many Ages that went before you I see a spectacle to be commiserated in this old Fabrick before mine eyes O that God would stir up many Nehemiahs among you to re-edifie his Temples and Churches which are decaied and impoverished Hearken to another Proposition In the Republick of the Jews in the Fiftieth year the year of Jubilee the Land which was sold away from any Tribe returned again to the Tribe and to his Family that sold it You see and I hope do pity it at least into how many Tribes the portion of the Church is divided how many Impropriations have almost laid waste the dwelling places of God God stir up a religious heart in many of you to imitate those Worthies who have bequeathed of their Wealth to regain unto the Tribe of Levi that which was so sinfully alienated from them Fifty and fifty years and more to them are run out and still our Inheritance is in the hand of Srangers and there will remain unless by your bounty you will repossess the Church again in those holy demeans which by divine right belong unto it It is worth your knowledge to give you notice how riches came first into the world says Abulensis in his question upon Genesis Cain and Abel and Seth burnt whole burnt-offerings in the open field upon the floor of the earth unto the Lord the great fire of those Sacrifices melted Gold and Silver in the veines of the earth lying near unto the Superficies and purged it from dross as in a refining Furnace which being congealed men found out the use of it and how precious it was and so by this mans conjecture Riches were first found out by doing Honour unto God and is it not most natural to repay them back again for Gods honour and to expect a better recompence The Text I confess doth most properly touch upon the Cleargy themselves upon the Priests of God Honorantes Honorabo they may claim it especially as their due for I told you the Message was delivered by an Angel to Eli the High Priest and to his Sons who had succeeded him in the Priesthood if they had been righteous Let the Sons of Aaron especially praise the Lord with the two Silver Trumpets Verbo vita their painful doctrine and their pious and peaceable life and then if all other honour fail they shall be thrice honoured when the Archangel shall call them out of the Grave with his Trumpet to the Resurrection of the Just If you will see an honourable Priest indeed read the Ninth Chapter of Ecclesiasticus It is the praise of Simon the Son of Onias What a declaration is there What a Description of his glory Beyond all the Eloquence that ever I met with in humane Oratory if the delight of the Subject do not deceive my judgment Such Honour in his Robes when he was cloathed with the perfection of Glory such Majesty in the manner of his Sacrificing such shouting with the Musick of the Temple how the High Priest stretcht his hands over the Congregation and gave them the blessing of the Lord with his lips then how the People bowed their face to the ground and worshipped the Lord lastly how Simon himself was honoured in the Congregation shining like a Rainbow in a cloud of dew They that will please themselves let them read it and learn both what it is for the Bishop to ravish the People with devotion and for the people to return all reverence and honour to the Bishop I know this Doctrine is against the stomach of a troublesom Faction in the Church If God and the King should give Honour unto his Priests every day they would grudge against it every hour No Honour or Lordship for that Coat say they as if because our Saviour called the Disciples the Salt of the earth we must be all set like the Salt at the lower end of the Table If Joseph were honoured in the sight of all the Egyptians that laid up food in Pharaohs Granary shall no honourable place belong unto them that lay up spiritual food in the Temple for the people of the Lord Can you turn this Text and say it was not preach'd to Eli Them that Honour me I will Honour Let me answer one Objection and so I will end this first part What is this that God saith Honorantes Honorabo he will Honour his Saints when such as have filled the Commonwealth with outcries and the Church with abominations are Rulers and Potentates in every Age When the rich Glutton is cloathed with Purple and fine Linnen every day they that make this complaint let them turn about and look where they are in Earth or in Heaven One asked Aesop why the Weeds grew faster than the Flowers in his Garden says the wise man Quia terra est horum Noverca illorum Mater The Earth is own-Mother to my Weeds and Stepmother to my Flowers So says Christ to his Disciples Doth the World hate you And no marvel you are not of the World your Conversation is in Heaven But will you have a Paradox indeed God never gave honours to a wicked and pestilent person Why but how came he to have them Is not all Honour from God Yes but they were not given to him Dati sunt Avo Proavoque dati seris nepotibus says Seneca they were given to the good Grandfathers or Forefathers that used them well or they are prepared for the Sons or Nephews who will use them better hereafter Mamercus Scaurus was a known Adulterer and yet the Romans chose him Consul not intending to give him Honour but forsooth his Father had been an excellent Senator Et indigne fert populus Romanus sobolem ejus jacere they were loth to disgrace his dissolute Son And surely God will much more respect the thousand Generations of them that love him and keep his Commandments for the honours which a dangerous person hath are not his own they are hatcht for the Children yet unborn that the promise may coextend only to the just Them that honour me I will honour All this while we have been in the first part of Pharaohs Dream among the goodly Kine and in a golden Harvest now we come to the second to the lank ears of Corn to the ill-favoured Cattle to those that cast Gods honour behind their backs till he cast them away into utter darkness for so says the other member of the Text They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed Theodoret in his Ecclesiastical History having discoursed briefly upon the life of Julian the Apostate brake off abruptly and would not speak of his Successor the Christian Emperour Jovinian till he had begun a new Book and a new Treatise it were a great Trespass says he to write their Acts and Monuments upon the same Paper So I affected this method I confess to spin a new Web as it were and to frame a new discourse when I came to them who are the contemners of Gods
great things for them Why because they obeyed not his word They knew it was not their Idol but the Lord who had deliver'd them yet they are said to have forgot the Lord because they worshipped him after their own inventions and did not obey him Next to this weigh but the actions of Micah of Mount Ephraim Jud. xvii he that can but spel words and put them together shall find his Mother dedicated her silver to the Lord for her Son to make a graven Image Micah had these Images for the honour of God and having those abominations still profest himself a Priest of the Lord therefore this must be his crime that he worshipped God in his Images Cajetan and Abulensis are of that judgment that where the Idol hath a peculiar name as Baal Ashteroth the people seduced served the very Idol but where the Idol had no peculiar name as in my instance of Micah's Images and the Calf that Aaron made there they served the true God in the Idol If this be not directly the Popish Doctrine the Sun hath no light in it To be even with their evasion every way the very Heathen as well as they could apprehend the eternal God by the light of nature worshipt him in their Idols and Penates few or none of them thought the matter of an Idol to be a God Seneca says says that by Jupiter standing in the Capitol with lightning in his hand they understood the Preserver and Governor of all things the Maker of the world Mark now nether the Jewish nor Heathenish Idolaters did any more than worship the true God in or before or with their Images Give them audience by the way how they profess both moral and natural Philosophy for their defence Moral first how he that honoureth the Image of the King honoreth the King himself this is called St. Athanasius and St. Basil's morality and so it is but Lord how little to the case The Arrians contended that glory was to be given to one eternal God but if one were the person of the Father another of the Son there were two Eternals to be glorified those Fathers answer the Son is the Image of the Father the express image of his person and the brightness of his glory and he that honour'd that Image of the King honour'd the King himself Is there not main difference between the carved Image which stands for Christ's manhood and between his personal filiation wherein He is the Image of his Father The outward Image stands for Christ by humane imagination it hath no eminent undeniable right to present him but Religious Adoration is founded upon that Union which is personal substantial relative by divine ordination And for the moral rule he that honours the King will honour his Image it holds only in negative honour a good Subject will not deface the Kings Picture in a despiteful spleen against the exemplar no more do we dishonour the Images of Christ and the Saints unless where flagrant Idolatry is committed to them then with good zeal they may be burnt or defaced to do God honour against the Creature Is their natural Philosophy any sounder 't is Aristotle's Idem est motus in imaginem exemplar his meaning is the abstractive understanding considers the abstracted notion of a material thing and the thing it self at once the verbum intellectus as it is called the intellective word and the real thing understood at once This is all he says but they have made a matter of it that when I see Christ's Image and rememorate Christ upon it and then worship him I must worship the Image together with him To deliver you quickly out of these thorny passages I say there cannot be the same motion of the mind towards this Image and the Exemplar for the mind is fixt upon the Image as upon a Sign and upon an Object much inferiour to the Exemplar The Image is a thing create Christ uncreate they confess a respective difference that Christ is adored simply and for himself the Image in regard of similitude and reference to the principal The Image is not the terminus of worship for it self but for Christs sake therefore the motion of mans heart toward Christ and the Image cannot be one but divers When I desire the means because of the end here are two distinct actions and motions of the will to wit election of means intention for the end But with them the worship of Christ and his Image is one and the same physical act of the body at once they talk that it is virtually twofold but if they hold there is the same motion of the mind too to both at once that will make it complete idolatry No marvail you see if you have quite lost the second Commandment out of some Portresses and Breviaries when they have found it again in their larger Missals they will not keep it When men have rampar'd witty shifts against truth it is in vain to tell them from S. John Babes beware of idols or from St. Paul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã What agreement hath the Temple of the Lord with idols they will tush at it and say they mean the Idols of Pagans St. Pet. 1. Ep. c. iv v. 3. speaks against lusts excess of wines revellings abominable Idolatries Speaks he not against the lust and drunkenness and riot of Christians verily and as manifesty against Christian Idolatries But if they toy with the Scripture that is against them let them point to that Scripture that doth license their religious honour done to Images for faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of God What not one Text to suit for them then belike it holds of Tradition nay Suarez says neither Scripture nor Tradition hath commended it but invaluit ex praxi consuetudine ecclesiae practise and custom hath allowed it How easily if time did not shorten me could I shew that for the first 500 years neither the Image of Christ or his Saints were set up in any Church so little was the practise of worshipping them on foot A little of antiquity will spend but a little time says Origen Who having his right wits after the Commandment of God will look upon Images to pray to them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Or by the sight thereof offer prayers thereby to him that is resembled St. Austin upon the 113. Psalm hath a full Sermon of it these few words are the pith quis adorat vel orat intuens simulacrum who is he that doth either pray or worship looking on an Image who is he marry an Idolater Procopius hath a memorable passage that from twenty Generations after Adam the Son did ever survive the Father which is most natural but Thare buried his Son Haran who was the first that made Images and God made him an example for doing a work so hateful to him I will confine my self to one instance more Serenus Bishop of Marseilles offended that some
I have read unto you I am proceeded in this subject and by so much as I have read in these two Verses St. Luke hath more than the other two Evangelists to wit that Moses and Elias talked about Christs sufferings in Jerusalem and that Peter James and John were asleep and waking of a sudden were startled at the transmutation I have spoke severally the last day in what bodies Moses and Elias did appear now I proceed to these persons that appear And because I must not break the joynts of an History I take the parts whole thus First With what fitness these two were presented rather than any other for celestial witnesses Moses and Elias Secondly What they meant by this communication to speak of his Passion and Sufferings They spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem Thirdly That the earthly Witnesses Peter James and John were asleep at the beginning of this Miracle But Peter and they that were with him were heavie with sleep Fourthly The mists of drowziness were dispelled they did awake and then they saw the Vision and as the next Verse will prove it they heard the conference To these do you give Attention and I my Exposition The Lord did not pick twain out of so great an host of blessed Spirits to stand upon Mount Thabor but that there was some hability and fitness in their persons rather than in any other And the first mark eminently stampt upon them for this work is this The Law and Prophets do equally and concordiously bear witness to Christ Moses the first handler and publisher of the Law Elias the greatest by far of all the Prophets O Elias how wast thou honoured in thy wondrous deeds And who may glory like unto thee Ecclus. xlviii 4. As the Kings Coin is stampt on both sides so the Gospel like a piece of currant Metal is engraven on the one side with the ancient testimony of the Law on the other side with the strong Predictions of the Prophets Says Philip to Nathanael We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Joseph Joh. i. 45. But Peter might go further and say We have seen him attended and waited on by Moses and the Prophets The Law and the Prophets and the Gospel make good Musick when they are three parts of one song but if you make several Airs or several Ditties of them you mar all good harmony We see Moses and the Son of God together says St. Ambrose so often as we read that portion of St. Matthew Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy might We see Elias and the Son of God together so often as we read that desire inflamed to maintain Gods honour I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts 1 Kings xix 8. That zeal made Elias fast forty days and eat nothing And Christ doth answer it again The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up O how amiable it is to unite Moses and the Prophets and the grace of Christ all together to look upon them in one prospect to enterline the Old Testament with the New But if you part Moses from the Prophets or the Prophets from Moses or both from Christ you shall not find any glory in them The Samaritans received no Scripture but the Books of Moses The Jews receive none but Moses and the Prophets The Christian puts them all together and so Moses and Elias appear with Christ in glory And although many things are very difficult to be understood in the Old Testament in some places we do see Moses plainly in some places he is hard to be understood yet this Miracle gives us comfort that in the holy Hill of God in the glorification of heaven there we shall see Moses and Elias all that is wrote in the Law and the Prophets very clearly and that one jot or tittle is not perished which the Penmen of holy Writ did foretell should come to pass For example in Exod. xx 19. the Children of Israel cry out to Moses Speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us least we die To this demand God makes a full and explicite answer Deut. xviii 18. They have well spoken I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee they shall hear him Here is a middle way difficult to be understood neither would God speak unto them in thunder to terrifie them and Moses could not abide always to be their Speaker as they would have it but a Prophet should come like unto Moses like unto him in humane nature but far more admirable in grace and power Why behold this dark mystery is expounded at this Transfiguration for Moses is brought to confess of Christ this is the Prophet spoken of like unto me whom you are bound to hear For the glory which was seen now the affrightment which took the Disciples the bright cloud which overshadowed the place all these hapned now even as it was at Mount Sinah call to mind what Covenant was then made and how this is the time to fulfil it Thus you see how Christs glory makes the Law and the Prophets intelligible which is the first reason why Moses and Elias did appear in glory Secondly These are they that had undergone many sorrows upon earth for the defence of their God and after much tribulation did win the crown of life in whose faces the Disciples might behold that through fire and water through cross and calamity through ignominy and dishonour we must enter into glory None so famous for exposing their lives to all dangers as Moses and Elias There was but a Bulrush between Moses and death when he was set afloat to be drowned in his tender infancy And if Jezebel and all her Gods could cut Elias throat she swore he should not have a day to live 1 Kings xix 2. What sharp encounters had the one with Pharaoh What dismal threatnings did the other denounce against Ahab The one was driven out rudely and violently from the presence of Pharaoh The other banished himself into the Wilderness and could not be found for three years Here were a fit couple that could shew their long Pedigrees of afflictions to be called the Sons of God These were fit indeed to preach of Christs Cross and of his sufferings at Jerusalem They that suffered much might aptly and confidently commend the sufferings of the body to the Disciples Si vis me flere dolendum est primùm ipsi tibi And here John and James the two ambitious brethren might see of what condition it behoved those men to be who in our Saviours Kingdom should sit the one at his right hand the other at his left What had they done for their Lords sake as yet when they askt that bold demand but to walk with him in Judea to travel from place
is like Gods Rainbow in the Clouds not only a beautiful but a merciful Token a Bow with the string towards the earth so that it is not prepared to shoot arrows against us As Pliny said to Trajan of his virtuous Consort nihil sibi ex fortunâ tuâ nisi gaudium vendicat so all that a Christian challengeth for his own is the blessed Virgins solace My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour Beloved they forget that God is called the Father of mercies and the God of all consolations they forget that since Christ is come in the flesh the Dove is returned with the Olive branch of peace in his mouth who fill the minds of men with melancholly desperate doubts and do oftner cast before them black stones of condemnation than white stones of absolution Chearfulness and a delightsom countenance becomes the Disciples of Christ howsoever the austere Pharisees censur'd our Saviour himself for a Winebibber and a Glutton because he was sociable and did not always lowr and pout after their hypocritical fashion St. Chrysostom neither lived with content to his own heart nor gave content to other because he was untractable to all manner of joyful familiarity ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he was so earnest for sobriety that he run into a Cynical austerity Some not unfitly I think contend so much that a Christian is to deport himself in a sweet consolatory fashion that they understand Solomon to that meaning Eccl. ix 8. Eat thy bread with joy and let thy garments be always white as if none should put on mournings for the Gospel sake unless they wanted a good conscience to rejoyce in Christ Though the splendour of the Law was terrible yet the glory of the New Testament is amiable bonum est says St. Peter it is a good thing to see the Majesty of our Saviour in perfect beauty Secondly Thus far the Apostle gave a right judgment upon the vision and thus much further that he said it was bonum nobis intended not so much for Christs exalted bravery as for our good When I began this Miracle I cited a rule out of Damascen and I repeat it again ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the impulsive cause of all things that our Saviour did upon earth was the love which he did bear to the generation of men yea the Lord hath made man the scope of all his other works in a subordinate way to his own glory For man is made to serve the Lord and the earth is made to serve and supply the use of man and both ways man is made happy and not God says Lombard Et quod accepit obsequium à creaturis quod impendit Deo either to take homage from the Creature or to do homage to the glory of God All things are ours says St. Paul whether it be the world or life whether it be the World as the Vassal of our service or Life eternal as the Crown of our service When our Saviour did exhibit himself in this rare feature at Mount Thabor quorsum haec was it not to catch our hearts and affect them with the vision he did not present himself as Agrippa and Bernice did Act. xxv 23. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã with great pomp and estate to shew the regal lustre of their Royalty no the very Heathen were contented to say that the supreme power of Heaven must be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã contented with himself and needed no accessories to set forth his honour as Caesar spake in a lofty contempt to his mutinous Souldiers an vos momenta putatis ulla dedisse mihi so it would sound better from Gods mouth All the creatures upon earth cannot confer a scruple or the least moment to advance his excellency Christ was not contemptible by being made humble nor more renowned than he was before by appearing in Majesty Every way he is unobnoxious to the censure of man because every way he made himself fit for the good of man and when he joyned both humility and glory in one act both were for us See his lowly modesty when he rode upon an Ass to Jerusalem see his triumphs of dignity at the same time in those popular acclamations Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. But all was to this end that we might see and hear the honor of God and the fruit of our own salvation all the brightness which shin'd upon him in Mount Thabor was to enlighten our darkness Bonum est nobis says Peter it is good for us 3. Yet once again I will speak that the Apostle did speak the very truth in a third Point it was good to be continually present with Christs glory and never part from it Bonum est esse hic there is no mutation in perfect joy but an abiding for ever We cannot change for the better to go from the beatifical presence of God how could Peter choose but desire to hold him to that when he had begun to taste of it I have read in some obsolete stories of Lazarus who was raised to life after he had been dead four days and some others of the like kind that their soul had seen a little of the happiness of the life to come and being brought again into the body by the word of Christ they were never seen to laugh or smile either because they knew better than others that there was no true joy upon earth or because they were melancholy to have their happiness interrupted My soul longeth and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord says David Psal lxxxiv 2. If he could faint with desire to obtain that which he had never seen how might this Disciple faint and languish to leave that which he had seen Old Anna the Widow departed not out of the Temple of God day nor night which is as much in effect as if St. Luke had said Whatsoever place is called by Gods name deserves our frequent company and I say unto you of this house where now we are which is called by his name Bonum est nos esse hic it is good for us to be here St. Chrysostome tells me of some great Princes in his time that desired upon their death-bed to be buried in the Porch of the Church that although they were taken away from being present at the holy Service which they were wont to love yet their bodies even in the Grave might as it were be door-keepers for ever in the house of God I will conclude this general part with Bernards words Quid aliud videtur bonum quam in bonis animam demorari quandoquidem adhuc corpus non potest What is good for a man but that his soul should abide and persevere in good meditations and good works since there is no good place of continuance upon earth to receive his body You have the flower of St. Peters Speech bolted out but there is more bran remaining in six Conclusions that
worship that which was base and despicable like Gods of Silver and Gold then cause might be shewn why flesh and bloud should disdain it O Beloved it is the King of Kings and the excellency of Jacob He sits upon a Throne that is circled about with a Rainbow Rev. 4. A Rainbow was his first Covenant which He made to spare the World and reason good that his Throne should be compassed about with Mercy Next unto the Rainbow sate Twenty four Elders that had Crowns of Gold upon their heads supposed to be Twelve Patriarchs and Twelve Apostles that propagated his glory unto all Nations both Jews and Gentiles as who should say All Kings shall fall down before him all Nations shall do him service To shut out all objections It is certain that Majesty and Dominion lose the hearts of men that should obey and purchase Envy and Hatred which cannot shift it self sometimes into Lowliness and Humility O see and be astonished at it if God have not submitted himself to the fashion of man For as the Ark of God when it was in the Wilderness had Pelles caprinas supra byssinum a Covering of Goats hair upon the silken Curtains which were costly and precious So the Lord Almighty who most properly is cloathed with light as with a garment hath also put on flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones that by all means He might allure us unto his Love sometime adoring him in Honour sometime admiring his Humility And I give them over as past all good that are as stubborn as Cato of whom it is said Dictatorem odit nec minùs Caesurem He neither lov'd the Dictator in his great Office nor Caesar in his private Calling that are not affected with the poor Nativity of the Son of man nor with the excellency of God in the highest heavens Love Jesus that was made man or where is thy thankfulness Honour and praise his name that ruleth over all or where is thy devotion I know it will be more profitable to my Hearers to instance in those particulars of Honour and Worship wherein God especially is delighted and I propound these four to your Christian practice 1. We must magnifie his Name 2. Obey his Word and Commandments and thus far the Angels go with Man and no farther but it is not enough for us Angelis dimidium mundi factum est sed nobis totum Heaven is but half the World which is made for Angels but Heaven and Earth the whole compass of the World is made for Man Therefore 3. in the third place we must give reverence to his Sacraments as to the Seals of his Love and Mercy And 4. obey his Magistrates Let us draw this division to some rule that you may be sure it is full and complete First you know God is to be considered in his own Essence bare and naked by it self next these three Attributes and properties are most inward unto it his Wisdom his Goodness and his Power Now the Essence of God is declared by his Names his Wisdom is revealed in his Word his Sacraments convey his goodness unto us and Kings and Princes bear the Image of his Power and Authority If any man can find out more ways to honour the Lord let him go on and prosper I had rather praise his name upon a ten-stringed Lute with David than with St. Peter set up three Tabernacles and no more and come short of one of those which I have propounded But first of the honour due unto his Name As the Sun is the cause of our knowledge to distinguish the hours of the day upon the Dial and yet we know not our time by the Sun it self immediately but by the shadow it casteth So the Essence of God is the cause of all things and yet we have not his Essence but his Name revealed unto us this is the Oracle of the inward Temple and the Star that leads unto holy Bethlem where Christ is laid Unto this Name we should lift up our hands in Prayer and for this Names sake stretch them out in Alms unto the poor And as David ask'd if there were any of the Race of Jonathan left to whom he might shew mercy and Mephibosheth was brought unto him an impotent Cripple but the Son of Jonathan So let us enquire if there be any thing of the Lord remaining among us if all be not lost by the Fall of Adam that we may do honour unto it alas it is but a small thing it is but the Name of our God but let us make much of it as he did of Mephibosheth let it be in great esteem and veneration When I speak of the honour due unto his Name I mean the honouring of God himself at the mention of his Name Our Mother-Church of England as careful that I may not enter into comparisons as any Church in the world to take away the yoke of superfluous Ceremonies and yet very provident to make the body of man submit it self to a decent outward worship of holiness hath prescribed unto us by a Canon that while we are in Gods House at the mention of the Name of Jesus we should do reverence with the Knee and uncover the Head I know not by what peevishness of some or by what presumption of others it is more neglected in many Congregations of this City than elsewhere throughout all the Realm Doth that Name which imports Salvation and Redemption from your sins no more affect you Or do you give no more obedience to the Church-Authority Are you not Fidelis in minimo faithful in a small matter How do you look that your heavenly Father should appoint you to be faithful over much I am not ignorant that some have made Sorcery rather than Religion and Blasphemy than Devotion of the holy Name of Jesus as among others that Frier that said when our Saviour did bend his head upon the Cross it was not as the Scripture says to give up the Ghost but he did bow it unto the Title Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews And Pope John the Twentieth gave an Indulgence to any body for the pardon of one enormous sin that should do reverence at the hearing of that Name yet on the other side me thinks they set light by their Salvation that neither will do reverence themselves nor love to see if in another at the mentioning of that holy name To make a difference between the names of God that one is more holy than another it is not my opinion and I think is scarce honesty in the Schoolmen to distinguish as they have done that when we call God the Just one Omnipotent Wise and the like they are Attributes belonging to the Divine Nature from everlasting and therefore to be respected with the highest Adoration but when we call him Lord Creator and Redeemer what 's that but Jesus they are Nomina in tempore à Deo sumpta relative names assumed since the beginning of the
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
out of this spiritual sleep of sin for the voice of preaching and for good admonition he will be wakened with a mischief never any so sleepy and sluggish but Gods wrath or the hour of death or the final day of Judgment will start them out of their lethargy and then they shall awake as Sampson did that shook himself when he lifted up his head from Dalila's lap but the Lord was departed from him I have multiplied many precepts upon former occasions that you should be like watchful Shepherds expecting the coming of Christ one thing which I do not remember was then delivered shall serve at this time instead of many points of caution A man that cannot hold up his eyes and awake when need requires must be shaken and pincht violence must be offered to his drowziness So lest we sleep in sin Excitandus è somno Vellicandus est animus you must prick and gourd your own conscience with the terror of judgment with the menaces of damnation Suffer not your eye-lids to shut but sift and shake your own heart examine your self remember what a blessing it is to be a watchful Shepherd that an Angel of comfort may come and sing salvation unto you Watchfulness as it is only a restraint from bodily sleep is not that which I urge and enforce this is a season wherein I know its much in use to sit up late they that intend games and revels and pastimes are watchful enough though they turn the night into day and the day like heavy sluggards into night The luxury and voluptuousness of our Feasts in many Families do reach to midnight and then we think we have kept Christmas when we sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play Perchance excess and surfeiting do so distemper us that it is well when we have eat and drunk if we can rise up to play Some relaxation and triumphs of mirth were ever allowed to our Saviour's Nativity as Mordecay said of the days Purim that they were days of feasting and joy and sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor but the Devil envying our gladness hath turned it into riot and the very madness of luxury The careful progenitors made it many days work to labour hard and to leave a fair inheritance to their posterity and my dissolute heir makes it some few nights play to lose and consume it as if the day were not long enough he borrows the best part of the night to make riddance of his patrimony Great difference between such unlucky night ravens and these Shepherds in my Text that watch over their flocks by night I know the application runs in a right line upon the Priests of God but this is not a place for those instructions this I will not omit a certain postilling Frier that preferred his Monastery before the Pulpit knowing our labour and his own ease did thus observe upon the former verse that Christ was born in a Manger ut Anchoritarum caenobia solaretur to patronize the solitary Cells of Hermites and Anchorites an exact pattern of Solitariness I wiss to be born in a troublesome Inn nay in the Stable therefore which is common for all men and at such a time when Town and Countrey were gathered into Bethlehem Every house full of Strangers to pay their Subsidies to Caesar in the midst of this throng Is not our Frier much mistaken to put us in mind of a Monastery but rather we may note that the blessing of Christs Birth was first annuntiated not to slothful Monks but to Shepherds that watch over their flocks Our Saviour is diversly call'd both a Shepherd and a Lamb Vt Agnus apud greges annuntiatur Christ the Lamb is revealed unto Shepherds it is fit they should first hear of the yeaning of a Lamb. Christ the Shepherd is revealed among the flocks it is fit the flocks should be comforted that the Prince of Shepherds was born I add Christ the head of the Church under whom all Shepherds have their charge it is fit he should be notified to Shepherds that attend their charge that watch over their flocks To include you all every man and woman in the application suppose you are no bodies keeper but your own Vigila saltem super animam tuam why be watchful and prudent over the safety of your own soul and when I have spoke that word your soul I perceive instantly that you have a whole flock to look to and it is all your own the affections and passions of your mind them I mean if you bridle their lust and wantonness if they do you reasonable service you have a rich flock sheep that shall stand upon the right hand of God if they usurp and fill you full of uncleanness they are a flock of goats that shall be condemned unto the left What says Cato of our affections they are to be governed like a flock of sheep you may rule them altogether so long as they follow and keep good order but single one out alone and it will be unruly and offend you as who should say all our affections must be sanctified to God the whole flock let one passion have leave to straggle and all will follow it to destruction Many sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness for the increase of riches but those are the thorns that choak the seed Let the watchfulness of the heart especially be fixt upon this flock the desires the passions over all that issues out of the soul as the Star cast his beams directly upon the place where Christ was born Dei secreta non cognoscimus si in terrenis desideriis vigilemus we shall not find out the secret of God that is his Son if we watch over fleshly and earthly things Finally all the providence of our watch will be in vain as David says not sufficient to give repulse to the wolf that lies in wait unless the eye of God keep centinel over us Our custody is weak unless the Lord send his Angels as he did unto these Shepherds to pitch their pavilions round about us Wherefore pray we that the Watchman of Israel may be always about our paths and about our beds who neither slumbers nor sleeps to whom be Glory and Honour c. Amen THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 9. And lo the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid NO Scripture more fertile of wonders or fuller of variety touching the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour than this Gospel and therefore I continue in this story year by year upon this glorious occasion And you may discern how we go up by stairs and degrees in every verse till at last we make the highest pitch that the eloquence of man can fly to We began with a Treatise of a most humble stile a Babe wrapt in swadling clouts lying in a Manger from thence
this celestial Embassador hover'd above their heads to shew the property perchance of a glorified body or whether he walk'd and convers'd upon the earth as man to note our fellowship with Angels by the Birth of Christ yet ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã supervenit is one that came suddenly never lookt for at that season which construction says Beza is indifferent to both and well he doth apply the verse unto it Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora an hour of felicity came at an instant upon us which we never dream't of and so much for the manner how the Angel took his place 5. Now follows the fifth interrogatory upon which I shall stay longest why men were not accepted to do this office to manifest the Birth of Jesus but loe an Angel of the Lord. There are many reasons for that expediency which I will marshal in their order 1. As an evil Angel did co-operate to bring death into the world so a good Angel was a choice instrument to bring the tidings of salvation for why did the Son of God take flesh to repair the fall of man How did man transgress by the subtilty of the Serpent Who was the Serpent our adversary the Devil Who shall make amends for the mischief which the Devil wrought one much different in grace but of the same Essence and Nature and Creation the Angel Gabriel But you will say no fault was committed by the good Angels they were neither enticers nor abettors of Adams prevarication why should they trouble themselves true but a kind of blot did stick unto their name and for a full measure of recompence they would satisfie for that which was none of their transgression Our first disobedience was occasioned by a tree our Redemption was purchased upon the tree of the Cross We were wounded by the appetite of Eve we were healed by the Womb of Mary Here was tree for tree and woman for woman So an evil spirit tempted us to our loss and therefore a good Spirit is zealous to be an instrument of our restitution there 's Angel for Angel 2. They were exceeding busie to declare Christ unto the world many ways Concipiendum conceptum natum before he was conceiv'd to Mary when he was conceiv'd to Joseph after he was born to the Shepherds for they are willing to partake all good things unto us in the Militant Church because we shall be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã exalted to be equal to the Angels in the day of Christs second appearing Choristers of one Quire to praise the Lord and members of one triumphant Church for ever They came in humane shapes like unto men nay they are often called men in Scripture Vt demonstrent intelligibilem societatem cum iis habendam in vita futura because we shall make up one spiritual society and fellowship to sing Hallelujah hereafter I am not of their mind that say the Cherubims in many things were unresolv'd about the Mystery of Christs Nativity and that they came with these messages to instruct both themselves and us St. Peter doth not make good that fancy because he says these are things ânto which the Angels desire to look 1 Pet. 1.12 and Dionysius roves at random who imputes it to them that they would better understand that point of Faith because it is written Isa 63. Who is this that comes from Edom but many ancient Fathers do adjudge that the Angels take delight to be present in our Christian Assemblies when we meet in this house together to offer up the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving Paul enforceth modesty to the Corinthian women in the house of Prayer because of the Angels 1 Cor. 11.10 Angelos testes habent honesti pundoris aut impudentiae as the most expound the Angels make one congregation with us and therefore they are witnesses of their modesty or impudence Where is then your reverence your bodily humiliation when you come to Gods house do all things with decency and well-beseeming devotion for the Angels are our invisible associates says holy Bernard Non ausus es illo presente facere quod me praesente non anderes Dare you do those unbecoming things where the Angels are by to witness which you durst not do for fear of censure if the Ecclesiastical Magistrate did look upon you 3. The Incarnation of Christ is I may say the perfection of all things in the world and therefore good reason that all creatures should have some participation and interest in it Men did share in him in his own sex and person women in the Womb that bare him poor men in the Shepherds great ones in the sages of the East the Beasts by the stable wherein he was born the Earth in the Gold that was offered the Trees in the Myrrhe and Frankincense and to reckon up no more the Heavens in the Star that blaz'd all the works of God even they which by natural obedience bless him and magnifie him for ever did claim some office to make one in the solemnity when their Creator was born Why surely some room was left for the Angels it was fit they should be in the train at the Inauguration of this mighty Prince and their place according to their dignity was very honourable they were Gods Embassadors and as if they had a Patent to use their office frequently they had many errands from Heaven to Mary to Joseph to the Shepherds Non satis est semel missum esse duobus aut tribus testibus stat omne verbum says St. Ambrose They came three several turns and no less that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established 4. Angelus in carnis specie Christum in carne venturum praenuntiat says Aquinas the advent of the Messenger was in some wise a commentary and explication upon the message the tidings to be open'd surpass'd the apprehension of a natural man though he were the wisest Dictator of Philosophy that the Eternal should be begotten the Infinite be contain'd in the finite that God who is a Spirit incomprehensible should be made flesh O unutterable mystery what visible inducement could be thought of to make man believe it how should the dull and ignorant apprehend this transcendent operation Behold Gods Nuntio this Angel that came to the Shepherds go no farther than him and you shall have an instance what the Almighty can bring to pass for the Essence of Gabriel was pure and spiritual not mixt with elements no bodily concretion in him yet he tells his errand to the world in the similitude of flesh and bone notifying that the Spirit of all Spirits God himself should be made flesh 5. Angels and Principalities were first upon this Ministry to preach the Nativity of Christ to honour and countenance their office who in the same calling do succeed the Angels Look not upon the poor Fishermen whom Christ did call from the Sea of Tiberius but estimate your Clergy by the excellency of
semblance hath shined upon some faces when it redounded from no inward fountain as in the Transfiguration of Christ from the personal union of the Divinity or as in the beatitude of the Saints from their Glorification But God cast a beam of honour upon them from the comfort of his own presence So in the forty days that Moses was upon the Mount twice he came down to commune with the Children of Israel and there was no alteration in him he lookt as one of the other people But when the Almighty passed by him and proclaimed his mighty name in his ears then when Moses came down the skin of his face did shine and the people were afraid to come nigh him Exod. 34 30. as the purple of one ripe grape doth tincture that which is next it with the same colour so that flaming Majesty wherein the Lord appear'd did cast a new die of awfulness upon the forehead of Moses And S. Stephen the Martyr had a glimpse of the Glory of Christ which like a ray of the Sun darted upon his face and all that sate in the Council saw his face as it had been the face of an Angel Acts 6. ult 4. A lightsomness and coruscation hath been shewn from heaven not resting upon the persons nothing was chang'd about them but upon the place where they stood in the day time when it appear'd it was more glorious than the day and when it appear'd in the night it turn'd the night into day So it happened unto Paul at noon-tide as he journeyed unto Damascus hear his own testimony to Agrippa Acts 26.13 At mid-day O King I saw in the way a light from heaven above the brightness of the Sun shining round about me and them that journeyed with me So it happened to the Shepherds upon Christmas-day as they kept watch over their flocks by night when the nights are at the darkest according to the season of the year the heavens were spread above them like a glistering Canopy the glory of the Lord shone round about them and so many ways in Scripture four in all God hath communicated light to glorifie his own works and his Saints that praise him You shall hear some opinions what kind of light this was which did spangle in the field when the Angel came unto the Shepherds St. Ambrose thinks it was some fulgure of the Stars Angels says he and Shepherds had a voice and a tongue to publish their joy but the constellations of heaven Quia voce non poterant gaudia sua officio protestantur because they could not utter their joy by a tongue they express it by their duty to start like lightning into the fields which were near to Bethlehem And whether he speak it by a figurative amplification or not I know not but the same Author hath these words Sol praeter consuetudinem in hac festivitate matutinus illuxit the Sun prevented the morning watch and peept upon the earth earlier than he should to guild all those fields with his light which were adjoyning to the Stable where Christ was born For. says he why might not the Sun make more haste than natural to offer service to the Son of God as well as stand still in the firmament to attend a petty Jesus Joshuah the Captain of the Israelites But with the leave of that holy man I conceive if the Sun had rose miraculously before the time the Scripture would have express'd it even as we find it mentioned that the Sun was eclipsed and the heavens darkened at the Passion of our Lord. Others are conceited because an Angel is a glorified creature therefore the body which he took upon him did shine triumphantly as if he had stood in a cloud of light Hence it comes says the Cardinal that among other honours which are decreed to Saints in their Canonization this is one Pinguntur eorum imagines addito certo quodam lumine in signum gloriae quam habent in coelis Their images are painted with resplendent rays about them to signifie the light of that glory which they enjoy in heaven But beloved my Text says not glory did shine about the Angel or that the glory of the Angel did hallow the place but the Glory of the Lord did shine about the Shepherds Therefore I adhere to that learned Author who says it was Claritas creata prae se ferens divinam majestatem a clarity of light newly created which bare the evident shew of no created Spirit but of a Divine Majesty and some are bold to say that this white glorious cloud which dazled the Shepherds afterward being compacted into one body it made that blazing Star which went before the Wisemen from the East unto Bethlehem and I leave it indifferent to you as you think fit to believe them But I leave to agitate this point any more ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã what this shining Glory was and for some profitable use and application I come to the next thing ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã what use there was of it to celebrate our Saviours Nativity First The Lord did put on this glorious apparel even a robe of light to express the Majesty of his Son who was born to save the world Mis-conceive not his excellent greatness because he lies in a Manner but estimate him by this sign from Heaven that the glory of the Lord did shine round about to honour his Nativity Christ is obscur'd in the Stable says St. Austin but his messenger shines in the field Sic opera humilitatis apud nos contemptibilia illustria sunt in conspectu Dei so humility may appear contemptible to us but it is glorious in the sight of God In the old Testament says Hugo though Angels were sent to men upon sundry occasions yet they never came with this propertie as far as we read that glory did shine about them Nunc exorto Sole justitiae tanquam solares radii lucidi fulgentes apparent but now the Sun of Righteousness did rise upon the earth they appear conspicuous in their colours like the beams of the Sun Nothing could resemble Christ so well as this Claritas Domini the brightness and splendor of the Lord because he is the brightness of the Fathers Glory Heb. 1.3 it is a similitude which gives ample occasion unto faith to make fit constructions The Father is compar'd to the Sun in the firmament and Christ his only begotten to the light of the Sun 1. Non libere à patre procedit sed naturaliter says St. Cyril he comes out from the Father not of free choice as if the Father had power not to beget him but naturally as the light hath an emanation from the body of the Sun so that the Sun cannot choose but give light 2. The generation of God the Son is eternal even as the Father is eternal we cannot say there was a time when he was not no more then we can say there was a time when the Sun had
life of Christ and so forth we go on with chearfulness to abandon fear The Fathers note it in the Cratch of the Manger where he was laid a place made unclean with the dung of beasts but ipsa stercora mundefecit As his presence did purifie the room albeit the filthiness of the dung so his Nativity hath cleansed as many as believed in him albeit the loathsomness of their iniquities I have but one thing to say more to this point noted as I remember by Gregory out of the Genealogy of his birth Mat. i. thrice fourteen Generations are reckoned up and but four women incidentarily put into the Catalogue Judah begat Pharez of Thamar Salmon begat Booz of Rahab and Booz begat Obed of Ruth and David begat Solomon of her that had been the Wife of Vriah No women cited in the Chapter but these four three of which had been unchast ones very Strumpets to chear up the penitent sinner that their sins and his and the sins of all that believe are done away by him by him that is above all names the Son of God who came into the world to purge us of our filthiness therefore the true mirth of Christmas is to say with David Psal xxiii 4. Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me to save me from destruction Thus far I have enlarged the Angels comfortable Preface to the Shepherds Fear not that they should not be dismayed either at the light of glory which shined about them or at their own unworthiness which was a darkness within them or at the malediction of the Law which pleaded condemnation against them for the Birth of Christ as I have shewed was a remedy to take all malignity from them Perchance if the Angel should come amongst us in these days of slumber and security he might spare that part of his Message For where 's the man that humbles himself as he ought as if there were any evil to come We are all confident and void enough from fear if that be good Therefore I come now to lay the second part of my Text to the former how we should not be afraid not with an immoderate fear not with a desperate damning fear which dogs a sullen unrepentant sinner up and down but there is a pious reverential fear which well becomes the Saints and now I proceed to speak of those particulars The Schoolmen very rightly consider fear two ways Quà donum quà passio gift of the good Spirit of God one way and another way as it is meerly a natural passion And first I will speak of it as it is a gift of the Holy Spirit Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor says Statius not so soundly that fear was the first thing in the world that made a God But I am sure that want of filial and awful fear is the first thing that will make an Atheist and perswade a man there is no God The Prophet Isaiah could say no worse of the Idols made of stocks and stones but that we should not be dismayed at their Godship they could neither do good nor hurt But if we will revereri we must vereri there can be no true worship of God without a sollicitous and most anxious care not to displease his Majesty He that is not conscientiously afraid to offend doth most of all offend When Zacharies mouth was opened and began to divine of this day Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited his people fear fell upon all that were round about him Luke i. 65. it fell upon them indeed even as the Holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles at Whitsontide Acts ii In like manner when the Widows Son of Naim was raised from the dead by the word which Christ spake Fear came upon all that were there and they glorified God Luke xvii 16. Surely they had not glorified God as they ought if that fear had not come upon them One instance more 1 Kings iii. 28. All Israel feared Solomon when they saw the judgment of God was in him And shall not all the World bow down with reverence and astonishment when they know that the power of all judgment is in God himself But as for this filial devout fear perhaps we love to hear of it for the Angels themselves cover their faces with their wings standing before the throne of the most high Isa vi as if the Majesty of God were awful and dreadful unto them And indeed a sollicitousness to do the will of God because he is good and gracious the study of the heart which is wary and circumspect not to decline from his Law if you will call this fillial fear it may become an Angel for David speaks of it as if it should endure in heaven Psal xix 9. The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever This is it to whose perfection we must aspire to live justly and soberly though there were no Hell at all but purely out of the principle of love and zeal to the honour of our heavenly Father and what a becoming thing it is unto Religion to approach to divine Prayers especially to the Table of the Lord with an awful duty as if we were afraid to speak to God or to touch the crums of his heavenly banquet Is not this better than to thrust our selves into such coelestial actions with a sawcy familiarity without fear or wit What is more comfortable than to taste of that Cup which betokens the precious bloud that was shed for our sins And yet the Greek Fathers term it usually ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã tremendum mysterium a mystery to be trembled at when we partake thereof Assuredly we may presuppose that when Mary took the clouts into her hand to wrap about her Infant when Joseph did assist as it were in the office of a Father when the Wisemen offered their gifts when the Shepherds came out of the fields into Bethlem and peept in where Christ was laid to see what was done every action of theirs was mixt with reverent fear and joy they stood amazed they prostrated themselves there was no more spirit left in them as it is said of the Queen of Sheba when she beheld the royalty of Solomon therefore the Angel forbids not but after this sort they should dread the Lord with a filial and reverential fear Nay I go further the Angel would not disapprove of that fear which trembles at the wrath to come and endeavours to live unblameable because God is an avenger of unrighteousness for to discredit this fear by calling it fervile and to dehort Christians from it against which stone some I know do stumble it shall not be my Doctrine I hold it not safe and warrantable If they take fervile fear in that notion in which the Sententiaries do take Attrition that is to be displeased at our sins only because judgment will follow but neither sorrowing that God is
without a Lutrum or satisfaction This stops the mouth of the Devil that he cannot calumniate and it resounds the praise of God that the iniquity of the world did not escape unrevenged Caiaphas meant to speak bitterly and to blaspheme but the Lord turned the curse of his mouth into the words of blessing It is expedient for us that one man die for the people and that the whole Nation perish not Joh. xi 50. Secondly They divulge the honour of Christ unto the ends of the world for the mercy that came down with him upon all those that should believe in his name if his Justice was not forgotten in their Song surely his Mercy should be much more solemnized The Angels for their own share were unacquainted with mercy 't was news in heaven till this occasion hapned they had felt gratiam confirmantem but not gratiam condonantem that is the Lord bestowed upon the good Angels grace to confirm them in grace but for those rebellious ones of their Order that had sinned they found no grace to remit their trespasses properly that is called mercy but a thing so rare and unheard of in heaven that as soon as ever they saw it stirring in the earth they sing Glory to God in the highest Thirdly They praise the Lord on high for the Incarnation of his Son because the dignity of the work was so from himself that no Creature did merit it none did beseech or intercede unto him for it before he had destinate it nothing but his own ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and compassion could move him to it Nemo in hoc opere glorietur nullius merito ascribatur no man can ascribe it to his deserts no man can partake in the glory What was man that the Son of God did visit him For him we shall be glorified by him we have obtained peace through him good will hath shined upon men therefore unto him be all the glory This was the Angels Congratulation and no doubt God shall be glorified in his holy places on high but shall that God who is most high be worshipped and glorified by us below That is it the Angels pray for and wish for our sakes and for our Salvation that we of the Militant Church beneath may extol the name of the Lord and give him glory Among men sinners pray for sinners and it is but one for another the People pray for the Prince and the Prince for the People The Priest for the Congregation and the Congregation for the Priest Great and small there are no odds in that they requite one another with their mutual Charity the head cannot say unto the feet I have no need of your Prayers nor the feet unto the head Dum singuli orant pro omnibus omnes orant pro singulis while every particular man prays for all Christians in the Church all Christians in the Church pray for every particular man but as I said this is sinners for sinners quid pro quo But when the Angels are sollicitous in Hymns and Supplications for us it is not that we should pray to them or pray for them again but shew charity that cannot be requited They know that many Sacrifices of Prayers are requisite to bless any Congregation on earth that God may have his due honour from it and therefore all the powers in heaven above assist us with their intercession And especially they are mindful over us to make that Petition on our behalf that we may never forget that our condition is base and as low as the clay and dust of the earth and that God is highly exalted above all the world therefore that we are made to worship him and to fall down before him and to render the homage of our humility to our Chief that is dominion and glory to him that is the highest We find this title of most high in Melchisedechs title Gen. xiv 18. and never before There it comes in as some say whom I approve for this reason Melchisedech is the first in holy Scripture that is called a King that being the greatest name of pre-eminency among men God blazons his own honour just at the first discovery of that name to shew how far it exceeds all earthly Principality and calls him Melchisedech King of Salem a Priest of the most high God And indeed there was a glory due to that Melchisedech and to every one in his rank that is set on high above the people but take heed we let not our Worship and Service rest in them and in the admiration of their outward Pomp and go no higher God set Princes in their Thrones of Majesty to be bowed unto and obeyed that we may rise up in our Meditations and consider how excellent and superlative he is that gave such power and dominion to men Before Christ came into the world it was Gloria in excelsis men worshipt their Idols in every high place as the Prophets did greatly complain of it but it was not Deo in altissimis they worshipt the Host of heaven and things above but they did not lift up their hearts to him that sitteth above the heavens Therefore this is the sum of the Angels Prayer that men may give dominion and praise and thanksgiving to the true God and their wish was as effectual as they could desire for even immediately upon the Birth of Christ Idolatry went down the heathen Gods were discovered more and more to be but Wood and Stone the work of mens hands and the praise of the true God began to be sounded forth in all places The next issue of this first Point is the Angels teach us by the contents of their Prayer that Gods glory is to be sought before all things Nihil aequius est quam ut pro quo quis oret pro eo etiam laboret says St. Austin Whatsoever we pray for we must not only stand wishing it but as much as in us lies endeavour it also First repeating often the marvelous works which he hath done for the conservation of those that praise him and for the destruction of his enemies O God we have heard with our ears and our Fathers have declared unto us the noble works that thou didst in their days and in the old time before them Secondly By confessing of our grievous sins which makes his mercy and his grace so excellent throughout all the world and depressing our best works to be as ineffectual as our sins unto Salvation unless the Lord will cover the stains that are in them with the bloud of Christ Surely the reward which he brings with him is much exalted when we deny not but the best thing we do is less than the least of all his mercies Thirdly by defying by shunning by resisting nay by rooting out the children of Belial that blaspheme his glory for God will avenge himself of them that are tame and patient when his name is violated and his honour prophaned it is the glory of humane Laws
hath redeemed his people Take the whole verse now together which is the exordium of this Prophetical Song and it contains two parts the magnifying of the divine goodness and the reason rendred why it was fit to break out into that devotion In the first here is the comprehension of all praise in this word blessed Secondly the comprehension of the divine titles the Lord God of Israel The next general member why this praise is given is drawn from two acts that God hath visited and that he hath redeemed And the Object of both those acts is it which makes it praise-worthy and thanks worth he hath visited his People First of all here is a full ascribing of all glory to God in this word blessed O how Zachary did meditate this all the while he was dumb O how much he desired all the while his utterance was stopt to bring forth these good words to the honour of his Maker He kept silence a long time from this heavenly Canticle but it was pain and grief unto him Now his mouth was opened with the key of the Holy Spirit to discourse of the wonderful works of God and it was a blessed thing that as soon as he was able to talk this was the first language that flowed from him Blessed be the Lord. Two things are the grace and dignity of our Elocutions Deum laudare verum dicere to praise the great Majesty of Heaven and to tell the truth upon Earth but why do I divide them two which will most properly fall into one For no truth so clear and evident as that the name of Christ is blessed for evermore They that speak the truth of him must speak well of him and whosoever blasphemes his honour is a Liar and an Antichrist As Hezekiah paid the Tribute which Sennacherib imposed upon him out of the Treasure of the house of the Lord and out of the Gold which over-laid the doors of the Temple 2 Kings xviii 16. so the praise of God is the chief treasure of our heart the chief thing that belongs to this holy place the very Gold of the Temple therefore when we magnifie his name we pay him Tribute out of the best thing which the Church can afford Neither is there any good business of Religion whereof we may be so confident that we are in a right course and do not swerve Our Belief may be grounded upon strong errors as it is among Hereticks Our Zeal may be transported into Faction as it is among Schismaticks Our Repentance may be slight and superficial as it is among Hypocrites We may be too forward in our Hope having no firm assurance from the fruits of a good Conscience Too free of our Charity when we do not distinguish who are fit to receive it Too prodigal of our Commendations when we do not note mens Actions whether they deserve it but be as copious as you will in magnifying your Creator and Redeemer and you are certain the work is very good most certain that you cannot tread awry Yet Satan and our own negligence are able to frame an objection against any truth which is most demonstrative What will our sluggish spirit say The honour of God doth not depend upon the fame of this World His glory cannot be raised higher than it is by our Jubilees and Songs or by our Instruments of Musick no though we could praise him as loud as claps of Thunder But for all this will you be content to glorifie him if it will bring your self to honour though it be no amplification to the Majesty of God Agreed then And first it is an high advancement that he will permit us to do him that homage though we should have no recompence for our labour it is abundantly rewarded that he will give us leave to exalt him he hath not dealt so with all people Unto the ungodly said God Why dost thou take my name within thy lips As it is an honour to the Magistrate that God hath committed the Sword of Justice to their power so it is an honour to every Christian that he hath permitted unto us to talk of his honour it is an Angels life continually to bless him and sound forth his glory Therefore that parcel of the Psalm may look this way let the praise of God be in their mouth and a two edged Sword in their hand the one is as great a priviledge belonging to us as the other to a Magistrate Secondly St. Peter grants it generally to all godly people Yè are an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices to God 1 Pet. ii 5. What is the spiritual Sacrifice but Praise and Thanksgiving Therefore let us offer up the sacrifice of praise sweetly and devoutly and all Christians shall become Priests in that respect and the holy portion of God and having offered up this visible sacrifice of praise we our selves in our hearts shall become the invisible sacrifice of God and bring oblation upon oblation unto the Altar it is nothing worth unless your own soul be the principal Oblation I press this the rather because it is so ill forgotten in the Roman Missal For they that do so often trouble your ears with their sacrifice and their Altar have not one word in their Missal that we or our souls should be a reasonable holy and living sacrifice to God Thirdly In giving glory to the Lamb and to him that sits upon the Throne we do not give but receive for no man can ascribe much praise to God but out of a large capacity of faith no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost no man can speak of the King of Kings according to his due excellency but it will procreate devotion and reverence therefore though Gods honour be in the same state that it was before yet your soul is in better state than it was before by praise and glorification Fourthly We do all agree with St. Paul that Charity is greater than the two other Theological Vertues greater than Faith that believeth all mysteries greater than Hope that expecteth all Promises and therefore greater because it shall abide with us in the Kingdom of Heaven when the other two shall vanish away So to laud and magnifie our Omnipotent Creator is far above all other acts of Religion because nothing else shall abide with us when we see God face to face There shall be no confession of Christ our Mediator for none shall deny him there shall be no fasting for man shall eat Angels food and have no need of nourishment no Alms shall be given for it is life without want and scarcity no Prayer for forgiveness of sins no hearing of the Word no sufferance of the Cross no intercession for them that suffer but the praise of God continueth and supplieth all the rest uncessantly we shall cry out Holy holy Lord God of Hosts which was and is and is to come Therefore it is called blessing of God because it
to believe in him nay if he had not given them his Body to be meat that whosoever eateth thereof might not die but live for ever they had never been his people Lord draw us and we will come unto thee visit us and we shall be healed redeem us and we shall be made free make us thy people and we will serve thee and praise thee and bless thee all the days of our life Amen THE TWELFTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE i. 69. And hath raised up an horn of Salvation for us in the house of his servant David THe Spirit of God is so constant to the same matter to the same phrase of speech in Holy Scripture that there is no Text of prime Doctrine in the New Testament but likely you may fit it as it were verbatim out of the Old I put you in mind of it at this time because David hath not only comprized my Text but all this Song of Zachary into one verse Zachary having been dumb for nine months his unspeakable joy at last burst out like a River which hath been stopt and flows forth in a full gush when the Sluce is open Now whereas when he found his tongue and began likewise to Prophesie his Wife and Kindred who were the Assembly that heard him expected no doubt that in the first instance after he broke silence he would speak of John the Baptist a child of much wonder and expectation whom the Lord had sent unto him in his old age yet he did not so but he took the rise of his Prophesie from a mightier work by far he begins with the Bridegroom and then proceeds to the friend of the Bridegroom He begins with the Saviour and then speaks of the Servant he begins with the bread of life and then goes on to the voice of the Crier he was sent unto the Jews to invite them to eat of it He begins with the glorius King sprung out of the house of David and concludes with his own Son that was the torch-bearer to carry the light before him Of both these thus the Psalmist with most admirable brevity Psal cxxxii 18. There will I make the horn of David to bud I have ordained a lanthorn for mine Anointed The horn or excellency of David is Christ Incarnate the Lamp ordained for that mighty King was John the Forerunner whom the Evangelist of his own name calls a burning and a shining light 'T is St. Austins Exposition and so natural to the sense of the Psalm that it hath gained upon me to follow it Yet there is great odds between Faith in spe in re between the prenuntion and the event of these mysteries between the promise of the Sun rising and the light which shines visibly upon the world between the knowledge of Salvation which was drawn nearer to the Church in Zacharies days than it was in Davids when it was further off In the one it is faciam I will make the horn of David to bud in the other it is feci the counsel of God is actuated he hath raised up an horn David was bold to sing it forth that God would perform his Promise Zachary was more bold to speak in the Preter-tense that he had performed when it was but in fieri when the Web was yet upon the Loom Christmas day was not yet come it was half a year off before the time was appointed that a Virgin should be delivered but Zachary knowing the certain execution of Gods Word hath made Christmass day in the Text. He doth not only bear witness to our Saviour though yet an imperfect feture after three months conception as if the Child were born but as if he were in his most able growth in perfect strength of years in perfect execution of his power in the perfect glory of his Kingdom And hath raised up an horn of Salvation for us in the house of his servant David Now to prepare you to receive the division of the words you may easily mark that whereas the former verse contains a general profession of Gods mercy to his Church he hath visited and redeemed his People this verse contracts it to the particular instrument through whom we are all blessed as who should say God hath given Redemption to his People yet there is no redemption to be lookt for but in Jesus Christ he hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David The principal word of the Text therefore is that which is in the midst An horn of salvation it is the Periphrasis of Christ I will begin from thence 2. I will declare how God did raise up this horn of salvation when Christ was born 3. Here is the Lineage of our Saviour according to the Flesh he was raised up in the house of David in the house of David his Servant Lastly Here is the use and fruit of his birth which belongs to us that is to as many as have the same faith in him that Zachary had when he opened his mouth to utter this Prophetical Song And hath raised up c. In the former verse Zachary says that he would bless that is praise and Magnifie the Lord God of Israel And hath he not made good his word Yes surely for the praise of the most high cannot be exalted in the tongue of a sinner more than in this attribute to call him an horn of salvation There was more obedience and faith in it I will not call it merit but I say it exprest more obedience and faith that this devout Priest should call a Child nay a feture but of three months conception as yet curdled like milk as Job says in his mothers womb the horn the strength of our salvation than for the Angels and Seraphins to sing continually before the Throne of heaven Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts the Angels extol that infinite Majesty which they behold in glory This person confest all that his tongue could utter to the honour of his Redeemer when nothing was actuated nothing yet in being to be seen and when the time came that it should be seen nothing could be more infirm in appearance Yet neither the inevidence of the object before he was incarnate nor the parvity and outward meanness of the object when he was to be incarnate do stumble his faith but he makes as great a noise to advance his dignity as words would give him leave an horn of salvation Salvation salvation is our tree of life restore the Church to that O Lord and there is Paradise enough in it though we be shut out of Paradise It is one beam and the very principal of that inward light in holy Scripture which shines in the Meridian of us Christians and makes us resolve by a secret contract between us and faith that it is the the Word of God because it treats constantly and in every part of it touching the means of salvation But the Volumes of heathen men
Father David I lay the point now with all evidence and perspicuity against the infidelity of the Jews 1. God did promise the Scepter unto Judah Gen. xlix 2. Judah had it in David and Solomon 3. It was threatned to be taken away and never restored again and so it was in Jeconiah 4. Whereas the family droopt and decayed the promise was that it should reflourish in Christ 5. That it should be a Kingdom greater than ever was before extended from the flood unto the worlds end Lastly that it should stand and dure for ever In all things the Gospel consents with Moses and the Prophets and the blind Jews that will contradict it even Judah shall be scattered with this horn Zach. i. 21. and be broken in pieces with the Scepter of this Kingdom but as the Prophet infers well if I be Lord where is mine honour and if Christ be a King where is our obedience God hath anointed him with his horn of power to be a King O that the unction of his Grace may distil upon our hearts that we may serve and fear him Concupiscence says I will reign Ambition says I will reign the Devil says I will reign the world says I will reign but a good Christian will say Non habeo regem nisi Dominum Jesum There is no King that shall command my conscience but Jesus Christ he is the horn of my salvation The points remaining shall take up no long time the next that I come to is the verb of action how God did raise up this horn of salvation you may know the meaning of this by our own vulgar phrase for it is our usual saying that God raiseth up friends to a miserable man when his relief and deliverance come through those means which he never expected The house of David had ennobled the Kingdom of Israel more than any other tribe or kindred that came out of the loins of Jacob is freed the Nation from the oppression of the Philistines expulsed the Jebusites out of the Imperial City reared up the stupendious fabrick of the Temple contrived the service of the Priests and Levites into admirable decency brought them into great respect with Foreign Princes All this came to them by the Son of Jesse and Solomon that succeeded him But in process of time the lineage of David was quite eclipsed that stately horn was broken especially when Herod ruffled it the poor remnant of the kindred pluckt in their head and durst not with any safety own themselves to be of that progeny Loe the inconstant state of humane things the sons and daughters of David who were the Princes of that Kingdom were become poor artisans and inmates in by-places and nothing was so beneficial to them as to be forlorn and despicable Now chops in another alteration more strange than all that had been before a Virgin of a most private fortune in that stock not lookt upon not thought upon to repair that decay she conceives a Son by the power of the Holy Ghost in whom the honour of David's house was more exalted than if he had subdued all those Countrys which Cyrus and Alexander made tributary to their Empire This is according to that Prophesie which James applied to our Saviour Acts xv 16. in that solemn Council of the Apostles after this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down and I will build again the ruines thereof and will set it up This kindred in whom the Majesty of Judah did once rest nothing could be laid more flat than it in the revolution of a few ages and of a suddain this diminution was repaired no flesh and blood was ever more advanced than that house if they did not bid defiance to their own honor that Jesus Christ came from them according to the flesh This did David foresee and presageth it to his own generation Psal cxxxii I will make the horn of David to flourish but the Verb decomposit in the Septuagint is most significant ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I will make it sprout up again as when a tree is cut down and the stock appears to be dead but a little branch springs out of the root grows high and tall and fills up a better room than the trunk which was felled But the Jew complains to this day that he can perceive no such redintegration of the house of David O who is so blind and sensless as that Nation who would not receive him that came to be their glory and being plagued for their unbelief they will not perceive their punishment and misery the horn is raised up and the beast out of which it grew will not own it or acknowledge it But the promise of God cannot be made of none effect through their infidelity There is room enough beside in the world to receive him though his own exclude him the horn is raised up though the Rebels of the house of David reject him The condition of our humane nature was most innocent and Angelical in the first Creation we sinned we fell our boughs of glory were lopt away our fruit of holiness was shaken from it our substance was involved in the general curse of the earth to bring forth nothing but thorns and briars Thus we continued a despised mass of corruption till our horn was exalted in the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Then was our nature advanced to one hypostasis with God himself as if a Giant should bear up an Infant upon his shoulders so we that pass'd for no better than blood temper'd with dirt are become as it were emulous with the thrones of heaven by this assumption of our manhood into his person because he took not upon him the seed of Angels but the seed of Abraham And as all that are born of women have some access of dignity because Christ took the similitude of our nature so the Church superabounds in two priviledges first as Gregory notes upon such words as these 1 Sam. 2. that it is said to the Priests of the Gospel whose sins ye remit they shall be remitted c. yet the like was never said to the Priests of the Law because remission of sins was brought to pass by him that was made man therefore from that time forth men were made the Ministers of Pardon and Absolution that 's the horn of the Church the power of the Keys Secondly God hath replenished us that are called by his name with a great abundance of the Holy Ghost and since Christ was made flesh he hath poured out of his spirit upon all flesh Loe these are the ascensions by which we climb up into heaven through this mercy that the Lord God of Israel hath raised up unto us an horn of salvation Now follows the third part of the Text to the end the Jews might know that this was the Messias which they expected here 's his lineage exprest according to the words of the Prophets he was raised
chief counsellors of Persia and with greatest trust that can be had to conjectures we may say they made a Voyage from Persia to Jerusalem to see our Saviour Now the nearest confines of Persia are but 200 leagues from Jerusalem and the Camels of those Countries as good Authors testifie upon their own experience will travel forty leagues a day by which proportion it may be collected how possible it is to come in twelve days from the most Eastern parts of Persia to Jerusalem In Divine matters even the smallest things should be diligently sifted therefore I would not let this circumstance go till I had vindicated it from obsâârity and now these Travellers deserve their commendation and we their imitation They liv'd in honour and safety in their own Country but Patria est ubicunquè est Christus that 's a man's Country and his home where Christ is reverently worshipped and where the fear of God is in the place Hearken O daughter and consider incline thine ear forget also thine own people and thy fathers house What is honour and safety to a man at home if true Religion be abroad God be thanked we have both therefore these honourable persons leave their own Country as Abraham did I will not extol their faith more than his or his more than theirs comparisons are odious they could not come from the East to Judea but by Arabia Petrea a most rocky cumbersom Country and by Arabia deserta a most thievish murdering Country and from the heavens above they could have no better comfort at this time of the year but either bitter frosts to travel in or foul winter weather and to continue thus for twelve days together it was a great proof of zeal and patience that would run through all difficulties to be satisfied in this one question Where is he that is born the King of the Jews twelve days journey do I speak of nay twelve furlongs are a great matter for persons of quality to come to Church if it mizzle with a little rain or the air be sharp or the place throng'd or any slight inconvenience to keep them away and yet I must tell you these were Wise men that came to Christ through thick and thin through dread and danger strid over all molestations therefore unless you will have me leave my Text I cannot call them wise that will spare themselves from Gods service for every trifle of inconveniency The cape from whence they came affords one short note more that they were Easterlings for in that capacity they were not only Gentiles but of such Gentiles as had provok'd God to anger more ab antiquo dierum from many ages before than any other Nation They were not only Gentiles but sinners of the Gentiles as St. Paul says Gal. ii 15. The tower of Babel was built in the East that tower whose builders erected it as it were in defiance of heaven from thence came tyranny with Nimrod that opprest his people and as Histories tell us the first invention of Images sprung from those parts in that Tomb which Belus made for the untimely departure of his Son and from the Mountains of the East came Balaam and the false Prophets that loved the wages of iniquity I cannot say it confidently as St. Chrysostom doth that these wise men were the best of all those sinners in the East ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that these were better composed to believe than any other It is manifest this Eastern part of the world was as full of sins as any and the Scripture placeth nothing in their person that they had better morality than their fellows it was the Lords free mercy and compassion that the Star of his Grace should shine upon them and that they were selected above many thousands where all of them some in greater measure some in less deserved to sit in the shadow of death and to die in eternal condemnation and when Christ was scarce born we see the largeness of his grace that it was diffused to the furthest parts of the world and the freeness of his grace that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance A blessed Birth by which many were made alive unto God who were dead in sins and trespasses A blessed apparition by which the day-spring from on high hath visited us A blessed Incarnation by which the wicked mass of our nature is sanctified A blessed calling of the Gentiles by which all Tongues and Languages do praise the Lord from the East unto the West from the North unto the South O praise the Lord all ye kindreds of the earth for he hath done marvellous things for us in giving us his Child Jesus to be our sanctification and redemption Amen THE FOURTEENTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION MAT. ii 1 2. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem Saying where is he that is born King of the Jews For we have seen his Star in the East and are come to worship him SInce the Lords day and the Feast of the Epiphany do light together this holy day is sure to be observed with frequent Assemblies in all Christian Churches as it is at this time in this place But in former Ages and in the most devout times when religious men studied for the fittest occasions to praise the Lord this Epiphany which we call Twelfth-day though it fell upon any day of the week was kept with the presence of the noblest persons with as much outward honour with as solemn service with as many testifications of zeal and joy as any day in the year For to crown it with more blessings than one the memory of three illustrious manifestations of Christ were celebrated upon this feast First that which is rememorated in our Church and no more the bringing of the Gentiles to Bethlem to see the Lord by the assistance of a Star ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that 's the most renowned apparition Secondly The Baptism of our Saviour was computed to this day when the Holy Ghost gave testimony who he was descending upon his head in the shape of a Dove ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã For the honour of these two memorable accidents Nazianzen calls it festum sanctorum luminum the feast of sacred lights or illuminations for Baptism is called our illumination Thirdly The miracle of turning water into wine was remembred together for the third manifestation of Christ ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã St. John says this beginning of miracles did Jesus in Canae of Galilee and manifested forth his glory Leo and Chrysologus speak of these three glorious works to be solemnized at this one time and Bernard a much later man than they goes no further Tres apparitiones Domini legimus unâ quidem die sed non uno tempore factas We celebrate three mighty apparitions of our Lord all in one day though they fell not out all in one
Master of his honour but that the truth might be revealed if they would embrace it then he came most opportunely from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized of John St. Cyril gives this delightful similitude upon it John Baptist was the Lucifer or morning Star that ran his course before our Saviour Now as the Sun makes his approach in our Hemisphere before this Star is set in the West and obscures that lesser light with his own glory So Christ did not lie hid untill his fore-runner had done baptizing and were gone out of the world but when he shined most in the great opinion of all men then a greater than John advanceth himself and obscures him for ever How willingly how chearfully was the Baptist contented My joy says he is fulfilled that he must increase and I must decrease The word bodes no such thing as if he should decrease in sanctity or in the favour of God but it was his joy that he should grow less in the opinion of the world that the Church would begin to know the true Messias to be the Bridegroom and that he was no more than the Friend of the Bridegroom It is pretty which some observe how the birth of John fell out at Mid-summer when the days grow shorter and shorter Contrariwise the Nativity of Christ happens in that month when the Sun approacheth and the days grow longer and longer So the glory of John was in the waine and declined to less and less estimation in respect of Christ but he that is the brightness of the Fathers glory ascends higher and higher the earth shall know him more and more while the Sun and Moon endure Collect this observation to the use of your own life my beloved Decrescât homo ârescat Deus Let man be diminished and brought low let God arise and be exalted It was not a little decreasing that Paul stood upon but wisht himself Anathema for his brethren so God might be glorified And surely if the blessed Virgin and the Saints departed have any perceiving what religious honour is done unto them by some superstitious devotaries which belongs to none but to the Eternal Majesty on high I doubt not but it is their usual supplication O Lord take this honour from us and lay it upon thy self God raiseth up Prophets in his Church not to make them eminent but that himself may be magnified This no doubt was a rule well grounded in John Baptist whose heart was as humble as his Rayment and when it was bruted abroad that he was the Messias it vext his righteous soul and desired nothing more than that the true Lamb of God would appear that taketh away the sins of the world He had his wish when the Son of glory disclosed himself at Jordan Yet it was not an errour but rather a praise in John that he was taken for the best that ever lived because of his conspicuous Piety for Christ himself It was not a crime in Peter that such Saint-like reverence appear'd in him that Cornelius being astonisht fell down to worship him It was not to be blamed in Paul and Barnabas that they carried themselves among the Lycaonians above the ordinary condition of men insomuch that they called Paul Mercurius and Barnabas Iupiter St. Chrysostom extols them for it says he Let every Apostolical man imitate their sanctity that they may appear to be better than corruptible flesh and to live like Angels in this wicked world So Paul behaved himself among the Galathians that they received him as an Angel yea even as Christ Jesus But when it came to a foul mistake that the men of Lycaonia would have done sacrifice to them the Apostles were grievously offended they rent their cloaths and ran among the people declaring themselves to be men who came to teach the world that they must not rob God of his honour I am ashamed to read such bald excuses made for Francis the first Friâr of his order that he permitted some to fall down and do him divine adoration for they did not worship him but God that was in him Is that sufficient Then it had not been intollerable in Alexander to require divine honours to his person as he was Gods Vice-gerent in his Monarchy Yet one Hermolaus an heathen in the story of Curtius exprobrates him that he was violently made away because he would be worshipt as a God Some would defend the Frier forenamed by the example of Daniel Dan. ii 46. when he had expounded Nebuchadnezzars dream the King fell on his face and worshipt Daniel and commanded that they should offer an Oblation and sweet Odours unto him But doth Daniel any more than recite what was bidden to be done Do you find the Kings command was obeyed in this Certainly Daniel did never consent but forbad it and had other honours done unto him to sit in the Kings Gate and to be ruler of his Provinces Believe it therefore that man must not defile himself by touching Gods glory too much of that weigt lay upon Johns shoulders when he was taken to be the Christ and to take that opinion from the Creature to the Creator Then came our blessed Lord from Galilee to Jordan Thirdly This Adverb of time Then it points to the Age of Christ he began to be about thirty years of age Luk. iii. 23. Then and not before did this Star of brightness make his appearance Then came Jesus c. He was made like unto us in all things sin only excepted for else we can give no reason why he would stay to fulfil the perfect age of man before he would take in hand the work of his Mediatorship A decorum is usually kept among us that a man is not called to the administration of great business before his person carries some authority in it by the gravity of his years And therefore our blessed Saviour that his enemies might not calumniate or despise him for a novice put forth himself at that maturity of age which is commonly well allowed for manliness and wisdom Not that there wanted perfection and ability in him even in his swadling clouts and Cradle to do more than any mortal man could bring to pass far be it from us to conceit him otherwise The Union of the Godhead as soon as he was conceived in the womb gave him more power and understanding than ever inhabited in any other flesh And therefore the Prophet Jeremy speaking how he should be inclosed in a Virgins womb hath dropt out such a word that many of the Fathers catch hold of it for an Emphasis Jer. xxxi 22. A woman shall compass a man Circumdabit virâm non infantem though she bore an Infant yet in his Infant-age nothing was defective in him but did exceedingly super-abound all which could be required in man Therefore at twelve years of age he made all the Doctors of the Temple astonisht at the questions he propounded but from that time to the age of
appointed by the best of Reformed Churches I mean this of England God be glorified for his grace towards us We do not urge them so peremptorily as to say thus it is necessary to be a Christian but thus it becometh us to serve the Lord and that which is decent in Gods house I say again will ever prevail with tractable and godly dispositions You cannot hear or meditate too much upon that of St. Paul Phil. iv 8. Whatsoever things are just or venerable whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report and let me add whatsoever things become us these things do and the God of peace shall be with you Amen THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 15 16. Then he suffered him And Jesus when he was baptized went up straightway out of the water AT these words John Baptist hath changed his mind you may perceive but not his humility It was his perswasion that it could not behove him to minister the Sacrament to his Saviour But since Christ would have his hand to do that duty he puts himself upon the office and performs it Whether did he refuse at first or come on at last with greater humility Nay the further we go in the actions of the Saints of God they will manifest unto us that they are better and better For is it not more lowliness to obey when he was taught a reason for it than to tremble and to start back at the presence of Christ because he was confounded at his coming to Baptism and was not taught a reason Every vertue is so much the better rooted when it knows the true cause of its own rectitude In this John said very well at verse 14. which I have handled lately I have need to be baptized of thee Though he were a most bright vessel of honour yet he did feel a defect in himself how far he wanted the grace of God to open his eyes a little clearer and his desire was secretly fulfilled the spirit of illumination did slide into his heart and made him to understand about what work of ignominy our Saviour came into the world and would begin from hence to do after the custom of a despicable sinner O glorious God that at the same instant did baptize him of whom he was baptized Quomodo creavit Mariam creatus est à Mariâ sic dedit baptismum Johanni baptizatus est à Johanne As he made the Virgin Mary his mother and was made man of the substance of the Virgin even so he baptized John with the Spirit and was baptized of John in water Nothing was ever done in the Church which was eminently noble and eximious but with an opinion that a Spirit from heaven was sent to reveal it So in old Legends they report that the Angels of God did whisper divine Oracles into St. Ambrose that Doves were sent from heaven to infuse holy wisdom into Basil and Gregory that the soul of Paul was sent to gild over the Writings of Chrysostom with Eloquence nil sine numine So the Spirit before he appeared in a bodily shape upon our Saviour entred by his invisible power into the heart of this great Prophet and he that before denied to baptize his Master because he was humble is now ready to baptize him because he is more humble for after Christ had spoken Then he suffered him And Jesus when he was baptized c. That which is here described in the Baptism of our Saviour comprehends three things 1. As the Naturallists call it here is removens prohibens that which did prohibit the effect is removed away John resists no more Then he suffered him 2. Here is the effect it self Jesus was baptized 3. That this beginning was but a preparatory to greater matters which should follow therefore he went up straightway out of the water First I must insist upon this consideration that the obstacle of Johns doubting is taken away then he suffred him The woman of Samaria because she knew not our Saviour gave him no water to drink John Baptist because he knew him to be God immortal gave him no water to be baptized An ignorance very inoffensive was in them both and so they were easily corrected with a word for they that wander for want of knowledge and not for want of obedience are easily brought into the way when they are taught the truth Moses did soon put off his shooes when he knew the place whereon he stood was holy ground Mary Magdalen took our Saviour for the Gardener when he was risen from the dead but she fell presently at his feet and worshipt him when she knew it was the Lord. Peter did demur and hesitate what to do when the sheet was let down before him with all manner of four footed beasts but straightway learnt that nothing was common or polluted which the Lord had cleansed John was loth to take the honour upon him to pour water upon our Saviours head but you see he need not be bidden twice when the Lord commanded he did wisely consider what was injoyned him by the divine authority rather than what did become his own unworthiness and did as he was bidden without any more repugnancy Vera est humilitas quam non deserit comes obedientia So I think St. Austin there dwells an humble mind you may be sure which is associated with tractable obedience Aristotle falling into the praise of that sententious judgment which in some men is very exhortative that weaker capacities should hearken to such mens opinions without any manner of contradiction for their eye is fixt upon a true ground and principle for whatsoever they deliver therefore where age and experience and prudence meet ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã you ought to submit to their bare dictates and sayings no less than if they were the most forcible demonstrations This was most wholsom counsel for the ignorant for they will learn more a thousand times by believing their Teachers than by framing their wit to a captious inquisitive course admitting nothing for good unless their own line can fathom it John Baptist was a right Scholar to make a good proficient whose reason was confounded and knew not what Christ did mean yet because it was his Masters will he was obsequious against the grain of his own reason Then he suffered him The praise which S. Chrysostom gives to this holy man is thus in a negative expression ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he yielded quickly he was not immoderately contentious for the Holy Spirit makes us mild and apt to consent the adverse Spirit makes us unquiet and vexatious to our neighbours As God describes the refractory Israelites who did ever resist their Prophets Isa xlviii 4. I know that thou art obstinate and thy neck is an iron sinew and thy brow is brass This obstinacy you see in the Prophets phrase is a sign of an iron age and I pray God we be not
before us Try all things and prove your own heart if you understand which way you walk unto the Lord. Ephraim feedeth on the wind and followeth after the East wind wherein the Prophet deciphers them that know not what they seek after or at least how they would comprehend it Some eat and drink their own damnation because they discern not the Lords body they come by custom to the Table of the Lord not with solemn and faithful preparation these are not led by the Spirit Some lay their hand to this Plow to preach the Kingdom of Christ but never bethought them seriously what it was to bear the Ark of God upon their shoulders they took the Priests Office upon them only for the hire and wages but never examined whether they were inwardly called these were not led by the Spirit The Widows in St. Pauls days who were to continue in supplications night and day these were not to be taken into that Society which attended the Church under threescore years of age and such as had been diligent in every good work In after Ages out of more presumption than due care some were accepted to take the vow of continency upon them at the age of forty Others more dangerously admitted Virgin Votaries at the age of twenty five And now every youngling at the age of fourteen is solemnly received to be incloystered in an unmaried estate for ever before they know the hazard of their own frailty the iron bondage of such a Vow or how to avoid the continual tentations of most discontenting melancholy these took their snare upon them by fond enticements and ignorant devotion they were not led by the Spirit This was St. Ambrose his reason of this phrase 2. The next owes it self to St. Hilary Non aliter tentatus est quà m spiritûs permissu auxilio He was led by the Spirit that is he maintained this quarrel against the Devil by the permission and assistance of the Holy Spirit The Holy Ghost is not an idle Spectator but a party that leads us by the hand and holds up our hands to conquer these Amalekites as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses The Apostles were like things shut up that durst not come abroad till they were filled with the Spirit that had no heart to offer themselves to the trial of any affliction but kept out of the way But in Gods help as David says they leapt over the wall and ventured forth out of that narrow imprisonment and to make some satisfaction for that privacy when they lived as recluses they travelled boldly through all places of the world baptizing all Nations in the name of the Lord Jesus What durst they not do for the honour of God when they were led by the Spirit The Children of Israel made no scruple to pitch their Tents within the borders of their enemies if the Pillar of cloud did remove before them so wheresoever the grace of God doth carry a man Gods glory being his undoubted end without all vain delusions and carnal reservations he may be bold to venture As we read of Sampson that before he did those great and heroical exploits against the Philistines he was possessed with the Spirit of the Lord and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him when he slew a thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an Ass Judg. xv 14. So it holds in the works of Regeneration Patience Obedience denying of our selves taking up the Cross of Christ mortifying the body of Sin these cannot be done unless the Spirit of the Lord do move upon us But according to the method of the Psalm first we must trust in God to pluck our feet out of the snare before he lead us in the right way and set us upon a rock of stone where we shall not be moved First lead us not into tentation that is leave us not to our selves and then bear us on Eagles wings and bring us to himself Exod. xix 4. We do not so much deprecate in the Lords Prayer that we should not come near the assault of any tentations as that we may not be drawn into the midst of them and there left unto our selves Most excellently the Apostle Heb. xiii 20. The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus through the bloud of the everlasting Covenant he will bring us out of the Pit-falls of the Devil that is implied for it follows he will make us perfect in every good work to do his will Aristotle hath a rule in his Rhetoriques how that must needs be an excellent thing which the worst men desire they may seem to have though they want it As liberality must needs be a graceful vertue for few are so sordidly covetous but that they love to be accounted liberal So the guidance of the divine Spirit necessarily must be the most laudable principle of all humane actions for there is not so palpable an hypocrite that will confess he was led by his own Concupiscence or seduced by his Passions no he will pretend it is the fear of God and his Conscience that doth lead him in all things What wonder if Christian Hypocrites have such conceits For the King of Assyria a Most prophane Blasphemer thought it was the best way to make the same pretension when he came to pluck down the living God Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it The Lord said to me go up against this Land to destroy it And I would it were not the disgrace of these times that many such live among us who have their secret stratagems and desires to make havock of the small revenue of the Church and to pluck down the glory and dignity of it but with the same ungodly flourish that the King of Assyria made We are led by the Spirit the Lord said unto us go and destroy this as they most impudently and ignorantly call it Superstition I will give them the Prophet Ezekiels woe for their reward Ezek. xiii 3. Thus saith the Lord God woe unto the foolish Prophets that follow their own Spirit and have seen nothing These are led on by their fury to bring to pass the works of the evil one not led by the Spirit as our ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã our Arch-leader was to overcome the tentations of the Devil The third reason is out of St. Chrysostoms Quiver and I cannot exceed beyond that at this time Non simpliciter profectus sed abductus God did inspire the Evangelists to write in this manner how Christ was led when he went into temptation rather than that he went of himself simply without more addition because no man should offer himself rashly and voluntarily to be tempted unless God did put some constraint and impulsion upon him It is a most cautilous note if you observe it for take the matter right and consider Christ in himself alone without respect of leaving an example
confirm delusions but to testifie to truth and innocency therefore if he did provoke him to turn stones into bread it would be for a true testimony that he was the very Son of God If he do this miracle and be not the Son of God the eternal truth should confirm a lie which is impossible This was Satans cunning Philosophy and now you see the very nerves of his Argument Let me draw out one Corollary for your Instruction The first part of Satans engine was ut cognosceret to prove God a liar if he could I heard a voice say you are the beloved Son of God but are you so indeed This desire to litigate and quarrel with Gods truth made him fall into a strange doting ignorance almost incredible in so intelligent a substance What he that is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã quasi ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of a most vast capacity of understanding because of his spirituality and so many thousand years experience He that thought he could open the market of knowledge and sell what he pleased to our first Parents Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil that he should stagger and for a long time mistake the very foundation of all truth that Jesus was the Son of God Is not this passing wonderful Why this comes of it when any will bend their wits to object against the plain truth when it is manifest then God requites their iniquity with this dulness 2 Thes ii 1. For this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie Strong delusion we read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so St. Paul and I had rather translate it the efficacy of errour Tentation is from the enemy the efficacy of Tentation is not from him but in the power of God So falshood is from the Devil but the efficacy of falshood that this error should prevail to seduce the Reprobate that is in the hand of God For if the efficacy and event of error were from the Tempter nothing would help us but that all men should be deluded The event and prevalency of errors comes from Gods permission upon them that would not obey the truth Let me put this now into your mind it is the fashion of the World to have mens persons in admiration some are carried away with the opinion of their learning and good life that walk not after the wholsom Injunctions of the Ceremonies and Discipline of our Church as Salvianus says very well Tantùm dicta existimant quantus est ipse qui dixit nec tam considerant quid legunt quà m cujus legunt They measure truth not in it self but by the opinion of him that defends it nor so much consider what it is they read as whose it is they read Purge out this leven I beseech you and remember when men would expound all things by their own private spirit God will turn their good gifts into vanity Likewise if some others stand upon it that there is no sort of Learning but abounds in the Church of Rome and why should not the most Learned wear the Garland Let them know this is as foolish an inference well considered as his in the Proverb that the Peacock must sing best of all birds because it had the fairest train Julian the most learned Emperour Galen the most learned Physician Porphyry one of the learnedst Philosophers all were Atheists and without God in the World The Novices of the Roman Colleges are sworn to particular opinions and to a particular belief and then study their course of Divinity to maintain it So it comes to pass They study to maintain a lye as Satan did against Christ and thereby they are catcht in strong delusions And let this suffice for the first general part of the Text That one end of these words which Satan cast forth was ut cognosceret to learn more perfectly that which he mistrusted before that Christ was the eternal Son of God And because he had more Hooks than one to his Angle remember that beside his curiosity to explore him his words likewise are full of malice to corrupt him Command that these stones be made bread The boldest and most flagitious attempt that ever was to make Christ sin Murdering of Sacred Princes devices to blow up the Majesty of an whole State conspiracy to root out whole Nations endeavouring to burn up an whole Empire with Nero betraying Christ himself to be crucified with Judas all these ugly sins not only single but put all together have less horror and impiety in them than this attempt to lie in wait to draw sin and impurity from the most pure God We cannot compare Satan so well as with himself therefore I go further the great rebellion of Lucifer for which he was first cast out of heaven made him not so guilty of high disobedience as this Proposition did to tempt Christ to Gluttony and Infidelity His first presumption is collected out of these words of Isaiah I will be like the most High but this presumption hath more rancor in it by far the most High shall fall into wickedness and be made like unto me Ero similis altissimo I will ascend as high as the glory of God so the evil Angel coveted his own perfection in excess but Altissimus erit similis mihi I will bring down the most High to trespass as I have done that is to covet Gods imperfection The very Angels are not pure in his sight says Job now this was the Devils practical gloss neither shall he be pure in the sight of the Angels But how foolish is the Serpent become the subtillest of all Creatures how foolish is he become because he will not understand the truth of God O Lord thou art purer than the heavens thou art Justice and Righteousness and Innocency it self and therefore the Church doth sing a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to his honour Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts One Scripture says he cannot lie another Scripture that he cannot deny himself and another that he cannot be tempted Where was Satans prudence to make an impossible motion How had he forgot his cunning to pump for an iniquity out of the Well of everlasting purity Some pretension yet there was for this plot and some hope no question as the Jews cloak'd their own malice before Pilate with this excuse Had he not been a Sinner we had not brought him unto thee so there was some likelihood to make him offend as it appeared to Satan and surely thus he collected it If Joseph who was espoused to Mary be his Father I shall prevail whatsoever is born of flesh is flesh whatsoever is begotten by carnal generation is conceived in sin But if it be true that the Angel said unto Mary the Holy Ghost should over-shadow her yet the will of every man if he be true man is indifferent and apt of it self to turn to evil as well as good Now perhaps it was not
and Political Priviledges made Satan desire to contaminate it with the greatest sins as with the Martyrdom of the Saints with the hypocrisie of the Pharisees with sundry other crimes and with this presumptuous precipitation if he could have drawn Christ unto it In Psalm cxxii there are three things which made very much to the praise of it 1. It was a City compact together the strongest Tower of defence in all the Kingdom 2. There sate the Thrones of Judgment even the Thrones of the house of David And 3. Thither went the Tribes up to give thanks to the name of the Lord so that for Fortitude for Civil Justice and for the use of Religion for being an holy City it was ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the very eye of the Land of Canaan But especially the name of Jerusalem in holy Scripture is rather the name of Gods Church than of a place which contained material building and therefore very aptly called the holy City Nay there is not one word beside in all the Book of God which contains the whole threefold estate of the Church that I can remember namely both the Synagogue under the Law and the Gospel under Grace and the blessed Communion of the Saints in heaven For Jerusalem as the Grammarians note is a Noun of the dual number to signifie both the Militant part on earth and the Triumphant part in heaven of them that are sanctified and joyned to Christ the head No place so pregnant as Gal. iv 25. where St. Paul shews a double Jerusalem upon Earth the Synagogue and the Gospel Jerusalem which now is says the Apostle which desired to be under the Law under the rudiments of Moses was in bondage with her Children but Jerusalem which is above not meaning the Choirs of Angels in heaven but the Church Apostolical which is watered with the dew of heaven from above That is free which is the mother of us all Here are two Jerusalems one above another the Antitype above the Type the Substance above the Shadow the Son of God exhibited in the flesh above the Figures and Sacrifices of the Levitical Priesthood But in both respects it was called the holy City For as concerning the Law of Ceremonies there was no other place but it where they were purely exhibited to God and as concerning the New Testament or Faith in Christ there it began Repentance and Salvation were preached unto all Nations beginning at Jerusalem And for this relative holiness which that City had by being the chief and most ancient Seat of the Oracles of God even Heaven did borrow a name from Earth and hath not despised to be called the upper Jerusalem St. John says when the old Elements of the world did pass away there was a new Heaven and a new Earth and he saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God prepared as a Bride for her Husband Rev. xxi 1. For these causes it had Nomen super omne nomen A name above all names among all the dwellings upon earth even as Christ had a name above all names among the Sons of men But as the Serpent did find a way to come into Paradise so he resorted to this holy City It is his joy to make that a Cage of unclean birds which was the Sanctuary of God It is his industry to sow Tares in the midst of Wheat it is his envy to make an evil Leprosie rise up in those Walls where Christs name is praised it is his pastime to pollute the holy City that the Lord may abhor it And this was easily brought about by the Devil Jerusalem hath run his own fortune Gods honour did abide in it for a while and after a while it became an hissing to all the Earth Once there was no other place in all the world that was holy there was no other Metropolis no other Sanctuary all the habitations of the earth beside were Idolatrous therefore from that ancient purity wherein it excelled alone it is called Sancta an holy City The former renown did so remain upon it then when it had been guilty of the bloud of all the Prophets and had crucified Christ himself yet after all this the Spirit of God lets it retain a name fitter for its ancient Sanctity than for its present Iniquity Many dead bodies of the Saints arose and came into the holy City and appeared unto many Alas now it is neither holy nor yet a City but first a Theater upon which all wickedness was acted and then an heap of ruines Although after the change of many names which it hath suffered Adrichomius says that the Turks in their Language call it the holy City to this day How well doth this parallel the state of the Roman Pontificat at this day We are often told and the oftner the less reason here did the Apostles Peter and Paul preach and suffer Martyrdom here have thirty faithful Bishops successively suffered for the name of Christ here have the Arrian the Nestorian the Pelagian Heresies been refuted this is the holy City Yes as Jerusalem is so entitled for the pure Worship of God which was once professed there not for the present faith and sincerity all places have admitted impurity and corruption for it was denounced to man that the whole Earth and every part of it should bring forth thorns and thistles unto him All Kingdoms and Cities have their periods and shall have them to shew that Gods Kingdom only is perpetual All Nurseries and Seminaries of Faith have had their full Tides and their Ebbings their times of Grace and their aversions from it to shew that truth is only established in the heavens And I doubt not but after the revolution of those years and days which God hath prefixed in his secret knowledge it will be more easie for our Posterity than it is for us upon great alterations that happen in all places to prove that where the Papacy now reigns it suffers the same fate with Jerusalem was but is not the holy City Well to seek further into this Point the Tempter did devise rather to pollute Christ than the City of God to which he brought him yet certainly thither he brought him because that place did serve his turn better than the solitary Desart Our Saviours own Kindred were ambitious to have him manifested Shew thy self unto the world and this was the very Pin which Satan did drive at that Christ would affect to be gaz'd upon and admiâed Digito monstrari dicier hic est to be pointed at for the mighty Prophet upon whom the Spirit descended at Jordan in the sight of all the people What went you out into the wilderness to see There is nothing to be seen in the Wilderness that is no place for pride to do its work in But come to Jerusalem and there are thousands of spectators to take notice of a Prophet This is the nature of vain-glory to mingle it self in a populous throng where it may be observed Ut
and efficacy therefore it is very ancient Canonical Law which forbad that any person endicted for a fault secretly committed and therefore accused either upon bare suspicion or upon the mouth of one witness should purge himself by dipping his arm in hot scalding water or by walking between plow-shares red hot unequally laid which was called the Ordeal Fire for these creatures thus imploy'd have no force by nature to manifest a truth and much less is any promise annex'd unto them to be the instruments of examinatory Justice by Divine Revelation If it be pretended that God appointed the woman suspected for Adultery to drink a draught of bitter waters which should discover whether she were innocent or no I answer That this one instance was peculiarly enacted by God who no doubt would assist such miraculous proceedings as were of his own institution but it is an unpardonable boldness to imitate him in his Omnipotent Ordinations and to ascribe unto other humane causes that they shall reveal hidden things which cannot be searcht by mans wit which is proper only to the Creator is to commit Idolatry obliquely and to seek that from a poor contemptible creature which is to be expected only from Almighty God Nor doth my Doctrine hold only in things that are common and profane but even things of the Divinest use are abused when we would wring out from them to detect Thefts or Murders or other Trespasses which cannot be discover'd by the ordinary way of Justice Therefore this Canon of a Provincial Council in Worms is dislik'd by grave Authors That if any things were stoln in a private Monastery where some Monk must needs be the Thief and all denied it every one of them should receive the Holy Sacrament with these words pronounc'd Corpus Domini nostri sit tibi ad probationem Let the Body of our Lord be thy trial or probation This was an insolent temptation for the Sacrament is taken to Commemorate Christs Death until he come not to detect such as were suspected of pilfering And however the sifting out of truth to discover the enemies of Gods Anointed and to lay open perilous talk against his Sacred Person may require such means and trials as are justly to be denied to all other cases yet we see the renowned Piety of his most Religious Majesty that would not have truth decided by the sharpness of the Sword no not in a matter that concern'd his own Royal Safety and when the Laws of the Realm did directly put that course into his hands and when his Royal Ancestors in this Island and sundry Princes in other Kingdoms have often us'd it for all this his excellently guided Conscience would not hazzard the blood of an Innocent as one party must needs be so where there is no certainty of assistance promis'd from God that the guiltless should be the Conquerour My Text hath directly led me to praise God that hath so guided the heart of his Majesty not to tempt the Lord. I did not strain to bring this note in by force for I wish no mercy if I do not vehemently abhor slattery But how ill is this noble example followed by the vulgar no toy can be lost no secret which we desire to know be kept in obscurity but being impatient to want their will an hundred sensless Charms and old Wives devices and casting Figures and casting Lots shall be sought after which God hath no more appointed to manifest hidden things then the wagging of a Feather or the shaking of a Leaf before the Wind. Beloved mark this Rule Si non potest sciri quare inquiritis secreta ad Dei tribunal spectant It may be the thing we inquire after concerns us deeply and would give us much quiet and content to find it out but where God hath denied you the ordinary means of discovery it is a sign that he means to reserve it in his own power and knowledge therefore to fly to these extraordinary ways ways after our own hearts but never allow'd in the word is to endeavour by force to pluck it out of Gods bosom If the Lord should offer you a miraculous or supernatural assistance to unrip any secret wickedness it were not to be refused as in a few examples the casting of Lots is granted in Scripture either to reveal some hidden truth or to foreknow somewhat to come but out of those cases such things are not to be medled with nor in no wise to be taken into your consultation For it is not in the power of those that use the Lot nor in the nature of the Lot to effect that necessarily whereunto it is employ'd therefore I damn it as an indirect means that is taken up against or beside the will of the Lord. Let me give you to see that one word of excuse which is very trivial is very erroneous and I will hasten to conclude Many do object that the Scripture hath no pregnant place in it which condemns the decision of truth or the finding out of hidden things by Duels by Ordeals by Lotteries by other Divinations I but can you shew me where the Scripture hath bid it to be done or else you have said nothing for where no Faith is the act which you undertake cannot be free from sin but where there is no warrant of the Word of God there can be no Faith Do you think it is possible to build Faith hereupon that such a course is not directly forbidden it cannot be for Faith without the Word and without promise is not Faith but presumption So I have delivered my mind how many ways it is offensive to tempt the Lord. I have prepared all things before to say little to the last point wherein the trespass consists to tempt the Lord. In two things first in Infidelity secondly in want of due reverence to the Divine honour 1. It is a token of little Faith yea of Infidelity to be uncertain or unskilful in any of the Divine Attributes but he that tries God it makes his action guilty that either some whole Attribute of the Divine Nature or some degree of excellency in it is unknown unto him as Ananias and Saphira put it to the trial if God had so much knowledge to discover their dissimulation Zachary tempted him whether the message which the Angel brought were verily the Divine Will The Israelites mis-doubted his power when they said Can he prepare a Table in the Wilderness Secondly He that tempts a thing upon no necessary cause esteems light of it and makes no reverential account of it as he ought but that he may toy with it at his pleasure as he that will pluck a Lion by the lip certainly he neither fears the anger nor the strength of the Beast So he that will assay what God can do only to satisfie his own curiosity it is evident he sets very little by the Divine Honour But we were not best to make sport with Sampson as the Philistines did
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
which thou puttest upon me I will bear But the Tempter says none of these defects should trouble Christ he would cull out for him all the choice and desirable things the power and the glory as the Poet said of his Stilicho the good things which were scattered and divided in many hands in te juncta fluent they should all meet in him as in their center Though the spiders web be made on the top of the house yet it is quickly swept away so all ambitious thoughts which scale up upon the Devils ladder are quickly dismounted if you will remember that no man can subsist on high who hath the plummet of iniquity to weigh him down though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung he shall fly away as a dream yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night Job xx 8. When Herod sat in his Majesty but was exalted against God in the pride of his heart an Owl presented it self before him on the top of his Throne ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as Homer calls it a bird of fatal prediction and Herod himself took it for a presage of some sudden and miserable death and so it came to pass Methinks every one that hath hoisted himself into advancement by impiety should often see some such dismal Owl before him an infallible presager of great misfortune for God will be glorified in their ruin that did not account his service before all things to be their glory and the glory of the world O what an happy thing it is when God shall call a dignified and an honorable person his friend as it is in the Parable friend set up higher but I will never clamber up by base and sinful arts that God shall say art thou ascended higher O mine enemy God hath taught us to pray My will be done and mine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory in the Devils Academy the lesson goes thus worship me and let my will be done and thine shall be the Kingdom the power and the glory Satan cares not to whom he passeth away that Doxologie that chain of praise and honor which belongeth to God Kingdom power and glory for he pointed to the Kingdoms of the world they were included in the gift and said All this power will I give thee and the glory of them as who should say if Christ would make a God of him he would make a God of Christ ka me and ka thee fall down and worship me as if I were a God upon earth and thou shalt have Kingdom power and glory as if thou wer 't God in heaven This Satan spake not of himself but like Caiaphas he prophefied he knew not what I must not forget where one good turn hath deserv'd another much after this example The Conclave of Cardinals that know the Pope to be justly no more than a Bishop of one Diocess in Italy enstile him above Caesar and all free Monarchs that are anointed Kings and the Pope to requite it knowing the Cardinals in their original to be but Parish-Priests of Rome hath given them precedency above all Princes mulus mulum scabit This is my Text directly borrowed to make that match if you will fall down and worship me ye shall have power and glory But to return Get thee hence Satan sayes our Saviour in the next verse or as He chides in St. Luke Get thee behind me Satan He is behind all the servants of God in many degrees worse than the meanest Christian it cannot be in the capacity of such an underling to be the Patron of honor Medice cura teipsum why doth he not recover the glory which himself hath lost if he be an advancer beside such an ambitious spirit if he had any thing to give would never part with his Royalty or if he had ends to communicate and impart for certain he would pass over David Hezekiah Josiah that brake down Groves and Images and used all hostility against his Idols Away with such a giver He that seeketh honor and a blessing with it let him seek it of the Lord and look upon himself with that comfort that David did when God had brought him from following the Ewes great with young to set him with the Princes of his People David sings it merrily Psal iii. 3. Thou art my worship and the lifter up of my head As for Simon Magus that grew great with Nero by Sorcery and Vrijah the Priest who wonn King Ahaz favour for prophaning the Altar of the Lord and Rhehoboams young Courtiers that swayed all by flattery and giving evil counsel every dignity that such men get shall be an evil destiny unto them for God is a jealous God and will deface that Coat of honor where the Devil was the Herald that sold it for iniquity And whereas the wickedly advanced takes it upon Satans word that power and glory shall be the supporters of his Escutcheon it shall be much otherwise in the proof Is it power they look for God wot it shall be thraldom Falsam spondet potentiam Qui facit peccatum servus est peccati sayes St. Austin There is no such servitude in the world as to be sold over to sin and his servants ye are to whom you obey Is it glory they hunt for but it will fall out to be their description which the Apostle makes to the Philippians whose glory is their shame Either their memorial shall perish with them or their infamy shall be depainted in some better history to after ages To conclude this point stop your ears at such promises as kingdom and power and glory and pay such sacrifices of praise to him that ows them I will magnifie thee O Lord my King said David Psal cxlv and at the 12 verse he speaks it open that thy power thy glorie and mightiness of thy Kingdom might be known unto men Thus far I have proceeded to shew that promotion especially to the noblest honors to power and glorie is a fiery dart so dangerous to speed that Satan seldom casts it in vain Then imagin how far he hoped to prevail when he drew his arrow to the head and sollicited Christ with the promise of all the Kingdoms of the world All this power will I give thee and all the glory of them A magnanimous lye and he that would study for such a thing could not tell a louder Though by prestigiation or some hidden art he could shew all the Kingdoms of the world in the twinkling of an eye yet it is not so easie a task with his leave to give all the Kingdoms of the world in the twinkling of an eye he must have a strong stomach and a most robustious belief that could concoct this opinion that all the Rulers of the earth even the mighty Roman Monarchs the greatest of all Princes in that age would submit their Crowns and take law
this power and priviledge even while he debased himself in all humility Did he not consent to the destruction of the Gadarens Swine and curse the barren Figtree Because his jurisdiction extended to any thing in the world Did he not send for the Ass and the Colt with absolute command saying no more but the Lord hath need of them Did he not charge the Souldiers to let his Disciples alone And no man toucht them All these are Arguments of indefinite authority But this Government which is most ample perfect eternal was not after a Regal way as David and Solomon were Kings in Israel It was not contrary to the Rulers of the earth usurping any power to thwart and controule theirs but a transcendent exaltation above them and above all things visible and invisible yet withal he was most obedient and subject unto them paying Tribute unto Cesar and medling with no Humane Laws to divide their Inheritance that were contentious If he had professed himself an earthly King it had hindred the work which he had in hand to perswade men to the contempt of honour and glory Yet having all power given him of his Father it argued the more humility that he made himself subject to most vile men therefore it is put into the Creed that he suffered under Pontius Pilate meaning that he took his death with patience under the authority of a most unjust Governour Therefore St. Austin endites these words as from our Saviours mouth Hear me Jews and Gentiles hear me Circumcision and Uncircumcision hear me all ye Judges of the world Non impedio dominationem vestram in hôc mundo Enjoy the Principalities of this world unto your selves I do not hinder them In the third Conclusion I determined how in most proper and safe construction we must say that Christs Kingdom was a spiritual Kingdom I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Psal ii 6. The Psalm speaks of a spiritual Sion as St. Austin notes because it is termed an holy Sion therefore it must be understood of a spiritual King His Unction was not that Coelestial and not Corporeal With my holy oyl have I anointed him with the grace of Unction Such as the Unction is such must be the Kingdom a spiritual Kingdom His Priesthood was not carnal such as Aarons was but spiritual such as Melchisedechs was Like as was his Priesthood so was his Kingdom Those whom God had given him What were they His Disciples that never forsook him those that were born again of the Spirit His Subjects were Spiritual therefore his Kingdom could not be Terrestrial The Law of Moses was carnal so it was esteemed imperfect and is disannulled the Law of Christ which is set up instead of it is the Gospel which prescribes a reasonable and an holy service Where the Law of Christ is spiritual his Kingdom must needs be within us it is a Ghostly Kingdom Finally all the good things thereof concern the Spirit grace peace of conscience remission of sins and eternal life Says Fulgentius the Gold which the wise men of the East offered him in his Cradle shewed him to be a King but not such a King as will have his Image and Superscription in the Coin but such a one as seeketh his Image in the hearts of the Sons of men After the Angel had said The Lord would give him the Throne of his Father David Mark how divinely the words are qualified in the next verse And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end He shall reign and did reign here not in regno sed in domo in no Monarchy but in a Family in the house of Jacob that is in the houshold of the Faithful for alas they are but a Family to the potent multitudes of Unbelievers One question before I shut up the Point Christ was promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob Principally to Abraham What means the Angel then to omit Abraham and Isaac and to speak of one and no more that he shall reign in the house of Jacob Why the house of Abraham had Ismael as well as Isaac but Ismael was the Seed of the bond-woman which figured those that pertained not to the freedom of the Spirit The house of Isaac had Esau as well as Jacob Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated He reigned not in all the house of Isaac But all the twelve Sons of Jacob were Circumcised all blessed all represented the Church all heirs of the Promise and because Christs Kingdom was totally spiritual in the Faithful and Elect the Angel very properly delivered his Errand that He should reign in the house of Jacob. This last part of my Sermon was very necessary to be insisted upon that our Lord Christ invested himself with no such honour as Satan tendred to him All this power will I give thee and the glory of them Yet he had a Kingly Office adjoyned both with Priestly and Prophetical Offices Those are holy Functions the Devil likes not them he never spoke of them Nay let us have the Priesthood to serve God or let us take nothing without it St. Peter tells us we shall be Regale Sacerdotium a Royal Priesthood We shall have a Kingdom and a Priesthood combined together far exceeding all the power and glory which mortal men do manage Run fervently to the end of the Race and you shall have the prize Deus vult omnes suos athletas coronari says St. Hierom God will have all that try Masteries for his sake receive the Laurel and the Crown of Victory Every Saint hath his Kingdom who is cloathed with immortality and honour to live with the Lamb of God for evermore But you will say What Abraham a King Moses a King Peter and Paul Kings Where are the Nations which they govern Where are their Subjects Regnum est ubi nulli inimico subjicimur non quia populus nobis subjicitur A full answer it is a Kingdom because all our enemies are trodden under our feet not because any of the Blessed are Liege-men and Vassals unto other In the fruition of that Kingdom a main part of the Soveraignty will be that he shall be trodden under our feet who is so impudent and audacious in my Text to offer all the Kingdoms in the world God replenish us with the Kingdom of his grace in this life and exalt us to his Kingdom of glory hereafter AMEN THE SEVENTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 9 10. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Then saith Jesus unto him get thee hence Satan OUR natural Philosophers say very truly that a Serpent lays not her eggs one by one but they come from her in a cluster like a rope of beads and hang one at another in a string Satan deserves no better comparison than a Serpent the sins which he suggests no better comparison than the eggs
boni nostri An infinite perfection of excellency on which all things do depend for their first being and for their last happiness So St. Austin Haec est religio Christiana ut non colatur nisi unus Deus quia non fecit animam beatam nisi unus Deus Religious prostration seeks out no object but such as can make the soul blessed for ever and that is the only Lord. St. Hilary In maledicto est religio creaturae All Religion done to a Creature is accursed That Weather-cock Spalatensis after much search in antiquity confesseth that Nazianzen in the Greek Church Gregory the Great in the Latine Church knew of no other Religious Worship but that which is called Latria the veneration of God Nay their great Schoolman Aquinas I will make him the Judge against himself Religio est virtus exhibens famulatum Deo in iis quae specialiter pertinent ad Deum Religion is a vertue which doth perform all Ministry to God in those duties which peculiarly belong to God Go now and say against all these reasons and testimonies there is some kind of Religious Worship pertaining to a Creature I have heard some interpret it thus it is not denied but we are to give honour to the blessed Angels and Saints yes verily God forbid else Then they encroach that we are taught by our Religion to give them that honour therefore that honour which we do give them is Religious A most unlearned Assumption Religion teacheth the Children to honour the Parents yet it is not Religious honour but Civil that is given to our Parents Religion teacheth a Mariner or Plowman to follow his Calling diligently yet those are not religious but worldly businesses Religious Worship is the actus elicitus the immediate act which flows from Religion but all other honest civil Offices are actus imperati à latria Actions wherein Religion governs us and teacheth us but they are not properly called religious In a word no such excellency can be apprehended in a Creature to have religious honour done unto it for Religion binds the soul for ever to that it worships and that is only to God Therefore I conclude the first Dogmatical part of my Text that Christ included all kind of religious honours exempted none when he said Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And when the Pontificians profess to ascribe a Religious Dulia but no Latria to a Creature their Practice and their Doctrine cannot agree if they yield Religious Worship of what kind soever to any thing save unto the Lord our God if it be not Idolatry it is gross Superstition ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The glory of a pious heart be given to God alone and not to God and the ever blessed Virgin joyned together as the Jesuites generally conclude all their Books with that Blasphemy There is more of my task behind though but little of it can be spent in this hour to demolish the errors of them that have offended against this Imperial Law Thou shalt worship c. Sundry false opinions have beaten upon these words as upon an Anvil open enemies and deceitful friends have risen up against it Some are totally some in half some are quarter Idolaters but the least corn of that sin is as heavy as a Milstone to plunge them without repentance into damnation In many of the Errors to be refuted I will be at a word and dispatch in some I will insist the longer where I find them worth my labour Those transgressors that worship not God alone are of three sorts The first are such as make another God than the Lord of heaven and earth in their own heart and worship that invention The second are they that kneel unto the true God and yet reserve some part of Religious Worship for his glorified Creatures as the Blessed Virgin the Angels the Saints both living and departed both themselves and their very Reliques shall have some part of their Adoration Thirdly Beside the honour which they give to the invisible God they find out a way to worship him in visible works of their own hands in Images in the figure of the Cross in the Elements of the Lords Supper All these are Aberrations for there is but one truth against them all Thou shalt worship the Lord c. First God loseth all his honour at their hands that frame a new God in their own heart and do all their service to it like the Ephesians that hallowed no other power in heaven and earth but a Goddess of their own acceptation Great is Diana of the Ephesians This is the most gross Idolatry of all other which professeth not the true God one whit and professeth that to be a God which hath no subsistence but the Metal of Gold or Silver or any other stuff upon which the Artist exercised his invention This is the foul and apparent transgression of the first Commandment but to worship the true God in a manner contrary to that he hath commanded in a piece of bread or in an Image is Idolatry by reduction and against the Second Commandment But the transgression of the Heathen was most vicious that knew no God but the works of their own hands The Scripture says they sinned more grievously that worshipped Baalim than they that worshipped the true God in Jeroboams Calves For Jehu called the Israelites that worshipped God in those Calves the worshippers of the Lord. But when Ahab was not content with that sin but was seduced by his Wife Jezabel who came of the Idolatrous Zidonians says the Lord as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the Son of Nebat he went and served Baal and worshipped him 1 Kings xvi 23. It is more pestilentious you see to worship a stark Idol than to worship the true God in an Idol though both are abominable But I will not speak of that stupid Idolatry of the Heathen whose own folly hath laught it out of the world if the workman could have put life into his work the Statue would have worshipped him for making it All those puppit Gods are faln down like Dagon of the Philistins and the Jewish Writers observe well that Dagons feet and hands were broken off from his body Partes adorationis abscissae sunt The Philistins worshipped that stock with their bended knee and their hands lifted up therefore the Idol lost his hands and knees Furthermore Dagon fell down upon his face Non tantum jacens sed super os jacens ut videretur adorare arcam Domini He was laid in a posture as if prostrate before the Ark of God as if the Heathen and all their vain inventions should be turned into the praise of the true God Worship him all ye Gods I will close this Point with a Paradox They which most abhor all Pictures and Images at this day they which hate them more than they should do even in
make supplications unto them When I commend my self to the Prayers of any man upon earth I attribute nothing unto him falsly as divine he hath ears to hear me he hath memory faith and chariry to commend his brethren to God But when I do the like to the Saints granting the distinction that they call upon them to intercede not to perform their request but when I do the like to them I make them stand in the place of God to hear all men every where at once perhaps lifting up their voice nay perchance no more than the thought of their heart unto them Solius Dei proprium est ubique omnes audire exandire It is the excellency of God alone to hear and attend to all men in all places at once Therefore he makes an Idol of that Saint in whom he supposeth as much vertue and excellency to hear him how much soever distant as is in God himself I omit burning Incense to their Shrines making Pilgrimages to their Sepulchres Building Churches wherein their memory may be worshipped and invoked And making Vows in their names which is one of the flowers of Gods eternal royalty They that are such earnest Devotees to Creatures and think there is not work enough for a Christian to worship God alone deserve that gross delusion which hath started from some of their own Confessions that many names are enrolled for glorified Saints and great Patrons of the Church whose souls are tormented in Hell Let God be worshipped for the holy Prophets Apostles and Martyrs departed so shall we our selves we trust one day have a place in that Coelestial Quire where the Lord our God is only worshipped and he only served day and night without ceasing AMEN THE TWENTIETH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve I Am come to this Text again in the zeal of Elias to let no kind of Idolater be unrebuked that doth not worship the Lord and serve him only according to these words which were Law at first and our Saviour by reciting them hath made them Gospel Take the Priests of Baal says that holy man and let not one of them escape 1 King xviii 40. I will trace his steps in this cause and will rather be a man of contention as Jeremy became by taking the Lords part then suffer Rags and Reliques Stocks and Stones to have an attractive virtue more than magnetical to draw religious honour and adoration unto them If men would hold their peace these things which I now proceed to arraign and condemn for having holy worship done unto them have no tongues to defend themselves They are not Angels or Saints departed they have neither life nor motion in them neither the Cedar that grows in Libanus nor the Hisop that grows on the top of the wall but the Trunck of the Cedar and such other things as Art hath made unfit for any further benefit of nature 'T is strange that sharp-witted men will take pains to extol such dull inanimate things as can never thank them And concerning inanimate liveless things how superstitiously such glory as belongeth to God alone hath been imparted unto them I shall spend my labours at this time for concerning rank Heathen Idol Gods imaginaries Deities and concerning the Host of Heaven above and the Spirits of darkness beneath how they are idolized by some I have maintained the judgment of our Church before But our quarrel against the Pontificians to vindicate all religious worship latrical and dulical to the Lord of Heaven alone is like a Suit in Law that holds many Terms as long a quarrel as upon any other common place in all Divinity I am in hand at this time with the same Controversie again to protest against four things namely 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Religious adoration of the Reliques of Saints 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Religious adoration of the Elements in the Lords Supper 3. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Religious adoration of the Sign of the Cross and that most stiffely and impudently maintained 4. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Worship of Pictures and Images whether resembling Christ or his Saints Wo is it for the Church of Christ that we must spend an hour in these dissentions but what peace can there be while these Idolatries are maintained under the name of great devotion and anathema denounced against them that cry out for the Lord and for his Christ to them glory and worship and to none but them And now I have sounded the trumpet to this battel I betake me to the particulars propounded First that Religious adoration of Reliques confronts the verity of my Text c. But in the Exordium if any one shall ask how do our Opposites worship or serve Reliques or any of the aforenamed I will satisfie him that for the intentions of their heart in their inward reverence towards these things we could not accuse them but that they profess and teach it is religious and holy honour for if it were no more than precious estimation to some of those things we would not disfavour their practice but consent unto it and for their outward behaviour which expresseth the affections within judg if this be not to worship to kneel unto to kiss those things to prostrate the body to hold up the hands and eyes and uncover the head before them judg also if this be not serving of them censing of perfumes in those places lighting candles to honour them adorning with the richest cost of jewels and gold Circumgestation Procession Supplication Festival days appointed for their service and as much as all these Guilds and Religious Orders appointed to attend them This is square and open dealing that I impute Idolatry and Will-worship unto them upon grounds of practice and confession Nay I have not said all no not by half touching that over respect which is done to the Reliques of Christ and his Saints They exalt them above the Altar St. Ambrose thought it a great honour for himself or any deceased Bishop to lye under the Altar they call that adoration which is given to them meritorious The Priests teach the people that there is a kind of grace communicated to those Reliques they take Pilgrimages to them swear by them carry parts about as Prophylacticks against bodily and ghostly evil and pronounce indulgence for venial sins to them that fall down and worship them Beside the main sin see the uncertainty of all this Of Saints they have mightily multiplied the number and of their Reliques far more than is possible to belong unto them Yet it is impossible to know by faith who are Saints deceased but those whose memorial is recorded in Scripture and for their Reliques it is not denied they are conjectur'd at by mere humane credulity The bones of a Varlet may be carried in procession for the bones of a Martyr decem millia talium rerum Romae fiunt says L.
as well as zealous intention of inward reverence Behold the creatures of bread and wine non quà sunt sed quà significant not as they are elementary food but as they are significant of greater things And for that significancy we bend our knees in the receiving to our Lord Jesus Christ not to do honour to the Elements let none be so simple or so uncharitable to say it nor to any visible thing present but to the Immortal God who hath saved us by the blood of his Son as of a lamb undefiled Now upon the taking of the bread and wine not absolute necessity but decency and order call for the duty of our knee The visible Sacrament is objectum adorationis à quo non ad quod upon occasion of seeing those things we do worship but the worship is not terminated to those things The people of Israel for certain worshipped before the Ark was the Ark any better sign of Gods presence than the Bread and Wine are of the Body and Blood of Christ The Ark was called Jehovah so those Elements are called his Body and Blood for the representation and Sacramental relation Throughout all the Old Testament wheresoever the people of God had notice of the divine presence and grace in signs ordinary and extraordinary they have with free conscience bowed down and worshipped Moses fell down to God when he saw the fire in the Bush Joshuah worshipped not the Angel but Jehovah at the sight of the Angel Josh v. The people fell down and worshipped when they saw the fire from heaven fall on the Sacrifice 2 Chron. vii 3. Nay Ezra cast himself down before the House of God when there was no House standing but the remembrance of the place What if a devout man walking through goodly Fields of standing corn and marking those plentiful blessings should uncover his head yea and kneel to give God thanks were not this well done much more though not any worship is done to the bread when he sees that bread in which by faith he receives Christ and all his benefits I will follow this point no further happy is he that believes and doth neither commit Idolatry to the outward Elements nor grudg at due and devout reverence to be done at the most Holy Supper of the Lord. Me-thinks now our last business of all touching the worshipping of Images should be but sport to skirmish with Babies and Puppies like the fray that is spoken of between the Cranes and the Pigmies O strong delusions in the hearts of men that there should be any cause to contest with Christians in such a Controversie Blasphemy Witchcraft Murder are not more plainly condemn'd in Scripture than to set up an Image for adoration and if Gods own words utter'd with his own mouth from Mount Sinai in thunder and lightning will not serve the turn to what end is it to dispute or preach against it but for Sions sake I will not hold my peace and for Jerusalems sake I will not rest The worshipping of Images is accounted no slender Ceremony among the Romanists but a branch of Religion wherein they shew great zeal to God and the Saints The Tridentine Catechism provides that the catechized in their childhood should learn this for Catechisms are principally for youth that it is not only lawful to have Pictures and Images in Churches wherein they see we assent so far but to exhibit honor and worship unto them Parochus sanctorum imagines in templis positas demonstrabit ut colantur left the people should think the Images stand in the wall for a cypher or for bare ornament the Parish Priest shall admonish his Flock that they stand there to be worshipped So Cajetan those stand not for fashion sake only in the Church like the Cherubins in Solomons Temple meerly to be lookt upon but to be adored and this is upheld with so much vehemency that they accurse all such as oppose it and with so much cruelty that we learn out of their own storie that Balthasar Hinâmarus was burnt at Vienna and Aegidius Hispanus at Sevil for denying that Religious Adoration was due to Images Beside what Panegyricks Praises and Poems have been made in honor of those Statues before which many miracles have been wrought though nothing truly done but by imposture and delusion What injunctions given to Penitentiaries to creep unto them What offerings of Plate and Coin and Jewels bestowed upon them and by the bounty of fools they are made richer than the givers and the living are defrauded of the works of mercy to deck an Idol with sumptuous bravery And after all this madness and cost to uphold the credit of their golden Gods Cardinal Bellarmine's voluntary confession is worthy to be noted nihil periret de fide aut religione si nulla ficta vel picta esset imago Faith and Religion should suffer no loss though there were no Image in the world This is even such another lightning as came from him in his Controversies upon Justification for after all his arguments to make the good works of the faithful have a merit of condignity he concludes tutissimum est yet it is the safest way to hope to be saved by Christ alone so after all his sophistry for Images this is plain dealing nihil periret de fide religione it were not the worse for Faith and Religion if there were no Images at all Lend your ear now to the stir that is made among their Writers what portion of Religious Worship is allowed to their Pictures and Statues that stand for Christ especially and likewise for the Saints That infamous second Nicene Synod whose Canons are precious in the eye of the Church of Rome to this day that pack of Idol-mongers condemned all such as said their use went no further than to put us in mind of Christ nay Tharasius the busiest man in that ill work said all that confessed they did esteem venerably of sacred Images and would not adore them were hypocrites It was there defined they should have Religious Salutation and Adoration but not latriam the most Religious Worship which is proper only to God The Tridenâine Council leaves men to pick what they can out of indefinite words and says only such Images are to have Veneration made to them and Holy Worship There are three Sects of opinions among their learned men who differently state the case Durandus says that Images are not adored but improperly and by abuse of the word quia ad praesentiam earum fit rememoratio exemplarium tunc adorantur in praesentia imaginum they being at hand do make men remind Christ and think upon him and then Christ is adored in the presence of the Image but not the Image at all Such remembrances sometimes might be spared because of the danger and scandal yet this opinion is moderate I only dislike that he says he would not have the people so taught for Christ bad his doctrin should be
quâ tanta sit fides ut speret omnia tanta devotio ut Deum videatur cogere let it be strong in faith to hope all things strong in patience to persist at all times and I know not what it is not able to effect to cast mountains into the sea says Christ to be transfigured says my Text into the glory of God to bring Peter out of Prison when Herod had locked him up within a brazen Gate yet then at the dead hour of the night did the Angel bring him forth and at the same time of midnight Peter found the Church at prayer for his deliverance Acts xii 5. Well I pray you remember that when our Saviour went up into the Mountain as well to be transfigured as to pray yet the Text names this only that he went up into the mountain to pray that name stands in chief and drowns the mention of the other business as if Prayer were a greater work than that resplendent Transfiguration And what needed he to pray but to bring us upon our knees humbly and frequently before his Father and our Father As Solomons Temple had three especial Ornaments the Golden Candlestick the Table of Shewbread and the Altar of Incense so three things of principal use do correspond to these in the Church of Christ the Word Preached which doth enlighten our darkness is the Golden Candlestick which is dearer says David than much fine gold Instead of the Table of Shew-bread we have the Communion of Christs Body and Blood the Table of the Lord. And instead of the Altar of Incense we have that which is much sweeter in Gods nostrils the Incense of Prayer Now abide these three to direct us in a good way says Bernard Verbum Exemplum Oratio the Word Preached the Edifying Examples of Holy men and Zealous Prayer but the greatest of these is Prayer Ea namque operi voci gratiam efficaciam promeretur for whether they be the actions of a pious life or the words of an eloquent tongue it is Prayer which accompasseth from Gods mercy that all should be effectual I have amplified this the more because some Ignaroes out of a preposterous zeal shuffle off this Christian duty with a most wicked and a regardless negligence if any man be transfigured from such a corrupt opinion by that which I have deliver'd it is that which I aimed at and which I desire of God yea it is that which our Saviour intended when he would be occupied in Prayer at that time and in nothing else when he was transfigured in glory Now in the fourth and last general Observation upon the Text as our Lord prepared himself with much humility in Prayer so in the consequent he was exalted in much honor the fashion of his countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering Beloved we are all like the Children of Israel standing below the Hill and dare not go up to pry in to the mystery of the inscrutable glory Let it suffice us to enquire into three things that follow which we may safely do since all Scripture is written for our instruction They are these 1. The Final Cause why Christ was transfigured 2. The Efficient Cause from whence this splendour was derived And 3. The Effect it self alteration in his countenance whiteness and glistering in his raiment In these three I will be brief without offensive curiosity to make us not only search but find out the cause why He would be transfigured I have regard to this rule of Damascens ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã every thing that Christ did in his conversation upon earth it is to be referr'd to the good of man First then I render this reason that the Redeemer of Souls lived in great humility upon earth nay like an abject worm to attract the love of the Church now he chang'd himself into this admired excellency to encrease their faith St. Peter pronounced a Confession of faith for all the Apostles Matth. xvi which their Master did exceedingly commend Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Yet they who did see the Majesty of God to be in him and did adore it were as yet ignorant of what glorification his body was capable which was the Veil of the Godhead He had suspended all outward appearance of Divine lustre that it should not shew it self in him To this meaning you cannot well choose but refer that of the Prophet Isaias chap liii 2. He hath no form nor comliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him that is he was pleased for a season not to look like one whose body had an illustrious influence from the soul and from the union with the Godhead he did suppress it till he was pleased to make it known Psal xciii The Lord is King he hath put on glorious apparel and in another place Thou art cloathed with Majesty and honour Indeed to have a brightness in his body as great or greater than the light of the Sun was as natural to that humane nature which is united to the Godhead as it is for the Sun to shine in the Firmament The Disciples marvailed that his face should glister this one time so that no Fuller on earth could make a thing so white whereas the greater marvel is that it was not so at all times Majus miraculum fuit hujus gloriae influxum reprimere quà m eam perpetuò retinere It was a greater miracle to restrain the apparition of this glory at any time than to have it alwayes dwel upon his face for blessed souls which enjoy God always have a virtue of claritude in them which redounds of it own accord into the body Therefore well might the Psalmist say of Christ whose soul was always blessed Thou art fairer than the children of men And though at other times his brightness was discoloured by humility yet now he removed the cloud and let his Witnesses see the fair beams of his Divine honor for a little time which is the first motive of his Transfiguration Secondly by this Apparition the three Disciples saw in what form he would come to judgment It is no dreadful thing to a good man either to see or to meditate with himself in what manner Christ will come in the Clouds at the last day to call the Quick and the Dead before him The Wicked that know they have crucified him again and trampled the blood of the Covenant under their feet will run into the dust for fear of his glorious presence and call for the Hills to cover them and the Mountains to fall upon them as for the Righteous that then shall be found upon earth in whose hearts he hath sealed the promise of his Holy Spirit they shall tremble with an awful reverence but when they have gain'd their memory to recall that he cometh with his reward in his hand they will praise that pomp of Judgment and say now our labour
is one entire Body one Tabernacle and no more Satan wisheth it were ten that there might be strifes among us I am of Christ and I for Moses and I for Elias even as among the Corinthians I am of Paul and I of Cephas and I of Christ This emulation and Schism comes of it to make more Tabernacles than one faciamus tria c. From the Builders and the Fabrick I proceed thirdly to the Possessors one for Thee one for Moses and one for Elias little Cottages yet Peter considered they would be somewhat for them that had nothing before Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head ipse faber domum non habuit he had not an house to lodg in though they call'd him the Carpenters Son Moses was thrust into an Ark of bulrushes Elias was turn'd out into the vast Wilderness Marmoreo tumulo Licinus jacet Cato parvo Pompeius nullo The mighty men of the World took up all the room from Christ and the Prophets all that the Apostle could make them were little Canopies of boughs and glad he had that for them that they might not want an Habitation What a narrow thing is mans wit though our will and desires are infinite he would confine him that is unconfined put all the light of the Sun into a Nutshel take up the vast waters of the Sea into a spoon that is comprize all the glory of Christ in a wicker Tabernacle How shall they praise his name from one end of the world unto the other How shall he ascend up on high with Majesty and honour Be thou exalted O God above the heavens let thy glory be above all the earth Psal lvii 11. Christs Kingdom is more communicable than to be thrust into a corner If they shall say unto you Behold he is in the desart go not forth behold he is in the secret Chambers believe it not Mat. xxiv 26. In like manner if they shall say unto you he is in Mount Tabor or in a Tabernacle do not regard them Numen ubique est he is in heaven and in earth and in all deep places Yet in this unadvised ejaculation it is true he that will make any fabrick for a sanctified end and out of a religious respect Faciamus tibi Let us make it for thee O God was very right if he had gone no further Churches are only consecrated and dedicated to the Almighty our English name is proof to go no further ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã say the Greeks the Lords house from thence we say Kyrk or Church by adding words of aspiration At the erection of the Tabernacle Exod. xl 31. At the consecration of the Temple 2 Kings viii 11. It pleased God to give a manifest sign from heaven that he possessed both And because the Lord did so solemnly shew his honor in those excellent places therefore it is fit they should be appropriated to him by us with a most solemn dedication both to make them publick for sacred offices and that the builders may surrender their right and make God the owner for ever and to make it awful to every man that they be not polluted with prophane abuse What says St. Paul have ye not houses to eat and to drink in Where you see even before Churches were erected he gave an admonition Prophetically that these two are things for several places to eat and to drink customarily and to pray and preach Christs Tabernacle indeed must be for our duty belonging to Christ and for no other service And though Peter thought not himself and his fellow Disciples worthy of a Tabernacle he thought perhaps they should be quartered with Christ to be his Ministers there yet he propounds as much for Moses and Elias as he did for our Lord one for Moses and one for Elias T is is the fond and offensive love of superstition to dishonour the Saints when they would heap immoderate honour upon them He spake far too much when he would exalt them to equal honour with their Maker and yet he spake it much to their injury when he would deprive them of the beatifical Vision and sweet Society of Christ For to confine them to their own Tabernacles was to make them want the joy of their eyes which the Angels desire to behold and to see his sweetness these two great Prophets came down from heaven I am glad Salmeron the Jesuite fell in with me in this Point says he they do all fall upon this rock on which Peter did who are so addicted to some peculiar Saint that they will equallize him with Christ himself This is to advance them to equality with God to make Tabernacles and Churches to them as unto God St. Austin liked not that and therefore that none might mistake he distinguisheth Nos Martyribus nostris non templa sicut Diis sed memorias sicut hominibus mortuis fabricamus We do not erect To the Martys as unto God but Tombs of remembrance as unto men whose spirits live with God for ever And in another place we allow them Monuments of honor but not Altars of divine Service ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Basil Divine Worship is due to God an honourable memory to the Martyrs Herod the Great was at great charge about the Temple of Jerusalem the work was good but his end was vain glorious and popular So men of liberal zeal but erroneous superstition built some Sacred Houses and did impatronize some Saints to be the Tutelary powers of those Churches and Oratories the work is good but the end is corrupt not that the sacred buildings are called by the names of Martyrs and Apostles as this is by St. Andrew we use those names by way of mere distinction to know one sacred place from another which perchance they imposed upon superstition Distinction of names is for variety sake and to take away confusion Sometimes by one Saint sometimes by all the Saints sometimes known only by the name of the Founder sometimes some famous work denominates them as Anastasia or the Resurrection and St. Sophia or Wisdom anciently the two most goodly Churches in the world and both in Constantinople Usually they are entituled by some renowned Martyr whose acts are worthy to be had in remembrance Nay sometime for mere distinction sake the buildings retain the names of fabulous Saints as Pope Gelasius himself condemned the Legend of St. George for Apocryphal they may add St. Christopher and divers more Yet the holy Oratories are no more dishonoured by those names than the Days of the Week by the Idol Planets Gods than the Ship which carried St. Paul by the sign of Castor and Pollux than Daniel who was called Bellishazzar from the Idol Belli Names of distinction are arbitrary and inoffensive to the judicious but Sacraries or Churches though they carry divers names are only to be built to God and consecrated to his
light enough for being secret any more The sootiest Coal when it flames is a very visible object and when once Christ brings our works to the great Conflagration of the last day then they shall no more lie hid but be revealed both to our shame and to our condemnation The next thing of observation in this cloud was that it overshadowed them So they saw a diminishment of that light which was in Christs body transfigured by little and little and it somewhat took off the amazement of the Apostles by abating the splendor which troubled them by little and little but of that enough before All that have taken pains to expound this miracle do generally accord herein Obumbratio Dei est symbolum divinae protectionis Where God doth cover any thing with a miraculous shadow it promiseth that the Divine Protection is round about it Leonidas the Grecian was told that his enemies came marching in such full Troops against him that their Darts when they threw them up would cover the light of the Sun Leonidas puts it off with this stout courage Tum in umbrâ pugnabimus then will we fight in the shade A couragious word and made very fit for a Christians mouth Believe in the Lord and we are all under his custody and defence beseech him to stretch his wings upon us and the Holy Ghost will overshadow us In umbrâ pugnabimus to that shadow we betake our selves to shun the fire of anger and the heat of concupiscence under that shadow will we fight against our Ghostly enemies We have two Regenerations or new births a spiritual an eternal The spiritual Regeneration which begets us again to life when by nature we were dead in sin is Baptism At that Sacrament the Holy Ghost came in the shape of a Dove to resemble innocency The eternal Regeneration is the Resurrection of the body and I have often told you that the Transfiguration is a model of a body risen from the dead and at that mysterious work the Holy Ghost came in a cloud that overshadowed them to signifie protection and safeguard in eternal security Beloved the protection of the holy Spirit consists not in Walls and Bulwarks but in a shadow in a refrigerium that comforts the heart and of all protections it is the strongest and the surest I do not say it is a resisting defence that we shall not be hurt that we shall not be spoyled that we shall not be killed then let Peter have staid where he was still and kept out of harms way for ever but the shadow of the Holy Ghost is an Antidote against the fury of the world it possesseth a stout Christian Champion with patience that he cares not to be hurt And what can trouble him who is strengthned in the inward man that he is above the malice of the world He that can overcome his own weakness is a great deal too hard for his enemies strength Gather us under thy grace O Lord as the Hen doth gather her Chickens under her wings and though heaven and earth should knock together our shadow would save us from destruction Fond fear the furthest from reason of all our passions Why did not the Disciples know their own strength and assurance when this cloud did overshadow them Did not the Lord declare that he took them into his protection And yet they were affraid But we are all so guilty now we deserve the effects of wrath that we distrust God to be angry when he takes upon him to save us Like a man that chooseth a runnagate Arabian to convoy him in the Desarts wore afraid of his convoy than of his enemies But we do ever deal with our gracious Father as if he were persona malae fidei one that broke truce and to be suspected We are jealous of his love jealous of his providence jealous of his protection The Proverb says That a friend wrongfully suspected turns an enemy And if we will not believe that God will be our Saviour we shall know he will be our Destroyer Be not affraid as his Disciples were when his merciful cloud did overshadow them I must suppose and I wish I may not be deceived that you have not forgot how I entreated at large that Moses and Elias preached at large upon our Saviours decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem that put the Disciples which heard it into a passion and no more of that again for brevity sake Another wave of fear came upon the neck of that in this Miracle when the Lord with his own voice spake in honour of his Son from heaven You must expect to hear of that upon the handling of the next Verse though after some pause of time perhaps when God shall give a fitting opportunity but that which occasioned them to fear in my Text was that all that good company whose presence delighted them so much was entring into the cloud and they were afraid they should part one from another Our last English Translation which I confess is a very accurate one and I seldom disagree with it yet in this place it is able to confound the Reader thus we have the words They feared as they entred into the cloud Who would not think this were the meaning that they feared as themselves entred into the cloud Yet it is not so for the Greek hath cleared it by using two several Pronouns in this verse the cloud ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã overshadowed them the Apostles Peter John and James but they feared ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that is plainly spoken of others not of themselves and we might thus have translated it to make all clear They feared when those entred into the cloud Euthymius refers those to be only Moses and Elias the common Exposition is that Christ also was one of those and when Peter and the other two saw their Master and the two Prophets enter into the clouds and themselves left apart they were afraid perhaps they should be quite separated from Christ and those glorified Saints I told you before how loath they were to part with Moses and Elias but it went a thousand times more against their mind to part with Christ A Cloud was a very suspicious thing that it was prepared to take him away for ever especially if the Cloud were advanced above the ground above the top of the Mountain as Clouds usually are then if Christ had entred into it those who were present would surmise he is going up on high for ever Moses his body was taken away God knows how and till this day no man knows what became of it Elias went away in a whirlwind many sought for him but he was not to be found And why might not the Disciples being in a great fear have this Cloud in a jealousie that it came to take away their Lord There is a certain Commentator of eight hundred years antiquity by name Ratbertus Paschasius who says that although this Cloud did not take him up
a tree Yet Christ avoided to be slain among the Infants of Bethlem he would not be cast down the steep Mountain in Galilee nor be stoned by the Pharisees but to expiate the first sin by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree he was exalted on a tree like the Serpent in the wilderness And there is somewhat of observation in it that he suffered in an elevation between heaven and earth to purge the Region of the Air from the infestation of the Devil Who was Damnatus ad acrem tanquam ad carcerem says St. Austin thrown out of heaven to remain in the air as in a prison and therefore called by St. Paul The Prince of the power of the air Eph. ii 2. Nay Hesiod the Heathen Poet came to this knowledge by what tradition I know not that wicked spirits enemies to mankind were diffused over that Element Therefore Jesus dying upon the Cross gave up the Ghost in the air that he might cleanse the air from those flying Serpents that is from Diabolical infestations says St. Athanasius Secondly He was mounted upon his Cross as a Conquerour over that which was trodden down and trampled under feet wherein he seemed to be condemned he condemned the world wherein he took infirmity upon him he shewed invincible fortitude wherein he suffered death he overcame the power of Death From that fatal Tree which the Jews prepared for an indelible ignominy Potentia redemptoris secit gradum ad gloriam says Leo The puissance of the Redeemer made it a degree unto glory The Devil stirred up all sorts of men against him his Disciples to deny him the Jews to accuse him the Souldiers to crucifie him the Passengers to blaspheme him The more opposition the greater was the triumph For the Psalmist makes it a Song of Jubilee They came about me like bees and are extinct as the fire among the thorns Let me give it a simile from another feast coincident this year upon the day of the Passion The Patron entitled to the noble Order of the Garter sits victoriously on horse-back and the Dragon is beaten under his feet and cast upon his back So our Champion rides in triumph upon the Cross and his enemy fell before him For Christ was visibly crucified but the Devil invisibly says Origen When our Saviour was transfigured and appeared in glory then Moses and Elias spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem Luk. ix 31. As if there were no fitter time to speak of his death than in that clarification because his death was the purchase of glory in that abasement he was exalted and did exalt us that believe in him in that machine and craned us up by his Cross to heaven And therefore he promised unto the penitent Thief when he was upon the Cross the joyes of Paradise because his Cross did open Paradise to all believers Two things are notorious marks that this kind of death so vile in appearance was a constructive exaltation First that the imperial Ensign of the Roman Army in the days of Constantine the Great was cast into the figure of a Cross known in ancient Authors by that obsolete word laborum it was a victorious auspice to have the flag of the Cross which was never overcome to fly before them Then it came to be extolled even to the top of the Crown of Kings A locis suppliciorum fecit transitum ad coronas Imperatorum says St. Austin Once it was infamous for a sign of a servile death now it is translated as it were from Golgotha unto the Crowns of Emperours Fructus arborem exaltat jam honor est non horror The fruit that hung upon the tree hath taken away all ignominy from the tree now the horror of it is changed into a Trophee of honour As the Serpent was lifted up so there was power and exaltation and victory in the sacrifice of our Saviour Thirdly As the Son of God was conquerant in death so he was glorified after death He humbled himself to death even to the death of the Cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him By his Cross and Passion he hath entred into heaven there to sit at the right hand of the Majesty for ever Now he is exalted in his Resurrection death hath no more dominion over him now his name is blessed and hallowed as the balm from which our salvation distilleth now his Kingdom is enlarged from Sea to Sea and the uttermost parts of the earth are his possession Now his people are gathered unto him to magnifie and praise him all Kings shall fall down before him all Nations shall do him service These are the success and the consequents of his humiliation Therefore as you would not envy his greatness in his Resurrection so do not despise the meanness of his Passion Non te pigeat videre serpentem in ligno pendentem si vis videre regem in solio regnantem says St. Austin be not troubled to see him lifted up upon a Pole like the brazen Serpent if you desire to see him sit upon his Throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords Ought not Christ to suffer these things and so to enter into his glory And let this confirm our faith and make us willing to be conformable to his sufferings The afflictive way nay the destructive way of persecution is the advancement of a Christian to be pluckt down is to be lifted up Through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God Acts xiv 22. As some did swim to shore upon planks in that shipwrack wherein St. Paul was a companion Acts xxvii so being all of us in the common naufrage of sin none are more safe than they that swim out upon the Cross which God hath laid upon them If we must bid farewel to temporal prosperity let us see what Pearls of patience and repentance we can find as Job did in the dunghil of sorrow and misery If Tempests blow stronger and stronger let us strive with Elias to go up to heaven in the whirlwind what we want in the Church Militant continue stedfast in the truth and it will be supplied in the Church Triumphant But in what estate soever you are be lifted up from the earth and let your affections be above Let not Satan get the upper ground and make advantage of it against us beneath Is he in the air Then shall my heart be in heaven Is he upon an exceeding high mountain in his tentations Then will I fly up to the Sanctuary of the Lord upon the wings of a Dove For the Mountain of the Lords house is established in the top of the mountains Isa ii 2. Would he have me look upon the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them No I will look upon him who despised glory and hath purchased honour by his opprobry upon him who was lifted up like the Serpent in the wilderness Draw near now and come unto that place where this
of Heaven and all the Stars thereof Moreover Vna Sabbati litterally rendred is not the first but one day of the Week because one is the first ground to begin numbring and Theophilact says the Lords day is called the one day of the Week either because it is the only day from whence the blessing is procured for all the rest or besides it is a figure of the life to come Quando una tantum dies est nequaquam nocte interpolata when there shall be but one day for ever and no night of darkness to interrupt it Thus much of the words The matter of the Point is of a more profitable use And hence I begin that as God the Father upon the first day did begin to make this visible world of Creatures so Christ rose the same day from the dead to signifie that a new Age was then begun Resurrectio est alterius mundi spiritualis creatio says Justin Martyr The Resurrection is well called a creation of a new spiritual world On the first day of the Week God said Let there be light and he divided between the light and the darkness Verily on that wise on the first day of the Week God brought the light of the world out of the darkness of the Grave and the life says St. John was the light of men Now this infinite work to tread death under feet and to bring all flesh out of corruption into the state of immortality being more eximious than to make man in a possibility at first to die and perish therefore all Christian Churches have desisted to meet together at holy exercises upon the Sabbath of the Jews and the first day of the Week is the day appointed to sanctifie out selves unto the Lord for what reason I will now unfold and it is a case of no small perplexity And let me auspicate from the Text and Authority of Holy Scripture and these places following do conspire to verifie the Truth Acts xx 7. Paul abode seven days at Troas the seventh day of his abode was the first day of the Week then and not before it seems upon the first day of the Week when the Disciples came together to break Bread that is to partake of the Lords Supper Paul preacht unto them This seems to approve that in the Apostles time it was no more in use for their Disciples to meet upon the Sabbath but as well to honor the Resurrection as to separate from the Rites and Customs of the Jews in the Spirit of God they did convene together on the first day of the Week From Preaching and Administring the Holy Communion let us come to Collection of Alms. 1 Cor. xvi 2. Vpon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come How can this be expounded but that distributions were made to the poor upon the first day of the Week in their most solemn Assemblies For if the meaning were that every man should set apart a share of his own gains upon that day in his private Coffers and not in the publick Treasury when their Congregations were together then Collections had been to be made from house to house when Paul was to come who desires it might be laid up in readiness as it were in one stock before 'T is pity we are faln from that good order but in the most antient Church I find that they never miss'd to carry the Poors Box about every Lords Day witness this place of St. Cyprian Locuples es dives Dominicam celebrare te credis quae Corbanam omnino non respicis Thou that art rich and wealthy dost thou imagin thou keepest the Lords Day as thou oughtest and dost cast nothing into the Treasury Thirdly as the last day of the Week when God rested from his works was called the Sabbath of the Lord so it is of much moment to the point that the first day of the Week is called the Day of the Lord or the Lords Day Rev. i. 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lords Day as it appears Rev. i. 13. John was walking on the Sea shore meditating upon holy things in the Isle of Patmos Very probable that there was no solemn meeting to praise God as it ought to have been among those Pagan Islanders otherwise John had not betaken himself to solitary Meditations but see how he was recompensed Nactus est Doctorem ipsum Deum quando fortasse deessent quos ipse doceret when he was disconsolate because he wanted Auditors to teach God preached unto him the Mysteries of the Age to come But to enforce the Text forenamed for an Argument we have but two things in the New Testament called the Lords the Sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord 1 Cor. xi 20. and this day of Christian Assemblies is called the Lords Day the Lords Prayer and the Lords House are good Phrases but our own not the Scriptures but as we keep the Feast of Passeover no more but instead thereof eat the Lords Supper so neither do we observe the Jews Sabbath any more but instead thereof we keep the Lords Day Thus far I have prest the Authorities of Sacred Scripture The Authority of the Primitive Church and so downward to this Age will convince it clearly against any that is obstinate Ignatius was St. John's Scholar and as if he had learnt of his Teacher he writes thus Let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lords Day which is dedicated to the honor of his Resurrection the Queen and Princess of all days Justin Martyr commands the same day to be kept holy to the Lord every Week in his 2. Apolog. So doth Tertullian more than once and I cited St. Cyprian before The Council of Laodicea speaks thus resolutely Anathema to all those that rest upon the Sabbath let them keep the Lords Day when they observe a vacancy of labor and do as becometh Christians The great Council of Nice doth not command the first day of the Week to be kept holy but supposeth in the 20. Canon all good Christians would admit that without scruple and then appoints other significant Ceremonies to be kept upon the Lords Day from Easter to Whitsontide I need not reckon downward after the Nicen Council because in one word I have not heard or read that it was opposed by any of the Fathers They knew that an appointed time must be allotted for every necessary Duty and certainly upon the abrogation of the Old Sabbath not Man but God did appoint a time for so necessary a thing as the religious Service of his Name Christ made an end of all Sabbaths by his own Sabbath lying all that day and night in the Grave and to hold that the Sabbath which is but a Shadow is to continue is to hold that Christ the Body is not yet come yet that being laid apart let us
have taken away the Body of my Lord. It savours therefore of justice that she is the first that after his resurrection profest her self his Servant and said Rabboni which is Master Now in the manner of this appearance three things are eminent among many that may be observ'd First Christ was known by the tone of his voice when this holy Saint mistook his person Therefore you see by this where you shall always have Christ seek him in his Word and there you shall find him He sends us unto them Joh. v. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye look to have eternal life and they do testifie of me In the works of nature we may understand that God is good by the crisis of reason we may beat it out that he is a rewarder of them that serve him by the tenour of the Law we may read what Ceremonies will please him but if you would meet with Christ look him out in the words of that sweet and blessed Covenant of our salvation the Gospel O how sweet is that word of God which is the only instrument and none but it to make us see Christ our Redeemer As we have heard so have we seen says David love to hear his word and then you shall see him see him here in his Sacraments of grace and hereafter face to face in his Kingdom of glory Secondly it lies in his own breast I may say and in the power of his own saving grace when his Word shall be effectual to bring us to the knowledg of him Mark it that Christ spake more largely and more distinctly one would think to this pious Matron when she mistook him than when she came to take notice of him He began thus with her Woman why weepest thou whom seekest thou Was not this Sermon enough to bring her into the right way yet the darkness of her mind continued and she had no stronger faith but that his sacred Body was transported out of the Sepulcher by some malicious injury and not revived by his omnipotent Divinity Yet after this he speaks unto her again speaks but a very little no more but Mary and her heart was opened Like that celebrated piece of Rhetorick which C. Caesar used to his Souldiers with no long oration but with one word Quirites he drew them to accord and appeased their mutiny So that there is hope as we pray and put our trust in God that although some have taken arms in this Island and will not lay them down notwithstanding much hath been said by way of treaty much hath been written by way of motive and perswasion yet God knows his own time and will bring it to pass we trust when some few lucky words to which the Lord will give his blessing shall distil down as a joyful rain to bring forth the sweet fruits of peace and obedience It is not line upon line word upon word but the assistance of the Divine Spirit with the Word that works knowledg and salvation With a short invitement follow me and I will make you Fishers of men Peter and Andrew left their Nets and followed their Master With a little call or beckning rather Matthew forsook the Custom-house and became an Apostle A little was said to Zacheus and it produced wonders in him Less was said to the Saint of my Text than to any of them all no more but Mary and she saw and believed Thirdly here the doctrin of St. John is verified chap. x. 14. I am the good Shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine Do you not spy an excellent order in the words the Sheep do not know him first but in the first place he knows the Sheep and then it follows that they know their Shepherd and his voice So he knew Mary Magdalen and called her aloud and then she was brought to confess the Lord. St. Paul corrected his own language to keep close to this method Gal. iv 9. Now after that ye have known God or rather are known of God our salvation begins at that end God hath chosen unto himself a people zealous of good works as who should say first he knows who are his but it is very preposterous to invert this as if first of all we did our endeavour to be known that is to be elected of God and to this is a witty allusion made Cant. ii 9. My beloved looketh forth at the window shewing himself through the lattess As if Christ did look through a Grate and saw us when we saw not him It is enough to have said thus much of the Apparition The remainder of my Doctrin must be raised out of the person of Mary Magdalen c. If this be the same Mary that was Sister to Lazarus of Bethany many learned Pens contend for it and let them for me but if it be the same woman Christ hath made good his promise to her and gone beyond it his promise was that wheresoever the Gospel was preached it should be told for a memorial of her how she had poured an Alabaster Box of Ointment upon his head to bury him but far more than so wheresoever the Resurrection is preached of she is enwrapt into the story and extol'd by a kind of singularity above all other persons he appear'd first to Mary Magdalen a thing which I dare say she did not request neither was that ambition in her to aspire to such a prayer that she might see the Lord before any of the faithful but it was a favour that was cast upon her Some immoderate zelots to the honor of the Blessed Virgin do little less than offer violence to the Evangelists for omitting that Christ declared himself immediately after he was risen to his Mother before Mary Magdalen saw him To prove it is impossible therefore to believe it is incredible None of the Ancients but Sedulius a Poet do adventure to affirm that Christ made any apparition to his Mother to shew he was no accepter of persons in way of carnal affinity He did appear to the Eleven and to those that were gathered together with them Luke xxiv 33. I suppose she was there at that time because she was St. Johns charge to take her with him He did appear to more than 500 Brethren at once it may conveniently be concluded she was one of that Assembly always preserving this priviledg to Mary Magdalen that he appeared first to her she was the first that saw Christ risen from the dead and the first that preached he was risen from the dead for she told it to the Apostles Yet that ye may know what soundness there is in Traditions Nicephorus pleads Tradition that after he rose to life first he made himself known to his Mother So Rupertus who allows to Mary Magdalen that she saw him first inter testes praeordinatos a Deo as a witness that should first preach him But the Blessed Virgin saw him before as one that did first rejoyce in him Bernard
Brethren Lastly as their Commission had dignity and sweetness in it so they were sent with profitable tydings to tell the Disciples they must go into Galilee and there they should see the Lord. What ailed them I may say that they were not already gone into Galilee for Christ had told them Mat. xxvi 22. When I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee Nay albeit the Women repeated this unto them they did not stir What though they would not go with him to his Cross would not they remove into Galilee when they were warned by Christ and now readmonished by the Women What might it be that hindred them shall I tell you what I think they had forgotten what Christ said and the tydings of the women made them keep closer to that place where they were Can it be that these women saw him in Jerusalem then surely say they the Lord will appear unto us in this City though we do not travel into Galilee But why did the Lord appoint the great intercourse between him and his Disciples in Galilee First it was remote from Jerusalem where much danger was there he might discourse with his Disciples with more privacy and security Secondly the Apostles were all Galileans and for their sakes he did this honour to their Country Thirdly to eject Satan out of his possession for it was a place of much sin called a place of darkness and the land of the shadow of death Isa ix 2. Fourthly there were many Disciples in Galilee and Christ had intended a famous meeting to appear to them all at once as some say on Mount Thabor where he was transfigur'd and that here it was where he was seen of more than five hundred Brethren at once Be it as it would be he promiseth they should see him there and he was better than his promise for upon this day at Even they saw him at Jerusalem Here is nothing that savours of any old grudg or displeasure no repealing of the former promise because they had forsaken him in the Garden but a confirmation of all loving kindness passed and an exceeding favour superadded that their souls might not be tortur'd with that long procrastination not to see him till they went into Galilee he prevented the time and appear'd to them in their own Chamber before they slept To this Christ who is faithful in promises and gracious in loving kindness be all glory AMEN THE NINTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION MAT. xxviii 13. Say ye his Disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept IN the Parable where the King made a Marriage for his Son and I may truly apply it this day was the glorious Nuptial of the Son of God but in that Parable the Servants went out for Guests into the high ways and gathered together all as many as they found good and bad So the Evangelists have filled up the story of our Saviours Resurrection with all kind of Circumstances of Saints and Reprobates truth and fictions good and bad It is agreed by them who have exactly wrote an harmony of the Gospels that Christ made five Apparitions and no fewer all of them upon this triumphant day after he was risen from the dead to the devoutest of all others men and women that loved the Lord. The first to Mary Magdalen The second to the other Women that were going from the Sepulchre to tell the Disciples what the Angels had said unto them The third to Peter Luc. xxiv 34. The Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared to Simon 1 Cor. xv 5. Seen of Cephas then of the Twelve The fourth to Cleophas and the other Disciple toward the setting of the Sun to whom he was known in the breaking of bread The fifth to the Disciples late that night Whereas they had received a Message to go into Galilee and there they should see the Lord yet out of fear and incredulity they moved not out of doors Therefore on the same day at Evening being the first day of the Week when the doors were shut where the Disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews came Jesus and stood in the midst of them and said Peace be unto you And howsoever some of those portions of Scripture are read for the Gospel to morrow some for next Sunday yet all those five Apparitions hapned upon this one day He appeared so often to the best of those that loved him but the relation of his Resurrection was made also on this day to the worst of those that hated him The Angels spake it to the Women in the hearing of the Souldiers that he was risen to life the news went from bad to worse the Souldiers tell the High Priests and Elders what they had heard and seen the High Priests again sophisticate the news and tell them fraudulently to Pilate for the Souldiers safety then Pilate and the High Priests agreeing together fill the whole Nation of the Jews by their cunning with incredulity Look not therefore to hear me speak at this time of those good Saints to whom the mystery of Christs Resurrection was the savour of life unto life but of those wicked Infidels who by their own impiety made it unto themselves the savour of death unto death There is not one good person within the compass of the story whereof my Text is a part It is Manipulus zizaniorum If ever according to the Parable God sent his Angel to gather the worst Tares in one bundle by themselves here they are The High Priests prevaricating with God and his Angels the Souldiers corrupted Pilate the Governour misperswaded the people wholly seduced bad is the best Yet St. Matthew and no other Evangelist hath interserted this piece of treachery among the other sweet Narrations of this most happy day And for these causes if St. Chrysostome hit it right ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã truth will have the better audience when it passeth through the mouths of most contrary Authors say not that his Disciples and such Women as had Christ in admiration spread these things abroad for the malignant Souldiers speak the same 2. That we may see that very hour when God did first smite the Jews with that vertiginous spirit to hearken to Cabalistical Legends to the doating dreams of the Rabbines as they do at this day that is in St. Pauls Phrase to profane and old Wives Fables For indeed this Text is a mere Romancy as arrant a Jewish Fable as ever was told A Conspiracy so full of rotten Fictions that nothing is true in it all but that it is a Conspiracy and that it is a Fiction 1. Then we must bolt out the Confederates Gebal and Ammon joyn together the High Priests the Elders and the Souldiers 2. The way of Confederacy is by putting a forged Tale in the Souldiers mouths they must avouch any thing that the Priests suborn Ye shall say 3. The Plot is collaterally against the Disciples for being ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã
a little extemporary acquaintance and no more with that to which they say Amen Next let every man preach that challengeth he hath the gift sorrily God knows and then he knows that Preaching will come to nothing as well as Prayer Beware that you let not our great Adversary subvert all Piety and Religion by these encroachments bad men may mock holy Ordinances but God is not mocked Fear the Lord reverence his ways receive the blessings of the Spirit with thanksgiving and praise rule the Tongue to glorifie him that made it to set forth his honour that gives it utterance AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE CORONATION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the Day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and he glad in it THE words which I have selected to preach upon are part of a Psalm which excels both in the Letter and in the Spirit rich in the litteral sense copious in the spiritual the Kingdom of David set forth magnificently in the one the Kingdom of Christ glorified in the other Sometimes the ditty of the Song points directly at the Throne of David and sometimes at Christs Triumphs over his Death and his victorious Resurrection I cannot choose between them both but think of the Country of Mesopotamia the fruitful Garden of the world girt about with waters the Rivers did flow in and out in all quarters of the Land and the Land was much more pleasant for the windings and intricate Maeanders of the Rivers So this Hymn hath a most delightful alternation in it skipping often from Christ to David and from David to Christ with sundry melodious changes as if it purposed to make the Reader lose himself if he did not curiously note the Narration There hath been much ado among Expositors whether the Psalm should concern them both or only one of them choose you which you will Some refer it all to David and to the rejoycing of the People in his behalf that they saw him happily inaugurated King of Israel after he had been long kept back by the House of Saul and many other potent Enemies The Jewish Rabbins make no other construction of it and they follow the Chaldee Paraphrast who doth thus read the 22. verse of this Psalm the Builders did reject the youngest of the Sons of Jessai and would not let him reign over them but he hath deserved to be received for their Prince and Governor therefore we will keep holy day and rejoyce Thus Vatablus and Isidore Clarius and many others of this latter Age have dived no further than into the superficies of this Scripture that is into so much and no more than concerned the Monarchy of David But they did not see into the bottom that lookt no further for the Antient Fathers of the Church not one but all have discover'd so manifest a Prophesie concerning our Saviour that nothing can be clearer It is a general rule that David in most of his Psalms had more regard to Christ than to Himself in this more eminently than ordinary so that the New Testament is full of the application Pick out the 22. verse The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner according to three several Gospels our Saviour demonstrates that himself was the Stone which the Scribes and Pharisees refused but God had exalted him to be the Head of the Church both ih Heaven and Earth St. Peter proves as much in the audience of many thousands of the Jews and none of them did contradict him Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified this is the Stone which is set at naught of you Builders which is become the head of the corner ver 26. of this Psalm Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord I doubt not but all the loyal hearts of Juda and Jerusalem did congratulate David in those words when he entred into the Royal City but all the Multitude of the People applied them to the Advent of the Messias Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord Matth. xxi 9. And indeed St. Hierom says that the Jews in their Liturgy of old were wont to read this Psalm in their Synagogues for the Messias sake and did put it among those Prayers in which they did heartily desire the coming of Christ the Lord Nay says Cajetan the 17. verse can become the mouth of no mortal man but it is the voice of the immortal Son of God to say I will not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Therefore those Authors that had the most judicious Palat have acknowledged that sometimes Davids matters are brought into this Psalm and sometimes Christs nay sometimes both of them in one verse as in my Text. The begining of the Psalm says St. Chysostom was a Celebration for the setting on the Crown upon the head of the King of Israel but ex improviso mutavit argumentum in a sudden extasie the Prophet changeth his argument and speaks of Christ nay says Euthymius if a man will be acquainted with the stile of the Propets let him remember that this is their custom intercidere solent sermones in rem aliam transire ne adversarii manus injiciant they use to break off abruptly and fall from one thing to another lest if the Enemies of the Truth did understand them they would make away those holy Writings to the irrecoverable loss of the Church of Christ This was necessary to be premised that you might know what to look for out of my Text namely David's Day in the Letter and Christ's Day in the Spirit In the Case of David no man doubts what day is pointed at surely it is the day of his Inauguration when after much resistance made by his Enemies at last he did enjoy the Scepter of all Israel quietly and peaceably and there was an Holy-day instituted to remember it with sacred Solemnity The Lord had made that Day happy unto David and the People did celebrate it in a joyful and religious manner I need not to tell you how proper that construction of my Text is to this Day wherein God hath settled our Anointed Sovereign over all the Kingdoms of his Father and I trust you profess your due thankfulness to God for his most pious and religious Reign and that we have great cause to rejoyce and be glad in it But which is that among all the days of Christ which God did make more transcendently than the rest there 's a little scruple in that point I find one or two refer it to the day of his Nativity but their reasons are weak and they are no considerable number to be followed St. Hierom and St. Austin are in the right I think for they apply it to the whole time of the Gospel wherein the terrors of the Law are broken and all things are most sweet and pleasant to penitent Believers Behold now is the acceptable Time now is the
Day of Salvation says Isaiah and that day reacheth from the time that Remission of sins is preached in the bloud of Christ unto the end of the world Now as the Text is common to all Evangelical Days so there is one Day that lifts up its head above them all the most memorable Day of our Saviour's Resurrection then it was verily fulfilled as Peter urg'd it that the Stone which the Builders refused became the head of the corner St. Chrysostom Nyssen and almost who not pitch upon Easter-day for the particular application of this Text that was the Day wherein God did bring forth a more eminent work than in other common days and upon every Sunday in the year for that Day 's sake the Church hath appointed sacred Assemblies that we may rejoyce and be glad Well then of Davids Day first and from thence how particular Holidays may be ordeined to magnifie Gods extraordinary benefits next of the blessed Age of the Gospel wherein we have great cause to rejoyce and be comforted for Christ hath wiped away all tears from our eyes And last of all I shall take the right opportunity to speak of the glorious Feast of the Resurrection and how the Church doth keep the weekly Feast of the Lords day to rejoyce and be glad in it And first the Holy Ghost hath left it written for the honor of the Lords Anointed This is the Day which the Lord hath made There is one thing in that form of speech which jarrs a little against the ear how can it be said that God did make one day more than another for he hath framed all Times and Seasons alike the Sun knoweth his going down and he maketh it return again every morning to give light unto the World In the Hymns of the Heathen he is called Diespiter the Father of all days indifferently it is he that sets the Heavens in perpetual motion and makes the hours run on and when he calls back his word the Plumbets shall go down and time shall be no more It is granted therefore that he giveth continuance and being to all days after one sort and for the Phrase of my Text a new Writer hath well exprest himself Non includitur mensura temporis sed conditiones tempori incidentes it is not meant of the Day which the Sun makes with his diurnal motion but of the great Work which was wrought in that Day that is not that God made that Day more than others but that He made more in that Day than in others It is vulgar to impute the condition of things which fall out in some certain dayes to the days themselves per metonymiam adjuncti although a day as it is meerly a space of time cannot possibly be capable of such Attributes We take liberty to call this a cold or a moist day not for its own sake but because coldness and moisture happen in the day so for the contingency of glorious things we call the day it self glorious and to renown the memorable acts of the Lord we have got a use to speak thus This is the day which the Lord hath made In 1 Sam. 12.6 according to the Original and that 's pointed at in our Margent it is said that the Lord made Moses and Aaron why are not all that are born of a woman the works of his hands as well as Moses and Aaron therefore our Translation hath rendred the sense rather than the word that the Lord advanced Moses and Aaron In like manner we may read my Text thus This is the Day which the Lord advanced for he made it remarkable with an extraordinary favour and thereby gave it a Dignity and Exaltation above its fellows The going out and the return of every year are from the Almighty with the store and abundance that it brings forth but when the clouds drop fatness with unusual plenty then the Prophet says that he crowns that year with his goodness Psal lxv 11. So some principal Days are crowned above the rest as this Day wherein through the sun shine of his mercy he set a Crown of pure Gold upon the head of David his Servant Piety forbid that we should not thankfully receive the most vulgar benefits I know that common things are commonly neglected but learn to see God in small things or you shall never see him in greater If I had learnt it of no other yet I find enough in Seneca for that use Communia negligenda non sunt c. neglect not to give thanks for common and quotidian favours for life and health and suppeditation of food that the Sun doth shine upon us that we have the air to breath in that the Sea doth ebb and flow for navigation There are days of small things as Zachary calls them chap. iv 10. but those small things are to be consider'd of us with a grateful heart who are less than the least of all his mercies but how much more requisite is it then to observe those days wherein some eminent blessings are confer'd upon us what a behooveful thing it is every man for his own part to keep a Calender of the famous Acts of the Lord for our Birth for our Baptism for great Preservations and to represent them before us at the return of every year with grateful acknowledgment from the bottom of our heart and when God doth see that we are so mindful of a prosperous Day he will grant us many prosperous Years and for the period of joy a most prosperous Eternity that shall never have a period This is made as plane then as you can wish upon what special Prerogative the Lord is said to make a particular day because he doth appoint some special favour to fall out upon it and the Wise-mans Question is answered Ecclus. xxxiii 7. Why doth one day excel another when as all the light of every day of the year is of the Sun It is not the material light which distinguisheth the nobleness of Dayes but he that made the Sun more excellent than the other Stars of the Firmament hath made Princes glorious as the Sun in the Orb of the Common-wealth and a Day of a Princes Exaltation is like a Prince among Days and in that capacity to be magnified Such a day is said to be made by God ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã because God himself and none else is the Author of the Power of Kings He and none but He took David from following the Ews great with young and set him over the Princes of his People In a word since the Day is taken for the Work of the Day the real meaning of the first words of my Text is this is the King which the Lord hath made Samuel anointed him the People shouted and cried God save him but the Lord did constitute him the Ruler of the Twelve Tribes and gave him his Sovereign Authority the Crowns of Glory in Heaven and the Crowns of Dignity upon Earth are both held by
Gospel we must always rejoyce for the Kingdom of Christ Upon the establishment of this Kingdom all the Creatures are adjured to express their gladness Psal xcvi I quote that place for there is none like it to this purpose thus the Psalmist ver 10. Say among the Heathen that the Lord reigneth let the Heavens rejoyce and let the Earth be glad let the Sea roar and the fulness thereof let the field be joyful and all that is therein then shall all the trees of the Wood rejoyce before the Lord for he cometh for he cometh to judge the earth Tenerae militiae delicatus conflictus as Gregory says We call our Pilgrimage upon earth a Christian warfare a wrestling with Powers and Principalities an affliction of the flesh the sufferance of the Cross c. And are all those affrighting words converted into this Lesson Rejoyce and be glad He that will stick with God for the duty Jubeas miserum esse libenter let him eat the bread of sorrow let him live in misery and mourning when he need not Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn while the Bridegroom is with them Says our Saviour to the Pharisees when they grudg'd that his Disciples did not humble and macerate themselves with fasting But the days will come that the Bridegroom shall be taken from them and then they shall mourn Two things I deduce from hence Out of the latter words it appears that dismal times will befal the Church Evangelical by bloody persecutions by the venemous tongues of Hereticks sharper than any two-edged Sword Yet those woful Calamities result not out of the Gospel it self but are extrinsecal mischiefs that force themselves upon it And though the Bridegroom be gone he hath sent the Comforter and in the midst of sorrows his enlightnings do enrich the soul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we converse says St. Paul among sad events as if we were sorrowful but in good earnest we are alway rejoycing But secondly it appears from the exordium of our Saviours Sermon Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn while the Bridegroom is with them That the Gospel in its own nature is a Bride-chamber or solemnization of a great Marriage wherein there is nothing but joyfulness and festivity Says the Apostle Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us that was the constitution of the Gospel Well what follows Therefore let us keep the Feast 1 Cor. v. 8. St. Cyprian reads it Festa celebremus let us keep the Feasts let us all days festival for Christs sake St. Paul alludes to the Feast of unleavened bread among the Jews which was held seven days continually without ceasing In like sort let us celebrate such a feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and Numerus septenarius est symbolum universitatis to keep it for seven days is from the mystical number of eternity to keep it for ever and ever Clemens says Vniversa vita justi est quidam celebris ac sanctus dies All the life of a good Christian is holy day Pope Sylvester meant it so when he changed the common names of the week days and called them all Ferias Feria prima secunda and so forth Nay our own Church intends it so likewise therefore in our Cathedral Churches solemn praise are sung to the Organ all the year long with the voice of melody and in Parochial Churches every day of the year when Morning Prayer is read after the Confession and Absolution of our sins the Introitus or Introduction appointed is an Hymn and thus it begins Come let us sing unto the Lord let us heartily rejoyce in the strength of our salvation If I descend to some particulars wherein our Evangelical gladness consists I know it will be more satisfactory to the Auditory First It brings with it a spiritual delight Secondly An external gladness which opens it self in signs and tokens The spiritual delight which we treasure up within the soul looking stedfastly upon Jesus that died for our sins and rose again for our justification is heavenly and unutterable it is a superlative joy that cries down all other petty delights It is risus ex serenitate conscientiae as the Fathers call it not Sarahs gigling but Abrahams laughter when he believed that Isaac should be born and involved in the same belief that Christ the Redeemer should be born out of the stock of Isaac The external utterances of a pious joy are these 1. Days of rest from bodily labour for the meaner labour must give way when a better and a worthier is to be undertaken And while the mind hath just occasion to make its abode in the house of gladness the weed of ordinary toil and travel doth not become us therefore it is fit that ordinary labour should sometimes surrender it self up to the service of God 2. To laud the name of the Lord and to give thanks unto him are the only language of our thankfulness Says David I went with the multitude unto the house of the Lord in the voice of praise and thanksgiving among such as keep holy day Psal xlii 5.3 God doth not deny it but he that offereth him praise doth honour him but will you know how that honour is best exalted Make a chearful noise to the God of Jacob singing and making melody to the Lord with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs If the Jews might justly say how can we sing the Lords song while we are in a strange Land while we are in Captivity Then we must acknowledge on the contrary how can we choose but sing the Lords Song being delivered out of captivity Singing of Psalms is a most proper exercise of our reasonable service Curious Musick upon costly Instruments is an admirable alarm for devotion in Cathedral and Collegiate places where such as are wise and skilful do come together to enjoy it Yet still the people have their Vulgar Psalms to solace their hearts and they that mock at such innocent harmony have great want of charity that they will not descend to the weakness of their poor brethren St. Hierom tells it of his days that as the people walk'd about the Market as they sailed in Ships as they wrought with their Needle they sung these holy Ditties Says St. Basil this is irksome to none but to the Devil let scoffers mark that for the evil Spirit went out of Saul when David played upon the Harp and David was no profane Minstril but an holy Singer 4. Another effect of Christian joy is to give because it abounds A joy that will not distribute to the needy is a shrunken withered joy nay a joy that will carry the curse of God with it because it wants fruits And a joy that will carry the curse of the poor with it because they are suffered to pine and languish in our publick gladness 5. And lastly all sorts of mirth and innocent recreation wherein our Substance is not exhausted nor our time trifled away are agreeable
to our Christian Conversation the heart cannot always be intentive upon the glory of God Miro modo ex amore Dei homo aliquando non cogitat de Deo At our times of respite from sacred Offices to delight our sullen nature with harmless pleasure it rubs off the rust of melancholy and puts alacrity in us to rejoyce always in the Lord. Away with the lowring of the Pharisee and take heed of austerity which is groundless and hath no foundation in the Word of God And here I stint my self to proceed no further upon the first part which I laid forth for you have heard enough that the whole current of the Gospel is that Day which the gracious mercy of the Lord did make all things without it are anxious and grievous all things with it are sweet and delicious and therefore it is the very joy of our heart But as commonly a Diamond is more valuable than the Ring wherein it is set so if I will take our Grammarians at their word annus quasi annulus that a Year is a Circumvolution of Time that hath no end but runs round like a Ring then I may speak it out of the mouth of all antiquity that the High Feast of Easter is the Jewel of the Year whose lustre hath been most beautiful in the eyes of godly men in all Ages As there is mention in Scripture of an Holy of Holies and a Song of Songs so Nazianzen calls this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Solemnity of Solemnities others the Metropolis of sacred Feasts the Queen of Holy-dayes and like the Virgin Mary among Women so this among the Days of the Year all Generations shall call it blessed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by Epiphanius the great Assembly the greatest Concourse of Christians throughout all the year Such a Concourse that when that day came the most bloudy Persecutions could not deter them from assembling together they that hid their heads in dark places and Caves of the earth would come abroad and fill up a Congregation as if they had rather choose death than be wanting to praise God for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ A goodly fair Church being built at Alexandria but not yet consecrated Athanasius was blamed that he suffered the People to meet together for the performance of Divine Service in a Church that wanted Episcopal Consecration his answer was it was the Feast of Easter and all other Churches were too little to receive those multitudes of Christians in the City and their ardor was so great that in despight of my authority they would fill up the most capacious Church against that principal Solemnity I should make you surfeit with story if I should tell you what religious care Christian Emperors and General Councils of most famous Bishops had to settle this holy Festival that it might be kept more solemnly than all the Feasts of the year Cui non dictus Hylas who doth not know that it was worthy to be consider'd and ratified by 318 Bishops in the first Nicene Council and they had reason to do so for it appears though other Holy-days dropt in one after another in later times yet the Apostles themselves and all Ages deduced from them did celebrate one day yearly for the Resurrection of our Lord. Therefore says Constantine the Great in his Oration at the Nicene Council be it lawful for us Christians rejecting the Jewish manner to honour that day which ever since the Passion of Christ hath been observantly kept until this time and let us transmit the due constitution of it to all Ages to come And so St. Austin commending the pious use of this Feast that which is an inviolable Custom in all Orthodox Churches of the world and hath none to gainsay it it must be confest that it was established by the Apostles themselves and that 's authority enough And those were most concordious and happy times that it being but a Ceremony of Decency and Order none did lift up their tongues against it These latter Ages have been more froward and combustious though David pointed it out with so clear a Prophesie This is the day which the Lord hath made though the Angels appeared in white early this morning in our Saviour's Tomb that is in the Garments of joy and gladness though St. Paul says upon our Christian Pasche Let us keep the Feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity though the Apostles in all likelihood ordein'd it though both Eastern and Western Churches kept a solemn Jubilee upon it yet some have snarl'd at it and would neither give it any particular honour nor appoint any Service suitable for that happy occasion The Church of Geneva was at that point once but I am far from blaming Calvin for it as some have done for their giddy-headed multitude had banisht him out of their City at what time they quite erased out all Holy-days and when he return'd again he did prevail with them to reestablish the two great Feasts of Christmas and Easter And for that which hapned before he answer'd se nescio invito factum esse it was neither done with his will nor with his knowledg It is more than I know if any other Christian Church in the world did keep no Feast for the Resurrection of Christ saving that this thankful remembrance of Christs victory over Death was forgot in the Church of Scotland till by the learned and pious industry of King James of Blessed Memory about eighteen years past they did consent at an Ecclesiastical Synod to receive five solemn Feasts in honour of our Saviour and Easter for the principal O how these Churches would have been inveighed at in Athanasius and Hierom and Austin's days I dare confidently say it they would have been excommunicated by General Councils none would have held communion with them during the time that they had no solemn Easter as long as they did not keep the Day which the Lord hath made Aerius excepted against that Holy-day and presently he was scored up for an Heretick But our Church which is most decent in all good order and reasonable Ceremony doth not only give honour to the grand Day but to the two Days following as the enlarging of our faith and joy and this is exact according to ancient order For in Nyssen's first Sermon on the Pasque it is called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Three days Festival and St. Austin speaks of it as a thing known that there was tertius festi dies a third day solemnized that as Christ rose the third day so the memory of it was kept in three days continuation Some have stood much upon it that the time when Christ rose out of the Grave is not called a Feast but a Day as if there had been somewhat in it to make it a Day rather than any other time Chrysologus gives his reason as one that is transported with joy beyond the truth that in the Morning wherein our Champion overcame
of the Creation This doth unavoidably suggest unto us that no day of the seven is fitter for our celebration than Sunday or the first day of the Week when Christ rose from the dead he having dispatcht all the works of exinanition and given us manifest assurance and joy for our eternal redemption And so I fall into the next member propounded what ground we have for keeping this day weekly to the service of God in the Resurrection of Christ Some what have been heedless in their assertions have confidently delivered that the Lords day is clearly instituted in the work of Christs Resurrection nay that the Resurrection did apply and determine the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment to the Lords day These go so far that all proof and reason forsakes them It is true that our Saviours victorious rising from the dead was a good occasion which the Church took to celebrate this day but that act of his rising from the dead was not instead of a Law to appoint the day They are not the works of God but his words that institute Laws and where there is no Imperative act of the Law-giver there can be no Law to bind In six days the Lord made heaven and earth and all things therein and rested the seventh day yet that Cessation of God from his works had not made that seventh day in every week holy to the Jews without his pleasure signified to keep it So the Resurrection of the Lord doth not make the Lords day a solemn day for Divine Service in all our Generations by a compulsory Statute unless it were said in the Gospel and so it was never said you shall keep the first day of the Week holy in honour of the Resurrection Without some imperative word or sentence to declare Gods pleasure we cannot deduce a Law And if the Resurrection of itself without a Precept annexed had exalted it to be an holy day St. Paul would never have agreed with them that esteemed all days alike Rom. xiv Out of this perverse zeal to make a rule out of Christs works without a Precept some would not be baptized till the age of thirty years because Christ was baptized no sooner Others stood nicely upon it that Orders of Priesthood were to be given to none before that age and for no other cause but because he preach'd no sooner Infinite fancies would be multiplied if these ways were allowed for good Divinity It is safe and true to say that the day is kept congruously but not necessarily for the Resurrection sake And surely the Primitive Church could have made choice of no day of the Week more proper and convenient for the Religious Worship of God in honour of that principal Article of our belief and the corner stone of all the rest Ignatius calls every Sunday ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Resurrection day St. Austin says Dominicus dies Christi resurrectione declaratus est ex illo coepit habere festivitatem suam Words which will bear no other construction howsoever some do torture them but thus that the Lords day is published by Christs Resurrection and from thenceforth began to be a Festival And again Domini resuscitatio consecravit nobis Dominicum diem promisit nobis aeternum diem The resuscitation of Christ hath consecrated for us the Lords day and doth promise us an eternal day yet there is no Imperative Edict from heaven to make it so but the light of holy discretion did guide the Church to appoint it so St. Austin hath clustered together many other admirable works of God done upon the first day of the Week in which God did make his first Creature of Light In which the Israelites went through the Red-Sea upon dry Land In which Manna did first fall from heaven In it was the first miracle of water turned into Wine Of the five loaves and two fishes In it Christ was baptized rose from the dead appeared often to his Disciples sent down the Holy Ghost and wherein we expect that at the last day he will come to judgment But the Resurrection is pre-eminent above all things else that hapned in it and that blessing though it do not ratifie a Law yet it is the occasion why this day is Weekly celebrated But I must tell you that one Analogy is ill prosecuted by some though it be vulgar in mens Writings That the Lords rest must be sanctified on what day soever it falleth that is not true unless there be a Law to enforce it therefore as the Sabbath was held holy when God rested from the works of the Creation so Sunday must be kept holy wherein the Son of God after his rising from the Grave rested gloriously from the work of our Redemption That last clause is falsly presumed for he made perfect our Redemption at his death and the price was paid for our sins not by his Resurrection but by his Sacrifice on the Cross and then he gave up the Ghost and said It is finished The day of the Passion therefore if you respect it as a resting from satisfying for our sins deserved to be made a continual Holy day but it was not meet to be kept with joy And mark it I pray you that we honour the day of his rising every Week rather than that of his suffering not because it is a better day or the day of his rest for he rested in the Grave and did spend his Resurrection day in much action but because it is the first day unto the Church of joy and gladness And a chief ingredient in an holy day dedicated to God is to rejoyce and be glad I proceed to the third thing to be inquired into what ground we have to keep the Lords day from any Precept mentioned in the Gospel either delivered by Christ himself or by his Apostles Certainly it never proceeded out of our Saviours mouth to appropriate this designed day to his honour and we must take heed to thrust Laws upon him of our own invention which he never imposed If such a thing had come from him no time had been fitter to express it than when the Pharisees cavilled at his Disciples for plucking the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath day Mat. xii Then he might have retorted that the observation of the Sabbath was expiring but he would constitute the first day of the Week to be the heir of the Sabbath Yet our Lord was so far from such a motion that whereas he reproved the Pharisees with much indignation Mat. v. and vi Chapters for their lax and dissolute interpretations of many moral Laws he corrects them often in the Gospel for being so strict in the rigid performance of the Sabbath which he would never have done if it had totally consisted of moral duties But about the definite appointment of a day Christ is silent for his Precepts in the New Testament are altogether touching spiritual worship And says St. Paul Carnal ordinances were imposed
necessary Imperative Law Sometimes it binds as when we find them frequently joyn Fasting with Prayer and where we meet with their strict Discipline that they delivered up obstinate offenders to Satan and cast them out of the Church but elsewhere their practice draws on no absolute necessity but leaves us to our prudent liberty and ties no harder as appears by their Colledges of Widows to wash the Saints feet by their Feasts of Charity c. For whereas St. Paul says That which you have heard and seen in me that do Phil. iv 9. It is a Commission that they may imitate him in any thing he did for he did nothing but things lawful yet it infers it not to be necessary to do all things as he did As a Physician may say to his Patient eat whatsoever you see me eat which is spoken by way of warrant not of necessary observation Well then since the practice of the Apostles sometimes leaves us at liberty to follow them sometimes presseth the duty upon us and we must do as they did how shall we know the one from the other In my small reading I could never find it cleared yet but you shall have my opinion of it It is a rule in St. Austin Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentumest c. Whatsoever is not defined by any General Council and yet is practised by the whole Church it hath been delivered from hand to hand by the Apostles Here I take the hint that some things were delivered by the Apostles for order and decency sake which were but temporary agreed only to some times and some places and every Church receiv'd them freely with their own liking but whatsoever is derived from their Exemple and is dispread over the whole Church and hath continued in all Ages so hath the observation of the Lords day that was at first grounded in the practice of the Apostles not to be received indifferently but to be admitted as a Divine Institution Now I sum up the Orthodox Truth as I take it by what right and tenure we keep the Lords day holy 1. Not by virtue of the Letter of the fourth Commandment but by the natural equity and moral contents of it and reasonable consequences deduced out of it 2. The glorious act of Christs rising from the dead did not constitute the first day of the week to be a day of perpetual sanctification but upon good congruity the Church took occasion from thence to celebrate this day unto the Lord. 3. There are no express imperative words in the New Testament immediately to command it but in general principles that we are to obey our Rulers in all things 4. and lastly It is establisht in the practice of the Apostles and so uniformly received in all Ages that it is most probable they purposed it not for an Ecclesiastical Sanction which is alterable but for a Divine Institution which is perpetual and unalterable This labour which is past hath been spent about this Day in reference to Gods making that which follows is upon the same Subject in reference to our own rejoycing we will rejoyce and be glad in it that is God hath sanctified the day and we will sanctifie it that is God hath sanctified it by ordeining it to sacred use and we must sanctify it with an holy gladness imploying it chiefly in religious conversation We must separate it from profane uses to divine we must meet in holy places we must come together about holy purposes hearken to holy things and this must be our chief delight that we keep Holy-day to the Lord. Attend the time therefore with all chearfulness and diligence which summons us to appear in the House of God 't is religionis discendae introducendae medium the only and most available means to keep Religion in life and being Our sins are very grievous I confess and there is much unjust communication in the world we do not deal usually as between Brother and Brother but as between faithless Infidels and utter Adversaries but to what extremity would our sins wax if we did not pray to the Lord in his good day to guide us with a good conscience all the week after Mark therefore that the fourth Commandment is set in the midst of the Decalogue in the end of the first Table and before the beginning of the second as if it were the common nerve of Religion take away this and we shall neither know the duties of the one Table or of the other either to God or our Neighbour It is very meet therefore and our bounden duty that we should every one set forth a large share of this Day to the honour of God in Publick Assemblies not for a spurt of time and then apply our selves to other affairs as Christ bid us go every day into our secret Chamber to praise the Lord but according to the appointment both of God and the Church the best part of the day must be surrendred up to the use of Prayer and Preaching that God may have both his Morning and his Evening Sacrifice to declare his truth in the morning and his faithfulness in the night season as David says And therefore I have noted it to my self how in every Age for at least 600 years after Christ Godly Bishops did lengthen out Service by little and little to keep us the longer at Church At first there was but an Epistle and Gospel read and the Lords Prayer said and then they went to the Communion then the reading of the Psalms was added then certain Lessons out of the Old and New Testament then came in the Litany then the Confession with divers Collects of Prayers And our own Church above all others draws out the Service with the Ten Commandments Some there are that complain we spend not the Lords day totally or sufficiently in the House of Sanctification and yet with the same breath they will complain of long Prayers and will of purpose decline Cathedral Churches and never come at them because Divine Service is continued there an hour longer at least than in Parochial Congregations But how can time be better spent than in this Holy Temple that commands all time The Sabbath was made for man under the Law and the Lords day is made for man under the Gospel yet it is called the Lords day and not mans it is made for man that is for the instruction of the Soul and the refreshing of his Body but it is his day to whose honor it is set apart for the spiritual worship of Christians in all days much more in this is terminated to God And I speak it with gladness that it is a good sign that the fire of Religion burns within our breasts when we devote our selves so much to pious Exercises on Sunday that a great number are loth to hear of external joy and gladness The more observant we are of this time the more we please God
world and therefore Dulia a petty Worship will serve for them to cross this absurdity I confess that God is honourable alike as in one Appellation so in another but our eternal happiness is granted unto us by this Appellation more than any other But when as Samuel came to anoint one of the Sons of Jessai for a King Eliab was beautiful in his eyes and so was Abinadab and so was Shammah but God would have the Horn of Oyl poured only upon the head of David So let every tongue confess that the names of Jehovah Elohim Immanuel and Christ are reverend and glorious and worthy that our knees should stoop unto them as low as Earth and our lips carry them as high as Heaven But Peter hath wrought Miracles by the Name of Jesus and Paul hath preach'd glorious things of the Name of Jesus therefore my Soul and Body shall be prostrate to that Name especially which is wonderful and holy The neglect of this is an undutiful omission yet I reckon it not in the place of the greatest sins But the greatest reproach and dishonour which the Name of God doth suffer is in the mouth of the Swearer and Blasphemer that is the Tongue whereof St. James speaks that is set on fire from Hell Yea and Nay the trial of all truth is accounted in this dissolute Age precise and simple communication What God is he that you swear by so often Is it not he that gave you breath and can stop your breath at a moment Whose Bloud is that you swear by Even that Bloud which should wash away your sins is unto you an occasion of more pollution Whose Wounds are these you swear by Even those Wounds wherein you should bury your sins make them live unto condemnation as St. Hierom said Ipse aer constupratur scelestis vocibus that ribald obscene talk did adulterate the air So I may say of Oaths that are vomited up from the superfluity of sin Ipse aer profanatur scelestis vocibus the Air is prophaned and unhallowed by abusing the Name of God Lord to what an excess this windy airy sin of Swearing is come to I think for one reason the Devil may be called the Prince of the Air because he is the Prince of such blasphemous language And so much for the Honour due to the Name of God But secondly to Honour his Name and to disobey his Word is to imitate those disloyal Subjects of the Emperour Maximilian they called Maximilian scornfully Regem Regum a King of Kings it was because the Nobles that were under him lived like Kings without subjection or obedience Or it is to make such a God to our selves as the Church of Rome makes Bishops in the East the one is called Bishop of Antioch another called Bishop of Jerusalem and Title enough they have if that would maintain them but nothing else Keep your Masters Commandments and love his Ordinances to do them and then God is Honoured Concerning Obedience read and observe the life and death of Saul he would sacrifice to God and that of the fattest Cattel among all the Flocks of the Amalekites Why this was Honour one would think No it was not juxta Verbum Domini according to the word which was brought unto him by the mouth of Samuel and God prefers Obedience before Sacrifice This is the reason says Aquine in Sacrifice we offer up the flesh of a beast but in Obedience we offer up our own will unto God The Jews did so much esteem the killing Letter of the Law that they wore it as the chief ornament of their Vesture in the Fringe of their Garments as Frontlets before their eyes and about the wrists of their hands mark but that before their eyes for meditation about their arms for practise and execution There is a rule in Physick says a learned Bishop Per brachium fit judicium de corde The Veins come from the heart to the hand and there Physicians take their Crisis by their Pulse and motion So it is in Divinity you must make conscience of your knowledge by your practice and obey the word David held the word of God super mille pondo auri argenti above thousands of Gold and Silver Solomon esteemed the Law to be as bright as the Sun in the Firmament Praeceptum Domini lucidum illuminans oculos You have heard of Idolaters that have worshipped the Sun and Moon Much more let true Believers reverence the Law of God which is brighter than the Sun in the Firmament for so Elias thought and he covered his face with a Mantle as soon as ever the Lord spake as if the voice of the Lord were eyes sufficient to see by and he needed not the eyes of this body But far above Kings and Prophets and all the Sons of men the holy Angels are so ready to do Gods will that you shall scarce once read in Scripture that they were bid to go of Gods Errand but before you could say Do this they were gone to dispatch the Lords Employment Surely as it was a great abasement for the Word which was God to be united to the flesh of man so it is a great Honour for man who is but flesh to be united in obedience to the Word of God To contract my self in this Point Remember what manner of Law it is that we should obey St. Paul says it is sancta justa bona holy in respect of God that gave it just toward all men in civil commerce good for our selves to live in peace and safety What yoke then is more easie than the yoke of that Law which is holy and just and good Now in the third place as the Air which we hear sounding in our ears by concretion says Philosophy becomes clear water and may be seen so the Word of God which we hear preached unto the Ear in the holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper becomes verbum visibile a visible word in wine and water Honour one and honour the other for though they be twain in the administration yet in effect they are but one and the same one in application of our Saviours merits and the mercies of God one in fruit and efficacy to wash away our sins and to cleanse our Soul For as the bright Constellation which we call the Morning and Evening Star is one and the same So Christ in Baptism is the Morning light which illuminates Infants anon after they peep into the world and Christ in his Last Supper is the Evening Star Vltimum viaticum a light to shew every man the right way out of the world that is going to Heaven As one said of Prayer that it was due unto God when we rise and when we go to bed as a Morning and an Evening Sacrifice and therefore it might be called Clavis diei sera noctis the Key to open the day and the Bolt to lock in the night So I may say of the two Sacraments that they
are Clavis Ecclesiae sera Coeli Baptism the Key to open a door and give us admittance into the Church of Christ and the Eucharist is such a confirmation of grace that it is like a bolt that shuts us up into Heaven What reverence what devotion can be too much for such blessed mysteries Mistake me not when I speak of Reverence and Devotion I mean nothing less than Adoration and Worship to the Elements I allow not nay I abhor Popish Elevation and Procession I fear this lifting up of the Host ever since the Devil took up Christ to a Pinacle of the Temple I detest their gamish and gaudy Procession as if our Saviour did think it an Honour to ride upon the Popes Palfrey as Haman did upon King Ahasuerus Horse away with such ridiculous gesticulations But I am ashamed on the other side that there should be such froward Persons such unthankful Receivers of the Sacrament of thankfulness in our Church that deny the duty of their knee to the Supper of the Lord their feet stand stiff like the two Pillars which upheld the Theatre of the Philistines and Samson can scarce pluck them to the ground The very Devil durst not deny the truth in this Point Ask him what it is to honour Mat. 4. to fall down and worship As Maecoenas spake of a Roman that being amazed forgot to kneel unto Caesar when he came in his presence Hic homo timet timere Caesarem so these men are afraid lest they should over-reach themselves and give God more honour than his due It was an excellent speech of Scipio Africanus who being to ride in honour refused to sit in an Arch Triumphal Quia seni praetereunti non potuit assurgere if an old man passed by he could not rise up and do him reverence Beloved the Table of the Lord is a time of great triumph and solemnity and God is not passing from us but coming to us and is this all the honour that we will do him to stand upon stilts rather than kneel Will neither the apprehension of Christs Passion move us at that time Nor that Prayer which is used that body and soul may be preserved unto everlasting life will not that make us fall down Nor the consideration how Christ did humble himself for us unto the death of the Cross will not that make us humble Let it be the reproach of such profane men that Manna is faln down from Heaven round about our Tents and they will not stoop to gather it The fourth and last Honour which redounds to God is to obey the powers which are ordained of God It is good Divinity every day it is the proper Theam of this day O Lord make it a victorious and joyful day to thine Anointed Servant and our most gacious Soveraign many and many years and make it an happy and a triumphant day to his People that are under him and to their Children that are yet unborn Nazianzen speaking of Kings and Rulers to be the Images of God says that Monarchs and Kings in respect of God were like Pictures drawn clean throughout to the Feet the middle sort of Governours to Pictures drawn to the Girdle the third rank and lowest in authority to Pictures drawn but to the neck and shoulders but all in some sort are the Images of God only Christ is the express Image of his Person that sate down at the right hand of his Majesty Heb. i. O let Man who is made according to the similitude and likeness of Gods own goodness be faithful and Loyal to obey Kings and Princes in whom he hath imprinted the Image of his power and authority Mary Magdalen sate at our Saviours feet his Disciple John came nearer to his head and leaned upon his breast so God hath put all the world under his feet but Kings and Rulers lean as it were upon his breast as coming nearer to his love Now as the Altar was a refuge for them that fled unto it so Kings being as it were united unto God by an invisible copulation they are like priviledged persons always next unto the Altar and the hand of violence must not hurt them He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that honoureth you honoureth me But the Jesuit is more subtle than any beast of the field and he puts in a quarrel against Gods Anointed that if any prove an Heretick or a scandalous person to the Church nolumus hunc regnare then he hath lost the privilege of his Unction and his Scepter shall be broken by the Popes effulminating Authority I cannot answer this traiterous opposition better than by an Embleme of a Diamond with this word dum formas minuis He that pares a Diamond to make it give a better lustre and to point it artificially impairs the worth and value of the Diamond so to cut such large allowance from the due which God hath granted without that qualification to his Vice-gerents under pretence to make their Kingdom more beautiful and religious is the next way to break the neck of all Soveraignty it were well we had less of their art and more of their honesty As Agesilaus wrote to the Judges in the behalf of Nicias if Nicias his Cause be good let justice prevail if his Cause be wrong let favour prevail but be sure that Nicias prevail So say I if the Scepter of the King be a Scepter of mercy and righteousness God be blessed it is then we will honour it for righteousness sake if it should go wrong and not as we would have it so it hath far'd with other Common-wealths the Throne of the King is established in heaven and we must honour it for Gods sake but be sure the King be honour'd and obeyed There is a Fable which Plutarch hath to this purpose the Tail of the Snake began to cavil with the Head because the Head did always lead the way and direct the Body which way it list The Tail would not be contented unless it might go formost by course and the Head come sometimes behind but what followed upon this new contrivance the Tail prickt it self in thorns the Body was bruised every part offended and at last the Head was intreated to take upon him to lead and then the whole body was contented Beloved our part is to pray to God that the Head may run on in the right way like the matchless Pair that went before the mirrour of women pious Queen Elizabeth and the most excellent and learned of all wise Princes that ever were or shall be blessed King James Our part is to submit our wisdom to the secret counsels of the King and to demonstrate our faithfulness and love more amply by how much the times are like to be dangerous and troublesome but for the Tail to go formost it is a dishonour to God who hath given the Crown and Scepter to the King and it can breed nothing but disorder and confusion To sum up these four
things now whereof I have spoken when we have magnified the holy name of God and kept his Laws and duly reverenced his Sacraments and obeyed his Magistrates then are we mounted in Quadriga Domini in the Charriot of the Lord as Elias was to fly up to heaven But alas what are we when all this is done that we should be said to honour God When Homer described the Feasts of his petty Gods and what they did eat says an Heathen upon it Misellos Deos quando illis dimensum homines suppeditant the Gods were in a pittiful case if they had nothing to eat but what men afforded them so it were a disloyal opinion to think so of God that we could give him any honour which he had not before Manu tuâ tibi damus Domine says St. Austin We give thee O Lord but we took it from thine own hand to give thee All our reasonable service which we do to God is like an whole Burnt-offering which is quite consum'd and nothing of it remaining to feed the Lord. Rivers and Fountains innumerable run into the Mediterranean Sea Nec putant saporem maris nec remittunt quidem says Seneca they make not the Sea sweet nor one whit less brackish than it was before So it is with the service which we pay to God He was as glorious before Man was made as ever He was since so many Kings were created to praise him It is an argument of Excellency to have honour and our God is excellent above all things but it is an argument of some defect in nature to grow greater by receiving honour doth the Sun grow clearer or the Moon brighter or the World larger than it hath been Extollere se quae justam magnitudinem implere non possunt Whatsoever is come to its full growth cares not for more nor cannot enlarge it self So God receives no encrease of glory by all the piety of Prophets Martyrs and Apostles either in the Militant or the Triumphant Church but we shall receive a true increase of happiness by the honour which God hath promised in the second member of the Division propounded Honor à Deo all honour is from God wherefore He saith honorantes honorabo Honorabo I will honour I need not crave your attention to this Doctrine it is a word that will make more men cast up their eyes to heaven than all the ten Commandements the conversation of the whole world aspires upward and we are all like men clambring up an hill some are helpt up by their friends hands some by a prosperous wind some catch hold of the boughs and bushes no man despiseth himself to stay beneath The Bramble thought it self fit to make a King Judg. 9. The Thistle would have the Cedars Daughter married to his Son 2 King xiv The little Spider says Solomon would be in Kings Palaces and the proud Eagle builds his Nest in the Stars Obad. ver 4. Vain Astrologers that meddle with Heaven no further I am afraid but by star-light range among the Planets to find out honorabo what preferment themselves shall come to or those wise men that sent them to look It was an excellent answer of Cardinal Pool to this purpose and well known to many One skilful in Astrologie told him that he had calculated his Nativity and great things were portended him It may be so says the Cardinal but I was born again by Baptism and so you must calculate my Nativity from that day and then tell me if you can what honours shall redound unto me as who should say it is neither Nature nor Planets nor good luck but God alone that brings to advancement Ego honorabo I will honour Promotion says the Psalmist cometh neither from the East nor from the West that is says the Gloss neither from this House of Heaven nor that corner of the Planets or as another commenteth neither by the fall of one man nor by the rising of another but ego honorabo I will honour Let me declare this Blessing of God in particulars The Life of man is divided into three Ages First here is our Conversation upon earth whose Honours we call Political Promotions and Advancements but the days of this life are few and evil and the Honours are as short The second Life is the voice of Fame when we are dead according as we live in the good report of men or be quite forgotten And the last Life is the Life of Glory Tendimus huc omnes haec est domus ultima the first Life may be Obscurity and the second Infamy but our Soul shall be satisfied abundantly if the last Life be Glory Thus you see God hath dispersed his blessing of Honours 1. In Title and Preeminence 2. In a Blessed memory 3. In a Crown of glory Observe it in the first that there is a two-fold end why God gives honours to some peculiar persons in this life in utilitatem humilitatem first to derive some publick benefit from one man and secondly to work humility from a worthy spirit He that will be the greatest among you saith our Saviour Mark viii let him be as the least of all that 's for humility and as Servant unto all that 's for use and ministry The first end of every mans high calling is to be a helper unto many When God gave Moses and Daniel and David to the world he gave it a mighty gift but when he set these men with the Princes of his people it was as great a miracle in his love as with a few loavs to feed thousands in the Wilderness ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says Synesius and to place a good King in a Kingdom is the shortest and most compendious way in Gods providence to amend all men See what a wild fancy Plato had in this point but fit for the purpose He taught that the most pure and active Souls descended from Heaven and of their own accord took upon them the shape of humane Bodies upon earth only to make good Law-givers and Magistrates and having established a prudent Common-wealth return'd to God from whence they came there was honour undergone for the profit of others I would you did reign says the Apostle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. iv 8. that we might reign with you I hope no man thinks that Paul was ambitious all his aim was for the propagation of the Gospel Here was honour desir'd to do good to the Church Olim officium erat imperare non regnum says Seneca once it was a place of some employment not a bare Title to be honourable And in that one action for my part I did like Cato more than in any other when he sued to be Tribune of the People He was ever backward in seeking preferment but at that time the Common-wealth was in great distress and had need of an honest Magistrate A good man seeks for Honours for the good of others as the Moon gets nothing for her self but new labours
made him cry out These men came not in by Gods honorabo and therefore they went out with a mischief infelicity was the end of that honour which was not begun in humility Let my speech sink into the heart of all those whom God hath advanced to the rule of his People let the meanest find favour in their eyes as well as the greatest mercy and justice love and charity you owe them alike to all the world to Caius and Titius alike to Neighbour and Stranger An elegant Minstril if his Musick be delicious a sporting Stage-player and the like shall be admitted into the noblest Assemblies and I am sure it is better than sport and musick to a worthy Magistrate to hear a man oppressed with wrong relate his grievances and redress them Pudeat aspernari fratrem quem Deus non aspernatur filium says St. Austin Do not despise him for thy Brother whom God hath accepted for his Son This I have spoken for the first share of honour which God giveth in this life and that for these two ends in utilitatem humilitatem First to promote the publick good Secondly to be depress'd in humility But alas what do we speak of Promotions in great places this is small comfort to the poor man although it came from God A poor Philosopher told a rich man that invited him He was set at the lower end of the Table ut ultimum locum cohonestaret to bring the lowest room in credit So divers and very rare Personages are but underlings in this life ut ultimum locum cohonestarent but these may partake of honours in the second life from the voice of fame for the memorial of the just shall be blessed saith the Lord. Very briefly of this You have known loving Fathers bequeath somewhat to their Posthumi to their Babes which should be born after their decease in whom they could never take joy nor comfort so divers at the last gasp of their life have bequeathed Monuments and places of liberality to charitable uses to reap that glory after their decease which they should never hear of A question may be asked in this place if it be lawful to call Colleges or Free-Schools or Hospitals after the Founders names that posterity may know them and testifie their pious affection I must mollify the answer propter duritiam cordis vestri because of the hardness of mens hearts for I had rather allow it as good and give some indulgence to human infirmity which itcheth after praise than Structures of Charity should fail and the hands of the liberal should quite be dried up But this is truth without yielding one whit to mans frailty good works offend not because they are seen but when their upshot and scope is to be seen that their praise may be divulged Si times spectatores non habebis imitatores says Gregory as who should say it is good to have our light shine that men may behold and imitate it not that they may behold and applaud it as the Schoolmen express it ad profectum aliorum non ad ostentationem sui not for our own reputation but for our Brothers edification 'T is a sign of a generous and noble spirit to do good things among other scopes and intentions to purchase a good name contemptu famae contemnuntur virtutes Certainly the propagation of a good name when it is not ambitiously coveted and affected it is a leaf of Gods own Chronicle and a blessing of many days wrought by his power who is the Ancient of days He that compared glory unto vertue as the shadow unto the body hit of a good similitude sometimes the shadow is cast before the body as when our glory is reported in our own ears Sometimes the shadow is cast behind the body as when the memory of our good deeds remains after us and this is from the Lord. Oblivion cast upon some is like the Plague of darkness cast upon Egypt Three Kings of Judah sprung from a wicked Race of whom our Saviour came touching the flesh are quite omitted in his Pedigree Mat. i. as if they had never been and who they were it shall not be named for me since the Holy Ghost despised to reckon them Tola judged Israel twenty three years and all that he did is not so much remembred as that Paul left his Cloak at Troas Joabs valour is forgotten among the Worthies of David because of his cruelty It is Alexander Hales his observation that the Scripture doth spend some Chapters to relate the Fall of Adam because Man recovered himself by the Promise made in Christ But not a word is spoken concerning the Fall of Lucifer and the Evil Angels neither in Moses nor the Prophets except it be under Parables and since it was their sin to rise against God they could not procure such an instance of their memory in Gods Books as to have the story of their Fall But a good name is a precious ointment an Ointment which is consecrated and made holy by the blessing of God Well let us proceed to the third and last portion of Gods Honour in tertio seculo aeterno in the life everlasting and here is comfort in the end For let the worst be made of the good mans fortune his calling is not honourable but private and his infamy perchance not private but publick Naboth dies for Cursing and Stephen for Blaspheming and both were innocent Now where is Honorabo What is become of the Honour that God promised And yet who deserved it better than such a man Nemo virtutem Sanctius coluit quam qui boni viri famam perdidit ne conscientiam perderet No man loves Vertue more than he that had rather die with an ill name than with an ill conscience Where is such a mans Honour Where the Philosophers Country was when he pointed up to heaven Blessed are you says our Saviour when men revile you and speak all manner of evil falsly on you for my Names sake rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven There no Julian is an Emperour no Sanballat a Magistrate nor Caiphas an High Priest Si Honor diligitur illic quaeratur ubi nemo indignus honoratur says St. Austin Double my portion there O Lord and as Mephibosheth said Let Ziba take all and surely this Honour is best agreeable to the Text Honorabo I will honour him It is a blessing in future at such a time I may say when time shall be no more Not as the Gloss hath it Qui benè utitur dignitate conservabo eum in statu dignitatis suae He that manageth any promotion of Honour justly and faithfully I will keep him in it and not cast him down Nay admit that faithfulness and just dealing be an occasion to cast him down the sooner as it befel Aristides still Honorabo is a good promise when greatness is eclipsed upon Earth heaven stands sure and there the condition of this promise
his Story of the Jesuits affairs makes his Protoplast Ignatius Loiola to be so fortunate in carrying all the substance of the Scripture in his mind that had the Scriptures been utterly lost a thing perchance which he wisht for Ignatius could have delivered all points of faith without book I would you were all as truly such as Orlandine fain'd and imagin'd him to be I would you were such as that Antonius of Padua who by those that admired his cunning in the Scriptures was called Arca Testamenti the Ark wherein the Law of God was laid up to be kept I would you would make them your inheritance as David did Thy testimonies have I claimed as mine inheritance for ever Like righteous Naboth though Ahab and Jezebel the Devil and the flesh would extort that Inheritance from you sooner die than part with it but when you are so oblivious and forgetful of all holy things Gods blessings your own repentance and the sweet relish of the Scriptures is it not a sign that you despise the Lord Thirdly contempt is seen in this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not to take it to heart not to be wounded with compassion when Sion is wasted and Gods honour is trampled under feet Like Gallio the Deputy in the 18. of the Acts that professed he sat in judgment to take up discords of civil peace but if a controversie come before him about the Law of God let it be right or wrong he would not meddle with it But Lot was grieved and afflicted with the filthy conversation of the Sodomites 2 Pet. ii 7. though Persecutions of bloud be not upon our land and O Lord be gracious still and for ever to keep them from us yet a righteous man suffers some persecution in his soul when filthy conversation jets about before his eyes Phineas was inflam'd with zeal to see Adultery in the Congregation and slew both Zimri and the Moabitess Num. 25. Ezekias rent his Garments and put on sackcloth when he heard the blasphemy of Rabshekah against the living God Horror hath taken hold on me says David because of the wicked that forsake thy Law Psal cxix 53. there is not such a Sacrifice offered up unto God says St. Ambrose as a zealous conscience that is eaten up as it were and consumed because the fear of God is imminish'd among the Sons of men nay says he take away zeal for Gods honour and you take away the office the excellency nay the very nature and substance of an Angel Old Polycarpus went always right with the true Doctrine of the Church but because Hereticks grated his ears with their unsavoury opinions he cries out Deus bone in quae tempora me reservasti at haec audiam Good Lord why do I live to hear such pestilent speeches against thy glory Beloved upon these your Festival days of pomp and ostentation give ear a little to the calamities which the Protestant Church doth suffer at this day under the hands of Tirants that do not love the purity of our Gospel Our Brethren that suffer the least share of their fury are threatned and besieged a most Valiant and Illustrious King through the covetousness and mutiny of his own Forces much weakned and dejected the florishing Inheritance of the Rhene quite rent away from the true and ancient Possessors Can O can you forget when the Tribe of Benjamin was as it were quite cut off with the edg of the sword that the Eleven Tribes remaining came to the House of the Lord and abode there till Evening and lift up their voices and wept sore and said O Lord God of Israel why is this come to pass in Israel that there should be to day one Tribe lacking in Israel The Country Palatine was a strong Pillar to uphold the happy proceedings of the Reformed Churches our Confederacy is now much weakned in that damage Away with Sports and Revels and gaudy Pastimes a Tribe it wanting this day in Israel let us mourn for it in our Prayers and engage our fortunes for it in the field He that doth not condole for the great blow given to the Church doth he not slight the miseries of Sion and depise the Lord Hearken now to the fourth sign of scorn and contempt which consists in this to speak ill of those things ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã who are precious to God and of high esteem as when Hezekiah called the brasen Serpent Nehushtan a lump of Brass which the people did superstitiously adore it is manifest that Hezekiah did despise the vanity of the people ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as the saying is speak that which may be lucky and fortunate both to your selves and others let the Praises of God and his Saints be in your mouths the Lord delights to have their names exalted and magnified See what a commemoration S. Paul hath made of the faithful departed Heb. xi he passeth not over one without some Encomium of his zeal and piety nay our Saviour gave Mary Magdalen his blessing that wheresoever the Gospel was preached in all the world it should be reported to her honour what costly ointment she had poured upon his head and should we be so froward as some are to put down the solemn Holy-daies which are allotted to the memory of the Evangelists and Apostles upon whose foundation I mean their doctrin and not their person the Church is built throughout the world I fear that God would be offended at us and impute it to our disdain that we despised him because we grew weary to revive the memory of his Saints Many are willing that Bartholomew or any other Apostle should hold a Fair in the City for the quick uttering of Wares and Merchandize but they would not have the Church opened upon a solemn day for St. Bartholomews My Brethren both may be well done but the last of the two much better than the other for I hope you will know St. Bartholomew was a Churchman and not a Merchant Another fault there is let it lye upon the score of private persons and not upon the whole Church The adoration which the Church of Rome ascribes to the Blessed Virgin Mary the Invocation of Saints which they maintain St. Peters Supremacy and the Popes Succession in his person which they defend as their life these opinions are false and superstitious but none of those noble persons have therefore deserved ill at your hands that in the heat of the controversy we should insult over St. Peters faults or make havock of the Reliques of the Saints or speak slightly of that incomparable vessel the Virgin Mary and mince her title of Blessed when the sacred Hymn says that all generations shall call her blessed leave this to the railing Jew who in disdain calls our Saviour not Ben Mariam the Son of Mary but Ben Aariam the Son of her that is vile as smoak As for such backbiters of the glorious Children of God like as the smoak vanisheth so shall
rage the People tumult the Kings and Rulers of the Earth take counsel God is despised and beset round as it were with the Bulls of Basan How shall this strong conspiracy be broken Why in the fourth verse the Lord laughs and hath them in derision Do you make a question how all these shall be oppressed Non est res difficilis aut laboriosa ludendo facturus est quoties libuerit says Calvin It is no hard matter to bring to pass the Lord will do it at leisure nay as it were with sport and pastime The wicked can look for no other but to be put to shame hereafter and lightly esteemed For as they that honour God are called Oves à dextra Sheep on the right hand oves propter fructum naturae mansuetudinem Sheep for that they yield fruit to the Shepherd and because of the innocency and patience of their nature So the despisers have their Name Haedi à sinistrâ Goats on the left hand Quia salaces per praecipitia incedunt says Origen Because of their petulancy and that they walk in slippery places ready to break their necks Finally says St. Paul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God is not mocked that is not without retorting scorn for scorn for they that despise him shall be lightly esteemed Now from all contempt of his glory from all contempt of his Word and Commandment Good Lord deliver us AMEN A SERMON Preached upon the Gowry Conspiracy BEFORE KING JAMES PSAL. xli 9. Yea mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted which did eat of my bread hath lift up his heel against me THere is one way says Plutarch in Demetrius to make the whole world the better one course to be taken to put shame into all mens faces that they dare not sin It is but thus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not to suffer the acts of evil men to pass unregistred let their names be known and their deeds set forth in black colours that they who could find pleasure in a sinful life may be discouraged by an infamous memory Cum de malo Principe posteri tacent manifestum est eadem facere praesentem says Pliny It holds not only in Princes but in the manners of all men When we dare not speak of the vices of other men it is a sign they are rise among ourselves Can we then pass over this high and unsufferable wrong done to an innocent person in my Text Such a complaint as can hardly be match'd in all the Scripture For say that one friend hath parted from another as Demas lest St. Paul or that Ziba being trusted did fail Mephibosheth or that Jobs acquaintance whom he fed with his Morsels did shun him in the days of his sorrow yet for all these crimes to meet in one man disloyalty against friendship treachery against trust ingratitude against daily benefits this is strange quod nulla posteritas probet sed nulla taceat fit to be blazon'd that for infamies sake the most prostigate may fear to do the like This is my Scope there is the Center where I will fix the foot of my Compass and whatsoever I do add more is the Circle drawn about it In the days of King Davids persecution you would think the Text were sit for none but him Expositors indeed are not all of one mind to say who it is that is pointed out for this disloyal enemy Perchance his ungracious Son Absolon an untimely Usurper perchance Joab the Captain of his Host trusted with the command of all his Forces and yet complotting with Adonijah to supplant Solomon against the Fathers affection But most likely and you shall hear at this time of no other it was the great States-man Achitophel admitted into the secrets of his bosome and rewarded with the best honours of his Court even he his own familiar friend in whom he trusted which did eat of his bread did lift up his heel against him In the days of our Saviours humiliation the Text doth so fit his turn and that St. John saw in the thirteenth of his Gospel and did so apply it that at the first blush you will say it doth directly serve to express his pittiful case and the wickedness of Judas who did betray his Master Judas that followed him when he had no where to lay his head and could a friend do more Judas that dispensed his Alms to the poor surely the greatest trust that could be laid upon any servant by so charitable a Lord Judas his guest at all times and more especially a partaker of his Last Supper take him with all these titles and yet did he lift up his heel against his Master One interpretation more of this Text is revealed in this our Age. And it is verified in application to none so fitly as to our most renowned Soveraign in the happy and successful deliverance which God gave unto him this day against his enemies his Companion in recreations his confederate in counsels of the same unanimity of Religion that had broke the same bread at the Communion Table did rise up against the Lords Anointed But he that lifted up his heel was supplanted himself and cast down praised be God for evermore You see here are three examples of Traitors so notorious that we who live may almost be ashamed of Mankind and there are three examples of them who suffered so innocently that we may be proud there were men so good to endure it Wherefore I will draw my discourse into such a method that neither Achitophel may be forgotten that wronged King David nor Judas omitted that betrayed his Master nor those wicked Imps let alone in silence whom this day bath made notorious to Generations Achitophels treachery hath the precedency in time and therefore it shall be handled in the first part in whom you shall see three things 1. How odious it is to violate friendship yea mine own familiar friend 2. How hateful it is to wrong the trust reposed in us My friend in whom I trusted 3. How impious it is to forget the benefits we have received to spurn against him that seeds us He that ate of my bread hath lift up his heel against me Judas his Apostacy is the second part of my Text and in him let Hereticks discern how grievous it is to wound their Saviour whom they have served and let our Runnagates to Rome and Rhemes consider what a lamentable backsliding it is to leave the sincere Altar whereon they have eaten the body of Christ and drank his bloud I would our own Island had not brought forth such men as make up the third part of my Text in whose desperate attempt you shall see how the best alive are not only like to spill their good turns upon barren sands but also to lose their life their country their liberty even where they had cause to look for nothing but due homage and fidelity An first attend unto Davids complaint c. Yea mine own
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
residue the Lord will give victory to his chosen people But as Cyrus in Xenophon speaks of the manner of the Median hunting beasts in Gardens that they did ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã hunt beasts that were bound so to follow these turncoat Fugitives which have sheltred themselves in Cloisters and are sworn to do us mischief it were vincta venari to pursue that which was entangled therefore I leave them with Judas and this brand upon both their foreheads concluding the second part of my Text c. I am now descended in the third place to the stratagem of this day and am faln upon the haters of my Lord the King A King who is an uniter of Kingdoms into one body as David was of Judah and Israel none more zealous no not David himself for the prosperity of Jerusalem and the magnificence of the holy Temple Under Christ not only the Supreme Head but under Christ the most careful Watchman of our Churches and as Christ did tenderly affect his Apostles above all other men so the Successors of the Apostles the Reverend and most holy Bishops of our Church have found not the smallest place in the love of our gracious Soveraign Surely above all men if the Clergy be not careful to set forth the honour of this day with great joy and solemnity it is their ignorance or their negligence Ignorance is the very annihilating of a Scholar negligence the foulest fault in a Labourer Had these furious Sword-men that laid their weapons to his throat sound an austere Master nay a Tyrant they must have born with it and not touch the man that bears the character of the Lords Anointed But his Peers are verè parâs welcom as his equals his familiar friends Had they been out of the lists of counsel not acquainted with secret affairs what should they do but be thankful for the peace which they enjoy without trouble and pray for that Government which fills them with plenteousness without their labour but they were familiars in whom he trusted adventuring his Royal Person not only under their roof but under their locks and custody Lastly had his bounty no way flown into their Coffers and whose bounty among all the Kings of the earth hath replenished more yet their bodies are secure by the protection of his Laws their souls secure by his maintenance of true Religion their goods secure by his Courts of Justice and yet his own c. Did eat of his bread that is true But to feed upon the Kings hospitality is a curtesie every day common to thousands that visit the Court But for a mighty Monarch to grace his Subjects Table with his Royal Presence and to eat of his bread this is not the felicity of every one Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter it is a respect of high honour where it lights and the glory of an illustrious Family And out of doubt that mind must be very sordid and avaricious that esteems it not the more noble grace to make their service find acceptation that they may expend somewhat rather than receive somewhat of a mighty Potentate I can spare no more time to publish the black sin of the Authors of this treachery It was Dionysius his saying to Plato that if he should dismiss him and give him leave to depart for Greece Plato would make him the common talk of Athens Do not think O King says Plato that we have so little care of learned conference that we would chuse you for our discourse So I hope beloved that our hearts are so full charged with thankfulness to God for this days deliverance that in twenty years and more we have no leisure as yet to think of the Malefactors Let this day be spent and many days following only in Prayer and Supplication and Thanksgiving to that God who hath given victory to his Anointed and will do to his Seed for evermore Nay let me add one thing coronidis vice and I have quite done we have found this verse to tax Achitophel to condemn Judas and lastly to lie at their door who perished deservedly this day in their own fury Bonaventure hath yet smelt out another enemy and such a one as none more familiar none more intimate to any of us all Is not this fair warning beloved And will you know who it is O man it is thy self He that prays to God to bless him from his enimies is afraid of malice indeed it is a dreadful thing He that prays to God to bless him from his friends is afraid of treachery and indeed no mischief less avoidable But let me pray to God to bless me from my self no enemie so full of flattery so like to prevail so cunning in tentation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it is the Civil War which wastes the inward parts it is the carnal man against the spiritual Self-love is every mans disease Why You are your own familiar friend Confession of sins can hardly be extorted from us Why We trust to our selves too much Gluttony and Riot are within our Walls Why We feed our selves and are our own carvers From our enemies defend us O Christ from Forain Invasion from Domestical Conspiracy from the malice of Satan and from the corruption of this vile Flesh the body of death which we carry about Good Lord deliver us AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Fifth of November AMOS ix 2. Though they dig into Hell thence shall my hand take them WE have two sorts of Holy-days and Festivals to call Assemblies together into the Church of God Some in honour of the Saints who are our friends that their Piety may redound to our imitation Some occasioned by the malice of our enemies to sing praises for our preservation both are useful if we advise aright And who knows whether King David was instructed better from Hushai his Friend or from Shemei that reviled him He that would be safe says Plutarch and walk sure ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he must either have true Friends or bitter enemies And as God would have it the Church hath plenty of both sorts Saints of honour in heaven spiteful men to undermine it upon earth darkness beneath to complot treachery light above to reveal it There is both manus fodiens an hand digging into Hell against us and manus educens the eternal hand that fashioned all things on our side to take them out Beloved here are two chief instructions from two main ways to inform our faith blessed is every one that hath duly prepared one heart to receive them Which that we may the better do I pray observe what a lofty Hyperbole the whole verse doth consist of threatning the ungodly that they shall neither have advantage by Heaven nor Hell Though they dig c. They that go about to cast away themselves are not in their way except they wander And that you may know how sinners straggle whithersoever they go mark what several interpretations the words do bear Hugo the
relate but that he finished this life I cannot say it His years are numbred before my Text like other mens three hundred sixty five just as many years as there be days in an usual year after the motion of the Sun not that this reckoning is the term of his life but the term of that time that he conversed with men As Tertullian glosseth upon St. Pauls words I am crucified with Christ How crucified and yet live Per emendationem vitae non per interitum substantia by the reformation of his life not by the loss of his life So Enoch had a period when he left to be with men Per emendationem vitae non per interitum substantia By an exaltation to a better life not by the corruption of his body As the men of Israel would not let Jonathan suffer death though Saul had given Sentence against him What say they shall Jonathan die that hath wrought such great salvation in Israel So when the Spirit of the Lord had testified what a Prophet Enoch was a perfect obedient that abhorred Will-worship a stiff maintainer of Gods part against the Devil and all his Instruments ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a friend a familiar acquaintance a walker with God Upon this testimony Mercy opposeth Justice and though the Lord had said to Adam and to all that were in his loyns Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return What says Mercy shall Enoch die an example of repentance to all Generations So the stroke of death was diverted that he saw not the Grave and Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him The partition which I framed upon the whole Verse was on this wise first how uncorrupt Enoch was in his ways he walked with God and secondly that he did not see corruption And this second Point which is reserved for this hours labour is to be handled in two several heads the former I will call Enoch's passage out of this world He was not The latter his reposure in another world For God took him His place was left empty among the Patriarchs below and he filled a room among the Thrones and Angels above Upon these two I shall handle many particular Doctrines before you And he was not a concise phrase you see and brevity will breed obscurity especially put this unto it that it is a form of speech which is not used again in this sense to my remembrance in all the Scripture But the sense is made plain by St. Paul Heb. xi 5. By Faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death He had a passage out of this world without any dissolution of the soul from the body In the same body that he pleased God says Irenaeus he was translated being never uncloathed of the flesh that he might put on immortality That this truth may be carried the clearer I will debate it a little with them that oppose it and with them that qualifie it Some of the Hebrew Rabbines as I find them quoted because they consult not with the authority of the New Testament think they are not convicted by the Old Testament but that they may conclude how Enoch died and was taken away in an early Age as those times went much sooner than his Forefathers As if this Verse did rather bemoan him for his untimely departure than renown him for some glorious favour which did befal him The phrase indeed if we look no farther will bear it both in sacred and in heathen Writings to say of one departed fuit he was but is not this was called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a fair way of language to avoid an unpleasing word Yet the phrase doth not always stand in that sense but hath a double acception and both in one verse that you may the better carry it away Gen. xlii 36. Jacob there bemoans himself for the waat of two Children Joseph is not and Simeon is not the one he took to be dead indeed the other to be in fast hold and taken from his eyes removed where he could not come at him as Enoch was but no more So the Chaldee Paraphrase explains the meaning of Jacob Joseph non superest Simeon non est hic Joseph is quite lost and Simeon is not here The phrase then accords very well with that place of the Hebrews by faith Enoch was translanted that he saw not death And my Text must incline to that exposition for two reasons First that the Lord took him stands for a consequent that he was pleased in him it is the reward as you would say that he walked with God not that there is a necessary and perpetual coherency in it that whosoever walks with God should be exalted into Paradise and not see corruption but Enochs righteousness by a priviledge of favour was so requited a favour then being understood in those words it cannot be the sentence of death upon him it is impossible Secondly in this Chapter the last word that the Holy Ghost gives of Adam is Et mortuus est and he died so of Seth so of Enos so of Cainan so of all the Antecessors of Enoch wherefore unless Enoch had some other issue out of this world diverse from the rest which was by translation without death why should it be said of him so differently from all others he was not for the Lord took him So I have corrected the great error of those Hebrew Doctors who would lay Enochs honour in the dust But I suppose the general Exposition of the Jews was right and according to St. Pauls doctrine For Paul wrote to the Hebrews that he saw not death knowing the tradition was commonly so received among them and the Chaldee Paraphrast who lived straight after Christ was of the same judgment beside one of great note among them says he was disarrayed of the foundation corporal and cloathed with the foundation spiritual which words I conceive do jump with those who oppose not the Scripture that he saw not death far be it from them but they have a qualification for the meaning of it that death is taken two ways most properly for the separation of one essential part of man from the other the body from the soul a loath to depart it is a most unwelcom dissolution a punishment upon the sin of our first Father which was remitted to Enoch improperly it is no more but the separation or extinction of corruptible qualities from the soul and body one whom I named even now called it the disarraying of a man from the foundation corporal and so Enoch was purified altered made quite another man in the very moment that he was wrapt up to heaven This evacuation of corruptible qualities from the flesh is called death by some very good Authors in our own Church and so Procopius much more ancient than they Mirabili modo mortis defunctus est ad vitam coelestem translatus it was a rare and admirable kind of death he suffered
Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Altar And the Lord smelled a sweet savour IT is impossible to choose a better method than Elihu did to find out wisdom Repetam scientiam meam à principio Job xxxvi 3. I will fetch my knowledge from far or from the very beginning But why do I call it Elihu's method When behold a greater than Elihu impugning the frivolous divorcements of marriages among the Jews which then had common passage doth thus overthrow them Ab initio non fuit sic It was not so from the beginning From which words I am bold to pronounce that this must be the leading rule of Divine Learning that all Religion must be tried and allowed from the first and most ancient Ordinations Now we have four Ages to run through upon that examination First for the Age before the Floud whereof Almighty God hath left us a very short and confused memorial I will not say as some do that the Church began when Enos was born to Seth although we find it written Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord Gen. iv ult Nor from the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel for the tradition of the Hebrews hath reason in it that Adam himself had often sacrificed before but the first hint of Religion in that Age is at this mark where the Lord made woman and brought her unto man which was a mystery of Christ and his Church Eph. v. 12. Secondly if you will know how the fear of God was first professed after the Floud it is written in my Text. Thirdly If you will be acquainted with the first institution of the Mosaical Law enquire for it at that time when God appeared in glory at Mount Sinai And fourthly If you will search to the bottom when the Law was quite abrogated and the Gospel was purely in force reckon from the coming down of the Holy Ghost at the Feast of Whitsontide Among these four I have wittingly light upon the second that I may entreat before you how Religion was first managed presently after the Deluge under the Law ot Nature For this seems to me to borrow somewhat of all the rest so that speaking of this one they will all be remembred The Mystery of Christ and his Church knit together is not here forgotten where the clean Beasts and the clean Fowls are laid upon the Altar The Sacrifices of Moses Law certainly were patterned by this example and the inspiration of the holy Spirit must needs be in the Sacrifices work from whence the Lord smelt a sweet savour If your attention be now ready to receive the distribution of these words into their several parts they may thus be divided into two principal branches here is the material part and the formal part the body and the soul of that Divine Worship which Noah performed unto the Lord. He builded an Altar unto the Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Altar that is the matter the visible body of his good work And the Lord smelled a sweet savour there is the invisible part or the Soul The material outward work contains these three things 1. That he offered burnt offerings 2. Of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl 3. Vpon an Altar which he built And Noah builded an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt offerings on the Altar In the formal part there are two things to be spoken of sensibile and sensus The sensibile that this Sacrifice had a sweet savour 2. There was a quick sense that took it and that is the Lords the Lord smelled a sweet savour And Noah builded an Altar c. I take the material part first in hand and this is the principal composition in the matter that Noah offered burnt-offerings to the Lord. This was it I perceive why Noah thought it long till the Floud were asswaged and sent one bird after another to learn if the waters were faln that he might come forth and worship him with an holy Worship that made both the Flouds and the dry Land As a conscionable man recovering from a perilous sickness which brought him even to deaths door thinks every hour seven till he present himself in the Church before the Lord that he may praise his name in the Congregation So the heart of this Patriarch had been so long full of meditations all those days that he was shut up in the Ark how he and his Posterity alone were preserved from the common Deluge that his desires grew restless and he sent forth the Dove three several times and no less to bring him better news if he might come forth and do his homage for the possession of the Earth upon an Altar of earth and that the Incense of his devotion might smoke up to heaven in Sacrifice Now I lift up this example before you to let you behold why we are born and for what use we have our Station in this Globe of Creatures The Lord hath opened our Mothers Womb to bring us forth into the light as he opened the door of the Ark to set Noahs feet in a large room We were shut up in a place which God had appointed for us till our passage was made into the world almost as long as he now we have our egress and the liberty of the Earth and Air. To what end all this What is appointed for man Which way should his business tend To enjoy the pleasures of the Age To extend our appetite over the abundance of all things which the earth affords To build and plant To be renowned and leave a Posterity behind us No that account is ill cast up for you may see in this condition of Noah that he and all that were with him were let forth of the Ark as a people then born again into a new world and the end was to offer up spiritual Sacrifices with a clean heart and while we have any being to praise the Lord. When the Angel had delivered the Apostles out of the common-Prison into which they were cast says he Go stand and speak to the people in the Temple all the words of this life So we are set at liberty from our Mothers Womb from that Ark to which we were committed for a time that we may go to the Courts of the house of our God even as Noah came abroad and took seisin of the earth immediately to make an Altar thereof and thereon to offer Sacrifice to the strength of his deliverance The question will be what direction the holy man had to worship the Lord with this kind of Service Lay it down for that which must be granted He that makes his own brain the model of his Religion shall have little thanks for his forwardness Ascribe unto the Lord the honour due unto his name honour of Duty and Precept is best that which is redundant and of
Adversary But why should the Messias do all the Creatures that honour to be esteemed clean Hath God care of Oxen The Jewish Rabbi ventur'd not upon that question but Irenaeus answers it omnia purificata sunt per sanguinem Christi Christ hath set the Church at liberty to be debarred from nothing which God hath made and the uncleanness of the beasts is now accounted cleanness because our filthiness is washed away and made clean in his most precious bloud That which was commonly usurped among the Gentiles throughout all the world was branded for unclean and therefore Peter said Lord I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean but now the stile is chang'd and that which is most common is most clean Our riches are made clean by being scattered abroad and communicated in charity the Word of God is most clean and undefiled whose sound is gone forth into all Worlds Prayer and Preaching are best when they are performed in the Congregation and are most publick The holy Eucharist is cibus communis ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Communion of the body of Christ and yet it is so pure a food that being eaten by faith it purifieth the heart and conscience above all things To the clean all things are clean but because we live in the contagion of the evil World and he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled and because our own heart is an impure fountain from which the streams of bitterness do continually flow Cleanse the thoughts of our heart O Lord by the inspiration of thy holy Spirit that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy Name by Christ our Lord. AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON NOAH GEN. viii 20 21. And Noah builded an Altar unto the Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Altar And the Lord smelled a sweet savour THis is our Sacrifice which we offer unto God at this time to preach of Sacrifice and Preaching hath a great similitude with the Law of the Peace-offering Deut. xxvii 7. Thou shalt offer Peace-offerings and shalt eat thereof and rejoyce before the Lord thy God So we are come together to speak unto the honour of God and to make our selves perfect in his ways and Testimonies to do them We offer unto the honour of our Saviour and eat of our own Offering which is the very condition of a Pacificatory Sacrifice Now that I may bring nothing unto the Altar but that which is pure and clean the Lord grant that he will circumcise my lips and put a right Spirit into my Meditations Among the Beasts such a one was clean that parted the Hoof and chewed the Cud upon which St. Chrysostome deviseth this interpretation to divide the Hoof is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to divide the Word of God aright in St. Pauls Phrase To chew the Cud is to ruminate upon sacred things to roul them in our understanding and to examine them maturely not to admit or swallow down Divine Mysteries rashly with slight and undiscoursed credulity That we may chew the Cud in this Fathers sense I take these words upon which I have lately spoken again into my mouth to make further proof what is contained in them And lest confusion should make all that is to be said unprofitable I will divide the Hoof after the condition required in a clean Sacrifice I have declared before that there are two principal branches to be noted in the Text the material part and the formal the body and the soul of that Divine Worship which Noah offered unto the Lord. In the material part again are two contents the Gift and the place which sanctified the Gift The Gift was an whole burnt-offering of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl the place was the Altar which he made and Noah built an Altar to the Lord. These are the visible body of the work The invisible part or the soul consists herein that the Lord smelt a sweet savour and that hath two members in it sensum and sensibile first the sweet Odour which did exhale from the Sacrifice what it was secondly a quick sense that took it the Lord smelled a sweet savour I did not dispatch all the material part when I first handled these words for accounting it a less fault to be abrupt than tedious I proceeded upon no more than the consideration of the bare Gift a Burnt-offering of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl At this time I have measured to go a little further without prolixity I shall speak God willing upon the place that sanctified the Gift and Noah builded an Altar unto the Lord and upon the quick sense which did apprehend the sweet Odour it was even he who is present at every part of clean devotion and delighteth in it the Lord smelled a sweet savour From whence I will meditate 1. That the time was but new over that God destroyed almost the whole World see how soon he is pleased after his great wrath and with what small seeking 2. When we do any thing well there is joy in heaven 3. Many pious offices which stink in the Worlds opinion are sweet before God 4. There is no greater encouragement to do well than that we are sure it finds grace in the eyes of our heavenly Master it is sweet in his nostrils and he will reward it Of these as I have divided them And Noah builded an Altar c. The whole Earth had been overwhelmed for a long space with the waters of the Deluge in plain terms it was all under malediction but Noah builded an Altar of the tuâf and mold of the earth and so brought it again into good use and service and sanctified the whole Element to the Lord. Truly God that revealed unto Noah that he should make an Ark and be saved in the common Calamity deserved to have an Altar erected at his hands that thereon he might adore his Saviour The Jewish Rabbines are so punctual in their curiosities that they go about to tell us the very Plot of ground on which this Altar was raised and many things more of great fame to happen in the same place I am sure you will say the report is very strange if it be credible But this Ben-Maimon adventures to say that it is a Tradition by the hand of all where David built an Altar on the Threshing Flore of Araunah Solomon built a Temple and Abraham made ready there to offer up Isaac and Noah built this Altar in the same standing when he came out of the Ark that there was the Altar where Cain and Abel did first offer before Noah nay that the first man did offer an Offering there soon after he was created and yet he goes further our Wisemen say Adam was created out of the very earth of the same place There is no mediocrity in these mens conjectures and therefore I give them over without commending them Wheresoever
value to claim eternal life but through the gracious promise of God they are ordained unto it From hence Valentia and some others of that part do paralogize that they may truly say that a condignity doth amount to the works of pious men upon the obligation of Gods promise I answer that the promise of God doth make our good endeavours remunerable with the Kingdom of Heaven not that the Promise changeth the work into a better quality than it hath of it self as to make charity of two degrees become charity of two hundred no for the Promise is but an extrinsecal acceptation but it must be some intrinsecal perfection infused into a good work that shall make it commensurable and worth the reward How then doth the Promise knit our works and the reward together why thus God casts his eyes upon his beloved Son in whom and for whose sake all those Promises are ratified Now this must altogether imply a great indignity and not any condignity in our righteousness All the favour which we obtein at Gods hands above the inherent bonity which is in our works it is meerly for Christs sake and for his obedience imputed to us Examin in the weight of a reason what I give to a man above the value of his labour for a friends sake doth it make the reward meritoriously due The terms cannot consist together If God should promise the same reward of glory to him that died for Christ and to him that gave a cup of cold water for his sake the reward upon this supposition is equally due to both and then these two agreeing in uno tertio that is in the same promise should be equal in goodness between themselves which none will admit whose judgment is not quite perisht To conclude then that Noah brought so sweet a gift to the Lord it came from a supernatural infusion that so directed him That which is inspired from a supernatural virtue doth please the Lord though it be much attainted with humane infirmity that which He is pleased so to accept in mercy He hath promised to remunerate it with eternal glory for Christ Jesus sake who is a Sacrifice of the sweetest favour and to whom be all honour c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON NOAH GEN. viii 21. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour THe former Verse brings in this Text Noah builded an Altar to the Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered Burnt-offerings on the Altar And the Lord smelled a sweet savour A work well managed and the end was happy We compose our selves in this devout time of Lent especially to be very conversant in the service of the Lord Prayer Preaching Fasting Alms come into practice or should do more than at other times It were pitty so much labour should be spent to little profit so much business be driven to Gods glory and to his small content so much doing rather to our undoing than to our salvation I have chosen this Text therefore for a seasonable subject to be insisted upon how this frequent Worship and all the fruits of our Religion may be an odour of a sweet smell a Sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God Whom if we do not serve the omission will make him punish us and if he be ill served the neglect will make him punish us All the works of Piety which the Church of Israel brought forth were quarrelled by the Prophets as much as the worst Profanations They fasted but for strife and debate They repented but with sullenness hanging down their heads like a Bullrush They gave Alms sounding them abroad to be popular They Prayed but honoured God with their lips and their heart was far from him They chanted sweet Musick but with no devotion Amos v. 23. Take away from me the noise of thy Songs for I will not hear the melody of thy Viols And they sacrificed but with so much ill relish as he that killed an Oxe was as if he had killed a man he that burnt Incense as if he had blessed an Idol The course of godly Service is easily mistaken It is possible for a man to do good and to mar it in the doing it is possible for a man to wander in the right way It is possible for a man to bring a Sacrifice to God and to give high offence because it hath not a sweet savour I regard your spiritual profit that you may have a reward for your work in the Lord for which I refer you to the record of old Father Noah when he began a new World and how far are we from that Not four years in whose Piety the Lord delighted and therefore called it a sweet savour And what sweetness was this that exhaled up to heaven The resolution of that question shall make up my whole Sermon and divide the parts And I answer to the Question Negatively and Affirmatively Negatively in two Points First That the integrity or well-meaning of Noah is not said to give a sweet savour till he added a Sacrifice Secondly That a bare Sacrifice cannot be commended for a sweet savour Affirmatively The composition of the sweetness consists in five particulars First In the devotion of Noah Secondly In the instauration of true Religion Thirdly In his thankfulness for his preservation Fourthly In his endeavour to procure God to be gracious to all succeeding Generations Fifthly In his faith that had an eye unto a better Sacrifice Here are many granes of Incense in this sweet savour which shall not trouble you with length though they do with multitude What the sweet savour in my Text doth mean I like the method best to assign what it is not before I resolve what it is First It will be allowed that there were Faith Piety Sincerity in Noahs heart all the while he was shut up in the Ark yet they are not commended for sending up a delightful fragrancy to God till he brought his gift unto the Altar The reason is that God useth to prove the integrity of the heart by some outward sign before he commends it Abraham sought the Lord with all his soul since he came out of Vr of the Chaldaeans yet his faith was not extolled till he was ready to offer up his only Son then he received the Promise that the blessing should abide upon him and upon his Seed for ever The life of a Slip is in the root but the sweetness is in the Flower when it opens So the Just doth live by faith but he shall be loved for the fruits of holiness Adam was created after Gods Image yet he required cloaths to cover him that he might not be ashamed of his nakedness So a good Conscience is an heavenly thing the likeness of the Holy Ghost yet unless it be cloathed with outward effects of obedience it may be ashamed of its nakedness Faith should say to God as Achsah did to her Father Caleb Judg. i. 15. Thou hast given me a South
Father Vasarenes as Agathias reports the Soothsayers foretold that his Mother should bring forth a Male child and he was crowned in her Womb his honour began the soonest I ever read of any and his guiltiness of sin and obligement to Gods wrath began as soon as the soul did inform the body If ever there were a Paradox in the world which Turks and Infidels hitherto have shamed to maintain it is the contrary to this doctrine that some iniquity is not the cause of perishing before the wrath of God Peribit in iniquitate it was ever good Divinity before Mariana and some Jesuits have perswaded desperate cast-aways to be saved by iniquity Saved did they say And for working abomination O are not the tender mercies of the wicked cruel St. Paul comforted our Mothers in their travel that the woman should be saved by bearing Children into the world they teach Reprobates to purchase a Saintship by murdering such whom the world is not worthy of Slaughter and bloudshed says our Philosopher Rhet. 1. lib. are not fit to make a question for discourse because it was never disputed by some either to be lawful or tolerable Nay in the second Eth. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã nothing can make Murder a good action much less Treason But this was the pity of a Philosopher and Alexanders Courtier not the stomach of a Jesuit and a grand Inquisitor If all the Saints should appear before God with the Instruments of their Piety Moses with the two Tables Aaron with his Rod David with his Psaltery Dorcas with the Garments of her Charity would you look for a Priest among them girded with a bloudy knife Or a Villain provided with fire and Gunpowder Who would look for it Except as when the Sons of God stood before the Lord Job i and Satan also was among them Nay heaven and earth shall pass away before Peribit in iniquitate become Apocryphal before the Wormwood of sin become the Palm of immortality Thus much for the cause in general but what offence his iniquity did give the sin of Achan will ask a peculiar and a larger trial You are deceived if you think it was but Larceny or greedy pilfering if a Thief steal he shall restore fourfold says the Law or seven fold says Solomon when stealing grew worse and worse that was the most of it But God saw more pernicious faults in Achan for his justice is not fidelis in minimo sharpest against small offences like the Popes Decretals which enjoyn a Priest forty days penance if he spill one drop of the Cup of the Lords Table and but seven days penance for Fornication But hainous was the fact of Achan first in scandal that an Israelite preserved so long in the Wilderness one that fought the Lords Battels and came always home with victory that he should be the first that trespassed among the Canaanites the heathen that would blaspheme the living God Secondly In disobedience that Joshuah his noble General made the head of all the Tribes by Gods appointment and Moses good liking and Eleazars Unction could not command to be obeyed Thirdly In faithless covetousness That since Manna did fall no more from heaven about their Tents the Lord did heed his people no longer every man must catch what come to his hands so Achan took the accursed c. Here is scandal to them that were without within themselves contempt of the Lord and his servant Joshuah in his own heart an inordinate desire to grow rich and sumptuous I do not make Achans fault the greater that Gods vengeance may be more plausible as St Austin spake of disgracing Cacus to honour Hercules the more Nisi nimis accusaretur Cacus parum Hercules laudaretur but remember my scope is all one with S. Pauls Interrogatories With whom was he grieved And to whom did he swear in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest If there be any delight in comparing sins as the Prophets use to dash the Idols of Jerusalem with the Idols of Samaria me thinks the first transgression of the Garden of Eden and the pleasant Land of Canaan almost another Eden are very semblable Eve walking in Paradise saw the fruits and her eye enticed her to take that which was forbidden and then she hid her self out of Gods sight So Achan treading upon the soil of Canaan saw a Babylonish Garment and his eye enticed him and he took it when it was forbidden and accursed and hid both the Garment and his sin from the sight of Joshuah But those are impudent crimes like the forehead of an Harlot that leave their memory to the evil world to be the first examples of transgressions cursed be that sin for it festers into scandal and unhappy shall be their end that fly from the Lord till they be left as a Beacon on the top of a Mountain and as an Ensign on a Hill says the Prophet Isaiah Many offences had never been committed or else brought forth by a worse Generation long after unless an evil Author had made the way known and easie for our corrupt nature therefore the first that gathered sticks and broke the Sabbath the Shilonites Son the first that cursed impious Gehazi the first that took sinful wages for the gift of God Ananias and Saphira the first dissemblers in the Primitive Church Achan the first Malefactor in the Land of Canaan these had their portion suddenly and drunk the Cup of Gods fury unto the dregs thereof I know not how fatal it is but since the small trenches of Rome were filled with too much bloud of Rhemus anon after they were digg'd massacres and persecutions have never departed from that unlucky building As the heavens are spread above us and seem to speak like the Statue of the King of Egypt In me quis intuens pius esto So the ground whereon we tread sometimes quakes and seems to be too holy to be defiled But if ever there were an ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or incongruity of place to say unto sin exiforas this is no ground for sinners was it not the Land of Promise A small sin in Canaan was greater than a fornication in Egypt a trespass in Jerusalem is worse than an Idol in Samaria Had this deed been done in the Wilderness or in the paths of the Red Sea it had been more tolerable as one speaks of Pompeys obscure death in Egypt a thousand Leagues from Rome Procul hoc ut in orbe remoto abscondat fortuna nefas the offence had not been so notorious But the Angels themselves do wonder in a field of choice Wheat Vnde zizania Lord whence come Tares Will you resolve the Prophet Jeremy the same question He makes very strange fidelis civitas How is the faithful City become an Harlot To use the Lords own Sacrifice with the Sons of Eli for Riot and Extortion his own Supper for drunkenness with the bad Corinthians to employ the soyl of his own
from godly sorrow and repentance It knows not the way to sit down and to be dejected to the earth and yet to none else but such will our Saviour say Friend go up higher Another observation on this Point is that when sorrows came hudling upon Nehemiah and fell as thick as hail he sate down which is an evidence of patience that he submitted himself under the hand of the Lord. It is our modern phrase to express the humour of a man who struggles to repel an injury that he will not sit down by it But this servant of the Lord in my Text had no quarrel against the providence of his Maker let the cup of judgment be never so bitter which he was to drink he was quiet and sate down He knew we are all as clay in the hand of the Potter and shall the Vessel say to him that framed it what makest thou Gods judgments are wonderful and unsearchable sometimes they are never unjust And what fruit can the stubborn reap by endeavouring to break their chains What hath it ever profited them to challenge the Lord in the bitterness of their discontent What have they got by cursing murmuring and repining no other than to make the furnace of tribulation seven times hotter As it is best for the Child and for the Mother when the birth stays the due time before it be born So let us not struggle and toss about to ease our selves in a time of infelicity our redress will be most facile and fair when the Lord bringeth it to pass at his good pleasure If you think to be delivered sooner by quarrelling violence commotion it will prove an abortive remedy If you long to have things better when they are ill tarry for the Lord sit down and mourn be humble obedient keep a good conscience girt Nehemiahs patience unto you sit down and be still A third instruction upon this Point is that to sit down is to muse and to consider sadly of that which is brought before us So Nehemiah sate down to call his soul to counsel he intermitted all worldly business and composed himself to think of the Judgments of God It is well that the Royal Piety hath called us together to day upon so good an occasion Here is a Senate of Gods Servants gathered together in this holy place and in all other houses of God throughout this Realm Now we are set to it to call our ways to remembrance to revolve in our mind both every one a part how far we have corrupted our ways And likewise have taken this pause of time and sequestred our selves from all secular affairs to take a considerate view upon the sins of the Kingdom how near we are in all likelihood to relapse into some great troubles because the fear of the Lord is not much conspicuous among any sorts of men Are our Peers and Nobles renowned for their advancement and protection of true honour and vertue as their great Ancestors have been Sit down and think upon it The Reverend Sages of the Law are their minds set upon righteousness And do they judge the thing that is right with courage and integrity Sit down and think upon it The portion and Tribe of God the holy Clergy do they remember or can they forget how they were lately trodden down reviled and cast out of all they had for twenty years And doth it stir us up to be burning and shining lights more than ever And to double our diligence now in Prayer in Preaching and administring the holy Sacraments Sit down and think upon it For the Gentry are they not addicted to waste and riot Do they not crowd themselves into our enlarged Suburbs where they have no Calling but to emulate one another in excess of feminine Pride and rude debauchery Sit down and think upon it As for what concerns the great City not to rub it with salt and Satyrs is it not as palpable as Gods light that it did poison the whole Land with Rebellion and still infects it with Gaudiness Gluttony Whoredoms and Falshoods Sit down and think upon it Do the Country Villages deserve the old commendations of simplicity and innocency But how ignorant are they in the knowledge of Salvation How unthankful to God in all seasons How hath Satan bewitched them of late years into dissolute lives and drunkenness Sit down and think upon it I pass over many things in silence as not fit for publication Now though I have shewn you an Ocean of ungodliness breaking in upon us who almost unless such an extraordinary day as this doth spur them on who doth consider it and muse upon it with a leisurable sorrow The most will shake their heads at it and give it a shrug and then they are at their furthest There is all the regard they have when the sins of an whole Nation look as if they were white for harvest It is too tedious for them to sit down to cast up a sollicitous account to survey the parcels of our crimes to cast them up into a total sum as much as is possible This is too long labour for them who are very busie a doing nothing They will sit down as the Israelites did to eat and to drink and rise up to play Whereas the beginning of true repentance is to allot some time day by day for considering our own works seriously and the criminal faults of the whole Land Grant some good hours for the serious understanding of those things and run not away lightly from such holy thoughts but possess Nehemiahs room sit down and ponder the Judgments of the Lord. It follows in the second branch of his penitential carriage that the sins and desolation of Jerusalem wrought upon him so far that he wept Perhaps some sturdy spirit will say Mulier quid ploras Woman what ailest thou to weep A manly courage thinks shame of it Nay Infans quid ploras It is childish as some conceive to put the finger into the eye Indeed Quid potest infans nisi plorare How can a Child help it self when it is offended but by crying But when our heavenly Father is offended it is a sweet sign of grace to demean our selves like Children and cry Except you become as little children you cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven Mat. xviii 3. Nay says David I have brought my soul low like a weaned Child Psal cxxxi 2. and yet he no coward He became as a Child and not such a one as hath the breast and is still but a weaned Child taken from the comforts and lullabies of the Nurse and then you know it will burst into tears True repentance you see abhors all stubbornness and obstinate resolutions it abates its fortitude it melts in the sight of God Is not this much more religious than to have Nerves of Adamant and an heart of brass A stomach that is insensible of the divine wrath is a symptome of madness and not of courage There is
Parable But this Vow of the Rechabites may be discharged with facility Of their Pastoral life they had many examples in other Countries of men living in Woods as if they had been born of Trees and of their temperate life they had an instance in the Nazarites But nothing is more feizable in the World than evil therefore in the third place it concerns a Vow to be lawful To resolve upon evil is a defiance against God omnis promissio mali est comminatio Isaiah calls it an agreement with Hell and a Covenant with Death Lamech that swore in his wrath to kill a man the Mother of Michah who did solemnly dedicate her Silver for a molten Image the Swordmen that vowed the death of Paul these gave their faith in hostage to the Devil to work iniquity Put to these the revengeful Romanist that is sent to sea by his Ghostly Father with a worse Devil in him than was in the Gergasens Swine to set Kingdoms in combustion and to destroy the Lords Anointed There are also unlawful Votaries but not so bad as the former whose heart was right with the Lord in their Vow but being rash and sudden never considered that the issue might be dangerous Thus Jepthab returning from the slaughter of the Ammonites brought a deliberate curse upon his own Daughter And what justice was in the Oath of Saul that swore every man should die that tasted food that day as well he that heard the Law as Jonathan that did not These are Vows like sharp arrows shot up into Heaven soft enough while they are in the air but the danger is whose head they light upon when they return again Well I acquit the Vow of the Rechabites from any harm to drink or spare is lawful it is our freedom making no conscience Not one Expositor of many but conceive that Jonadab and his Children took this penance upon them because it grieved them to hear that Sion should be desolate and Jerusalem an heap of stones Let others feast it while destruction comes upon them unawares There are such lovers of themselves qui mallent stellam de coelo perire quà m vaccam de armento who had rather Heaven should lose a Star than himself be endamaged a Sheep the Vine will not leave his sweetness nor the Olive his fatness neither would put away private content for the publick good but a zealous Rechabite is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and leaves both the sweetness of the Wine and all power for ever to plant Vineyards the better to be prepared to pray for Jerusalem Lastly multa licent quae non expediunt May it be done safely that is some content but is it fit to be done faciens ad cultum Dei is it profitable for holiness that is the fourth Condition Every act of Divine Worship well placed raiseth up our melody unto God in a higher note the noise of every idle superstition drowns the Musick When David vowed an Habitation for the mighty God of Jacob Arise O Lord into thy resting place thou and the ark of thy strength then he fill'd Heaven and Earth with his Melody We heard of the same at Ephrata and found it in the woods But that rude noise Templum Domini Templum Domini to vow Pilgrimages and gadding about to I know not what it breeds no incensement of devotion a meer ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã like an Artist more busie than well occupied that made a Charriot for a Fly to draw it But that this Vow was of some moment in the practice of piety it appears by Gods benediction upon them in the last verse of this Chapter For as it was said of Socrates his goodness that it stood the Commonwealth of Athens in more stead than all their warlike Prowess by Sea and Land so that Religious life of the Rechabites was the best Wall and Fortress to keep Judah in peace and safety Those that like Thomas the Apostle would put their finger into the world and thrust their hand into riches and see the print of their nails or else they will not believe these would make you think that they were Disciples of Christ and yet indent to receive Tribute from him as if he were their Servant And almost who doth not follow Christ rather to be a gainer by him than a loser Ecce nos reliquimus omnia Behold we have left all and followed thee that was the perfection of the Apostles that was the state of the Rechabites not simply all every thing that belonged to the maintenance of a man and so to live upon beggery sed quid velle debeant didicerunt they have learned to ask nothing but a Gourd to cover their head a few Flocks of Sheep to imploy their hands the Spring water to quench their thirst They that must have no more have cut off superfluous desires that they can never ask more And so I have declared that piety and a godly life were chiefly aimed at in the Vow of the Rechabites But admit it had all in one Vow which could be good in any will it avail to license a Profession of Votaries in our Reformed Church my Text casts this Question in the way and I will remove it in a word If any man would make a single Vow for his own person by this Example let him go on and prosper Advice is necessary in so great a business and in the multitude of Counsellors there is safety A Vow of Private Devotion hath always been allowed in these cases following First when the heart of any humble Supplicant did earn to obtein some great mercy from God 2. When a terror of some imminent judgment did hang over the head of sinners and threaten destruction not to be fourty dayes distance off as in the case of the Ninevites 3. It may be a caveat to check concupiscence lest we sin over our enormous sins not once but often Lastly it kindles a frozen and benummed zeal and puts a flame into it as if it had been set afire by a Seraphin with a Coal from the Altar Now for publick Confederacy of many persons in one Order it is as lawful being well managed as it is full of exceptions before the institution Why may there not be holy Combinations to praise the Lord as there are Orders for Chivalry and Honour in divers Countries as the most noble Order of the Garter in our own Kingdom the Knights of the Golden Fleece and the like I know not any well advised man that can take exceptions at the Knights of the Sepulcher instituted in a strict Collegiate life covenanting to fight against Pagans for the Christian Faith upon their own charges and bearing Crosses about their neck in remembrance of our Saviours five wounds but if any other condition shall intervene to the affronting of Religion quae dederam supra repeto funemque reduco I will no more approve such knots of superstition than I would allow of Sheba the Son of Bichri
to bless your Olive branches according to the number of your Posterity Therefore to end this Point drink your waters for your own thirst and not for others for he that deviseth to leave an huge mass behind him is sure he shall take nothing at all away Aeneas Sylvius celebrates this Story among the actions of Saladine the Great he knew his end was at hand and therefore bad a Souldier carry a winding-sheet upon the top of a Spear through all his Army and proclaim with a loud voice Ex tantis opibus nihil aliud Saladinus secum tulit Saladine carried nothing away with him but that of all his magnificent fortune O bewitching vanity therefore to devour the Fatherless and the Widow to swallow down ill-gotten wealth to drink so greedily of these stoln waters and out of so many Lordships it is well at last if your Heirs will allow you an handful of herbs and flowers to carry you sweet to your grave I have shewed what a vanity it is in man to have a greedy desire to be filled with the vanities of this world If you will be mocked like Tantalus you may dap at these waters and always miss you may suck like an horse-leech and never be satisfied this I deduce from the last part of my Text terra inanis as I believe Moses means mystically Gen. i. 2. The earth is void and empty and all the joys upon earth have such an emptiness that they cannot fill for whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again Man disquieteth himself in vain so David begins and St. Chrysostom descants thus upon the complaint the Seas are rouled about with a storm and grow calm again within an hour the Air is driven violently by the winds and at last it is hush the earth sometimes quakes and moves and by and by it stands fast upon his Pillars only the heart of man is never at peace never but hunting for some new-nothing which it had not before So St. Chrysostom runs over three of the Elements shewing that their disquietness and troubles are composed again now I had rather instance in the Element of the fire which he omitted than in any of the rest a devouring fire though it be as great as Nebuchadnezzars Furnace goes out by little and little and every man knows how not by throwing wood upon the Pile but by drawing away the combustible stuff so that it shall have no matter to spend so the appetite of man hath an hot fume and a scaulding fire within will you go about to extinguish it as fools do by throwing heaps upon it Or rather by substraction of all superfluities and then it will go out of it self Will you attend to those reasons which the heathen hammered out why you shall never take the heart of man without a new and a changeable Wish One speaks Astronomically that the Planet of the Moon being the lowest doth most predominate over the composition of man and therefore her continual increasings and decreasings do lead our heart Luna rursus nascitur impletur sed impleta non permanet sed rursus minuitur If this cause hit the nail right we should ebb sometimes as well as flow in our wishes which is not incident to our continual thirstiness Rather says a second such things as we desire their substance doth not enter into our heart but simulacra umbra earum their colours and shadows and a shadow or a fancy takes no room the place is as empty for all them as ever it was before A third makes this ingenuous observation Nemo nostrûm se esse unum cogitat Every man reckons of himself to be more than one rather to be a great Troop than a single Creature And because he may be a Sire of many Generations he wearies himself with wishing much as if he would provide for a multitude that could not be numbred But take these two Reasons in a Theological way the greater part of men glut themselves with pleasures that stink in Gods nostrils they creep into the advancements of honour by undeserving means they grow rich by deceit and oppression wherefore the Lord sends a disturbance upon their Spirit that they take as little pleasure in that they have as in that they have not They drink the waters of bitterness therefore they shall thirst the more and be tormented But where there are moderate and lawful pleasures well merited honours just and godly gain I dare say no such vertiginous vexation shall fall upon them When God gives riches he gives quietness withal unto the heart The blessing of the Lord maketh rich and he doth add no sorrows with it Prov. x. 22. Besides since we refuse the Lord for the chief and principal content his curse comes down upon all things else that they shall never content us When Julian did attempt to build up the Temple of Jerusalem again as many stones as were laid in the day were thrown down by God's vengeance in the night In the day time every man is building a Babel in his own heart and laying stone upon stone after he hath slept and is awake again his heart begins to meditate upon new crotchets and devices he vilifies all that he did intend before unless he can frame it better and thus every day brings new sorrows and imaginations to the Appetite The Prophet Hosea doth insinuate this similitude that the heart doth itch after this delight and the other but never resolve it self where it will stay As some Youngsters love to court and wooe their Mistris many years but never to consummate a Marriage So the Prophet Chap. ii 7. She shall follow after her Lovers but she shall not overtake them Alas how can we overtake what we would have when we set our selves no bounds but run after every thing that is before us It is like the Fable of the Hare and the Hedghog the Hedghog challenged the Hare to run And because the Hare was far the swifter a thousand Hedghogs laid themselves in several distances in the way and when the Hare had out-run an hundred there were nine hundred still before it So if our covetous affections do prick us on to over-take every Hedghog that runs before we shall put our selves to an endless labour and weary our souls with vanity Set your self this short Stage which I shall tell you and it is quickly run Whatsoever the Lord gives me in this life my heart shall be contented if he will give me himself I shall be satisfied with his goodness as out of a River and he that drinketh of those waters which Christ shall give him He shall never thirst AMEN THE SECOND SERMON UPON JOHN iv 14. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst IN my former Text Christ told the Woman of Samaria no more than she and every body knew whosoever drinketh of this Elementary water shall thirst again but here 's a Lesson which neither
the Apostle from him that sent him What if the Lycaonians are so ravished with the actions of such Instruments that they acknowledge no God but Barnabas and bring forth Sacrifice to offer unto Paul and not to Christ Why there is no remedy against wilful blindness There is a beam as big as the whole âarth in their eye that will look about them and not above them Choose you whether you will be dazled with that vertue which our Saviour hath given to his holy Servants but this is the tenure of their Commission Joh. xiv 12. He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do That is multiply Loaves and Fishes as I have done and multiply them more than I have done Are you scandalized at this Truly I confess it is a word of no easie digestion that any Saint or friend of God should do greater works Majora If Christ had not said it who could have heard it with patient ears He doth not mean the works of the Law for no man ever did the like because none but the unspotted Son of God fulfilled the Law He doth not mean the works of Redemption and Salvation they were so proper to his own person as the Angels were not good enough to have any fellowship in them He means his Miracles most certain they were called works and none but they by the popular estimation For without them all that had been done beside to their palates had been impertinency or idleness But how shall we measure one by another that greater Miracles were brought forth than those which he effected Well enough says St. Austin For was it not more for the sick to be cured by the shadow of Peter passing by than by touching the hem of our Saviours Garment And again our Lord did cure diseases by speaking the word and laying on his hand yet the world was more amazed that evil Spirits were cast out of the Possessed if but an handkerchief was applied which was brought from the body of Paul And another Father it is St. Hierom puts it home that mightier things should be brought to pass at this day than ever were seen since the Creation if there were any just cause to declare the glory of God by such wonders If you say where is the promise that a Fig-tree should wither away and a Mountain be removed into the Sea when a strong Believer should say the word Did any Apostle or Martyr make trial and accomplish it Nevertheless says the Author the Promise is in force and if there were just occasion to pray unto the Father it should be executed Such things are not unproduced as it were upon emulation because the story of Christ you may think hath nothing to parallel such vast Miracles When the hour shall come to glorifie the Gospel such works shall be brought to pass which are apted for that end perhaps less perhaps greater than in former Ages Finally if it should be brought to pass at this day that twenty thousands were fed with one Loafe you should not say true if you affirmed it were a greater Miracle than Christ did for Jesus Christ yesterday and to day is the Author of that very Miracle So Theophylact hath a subtil note upon that Text of St. John that Christ did not say He that believes shall do greater things than I How was that Not of themselves possible when they did nothing of themselves but by him and his Spirit but thus they shall do greater things than these viz. when I assist them and they pray unto the Father So let us honour God in his Saints as that we rob not the Lord of his honour When he that is mighty hath magnified his Servants to do great things give unto the external cause all moral veneration but give unto the supernal cause all religious adoration None did distinguish upon this with a more singular dexterity and unanimity than these five thousand that were fed so marvellously in the Wilderness What they received was from the Disciples and from none beside and that which they received if it swelled miraculously in Christs hand it exceeded much more in the hands of the Disciples and yet the People were so prudent in taking the right way that they baulked the Disciples and glorified Jesus they found out the Founder and discerned him from his Instruments As it is a Proverb in Nazianzen Vestem consuit Istiaeus caeterum induit Aristagoras Istiaeus made the Coat Aristagoras did but wear the Coat So Christ made the Miracle the Apostles were no more than the representers or the publishers of the Miracle This was espied not by one or two but by the whole Assembly that had met in the Desart and they pick out Christ from the herd of the Disciples him they proclaim to be the Prophet that should come into the world they worship him they design him to be their King and nothing that appears was devised to gratifie the Disciples for they were not the primary Agents in whom supernatural power was immanent and habitual but Balislae Spiritus Sancti the Engines of the Holy Ghost that uttered forth such vertue as they received by his infusion As the gift of Prophesie is not born with the soul but comes by inspiration Or as the Peripateticks say that the Intelligences assist the Orbs of heaven and move them about but they do not move by a soul that informs them So it was not a native and ingenite quality which the Worthies of the Primitive Church had to speak with Tongues and to effect Wonders but an adventicious vertue according to the pleasure of him that distributes where he pleaseth In Christ the power is absolute home-born undependent in his Ministers it was but borrowed derivative dependent in him that was the brightness of his Fathers glory it is original and essential in his Servants it is gratuitous and accidental in him it is without measure and infinite in theirs it is limited and finite Far be it from us then to think that it gave the Disciples any precedency no nor equality no nor the least degree of comparison with their Master because when they distributed to them that sate down the Loaves increased in their hands more abundantly than they did in Christs I am now past the first Point the extraordinary grace that descended upon the Disciples but we that would walk in their steps according to the ordinary grace of God shall make more use to look upon them as boni viri and boni Pastores First As good men that gave liberally as God enabled them And the former grace would bear no price at all if it wanted this Though I have all faith so that I could remove Mountains and have no charity I am nothing but with this it makes a propitious conjunction As fast as Christ gave unto them they gave unto those that were in need Tu vade fac similiter There
novitate vel obscuritate vel parvitate either it hath no glorious beginning for it is new or it cannot shew it for it is obscure or it dare not shew it for it is course and mean Now the glory which we have by Christ is amplified through these Comparisons For first Our Society began not obscurely but at Antioch the Metropolis of Syria one of the most populous and fairest Seats of the World in those days 2. The Records of it are without all exception in this indubitable sacred History 3. Neither is it a Mushrome of the field lately sprung up but it began in that Age when the Apostles of our Lord were living 4. Neither did we purchase our appellation from base and unworthy offices as by adoring the fortunes of men or by worshipping vain Gods but from the unanimity and accord which both Gentiles and Jews that believed did profess in serving the true only God and his Son by whom he made the World Jesus Christ No more then can be said then to these three Points Here are our Progenitors of worthy memory the Disciples their Title of honor and distinction they were called Christians and the place where they received it Antioch to make more of that which is so full in three parts were to make it less But of these in their order To begin with the Disciples and a little searching into them and their condition will make them known to be a noble and a numerous Society I must premise that two things had gone before which filled the Church with infinite increase of Believers First the Martyrdom of St. Stephen whereupon all that addicted themselves that way fled from Jerusalem and were strangely scattered abroad in most remoted places St. James from thenceforth calls them the twelve Tribes of the Dispersion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã St. Peter comes to some particularities and greets them by the name of Strangers scattered throughout Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia Bythinia yet these were but a few of them in one Walk as I may say for such as write of the Conversion of Nations give a probable demonstrance that some of those dispersed Jews had crept into evety Kingdom that was habitable under the Sun And I instance in one thing especially because Baronius quotes an old English Manuscript contained in the Vatican Library for his Author that the chief adherents to Christ namely Joseph of Arimathaea Lazarus with his Sisters Mary and Martha were despitefully committed to the Seas in a Barque which had neither Oar nor Sail but Gods providence and the winds brought it safe to Marseils in France where they all landed and Joseph the Apostle of this Kingdom made a further journey into our Island And do not marvel that there should be enow to replenish all the World upon this dispersion for before our Saviour's Ascension he was seen of five hundred Brethren St. Peter's first Sermon after the coming of the Holy Ghost gained three thousand souls more The number of five thousand more were added to them by the power of his next Sermon preached in Solomons Porch Acts iv And after this St. Luke never counts how many were converted they were past his reckoning he relates the Blessing thus in the gross The number of the Disciples multiplied greatly and a great company of the Priests were obedient to the Truth Acts vi 7. You see what store of laborers here were which were all cast out of Jerusalem upon the Persecution which was raised at the death of Stephen Non dispersi sed seminati non imbecillitate disjecti sed fidei gratiâ divisi says St. Athanasius they were not turned abroad at random but sown like seed in every quarter of the earth it was not fear and infirmity but the Grace of God which divided them Well the next thing that made the Spirit of God blow like the wind in all places where it listeth was the Conversion and Baptizing of Cornelius the Italian Captain about the seventh year after the Ascension of our Saviour The baptizing of the Eunuch by Philip though he were a more honourable person than Cornelius the great Treasurer to Queen Candace yet it made no noise at all for the Eunuch though an Aethiopian and so a Gentile yet he was a Proselyte of the Jewish Religion and so no Gentile Cornelius and his Houshold were the first of meer Gentiles that received the Holy Ghost and were baptized in the Name of the Lord. The tidings hereof did quickly arrive among the Brethren in all places and the Disciples knew by that token that they might spend their labours not upon the Jews only but upon the Gentiles also You see the means by which the Evangelical Truth was advanced so did Antioch grow to be a famous Church partly by their labours who fled from Jerusalem when St. Stephen was stoned ver 19. partly by attracting great numbers of Graecians to the faith of the Lord Jesus ver 20. and these now compounded together in one Body the faithful of the Circumcision and the faithful of the Uncircumcision these are Disciples recorded in my Text. This will put it likewise from your conceit that the twelve Apostles are not meant here by the attribute of Disciples they come far short of that exceeding number of Saints that were so entitled nor yet those seventy sent by two and two to preach and to cure diseases Luk. x. for distinction sake they began to be called old Disciples in these days as Mnason of Cyprus is called an old Disciple Act. xxi 16. But according to the largest courtesie of the word those that embraced the Doctrin of eternal life and this is done with our Saviour's good leave as it is Joh. viii 31. If you continue in my word then are you my Disciples indeed Sectaries and prophane Hereticks spread their errors abroad wo unto those that give ear unto them The great Dictators of natural Sciences ground their conclusions upon Principles of reason and would attain felicity not by faith but by arguments Miserable were all those that affected to be so wise that they could not be saved they are not these Disciples But leaving these pudled fountains blessed were the true Scholars of Grace that drew their waters from the Cisterns of Christ Truth went before them as a light and Sanctity did guide them by the hand these are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã taught of God as the word is in St. Paul And this is consolation enough to sweeten all other misery so the Prophet cherisheth the distressed Church that it was her glory that her Children should be the Disciples of that Truth which came down from Heaven O thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted I will lay thy foundations with Saphires c. and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord Isa liv 13. How much did the Pharisees honour the poor man that was born blind when they meant to spit defiance in his face saying Thou art his Disciple Was
Church 3. That such as were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus should be called Christians I could acquiesce in this conjecture if it ascended higher that the Synod Apostolical confirmed it because it came from God I confess I have neither read nor heard that either Christ did leave the Tradition that it should be so with some of his Disciples or that an Angel proclaimed out of the clouds from Heaven or that it was imparted either by dream or revelation sent to any of the Prophets but since no man can challenge that he was the Founder of it I think it surpâsseth mortal Authority and therefore I leave the original of it to God It was only in the right of the Father in those times to give a name to his Child Zachary the Priest when he could not speak called for Writing-tables to give the name to John the Baptist and Christ himself having no Father on earth his Father gave him a name from Heaven Then why should not the Father of all that is called Father give that universal Name which belongs to his Children whom he hath regenerated by the Holy Ghost Put the Prophet Isaiah's authority to this reason and who can gainsay it Isa lxii 2. his scope is to extol Sion or the Church Evangelical says he The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all Kings thy glory and thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name It were endless to rehearse how many Authors apply this to the Nomenclature of Christian And again Isa xliii 1. I have redeemed thee certainly that 's the voice of Christ I have called thee by my name thou art mine Who will doubt now but that I have reduced our Title to the true original Our Godfather is the Lord above Let me reduce it likewise to the exact time when it began it will be no lost labour This is granted at all hands it did not happen so soon as ever Christ ascended up we were not crowned in our Cradle Pamelius takes advantage at a place in Tertullian to hold that the word Christian began to spread abroad in the fifth year after our Saviours Ascension that is in the very latter end of the Reign of Tiberius but I had rather say that his Author Tertullian mentions it too early for this will quite confound the History of the Scripture The Centurion Cornelius was not converted till two years of that there must be a competent space of time for those tidings to come to Antioch and for the work of the Ministry after that to gain a great number of the Gentiles for Barnabas to be sent for to undertake for a better increase it follows after all this the most successful St. Paul was brought thither and he and Barnabas assembled themselves a whole year with the Church this is plain in the Context before and then the Disciples were first called Christians in Antioch I like not Pamelius his supputation then he is too forward Genebrard in his Chronology runs as much backward and allows sixteen years to be run out since the death of our Lord before the faithful had the honor to get this memorable Title he takes his aim at the Synod which Turrian speaks of that the Apostles could be assembled no sooner in a sacred Council at Antioch whereas Turrian claims no more for his Synod but that the Apostles established that which was illustrious long before during the pains that Paul and Barnabas did spend at Antioch Therefore I suppose that the most judicious Baronius is but a little under or over that it fell out in the tenth year after the Ascension the Believers at Antioch being Decimae Domini the Tyth of the Lord those that were gained to the Faith in the tenth year being a selected Portion and a peculiar Benediction fell upon them Yet I am content to let that pass rather than you should think that there is some necessary efficacy in the number I look more sted fastly upon another great occurrency in those days which made this tenth year the fulness of time and the Disciples so ripe to receive this name that it could not well be deferred any longer For when the Gentiles were made partakers of the common salvation as well as the Jews who had been strangers together so many Ages before there was still a distance between them or at least no perfect conjunction and it grew an hard Task to piece them because the Jews either out of weakness did still affect the Ceremonies of Moses or having been so long familiar with them did desire to dismiss them reverently at their parting but the Gentiles loved all inoffensive liberty which was not contrary to nature and chiefly could not endure to refrain from meats which in themselves were lawful This quarrel was not decided till the Apostles at a full Council took a course with it in the fifteenth chapter of this Book Nay Clemens in the 7. lib. Const c. 48. says That they of the Circumcision had one Bishop over them to wit Evodius in this very City of Antioch they of the Uncircumcision in the same place at the same time another Bishop over them Ignatius this is his report though Ignatius himself say no such matter but gives the preeminence to Evodius alone next after the Apostles some variance and unkindness there was that 's certain and the first means to unite both sides in a perfect peace was that the one should not have this name and the other that name but to denominate them all from our Saviour and to call them Christians Quis nominum reatus quae accusatio vocabulorum says Tertullian names are guilty of no crime you cannot accuse them of any harm With the pardon of that Holy Father it is far otherwise for it is never seen but that men are stiff in opposition and almost irreconcilable when they please themselves to be distinguished from others by the names of those Doctors whose opinions they cleave unto If it once grow to a difference of Titles that which was but friendly disquisition of argument at first it turns to Emulation Emulations improve to be Factions and Factions that would soon have broke up like a mist many Ages cannot dissolve them If you know any that have mens persons in admiration and love to be denominated from them as the Captains of the Lords Host they are no better than Felons in Divinity that have set fire on the Becons to put all in tumult and combustion whereas except themselves there are no Enemies in arms within the Church of God That impartiality and indifferency to truth which this happy Church of England hath maintained not turning the Scale either this way or that way for Luther or Calvin's sake or whomsoever else it hath given us the advantage to be most comely in Discipline most retentive of good antiquity most certain of fundamental truth and of all Churches in the World to have least disagreement
language Vt ex politica dignitate auctior illustrior que fieret Ecclesiastica that the Ecclesiastical Dignity may become more ample and illustrious in the right of the Political Well to end all Antioch had once the day renowned for Orthodox Believers for constant Martyrs for innumerous Disciples she conteined 366 Parish Churches says Volateranus now her material buildings are for the most part eraced down her spiruual building quite vanished and her streets are possessed with Mahumetans You see that the Church is a removing Tabernacle rolling about from Sea to Sea from Land to Land That Truth which shall never fail upon Earth may fail in any particular Kingdom The Antiochians that were the first Christians are become the last God knows how the mystery of his vocation will work that the last shall be first Be not high-minded but fear that fearing we may work with diligence and believe with stedfastness and suffer with patience that we may be partakers of the first Resurrection in newness of life and of the second Resurrection in the glorification of Soul and Body AMEN A Commencement Sermon AT CAMBRIDGE ACTS xii 23. And immediately the Angel of the Lord smote him because he gave not God the glory and he was eaten of worms and gave up the Ghost IF the Caesarea was so attentive to hear King Herods Eloquence and how he did exalt himself above God What is your alacrity may I presume Dearly Beloved to give ear to this story and to Gods vengeance how he did exalt himself above Herod It might be suspected that Caesarea the Region which was called by the name of Caesar would be chiefly for the honour of the King but now we are in the house of the Lord and in his Temple doth every man speak of his honour says the Prophet David St. Luke hath occasioned the mention of two Angels in this Chapter and they are both strikers The first Angel is in the seventh verse that smote St. Peter on the side and rouzed him up from sleep I wish that a good Spirit sent from God may now stir up your attentions The second Angel is in my Text that smote King Herod in the inward bowels and believe it such as was the sin of Herod a presumptuous speaker such is the sin of every carless and unprofitable hearer that serves the vanity of his own imaginations in this holy place and gives not God the glory Is the Lord asleep think you because ye are drowzie Are not his Angels heedful of their charge because your thoughts are wandring Are you sure to come often to Church hereafter if you leave your affections at home to day Nay but though the present business be confined to an hour so is not the vengeance of the Lord for immediately the Angel smote him because he gave not God the glory Every religious exercise should be too long by a Preface I come therefore to set the Text in order that I may proceed to the explication of the parts and they are two First That Herod would not glorifie God indeed that is the bitter root out of which grew all these worms he gave not God the glory Secondly That God was glorified in Herod he was smitten of an Angel eaten of Vermine and gave up the Ghost Herod says St. Chrysostom gave not God the glory two ways 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his mouth spake proud things before the people 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he suffered the people to speak proud things as if he were equal with God and did not rebuke them Wherefore God was glorified in Herod four ways 1. That tantus periit the Ruler the Prince of the people he was smitten 2. A tanto periit no less than a mighty Angel smote him 3. Tantus tam repentè immediately he was smitten 4. Tantus tam luctuosè he was eaten of worms and gave up the Ghost Did not the Lord shew great glory in plucking down the mighty He was smitten Is not his arm exalted when the Angels are his Ministers An Angel smote him Shall not his wrath be terrible when it consumes in the twinkling of an eye Immediately he was smitten Lastly How weak is man in his sight even as a bulrush in the field All the beasts are his Army and the vilest creatures if he send them forth are strong as Lions the Worms did eat up this Galilaean and he gave up the Ghost As the man said in the Gospel Mat. xvii That his child fell often into the water and often into the fire two merciless Elements and very dangerous So Herod in the first part of the Text fell in aquas tumoris into the swelling waters of pride and in the second part in ignem terroris into the fire of vengeance and castigation The offence is to be offered to the first consideration he gave not God the glory There is a satiety of all things and to exceed a just proportion even in that which is good it is blameful and vicious too much justice is rigour too much temperance is diseaseful too much love is troublesome But to give God the glory it is a duty unto which we are bound with an infinite devotion if it were possible even as He is infinite so that we cannot fill up the measure much less are we able to exceed it Wherefore if God gave Children by seventies as he did to Ahab he asked but the first born who was consecrated to his service every hour of time that we live is his benevolence yet the Law is our remembrancer only to keep the Sabbath day the Earth is the Lords and all that therein is and yet his portion is but the tenth of the field but of his glory he hath parted no stakes to the Sons of men it is his own entirely non dabo never ask him for a share he will not part with it As his Ark did never thrive at Ashdod nor at Ekron but only when it was returned to Israel so let not the strength of the mighty nor the wisdom of the prudent be magnified glory will never thrive but when it is returned to the God of Israel and Dagon shall fall down before the Ark of his Majesty Themistocles demanding Tribute of the men of Andria told them that he had brought two powerful Advocates to plead his cause Suadam Vim Perswasion if they pleased Violence if they refused The self-same two Apparitors go before the glory of the most high Exhortation and Confusion Doth it like you to bless his name So God is glorified by the devotion of his Creature Doth it like you to exalt your self with Ero similis altissimo Then you shall be brought down and he will be honoured in your confusion He that swells to the greatest in this world shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven Et fortasse ideo non erit in regno coelorum ubi nisi magni esse non possunt says St Austin
especially overtop the Mountains and his voice delighteth to shake the Cedars of Libanus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. says Plutarch Among Mariners not one that dies a quiet death among ten but among evil Kings not one among ten thousand As their life is infectious unto many so is their doom dreadful unto many and that is the second reason why he was smitten Thirdly The people were not altogether free from chastisement I am sure not free from terrour in Herods castigation Look now upon him that was your Idol look ye Sidonians upon the empty cloud which you did blow into the air nay above the heavens with the breath of your mouth How is it vanished and come to nothing Imagine Beloved with what astonishment the whole Assembly was dissolved if their Consciences were not as full of Worms as Herod's body Fourthly Says St. Chrysostom ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To enlarge the Fathers meaning Clemency and Justice when they meet together attend how they may punish few and save many Vt poena ad paucos metus ad omnes perveniret Wherefore judge in your own reason if Herod had been spared and a great Assembly punished they all were sure to perish he perchance might be amended but if Herod suffer the Malediction one man feels the smart and the whole Assembly may repent and be saved Fifthly and lastly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says the same Father Let the Rabble go home in peace for this time they were not all white for harvest upon that day but behold the end Where is Caesarea now Or who almost knows the Sidonian They have learnt to know by dear experience that Thunder and Judgment is the Voice of God and not an Eloquent Oration The Sum and Doctrine of this Point is thus much First It is dangerous for a Magistrate it is certain Judgment for men whom God hath blessed with honourable and plentiful fortunes to defile themselves with scandalous vices You have Plenty in your Houses What need you to be unjust Your State is able to subsist by it self What need you to flatter You may have Families and Wives and Children Why should you be Adulterers Your Provision is not scanty Why do you eat and drink in excess as if they were things which you had not daily It is not for Princes to drink Wine that is not unto Drunkenness says the Prophesie of Lemuel which his Mother taught him A nullo periculo fortuna principum longiùs abest quà m ab humilitate The worst thing which happens to a magnificent life is that it is not obnoxious unto humility Secondly It is no less dangerous when a whole Kingdom and City or any collected multitude set their face against heaven Judgment may seem to have forgot them as these Sidonians departed safely in my Text but in time the Lord will root out such a Nation Well then when the flattering Assembly had deserved a vengeance Herod only carries it to his grave What shall I say As the Child that threw a stick at the dog which barked at him and hit his Mother-in-law who had long afflicted him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I meant the Dog but it is well as it is says the Child so that Princes may see they have no priviledge to be flattered whatsoever the People deserved Gods judgment fell not amiss upon Herod and he was smitten Tantus periit the second thing follows Tantus à tanto he was smitten by an Angel of the Lord. If these men says Moses concerning Core Dathan and Abiram If these men die the common death of all men if they be visited after the visitation of all men then the Lord hath not sent me Strange Wickednesses procure strange kinds of Death If the Earth will not avenge them the Angel of the Lord will come down and fight Do the Trees of Paradise deserve to have a Cherubin set before them with a flaming Sword And shall not all the Host of heaven stand about the Majesty of the Most High and see the honour of his name preserved But there is a controversie whether this Angel were not one of the evil Spirits now commanded to inflict a disease upon Herods bowels For say they it were as great a torture for the Devil to punish Herod for Pride as for Herod to suffer it because it calls their own sin to remembrance for which they are fettered in chains of darkness And Josephus gave the occasion to this opinion augmenting the story of Herods death with this circumstance that an Owl at this very moment perched upon the silken strings of his Canopy which the King took to be a Presage of his death and was no doubt a tenour substituted by Satan ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã As Homer says a Bird of fatal Praediction and such a one is said to have affronted Innocent the Third as he was declaring his own Title in the Council of Lateran For my part I am not averse to believe Josephus in this part of the Story because in all other points he doth follow the Evangelist And the sight of some uncouth Creature is able to put an evil Conscience into a perplexity worse than death Every thing is dismal to a guilty mind like Archimedes his Engines dreadful to the Romans if a Timber-log or Cable-rope did but shew it self upon the Walls of Syracusa But though the relation of the Owl be true the Spirit of God would not mention it in holy Scripture lest it should encrease our ignorance who are superstitions to be afraid of the crossings and apparitions of beasts and such other casualties Let it be then that this evil Vision affrighted Herod yet it is more likely that the Angel was one of the blessed which smote him that he died For although the good Angels are sometimes called evil ones ab effectu as the Psalmist says of the Israelites that God sent evil Angels among them yet the unclean Spirits are never stiled by this honourable compellation to be called the Angels of the Lord. And give me leave to please my self a little in this conjecture God would not permit vengeance of death to be executed against a King by any power inferiour to an Angel of light It is the priviledge of their Unction their immediate subjection to God alone which exempts them from the hand of all other authority yea from the fury of infernal Spirits Wherefore the Jesuits own tender conscience which is as soft as Flint dare not say that a King is obnoxious to death till some unnatural Sentence of deposition go before Which resembles methinks the very first passage in Aristophanes You dare not strike me says Charion the Servant having a Crown upon my head ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says his Master I will first take your Crown from you so first the Jesuits lay down rules of Arts to depose Princes and then their Devil ships say that you may use them as you will Well though Herod deserved the worst
therefore whatsoever the refractory think that filled our Liturgie with Te Deums with Magnificats with Doxologies Methinks Prayer were but a drowzy thing without them When we ask any thing that we need we speak in the Dialect of men but when we send forth acclamations to the honour of Jesus Christ we speak with the tongues of Seraphims In our Petitions we may exceed and ask too much in our Doxologies we cannot exceed It agrees well to the true only God which Plato ascribed to his Idols heap what Epithets you will upon the Gods you cannot flatter them Perhaps some are of the mind of that Heathen that asked a Rhetorician to what purpose he penn'd an Oration in praise of Hercules for who did ever discommend Hercules Or if Blasphemers should detract from God his excellency it is not made less So all the invocations and Halleluja's of the Saints cannot add on Cubit not one Inch to the stature of his Majesty it is uncapable of increase and can never grow greater But will you be content to open your lips unto the praise of the Coelestial goodness if it bring your self to honour though it be no amplification to the glory of God Agreed then no man can ascribe much praise to God but out of a large capacity of faith for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost No man can speak of the King of Heaven according to his due honour but it will procreate devotion and reverence no man doth advance the name of God in the preface of his Prayer but it is a tacite Confession that he prefers the glory of his Maker before his own Necessity Behold now though Gods honour be in the state that it was before yet your soul is in a better state by Prayer and Invocation for a spiritual gift in this life is a degree to a reward in the life to come Let me not defer it any longer to speak of the ditty of that praise which the Souls under the Altar did give unto the most High And the words when they are laid together are Triga divinae gloriae as it is called a Chariot drawn by the three transcendent Attributes of the Divine Nature Who doth excel in Power but the Lord Who doth excel in goodness but the Holy of Holies And He that brings to pass whatsoever he hath spoken he must excel in truth Power belongs unto the Father for all things are by him Truth belongs unto the Son for all the shadows of the Old Law are fulfilled in him Goodness belongs to the Holy Ghost for he is the Sanctification that is diffused in our hearts Therefore more praise cannot be couched in three words than in these Lord Holy and True We wretched and ignorant sinners that utter these words with polluted lips we cannot apprehend as the Martyrs in Heaven do what an eternal weight of glory is in every one of these Syllables Yet we know that he is Lord whose authority admits no equal the Idaea of all goodness whose sanctity admits no question A Truth which is the measure of all truth whose words and statutes admit no contradiction His Dominion is so strong that it cannot be resisted his Holiness is so sincere that it cannot sin and his Truth is so firmly coupled to his Holiness that he cannot lie There is no Power but in Him for all the Foundations of the Earth are weak There is no Holiness but in him for there is none that doth good no not one There is no verity but in him for God is true and every man a lyar As for all the Gods of the Heathen there was infirmity in their protection for they had no strength Viciousness in their Sanctions for they had no sanctity Delusions in their Oracles for they were nothing but vanity To contract a world of variety which may be morallized out of this Triple Crown of God it is not to be over-passed that these are the Titles upon which the Church depends for all its blessings the Hills unto which we lift up our eyes for help Solium gubernandi altare sanctificandi cathedra docendi The Throne of his Kingdom the Altar of his Priesthood the Chair of his Prophetical Wisdom which afford unto the Church Might to protect it Grace to purifie it and Truth to direct it in all things Or observe it how the Enemies of the Church are over-matcht and trodden down by these Attributes We all know they are in three Ranks Tyrants Hypocrites and Hereticks To suppress Tyrants he is the mighty Lord for the detestation of Hypocrites he is the Holy One of Israel for the conviction of Hereticks Truth hath flourisht out of the Earth and Righteousness hath looked down from Heaven But if these be the Flowers of Christs honour if the Martyrs as some Expositors say meant of him only they are Lines which will easily I am sure meet in that Center Though once he was compassed with our infirmities yet now what Power so great as his to whom the Father hath committed all judgment What Holiness so perfect as his which challenged the censure of his Enemies Which of you can reprove me of sin Or what Truth so praepotent as out of his mouth which made his Adversaries confess Never man spake like him Not to leave this Subject without some utility to our life Are these Titles of our Father no way hereditary to us by Adoption of Sons Yes surely after the model of our earthen Vessel the compellation of Lord which is so awful and to be adored in the Supreme Majesty it claims veneration and submissive obedience to those Powers upon earth to whom God hath committed the execution of his governance The other two Attributes are not so restrictive but are the Vrim and Thummim of every Christian or like the two eyes in our head we know not which is dearest Holiness and Truth Truth is the illumination of our understanding in all points to be believed Holiness is the reformation of our will in all cases of practice Which of these can you spare and live your brains or your heart If Holiness be true there will be no Hypocrisie If Truth be holy there will be no contention If Holiness be true Zeal shall be joyned to Knowledge If Truth be holy Knowledge shall be joyned to action Where Truth is not holy Herod for the engagement of his Oath will cut off the head of John Baptist Where holiness is not true the Pharisees in defence of the Law will Crucifie our Saviour Wherefore put on the new man which is created after God ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the holiness of truth or in true holiness Eph. iv 24. Forget not I pray that I said these Epithets were not only an Invocation but an obtestation also as if the Martyrs had said As thou art the Lord as thou art holy as thou art true avenge our bloud of them that
Happy is the man that feareth alway but he that hardneth his heart falleth into mischief Prov. xxviii 14. Now there is a fear of a finer thread which is timor filiorum this ariseth out of the love of God when we take care not to displease because He hath made us and poured all his benefits upon us because it is the best of all things to enjoy his favour Nothing so much to be loved as God therefore nothing so much to be feared that He be not offended they that love most abound with it This is a joyful fear which outlasts all the fears of this life The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever Psal xix 9. This reverential fear is in the Angels the Cherubins standing before God cover their faces with their wings awing his glorious Majesty the Elders before the throne fall down prostrate and cover their faces with their wings As the New Testament calls God charity God is love saith St. John so the Old Testament calls him fear Jacob swears by the fear of his father Isaac that is by God himself Gen. xxxi 43. Fear therefore is a vein that runs through all Religion and whatsoever buds out of Religion may be called fear it is the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of all piety the first and the last The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledg Prov. i. 7. and the end of all is fear God and keep his Commandments Eccl. xxi 13. The Lord threatens to the end we should be dejected that 's worship annexed to servile fear and the Lord multiplies his blessings upon us to the end we should bow down and be thankful that 's worship annexed to filial fear True fear doth continually worship our Redeemer desperate fear like the impenitent Thief doth blaspheme him and these two differ as much as sharp sawce that gives an appetite to the stomach and poison that destroys the vitals So far that the word fear in the Law is chang'd into worship in the Gospel for so it was fit to refute the Devil who said all these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me And the worship of God is that Theme which without more circumstance now it befals me to handle What is it to worship God what is requir'd unto it every man knows that's the first question to be askt and I will make you a very satisfactory answer out of a devout example which is thus St. Matthew sayes there came a Leper and worshipped Christ saying Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Math. viâi 2. that 's the word of my Text. You shall meet with this party again Mark i. 40. What find we there there came a Leper to him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã beseeching him and kneeling down to him yet another Evangelist says more to make it clearer Luke v. 12. Behold a man full of leprosie fell on his face and besought him saying Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean The collection from hence is this when these scatter'd members are put together that to worship the Lord is to kneel down unto him to fall down on our face before him and to beseech him by earnest prayer Be advertised in one thing that to worship to kneel before to bow down unto in reverence are media vocabula as we say terms for civil respects between man and man as well as for religious offices between God and Man a great confusion falls out thereby in the handling of this doctrine and it cannot be avoided Saies St. Austin in linguâ latinâ non habemus ullum vocabulum quod solùm dicatur de cultu Dei there is not any word betokening the worship of God in the latin tongue so proper to it that it may not be communicated to man all tongues are alike in that poverty of expression In the New Testament the Greek word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is constantly kept for the outward worship of God saving that Matth. xviii the Servant who feared to be sold away he and all he had is said ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the Parable speaks of an earthly Master though the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or Epiparabola come home to God in the English tongue the nearest word that is meant only of divine honour and a little too high for civil reverence is adoration If you say you adore an earthly man in our language we almost esteem it flattery But they are not words or outward gestures which can decide what it is which properly constitutes the essence of that worship which God claims The word adore I said might have a religious meaning with us but in no tongue else Saies Valla very well adorare includit orare supplicare voce uti plicare genu the word adore doth import the humble petition of the tongue and the supplication of the knee but these are things common and promiscuous to civil and holy uses All the reverent deportments of the body which piety ascribes to God civility without offence performs sometimes to Magistrates and Superiours It may be some Nations had their Customs to keep certain peculiar venerations of the body for God alone as the Athenians put Timagoras their Embassador to death quòd Regem Persarum tanquam Deum salutasset because he did obeisance to the King of Persia as to a God I know not what peculiar bendings of the body they appropriated to their Gods it was a national custom of their own and for my part I will not say a bad one but nature hath no such ground to limit the most humble gestures of the body to God alone Prophets in holy Scripture have faln on their face before Kings and great men have faln on their face before Prophets Though this doctrine be most true yet Cardinal Bellarmin did not pick out Abraham so luckily to make him the example of it He says that Abraham prostrated himself alike to God to Angels and to the Honourable men of the Sons of Heth. I say and will manifest it that the Scripture says he made a difference in his congees to them all Abram fell on his face and God talked with him Gen. xvii 3. When he went to meet the Angels he bowed himself toward the ground Gen. xviii 2. When he spake to the children of Heth Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people Gen. xxiii 7. You hear he fell on his face to God he bowed himself to the ground to the Angels and he bowed himself without more addition to the people of Heth. But this distinction is not kept by other holy men who walked perfectly before the Lord therefore I stand upon my former ground that neither by simple terms nor by postures and bowings of the body can it be resolv'd what worship is proper to the Lord for my part I could never make an intelligible interpretation of that
distinction in Aquinas so well accepted by some that there are so many forms of adoration as there are kinds of excellencie for honour and worship are done to the person for the excellency which is in it Now excellency is either divine and infinite in God which deserves that adoration call'd by him latria or humane excellency which is grounded or in mens honours or in their virtues and so deserves civil and political reverence or it is an excellency less than divine yet more then humane which is in the Angels and souls of holy men departed and that claims the worship of dulia unto it self Put this into plain meaning he that can and shew me how these three are distinguisht in outward or bodily adoration I will agree that in those things we worship we do apprehend excellency three manner of wayes First there is cultus sacrosanctae religionis the religious and pious worship which we give to God for his omnipotent and most glorious excellency Secondly there is cultus civilis subjectionis the worship which we give to our superiors in authority as we live in political subjection because they are set over us for our good Thirdly there is cultus moralis reverentiae the worship of moral respect and reverence which we give to some for their good gifts and qualities although we are not under them in any political ordination All these worships are performed upon several excellencies apprehended in the persons worshipped but the act of worship it self as concerning that which the head the knee the hand or any part of the body doth execute may be the same for the distinguishing of one and another must be in the heart and mind as I proceed now to shew at large unto you The definition of divine worship must be thus framed adoratio est talis veneratio exterior quae ex corde pio religioso procedit that 's the adoration due to God and to him alone which with the exterior veneration of the body proceeds out of the pious and religious intentions of the heart If you yield any token of outward obeysance and mean it to honour him who hath made you redeem'd you sanctified you and conferred all other benefits upon you then it is raised up from civil homage and duty and is become divine worship a distinction will help the memory of them that can conceive it a little further There are three things which concur to that virtue which we call the worship of God First the act of the understanding must put forth it self to apprehend and know the glorious excellency of God that he made the whole world out of nothing and susteins all things by the word of his power Then secondly the act of the will comes in wherein we assent and apply our selves to adore his excellency to magnifie him and devote our hearts unto him Thirdly these two joyned together do urge and command the exterior act of worship which is performed by the body tanti est adorare all these must be in it if it be true adoration S. Paul speaks of some that have the forms of godliness but deny the power thereof The formal cringing and bending are but like a part play'd upon a Stage if they be sever'd from the power of godliness from the knowledg of the understanding what glory belongs to God and from the will and purpose of the heart to exalt his holy name both privately and in his holy Temple Well I can but call upon you to prepare your hearts and you will every one say I am sure my heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed The Lord knows but we that are your instructors do not whether that internal part of worship be well discharg'd by you therefore I come to that quarter of the virtue whereof men may be witnesses if it be carefully executed unto outward adoration it was upon the quarrel of outward worship that Christ here disputed with Satan God had respect to Abel and to his offering Gen. iv 4. to Abel that is to his internal piety to his offering that is to his external worship Abel had been unrespected at that time if he had not been good at both And as a plaister of cordial ingredients laid to the stomach or an unction well slickt upon the skin comforts the spirits within and makes them execute their vital functions chearfully so outward reverence helps us greatly against our dulness and drowzie infirmities The lifting up the hands and eyes make a man crave more passionately the knocking of the breast whets our repentance with indignation against our selves bowing down the head and knee imprints into us the great distance which is between God and us the uncovering the head makes that needful thought sink into our heart in whose presence we stand Glorifie God with your body 1 Cor. vi 20. Tertullian and S. Cyprian read it Portate Deum in corpore vestro Carry God in your body in every joynt and member of it It may be they met with some Greek Copy that read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Our Religion is compared to a Marriage there is a contract between God and our soul and this is gain'd from the similitude that the Wife is the Husbands as well in bodie as in affection and so are we the Lords As Man and Wife are but one flesh so Christ the Bridegroom of the Church did assume the whole man bodie and soul into the unity of his person He hath conjoyn'd them both unto God and let us conjoyn them both to the worship of God A Sermon cannot be spent upon a subject which doth more deserve our exhortation The Lord created a Star on purpose only to bring the Magi of the East to worship Christ and they did so even when He lay in most despicable manner before them in the Manger of a Stable and shall we be slacker to kneel before his footstool when he reigns triumphantly in the highest Heavens the Heaven and Earth the Stars and Prophets all lead us to the worship of God Scriptura mundus ad hoc sunt ut colatur qui creavit adoretur qui inspiravit so St. Cyprian The Scripture and the world are to this end that He that created the one and inspir'd the other might be worshipped It is no mean duty which made those wise men of the East take so tedious and long a journey to post in twelve days from the mountains of the East to Bethlem and that other Traveller Acts viii the Treasure of the Queen Candace came from the uttermost parts of Ethiopia to Jerusalem and all for no other end but this to worship The Scripture saies so expresly and when they had done that they went home again We had need carry a very true heart to God in these daies for many of us put him off all together with the zeal of our heart and think it will excuse us if we neither honor him with our
your poor Lambs pine for want of milk how shall the great shepherd Christ Jesus afford you the comfort of one drop of water O the sobs of Orphans the cursings of Clients the tears of abused Virgins the bleatings of your Flocks the revealing of secrets Arcanique fides prodiga perlucidior vitro and this Psalm of David against Achitophel his false Counsellor will ring over heaven and cause judgment to fall down upon such who lifted up their heel against them that trusted too much to their slippery infidelity Yea mine own familiar c. Now the third complaint is sorest he that did eat of my bread Magnificavit dolum did exalt mischief against me It hath been said in scorn of the Epicure that the palate of his mouth was more sensible than his heart it is well that somewhat would please him But Achitophel had neither feeling of Davids true love in his heart nor any taste of his benefits in his mouth friendship and food were both lost upon him Comedebat panes and yet he is his enemy As in the overflowings of Nilus the corn fields are the better and the fatter for it but Serpents and Vermine grow out of the fruitfulness So the overflowing of benefits begets nothing in an ill disposition but Worms and Cankers ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Bazil Not a Cur so fierce but will fawn upon you and lick your hands if you feed him Birds are not so wild but by giving a little meat unto them in time they may be brought to pick up crums at your Table what a brutish thing is ingratitude that the beasts may be won with that which would not win Achitophel Nay there are such says the Father that you lose them when you bestow kindness upon them and envy will repine that you have ability to supply their wants Jupiter hospitibus num te dare jura loquuntur c. The Table of hospitality was ever accounted a sacred thing And St. Austin thinks that Christ did reveal himself to Cleophas and the other Disciple in breaking of bread rather than in any other sign because they offered him part of their own entertainment at Emmaus And Salt was a Symbol of friendship among the Heathen because feeding at the same board was an uniter of affections and amity The Greek Proverb makes it the basest kind of love to have the relish of a Parasite in a mans mouth ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to love no longer than we are fed But here is a canker worm that devours the sap of the tree that feeds him like unnurtured beggars served plentifully at rich mens doors and yet take advantage how they may break in and rob the house where they were relieved You may as soon reduce the babling of a mad man to reason as to take any measure of this vice of ingratitude Can you search the depth of that which hath no bottom It is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Sive or Colender which contains nothing that you pour into it It is gone like the wind which passeth by our ear and you shall hear of it no more Take the great instance from him whose case was most pitiful Why was our Saviour put to death For envy Why was he envied For his good Works What good Works had he done He fed the hungry and this bountiful Lord hath Gall and Vinegar presented to him He raised the dead divers of their own Nation and yet the giver of life is put to death Devils were cast out of another and the cleanser of the house is defiled vvith spittle Can any reason be given for this We may say indeed as one did to our own shame that there are a sort of men Divites aliorum jacturis immortales funeribus such as are rich by other mens losses and immortal by other mens funerals but what reason can we yield for that none at all It is a sin without a bottom and therefore it hath the greater affinity with Hell and damnation I have thought it one of the Devils principal projects that since the story of the Athenian and Roman Commonwealths were the most likely to be turned over and perused you shall not pass the Annals of five years but some memorable example of ingratitude will cross your way In Athens it was malum epidemicum their all deserving Miltiades Cimon Aristides Themistocles discarded disgraced imprisoned a City full of severe Laws against ingratitude Sed moribus suis quam legibus uti maluerunt full of opposite practice to the Laws In the Roman Polity Camillus Africanus Scipio Manlius many more either dethroned from dignity deprived of life or banisht their Country wherefore Africanus spat in their face again when dying in exile he did appoint this Epitaph for his Tomb Ingrata Patria ne ossa quidem mea habes he did not bequeath so much as his bones to his ingrateful Country These are the Devils Land-marks to guide after Ages by such disloyal presidents we want not history then to pattern this vice by example but if you ask for reason as I said before it is deeper than the Sea and you cannot sound the bottom Unless this may give a little satisfaction to the curious that the flower of vertue hath been always untimely cropt in Popular Government when the multitude are more prone to darken glorious deeds with envy than to make them famous by reward And I could never find in my reading that a deserving person found a due recompence in any State but by the bounty of a Monarch And therefore it is a thousand pities that our ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã our Kings and Princes that appoint prizes to them that best behave themselves in the Combate that they should light upon ungrateful Courtiers like Davids undermining Achitophel his familiar friend that eat of his breads c. I hope the truly noble and magnificent mind will say to this Non nova mî rerum facies inopinave surgit that he full well knew and foresaw he must lose many good turns when he bestowed them among men Est tanti ut gratum invenias experiri vel ingratos says Seneca One thankful man is so precious a jewel if you find him out that it will quit cost to try twenty that are unthankful Shall a good man lose the employment of his bounty because evil men have forgot the retribution of gratitude God forbid Shew me an Usurer that hath broke up trade for being cast behind by one bankrupt Shew me a Seafaring man that leaves to traffick for one losing voyage Post malam segetem serendum You cannot shew the man that will hold his hand from the seed hereafter because one crop did not answer expectation Nay I had rather preach that there was never more than one covetous Judas in the Church who loved thirty pieces of silver better than a thousand blessings of his gracious Lord. I had rather perswade you there was never more than one projecting Achitophel who would contrive
in hand to drive the money changers out of the Temple than to correct the Publicans and Tole-gatherers at the Custom-house who were the greater Extortioners A tree that was made to bear fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire if it continue barren but wild Plants from which neither Figs nor Olives were expected God never threatens them with the Axe but lets them stand till they decay with age and rottenness This is the reason of it that although God had no more in Sodom for his share but a very little houshold yet one of his own Domesticks that look'd back upon Sodom perish'd as well as those his Enemies that never came out But if God spared not his own what remains for them that were never folded up in his flock never called by his name Si flagellantur filii quid debent sperare servi nequissimi says S. Austin If the Sons of the Family be scourged what can Runnagates hope for If King Josias a Saint worth all the men of Judah beside was brought to an untimely end that stroke was but a forerunner that all the stubborn Nation beside should soon after be cast out into a most woful captivity Quando justis non parcitur propter perficiendam purgationem non parcetur impiis tanquam sarmentis praecisis ad combustionem so St. Austin goes on in a sweet similitude If God do not forbear the Righteous but prune them off sometimes to trim the tree certainly the unrighteous shall not be endured who are dead sear boughs and most combustible for the fire Vpon the Land of my people shall come up thorns and briars how much more upon all the houses of the joyous City Isa xxxii 13. As waters are still and shallow near the Spring-head but run with the swifter Current as they are further off so the indignation of Divine Justice which begins calmly in the Church which is near to God will increase more violently among the out-casts of Satan among whom at last it will end Says St. Peter 1 Epist iv 17. The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel of God The House of God shall be punished and severity begins at them but it is not finis eorum that is not their final doom nay it is no more but a twitch by the way but punishment in St. Peters own words is the end the last cast of impenitent sinners What shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel Inchoatur ira judicii divini à correptione justorum ut in reproborum damnatione conquiescat so Gregory in reference to St. Peter The Rod of Gods Power begins with the chastisement of the Just that it may give over in the damnation of Reprobates And as Gregory expounds St. Peter so our Vulgar English Margin makes St. Peter to expound Solomon Prov. xi 31. Behold the Righteous shall be recompenced in the earth much more the wicked and the sinner Finally as God spares not the nearest to him so let us take up the same justice my meaning is let no man spare himself Proximus egomet mihi If thy right eye offend thee thine own eye thy right eye pull it out and cast it from thee Beati qui cum omnium misereantur sibi nunquam penitus ignoscant says Salvianus Happy are they that are pitiful to all men only they will not pity themselves but avenge themselves of themselves that God may shew them mercy Secondly She became a Pillar of Salt even she that was one of four that were brought out of Sodom to be delivered and yet there wanted one of those four before they got into Zoar. I will not move that question hereupon that one did to our Saviour in the Gospel Luk. xiii 23. Lord are there few that be saved No answer can be given to this directly but either curious or uncomfortable Our Saviour replies unto it in that same place thus Strive to enter in at the straight gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able But because St. Matthew says of that straight gate that leadeth unto life few there be that find it Therefore Cajetan says that in effect our Saviour rejoyned to that mans question few should be saved Ex angustiâ portae significans paucos esse qui salvantur the narrowness of the way did signifie how few should hit upon that path that conducteth to eternal life But I had rather take in light at another window and receive St. Austins Exposition that Christ did purposely decline to give punctual and affirmative satisfaction to that question deriving his words to this scope rather to make us study which way every man may be saved than to know how many or how few shall be saved Ad questionis vaniloquium nihil dicit sed transfert suum sermonem ad rem magis necessariam He would not reply to such an impertinent interrogatory but raised doctrine out of it more necessary to edification Let not that curious investigation then lie in our way what a small number of souls four were in respect of so many thousands that were burnt to ashes in the destruction of four Cities and yet how much that portion decreased because one of them four was cut short by the way rather I will turn the Point into this consideration that the Devil is always detracting and abating from that small portion and remnant which God hath set apart for himself Could our Saviour have chosen fewer than Twelve Apostles to testifie over all the world what they had heard and seen And yet the Devil entred into one of these to make him the guide unto those that betrayed Jesus God cantonized out for himself but Twelve Families or Tribes out of all the Kingdoms of the Earth with whom he made a Covenant by Sacrifice and Ten portions of those Twelve revolted both from God and the King and fell into Idolatry and Treason I might be infinite both in Sacred and Humane Histories but our own experience is as sure a touch unto us The Christian Faith you know is received but into few Regions of the habitable world I may say according to Nathans Parable that Europe was unto God as that only Ewe Lamb all that the poor man had but the Devil is like that rich one that had many Flocks and Herds besides in all places under the Sun yet you see what a great stride Mahomet hath stept into Europe though the Church complains of her small number as Micah did Woe is me I am as when they have gathered the Summer fruits as the grape-gleanings of the Vintage there is no cluster to eat yet the envious one would abate the Lord of that small Remnant among all the Inhabitants of Sodom he thought four too great a number to escape and one of them relapsed and became
a Pillar of Salt But let us come from persons to things that concern Gods Worship and Honour and note how we defalk and rob God in them Of two Testaments of holy Scriptures the Manichaeans Hereticks in ancient times and now our modern Anabaptists do reject the Old Of two parts of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Bread and Wine to signifie the body of Christ crucified and his bloud spilt the Layty you know where have lost the use of the Cup. Of four Commandments in the First Table of the Law the Second among some is either snapt off for brevity sake or crouded into the First to make it lose its force and vigour Instead of Faith and good Works which are both necessary to salvation we are much too slow with our good Works and think to come off well enough with a dry barren Faith Instead of our Prayers early and late as a Morning and Evening Sacrifice dissolute men and women think a short good-night will serve the turn as they go to bed Instead of glorifying God in our bodies and in our spirits many do subtract their humility of bodily worship and suppose it is abundantly well done to serve him in Spirit Finally instead of devoting our whole Age to repentance and newness of life many will not abandon their sins till their sins are forsaking them in their last years nay perhaps in the last hour nay God help them perhaps but in the last gasp or two of that latest hour thus the Devil hath envenomed the World with a Sacrilegious Poyson and perswades us that all is well gotten which is lost to God But in deed and in truth God loseth nothing He will be honoured either in our Conversion or in our Confusion As his mercy was content to be glolified in the deliverance of Lots Wife so his justice was exalted in her punishment Thirdly This woman was come out of Sodom come out of the Plain hard by the Gates of Zoar at the very last Furlong of the way as Adrichomius describes it and cast her self wilfully away when she was almost past all danger as the Proverb is In portu naufragium she had pass'd the Waves of a perilous Journey but shipwrackt and lost all when she was come home to the Haven Quod quisque vitet nunquam homini satis cautum est in horas None perish so soon as they that think they cannot perish now they are past the worst and so become less wary of their safety When Caesar had it divin'd unto him that the Ides of March should be fatal to him he should never out-live that day he was jocund and secure about afternoon and frumpingly told his Wizzards the day was far-spent and he felt no sign of death O but says one that Prophesied evil to him the day is come but it is not pass'd yet and the event of the day was the slaughter of Caesar So many are wound up to the last minute of confidence and security and there began their ruine where they thought to consummate their felicity Abimelech marched against the City of Thebes he took it he besieged the Tower close to the Gates of the Tower and was about to set fire to the Gates thus he stood in limine victoriae as his Victory was come to the just complement a woman cast down a piece of a Mill stone and brake his skull that he died Judg. ix 22. Thus as a Gamesters whole Stake and winnings may be lost at the last cast so many men have had a long progress in prosperity and for want of due thankfulness of that they had received their conclusion and shutting up of their eyes hath been bitterness Relapsing in sickness a thing as frequent as the water that runs by us it is not unskilfully imputed to the heedlesness of him that was too adventurous upon recovery and some other indisposition of natural causes but when we see a man brought down to the Grave with infirmity and brought back again by Art and skil and yet in the midst of his joy to be strangely cast back into the former languishment Let not the sound judge anothers servant but let the sick party judge himself that either he returned to the vomit of his former sins which he did abandon upon fear of death or promised restitution of something got by fraud which afterwards he would not perform or forgave his enemies at the point of extremity and being restored renewed his old grudge or forgot his Vows which he had made or flubbered over the benefit which God had done for him with careless ingratitude Certainly some offence did intervene that when the bitterness of death did seem to be past the Lord should cause his very recovery to be his ruine For there is nothing more dangerous than deliverance out of danger if we do not use our fortune reverently and stand in awe of God even in the midst of his mercies And this is more conspicuous in the soul than in the body Gods grace leads a penitent man along by the hand in the narrow way of righteousness but if he begin to think that he can go alone without a supporter when he thinks he hath one foot in heaven he shall be thrown down to hell or as our Saviour speaks the latter end of that man shall be worse than the first How many have revolted from the true Faith through the deceivable wit of seducers even upon the last bed of their sickness How many have repulsed Satans tentations oftentimes and have yielded as you would say at the last time of asking As Samson denied Delilah sundry times but betrayed his life into her hands at the last onset and importunity What a courage had Peter against the whole band of the Priests servants And how much discouraged at the voice of a silly Damosel and made to forswear his Master This was in extremo actu deficere to be far from Sodom and almost at Zoar and yet to fall back from God when we are within sight and almost within touch of the Crown of life this is that turpitude which is most ignominious to our Christian Warfare With shame enough shall back-sliders hear that reproach from God You did run well who did hinder you You were almost at the top of my holy hill why did your feet slip Why did you look back to Sodom Wherefore my Beloved when your conscience tells you that hitherto your heart hath been right with the Lord you have plaid your part well to the last act why then be most sollicitous that you be not defective in the end and lose your reward and the fruit of all your labour that went before But pray with David Forsake me not O Lord in mine old age when I am gray-headed Let me not forget thee as Lots Wife did when I am almost at Zoar and then the Lord will say Even to your old age even to your hoary hairs will I carry you Isa xlvi 4. So much be