them up that he might make known his name to all the earth But when the time of his Coronation was come he loosened the reins to this monster who sacrificed him to his cruelty and what could be expected less from him who had not spared his own Mother The condemnation of the Judge was a proof of the Criminals vertue After his death the Church hears him as her Master and the Schools of Christians receive all his words as infallible Oracles He is one of the eyes of the body whereof Jesus Christ is the head He is the shrill Trumpet of the Gospel which is heard over all the earth He is the Apostle of the Son of God not mortal and passible but glorious and living the life of resurrection He is the illustrious triumph of his grace the subject of his mercies the vessel of a singular election the instrument of his greatest wonders the interpreter of his wil and the treasurer of all his secrets The Minister of his greatest favours the Embassadour of his most holy aliance the Oracle of his highest verities From this fountain the holy Fathers have drawn what they have most admirable T is from this Mine they have fetched all their riches T is from his spoyles they have taken all their noble ornaments They never went astray when they took him for their guide They have always triumphed when they used his armes It is his fire that warmed their zeal as his light enlightned them It is with his Thunder-bolts they have overthrown the insolency of Heresie and the rebellion of Schisme It is by his rules they have formed their morality It is by his counsels they have governed the Church It is by his maximes they have cleared the doubts of the faithful satisfied their scruples and discovered the snares which were set to entrap them We have endeavoured in this History to represent the marvelous actions of his life and though we are neither able nor willing to aspire to the glory of Eloquence yet we may promise this to our selves that all unpartial Readers will confess we have herein been very faithful and disinteressed FINIS
stand upon thy feet I have appeared to thee to the end I may ordain thee a preacher of those things thou hast seen make thee boldly to render publike testimony in all places of the world both of these and other verities which I will in due time reveale unto thee Be not affraid I will deliver thee from the ambushes and violence of the people unto whom I send thee that thou mayest open their eyes and reduce them from that deplorable siate of darkness in which they are unto the light of my Gospel that thou mayest free them from the power of the devil and place them under the protection of God to the end they may from his goodness receive remission of their sinnes and share in the inheritance of Saints by a firm faith in my name I rejected not by a misbelief O King Agrippa this heavenly vision for presently I began to preach to the Jewes of Damasco and afterwards at Hierusalem and in Judea and then to the Gentiles exhorting them to return to God by a true conversion of heart and to do workes worthy of pennance not to obtain the possession of a land flowing with milk and honey such other recompences as are promised by a carnall Law but to obtain the fruition of heaven which is infallible to those who live according to the Maxims of Jesus Christ This Doctrine is not new I have deduced it from the writings of Moyses and those of the Prophets who all speak clearly of the sufferings of the Messias of his ignominious death and of the glory of his resurrection in which order he with great reason holds the first place since hee is the first-born of God before all creatures He is begotten in light and he is come into the world to enlighten the Jewes and Gentiles to make of them but one people or rather one body of which he is the head diffusing admirable influences of a new life amongst his members for he is the new man who destroyes the old in us and who brings us all sorts of benedictions as the other had brought us all manner of miseries it is he after whom all our Fore-fathers have fighted it is he who has taken upon him that curse to which the Jews and Gentiles were subject it is he who upon the tree of the Cross has abolished the fatal sentence of death in which all men were engaged The Law of Mâ—yses had truly Sacrifices to expiate sin but that expiation was but exteriour the bloud of Goats and Bulls could not purifie the hearts of those that offered it only the bloud of Jesus Christ has this divine vertue and indeed it is onely hee that has taken away all the sins of the world It was needfull to re-iterate the Sacrifices of the Temple but this divine Priest of whom I speak being once offered hath drawn dry the very source of sinne has for ever taken away that which hindered sanctification has appeased the divine Justice opened to himself to his members a heavenly Sanctuary which till then was shut up This was figured by the high Priests entering once a year into the material Sanctuary with the bloud of a Goat offered for his own and the peoples sins for all that which our Fore-fathers beheld was in figure God would dispose them by carnall things unto spiritual by shaddowes conduct them to the light which his Son was to bring to the world in the fulness of time where he has contracted an alliance incomparably more holy and more glorious then was the first Hear what a Prophet speaks a long time before his coming Behold sayes hee the dayes approach in which I will make a new alliance with the house of Israel and Juda far different from that which I contracted with their fathers when I withdrew them from the bondage of Egypt They were not faithfull in the observation of my Law they mocked at it and I treating them as they treated me have scorned them The testament which I promise to the Children of Israel is that I will grave my ordinances in their hearts I wil be their God they shal be my people they shall not need any laborious study or serious consultations with learned Masters to be instructed in my Truthes because I will be their Tutour and by an interiour unction will teach them all I would have them to know so that one neighbour shall not teach another with trouble and one shall not say to another Doest thou know the Lord because from the least to the greatest all shall perfectly know me I will remit their offences with so full a pardon that I will not so much as remember them Behold in this passage hee speakes of a new testament the old then is to be abolished and consequently another is to succeed and to the end there should be some resemblance betwixt them it was necessary this should be confirmed by the bloud of the Testatour as that was given with a ceremony of bloud when Moyses sprinkled the people saying This is the bloud with the which the Lord confirms his alliance which he hath this day contracted with you Behold great Prince that which I preach Behold how I destroy the Law Behold how I am an enemy to God Festus unable to comprehend the sublime discourse of the Apostle interrupted him and called out O Paul thy great learning doth make thee mad thou doest utter extravagant things The Apostle humbly answered I speak nothing that is extravagant what I propose is truth and the King who has daigned me his attention perfectly knowes those things which I have said For what concerns Jesus Christ his life was so publick and so famous and the wonders he hath wrought so lately done that there is not any amongst the Jewes who can be ignorant of them Having spoken thus to Festus he addressed himself to the King and said Agrippa Doe you believe the Prophets I know you believe them Agrippa touched in his conscience and with the force of his reasons could not but answer Paul thou hast almost convinced me to be a Christian S. Paul replied I would to God great Prince that you and all here present had embraced the Doctrine which I preach and that you were like me in all but my Captivâ—ty I do not wish you the chaines I bear but on the contrary I would willingly give not onely my liberty but even my life for you At this word the King the Governour Berenice and all the rest rose up and Agrippa said to Festus That if he had not made his appeale he might be returned back absolved But the providence of God had ordained this meanes to bring him to the Capital City of the world where the Gospel which Judea would not receive should gain noble victories over Idolatry Festus willing to be rid of his prisoner imbarked him in an Affrican vessel of the city of Adrumetum and gave the charge of conducting him and others
Disciple he saies that God will deliver him from the Jawes of the Lyon by which probably he meanes Nero to whom he was presented for the defence of his appeal This Prince began then the third year of his Empire and whether his wicked inclinations were yet asleep or whether the continual exhortations of Seneca his Tutor withheld him or that he dissembled till his authority was better setled he gave the people of Rome some hope that under his raigne they should see a resemblance of their ancient liberty Burrus Captain of his guard presenting a sentence of death to be figned by him he cryed out I wish it pleased the gods I could not write This speech begot a beliefe in men that he was merciful but it was not long ere he gave the lye to that opinion The Iews to embitter his spirit against Saint Paul and to make the worst impressions they could in order to his ruine under colour of Justice and Piety made use of one Alliturus of their Nation who had gained great credit with the Emperor by his Comoedian Art But the Divine Providence frustrated their wicked design and made the Apostle obtain there a glorious pardon where in humane probability he might have expected his condemnation to an opprobrious death The feare of this his danger was so great as most of those who before was his followers especially those of Asia abandoned him Amongst these cowardly and trayterous disciples he names particularly Phigellus and Hermogenes the last of these Tertullian reckons amongst the Iewish Hereticks who denyed the Resurrection But at the same time God sent him Onosiphorus an Ephesian who assisted him with so much charity as he left the memory of it to the whole Church in his fore-mentioned Epistle The Greek Menologue saies he was Bishop of Colophones and the Romans celebrates the memory of him on the sixth day of September Besides this faithful companion he had also Titus and Tichius But those he speedily dispatched to preach the Gospel in divers places so that his care as well as authority was extended to all the Provinces of the world he preferred the interest of souls before the comfort which he might receive by the company of his Disciples nor did Jesus Christ leave this uninteressed zeal without recompence For at that same time when every one had abandoned him he dained to appear unto him that he might fortifie his courage and resolution he acquired much of glory by his persecutions the fury of his enemies which appeared at all the Tribunals of Rome made way to the preaching of the Gospel in those places where perhaps no occasion of laying it open had ever been given Many even of Nero's houshold were converted and the Apostle salutes the Philippians from them Amongst whom the Martirologue mentions one Torpetes who died couragiously at Pisa in Tuscany in defence of that Faith Tacitus speakes of one Pomponia Graecina who was accused for having imbraced a forraine Superstition and being turned over to her Husband he taking cognizance of the crime according to ancient customes declared her innocent Now that which this Author calls forraine Superstition is very likely to be Christianity I finde also great probability that Seneca and the Apostle were acquainted although the letters which are set forth under their names be counterfeit and very unworthy of either of them This great Philosopher had too nere a relation to Nero to be ignorant of the Audience he had given to a criminal whose cause the Iewes by their extraordinary Solicitation had made famous And if he were present when he pleaded there is no doubt but the force of his discourse and his subline arguments might make him desirous of a particular acquaintance with one that preached so new a Doctrine Some Authors have said it was by his meanes that Nero condemned him not to death but that is not founded upon any solid proofe nor ought we to attribute this marvelous deliveance but to the secret power of God over the hearts of Princes to incline them as he please Whilest Saint Paul laboured to found the Church at Rome he understood that the Ephesian Church was pestered with many false Doctors who corrupted that pure Doctrine which he had there preached hence he wrote unto them an excellent Epistle in the which he principally instructs them in the profound mystery of predestination and vocation of men to faith and Union with Jesus Christ so to forme an admirable body of which he is the Head and then he treats of the duty of every faithful man according to his condition A little after some Authors say before or at the same time he was not satisfied with instructing the flock himselfe but would also give unto Tymothy their Pastor wholesome rules whereby to acquit himselfe worthily of his charge I know many would have this Epistle to be almost the last that was written but in my opinion their objections are not considerable that the date we assign is more certain This difficulty appertains not to the subject we have in hand besides we have already explicated it in the paraphrase wee made of it Towards the end he desires him to come unto him which he performs leaving Tichius in his place The Philppians hearing of the Apostles necessity deputed Epaphroditus with considerable alms for his assistance The change of air with the toiles of his journey made him fall sick at Rome But S. Paul by his prayers obteined his recovery sent him back to his Church with an Epistle full of wholesome instructions against the errors of Cerinthus Simon the Magician and of other Impostors whom he calls enemies of the Cross of Christ because they taught that our Lord was not really crucified but some fantome in his place S. Ignatius Martyr forty years after wrote unto them upon the same subject and so did likewise S. Polycarpus T is true there is doubt made whether the Epistle of the former be really his The Apostle had not preached in the city of Câ—lossus which is in the Province of Phrygia yet knowing the state of that Church assembled by Epaphras hee wrote unto them that they should beware of the Jewes of the Hereticks and of the Gentiles which sowed erroneous doctrine amongst them touching Legal Observations and the worship of Angels or Genienses Philemon after his conversion very much assisted the faithful making his house the place of their assemblies giving great alms to the poor One of his slaves called Onesimus ran away from his hous in quality of a thief this slave coming to Rome fell luckily into the hands of the Apostle who converted him which obliged him particularly to write in his behalf to his master for his pardon that he would receive him again not as a fugitive but as a deare childe which hee had begotten in his chains Theodoret saies that Philemon sent him back to serve and assist S. Paul and S. Hierome reports that he was first made