the same end to make us magnifie God for his Wisdom Goodness and Justice Nay I add compare the Law of Works imposed upon Adam and the Law of Faith imposed upon Christians and both of them are possible to be done For the first man according to the integrity wherein he was created and by the virtue of supernatural Grace bestowed upon him might have obeyed the Commandement given if he had not turned to disobedience and by the Divine help of the same grace we to whom God hath preached the glad tidings of his Son are endewed with power to believe that we may be saved Now in a word let us lay the difference of these two one against another God gave the Law in Paradise as a King in his Justice but he gave the Gospel in Sion as a Father of Grace and Mercy according to that Law the reward had been given ex debito by debt and due say the Schoolmen but to him that believes the reward is given by mere Grace which excludes boasting He that disobey'd that Law was to look for the most strict severity of Justice so condemnation belongs likewise to the unbeliever according to Justice but perhaps it shall be temper'd with some moderation for Christs sake Finally this is the main disagreement the first Covenant made with Adam did exclude all hope of remission of sins but the second Covenant made in Christ runs in this tenour to them that live by Faith your sins shall be blotted out and your iniquities forgotten After you have understood the first point how there was a Law imposed upon Adam when he was created and endewed with original Justice you must now give ear to the next thing in order what heavy and astonishing matter is contained in that Law which was given by Moses to the Children of Israel and remember that I consider the Law deliver'd in the two Tables at Mount Sinai Seorsim and by it self separated from all the promises contained in the Prophets and in the Psalms of David These then are the remarkable differences between the Covenant written in Tables of stone and this Covenant of the New Testament in the Blood of Christ First God gave the Law at Sinai being wrath with our sins for whereas we had lost both the wisdom of our understanding and the loyal obedience of our will by the transgression of our first parent yet God impos'd his Commandement upon us and exacts such measure of holiness which we are not able to perform Therefore that Law was given in the barren Wilderness because it is not able to bring one soul unto God likewise it was delivered with signs full of wrath thunder and lightning and a dreadful noise to shew that God was full of indignation when he laid it upon us On the contrary he made the new Covenant of peace being reconciled to them that were lost or at least proffering reconciliation in his beloved Son Read this Doctrine Heb. xii from the 18. to the 24. verse Ye are not come to the Mount that might not be touched and that burnt with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words which they that heard entreated they might hear it no more They could not endure that which was commanded And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake but ye are come to Mount Sion and to the City of the living God c. Wherefore the Gospel was presented with manifest tokens of love and benevolence Ecce Evangelizo behold I bring you good tidings 2. There 's a difference arising between the first Testament and the last from the several Mediators that came between God and the people Moses was a servant faithful in the Family and he was the Mediator of the Old Testament Christ is the Son and Heir of all he was the Mediator of the New The Law was given by Moses Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ 3. The old Covenant was ratified with the blood of Beasts but loe the New Covenant doth much surpass it which was ratified with the precious Blood of that immaculate Lamb which took away the sins of the world which is therefore called the Blood of the New Testament 4. The old Law in St. Paul's phrase contained poor and beggerly rudiments not able to bring to life It was a killing letter the ministry of death and condemnation it worketh wrath it entred that sin might abound it is like Hagar which gendreth children unto bondage Gal. iv 24. The Gospel is the power of salvation to every one that believeth a quickening Spirit it purgeth us from our sins it speaketh better things than the blood of Abel 5. That which Moses brought was an heavy burden which neither the Fathers nor the Children could bear but of the Gospel Christ saith his yoke is easie and his burden is light and in it you shall find rest for your souls Lastly the Old Testament endured unto Christ and no longer wherefore because it passed away it is called the Old the New Testament remaineth for ever so says St. Paul of our Blessed Saviour taking flesh who is not made after the Law of a carnal Commandment but after the power of an endless life No passage or comparison can be made between them but the Law given at Mount Sinai will appear to be an harsh and most unwelcome injunction and that which doth clear us from the curse thereof is Evangelium the best tidings that ever arriv'd at the ear of man Hitherto I have consider'd the Old Testament in no respect but as it contains the killing letter of the Law but you must not mistake that the Holy Spirit hath interlaced many fast-holdings of Faith and promises Evangelical almost every where in the Prophets and in the Psalms of David Nay the Old Testament is rather Promise than Law yet it was fit the rigour of the Law should be repeated that it might more appear how necessary the promise of Grace was that we could not live without it and that every man being convicted in his conscience by the sentence of the Law we might more ardently fly to Grace for the end of the Moral Law is double to set us a rule what we should endeavour to do and to discover our own impotency unto us what we are not able to do that we may seek a remedy in the satisfaction of Christ But this I say that the darkness and obscurity of the Old Testament was enlightned with many excellent promises that the believing Israelites might be partakers of Faith and of everlasting life they had the same Gospel which we have the same Christ the same Faith the same Spirit sealing the truth of promise unto them Where is then the priviledge you will say that the tidings are better to us then unto them or far surpassing on our side every way Israel that believed in the promised seed was an heir but under age
volume of thy book it is written of me that I should fulfill thy Law then said I loe I come 2. He fulfilled the Moral Law not only by giving it the right interpretation but by exact obedience whereupon he said Which of you can accuse me of sin 3. He gave life to the Ceremonies pointing to their true meaning as instead of the Circumcision of the flesh exhorting to the Circumcision of the heart 4. Whereas the judicial Law of the Jews did mention temporary and corporeal rewards and punishments Christ changed that stile of speech into spiritual and eternal No doubt but Christ did fulfil all righteousness for he came not to do his own will but the will of his Father his justice was multiformous in all the actions of his life from his Cratch to his Cross yet my Text says that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus by receiving Baptism by that one act fulfil all righteousness I know not one bad interpretation upon that Point which is rare among Expositors to be so divers in their judgments and yet all allowable One says it is meant quoad inchoationem justitiae that so it behoved him to begin the course of righteousness That was but one act of his humility but the first wherein he did manifest obedience So Baptism is the first step that we make into the Church of Christ therefore because light was the first thing that God made among his visible Creatures and Baptism is the first of his spiritual graces it hath ever been called in the Greek Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the illumination of a Christian it is the day of inauguration when we first claim right unto our title of the Kingdom because we are adopted the Sons of God Surely the ordinary gloss conceits the words otherwise but very profitably Righteousness is either Legal which consists in an exact obedience to all the Commandments of God Or else Evangelical which knows Salvation is not attained unto by the works of the Law but thus Repent and believe and thou shalt obtain remission of sins therefore Christ speaking in the person of us who are his members says to John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus must we fulfil all righteousness by calling upon men to repent and be baptized in the true faith and their sins shall be covered and blessed is that man or righteous is that man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin This was the Doctrine taught in the Church every where three hundred years past and more Omnis justitia impletur ex gratiâ All our righteousness is fulfilled through grace and not through works Ut nullus ex operibus neque ex arbitrio glorietur they are the words of the gloss to the end that none may boast of works or in the power of his own free will but acknowledge himself guilty of damnation and obnoxious to the dreadful justice of God let us fly to that grace which freely washeth away our sins Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness Chemnitius makes this apprehension of the Text. Christ did omit no means to reconcile us to his Father that we might be justified before him and this he brought to pass two principal ways 1. When he gave himself an Oblation upon the Cross to take away our sins 2. When he did institute the means and instruments to apply that meritorious satisfaction unto us on this wise therefore he did fulfil righteousness by sanctifying the Sacrament unto us which is the especial medium to apply the righteousness of faith to every one that shall be saved Another and the last sense of this word that likes me also consists in these terms By receiving this Sacrament of Baptism we are tied as far as we are able to fulfil all righteousness It behoveth them that profess the true Faith to keep themselves undefiled from the world and to be holy unto the Lord. As Rachel cried out to Jacob Give me children or else I die so a sincere faith cries out unto the conscience Let me bring forth good works or else I shall be a dying faith and altogether unprofitable Do we make void the Law through faith Says St. Paul God forbid yea we establish the Law Rom. iii. 31. So it appears how righteousness buds forth from Baptism our conscience being watred with the heavenly dew of that Sacrament it makes us fruitful with good works Sed in istôc nequaquam sunt omnia will some man say Will that serve instead of all righteousness For our Saviour saith Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness God gave the word great was the company of Interpreters and his Spirit is in them all You shall hear the several consolations which they pick out from hence 1. To be a perfect teacher and a perfect doer of Gods will these are Tabor and Hermon the two fruitful hills upon which the blessing of the Lord descends To be a Teacher and not to do well is very bad like Hophni and Phinehas those dissolute Priests who polluted the holy Sacrifice To do well and not to teach is laudable and good but it is not excellent for to be an instructer and a doer is a degree of perfection beyond it Omne tulit punctum it is more blessed to give instruction than to receive therefore our Saviour was abundant in both Praeivit in exemplo quod verbo docuit He did lead the way of obedience by example and afterward did preach it to the people Blessed is he therefore that is not only a teacher but a doer of the word this is to fulfil all righteousness 2. Suum cuique there are but three heads from whence all justice is distributed and they may be drawn out of this Baptism for by receiving Baptism we are obedient to the institution of God we provide a salutiferous medicine for our own soul and by letting our light shine before men we do edifie our brother But to render that which is due to God to our own soul to our brother is to be perfect in every line of justice therefore in the universality Christ might say thus he did fulfil all righteousness 3. Says St. Austin Quid est impleatur omnis justitia Impleatur omnis humilitas The Son of God had this meaning how he fulfilled all righteousness because he condescended to the lowest step of humility for there are these three fallings as I may say one lower than another To be subject to a Superiour and not to prefer himself before an equal is justitia sufficiens sufficient humility and no want To be subject to an equal and not to prefer himself before an inferiour is justitia abundans that is not only justice enough but large and abundant humility but to be subject to an inferiour yea the most mighty God to be subject in Baptism to his Creature this is justitia perfectissima most perfect lowliness none can submit it self more and thus indeed to make the pride of base man to blush who
preacht upon the house top to all the world Secondly the Jesuit Valentia commends the doctrin of Aquinas that the Image and the Semplar is to be worshipped with the same act of adoration is most true most pious and very consonant to the decrees of faith and Azorius the Jesuit says that 's constant Theologorum sententia the most constant opinion of their Divines I am sure worse can hardly be Vasques the Jesuit thinks he hath cast on water to cool this hot opinion by saying that the Image of Christ and Christ himself are worshipped with the same worship together as Thomas says but the intention of the worship is meant not at all to the Image but to the Prototypon Suarez is of a third opinion and says to oppose Durandus that the act of worship is intended and directed to the Object before them that is to the Image yet to oppose Vasquez that it is homage inferior to that they do to Christ but some worship rests even in the very Image propter prototypon for Christs sake it is suppositum quod adoratur non ratio adorationis sed quoddam adjunctum Bellarmine is of this last opinion but involves his mind most intricately to avoid all opposition Says he we are indebted to some Images in a Religious Worship which is an imperfect form of worship and is reduced to that worship which is due to the substance for which they stand As Christs Image must have an honour reduced to latria but inferior to it The Images of the Saints not such worship as pertains to a Saint sed cultus inferior qui dici potest dulia secundum quid vel dulia anologicè reductivè dulia after a sort reductively and by proportion The best understanding of these quidlibets are that they were meant not to be understood We may profess ignorance of such minced meat without blushing when Vasquez says Mille modis difficultatem illius doctores explicare conantur their Doctors have tried a thousand waies to untie these knots and still questions start up to puzzle them I remember what Eutropeus says that when Irene the Empress had maintain'd the Worship of Images with horrid unnatural cruelty and murders for seventeen daies together the wether was most unusually dark certainly to notifie the blindess that was come into the world by the Doctrine of Images Let them varnish their cause with what art they will let us hear what they can say that their doctrine falls not foul upon the second Commandment marry that they have nothing to do with Idols which were the shapes of imaginary Gods such as never were extant how prove they that that an Idol is a resemblance of that which never had any true being because St. Paul says an Idol is nothing I am sure this shift is as good as nothing for properly in the Greek tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is any artificial resemblance of a bodily thing answering part by part unto it so that it hath a right in nature to stand for it but according to Scripture and the phrase of ancient holy Writers Idola fiunt ex simulacris quando adorantur any graven similitude or image when it is once adored it becomes an Idol The fashions of all things in all places are rehearsed in the second Commandement in heaven above in earth beneath in the water under the earth and yet if you make a Figure or Statue of any of these to worship it that 's an Idol and you an Idolater As Lucullus was asham'd to fight with the Asiatiques whom he vanquisht so easily so I am asham'd to toss an objection about which hath no tang of probability in it An Idol is nothing sayes the Scripture that is it hath nothing of divine Majesty in it to be ador'd As Euripides says elegantly of lazy men they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a very nullety nothing Says St. Chrysostom upon it an Idol is nothing because there is but one God and none beside him The Sun the Moon and the Stars those are those nothings when they are idolized and St. Austin the Pagans worship those things which are but they are nothing to make Gods of they can not help us they can not save us St. Paul therefore adds 1 Cor. viii 4 an Idol is nothing in the world and there is none other Gods but one Our Adversaries must nock another arrow this was headless why it is pretended they do not leave God to worship Idols of wood or metals which the Law condemns but they worship God in the Image or the Image with God or the Image for God's sake let them vary it as they will 't is naught every way for where hath the Almighty condescended that such Concomitancies should be co-worshipt with him or for him never never there are no ligaments for such a conjunction Our Divines have often rubb'd the salt of some instances in their sores and yet they do not feel them The Children of Israel when they worshipped the similitude of an Ox that eateth hay do you think they cast away all thought of the Lord their God and went to it down right with that molten Effigies I believe the weaker capacities among them might do so as the Pontificians confess that the ruder and simpler among them fall down and worship the very substance of the Image that is before them but Aaron and the Princes of the people bowed not to the golden lump of their own Bracelets and Earerings but to God in that similitude of an Ox. The Lord had given them manna or food from heaven and an Ox among all the customs of the Heathen which they had seen was the Embleme of plenty so Joseph who was the Granary of Egypt by his providence Moses calls him the firstling of a Bullock and T. Livie says when Minutius had supplied Rome with corn in time of great necessity a golden Ox was set up in the Market-place to honour his memory that beast you know plows up the surrows of the earth to receive the seed which yields the increase of the year from this superstition a Calf or Ox for a Calf remember it is not the name of the age was the Object wherein they worshipped God Ferus a Roman Writer confesseth that the Israelites did honour God himself in their molten Image He had reason to say so for Aaron who best knew the meaning of it proclaimed against the morrow a Feast unto the Lord Jehovah And though the people were mad with their own inventions make them not so bad that when they cried out These are thy Gods which brought thee out of Egypt Exod. xxxii 4. they meant their Baby which they had made but yesterday That plural number is in the singular Nehem ix 18. They made them a molten Calf and said this is thy God that brought thee out of Egypt attributing that power to the sign for the thing signified Indeed the Psalmist says they forgat God who had done so
to place safe enough in their own Country Once indeed they were scared with a great tempest upon the Lake of Genezaret which might have faln out upon any other occasion and then they cry out desperately Lord save us we perish But upon their haughty demand Christ askt them Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of It was a cup of wormwood and tribulation such as Moses and Elias drank of to the very lees and those are they that appear with him in glory those are they that sit in his Kingdom the one at his right hand the other at his left Their countenances have been sad now they smile for ever they have worn sackcloath and ashes and mingled their drink with weeping now they appear bedeck'd with Majesty For if none might enter into King Ahasuerus Gate cloathed with sackcloath Esth iv 2. Then much more all that are deigned the presence of the King of heaven shall shine triumphantly in glory Thirdly The objects of Moses and Elias standing conspicuously before the face of these three men would instill into them the imitation of their holy life and impectorate to them those good examples whereby they themselves should become mirrours and examples to after Ages Their Justice their Prayers their Temperance their Constancy to true Religion their hatred of Idolatry all these were texted in their face all their noble acts were remembred by seeing them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Chrysostome The history of the Saints warms out hearts within us to read it Historiae sacrae inspectio est quasi compendium resurrectionis ante oculos habere says one To entertain our time in reading the Sacred History is to cast our eyes upon a model of the Resurrection But to be brought in place where there was an ocular Apparition of Moses and Elias was to gain both a model of their Resurrection and a Chronicle of their History It is a good thing to call the dead into consultation with the living where God promiseth to send the former and the latter rain to the earth many apply it mystically to this purpose The Examples of the Patriarchs and Prophets well digested into our use are the first showers of rain or the dew of the morning The Examples of Christ and his Apostles and such as have shined like burning lights since their days are the latter rain or the dew of the Evening but these drop down one after another and fill the Church with spiritual encrease No observation more appertinent than this which I find attributed to St. Hierom. Moses was first inspired to write the Book of Genesis which contains the acts of the old World before he published Exodus which contains the Law A fair method which came from heaven First instructed to write the History of Antiquity before he Penn'd a Pandect of Laws for the use of Posterity lest he should rashly proceed to teach the Children before he had wisely learnt the Examples of the Fathers I will set my rest upon this Text of Scripture that there is not a pithier Precept in all the Sacred Volume Deut. xxxii 7. Remember the days of old consider the years of many generations ask thy Father and he will shew thee thy Elders and they will tell thee It is a very satisfying thing when a truth comes to us by a good descent as the Poet bragg'd of his stories Quae Phoebo pater omnipotens mihi Phoebus Apollo God did inspire Moses and Elias to know what sufferings his Son should undergo at Jerusalem they preach'd it before the Disciples the Disciples to their Scholars they to the next and so from Generation to Generation it is an Heir-loom to the latest Posterity Alta mysteria per majores ad alios debent devenire Let great mysteries be devolved from the mouths of famous forerunners such as Moses and Elias The Devil himself was ashamed of upstarts when they came to be broachers of their own fancies Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are ye Sometime it is as hard to know who were the broachers of new Doctrine as to understand the Doctrine it self As Tiberius scoft at a conceited Roman proud enough but of no good Parentage Curtius Rufus videtur mihi ex se natus Curtius Rufus did beget himself he had no Progenitors So ignominious it is to press any thing for current which is a brat of yesterdays invention and doth not bear a pass from the example of our fore-fathers Beware of novel Doctrines and observe it when you will if they do not beget new Vices as a Mill-stone new-peck'd fills the meal it grinds with more gravel than one that is smooth with use Therefore gather such Manna as fell very early in the Morning Enquire for the old I mean for the oldest way but habete salem be sure it be salted with Apostolical Doctrine and then it will not be tainted with corruption That we might not only fetch our Examples so far as the Apostles but a reach beyond them likewise here were two old Sires of great authority and veneration that came to Mount Thabor Moses and Elias Fourthly I had occasion the last day to make a difference between these two Saints thus far that the body of the one was always living the body of the other that is of Moses came from the dead which is an improvement to the truth of that Article of our Creed that Christ shall bring all to judgment both the quick and dead before him The dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds How many applications may be deduced from thence likewise that the dead and the living came to teach that Christ should die upon the Cross and live again unto the glory of the Father Or thus to teach us Mortification and Vivification that we should die unto sin and live unto God But referring your memories back to that which is past I stay my self upon this Notion that Moses and Elias come from the other world unto this to let us see and that it is undeniably true that there is a life remaining after this is ended and of a much happier condition a life of glory It is the complaint of them who dispute stifly for their own infidelity Nullus de mortuis resurgit None come from the dead to teach us that are living but since we mean the Apparitions of them that should come from the other world they should say none come from the living to us who in comparison to them may be called the dead But to answer to the meaning of the objection words may be reformed with ease Have none been sent with tidings to us from the habitation of the other world Yes twice apparently to go no farther At the first bout Moses and Elias from Mount Thabor at the second bout a witness without all exception our blessed Saviour who rose the the third day from
consult with Nature ask her if she do not sometime use superfluity for the greater elegancy of her workmanship plura ad unum assumit sicut duos oculos Why might not man have been a Cyclops why might not Nature have spar'd an eye but if she will make pairs where a single instrument might serve why should we limit God's grace and scant it to just as much passion as would fit the turn since there is plenteous redemption with our God Seconly Per suavitatem peccavit homo per asperitatem maximam satisfecit it seems there was some delicious relish in the fruit forbidden as it was very pleasant to the eye The taste of Adam was of a most sapid and quick mixture the Apple was of the most refined composition being the food of Paradice and Gods own Plantation these could not but leave a touch upon Adams lips sweeter than the Honey-comb or Manna in the Wilderness Now set the Scale of justice in an equal poise the transgression was sweetness the satisfaction must be bitterness the transgression was pleasure in the highest degree the satisfaction must be grief in the very gall of bitterness but what so bitter as death especially the Cross that death of malediction Thirdly this is the Master-piece among Lombards reasons but a flower pickt from St. Austins Garden Deus justitiâ voluit Diabolum vincere non potestate the Dragon and his Angels do plead against Michael and his Angels that the Judgment might be proportioned to the Crime committed But what did Satan accomplish by his impleadment God doth not deal like Pilate and the corrupt Judges of the world shift the Law out of their sight when it doth not serve the turn and stand a tip-toe upon their Power and Prerogative He doth not deal with Justice as Festus did with Paul Go thy wayes I will speak with thee at another time Justitiâ ' vincere voluit non autoritate Satan is confounded by Gods Justice not by his Authority Fourthly and lastly as Draco the rigid Magistrate wrote his Laws in blood so Christ that innocent Lamb wrote the Instructions of patience in his own blood Let the great Rabbies of Divinity dispute it whether one drop of our Saviours blood could not save as many Worlds as there be sins in this World that is infinite yet he took his share of all sorts of persecution ut nobis praeberet exemplum patientiae that when we are persecuted and stung with fiery vermin we might look upon the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness and be comforted with patience For now by the Examples of his Sufferings when my Soul languisheth with any calamity I will turn me to my Lord and lay my wounds to his wounds my tears to his tears and my mouth dipt in gall to his mouth and my disgrace to his reproaches Finally in all my afflictions I will seem as it were to read his Title upon the Cross Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews I have drawn out my Clue very far to enlarge the true testimony that Pilate gives of Christ though he forbore to open the trial of his integrity which had he undertaken his arm was strong enough to disarm his Persecutors and to delude his Enemies but compassion of our misery made him draw out a long line of torments to stripes to buffettings to death to consummatum est till all was finished We may well give his tender heart that honourable title which St. Chrysostom gave unto St. Paul a volume of charity Is there any weak conscience in this place that marvails at our Saviours proceedings and makes it his own case whether it be fit to plead innocency before the Magistrate or whether wrongful accusation should be endured without an answer for such a man I give this Doctrin for his resolution As the Passover was divided into two Portions part thereof was to be eaten and that part which remained to be burnt with fire so among the actions of Christ some are to be eaten that is drawn into example as his Prayers his Purse of charity for the Poor his converting of Publicans to the fear of God some are to be consumed with fire that is to be adored with faith and zeal but not to be drawn into imitation as his miraculous fasting his walking upon the seas and this compassionate silence before Pilat he would not speak to shun death that our hearts and tongues might be blessed through his name to praise and magnifie him for ever For as Caesar said of his Souldiers when they were offered conditions to depart with safety Caesaris milites salutem dare solent non accipere that they used to give such benefits not to receive them so Christ came into the world not to take his life as the gift of Pilate but to give life to every one that should repent and believe in the Gospel I have one bough yet to prune off in this branch and then I will proceed Great bundles of Wast-paper are printed every moneth and discharged against us by the busie-headed Jesuits to disparage the integrity of our Reformed Religion for the most part such slight and unlearned stuff that we may say in another sense than Christs Disciples did of Solomons Building Lord what manner of stones be these yet if every Scribler be not answered the Chalenger goes out of the field and cries victoria I think it was Crassus the Roman that replied not one word to a foul-mouth'd fellow who railed on him by the way till he came to his own dores Light him home says Crassus to his Servant and bring him to his Lodging Beloved it doth become our patience to shew the same contempt to these idle Pamphleters and it becoms our Profession to shew them as much curtesie that is to light them home to the Kingdom of Heaven if they will hear our Doctrin When Israel fought with Amelech but the victory was swayed by the hands of Moses held up by Aaron and Hur It was not the hand which fought says Nazianzen but the hand which did not fight that conquered Amelech And it is said of Scaevola non retentis sed amissis manibus he put the Etruscans to flight not by using his hand but by burning it off so though we give a Truce and respite to the Pen which should write yet the patience which doth not write and the mildness which neglects their bitter words shall confound our Adversaries We dare lanch into the Seas as the learned Writings of this Kingdom can testifie our Ship that is our Religion is sound and will hold out water against all objections It is our modesty to harbor sometimes in the Haven to shun Pirats and stormy winds lest we should encounter with ignominious Rabsheka's and be perswaded it is no loss of reputation unto us no gain unto our Enemies that we stand dumb like Jesus before the Jews and say nothing at the Bar of Pilate I have prosecuted my method thus far to avouch the
inward man must exceed all natural similitudes lavabis me dealbabor supra nivem thou shalt wash me and I shall be whiter than the snow We come into the world odious and defiled therefore we wash in the Sacrament of Baptism that we may be cleansed yet again we grow obscene and wallow in the mire of this world therefore we do often crave the bloud of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to cleanse and purifie our conscience and after all this he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled he that useth this world shall be contaminated therefore repentance which sometimes I hope brings tears with it must stand us often in stead to purge out the spots of uncleanness and this is our pureness before God that we sorrow for our impurity But remember I beseech you to keep your vessel chaste and undefiled for as this Angel appeared white as snow when Christ rose from the dead so let us go to our Graves as white as Doves in innocency and simplicity of heart that 's the colour of hope and purity belongs to all those that have hope of a glorious resurrection Secondly this snowy resplendent Vesture in the Angel is the Ensign of great joy for joy had never so good reason to break out heartily and redundantly as that Christ was risen from the dead The Sun and Moon in the Firmament do set every day and rise again no great joy to see those bright Lamps again because we certainly expect them but all that retein'd upon Christ thought when he was crucified such was their little faith that he was lost for ever and therefore when he came unto them and shewed them his feet and hands they believed not for joy and wondred Luke xxiv 41. and afterward being throughly perswaded of it they returned to Jerusalem with great joy v. 52. O Lord who is able to express what triumphs there were in Heaven when the Souls of the Saints perceived that Death was overcome that Hell had lost the victory and that they should be cloathed with their bodies for ever on Good Friday the Heaven and the Earth mourned the Eclipse put all in black on Easter day the colour is changed Heaven and Angels are all in white From this great Festival to the end of the next Lords day they that were baptized went all in white for the ancient Church took a delight to be ceremonious in these things and therefore the next day called Low Sunday by us the Low Sunday in respect of this the highest day in all the year with them was known by this name Dominica in albis the Sunday for wearing of white Garments and this colour was so constantly observ'd for the figurative signification of exceeding joy When Israel came out of Egypt and the House of Jacob from a strange language the Mountains skipped like Rams and the little Hills like young Sheep Psal cxiv And why is that one of the proper Psalms appointed to be read on this day because if the joy could not be expressed but by such strange Hyperboles when the People of God came out of the Bondage of Egypt then what unutterable gladness it is that the Son of God broke the bondage of death asunder and by his own victory brought us all out of the captivity of the Grave for ever It was a Proverb in their Heathen Entertainments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a sign of good welcom when the Porter which lets you in is chearful the Cherubins are the Porters of Paradise in former times holding an Instrument of minacy in their hands to keep us back now they appear gladsom and will conduct us with joy to Christ I told you before that in all the other Evangelists the pious women that came with spices to the Sepulcher to embalm Christs Body did not see the afrightful rutilancy in the Angels face but only this fair gladsome Robe he lookt like a Priest to preach Christs Resurrection pur âque in veste Sacerdos a good decorum in the Heathen Poets verse although some are so foolish now-a-days that they had as live see lightning as a white Garment upon his back that supplies the place of the Angel But the Angel himself were not able to satisfie all such quarrelsom consciences therefore I let it pass The use of his coming was to stir us up to joy to rejoyce in God In the world we shall have tribulation but this is a blessing of which neither fire nor water nor any tyranny can prevent us we shall have a joyful resurrection And as the Jews had the Law written in the Fringe of their Garments so we may read this observation likewise in the long Robe of the Angel which was white as snow that it was idaea gloriae the Idaea of that triumphant glory which shall be in the bodies of the Elect when they are raised up in immortality Indeed if no such reason should be assigned it would be hard to answer this objection Quid facit indumentum ubi tegendi necessitas non habitat What should a Garment do where there is no need of covering neither heat nor cold Summer nor Winter Whether they that rise from the dead shall be naked in their bodies is a captious question to be propounded Nakedness had no shame in it I am sure in the days of innocency before Adam fell and then indubitably it will have less cause to blush in Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the opinion of the Greek Fathers and therefore the white Robe of this Celestial Messenger was rather figurative of the brightness of our glory than a description of our Vestiments And the Scripture is constant to that phrase to make us constant in our expectation Those few names in Sarda which had not defiled their Garments shall walk with me in white Revel iii. 4. and the President of all Patterns our blessed Saviour at his Transfiguration in which he shewed what manner of Citizens we should be in the Heavenly Jerusalem the fashion of his countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering The Pharisees required a sign and Christ told them they should have no sign but that of the Prophet Jonas for Jonas rose as it were out of the Whales belly to preach destruction against Nineveh so all that the Souldiers knew by Christs rising should be lightning to burn them up but the godly women that saw this Angel over and above the sign of the Prophet Jonas saw this glorious Apparel to betoken the dainty and delicate part of the resurrection In these our evil days our Soul is full of rebellious concupiscence and therefore our Body is made miserable hereafter the Soul will be enlightned with all kind of grace and the Body shall be changed to be incorruptible Equal or like to the Angels the Elect shall be Christ hath so promised and in a mutual assurance these Angels that came in white were made like to us Like to us I say but
honour of God did infect the air and provoke this immediate putrefaction in Herods bowels Beloved We do all hold up our hands and bless our selves from such a vengeance as fell upon him that the very flesh should putrefie in his body and breed stink and loathsomness yet our lustful Gallants will take no warning but incur a more odious disease a more putrefying corruption of the body by their uncleanness and fornication than ever Herod had It is very strange to see how one Country will shift off the name of that disease to another which for reverence to your ears I will not mention The Indian will not own it The Naopolitan shuns the disgrace to have it pinn'd upon him the French translates it upon another People whole Kingdoms were ever ashamed of the infamy and yet this man and that man and the other that haunts Stews incurs it knows of it professeth it Beloved is such a putrefied Carkass fit to make a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in or rather fit to make a Hog for Satan to enter in and run him headlong to his ruine O you are sure all shall be cured by Baths and Chirurgeons when the Angel of the Lord may strike you immediately that you give up the Ghost So indeed our Saviour himself is said to give up the Ghost but with much difference from Herod in the very original phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Luke and St. Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Matthew still there is mention of the Spirit in all the four Evangelists because Christ was full of the Holy Ghost But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says my Text of Herod he breathed out his soul no mention of the Spirit for he was homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul says Efflavit animam he disgusted out his soul which no doubt did loath the body To conclude all If you ask me what became of Herod after these words He gave up the Ghost I have no Commission from the Scripture to search into it he had much cause to give God thanks if he were saved who gave him five days repentance after he was struck to be sorry for his sin If he were condemned we have cause to give God thanks who hath made Herod an example unto us and might have made us had we been created sooner an example unto Herod Like Davids Arrows about Jonathan so are Gods Judgments about us on this side and beyond round about our eyes his name be blessed for evermore that we are not the mark of his indignation Which mercy that he may continue towards us we beg for the merits of Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit c. THE FIRST SERMON UPON GAL. iv 26. But Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all AN odd conceit that came into the head of the Cosmographer who said that if two Eagles equally strong in flight should be chosen out the one being set at the furthest part of the East in Asia the other at the furthest part of the West in Europe if these two should take the wing just in the same moment and not rest till they came together they would meet both at Jerusalem as if it were the Navel of the habitable World I rehearse it as a Dream and I give it this Interpretation The Synagogue under the Law of Moses was the Occidental Eagle the Gospel of Grace the Oriental Eagle which did rise with Salvation in its wings why these two holy Professions which soared aloft when all other Religions crept upon the ground I say these two when St. Paul wrote this Epistle to the Churches of Galatia did conspicuously meet in Jerusalem as in that Theater whereon they did act their most principal part There was the Chair of the Scribes and Pharisees advanced that taught the exactest way of the Law there was the Temple wherein the Rites and Ceremonies were performed daily which Moses commanded And likewise from thence began the Gospel to go forth into all the Earth and had gained more ground there than in any other place You have filled Jerusalem with your Doctrin say the High Priests Lo this is the Rendezvouz of the Cosmographers two Eagles and this is the Explication of his Fable You know they continued there a short while for about the space of forty years like Twins strugling in one Womb. And though at first the Propugners of the Law would in no wise consent that the College of the Apostles the Preachers of the new Covenant of Grace should have any room in their Principality yet in a short time the Devil saw it best for his purpose to let them share together Nec meum nec tuum sed dividatur let it neither be Moses alone nor Christ alone but let them mix together This was the bane of sincere truth for every Metal that is mixed with gold embaseth it And yet it was entertain'd as a motion sent from Heaven to make peace and amity in all the Churches of Galatia till the Lord stirred up the spirit of St. Paul to dissolve this Combination which he performs with most approved success in this Chapter And because Similitudes and Figures will hold faster in the memory of the unlearned who are the greater number than powerful Arguments after weighty Reasons premised the Apostle concludes with an Allegory at the end of his Disputation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Banquet after a Meal of solid meat And thus it runs that they who sought righteousness by the Law were no better than Ismael the Son of Hagar they that sought righteousness by Faith were as Isaac the Heir of his Father That the Law came from Sinah which was seated in Arabia a Mountain quite out of the Confines of the Land of Promise the Gospel began at Sion or Jerusalem which was the heart of the Holy Land Or let Jerusalem be compared with it self and it was under servitude and malection by the Profession of the Law but it gained honour and a beautiful Portion by the Profession of the Gospel Jerusalem which now is in bondage with her Children but Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all Out of this contention between St. Paul and the Galatians those suspensive men those neutrals that would be half Jew half Christian and so were rightly neither Jews nor Christians I say from hence the legitimate Church which is the undefiled Spouse of Christ hath purchased this description which I have read unto you wherein divers of her Privileges are collected together I do not say all for under the Title of the Kings Daughter she is described circumamicta varietate Psal xlv clothed with as much embroidering and varieties as could be rehearsed in a long Psalm In this little Abstract of the excellency thereof six Portions of its glory are conteined in six words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Tribes carried quite away by Salmanezar only Judah and Benjamin were left behind not able for their small number to fill the whole Land of Canaan whereupon that part wherein Nazareth and Capernaum did stand was called Galilee of the Gentiles Mark here the equity and indifferency of the Son of God both to Jew and to Barbarian He was conceived among the Gentiles at Nazareth brought forth into the world among the Jews at Bethlem Lived at Galilee of the Nations but died at Hierusalem So in this Gospel his Mother brought him forth within the Walls of the City that was proper to the Jew but the tydings were heard abroad without the Walls in the Country that was proper to the Gentiles The Collection is not violent but natural for so St. Paul argues that Christ belonged unto us aliens from the Covenant who were not of the Jews that served at the Tabernacle for Jesus also that he might sanctifie the people with his own bloud suffered without the Gate The benefit of our Saviours life and death was communicated to all people not only to the Seed of David passus extra Hierusalem He suffered not within but without Jerusalem because the fruit of his death lay open to all Ascendens è monte Oliveti extra Bethaniam Ascended into Heaven upon the mount of Olives without the Town of Bethany because he opened the Kingdom of Heaven for all believers But hear what follows in the Jesuit Salmeron natus in Speluncâ extra Bethlem born in a Grote or Cave for so he calls the Manger without the Town of Bethlem because the benefit of his Incarnation was open and publick to all Here his observation sticks and is erroneous although he hath the judgment of Cajetan to favour him and the conjecture of Baronius almost concurring with him for he says the Stable was in Suburbiis Bethlem not within but without the Gates in the Suburbs of Bethlem And what more manifest to convince their fancy than the eleventh verse of this Chapter This day is born unto you a Saviour in the City of David The Moral therefore is more fitly made up as I told you before that He came first into the world in the City of Bethlem by which deed he doth intimate that He was made flesh for the Salvation of the Jew but the tidings were heard abroad at the first publication in the same Country whereby it appears he was made man also for the salvation of the Gentile Another circumstance of place is in the Text that the Angel chose the open fields to annunciate the Messias of the world and who can deem but that they were fitly chosen for the purpose The Priests of the Temple would not be glad to hear of him that cut off their Types and Ceremonies they that inhabit the City would not relish such a Prophet that will say unto them Sell all and give it to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven The pleading places of Justice would laugh at his prescription He that taketh away thy Coat let him have thy Cloak also The Seas had heard of nothing but Neptune and Thetis and the titles of false Gods all their ships were called by the names of Idols but the plain Fields had no such prejudicate opinion against a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. Upon their pleasant fruitfulness the happy news are showred down as if the dawning of this bright day should change all the Earth into another Paradise Mystically thus much may be collected as all increase and abundance wherewith we are fed is brought out of the field so the Incarnation of Christ should fill the world with the plenty and abundance of Salvation I will not say according to the Letter of the Miracle in the Gospel that the fishermen laboured hard all night and took nothing so in the darkness of the Law which may not unfitly be called the night nothing at all was taken yes there was a number of those that believed but a very small one here a berry and there a berry says the Prophet upon the top of a bow The Pharisees compassed Sea and Land to gain one Proselyte and scarce glean'd up one in all their travel but since the Church writes it self not Jew but Christian Since the day spring from on high hath visited us the number of the fishes is so great which the Apostles drew into the Ship that the nets were ready to break because of the multitude As the Widows oyl fill'd every vessel which she could borrow of her neighbours so the faith of our Redeemer hath fill'd all Nations in the world As Job said by Allegory Petra mihi effundit rivos olei Rivers of oyl trickled down from the rock and the rock was Christ During the time of Moses Law what a paucity there was of those that spent their industry to interpret the Canon of the Scriptures How few are reckoned that shed their bloud for the maintenance of the truth Not any almost that made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven many Ages yielded small store of Saints But see what the Gospel hath brought forth like a fruiful field many Penmen of holy Writings many Virgins unspotted touching the flesh thousand thousands of Martyrs They that have gone about to cast up the number think that as many have lost their lives for the profession of righteousness in the time of the Gospel as there were beasts in the old Law slain for Sacrifice before the Altar Et nunc omnis ager nunc omnis parturit arbor Now the trees of the Lord are full of sap now the Temples of the Lord are throng'd with those that believe as the fields stand thick with Corn in Harvest This is the good will of him that was born in Bethlem prefigured to give increase and abundance because the Angel did annunciate him in the fields where fruit grows up for the use of man The errors of men are captious and catch at any occasion to argue for their own defence and why may not this Text be distorted by some to prove that fields and desarts are fit receptacles for Congregations of Christians But for Churches and Chappels they may be demolished or else neglected It was an Heresie of the Massilians as Damascen oserved that God might be worshipt as well in the Woods or vast Mountains in any place unhallowed as in those Oratories that are dedicated to his honour I would they had left none of their brood behind them but the first broacher of that corrupt Doctrine as I have told you once before in my conceit was Jeroboam for he made a rent in the Kingdom of Israel alienating ten Tribes from their Allegiance due to their lawful Prince Rehoboam But one thing troubled him that according to the Law all the Tribes must go up once a year to worship at Hierusalem which was the imperial City of the King of Judah This was it that cut the very nerves of his conspiracy
that heavenly Host who were the first that preacht the Gospel to the Shepherds I take my self off from this discourse in which I might amply proceed lest you say unto me as one said of Hortensius that he advanc'd Eloquence to the skies craftily meaning that himself might be advanc'd as an Eloquent Orator in the commendation If we glory we will glory in our infirmities and in the Cross of Christ not presuming upon that amplification of analogy with Angels I will lay the scene of my reproof beyond the Seas but I would we were quit of the fault at home How many exalted Prelates refuse to do that office to teach Christ especially to poor Shepherds although a Cherubim of Heaven in my Text did willingly submit himself to do the work It troubled the Historiographers among our Adversaries to find out one Pope in almost 100 years that was a pulpit man when he became a Pope that was Pius V and he but rarely I may say of such men as Pliny did of those Emperours who made great suit to be Consuls and then disdain'd to discharge the Function O inscitia verae majestatis concupiscere honorem quem dedigneris dedignari quem concupieris O ignorance of duty to affect that honour which they scorn'd to execute to scorn to execute that honour which they earnestly affected Is an Angel no more than fit to preach Christ and is proud man too good for it 6. The fancies of men have assaye'd to add this for a sixth reason to the former that the noble Hierarchies of Heaven do merit some increase and addition of glory by their care and obsequiousness toward the universal body of the Church of Christ but the matter was better scann'd by Biel who therefore refutes that sentence of Lombard Tum sequitur si homo non fuisset creandus Angelus non habuisset summam suam beatitudinem Then it would follow that the Eternal Felicity of the Thrones of Heaven did depend upon the creation of man for except there had been a Church here below to which they might administer they had wanted occasion to demerit some increase of their glory Indeed it is an opinion that savours of servility and baseness as if they that stand always before the face of God would do nothing but upon gain and advantage Alas they have no other end of their labour but that which every man should have in charity the increase and enlargement of the Triumphant Church in Heaven and therefore our Saviour Luke 12.9 threatens Apostates from the Faith thus He that denieth me before men him will I deny before the Angels of God that is before the greatest friends and well-wishers of our beatitude Lastly It is an observation not to be omitted how St. Austin compares three several ways wherein Christ was manifested to the Shepherds by an Angel to the Wise men by a Star to Simeon and Anna devout people that spent their age in the Temple by the Holy Ghost Simeon and Anna were exceeding faithful such as waited and expected every day the salvation of Israel and therefore the Holy Ghost told them secretly in their hearts as soon as the Babe was brought into the Temple that this was the Lamb of God which should take away the sins of the world The Shepherds I presume were just men but had not so much perfection in the knowledge of the Law to look for and expect a Saviour therefore an extraordinary Nuntio an Angel was sent unto them but the Gentiles utter aliens from the Faith were directed to the Manger by signs and wonders from heaven So says St. Paul 1 Cor. 14.22 Signs are for them that believe not and Prophesies for them that believe And as the axiom is in Philosophy every thing is best collated when it is fitted ad modum recipientis Now the Shepherds were Jews and were taught in the Synagogues concerning the Apparition of Angels the Magi were Astronomers and better knew the course of Stars The book of the Creature was sit to teach the Gentiles but a Divine Spirit was better accommodate to teach a Jew that they might receive the Gospel even as they had received the Law and the Law was delivered says St. Paul by the ministration of Angels And so much for the first general part all the five questions being satisfied which of the Angels this was when he came in what figure and apparition how he did apply himself to the Shepherds and lastly why men were not accepted to do this office but loe an Angel of the Lord. The order which I propounded requires now that I speak of the pomp and solemnity which the Angel brought with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the glory of the Lord shone round about them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the glory of the Lord fitly rendred in this place by the vulgar Latin Claritas Domini a lightsome brightness or splendor which God caus'd to shine in that place making the night unto the Shepherds as clear as if it had been day So when a lightsome pure cloud did appear in the Dedication of Solomons Temple the Text says 1 Kings 8.11 The glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord therefore it was not properly that essential glory of God unto which no man in this life can approach but lux ante gloriam the consolation of a beautiful light which was the shadow and the fore-runner of Glory But it were a great trespass in Art to run into obscurity and confusion when we are to speak of light 1. Therefore I will endeavour to shew how many ways such brightsome apparitions are observable in holy Scripture 2. Why this illustrious Glory did shine round about the Shepherds When God would beautifie and adorn a thing in some excellent manner I find that in a four-fold fashion he scatters and transfuses the beams of light and splendor either upon it or about it 1. Let us reflect our remembrance upon our Saviours Transfiguration his face did shine as the Sun and his rayment was white as the light as white as snow says St. Mark so that no Fuller on earth could make a thing so white Now we know that Christ was not as yet glorified his body had not yet put on incorruption therefore Eluxit splendor à Divinitate it was the pleasure of his Divinity at this instant to alter his countenance and his garment and from the union of his Divine nature this glory did redound upon the outward parts 2. In the Resurrection when our flesh shall become an inhabitant of the heavens not only the face but all the body of man shall look in a triumphant manner like a pillar of light which unspeakable beauty shall result from the soul to the blessing and ornament of the body So I read Dan. 12.3 They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever 3. This claritude and heavenly
no light Light is of the same time and antiquity with the Sun it self which brings it forth 3. Damascen collects truly that the Son of God is inseparable from his Father even as light cannot be taken away or parted from the Sun 4. Another observes how pure a generation that is with which the Father brings forth the Son because light though it be but a creature yet it is a pure and a spiritual quality and comes forth by no contaminated or polluted procreation 5. It extends further to resemble how the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son even as that comfortable warmth which cherisheth Plants and every living thing issues joyntly from the Sun it self and from the light thereof By this it appears how suitably a beam of admirable light did concur in the Angels message to set out the Majesty of the Son of God and I beseech you observe all you that would keep a good Christmas as you ought that the glory of God is the best celebration of his Sons Nativity and all your pastimes and mirth which I disallow not but rather commend in moderate use must so be manag'd without riot without surfeiting without excessive gaming without pride and vain pomp in harmlesness in sobriety as if the glory of the Lord were round about us Christ was born to save them that were lost but frequently you abuse his Nativity with so many vices such disordered outrages so that you make this happy time an occasion for your loss rather than for your salvation Praise him in the congregation of the people praise him in your inward heart praise him with the sanctity of your life praise him in your charity to them that need and are in want This is the glory of God shining round and the most Christian solemnizing of the Birth of Jesus Secondly This lightsome apparition about the Shepherds 't is Typus claritatis Evangelicae a type of the light and perspicuousness which is genuine and proper to the Gospel The Law of Moses was given to the people when the hill of Sinai was full of mists and dark pillars of smoke for there were many things delivered to that Nation of the Jews which were wrapt in darkness and in thick pillars of obscurity Types and Ceremonies were difficile to be understood but the faithfulness of the Gospel is as clear as the light and the righteousness of Gods promise as the noon-day The Law was lucerna pedibus meis a candle unto my feet and so says Solomon the Commandment is a lamp Prov. 6.23 Nay as if it were not a clear burning candle David says it is Lumen in laterna Thy word is a lanthorn unto my feet as if the old Law had been no other then a candle under a bushel as it is in the Parable but the Gospel is a light as great as the Sun in the firmament a candle upon a hill Posita super candelabrum Catholicae Ecclesiae says St. Ambrose and the Catholick Church over all the world is the candlestick to hold it This is not a splendor upon the face only as it befel Moses but it is splendor circumquaque says my Text it shines round about and no corner in all the Church which is Christs Family but it hath been enlightned A candle will suffice to give all men light that are in the room where it shines but it is such a light as doth not warm or cherish you So the Law was a candle whereby he that read might learn and know the will of God but it did not warm or comfort a man nay it left a man quivering and shaking extream chill and cold at the heart for it is written Cursed is he that doth not keep all these sayings and do them therefore the Gospel is a better light it gives light and withal heat and comfort zeal and joy to them that receive it as it is in the next verse Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy How proves he that why there is born unto you a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. It is Bonaventure if I mistake not that says upon my Text Claritas Dei circumfulsit non tantum exterius in corpore sed etiam interius in mente the light shin'd outwardly to the Shepherds and inwardly in their hearts that 's round about in full compass both in soul and body O you all presume that the light of the Gospel hath shin'd upon you as well as upon another you know Christ and his redemption and that 's enough for your share but do you find any comfort in it are you warm at the heart if you be cold in your profession not caring which way Religion stands or falls indifferent whether Christ be worship'd this way or that way then the light doth not shine round about you you have it without but not within Thirdly The dark night was brightned with a shining Cloud at our Saviours Nativity to signifie that he should be Lumen solatii in nocte tenebrarum a light of consolation to them that sate in the dark night of persecution and misery Mary Magdalen came to the Sepulchre early when it was yet dark she wept and afflicted her soul that she found not the body of Christ in the Sepulchre and loe it was very early and yet dark a season to increase sorrow but behold an Angel whose countenance was like lightning and his rayment white as snow did enlighten her heart and chear'd her spirits that Christ was risen from the dead Thus light did arise unto the faithful in the darkness of their heaviness Take another instance of sorrow which was hard at deaths door Peter was kept in chains in prison and one says he had no better room than the lowest dungeon Carcer erat teterrimus obscurissimus ne die quidquam lucis admitteret it was such a dark corner that there was not a chink in it to take in light in the day time yet an Angel came to him anon before the hour when he lookt for death which was long before the morning and a light shined in the prison Acts 12.7 And though no outward beam of light glance miraculously upon the Saints in their chains and captivity yet the comforter even the Holy Spirit will not fail to lighten their darkness within as David said in the midst of my sorrows thy mercies O Lord have refreshed my soul The Fathers of yore who were present at the execution of many Martyrs give us the report what unspeakable gladness was reveal'd unto them from above in their fiery trial the fiery flame which consum'd them was like the light and shining of an Angel to solace them Martyr est velut fracta Gedeonis lagena tunc emicat vincit it is the saying of Hugo Every one of Gideons Souldiers had a pitcher and lamp in it they broke their pitchers their lamps blaz'd and they had the conquest of their enemies so says he our body is an
David What 's this inclination of the ear we cannot bow or stir that part as we may the hand and the knee Aures hominum sunt immotae ut sit velox ad audiendum says one the ears of man are not to be wagg'd and mov'd like the ears of a beast to the end there may be no impediment in attention but that he may be swift to hear But he is said to incline his ear who hath a submissive heart and listens diligently to that which is spoken If a frivolous tale suppose the feigned pilgrimage of some Errant Knight be told us every syllable shall be markt so heedily that you will be able to repeat it Conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant But if God do send his servants to narrate his will and pleasure how many disturbances shall they find in their relation of heavenly things Sarah laught at the Angel Pharoah chafed and interrupted Moses the Jews mis-interpreted Christ himself Gallio marks not a word that 's said Eutyches sleeps the Athenians flout at Paul and say what means this babler who will take the pains to tell a message any more to him that will abuse it so neglectfully and if God should take away the preaching of his word from this people let them thank themselves who were so defective in all due and reverent attention But says John the Baptist The Friend of the Bridegroom standeth and heareth him and rejoyceth greatly because of the Bridegrooms voice John iii. 29. And so much for this word behold as it is a note of admiration of demonstration and lastly of attention Behold I bring c. Now the first of seven things which are remarkable in the message is that which hath met us often before in all the Texts upon this Gospel the consideration of the person that the Angel is sent unto us upon a peaceable entreaty Ecce ego Behold I bring you good tidings The children of men have so often provoked God to send Angels with a sword of vengeance to the earth that no doubt Gabriel was pleased to bring a welcome message with him A messenger cannot help it if he come with sorrowful news and yet for the most part men will be displeased at such a one whose tongue doth bode discomfort and infelicity Joab did tender the welfare of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok when he would not let him be the first that should certifie David how Absalom was dead says he Thou shalt bear tidings another day but this day thou shalt bear no tidings because the Kings Son is dead Therefore if you mark it Angels that came to inflict punishment or to threaten some ensuing mischief came single for the most part or never above two at once but to do a good office to men upon earth to protect Elisha from the Aramites to annuntiate that the Messias was come into the world they came by troops and multitudes no less in this chapter then a multitude of the heavenly host There were three with Abraham in his tent to tell him that Isaac the son of promise should be born unto him of Sarah in their old age and we cannot but take notice how one of the three vanisht and was gone when they went into Lot's house to warn him that Sodom should be destroyed with fire and brimstone How far are they from this Angelical benevolence that gird other men with the remembrance of their misfortunes and insult over their miseries as Shimei us'd David in his affliction a curse will fall upon them that love to be instruments to undo men rather than to raise them up that delight in the crosses of their brother rather than in their consolation Miserable comforters as Job said of his Friends that powred vinegar into his wounds to vex them not to heal them But these holy ones that are sent from above delight to be the Embassadors of joy the first of them all that I read of in holy Scripture came to administer help and succor to the distressed and that was the Angel that came to Hagar to chear up her drooping spirits and to put her into the way of safety when she and Ishmael the child were almost ready to perish And now one of them comes in my Text with good news to shew that a perfect friendship was made up between all parties in this verse between Angels and Men for Ego Evangelizo I come to rejoyce with you as a friend I bring you good news 2. A friendship between God and man for a Saviour is born unto you which is Christ the Lord. 3. Friendship and amity between man and man between Kingdom and Kingdom between one Nation and another people at the 14. verse On earth peace and good will towards men Yet when our sins cry out for vengeance this truce is broke of all sides The sword of our enemies shall be unsheath'd and all peace shall be dissolv'd between man and man our Saviour shall become our angry Judge neither shall the blessing descend from God to Man Lastly the Angel shall draw his sword and cause the pestilence to cut down thousands upon thousands as the Mower shears down the grass of the field I am sure the fury of such an angry Angel sticks still in our remembrance Therefore let every man for his part keep fast the bond of his tripartite friendship by sanctification and obedience then the Angels will come unto us not in fury but in mercy saying Ecce ego c. I proceed to the next circumstance Ecce Evangelizo we render it to bring good tidings but it is as if he had said I come to be an Evangelist I am no Law-giver whose voice was terrible I am a messenger of a better Covenant of the Gospel of Grace At this Text beloved the Spirit of God doth enter the word Gospel or Evangel quite to alter the state of the Church from what it had been before For the better understanding hereof I pray you mark it attentively in what manner God did dispence his will and pleasure to his Church from the beginning of the world to the end of all times And for order sake I will reduce it all to three heads to a Law which was given by God to Adam to a Law which was given by Moses to Israel and to these glad tidings to wit the Gospel of the New Testament which was given by Christ to all Nations from one end of the earth to the other 1. Now I buckle to the first of these a Law was given by God to Adam That Law was short and commandatory fac vive do this and live therefore that is rightly called the Law of Works but the Gospel says if thou believest thou shalt be saved therefore that 's called the Law of Faith The same God was the author of both these both were revealed to men and to no other creature both of them according as we perform them promise the same reward both of them have
nothing different from a servant The faithful since the coming of Christ are adulti heirs come to age such I may say as have sued out their livery past pupillage past the pedagogie of Ceremonies for the yoke of Ceremonies was most troublesome that the coming of Christ which cancelled such things might the more be desired Then they beheld a Messias in types and shadows now he is manifest in his own person then Faith was obscurer now it is more clear then the Spirit was given scantily now it is poured out in full abundance Abundantia spiritus est elogium regni Christi then the preaching of Faith was included in the Kingdom of Israel now it is diffused throughout all the world Mark it now I beseech you how these three do differ The Law did terrifie and astonish there were no good tidings in that The promise of Grace and Mercy was an annuntiation of good news worth the hearing and it was fit that a promise should go before that the day of Christ might be long'd for and much desired before he came yet this did cool the comfort that hope deferred doth afflict the soul Wherefore when the desire of our eyes did come into the world to satisfie the Law for us and to satisfie he expectation of all promises then it became Evangelium good tidings happy news nothing shall be heard any more to vex us or to trouble us unless for want of Faith we would vex our selves And what ear will not listen to good tidings when old Jacob heard that Joseph was living his spirit reviv'd and Israel said it is enough Joseph my son is yet alive Joseph was advanc'd in Egypt by the wonderful providence of God that he might receive his brethren in the great distress of famine these were good tidings to Israel but is it not much better to hear of this sound out of Ephrata that Christ is come into the world to feed his brethren in the time of dearth with the bread of life O quoties quae nobis Galataea locuta est as a passionate woer longs to hear of a sweet message from the party whom he loves so the Spouse which is the Church rejoyceth to hear glad tidings from the Bridegroom that so it might enjoy his presence here that she might dwell with him hereafter for ever Calisthenes approacht towards Alexander the Great portending much alacrity in his countenance what says Alexander An Homerus revixit iterum are there any tidings to be brought which make you so merry unless Homer were alive again all that he could pitch upon for good news was if that divine Poet were alive again to record his story in a long lasting Poem O how infinitely do these good tidings surpass that ambitious fancy Christus natus est a Saviour is born to write our names for ever in the book of life St. Paul took out this lesson from hence Quam speciosi pedes Rom. x. 15. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of things The Prophet Isaiah spoke of them that foretold of the delivery of Israel out of the Babylonish captivity and if those messengers were welcome that uttered things concerning bodily felicity much more shall their coming be acceptable that solace the inward man the heart and soul Beauty is that which attracts affections to it so the Apostles are said to be beautiful because they drew the world unto them and it was proper concerning them to say how beautiful are their feet rather than their lips for they did not rest in one place but took the whole world for their circuit from City to City and because of their dangerous and painful travel by Sea and Land the Prophet said How beautiful are their feet Despise not therefore such as succeed them though much unworthy in the same errand but have them in honour for their welcome message Though Christ hath not washt our feet to make them beautiful as he did his Disciples yet the very word that we have to say doth honour our lips for they are good tidings no things in the world compar'd to the comfort of the Gospel they are good tidings c. The main drift of the Text did hang upon this word how the Angel did Evangelize that is to say bring good tidings now we are clear'd and come off from that and although there are many things in the Gospel very harsh to flesh and blood as to leave all and follow Christ to suffer persecution c. Yet these things as I noted in the third place produce joy joy of a grand size in the intention great joy joy of an infinite measure in the extension everlasting joy joy that shall be says the Text and these are now to be consider'd together and first that the Birth of Christ bids us rejoyce and be glad Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn when such a Bridegroom is come unto them he came unto the world like ripe fruit in the fulness of time whereupon says St. Ambrose Christus tanquum maturitas advenit ut nihil acerbum nihil immaturum nihil immite sit He came when all the fruits of comfort were mellow and delicious that nothing might be sower or harsh or distastful to his beloved I alledged the Text of Isaiah before How beautiful are the feet of them that brought tidings of him The Septuagint according to some Editions read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what a spring there was in the Mountains when he was preacht whereupon says S. Cyril as the Spring chears up the hearts of men beautifies the earth and the fields after the desolating frosts of a wastful Winter so the preaching of this Nativity made every thing to flourish after the bitter blasting frosts of the Law If there were such joy at the birth of Isaac that they call'd him Isaac from laughter then let all the earth clap their hands and rejoyce when he was manifested in the flesh that made the laughter of Isaac For our more orderly proceeding I must consider joy three manner of ways 1. What true joy doth properly result from the Birth of Christ 2. What joy may be allowed and indulg'd to Christians 3. What joy is condemnable For the first that joy which doth properly result from the Birth of Christ is Risus ex serenitate conscientiae the mirth and delight of a good conscience for he that hath given us his only Son how shall he not with him freely give us all things Rom. viii 32. The Israelites were confident of victorious success when the Ark of God was in their Camp The Ephesians thought themselves safe and secure when they had but an Image which fell down from Heaven This was but a fiction like him that dreams of comfort and loe he is in desperate extremities but our case is most clear and happy to whom the God of Gods made his approach as one friend that visits another who
brought with him lookt another way Titus ii 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity Some few persons are culled out here for all that shall be shielded under the buckler of this Saviour unto you a Saviour is born says the Angel speaking only to the Shepherds that 's because no more were in the way But to as many as read these words and mark them the word speaks continually and is never silent the message is as properly brought to you as ever it was to the Shepherds to you a Saviour is born The Prophet Isaiah allows him to all the Sons of Adam that will lay claim unto him unto us a Child it born and unto us a Son is given Isa ix 6. 'T is a kind expression to rejoyce at the good news of another mans prosperity 't is incident to a sweet nature to do so And indeed if Angels were so enlightned with the gladsomness of our benefit that when they had said it over they could not choose but sing it also in the verses after my Text Cum de aliena gratia Angeli exultent quae nostra est stupiditas If the blessed Cherubims exult for the grace that we find in Gods eyes what stupidness is in us if our hearts do not triumph for gladness for the benefit flows unto us and not unto the Angels The Devils fretted and roared out against Christ because he came into the world for mans sake and not for their deliverance Quid nobis tibi What have we to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God we renounce thee Mat. viii 29. The evil spirits rage that he is not theirs the good Spirits of God rejoyce that his Father hath made him all ours being secure of their own glorious estate they triumph that we shall be exalted to the fellowship of their happiness Well then to you he is born not only to the Shepherds but inclusive to all men so you have heard in the former verse his birth was gaudium omni populo joy to all people only they are excluded that exclude themselves by infidelity Facit multorum infidelitas ut non omnibus nasceretur qui omnibus natus est says St. Ambrose the infidelity of many now infidelity is properly imputed to those within the Church who had the means to believe and did not the infidelity of many is a bar that the Incarnation of Christ pertains not to all men although he was born for all men Every man therefore must strive so to love Christ and to keep his Commandements that he may feel the joy of this day particularly enter into his heart and the Spirit testifying to his spirit unto me a Saviour is born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Greeks it comes of the possessive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tuus a Saviour restoreth every man to himself for a sinner is lost not only to God and the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven but he is lost to himself and to the comfort of a good conscience until Christ restore him again to joy and peace within his own heart that he may say to himself as Philip did to Nathanael I have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth c. Oportet uti nostro in utilitatem nostram de servatore salutem operari says Bernard Let us make our profit from that which is our own and let every man collect his own salvation from his own Saviour To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings Mal. iv 2. The Sun enlightens half the world at once yet none discern colours by the light but they that open their eyes and a Saviour is born unto us all which is Christ the Lord but enclasp him in thine heart as old Simeon did in his arms and then thou mayst sing his Nunc Dimittis or Mary's Magnificat My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour The fourth thing to be consider'd is what early tidings the Shepherds had of our Saviours birth hodie natus I do not tell it to you says the Angel after a month or after a week go to Bethlehem and search and ye shall find this is the first day that his Mother bore him This day is born unto you in the City of David c. Before the blessed seed was promised for a long while ye have had a state in reversion that Christ should come in the flesh to save his people from their sins now the act is accomplished ye have a state in being enter upon your happiness and possess it reckon from henceforth that you have your joy in hand this day the great deliverer hath taken up a poor Palace in the City of David According to a natural computation of days we forget the nights though an Infant be brought forth in the still hours of darkness yet from thenceforth we call it the Birth-day and not the birth-night of such an Infant In such accompts I know not how we speak of nothing but day for that 's the Dialect of the Kingdom of Heaven where there is day for ever and no darkness So the Shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night and after the first hour the morning began as the general conjecture runs our Saviour was born yet since a natural day comprehends darkness as well as light the Angel was pleas'd to say This day he is born This is literal and to the plain meaning yet I refrain not their allusions altogether that say the darkness was remov'd away by that radiant glory which shone round about the Angels and that the night was as clear in those parts as if the Sun had risen upon the earth therefore upon the comfort of that miraculous illumination the messenger says This day is born unto you And David by some men is made to speak to this allusion Psal cxxxviii The night is as clear as the day which was true say they at our Saviours Incarnation Others take their liberty to guess that good tidings make the night be called day and sad tidings make the day be called night Heavy misfortunes indeed have fallen out in the night for the most part Sennacheribi great host slain in the night Thou fool this night thy soul shall be taken from thee a threatning to the rich Epicure yet it holds not always But if Christ be the day-star and his Birth turns night into day it will become us as the Apostle says to walk as children of the light Curiosity hath gone too far in one question touching this part of my Text why this late day was esteemed most expedient in Gods wisdom to send his Son in the flesh four thousand years had almost expir'd since the seed of the Woman was promised to bruise the Serpents head and yet no sooner then hodie say they that will search in to all causes the Angel said to day but why he came punctually on that
be to God on high because he hath made peace on earth Lord let me not be at war with my own heart though all the world should defie me and set themselves against me As a continual dripping of humors upon the lungs consumes the body so a continual disquieting of mind as if viols of anger from heaven were ready to be poured upon it breeds such an anxiety in the whole man that he will wish his whole substance were dissolved into nothing O thrice happy when God sends that serenity of favour into our thoughts and cogitations to make us truly say with David Turn again unto thy rest O my soul Psal cxvi 7. This is that peace which the world cannot give This is St. Paul's confidence against all opposers Who is he that condemneth it is Christ that justifieth When the Wise men askt Where is he that is born King of the Jews Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him So sore troubled that he would not spare poor inoffensive babes who could not offend him no not his own babes as some say who were the pillars of his family when he thrust his sword into them he digged into his own bowels No man is able to express what a discomfortable mutiny this wretch had within himself No plague like a wounded disturbed spirit whereas old Simeon that saw death at the door that felt one foot in the Grave was exhilerated for all that through the joy which he had in Christ and warbled that Swan-like Dirge over his own Grave Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Wherefore if there be any of you which have a conscience sorely wounded with horror and even tempted to despair which God forbid chide it with David out of that dreadful moode Why art thou so sad O my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me Hath not Christ said there is peace between God and thee and dost thou say there is enmity foolish heart shall I not rather believe the tidings which an Angel brings than that which thou dost suggest and doth not he say Peace on earth Whosoever will not be cheared up will not be comforted will not be established with hope from this sweet proclamation which the Ministers of Heaven sang unto the Shepherds it had been better for him that he had never been born nay I speak it with reverence to God and condemnation to such a one it had been better for him that Christ had never been born because he receives not the Son of God into his heart neither believes in his Redemption Many flagitious sins do make men as execrable before God as the devil himself but he that despairs of Gods mercies as if Christ would not keep his Covenant of peace with him I may truly pronounce it against him that he is even possessed with a devil O cast forth that evil Spirit and be resolved the Lord would never have sent his Angel to sing the Hymn of peace unto men but to revive our souls and to raise them up from dust and despair because he is gracious and favourable to all penitent sinners And thus you have heard that upon the occasion of this blessed Nativity of Christs the Angels have congratulated both heaven and earth as David foretold it Psal xcvi 11. Let the heavens rejoyce and let the earth be glad The congratulation to men on earth hath been unfolded in two members that there is peace above us which passeth all understanding and peace within us such as the world cannot give Thirdly It follows they sing and rejoyce for our sakes that there is peace without us and on every side a good way laid open to take away all Schisms strifes divisions debates and as Solomon says in his mystical Song the voice of the Turtle is heard in our land What a hurly burly was in the world before Christ made his Church one body out of all Languages and Nations They that professed the Law of Moses you know had no communication with those millions of millions that knew no Schoolmaster to teach them but the law of nature Among those few that were zealous of the Law the Jew forsook them of Israel of the ten Tribes for Rebels and Idolaters Among the Jews the Pharisee condemned the Sadducce for an Heretick Then the Samaritan had an antipathy both against Jew and Israelite and all these accounted of the Gentiles no other ways than as bond-slaves of the Devil Here was nothing but hate and defiance between one Sect and another over all the world until Christ broke down the wall of separation made of two one invited them all to embrace and to greet one another with an holy kiss Thus the Prophet Isaiah upon it Chap. xix 23. in his stately but dark eloquence In that day shall there be a high-way out of Egypt to Assyria and the Assyrians shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria and in that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria that is there shall be traffique and friendship and conversation together from one Nation to another over all the earth And indeed National feuds are the more odious and unchristian by how much Christ hath called all people to the sprinkling of the same water and to alike participation of his Body and Blood at the same table And it was well apprehended of one that God hath given unto men more excellent gifts in the skill of Navigation since his Son is born than ever they had before that he might shew the way how all the Kingdoms of the earth should be sociable together for Christ hath breathed his peace upon all the Kingdoms of the world Then I descend from generals to specials The Angels did not only see that our Saviour had built a wall of Charity as it were about the whole earth and made it one but that his Gospel is the love knot and band of agreement between one member and another in all particular persons It turns the hearts of the Fathers unto the Children and of the Children unto the Fathers it makes peace conjugal between man and wife for Marriage is a Mystery of Christ and his Church and the instance which the Apostle lays before us is how Christ loved his Church and laid down his life for it It attones variances between Neighbour and Neighbour for it calls upon us to forgive and put up injuries it non-suits many actions of trespass between man and man with St. Pauls sweet proposition to the Corinthians Why do ye not rather suffer wrong That jangling fellow in the Gospel that came to Jesus to give him authority for his contention Dic fratri ut mecum dividat Master bid my brother that he divide the inheritance with me our Lord put him off and would hear of no division Such motions did jar in the ear of him that was the God of reconciliation The Law of Moses either was or did seem to be vindicative an eye for an eye
to feed the hungry but especially shew your thankful heart in frequenting his Church of Saints that you may hear his word gladly and obey it dutifully and reign with him eternally Amen THE TENTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seen thy Salvation OUr Text the last year for the solemnization of this day was Blessed is the Womb that bare thee and the Paps which thou hast sucked Our Text this year makes good the words of our Saviour Blessed are the eyes which see that which ye see For so the devout Simeon magnifies his own happiness that the Incarnation of Christ fell out in his days and that his eyes had seen his salvation To give him suck was more than to look upon him to bear him in the Womb far more noble than to dandle him in the Arms therefore this Text doth follow the other as the lesser happiness comes behind the greater Yet if you regard it as a testimony among those Witnesses that confest Christ was come into the world it is either equal to the first or next unto the best I bear more reverence to the Thrones that stand before the face of God than to compare him with the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. they are immortal and cannot see death Simeon had one foot in the grave and begg'd to depart in peace If they speak from heaven they command us to believe them he was a frail man obnoxious to passions and though he spake as the Spirit gave him utterance he could no more than perswade Without all controversie therefore the testimony of Angels so far as I have laid it forth is much more excellent Yet will you come now to other Collations the Angel preacht his hodie natus this day a Saviour is born to a few and to the meanest of the Laity to certain Shepherds Simeon testified that the salvation of God was come unto Israel before the best of the Priests in the audience of all those that were met together in the Temple and so his saying would go much farther than the Angels when persons of such authority and estimation received them from his mouth The Angels seem'd to restrain the fruit of Christs birth to the Jews only vobis natus this day is born unto you The Prophetical Ejaculations of this old Patriarch impart him to all to be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel With all others that witnessed of this day thus far I will contend whether they were the Shepherds or the Wise men of the East they were blessed instruments of Gods honour yet the Scripture hath not given us their names nor yet described them by any sanctified property but Simeon is named and his vertues are remembred he was a just man and a devout and he lookt for the consolation of Israel The rest were like to live and vigorous of body some could endure to watch over their flocks all night some could travel from far Countries in the depth of Winter neither of them probably near their end this man was full of days ready to give up the Ghost ready to give up his accounts to God and to answer for every idle word and at the last gasp when it was no time to dissemble he preacht that the Babe whom he then embraced was Christ the Lord. He preacht it nay he sang it likewise in a more joyful strain than any Witness that had gone before him except the Angels his words in his own language which we have not were Metrical and Poetical says Maldonat the whole tradition of the Church is so universal for it that Calvin who useth to condescend to no terms but such as are found in Scripture is content to call it the Song of Simeon If you alledge that the Magnificat of the blessed Virgin was a triumphal holy Song and likewise the Benedictus of Zachary I will not gainsay it so I rejoyn which is true that they were sung in private houses this is the first Hymn or Anthem in all the New Testament which was sung in the Publick Temple Finally That I be not tedious in my Proem this Song whereof my Text is a Moyty was uttered with such a divine gravity that at this testimony and at no other it is said that Joseph and his Mother marvailed at these things which were spoken of him ver 33 in this Chapter But to make that which they wondred at easie to be understood there are these two general parts of my Text Occidens and Oriens a Star setting and the Sun rising Simeon departing this world and Christ approaching Therefore the first verse is Epicedium a Dirge for a Funeral Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word The second verse is Genethliacon a Congratulation of a Nativity For mine eyes have seen thy Salvation Simeon would be gone because Christ was come marvelous strange indeed for if ever this world were worth the living in it was when He did live upon the earth in the form of a man To sift therefore the agreeableness of those two parts attend to these particulars First Here is a Supplicant the servant of the Lord Lord now lettest thou thy servant Secondly The Petition of his soul to depart Thirdly The time which he sets Now Lord now Fourthly he pleads that he was well prepared to depart for his heart was in peace Lord now Fifthly the assurance in which he trusted that God would grant him his desire for it was according to his word Sixthly and principally Here is the reason upon which he framed his desire why he would depart he had seen that which his soul waited for before it flitted away For mine eyes have seen thy Salvation You shall now hear the income of these if you will attend them The Supplicant stiles himself the Servant of the Lord and he that can say so much for himself may speak with boldness for the Lord will deal well with his servant according to his word Psal cxix 35. Magna humilitas sed magna simul dignitas says St. Hierom It is great humility to confess ones self a Servant but it is no little dignity to profess ones self such a Servant to be the Servant of God and not the Servant of men by vile obsequiousness nor the Servant of a mans own Passions by lust and sensuality nor the Servant of sin by giving place unto the Devil this is a freedom that excells all other liberty To serve the Lord Optabilius est quà m regnare nedum liberum esse says Philo it is to be preferred before a Kingdom how much more before that which the world calls freedom from servitude And yet I deny not but the bondage of them that served God faithfully under the Law was very great they were enthraled to Ceremonies about Meats about Apparel touching Marriages touching
Observation of days touching the very labour of the Cattel in the field and what not It was a burden as the Apostles testifie which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear yet there was sweetness in all this because it was done for the Lords sake though the task had been stricter David did well set forth the condition of the Law unto what great bondage it did captivate a man in these words Behold O Lord how that I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid a servant in extremity of thraldom and therefore it was repeated a Servant born for partus sequitur ventrem he must needs be so that was the Son of an handmaid he was born to be circumcised and to be a debtor to the whole Law Such were all they that boasted themselves to be the only freemen in the world because they were the Sons of Abraham Nay Simeon was not only such a Servant as I have hitherto described bridled under the Pedagogy of Moses Law but out of the relative terms of my Text I will shew that he was in greater subjection and aw for how doth he call the Lord here Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Lord that had power of life and death over his Vassal you shall not find it used again in all the four Evangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Favorinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Lord of a bondman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a freeman that is an hired servant I have plaid the Critick enough such servants those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were anciently called so not because they were paid for their labour which they did undergo in drudgery but because they were taken by hostility and their lives were forfeited to the Conquerour who had power to slay them yet spared them and resigned them up into their hands that would lay down a ransom for them So Simeon confesseth that God had the power of life and death over him when he might have killed him out of his clemency he spared him Behold a Servant then and such as he was such were all the Jews a man under the yoke of the Law and under the power of death But behold as this day the Deliverer was born and did quite change the copy of our service Christ as God did put the Church under the servitude of the Law but being made man he hath exempted us to the liberty of the Gospel and though we shall all die through that sentence which cannot be repealed yet if we believe that he hath given himself a ransom for us and live unto righteousness we shall not die unto condemnation But that you may know what kind of servants they are that retain to that family whereof God takes the care and administration mind the character of Simeon which the Holy Ghost gives him in the verses preceding my Text for his Calling it is obscurely past over thus there was a man in Jerusalem Galatinus says out of the Rabbins that one Simeon the just was the Master of the great Doctor Gamaliel and that may very well light upon this Simeon Much hath been urged to prove him to be a Priest but to no purpose Salmeron and Tolet alledge that when a child came to be presented to the Lord the Priest took the child out of the arms of his Mother and did not restore him again till he was redeemed for five Shekles of Silver according to the Law Num. xviii but how will they prove that a Child might not light into the arms of some other incidentally as well as into the arms of the Priest Yea but Simeon blessed Joseph and Mary ver 34. that is a Sacerdotal action Nay not always old Jacob blessed Pharaoh and every Prophet is an instrument of Benediction At the last heave says Tolet it is an old tradition of the Church to paint him in a Priestly Vesture an hard refuge when they refer us for a proof to Pictures and not to the Word of God Whether the Priesthood or the Layty may challenge him for theirs I know not one thing I know that he was a just man and waited for the consolation of Israel a pious holy Father a frequenter of the Temple a man uncompounded with the world but this was his righteousness that he lookt for the blessed off-spring God and man whom the Lord would send to redeem his Saints You will say perhaps did not all the Jews expect the Messias What did he more than other men Why herein he did exceed them that they did not look for such benefits from the Messias as Simeon did such spiritual refreshment for the soul and for the spirit Then the common sort of people lookt for Christ afar off he lookt for him just at that time near at hand As Joseph of Arimathea is said to look for the Kingdom of God that is to see Christ incarnate even then in the fulness of time Luke xxiii 51. Again others waited for Christ but carelesly without any earnest affection Simeon even languisht with longing and did passionately desire it St. Austin says that he did continually pray for the coming of Christ and often repeated that of David Psal lxxxv Shew us thy mercy O Lord and grant us thy salvation and then God answered him that he would fulfill his hearts desire Nicephorus tells us a vagrant story that Simeon was reading those words Isa vii Behold a Virgin shall conceive a Son and being sollicitous what that place should mean an Angel appeared and told him he should not die till he had seen that Babe with his eyes of whom Isaiah Prophesied This is certain the Holy Ghost had given him some great assurance of it The Spirit was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 25. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only in him but upon him which signifies extraordinary assistance as when it is said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me Isa lxi You see now with what endowments of heavenly graces Simeon was enricht before he called himself the servant of the Lord. His modesty would give himself no better title yet our Saviour speaks better things of those that believed Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends c. Joh. xv 15. It is not the meaning that we shall ever out-grow the name of servant for even at the day of judgment in the time of our reward it shall be said Well done good and faithful servant But here it is we are all servants by debt and nature the Gospel stiles us friends by Covenant and Composition Before Christ was revealed God dealt with them of the Synagogue as with servants he did not reveal the mysteries of the Trinity of the Incarnation of the coming of the Holy Ghost if he did reveal them to the Prophets it was ex privilegio not ratione status it was by
special priviledge not by common publication that which was a secret among some few is now vulgar to all God hath disclosed his hidden treasures to us as unto friends He was their Lord so he is ours but he is also our Father They were his servants and so are we but the interest we have in Christ that hath taken our nature upon him hath made us more than servants and exalted us to be his friends Hitherto I have held your attentions to the Supplicant now the Petition of his soul comes in order that he may depart The Servant had a burden that opprest him a frail and a corruptible body and he desires the Lord to ease him of it and to take it from him For so St. Ambrose and the Syrian Paraphrast read the word optatively Dimitte O take me away from hence and let me depart And they that say it is dimittis for dimittes the Present Tense for the Future bring it up to the same sense Lord thou wilt now let thy servant depart so Origen and St. Cyprian read it for the Hebrews use to make their Petitions in the future time as thou shalt hear my prayer in an acceptable time which is a fit form of words to ask in faith and not to waver as St. James says but the word here is Metaphorical in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you would say in the native term Lord now lettest thou thy servant be unloosed as horses are taken from the Plough and set up to rest when they have drawn till Evening and are weary or to signifie says St. Ambrose that necessity compelled him to stay here Ideo dimitti poscit quasi à vinculis quibusdam ad libertatem festinaret therefore he desires to be let loose as if he had been enthraled like some Captive and now would shake off his bonds and attain his liberty This earth is not our Country therefore though we have an inbred desire to have the union of the body and soul maintained yet our willingness inclines to be uncloathed of the body rather than not go from hence when we are full of days Quis peregre constitutus non prepararet in patriam regredi says St. Cyprian that man were unnatural that affected to be a stranger and had rather travel always than settle himself at home in peace revolve in your memory the words of just men in holy Scripture and you shall find that this is common to them all to mourn and sigh because their pilgrimage was prolonged Wo is me that I am constrained to live with Mesech says David Who shall deliver me from the body of this death Says St. Paul It is enough Lord take away my life I am not better than my Fathers says Elias While the body was a Palace the soul was content to stay in it now it is become a filthy prison no wonder if it desires to be gone Let not Simeons Nunc dimittis nor this Doctrine be mistaken every mans willingness to leave this world and to die is not commended from hence but when it is joyned with patience and good internal motives especially when we find an aptness and good preparation in our selves that when we go from hence we shall be joyned to the Lord. There is no worse sign in some that God is departed from them than when they are sullen and froward with their life and care not which way they break violently out of the world so they may depart Seneca could say Mori velle non tantum fortis patiens set etiam fastidiosus potest that is not only stout men are resolved to die and such as are fortified against fear but the discontented that cannot bear his cross had rather lose himself than his peevishness good and bad upon several reasons are contented both to die and to live Sunt homines qui cum patientiâ moriuntur sunt autem quidam perfecti qui cum patientiâ vivunt says St. Austin There are some holy men that exercise their patience to be content to die there are some perfect men that exercise their patience to be content to live therefore the motives that induced Simeon to this must be sifted to make him an inoffensive nay a profitable example Salmeron the Jesuit follows a most capricious invention that this reverend Sire importuned God to put a period to his days as soon as Christ was born that he might be the first Nuncio to the Fathers that were in limbo and certifie them that the Messias was come into the world who would exalt them from that lowly condition in which they were held and conduct their souls into the Kingdom of heaven This is so extravagant that I give it you to note the man and the far-fetcht way of their expositions The true reason is that this cygnea cantio this farewel Song of his hath taught us that there is no terror in going to the Grave no sting in death since God appeared before us and became man to deliver our souls from the nethermost hell and to make our bodies like to his own most glorious body They that know not what their condition may be in the next world must needs think of death with an heavie heart and sigh and wring their hands when they feel it approaching He that could see Christ no otherwise than through the dark mists of the Law did count it somewhat an irksom thing to go out of the land of the living it was a good King of Judah that chattered like a Swallow when Isaiah told him he should live no longer But it is incredible to humane reason how it encourageth a faithful man to meet his death with chearfulness because though not in our own bodies yet in the Apostles and others we have seen we have heard and our hands have handled the word of life and that we know there is plentious redemption for us in Christ our Saviour Simeon knew the instant of his dissolution was at hand and yet he sang away the remainder of his life with joy as who should say Egredere ô anima fly away my soul fly away like a dove and take thy rest for now I see that the promises of grace and mercy are true here is Christ thy Saviour in thy hands thine eyes do see thine arms do support thy Salvation though thou departest thou shalt not go from him for he is man on earth to comfort thee and God in heaven to glorifie thee This is it which did animate Simeon to say Lord let me depart and therefore as the Patriarches in the time of the Law desired length of days upon earth that they might live to see the Messias so let us desire a joyful departure to be with him for evermore I proceed the time which he sets for the accomplishment of his Petition is presently or at that instant Now Lord now let c. Nunc ante hâc non item As who should say if I had been summoned to leave
it renders thus I will make the kingdom of Davids glory to sprout forth Euthymius pleaseth me who gives the analogy thus the oil was poured out of an horn with which Kings were anointed you can instruct your selves that it was so both in David and Solomon and from thence an horn though an evacuation of nature and a mean thing became an ensign of Kingly Majesty Neither was this known only to the Jews but to the Heathen also so that their Kings did wear it among the honours and ornaments of their head as ours are painted with a mund and a Scepter in their hand Pyrrhus in Plutarch was known in the battail from all his subjects by wearing a Goats horn in his Helm and Villalpandus reports of an ancient piece of coin which had the image of Tryphon the Egyptian Monarch on the face and on the reverse it had his Crest with a Goats horn rising up before it Nay the same Author says that it was the fashion of David to wear the like thing in his head-piece And all this I have alledged because I would not want proofs that an horn was the representation of Kingly Sovereignty The meaning then of Zachary is this that Christ hath abased himself to be incarnate and to become our salvation yet he hath reserved this glory to himself in his humiliation that he will be a Saviour unto none but unto them that accept of him for their King and obey him in all things In almost all books of Scripture he is called a King I will not take so wide a scope to expatiate in but strictly I will touch at a little In Genesis he is resembled in Melchisedech the High Priest but he was also King of Salem In the Psalms yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion In one of the Lessons for the day he shall sit upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdom Isa ix 7 At his Birth the wise men did inaugurate him in that honour Where is he that is born King of the Jews At his triumph when he rode into Jerusalem Blessed is the Kingdom that cometh in the name of the Lord of our Father David Mark xi 10. At his arraignment when Pilate askt him if he were a King he left him in suspence with this answer thou sayest it Finally upon his Cross he would not let the title be altered but there it stood Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews The right of this Kingdom was given him in his Incarnation promulged by the preaching of the Apostles perfected after his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven and shall be consummated in the end of the world He is so fully constituted a King by being called the Christ that ever since it is the Dignity of all Kings to be called the Lords Christs Him hath the Lord anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Acts x. 38. in which words St. Peter hath exprest both his Sacred and his Kingly Sovereignty and to match him for the Texts sake with David in this point you must call to mind that David was thrice anointed first at his Fathers house by Samuel the next time at Hebron after the death of Saul and finally anointed at Jerusalem a King over all Israel So Christ was anointed by shedding of blood in Circumcision by blood again at his Agony in the Garden and thirdly by the great effusion of his dearest blood upon the Cross Or will you lay it thus He was anointed by his Father from heaven anointed by Mary with her box of Spikenard upon earth and lastly his dead body was anointed by the women when it was laid in the Sepulchre So in proportion there is a three-fold Unction to make us Kings and Priests for ever the first of Regeneration in Baptism the second with the blood of Jesus in the participation of the holy Communion and the third of glorification in the Kingdom of heaven but nihil dat quod non habet he that crowns us in glory had title to a crown himself he that makes us Kings was the horn or prince of our Salvation This is the stone of offence against which the Jews stumble that the Kingdom promised so expresly and literally to the Messias was not verified in the person of Christ our Saviour had he sate upon the throne of David with Power and Majesty reason would that they should believe but this is it as they plead which enervates their faith that he who is set forth so often in the name of a King should be born so meanly die so ignominiously and be acquainted in all his life with nothing but weakness and poverty 1. Remember this for the ground of my answer that Jesus Christ was God's only Son and our Lord that is our King is an Article of our Belief and therefore his Kingdom appears only to the eye of Faith and is not to be discerned after an earthly manner in outward pomp and visible glory for then it were no Article of the Creed 2. No humane Kingdom came to him by descent for ought we know he was of the house and lineage of David but it appears not that he was the true and lawful successor in the right line to the Crown of David Armacanus makes much ado to no purpose to derive his pedigree so that the Kingdom of David might truly be hereditary in him I say to no purpose for since the right should come to him by his Mother and she out-lived him that temporal Kingdom had been in her and never descended upon him unless he had survived her 3. Note it that the Prophets who prophesied of the Kingdom of the Messias must not be understood literally that 's not the fashion of Prophesies How then why with Evangelical qualifications and they are clear that his Kingdom is not of this world that he was no King to the prejudice of Caesar his laws pertained to the spirit and conscience he rules over his Church and yet was obedient to Rulers but he had not the temporal seat of David even as David had not the spiritual seat of Christ In a regal Throne he did not sit for he came not to be ministred unto but to minister although he was made heir of all things by virtue of the Hypostatical Vnion Just as David after he was anointed by Samuel was debased a while as the meanest servant But Christ being of the line of David and having an heavenly Dominion given him which had influence into the soul and conscience commanding things in heaven and earth making all things in the world stoop to the word of his truth converting sinners to salvation drawing all the Gentiles to take up his Cross ruling thus for ever and to the worlds end I hope you will say O that the Jews would heed it that this is a more excellent Sovereignty than ever David had therefore God hath made good his promise and transcended it that God had given him the Kingdom of his
that Herod had a Son born who was heir to the Crown they could not mean it for then they would never have made a question where he was born but have gone directly to his Fathers Palace Where should he be born else Besides all Herods Sons were grown to manly stature beside none of his children were born to any right of succession for in those days the Kingdom of Judaea was appointed to them who were most in favour with the Court of Rome But the meaning must be Where is that King of the Jews that is born That King of whom we have been told that all Nations shall worship and obey him For else what had they to do with the King of another Kingdom as St. Austin says Nisi â—am agnoscerent regem Judaeorum qui rex est etiam seculorum but that they acknowledge though Jury gave him birth yet all the world and all Ages should do him homage They do not say they came to see him upon his fame or upon any exploit that he ever yet did but upon the presages of that glorious Kingdom which should be his in time to come O the wonderful working of the Lord and O the power of his grace where he gives it an effectual blessing Some relations or traditions these Magi had had perhaps from no better hand than Balaams and his Successors with these poor means and with the help of the Star what Mysteries they pickt out of it God knows they make a better confession of their faith than the Jews did with the helps of all the Prophets Illi consitentur alienum regem isti proprium non agnoscunt yet these strangers did confess a foraign King as it were the Jews denied him though most principally he was their own They were angry to the death at Herod a stranger that he was their King now God opens them a royal way that they may have a King of their own if they will and yet they refuse him It is an argument of no small force to beat down infidelity that the heathen in most parts of the world did speak of an extraordinary King that was to come in that age and some of them directly pointed out Judea for the place Suetonius says that it stirred up the Jews to rebellion because there was a constant saying in all the Eastern Countries Perâ—rebuit in oriente toto vetus constans opinio mark it for these Wise-mens sakes Esse in fatis ut eo tempore Judaeâ profecti rerum potirentur That it was destined that about that time some should come out of Judea that should reign over all the world And that grave Author Cicero says a certain fellow whom he was angry at interpreted Sibyls verses that he whom we had or must have to be our King Appellandum esse regem si salviesse vellemus We must call him a King if we would be saved But he was no such King as Tully feared that would erect a Monarchy and destroy the liberty of the Senate I have been copious before you but lately that Christ was possessed of no temporal soveraignty in refutation that Satan shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world and said All these things will I give thee The Jews were angry with him that he would not meddle with temporal things but they themselves have lost all their temporalties for refusing him Christ was born a King as the world gave testimony in my Text and died a King as Pilate gave testimony in the title upon his Cross Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews Nor was he simply a King allotting him a spiritual Kingdom as I have lately discoursed upon it but a King of Kings anointed with the oyl of gladness above his fellows I will make him my first-born higher than the Kings of the earth Psal lxxxix 28. His Kingly Office is part of his Mediatorship by which he reconciles us to God and saves us from our sins and cloaths us with righteousness And to understand that point of faith clearly these are qualities of his Kingly Office 1. To choose out his own Subjects that is the members of his Church 2. To give them Laws to keep 3. To provide for their peace and to keep the enemy from them 4. To call all the world before him in the last and universal Judgment But that legislation the appointing of Laws to his Subjects is the most conspicuous part of that Office in this life and believe the Prophet Ezech. for it Chap. xxxvii 24. David my servant shall be King over them and they shall all have one shepherd they shall also walk in my judgments and observe my Statutes to do them You see wherein the Kingdom of the Son of David consists to give us Statutes and Judgments to do them He commands the heavens above as it seems by this Star and who are we that should not obey him Quis est iste rex tam parvus tam magnus nondum in terris loquens in coelis edicta proponens What King is this says St. Austin so little for he is but new born and yet so great an Infant that hath not yet spoken and yet his Edicts are kept in heaven We are willing and content at his Priestly office that he should die for us on the Cross and intercede for us to his Father we are willing he should be our Prophet to teach us and will you make his Kingly Office stand for a Cypher Shall he not give us Law and bind us to his Commandments That Office stands for all the rest and the Wise-men ask about it instead of all beside Where is be that is born King of the Jews So I have done with their Question And I have need to make haste to the first of their Assertions which is very copious in the contents Vidimus enim stellam ejus in oriente for we have seen his Star in the East The particulars to be inquired into are 1. What was the substance of this Star 2. How it appeared in the East 3. What aptitude there was in such a sign or miracle to bring them to Christ 4. Why it is appropriatively called his Star 5. Whether there were no secret illumination an invisible but a better star than this which made them true believers These sayings of the Wise-men troubled all Jerusalem says the next verse and no marvel for they have troubled the whole common-wealth of Learning ever since what this Star should be All Authors meet in one consent that this could be no star fix'd and remaining in the Firmament aloft for how can it be imagined that any of those heavenly lights so remote could point to one Country more than another to a little Village in that Country nay to a Stable in that Village 2. Natural Creatures are no convenient presages of the supernatural works of God Moreover they that swallow it down without mistrust that the Star went along with the Wise-men all the way from the
most proper time to have setled it had been when the people told him the Disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast often but thine do not But then he utters no more but this in general When tbe Bridegroom is taken from them they shall fast Here is no direction for time or manner all that is left free to the sound discretion and occasions of the Church They do but dally with Scripture that collect from the forenamed words when the Bridegroom is taken from them they shall fast therefore the sixth day of the week in every week must be a day of fasting and abstinence because on the sixth day of the week the Bridegroom was taken from them and died upon the Cross What more insolid than this For by collections from Irenaeus and others it is evident that even the Roman Churches did ceremoniously keep the fast of Satterday long before they observed a portional abstinence upon the sixth day of the week But let me not make you lose the head of my argument by this Parenthesis that Christ being demanded why his Disciples did not fast he leaves an indefinite answer with them The days will come when the Bridegroom is taken from them that they shall fast but for allotting any particular time not a tittle of Commandment Let this be added that when the ancient Fathers call their quadragesimal Constitution an imitation of our Lords fast there is no hurt in the Word if it mean not that his example was a necessary pattern to be followed I say they alledge also for the convenient observing of that institution how Moses and Elias fasted forty days in the old Law and indeed they might lay hold upon one as well as upon another for Christ made his Fast even with theirs to shew that the Gospel which he brought did not dissent from the Law and Prophets But the illation is good in this wise as the Jews were held to no necessary imitation of Moses and Elias no more is there any necessary obligation to hold the Christians that they should punctually observe a portional abstinence according to the time of forty days that our Saviour fasted So I have put off the first conclusion with good confirmation I think on our part Now I have to do with another sort that hold our Lenten temperance to be an Apostolical tradition hereby they burden the consciences of men that a partial fast of forty days is not merely derived unto us by Humane Laws but by Apostolical Authority a Sanction which came from men immediately inspired from God and therefore to be strictly held as any other Dictate of the holy Gospel And they that break Lent are condemned as Prevaricators of the divine Law But these opinionists are of two sorts the one Sect far more severe and unreasonable than the other who not only defend that a convenient abstinence is to be kept for forty days by Apostolical Authority but that even the abstinence from the flesh of beasts for that time and changing our diet into Fish and other Viands is by Apostolick command But their reasons are far worse than their opinion making a distinction as if one meat were more sanctified than another whereas all things are alike unpolluted to him that eats Gods Creatures with thanksgiving and a resolved conscience and with temperance But thus the Friers flash out that the Seas were never cursed for the sin of man the earth was cursed for his sin therefore the food of the Sea is better allotted for times of sorrow and repentance than what Than the flesh of the Cattel yea by this reason than the herbs of the Garden yet the feeding upon herbs and roots was ever accounted the clearer abstinence Such another imagination is this that Christ fed upon Fish after his Resurrection so he did upon an honey Comb and yet the Bees gather the fruits of their labours from the flowers of the field and not from the weeds of the water Such another rotten Argument is this that all Flesh was destroyed in Gods anger in the Deluge but Fishes were saved alive in the water You need require from me no better confutation of this cause than the naming of these reasons for who will not resolutely say that such frippery as this never came from Apostolical judgment The Decretals of the Pope a work wherein I am sure the Church of Rome can have no wrong done it but those Decretals attribute unto Telesphorus that he was the first that commanded the Clergie for seven weeks before Easter to refrain from the food of flesh this is but barely said and not proved but if it were proved all the Apostles were dead before Telesphorus was born therefore no way probable to be an Apostolick direction And indeed I find certain glances in the Fathers that the Clergy did admit of this institution before the rest of the people did which makes it more firm that it was Abstinentia cibi secundum Ecclesiae regulam an abstinence from some kind of food by a meer Ecclesiastical imposition to try their obedience Surely they may name ten places out of antiquity before they alledge one to the purpose that is for the commutation of their ordinary diet from flesh into fish Some quote Serapion in Socrates that entertained a Guest hard before Easter and being destituted of all provision except a piece of dried salted flesh he set that before the stranger who scrupulously refused it and said he would not break Lent because he was a Christian Serapion answers To the clean all things are clean eat it because you are a Christian From hence I collect 1. That Lent was kept by a Canonical Ordinance two hundred years after Christ in Serapions days 2. That to abstain from flesh was the Civil Law of the time as it is with us but so easily dispensable that you may conclude it was no Apostolical Ordinance I will adjoyn one place of St. Austin most falsely quoted by Salmeron the Jesuite 1 Tim. iv St. Paul says it was the Doctrine of Devils to forbid meats Faustus the Manichean infers then Moses in the Old Law wrote the Doctrine of Devils No says St. Austin Quadragesima â vobis sine vino carnibus non superstitiose sed divinâ lege servatur 1. You Manichaeans abstain both from wine and flesh in Lent 2. You observe it as from a Divine Law that was the error of the Manicheans to receive it as from divine Law it was not the Tenet of the Orthodox Christians the Church of Rome it self will stand for me in this quotation because no man is restrained from drinking of wine during that fast no not by their Injunctions So I have enough discovered their groundless opinion who take upon them to defend that abstinence from flesh in Lent is an Apostolical Constitution Therefore some state the matter in these words that although the prohibition of some meats for forty days be corroberated by Ecclesiastical Law and
and one mans cloathing and quite beside your expectation you shall not leave a blessing with this substance but a great curse upon your Posterity A little which the righteous hath is better than great riches of the ungodly Satan's wily Projections were ever fatal to the undertaker but justice and righteousness shall have peace and comfort in this life and eternal glory in the life to come AMEN THE NINTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 4. But he answered and said it is written Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God WHatsoever Satan said before was not worthy of an answer and if our Saviour had held his peace as once he did when he was examined before Herod that wicked motion had deserved it Command that these stones be made bread But an answer is given in these words which are my present Tractate partly to wrack the Tempter with suspicion partly to demonstrate how weak all our objections are when God comes to answer them and partly to make the Church partaker of his wisdom that his sayings may be our Meditations from day to day and from hour to hour when we are met together in these holy Assemblies First The answer left the Tempter most irresolute and without all satisfaction Satan was loath to seem to doubt of Christ and would not ask Art thou the Son of God And yet he laboured with all cunning to discover it Therefore Christ keeps him off that he was never the nearer to find him out by this answer Dominus sic fallit ut vincat sic vincit ut fallat says St. Ambrose the Lord deluded his enemy that he might overcome him and overcomes him by strength of Scripture that he may still delude him He could have cut him off with a word saying As the Father hath life in himself so the Son hath life in himself what need this transmutation then of stones into bread to satisfie my hunger but he would not rejoyn explicitely one way or other either I am the eternal Son of God that want not bread or I am a man of much infirmity but indefinitely thus pick what he could out of it Man shall not live c. Secondly This answer declares how easily Gods wisdom will overmatch the subtilties of men since Satan himself could not maintain his own objections So the Pharisees the Herodians the Sadduces all were put to silence in the Gospel that they durst ask him no more questions and yet many men flatter themselves that although they have been revengeful malicious unjust extortioners yet let them have a fair and a just hearing at Gods Tribunal and they would be able to justifie their own Integrity according to the like which Job said Chap. xxiii 3. O that I might come even to his Seat I would order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments I would know the words which he would answer me and understand what he would say unto me Beloved let such conceits fall off and vanish God is not mocked his wisdom is not dazled with inventions and excuses entrust your cause with Christ to plead it for you and be sure for your own part you are not able to answer one for a thousand One question and almost one word made him speechless that came to the Marriage not having on a wedding garment Christ answers to the Tempter in this place to instruct us that all his sayings are solid irrefragable and unanswerable Thirdly This answer which confounds Satan confirms the Church with manifold knowledge as namely in these several Points into which I will distribute the Text and they are three Sedes argumenti applicatio argumentum ipsum 1. The seat of the Argument or the place from whence it is taken It is written written in the holy Scripture written in the Law of Moses and particularly written in a certain place of Deuteronomy which entreats of Manna that came down from heaven 2. The Application of it is to Christ our Lord man shall not live by bread and therefore this is appliable to him as touching his humanity 3. The Argument or Text it self hath these four Doctrines three directly the last by inference 1. That man is not necessarily bound to ordinary sustinance man shall not live by bread alone 2. God can nourish man by every word that proceedeth out of his mouth that is every way that it liketh and pleaseth him 3. Nothing can nourish unless God bless it for man liveth by the word that proceedeth out of Gods mouth that is by the will of God 4. There is another life for man to look to beside this life which is sustained with bread so St. Cyprian and others collect upon the words put together Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word c. But he answered and said it is written So his responsion was not the invention of man but the very Oracle of God This was Romphea in ore out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword Rev. i. 16. This is the Sickle which cuts down all the Tares which Satan sows among the good Wheat this is the Ark of God before which all the Idols of the Philistines fall flat to the ground this is the Trumpet of Joshuah whose noise overturneth the Walls of Jerico How can our tongues sufficiently praise the holy Scripture which teacheth us to speak not with the eloquence of man but with the tongues of Angels Take it from us and we may say as Samson did if his Locks were shaved away we shall be weak as other men nay quite unable to open our lips against the Philosophy of the world but give us that weapon of the Spirit in our hand and we shall tread down our foes as the dung under our feet Satan himself cannot stand before this charge Scriptum est it is written Dimittit aures bellua centiceps Such Charms such Musick is able to make the Serpent burst in pieces We are penn'd up into the Scriptures as into our sheepfolds while we contain our selves within them there we are safe the Wolf may howl but he cannot bite us There we are in the Tower of David where we cannot be assaulted but as David acknowledgeth If my delight had not been in thy Law I should utterly have perished in my trouble Wherefore my Beloved make the holy Scriptures some part of every days business read them and as you read pray to God to interpret them read them with humility that when God sends an Interpreter you may not cavil and be wise in your own conceit but understand them read them with continual diligence that one day may teach another and your elder years may be wiser than your younger Finally read them with patience that such things as are obscure may not deter you but hold on and proceed and you shall find somewhat clear that it will dispel the mists of obscurity Consilio spiritus
laugh with them that are merry but to make them voluptuous and exceed fly as low as you will and as high as you will Which alteration you shall find between that tentation which is past already and that which is now begun Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City and setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple In which words are to be noted four things Ordo Modus Locus communis Locus proprius First The order of these tentations that this is the immediate and next tentation to the former for then the Devil took him Secondly The manner is by assumption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he took him up 3. The more common place to which he took him it was to the holy City Jerusalem 4. Here is the peculiar and proper place he setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple These are the parts of that Argument which at this time lies before us Now this is the reason why I make the order of these tentations one and the first part of the Text at this time because St. Luke puts this tentation in the last part which St. Matthew accounts the second and this which St. Matthew reckons for the second St. Luke refers it last For after Christ had refused the motion to make bread of stones it follows according to St. Luke The Devil took him up into an high Mountain and shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world in a moment of time but our Evangelist gives his Narration the accent of time Tunc assumpsit then he took him up into the holy City Because therefore St. Matthew shews the Connexion of order it is believed generally that he hath the perfect consequence of the story One says that in some old Copies of the Greeks St. Luke concurs passage by passage with St. Matthew Jansenius a learned Author it seems had found some such thing and I believe so had St. Ambrose for whereas he wrote Commentaries purposely upon St. Luke yet he keeps no other order but the self-same which is found in St. Matthew Howsoever this is no jar or contradiction between the holy Writers but a variety which begets many good Meditations when we think upon it First Aquinas did thus excogitate upon it Quandoque ex inani gloria venitur ad cupiditatem quandoque ex cupiditate ad inanem gloriam The tentation upon the Pinacle was directed to beget vain-glory the tentation upon the Mountain tended to beget immoderate coveting of worldly things Now for these two there is no choice in the precedency for sometimes vain-glory would support it self by coveting in excess and sometimes a covetous affection drives a man into the itch of glory Secondly All sins are not equal yet there are some capital sins that in several respects are of an equal deformity between themselves and then they take their turn in holy Scripture one interchangeably to be set before the other Murder and Adultery Adultery and Murder are flagrant crimes and in some comparisons one is the greater trespass against our brother in some comparisons the other Thou shalt do no murder thou shalt not commit adultery so Moses ranged them in the Law to the Jews Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill Rom. xiii 9. So St Paul disposeth them writing to the Gentiles Indeed in the Hebrew Murder is first forbidden for being is simply better than well-being but in the 70 Translation Adultery is first forbidden for comparatively well-being is better than being St. Matthew therefore following the Hebrew says Christ did thus rehearse the Commandments to the young man Thou shalt not kill thou shalt not commit Adultery Mat. xix 18. St. Luke following the 72. cites our Saviour saying to the same man Do not commit Adultery do not kill Luk. xviii 20. So Pride in some cases is worse than Covetousness and therefore our Evangelist entreats first upon the tentation to Pride in some cases Covetousness is worse than Pride and so the other Evangelist writes first of that tentation which instigated unto Covetousness Thirdly St. Luke laid those two tentations together which were commenced in the Wilderness and Mountains and then with less confusion to the Readers apprehension speaks of that which fell out in the City and upon the Temple Many times the Scripture by anticipation brings in the history of a thing before the precise time wherein it was done as Mat. xxvii In the description of our Saviours Passion this accident is brought in that many dead bodies of the Saints arose and appeared in the holy City to many and yet it came not to pass upon the Passion day but when Christ was risen from the dead This Maxim is of good direction to the wise that can understand it Ordo artificialis in narratione rerum saepe est utilior ad intelligendum quà m ordo naturalis To transpose things in an history artificially is many times better for our understanding than the plain natural order But this tentation as it is sorted in St. Matthew is well placed both by the natural truth of the history and by the artificial method of it And thus much briefly to make this Point even between these two most divine Evangelists I put on to the next thing which is most strange in this tentation and verily to be admired the manner of it to which Christ did submit himself it is by Assumption by carriage through the air Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City It was a good Spirit which led him into the Wilderness to the exercises of Fasting and Prayer and Contemplation the very same which sate upon his head at Baptism in the shape of a Dove Now here is another Spirit retaining to the contrary faction who is ready not only to lead him but even to carry him through the Air to the most conspicuous Turret in all the City of Jerusalem Some of the ancient and pure stock of Writers were so loath to preach this Doctrine in the Church that Satan did bear up Christ between Heaven and Earth for fear of offending weak ones that they made other constructions of it which will no abide the test St. Cyprian expounds it as if all this had been done by Vision and Imagination But will Cyprian say that Christ was urged to cast himself down to the ground putativè not really but in imagination Or will he grant that our glorious Champion did vanquish his Adversary but in fancy and opinion Exilis esset Christi victoria Then Christ had but little to boast of and the Scripture would never have recorded this act as the most famous of all victories Beside these many other Interpreters in a more rational way confess this was a conflict truly and apparently fought and that the Devil really took him up Pedibus ductum non volantem he went along from the Wilderness up to the top of the Pinacle on his feet upon the Devils provocation And this opinion they maintain upon the meaning
a man so verily that every man shall take it to be the very man the same Jesuite tells how a Priest being asleep his Angel celebrated Mass for him and that an Angel fought for another Souldier while he was at Mass Among the Miracles of Ignatius Loiola reported at his Canonization this was affirmed that he being at Rome did appear unto one at Cullen and transact business with him but whether he at Cullen that told this were drunk or sober it is not reported A thousand gulleries and fictions have been raised from the conceit of the Angel Guardian and all grounded upon this that the people within said Peters Angel was without Now to end this Point and to cut off all credit from that Text it must needs be most ignorantly and inconsiderately spoken for an Angel doth not use to knock at door and desire to be let in who is a Spirit and could come in though the doors were shut Coronidis vice to cast up the whole account of this Text suffer me to add both the intension of the Angels care over us and the extension and so I will conclude The intension consists in this that they will put their hands between us and harm in their hands they will bear thee up In wnich figure we alass are compared to Infants they to Nurses or Mothers that will keep us in their own arms to save us from falling Surely they will not stick to carry so mean a similitude for our sake for that you may not dread Gods Majesty he compares himself but to a Hen that clucks her Chickens under her wings Mat. xxiii The Chicken which is under the wing though it be very safe yet it is out of sight but that which is held in the hand the eye will be carefully cast upon it therefore this is a phrase of as tender pity and compassion as almost can be devised Were it in this stile they shall admonish you of dangers at hand it were a loving part but we are admonished of dangers every week and yet fall into the snares of Satan Did the consolation run in this form they shall go before you or compass you about they shall look to your going out and coming in it would deserve to have Gods name blessed for that appointment yet though Angels go before us unless they will carry us out of our own ways we shall run into the broad path that leadeth to destruction Well admit it were as God said to Israel I have born thee on Eagles wings and brought thee to my self Exod xix 4. Yet it comes short of this love The Eagle carries her young ones on her back but to lift up a thing upon the shoulders is to make it a burden and not a delight that which is born in the hands is nearer to the bosom ever in remembrance most tenderly provided for therefore out of infinite love Judah was comforted I will grave thee in the palms of my hands Isa xlix This is the intension of their care which is yet amplified by the extension the Angels will support you and hug you in their hands lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone Burno Herbipolensis is more figurative in his Exposition than the very figure of the words Says he the Law was written in Tables of stone but these Guardians will take care that you offend not against the Law He might as well have said and better they will provide that you sin not against Christ who is called a Stone against which who so offends it will grind him to powder but literally we may confide that every part of our body is under the charge of Gods holy Ministers not only our head but our feet yea the very hairs of our head are numbred And this difference is prudently noted between those evils from which all good men shall be awarded First They shall tread the Lion and the Dragon under their feet in which all infestious dangers are understood of malicious persons that devise to hurt the Innocent then it is further promised they shall not hurt their foot against a stone that is no mischances or misadventures shall fall upon them So Job hath connexed them Chap. v. 23. Thou shalt be at peace with the stones of the field and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee That is neither meditated mischiefs nor ill luck shall overthrow thee thy life shall be kept charily from thy professed enemies yea thy very foot from all disastrous contingencies This is the Lords doing and his Name be glorified both for his own providence which is always about our paths and about our bed and for the charge and tuition of his holy Angels To God the Father c. THE THIRTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 7. Jesus said unto him it is written again Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God THis is the second repulse which was given to the Tempter who had disputed as he thought upon good supposition If thou be the Son of God Upon good authority For it is written Upon good assurance For he shall give his Angels charge concerning thee This was an Argument subtilly compact together and yet it is fully answered Beloved I reduce it to this head of Admonition when the wicked have done all they can and disguised their plots with as much safety as wit can invent yet the Lord will find a flaw in their contrivance and say here I will make a breach here I will enter in As Ahab was admonish'd of his death by the Prophet Micaiah if he went to Battel against Ramoth in Gilead yet he thought to meet with no harm in spight of the Prophesie for he had buckled his Armour about him from head to foot but a certain man drew a Bow at a venture and smote him between the joynts of the Harness that he died The Lord directed the mans Arrow to that place where Ahab lay open to death though he thought he had been impenetrable Goliah came down to fight with any Champion that Saul should send against him with his Shield of Brass his Coat of Male his Greaves of Brass his Helmit of Brass and so impudent he was in defying God that I may say his Forehead was of Brass This Giant that thought himself invulnerable all over David smote with a stone in his brazen forehead that he died I could be luxuriant in Examples I will speak but once more The Jebusites were within the strong hold of Zion and they boasted it could not be taken therefore they derided David but David found a way to send up his men by the Gutter and smote the Jebusites they were surprized at one weak passage which was not fortified and never dreamt of it I lay all this down at the door of their conscience that dare venture upon any conspiracy or injustice if they think their work so strong that it will hold out all detection I tell you when
thing cannot be in the same understanding Secondly neither did the evil spirit fortifie the sight of Christ or put virtue into his eye to make it see more than the organ did see before non quod visum ejus qui omnia videt amplificaverit the Lord of Heaven and Earth indeed is able to put strange perspicacie into the eye of man if he please to make him see things clearly and distinctly at a mighty distance so he caused Moses at 120 years of age to go up to mount Nebo to look upon the land before him and to die there First God put courage into his heart to go thither to die with as much chearfulness as if he had been invited to some Festival entertainment secondly he put virtue into his aged eye to see all the remote Regions as perfectly as if they had been Valleys close by and all lying under mount Nebo on which he stood Now as for the eye of Christs body surely it needed no such amplification of visual virtue for assume it for granted that all parts of his humane nature were so perfect that his eye could clearly behold any thing though at never so far distance I mean how far soever the visible object could cast a species no gross opacous body casting it self between for Christ being made like unto us in all things sin onely excepted I allow no possibility to any created one to see through the thick interposition of earth and stones that Lynceus was able to do so Poets did invent in in a Midsummer Moon But I resume no species could multiply to our Saviours sight and fall upon it with never so acute angles though the distance as long as between a star in the highest Region and this earth but he could clearly receive the object as present at hand before him Having such virtue in his eye he could receive no amplification neither could any visual virtue upon the highest Mountain on earth make him to see all the Kingdoms of the World ot once for Philosophers grant enough that an object may appear in one Horizon to an excellent sighted eye three hundred miles off and more they think impossible Nor thirdly did Satan work any perturbation in Christs phansie to make him imagine he saw that which indeed he did not To be conceited that things are present and before a man which indeed are not if it fall out in ones sleep it is no more than a dream if it come to pass by Gods working supernaturally it is a prophetical illumination so God wrought such wonderful passions upon the fancies of Ezekiel and St. John and the Monks say that it pleased the Lord to shew unto St. Bennet in a trance a little before he died all the Kingdoms and Empires upon the face of the earth but if such a thing come to pass by the Devils mists and devices then it is praestigiation or delusion but Satan had no such power to abuse the senses or the spirits of our blessed Lord moving disorder in his body or in his head by which course only he can procure fanciful and vain imaginations of things that are not Besides if this shew had been no more but deluding the fancie to make it credulous he saw the whole world when he did not what needed he make choice of an exceeding high mountain to go up to that That might be done every where and he might as easily work it into his fancy that he was upon a mountain when he was not as to see a most ravishing object of all the earth when he did not But that which I said before is most convincing that Satan had no power to disturb our Saviours fancy inwardly neither is He that is above the wisdom of men and Angels subject to delusion As it was impossible to be brought to pass after these wayes that I have toucht upon to represent all the Kingdoms of the World before our Saviour so there are other wayes how this might be done without any flat contradiction or absurdity As First Satan is able if God permit him to compose certain species or models of all the Kingdoms of the world bubbles as I may call them in the air to last for a little while for the twinkling of an eye and so to vanish and for the better colour of his jugling that they were the real Kingdoms of the World and not their counterfeits he assumed Christ up into a most lofty prospect These are delusions not in Christs fancy which I disclaimed before but without him Nor were they any delusions unto Christ at all because he knew them what they were that they were not true but feigned images The most piercing objection that can be made is then he did not shew any Kingdom unto Christ but only the glasses and models of them all So it must be indeed by this description yet they are called the Kingdoms of the World per modum signi because the glory of the World was cunningly display'd in those counterfeits Secondly though it be past the skil of man to perform for I am no Rosicrucian yet it is not past the capacity of man to imagine it possible how Satan might make the species of all the Kingdoms of the World conjoyntly be seen before Christs eye by refractions per artem speculorum positorum in commodâ habitudine one terse clear body like a Glass receiving the shadows or species of things from one to another and in a very quick instant all display'd in the air round about that Mountain being fitly prepared to receive such fractions But I will not trouble you nor my self with such intricate optical Philosophy as must make this good But thirdly I am most strongly possessed with that way which is most easie and obvious though it be pelted with objections that Satan shewed our Saviour all that pleasant Country that might be seen from the top of the Mountain and did indigitare or monstrare shew the rest by pointing to the flourishing Monarchies of the World which way they lay as in a Cosmographical Sphere But this exposition will be cavill'd with that he could not be said properly to shew all Kingdoms Not so properly indeed as He that travails through every Region but secundum ultimum posse he shew'd him all as far forth as his skil and power would permit him Neither is it necessary to hold so hard to the Text that every angle of the world was made apparent and nothing unshewn The note of universality stands oftentimes for multitude He shew'd him the most part of the Kingdoms of the world or perhaps all that had glory in them that is Victory Peace Civility not barbarous savage Nations who had neither Cities of munificence nor Laws of good government nor wealth nor honor nor any thing desirable Others that can oppose this opinion and yet give no sensible reason of their own to expound this Text but these object that discourse must take up some time if Satan
Such another example is scarce to be found as that of David whose Cup was filled brim-full God magnifies his bounty towards him by the mouth of Nathan I gave thee thy Masters house and the house of Israel and Judah 2 Sam. xii 8. yet these were but the narrow Territories of the Land of Canaan far from this insatiable Possession All these things will I give thee The prodigal Child in the Parable though a most rank consumer yet this evil Spirit had not entred into him for he desired no more of his Father than the portion of goods which fell unto him But the Devil cuts out no portions for his Minions he disciplines every one of them to aim at all that can be gotten to be like a rouling Snow-ball ever gathering and growing bigger and bigger Quis metus aut pudor est unquam properantis avari There is no such bridle as shame and modesty in the heart of him that makes haste to be rich I say he wants the bridle of shame I do not recal my word Either cruel Usury or pestilent Couzenage or base Corruption or sordid Penuriousness or unchristian slackness in Charity some of these must concur to raise up a mountain of Wealth from a mean beginning When Sylla that powerful Roman made very witty Apologies for those evil courses he took to oppress the Commonwealth one choak'd him with an unanswerable Objection that he could not be througly good that had scrap'd so great wealth together and was born to nothing God will bless and reward industry with gainful success that is to be presupposed and granted for the encouragement of those that are diligent in an honest Calling but these boundless gatherers that would know no end of getting have their Bank in the Devils Mart for it is he that bids them carry more and more that they shall never have load enough All these things will I give thee St. Austin very truly lays the crime of Covetousness not upon that abundance which a good rich man hath but upon the corruption of his will and upon that which he would have Avaritia est esse velle divitem non jam esse divitem It is no breach of Gods Commandment to be rich but to long and thirst for more They that will be rich says St. Paul fall into temptations and snares and many hurtful desires Dives qui fieri vult citò vult fieri Let fortune come in quickly though the Devil lead it by the hand Beware of these swelling purchasing imaginations that are ever reckoning upon more confine your heart to moderate contentation if you will live in peace Nay St. Chrysostome says the less you desire and want the less you shall live like a mortal man and the more like an immortal Angel Quanto paucioribus indigemus tanto magis Angelis appropinquamus But above all remember that God directs the soul to be contented with a little the evil Spirit would have you ingross the whole earth and perhaps he could suggest devices how a luxurious man might be able to spend all the wealth in the world if he had it but immense Projections for riches come from the motion of the evil one All these things will I give thee In the next place let us declare against these words of Satan that his gift is not more spacious than it is unjust He presents before Christ the whole earth and the fulness thereof and our Saviour look'd upon all those things not with the eye of concupiscence but as a Physician looks upon a disease without any passion of infirmity But Satan would be his very gracious Benefactor and put all into his hands Would he undertake it But what should become of that portion and possession in which every man was estated The poor man that had but one Ewe Lamb should he lose that Naboth that had but one field of his Fathers Inheritance should he be turned out of that Should the very Nervs of all Justice be crackt in sunder Meum and tuum be banish'd out of the world to make up this Donative This is like the condition which Saul required of David he would make David his son-in-Son-in-Law if he would give him two hundred fore-skins of the Philistins David must not only provide him that which was none of his own but be the destruction of two hundred men to give Saul a Present So Satan would rob the whole world to make up an excessive liberality A Legerdemain which he devised from the beginning to give that which was none of his own as when he gave Eve the forbidden fruit which God had both planted and reserved And this is the most tyrannical and unconscionable injustice in the world to wring and extort from one and to cast it away as wastefully and profusely upon another This was the familiar sport which the ancient Comaedians made it was sport with them that knew not God for a lustful young man to cozen his own Father and lavish it all upon some sumptuous Harlot This is the most remorseless prodigality of our own times to steal with one hand and to scatter it away most excessively with the other How many ungodly borrowers take up upon credit that which they can never restore and leave the Lender in the lurch to his utter undoing and this wicked shift is made not through necessity to satisfie nature but to be bountiful to such Ravens as pick from him upon his Creditors cost An incloser of Commons that draws out his sin the longer by depopulating the whole Village turns forth a swarm of poor People to the mercy of the wide world by whose ruins he advanceth his own Posterity Aristotle says that a Prodigal that gives away nothing but his own and draws himself dry by such neglectful spending is rather a fool than a vicious person but that Prodigal abounds as much with viciousness as the other doth with folly that cares not from whom he takes that he may be giving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is vicious indeed for 't is the Devils vein of giving saies my Text he considers not this mans right or that mans in his goods and chattels or what belongs to the Widow or Orphan absolutely all these things will I give thee Ina and Offa and some other Saxon Kings that reigned in this Island but they especially were the greatest Patrons to this Church of England that ever it enjoyed either before or since their dayes perhaps it would pose any Histories in the world to shew the like Yet I must tell you that the Bishop of Rome hath been a great giver to Religious Maintenances in this Kingdom and which is very strange it cost him nothing he was never the poorer For he gave away the greatest part of the Tythes in the Kingdom from the Parsonages and preaching Ministry to maintain contemplative men as they call'd them in Abbeys and Monasteries This was the first spawn of Impropriations now this is giving
that Psalm they that are just and faithful in their sayings he that speaks the truth from his heart v. 2. he that hath used no deceit in his tongue v. 3. he that sweareth to his neighbour and disappointeth him not though it were to his own hinderance v. 5. David desired to know by some sign whether he should come into the presence of Saul or fly from him Why Jonathan kept his word with David Jonathan desired that David would be merciful to his Posterity after him David sware unto him and kept his word with Jonathan But be you just in your promises to your brother and God will make good unto you the promise of eternal life the Lord is faithful in all his sayings and holy in all his works The next collection from hence shall be this that the Devil would not offer less than all he had to win a Soul he would not offer a trifle for that which he knew was the most precious thing upon earth And it is a little excuse though far from a good answer when a man is fetcht into a sin for a great bewitching recompence pretio octuplicis stipendii illectus as that famous Renego pleaded for himself that he was enticed back to the Church of Rome with a stipend eight times greater than he had in England but to be enticed from our heavenly Father like a Child with toyes of no estimation it accuseth us that we do not value our own soul at so good a rate as the Devil doth What a narrow mean reward was that for which the lying Prophets did change the service of God Ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread Ezek. xiii 19. What will you give me sayes Judas and I will betray him And you do not find that he did drive the Market with the Priests and Elders but took the first sum that they appointed him Anima lucri cupida etiam pro exiguo perire non metuit sayes Leo. A greedy covetous mind will damn both body and soul for a little money What could Esau have taken less than a mess of pottage especially made of lentiles the meanest pittance of relief that a beggar looks for at every door and what had Esau in this world to exchange for it so precious and valuable as his Birthright the Law shews the dignity thereof that all the first-born were peculiarly consecrated and given unto God Exod. xxii 29. they were next in honor to their Parents they had a double portion of their Fathers goods Until the Law was given the first-born administred the Priesthood in the Family that was a sacred thing and yet more sacred he was a type of Christ for Christ is called the first-born among many brethren Rom. viii 29. Moreover and above it was a type of our adoption and being heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven See what a vile exchange Esau did make for all this heavenly dignity that the Holy Ghost for good cause calls him a prophane person who for one meals meat and for such a course meal sold his birthright Heb. xii 16. If we will prostitute our selves so cheaply to the Prince of darkness and ask less than for shame he can offer to put our selves into the bondage of iniquity mark what will follow the Lord will debase us as we have debased our selves thou sellest thy people for nought and takest no money for them sayes the sweet Singer of Israel or as Moses told the Israelites if they sold themselves to commit iniquity they should be sold for slaves and no man would buy them Deut. xxviii 68. But for all this I must give you to know in my next admonition though Satan offer'd all that is in this world yet he did not offer enough for that which he would gain namely to win a soul every thing under the Sun comes short of that appretiation much more in this case it is to be considered that if our Lord Jesus could have been supplanted which was impossible all mankind had perisht for upon his righteousness and upon his perfect obedience did depend our Crown and our Salvation if therefore one soul is worth the whole world and more what could be valued against all the souls in the world But I will instance upon this for our use there is nothing so valuable that should bribe a man to commit the least sin against our Heavenly Father You will smile at the Indian Savages that part with gold and spices and amber for glass beads and saffron brouches yet whosoever sins for the mammons of iniquity barters for a far more unequal merchandise you change immortality for death eternal joy for continual care a certain treasure for uncertain riches the most happy fruition of the Creator for less than the felicity of a dream aut transeunt nobis viventibus aut dimittuntur nobis dormientibus the living may lose all they have got by injustice but for certain the dead cannot keep it What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away Luke ix 25. if he lose himself the word following is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vulgar read it detrimentum sui faciat from whence a good Expositor sayes there is no comparison in the purchasing of earthly things non solùm cum damnatione aeternâ sed etiam cum jacturâ gratiae Dei though damnation and hell fire were not incurr'd to suffer the loss of the Holy Spirit and of the Grace of God Wherefore all that Satan could shew and let him shew as many worlds as Alexander could wish all is not worth such a cringe as he would have the Son of God to make to bow down and commit Idolatry We read of one Apostle so abounding in charity to his own Nation that he could be content to lose his part of heaven cupio anathema esse pro fratribus it was St. Paul who was willing to be anathema for his brethren that God might be glorified in all the people of Israel but he would not exchange the least degree of his sanctity and faith in Christ for all the muck in the world Joseph had rather lose that was comfortable to him in this life liberty good name yea the garments from his back then be defil'd with lust I have no instance fit to come after that of Moses Hebr. xi 24. who by faith refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Philo sayes of him that Thermut the only child and daughter of Pharaoh being long married and quite barren wanting issue to succeed fained her self big and at last to be delivered of Moses whom she found in an ark of bulrushes exposed to be drown'd him she brought up for her adopted child to inherit all the Kingdoms of Egypt But because Idolatry reigned in that place he could not
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
the numbers of the Saints nay rather it speaks of them with the least many are called but few are chosen and fear not little flock it is your fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom But Satan thinks to have credit from his multitudes and pretends to the whole retinue of them that have power and glory in the world whereas divers carry the true virtue of nobility in their heart as well as the title of nobility in their name and owe no service to him God doth permit the wicked sometimes elsewhere to reign for the sins of the people his antecedent will is upon all men especially upon the most renowned that are next and immediately under him Be ye holy as I am holy but he permits Ahab and Manasses to take their turn in the Kingdom of Israel to scourge the people for their sins and therein the adversary prevails against Gods velleity and complacency now that inch which God gives Satan calls it an ell and boasts that all the Princes of the Earth do hold in fee of him What saies he to Christ do you think to sit upon the seat of your Father David by fasting and prayer and by retiring for the discipline of your soul into the Wilderness no if you will rise and be some great one you must come to it by me frame your self to the fashion of the world the disposing of all Royalties and Honours are delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give them Omne mendacium est in aliquo vero that 's the ground of this first point which I handle every falsehood leans upon some truth that it may appear not to halt lamely but to go upright To that end doth the Tempter cogg in this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that is delivered unto me fatetur tradentem he doth acknowledge by that word that there is one above him who gives the Letters Patents of all honor and glory he is only intrusted as a Minister to deliver it Well this will not serve his turn like those conjuring Oracles which abused the Heathen of old which had alwayes an ambiguous meaning so the Devil in every proposition he makes as in this particularly hath some concealed aequivocation This is delivered unto me but by whom let us discover his pol-foot which he would conceal not by God he durst not bely his Maker so much but by the custom and practice of the world and custom is the strength and soul of a Law we have corrupted the pure stream of honour with flattery with gratuities with slavish services with Simony they that bid for advancement by such crooked means trust the Devil to keep stakes and if you will have them you must ask him to deliver them We have put the conveyance of many promotions into his power by the sinful practice of ambition as if he were our great Feoffee in trust as King Darius in the story of Esdras yielded himself up and all the power of his Majesty to Apame his Concubine she might take his Crown from his head and put it upon her own and he waited her courtesie to receive it again In such a sense it is true Satan hath a great share of honours to bestow but he received no such authority in Gods name as his words darkly convey'd do seem to challenge it for that is delivered unto me and unto whomsoever I will give it Some there are that make this climax or gradation to cast another shadow of truth upon his meaning Man was created Lord of the whole world and God bestowed the dominion of all things upon him which this Globe of creatures contains afterward by transgression man became the captive of sin and Satan for his servants ye are to whom ye obey that 's Gospel so that the Devil having Lordship over him who was Lord of all the whole world and the pomp thereof became to be his fee in our title that were captivated to him But I list not to stretch so many conclusions to make him speak truth who was a lyar from the beginning This shall suffice for that deceitful likelihood of truth which is in this motion it will be more glory to God and more benefit to our selves to examine the unlikelyhood The Devils Ministers have dared to contest with those Powers that were ordeined of God the contentious Hebrew asked Moses Who made thee a Prince or a Judg The Pharisees maundred at Christ By what authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this authority and doth the Devil suppose it shall go unaskt when this imperial sway was put into his hands to deliver all Kingdoms to whomsoever he will give them Promotion says the Psalmist cometh not per spiritum ventorum it cometh neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South no nor per spiritus infernorum it ascends not up from the pit with the spirits of damnation for why God is Judg of the Earth he setteth up one and plucketh down another Psal lxxv 6. This excessive claim of Satan to impute unto himself that all Kings hold their Scepters of him calls his whole faith in question that Charter cannot stand with Solomons Verdict which he hath given upon that title for thus he speaks for the Lord Prov. viii 15. By me Kings reign and Princes decree justice by me Princes rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the earth In true and exact propriety rendred the learned in the original tongue render the word not by me Kings reign but in me Kings reign God reigns in them as his Deputies they reign in God as their Author and Authoriser wherefore it is elegantly noted by one of our own Writers that Melchisedech is the first King spoken of in Scripture and he is brought in without Father without Mother upon earth to shew that Kings are Gods generation who only his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none can declare his Generation St. Chrysostom says very well that this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the especial dignity of Kingly estate that it comes from God and therefore Popes who now assume most unchristianly if not anti-christianly to depose anointed Princes and translate their Kingdoms to their enemies they were wont to write to Kings with all lowliness of stile wishing them health and long happiness in eo per quem Reges regnant in him by whom Kings reign that is in God under whom in their own Dominions they are next and immediately supreme Governors David sware by the Lord unto Bathsheba that Solomon his Son shâ—uld reign in his stead an Oath is the strongest proof of humane faith so that by an Oath God and man have put it out of all doubt that the Most High alone doth appoint who shall sit upon the Throne of David but huic injurato crederem we would sooner believe David though he had not sworn that the Power and Principality of Kings depends upon God than Satan with all his promises and protestations that he hath
wrong opinions that offend against it For whatsoever things they are to which men do offer religious worship and service beside the Lord let them distinguish that they do it improperly with a less religious worship with reference to Almighty God let them slick it over with what gloss of wit they please I am on the Lords side and in his behalf I plead that they run into some kind of Idolatry But first plainly and affirmatively without rubbing against the adversary's errors that God only is to be worshipped and served In the first place I must not conceal from you this word upon which we stand so much and good reason for it but this word Only is not to be found in that verse which is quoted by our Saviour Deut. vi 13. the margent of your own Bible and indeed all Expositors ancient and modern hold that to be the very Scripture which Christ doth here apply and thus you find thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his name I but 't is not written there thou shalt serve him only Hath He added to the word put case He should add to the word as in this instance He did not but put case He should it were free for him but for none else to do it He may do what He will with his own After Moses had finished the Law and the Lord had said thereupon cursed is he that addeth unto it yet the book of the Psalms and the Prophets were put to it and after all these the Gospel and the whole New Testament was added yet none of those were the patches of mans wit but the increase and supply which God himself gave to his own eternal Oracles Yet I give not this answer as if Christ had thrust one syllable into the Law to give it more sense and authority than it had before He came to fulfil the Law but not to overfil it For first Christ said nothing but that which is written if not here yet in another Prophet and one spirit is in all the Prophets consult with Samuel 1 lib. chap. 2. v. 3. Prepare your hearts unto the Lord and serve him only that 's down right as my Text hath it I need not give it a grain to make up weight Then there 's for Satan he cannot say but he was refuted with very Scripture Secondly let us keep unto those words of Deuteron for surely those were intended and the word only is there in effect the next verse makes it good that it could not be excepted Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him Well but will God admit any partner otherwise we must serve him alone just so for it follows ye shall not go after other Gods of the Gods of the people that are round about served him and no other God whatsoever Why then it is a clear aequipollencie in Logick thou shalt serve him only The Devil is most perverse and litigious yet he never denied it Thirdly be satisfied yet further that the 72 Translators so called having the right understanding of the Text that God commandeth all glory and worship and divine service to himself without comperes or sharers they render the Hebrew in those Greek words which our Saviour quoted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him only shalt thou serve Now all do yield that the five books of Moses were translated by those 72 Jews of great learning whom Eleazar the High-Priest sent to Ptolemy Philadelphus for that purpse So much both Philo and Josephus acknowledge though they speak of no more Occasion is taken from hence by some to cry up that Greek Translation of the Old Testament because our Saviour alledgeth these words as those Septuagint have made them up and not as they are in the pure original Hebrew I will not stand upon this Theme any long time but say much in brief First that St. Paul layes a firm ground how the Jews had the Oracles of God committed to them it was one of their National Privileges therefore their tongue is the matrix and fountain from whence we are to expound what the Holy Ghost hath delivered in the Old Testament I deny not but the Jews themselves might use the Copies of the Greek Language for there were many of them and some conjecture that where we read of certain Hellenistae Greeks that came to our Saviour in the Gospel they were those Jews that rather used the Greek Translation than the Hebrew perhaps being more easie to their capacities for their common speech in those daies was Syrian and Hebrew was taught in Sholes as we teach Latin therefore some suppose there was a Faction of Hellenists among them they and the Scribes who damned all Scripture which was not in their own Hebrew tongue being upon all occasions at hot variance So you find there was a murmuring of the Graecians against the Hebrews Acts vi 1. To return to my conclusion some Jews did not abhor to read their own Law in the Greek tongue yet these were but a Faction for when St. Paul saies the Oracles of God were committed to them and by way of high privilege he must mean it of that idiom which their Fathers spake wherein it was first wrote and whereof their learned men for the present were the Doctors Secondly though the Hebrew was and is the authentique language for that part of Scripture yet there was a most venerable Translation of it into Greek which our Saviour the Evangelists and Apostles used it kept the sense yea the words of the Hebrew for the most part so exactly that our Saviour who taught the Law according to it did say one jot or title of the Law should not perish St. Hierom says if that Translation had been purely extant he would have spared his own pains and not have undergone so laborious a task to turn the whole Old Testament out of Hebrew into Latin Thirdly that pure Greek Translation was used by our Saviour though not in Greek words but in Syriac not as preferring it or matching it with the original authentique Hebrew but partly because it was most frequent and most known for they all spake the Greek tongue in all the hither parts of Asia after Alexander the great had exalted the Graecian Monarchy partly to import that a door of faith was now opened to the Gentiles and that they should reap those heavenly things since the Jews thought themselves unworthy of them Fourthly this Greek Translation which at this day goes under the name of the 72 is of far less value and authority than that which was so honour'd with our Saviours mouth for I will believe St. Hierom in this case being a most exact Linguist rather than those Fathers that took languages upon trust but thus He. Germana illa antiqua translatio corrupta est violata ac pro varietate regionum diversa feruntur exempla That old genuine Translation was corrupted and violated and several Copies of it
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
which came to pass in after ages did as well cure the faithful in the former as in the latter world 't is never too soon to believe and seek after Christ never too late to believe and repent Moses and Elias are Proxies for all those who died before the coming of Christ that it was beneficial and pleasant to them to have this communication that He should die at Jerusalem Libenter exules de reditu in patriam loquuntur by our own just demerits and by the sin contracted in our first Parents Moses and Elias and all the Sons of Adam were justly exiled from the joys of Paradise but do thou suffer O Lamb of God and thou wilt open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers Tell me if it were not joyful to banished men to speak of those means which should restore them to a Kingdom This was the last thing that their Soul did meditate upon earth upon the meditation of his passion they as we also ought to do did shut up their last breath and this is the first thing which they have to say when God did grant them tongues to speak in the Resurrection Discamus ea in terris quorum scientia nobis perseveret in coelis says St. Hierom Let us learn such good lessons here upon earth whose knowledg may remain with us hereafter in the Kingdom of Heaven Here it is remorseful fit it should be so to think of his agony and passion because our sins are before us those very Judasses which betrayed him in the society of Angels the case is altered there it is no sad discourse to speak of it for the guiltiness of our sins doth no more infest our memory every thing that the Lord willeth is pleasant and acceptable to us therefore in my fourth Notation Moses and Elias speak of Christs sufferings in no disconsolatory phrase but much to our comfort that it was a decease and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem Fourthly A mitigating word to lenify a harsh sound of a most dreadful thing The Heathen men did love to do and to speak couragiously and yet they who know no worse by death than that it was the cessation of our being or the dissolution of Soul and Body did describe it by the most judicious Pen that ever wrote among them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of terrors the most terrible what if they had known the Scriptures that God spake in his anger that it is the wages of sin and unless mercy prevent judgment that it is a departure into endless misery But get up courage again O frail mortality the Son of God through death hath overcome death the Serpent hath lost his sting As willingly as a Passenger deceaseth or departeth from a strange place to his own home with such quietness and composed satisfaction of mind we go from hence for ever where we shall have an abiding City Be not unfurnisht for a sudden journey if God call but say with Simeon Lord I am ready to depart in peace Tully said that a worthy man in a good old age made no more than an exit or a decease out of a Theater with a plaudite The Scripture varies the name of death in good words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tranquil rest Blessed are they that die in the Lord they rest from their labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sound sleep our brother Lazarus sleepeth Jo. xi Sometimes it hath the title of an exaltation As Moses lifted up the brazen Serpent in the wilderness so shall the Son of man be lifted up And my Text names it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a decease as the Prophet hath called that Book which entreats of the Children of Israel's departure out of Egypt Exodus their decease out of that Country of captivity and slavery so if your soul cleave not too much to the dust of the earth death is no Bugbear no quivering meditation but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as joyful a decease to us as that was to them a departure out of bondage and misery O what death can be dreaded since Moses and Elias spake so mildly of the death of Christ Had his daies been cut off without all pain sorrow or ignominy take the Proposition thus barely without amplification of his wounds and sufferings mortuus est pro peccatoribus he died for sinners the just for the unjust who could sufficiently estimate the dear price of his payment or the miserable contract of our debt Mortiferum fuit quod non nisi morte Christi sanari potuit the wound of sin in our Soul was very mortal which made the Immortal die to cure it Lord it is not one Soul in every man nor ten thousand understandings and cogitations in that Soul which can cast up the estimation of that matchless benefit How much more when Christs death is dispread into a full description of all circumstances the longest Gospels by seven parts in all the Church Service are read upon the Passion and yet more must be conceiv'd than can be wrote of it in the largest Folio Yet I will print that Breviary of St. Paul in my memory to read it day and night Galat. iii. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree But that eternal life which he purchased to us thereby hath candied over the bitterness of death and it is called by a soft gentle word a decease and spake of his decease which he should accomplish c. Fifthly If as I intend to speak in the fifth place all the circumstances of his death were opened Peter and the rest did hear what manner of decease it was There were many Pikes to be passed through a complete order of afflictions to be undergon and accomplisht Fat Bulls of Basan have compassed me on every side His miseries stood round about him and Gods predeterminate counsel was the circle there was no moving out till every enemy had spent his spight upon him so many stripes and wounds foretold in several Psalms so many sharp pangs and doleances commemorated in several Chapters and he could not give up the ghost till all these things were come about and every jot of the Scripture fulfilled St. John hath set this down with the accurate wisdom of the Holy Ghost to be admired Joh. xx 28. Christ hanging upon the Cross had power to lay down his life at any minute at the first twitch of pain and though weariness and the agony of sweat and the torments he sustained made him very dry yet he could have died in that thirst and never call'd for drink But after all things in the Scripture were fulfilled one verse of David was unsatisfied They gave me vinegar to drink Psal lxix 2. therefore He cries out I thirst and having received no better than vinegar he bears testimony that then all Prophecies about his Passion were
to the Law of Ceremonies Wherefore says St. Austin Sicut hyemi aestas succedit sensim addito calore c. As Summer doth succeed Winter and brings heat to thaw the Ice which went before and gives light also to clear the darknes of the short days so the Messias was presented to the world to set on fire the frozen hearts of them who were but half believers and did also enlighten those mystical observations But whosoever shall scan our Saviours Sermon in the Mount Matth. v. Let him report if such a Teacher do deserve ill of the Law of Moses if such an Interpreter could pervert the Nation Every Text thereof was so mis-expounded that like the Pool of Bethesda there was no vertue remaining in it unless the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus himself had troubled it Touching then the perverting of the Nation you see the report is malicious Yet take this for your instruction that those Romish Emissaries Priests and Jesuites who shall lurk in thievish corners to pervert Religion where Scripture is in every tittle received and Gods Laws unviolated they that privily teach a Doctrine against Allegeance and Fidelity should be sharply chastised since the very Jews did think that man that did pervert the Law of Moses deserved to be crucified In the third impeachment envy is cast upon our Saviour that he forbad to give Tribute unto Caesar What neither allow God his Temple nor the King his Tribute These are faults indeed if they could be proved Alas nothing less Could he be an enemy to Tribute who was a friend to Publicans Especially in such a Common-wealth where they were Vassals by War not only Subjects by Allegeance Can he deny that which was due whose Discipline was so famous to part with our Coat also if our Cloak were taken from us First reconcile these contradictions and then accuse him I will give Pilate no Bribe to absolve him but only the Penny upon which he preached Give unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God that which is Gods But because Christ would not have such witness as might speak for him he borrowed the money of a fish wherewith he paid the Tole-gatherers the dumbest creature of all that are sensible In the days of Alexander the Great says Josephus the Jews were so forward to pay Tribute that when Alexander took great delight in the Prophecy of Daniel which was applied to his own Conquests he promised any favour to the Jews which they should request They asked no more than to be exempted from the seventh years Tribute because they sowed no Lands in that year nor reaped any Harvest But for the other six years the heart of the people was as the heart of one man to pay a portion of their yearly encrease Why was the memory of that Age so soon forgotten Covetousness encroached every day they payed their Tribute but with a single hand and cursed with a double heart and no man was so filthy in their eyes as a Tole-gatherer and a Publican Beloved the Treasury of the Prince is the vena porta which conveys bloud and life to all the veins of the body of the Realm The justice which protects you at home it is the Kings expence the peace which you have abroad with forrein Nations the burden lies upon his Revenue The Magnificence of the Kingdom the maintenance of the Navy the relief of noble Families decayed the rewards of good Subjects all these are an exhausting of his Treasury Our common happiness might unhappily be dissolved if these were not publickly maintained I will but name the Fable and leave the Application to your selves The Mule was overladen and the Horse that stalked refused to ease him of the superfluity of his burden till at length the Mule sunk down dead and then the Horse was fain to carry home both the burden and the Corps of the Mule We are to impart Subsidies says St. Austin not so much in the name of Kings as in the name of Fathers of our Country Gratius est nomen pietatis quà m potestatis and God forbid but we should relieve out Fathers The Athenians says Plutarch for private vertues were the best of all men But in publick vertues the Lacedaemonians carried away the glory And who had not rather see a Kingdom flourish than a Family When Constantius the Father of Constantine was upbraided by Embassadors of Asia for his poverty his Subjects to take away that defamation piled him up such an Exchequer in three days that the world had not a more plentiful A good man says Seneca accounts himself rich because he hath the Air to breath in the Sea to sail upon Neque quicquam magis esse suum judicat quà m cujus illi cum humano genere consortium That blessing wherein all men did partake he did esteem his own most properly If I would proceed in this Argument I might be copious in the praise of our own Nation especially of this most illustrious and magnificent City wherein there have been at all times so many chearful givers and who would be guilty of such a crime which the Jews did think worthy to be crucified The last accusation pretended was not against the Coffers but against the Crown of Cesar that he made himself a King A cunning piece of villany For as Joseph was accused for an Adulterer by Potiphars Wife because he would not be an Adulterer So Christ is accused for making himself a King because he would not be a King when all the people sought to cast that honour upon his shoulders Joh. vi My Kingdom is not of this world says Christ Why what a Gods name is his fault then Had Cesar any Land in another world In hoc mundo regnum habet non de hoc mundo says St. Austin He had infinite power and authority in this world but it was not of this world but of an eternal Kingdom True Prophets and true Priests have been always the trustiest servants to Kings and religious Kings have been always the advancers of Priests and Prophets See their interchangable affection in doing mutual honour one to another in holy Scripture The Prophets have entituled their Books the Books of the Kings and King Solomon hath called his divine Book the Book of the Preacher And would Christ who was the Chief Priest and the anointed Prophet cast any indignity upon Caesar Kings are the Images of God and the highest powers says Nazianzen do resemble Images drawn to the feet the middle sort of Rulers are likened to Pictures drawn but to the waste the lowest in authority are like Pictures drawn but to the neck and shoulders but all in some sort are the Image of God And would Christ deface his own Image By reason indeed of the Omnipotency of his Divinity there was some Regal Majesty glittering upon earth in Christs humanity Augustus Domini appellationem sicut maledictum exhorruit says Suâ—tonius Augustus took it for a scoff to be called
through him might be saved And indeed the best that we can say of the Figure is That it was harmless and no very Serpent But it were dotage to suppose that the material thing had any secret vertue of restauration no more than the Figure of the Cross upon the post-fact is operative a superstition which our Church hath justly disclaimed He sent forth his word and he healed them says David it was Gods Word and Promise that cured them and not the brazen Element But Christ conteined remedy in himself and in his all-sufficient Sacrifice For the Son of righteousness did arise with healing in his wings Mal. iv 2. What hath he not healed if we will lay the plaisters of his Passion to our sins By his Poverty he hath condemned Covetousness by his charitable Prayers for his enemies implacable malice by the price for which the holy One was bought and sold Sacriledge by his Crown of thorns Ambition by the humility of his Cross Pride by his Gall and Vinegar Luxury by his Patience Impatience by his infinite Love Envy all his torments were preservatives against poison every part of him is sanity And that not only because this Figure was unvenomed but chiefly because it was a dead lump and not a living Serpent Mortuus serpens vivos superabat says Macarius The living Serpents were charmed by the dead one that they had no power to kill The bloud of Christ purgeth us from our sins and his death was our victory against death that we might live for ever It was well done of Nicodemus to spare no cost to imbalm his body It was piously done of Mary Magdalen to pour her precious Ointment upon his head against the day of his burial for therein we became the savour of life unto life and his Funeral was our immortality As Samson found his honey comb in the Carkass of the Lion so the Church finds sweetness in the bitterness of his Passion Caiaphas did not feel the vigour of his own Prophesie it slipt from his tongue and not from his heart That it was expedient that one man should die for the sins of the people His Successors contradict it obstinately to this day and controul it thus How can he save us that is crucified I return them an answer from my Text How could a dead lump of Brass expel their poison that were wounded If they depended upon a thing inanimate for the life of their body wherefore do they not attend the mystery that they must depend upon a Saviour put to death for the life of their Soul Attenditur serpens ut nihil valeat serpens attenditur mors ut nihil valeat mors says St. Austin The Jews look'd upon a Serpent to be freed from Serpents and Christians look upon death to be delivered from death There is one analogy more to be collected out of the unity of the Figure One Serpent was lifted up for the general preservation of all the Camp of Israel Not twelve distinct ones according to the number of their Tribes and much less no uncertain multiplication according to the number of their Families Nulla salus sine unitate The hope of health and remedy is founded in unity Our Gods are not Plural our Redeemers are not many they that have divers Saviours have never a Saviour They that have tutelary Martyrs for almost every Church and Patron Saints distinctly for every Kingdom they have so many Serpents lifted up and they look so many ways that their wounds stink and are corrupt through their foolishness and they prosper no way We have one head to which the body is knit one Shepherd to guide the Flock one corner stone in the building one Serpent in the Wilderness One Mediator between God and man the man Jesus Christ An infinite vertue can admit of no co-partnership I tremble at their infidelity that frame Scholastical Cases out of their own brain how others are subservient to the Son of God in the work of our Redemption But he says I have trod the wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me Isa lxiii 3. Whether an Israelite chanced to be stung in the head or in the face whether upon the breast or in the lower parts of the body one Serpent upon the Pole was enough to heal all So we have sins original and actual of commission and omission of ignorance infirmity and presumption of thought word and deed Vndique morsus we are stung from the crown of the head to the soul of the foot But as all are dead so one died for all that they which live should not live unto themselves but unto him that died for us and rose again Now for the material part out of which this Figure was carved it was not wrought in stone The Law was written in Tables of stone but grace and mercy are of another complexion It was not Silver or Gold though they in some sort are most correspondent in nature with Serpents for they are the bane of godliness and justice but we were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb undefiled It was erected in the strong and durable substance of Brass For one Generation passeth away and another cometh but the vertue of Christs Cross is perpetual and endures for ever It is not my excogitation but Isidors In serpente mortuus in aere aeternus Dead as the Serpent upon the Pole but durable as the Brass because the benefit of his death continues always Therefore his bloud is called The bloud of the everlasting Covenant Heb. xiii 20. Sooner shall all the brazen Pillars and Monuments upon earth be resolved into dust than one jot of this Covenant should be violated the merit of his Passion makes intercession for us continually before his Father and never ceaseth Behold our Pardon is engraven in Brass never to be blotted out it is too strong to be dissolved I look not upon that which is fluxive and changeable but upon a propitiation in Brass Yet not upon the Altar of Brass lest the Israelites should think that their own Sacrifices of Sheep and Oxen did help them but upon the Serpent of Brass to let them perceive that it was the Sacrifice of Christ that healed them Beside could a Statue of Brass endure more injuries than were laid upon the tender body of our Saviour Could an Anvile sustain more stripes and blows When Job began to sink under the pressure of his afflictions says he Is my strength the strength of stones Or is my flesh of brass He was a man that had the courage to suffer much yet he had not a brazen body infirmity made him sink and wish for death but Christ endured for our sakes as a man of brass I pray God we have not hearts of steel that do not consider it Above all the Prophets Isidore doth well to call Jeremy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most passive of
foreknowledg of God Now that the righteous God in whom such counsel and such foreknowledg do reside should deliver up his most innocent Son and our dear Saviour unto death that 's a mystery to be weighed with modesty the Text says positively God did deliver him yet we know there is no injustice in the Most High therefore this scruple is worth the scanning First of all it is an harsh and offensive speech that some use who perhaps mean well that God did appoint and preordain Judas to betray his Lord and the Jews to crucifie him and the reasons which they use to excuse the Phrase as if God thereby were not made the Author of sin seem to me to want sufficiency Zuinglius says justo non est lex posita you can set God no Law therefore whatsoever you attribute unto him is no sin because sin is the violation of a Law Beloved there are some things which cannot consist with Gods glory and that 's an eternal Law as we may call it observed by God to do nothing against his glory He cannot ly He cannot deny himself thus the scripture speaketh And Abraham talking face to face with God says he God forbid that the Judg of all the world should do unjustly Would thou punish the righteous with the wicked as who should say that were to thwart the eternal Law which must not be infringed This lays the opinion of Zwinglius flat There is another pretence from very venerable Authors that God purposeth and ordaineth the same act which man executeth but man hath an evil end in it so it becomes iniquity to him whereas God intends a pious end and therefore concurs not to mans iniquity and they give a fair instance of their meaning out of my Text. Christ was delivered of his Father to save the World that was the merciful and gracious work which was God's destination but he was delivered of the Devil to make the Jews guilty of his death of Judas for lucre sake of the Priests and Pharisees for envy of Pilate for fear the scope of Pilate of the Jews of Judas was extremely distorted so they became guilty of a mighty sin in the same work wherein God was righteous This will not down with me I confess for safe Divinity for first it favours that opinion of some Libertines too much that it is no crime but praise-worthy to do evil that good may come of it Secondly it cannot be shifted according to this opinion me-thinks but that God ordains man to fall into that act wherein he cannot choose but have a bad intention and most diverse from the good purpose of God And it is but a lame leg to hold up an halting cause to interpose that God can work good out of evil and bring light out of darkness therefore though He preordains evil He will wind it up well to his own glory for surely they do not think of God as they ought that He is all pure and holy that think sin must be referred to God either as an efficient cause of it or predestinately as a deficient cause to declare his honor Why God stands not in need of our good works to set forth his praise O my God my goods are nothing unto thee says the Psalmist much less doth he want our sins and our transgressions to make him glorious Thus I have premised that they have not my consent that say that God ordained or decreed that Judas should betray our Lord and that the Jews should blaspheme him and despitefully entreat him thus rather I would propound it to you in a far safer way as I conceive God did not decree those criminous actions of Judas Herod Pilate c. but He did decree the Passion of Christ and did settle it in his sixt and eternal counsel that he should shed his bloud as a Propitiation for the World actio displicuit passio grata suit I am led along with the judgment of Leo the Great in this point Thus he Did the iniquity of them that persecuted Christ arise out of Gods Counsel and Decree and that heinous treason worse than all villainy Did the hand of Divine preparation arm them to it this must not once be imagined of that supreme justice that governs all things Multum diversum multumque contrarium est id quod in Judaeorum malignitate est praecognitum quod in Christi passione est dispositum that is there is great dissimilitude between these two how God foresaw the malignancy of the Jews but it was his own disposing and ordination that Christ should suffer therefore it comes to this sense He was delivered to death simply without addition of a death procured by sin through the determinate counsel of his Father but the conspiracy and envy and bloudy outcries that concurr'd in his death the foreknowledg of God did apprehend it would be carried with that violence and decreed to suffer it Non inde processit voluntas interficiendi unde moriendi says the same Father God did not will after the same manner to have his Son die and to have him barbarously crucified To allot him unto death was very just because that Lamb of God did take upon him the iniquity of us all and Leo adds that God could have commanded some holy Prophet to have sacrificed Christ before him even as He commanded Abraham to offer up his only Son Isaac and the Lord of life and death might have permitted Abraham to strike the stroke without impiety but to allot him to such a death wherein factious Enemies delighted themselves in his pains that cannot consist with such a God as hates the least impurity But my Text you will say declines it not but that both his death and his deliverance into the hands of the Jews that is the manner of his death both of them were ordained of God and so they were but with this correction of the proposition omnia vel ordinata sunt à Deo ut fiunt vel ordinatum non impedire quò minus fiant all that is good is ordained of God that it shall be and all beside that is evil is ordained of God that it shall be suffered to be and in those things which are to be referred to permission I mean all the works of the Devil I do not exclude the determinate counsel of God nay it must necessarily be present at it Quicquid permittit Deus consultò volens permittit there is Justice and Wisdom and Counsel from above imployed about those things wherein God is highly displeased For first no sinner in the world can say he was so permitted to enter into sin that no impediments were cast in his way to avert him some illumination he had some instruction to draw him back some remorse of conscience though not in such measure as did infallibly prevail upon his crooked will Even Judas himself was deterred from his Satanical proceedings by the prediction of his Masters mouth one of you shall
wouldst make an Advocate It is in his own power to raise up thy Brother after four days Two days our Saviour abode beyond Jordan after Lazarus was dead and after he set forward to Bethany he made two days Journey of it before he came to the place all this while the Prisoner was fast lockt up under the Gates of Death Belike Lazarus could not be released till Christ came unto the Cave where he was laid No such necessity Beloved Vbicunque Christus steterat patebant inferi Hell must open her mouth in any place where Christ did set his foot nay in any place where he should but say unto the Grave I will be thou opened Therefore another Reason must be given why Lazarus staid until the fourth day for his Enlargement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom Jonas and Lazarus both were Servants they must not jump with Christ in the same Privileges in every thing then the Servant should be equal with his Master Jonas came out of the Whales Belly the third day so did Christ out of the Tomb but Jonas was alive and Christ was dead there was the Difference between the Servant and the Master Christ rose from the dead and so did Lazarus but Christ the third day and Lazarus the fourth there 's the Difference between the Master and the Servant The Resurrection of the dead is an Article of the Creed ingendred in the heart by a very strong Faith 't is mirabilium mirificentia as one says The astonishment of all admiration and when it shall be reported by the Women that an Angel told them it the best of them all will doubt Thomas and many more will flatly deny it What deny that Christ could quicken himself the third day when he raised up Lazarus the fourth Lazarus was unto Christ as Aaron's Rod was unto Aaron The Sedition of Dathan and Abiram opposed Aaron and would not acknowledge him to be the High Priest That shall be tried says the Lord and Aaron's Rod which was a dry stick budded buds and bloomed blossoms as if it had been living more than all the other Rods of the Tribes of Israel So Lazarus was laid up in the Cave like the Rod of Aaron in the Tabernacle and when his life was restored the fourth day it proved that Christ could build up the Temple again in three days which they had pluckt down before What shall we say then That the Resurrection was more wonderful in Lazarus by one day than in Christ himself Nothing less For Christ was raised up by his own power and Lazarus by the power of Christ Christs death was violent his very heart as some think was digg'd through with the Souldiers Spear Lazarus his death was natural and no principal part of his body was wounded or impaired Si aliud videtur vobis mortuus aliud videtur occisus if it be one thing to die in the peace of nature and another thing to be made away by violence Ecce Dominus utrumque fecit here are examples of both that returned to life Christ the third day from the death of violence Lazarus the fourth day from the death of nature both are from the Lord. As a Servant said of an unlucky day wherein all things went cross huic diei oculos eruere vellem he vished the Sun had never shined upon it So this fourth day hath not a little troubled Satan Upon the fourth day Gen. i. 14. God set lights in the Firmament to what end to divide the day from the night and the light from the darkness Periisti Satana this is a fatal day with the Devil who would have mingled night with day and darkness with light but now his works are discovered The fourth year hath been as climacterical unto him and as much out of his way in the 13. of St. Luke and the 7. verse These three years says the Lord of the Vineyard I have lookt for fruit and find none now I will cut down the Vine nay says the Dresser of the Vineyard stay but this year also and the fourth there are hopes it will bring forth grapes and please the Lord. To say thus much for our Evangelist St. John the fourth Evangelist gave the shrewdest blow to the stratagems of Satan and hath so prov'd the Divinity of Christ almost in every verse that Ebion and Cerinthus were confounded and Heresie is proved a lyar to her face for ever Even so was this number critical unto death in the Resurrection of Lazarus three days he was given for lost and upon the fourth day Christ cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth There is a moral sense besides that whereof I have spoken and that is like fine flower boulted out of the Letter and it yields like the bread which our Saviour broke to the multitude and will satisfie thousands Death was the reward of sin In that Lazarus was dead and buried I read the Parable of a sinner upon his Sepulcher In that he was four days dead he must be magnus peccator says St. Austin no small offender can be meant by that but a grievous sinner Where have you laid him says Christ O what a dreadful question is that Lord know me for one of thy children but know me for a sinner rather than not know me at all Let it not be said unto me Depart from me I know you not Projectus sum à facie oculorum tuorum says David in the person of a castaway I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes Perditum nescit ubi sit it is Gods language he pretends he sees not them he knows not them that were lost Adam where art thou says God O Adam that question had confounded thee if Christ had not answer'd for thee Loe I come Where are the other nine says Christ of the Lepers de ingratis quasi ignotis loquitur ungrateful men were not in Christs Book he knows not what becoms of them nor whither they wander so to enquire of Lazarus as if he knew not where he was laid is to set him forth as the similitude of a great sinner ubi posuistis where have you laid him nay but this agrees not perchance with his Sisters message He whom thou lovest is sick and again See how he loved him Yes it agrees full well Si peccatores non amaret Deus de coelo non descenderet it was out of a most compassionate love that God descended from heaven to save sinners Behold he lov'd him and yet Lazarus stands for the Parable of a sinner That foundation is laid and then you shall know the better what is meant by lying four days in the Sepulcher First we are all dead born man as soon as he sees the light his heart is in darkness he brings the seeds of original sin with his frail flesh into the world and then he is dead one day 2. Nature hath dictated a Law unto us The Gentiles are a Law unto themselves sais St.
Howsoever it was charm'd by Gods protection that man should not meddle with it a celestial Minister turn'd it aside from the mouth of the Pit A Cherubin in the Old Testament shut up Paradice and stopt the way of joy against us An Angel in the New Testament opens the Graves of sorrow He came and rolled back the stone from the door 'T is certain that the Scripture gives no reason why the Angel did it but this was one end to declare the truth of the Resurrection for after the Stone was cast aside says he Come see the place where He was laid He is not here It is not from the power of man but from Angelical help from Divine grace that we are led into the knowledg of the mysterie of the Resurrection The Law of Moses says one was written in Tables of stone and therefore was likened unto a Stone a Milstone which if Christ did not bear off the weight would grind us to powder Now the comfort of Redemption in Christ his Passion Resurrection Ascention the Coming of the Holy Ghost are mystically delivered in the Old Testament but are covered over darkly with the Letter of the Law as with a Stone but after the resurrection from the dead was well believed the Stone was rolled away I assure you great knowledg of Divine things ensued never before that time was the substance of faith so perfectly apprehended Beatus lapis qui non minùs corda aperit quà m sepulchrum says that Father whom I have often cited upon this Text. Happie stones at whose opening and rolling away not only the Sepulchre was unclosed but our hearts were opened to believe Beloved if there be one among you that is dull to conceive and slow to believe it is a sign that the Stone is not yet rolled away to him all is shut up to that poor Soul and he sees nothing such a mans Key must be continual prayer it behoves him to cry out earnestly Lord take away this stony heart and give me an heart of flesh Lord shut not up thy loving kindness in displeasure send down thy Holy Spirit to remove away all carnal impediments open mine eyes that I may look into thy Sepulchre and believe thy Resurrection Now the Scriptures assigning no cause for the rolling away of the Stone but to manifest that he was risen not that he might rise in his body when the mouth of the Cave was open and further as Gregory Nyssen urgeth the Angel doth not preach that he rose even now since He came down from Heaven but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surrexit he hath risen he hath departed out of the Grave as if he spake of a thing that was past before his coming from whence you may observe what a perplexful question ariseth to be handled how the Body of Christ being now made alive again came out of the Sepulchre I do not find the several opinions collected together by any man some may escape me but as many as I have noted I will rehearse them all One opinion among the Antient Fathers and the most general if they be well understood is thus That He came forth by his own mighty power after what sort we cannot tell for God would not trouble us with those strange effefts which we are not able to apprehend So one of our late Writers after much ado concludes Divino nutu viam sibi aperuit mirando nobis inexplicabili modo he made way to come forth as he would himself in a miraculous and unspeakable manner These are Paraeus words And I put Calvin in this rank who goes no further but Christum ante surrexisse quà m ab Angelo sepulchrum aperiretur Christ rose before the Sepulcher was unbarred by the Angel but he determined not what way and it was a becoming modesty in him I could name a multitude more but divers have borrowed the words of Musculus Christ did use the external ministry of Angels to roll away the Stone for us not for himself He that rose to life though death were upon his Body could come forth into the Garden though the Stone were upon the Sepulchre But after what sort he came forth all these put their finger upon their mouth and say nothing To determine after what manner great mysteries are brought to pass when the Word of God is silent hath done more hurt to the Christian Church by procuring endless Controversies than all the Persecutions that ever were raised I concur therefore in mine own judgment with this first rank of Divines yet you shall hear the second That he issued out the Stone remaining on the mouth of the Grave creaturae mutatione non sui corporis by an alteration caused in the Stone not in the Body of Christ So Justin Martyr he came out by the Stone even as he made the Seas fit for his own feet and for Peters to tread upon No mutation can be said to be in Christs Body for the Father says it was corpus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a solid Elementary Body certainly Peters body also was heavy and earthy for after a little while he began to sink yet he at first walkt upon the Seas because Christ stiffned the waies to support him and Peter like a solid Pavement So the Stone might be attenuated and made thin as easie as air to transmit a body St. Austin reports of a Ring falln from a womans Girdle yet the Ring remaining and the Girlde whole and unbroken Admit it were true yet the Ring passed not through the substance of the Girdle but the one substance passed by while in a moment by Gods power the other gave place unto it So the place through which Christs Body passed admit no rarefaction of the Stone might be whole and shut by and by and streight after he passed by it not in the instant of his passing that 's contrary to the nature of a true body Some in credulous Jew when Malchus ear was cut off and presently on again might think the Sword had never gone between his ear and his head yet we are sure it did In such a starting while which could not be perceiv'd might the Stone yield to Christs Body and come together again or if not made thin parted of a sudden to let him pass by and in an instant come close together again Thirdly some antient Writers and divers moderns hold probably that Christ made his egress repagulorum cessione non penetrationum dimensione not as if one body had penetrated another but the Stone in the trembling of the earthquake started off from the mouth of the Cave and clos'd again till the Angel rolled it quite away This is made the more credible from Acts 5.23 the Apostles were shut up in the common Prison the Angel brings them forth the Officers being question'd confess The Prison truly found we shut with all safety the Keepers standing without before the doors but when we had opened it we found no
opened that the Word should run swiftly throughout all the world when good tidings were diffusive great joy unto all people The sound came flying upon the wings of the wind that there was neither Speech nor Language upon the earth but their voices were heard among them The Law made a great din when it was published there came thunder with it and the noise of a Trumpet louder and louder Yet this noise was spread in the Desart of Sinai in a desolate and uninhabited Region But this sound which hapned when the Gospel was authorized to be preached in every Nation it had audience in the most populous place of all Judaea in the City of Jerusalem As who should say it was a communicable sound which should be received into the Imperial Cities of all Kingdoms I draw this only observation from it to your holy practice that the Lord loveth fragorem vocis not a whispering silence but an exalted voice a loud exclamation to praise him Open confession of Gods name is an effect individually connex'd with a true lively faith so says David Psal cxvi I believed and therefore I spake There are three things hateful to God which jar against it 1. Hypocritical profession when the protestation of the mouth is not rooted in the heart 2. Abnegation of the Faith whether they deny the truth for fear or for resolved Apostasie 3. There is another way to sin against the confession of the Faith and that is malum silentium not to glorifie God openly in our profession when it concerns his honour in whose person the Psalmist speaks I kept silence yea even from good words but it was pain nay it will be pain and grief unto them St. Paul complains of those Christians that were of Rome in his days that none would openly declare themselves of his side in the time of persecution At my first answer none stood with me but all forsook me I pray God it may not be laid to their charge 1 Tim. iv 16. The Lord would not have it lurk only in the secrets of our breast that we are Christs Disciples but that it should resound abroad to his glory for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation And let Gods service be performed on all sides on the Priests part and on the peoples with fervor and strength of voice like the sound of many waters You may pray tacitly in the heart but sure the holy Spirit came not from heaven like a vehement sound to teach you to fumble in the mouth and scarce to open your lips when you are in Prayer Prayer is a calling upon God Call upon me in the time of trouble Psal l. Nay a roaring for very disquietness of heart says the same Prophet in another place Our humble Petitions are called Vituli labiorum Heb. xiii Their lips will offer their sacrifice aloud if the true incense of zeal do burn within for our Saviour says Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh A troubled soul I grant it sometimes cannot utter it self sometimes a dumb-born Prayer is very powerful as Hannah the Mother of Samuel is the great instance of it but in the ordinary way assuredly the more strength of voice we put to our Supplications the more we shake off the drowsiness of the flesh the more we stir up the grace of the holy Spirit which loves that the Eccho and chearful sounds of the voice should ascend up to heaven But the Scripture doth not leave at this that there came a sound from heaven it goes further and tells us the manner of the sound that it was like unto that noise which is caused by a vehement wind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if the wind had blown but it was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Oecumenius that you might not imagine the holy Spirit to be a corporeal breathing like the vaporous substance of the wind therefore the quasi is very significant that it had but the similitude of the wind Yet it is very inquirable why like that more than any thing else If we had been left to guess what sound it was why might not we have imagined it to be the purling of some soft streams Or the humming of Bees about their Hive Or the voice of harpers playing with their harps Rev. xiv 2. None of those it was but as the fragor of the wind And when God declares his vertue in some sensible object you must perswade your reason there is some great relation between the sign and the thing signified Did not our Saviour illustrate unto Nicodemus our Regeneration or new Birth from the blasts of the air Joh. iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the voice thereof and knowest not whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit Yet more feelingly when he did infuse into his Apostles the power of the Holy Ghost bequeathing them that great Sacerdotal priviledge Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Was it not conveyed by blowing upon them like the wind by insufflation Joh. xx 22. He breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost Now I will tell you together where both the mystery and the use of it do consist First As the breath which we send forth comes from the warmth of our Lungs and of our bowels within so the Spirit proceedeth from the substantial love of the Father and of the Son What was the meaning then of that sensible expiration But that as the breath which he vented out came from his Humane Nature so the Holy Ghost which he breathed on his Disciples came from his Divine Nature And this must follow to give it you by the way that Christ is very God for who but God can communicate the Holy Ghost For it was Gods Promise that He and none but He would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh Isa xliv And it stands as well proved that the Holy Ghost is God for the prime and supreme power to remit sins is the Holy Ghosts he was given to the Disciples for that end and none can forgive sins but God alone Secondly Christ communicated his spiritual gifts by breathing to shew that he even the same Lord was the Author both of our temporal and eternal life For in the Creation the Lord breathed into mans nostrils the breath of life Gen. ii 7. But this life shall pass away and the body shall crumble into dust Why behold the breath of the Lord will go forth again to cause a joyful Resurrection as it is in the Prophets vision of the dry bones Ezek. xxxvil 5. Thus saith the Lord unto these bones Behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live Yet if this body wherein sin reigns and inclines it only to
St. Paul bids Deacons take heed of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. iii. 8. that is Lying Equivocation Flattery sowing dissention double mindedness Jam. i. 8. Omnis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that hath a double tongue hath a double mind an heart and a heart He praiseth that to one Faction which he defies before the other He commends a man to his face backbites him behind his back he confesseth Christ where it is advantage and denies him where it is advantage Cum tristibus severè cum remissis jucundè as the Oratour said of Cataline he can curse and bless with the same breath out of the same Fountain come forth sweet waters and bitter these and many more than these are the juglings of a double tongue but the Lord will say unto them double unto them double according to their iniquities and divide them in twain that they may have their portion with hypocrites I have been copious as the time would give me leave upon the Figure of these Tongues that they were Cloven next you must mark their Form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were fire cloven tongues as it were fire and let a certain learned Interpreter have his judgment to himself that it is an Hypallage for there appeared fire as it had been Cloven Tongues yet still it is but appearing and as it were the sound was a real sound that came from heaven all beside was but Similitude and Apparition Very fire was not needful nay it would have been offensive and have scorched the part upon which it sate But it was such fire as appeared to Moses in the Bush Exod. iii. The bush burnt with fire and the bush was not consumed Such as the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah did foresee Isa xliii 2. When thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt neither shall the flame kindle upon thee To be inspired in a moment to speak all sort of Tongues the Apostles did never dream of Christ did not foretel them any thing which sounded that way But they had prediction of this part of the Miracle both from John the Baptist He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire Mat. iii. 11. and from Christs own mouth I am come to send fire into the earth Luk. xii 49. Which the Fathers for the most part interpret of that which came down at this Feast of Pentecost All the Plagues of the Old World as if the Elements had spate out their venom became blessings under the Kingdom of Christ The Old World was drowned with Water the New World is saved by Baptism and as I said but lately God pulled down the Tower of Babel by the confusion of Tongues now he built up the New Jerusalem by the multiplicity of tongues So he sent down fire upon Sodom to consume it here he sent down fire upon his Church to save it But because all the Apparitions which the most wise God doth send are full of Signification and Doctrine it concerns the Text to have it diligently enquired wherefore the Holy Ghost did descend in fire First Look back to the Mosaical Law delivered at Mount Sinai at the promulgation of it there came smoak and thunder and flashes of fire therefore says Isidor Vt unus Deus in utroque testamento agnosceretur that you may know that the same Lord is Lord of both the two Testaments in the first setling of the Gospel likewise there came down fire from heaven The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai in his right hand was a firy Law Exod. xxxiii 1. Whereupon the Chaldee Paraphrast says that his right hand wrote the Law out of the midst of the fire so the holy Spirit doth write the Law of Christ in our hearts as it were with an hot Iron Mark making such a stamp as will never be got out Secondly And I mean principally likewise the brightness of fire concurred in the Tongues to import that boldness and fervour and efficacy which goes along with them where the Lord doth give the mouth utterance to speak Tongues of flesh and words of air will not serve the turn to convert souls there must be fire put into the Tongue somewhat above natural force and power that must bring it to pass Says the Son of Syrach concernig that renowned Prophet that awed all Israel with his Preaching then stood up the Prophet Elias like fire and his word burned as a lamp Ecclus xlviii 1. There is a burning vigour in the Word of God when it is luckily applied to the conscience of a sinner As Cleophas and the other Disciple said of the communication of our Saviour Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way and opened unto us the Scriptures Luk. xxiv 32. And we must be warm and fervent our selves in our Message that we may warm others with it Ardeat orator si judicem velit accendere says Tully that was his crafts-master in that kind Let the Orator be fervent if he means to heat the Judge in his cause so the Embassadors of God must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. xii 11. Fervent in spirit if they mean to thaw the frozen hearts of their Auditors So says Gregory upon this very occasion of the firy Tongues Otiosus est sermo doctoris si praebere non valeat incendium amoris Our Preaching is frivolous if it do not kindle the fire of divine love in our Disciples Therefore St. Paul writes thus to Timothy 2 Epist i 6. To stir up the gift of God that is in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to quicken and kindle the fire of the gift of God that is in him Vt sopitum ignitum suscites to rake up the fire together and make it flame that it go not out The gift of God is a lively flame kindled in our hearts which the Devil and the flesh would put out and that monition quench not the spirit is the watch word against it and we must labour as much as we can to foster it and keep it burning But he that is a lukewarm Christian neither hot nor cold indifferent to serve God or to disobey him he is a loathed morsel which God canot digest and because he wants fervor it is a manifest sign that the Spirit is departed from him Thirdly The Spirit came at several times in the shape of a Dove and in fire to shew what mixture out of them both is most pleasing in a Christian Quia ne que placere Deo simplicitas sine zelo neque zelus potest sine simplicitate the Dove is the Emblem of gentleness and simplicity the Fire of zeal neither is zeal good without meekness nor meekness without zeal We must not lose our fervour in tameness nor with preposterous zeal forget gentleness And well doth Gregory hunt this Parallel further that the Spirit did descend upon Christ in the similitude of a Dove upon the Apostles in the similitude of fire
speak the Oracles of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rational discourses 1 Pet. iv 11. So our Saviour promised his Disciples I will give you a mouth and wisdom not a mouth only but wisdom with it so that all your Adversaries shall not be able to gainsay it Luk. xxi 15. Finally the Prophet Isaiah speaking in the person of an Evangelical Priest The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should speak a word in season Isa l. 4. And so to end all let us send up our tongues of praise and thanksgiving to heaven to the gracious God that did send down the blessing of these Tongues to his Church upon earth And the same Lord Jesus exalt us to his Church Triumphant where with one song and with one voice we shall sing glory to him for evermore AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 12 13. And they were all amazed and were in doubt saying one to another what meaneth this Others mocking said these men are full of new wine MEntion being made in the former part of this Chapter what effects the Mission of the Holy Ghost as upon this day wrought in the Apostles the next thing which is disclosed in these two verses is what entertainment it found in the World What entertainment should it find but joy and gladness and thanksgiving it was a shower of grace that fell from Heaven and every drop of it more valuable than an Orient Pearl which made the whole earth barren and unfruitful before spring out with spiritual increase that from thenceforth the Wombs of Mothers should not bring out men but Saints It was not as upon the sixth day of the week in the Creation of the World that God did breath into man the breath of Life but upon this first day of the week he breathed into his Church the breath of Righteousness and filled it with the seeds of future Glory From the Feast of the Passover the Jews were to number seven weeks and then they kept a most solemn day called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Pentecost that 's this very day instituted to recognize how at that time they came out of Egypt from the Bondage of Pharaoh and received the Law which was delivered upon Mount Horeb. But to expunge the memory of that occasion God did superinduct a far greater blessing upon this Festival day and poured out his Spirit in a bountiful and miraculous manner upon his Disciples at Jerusalem Was there a season appointed to congratulate the deliverance of the Jews from the Captivity of the Body and doth not this Mercy exalt it self above the other that they are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise to be enfranchised from the slavery of Sin and the Devil Was the remembrance of the Law a perpetual rejoycing though it were a killing Letter and is it not ten thousand times more comfortable to receive the power of the Holy Ghost which enabled them to keep the Law Did they take it kindly and chearfully to receive the Law written in Tables of Stone And is not the change a great deal better on this day to have it written in the fleshly Tables of their Heart Then the Lord gave them but one Talent and they made but small multiplication of it nay they were the Servants in the Parable and who but they that bound it up and buried it in a Napkin Lo here are five Talents delivered unto us a greater Sum than ever the Children of Men received before And answer me now in equity what entertainment the Mission of the Holy Ghost should receive in the World Not to deceive your expectation with many words the case is thus The best of the Jews that came to the God-speed of this days work profest ignorance and knew not what to make of it the worst of them exhaled envy and rancour out of their malignant minds and jeared at it And they were all amazed and were in doubt c. The parts must needs arise to these two heads Grande miraculum Grande ludibrium First a great Miracle for it wrought these three things first Amazement they were all amazed secondly Doubt they were in doubt thirdly earnest Search and Inquisition for they said one to another what meaneth this But though the greater part were thus affected and therefore it is said they were all amazed meaning the greater number yet divers turn'd it to mockery and said these men are full of new wine First the sending of the Holy Ghost was construed to be a great Miracle by all that saw the effects of it in the Apostles and in the beginning it is exprest by a passion that took away their reason for a time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were amazed then it troubled their reason they doubted and finally it exercised their reason for they asked after it Amazement is a word to express the highest and most sudden admiration that can take a man when astonishment doth seize upon the faculties of the mind and bind them up for a little space that they have no power to exercise themselves as if they were Planet-blasted The Latin word Attonitus is he that is scared with a sudden clap of thunder so that he is stupified for a while but the Greek word in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goes further for the right signification is they were beside themselves or they were in an extasie So our Saviour's Kinsmen being themselves out of their wits with ignorance thought that our Saviour was transported when he preached the Gospel and knew not what he said therefore their opinion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is beside himself Mark iii. 21. Ecstatici qui non sunt in potestate mentis they that are amazed have not their mind present for the time it is dizied and confounded so that this Miracle wrought upon the Jews after the highest pitch of admiration Let us interpret it to the best that joy did overcome them to see the riches of all goodness poured out upon the Sons of men Their Forefathers were astonisht with fear at the delivery of the Law and they are astonisht with joy at the coming of the Holy Ghost The Gift it self the Persons that received it the Operation which it did exercise in them to speak the glory of God in all Tongues and Languages all are transcendently wonderful that the wit of a natural man especially is not able to comprehend them The Gift it self in the first place is so celestial that the Lord himself is not more wonderful in all his works than in sending the Holy Ghost so hidden from the knowledg of the world so rare to be found so beneficial to mankind that he that marvels not at it is himself a Miracle Are you amazed at things which are secret and very abstruse in their nature none more close and unperceivable than this As the wind passeth by and is not perceived so God breaths the
called did extol the unanimity and most concordious proceedings of it with these words This is the day c. I read that one Cyriacus a just and a learned man was made a Bishop and the people so well pleased with his Election cried out Hic est dies Domini But Gregory the Great told the people that no Creature ought to be magnified with that solemn note which belongs to the Creator But he adds Cur ista reprehendo Qui quantùm gaudia mentem rapiunt scio Why do I chide you for it It was your gladness that did transport you It was your charity that made you so exult and your meaning was not to give the honour to man but unto God And so I have laid the corner stone of my Text that Christ is the subject of this Prophetical and triumphant acclamation And because there are two opinions how he is the subject of it that variety shall divide my Text. Briefly and plainly either this day which the Lord is said to have made is meant of the whole time of the Gospel so St. Hierom and St. Austin with a fair Troop of learned Writers beside or else it is understood of that day wherein Christ arose from the dead which is the Epitome of the whole Gospel Now these two opinions are so equally embraced that I find that the Church in her solemn Service hath favoured them both First some that have taken pains in Liturgical Antiquities tell me that this Psalm was of old appointed to be recited by the Priest every Sunday in the year that is an evident argument that the day which the Lord hath made belongs equally to all the days which shine upon us since Christ was incarnate that is to the whole duration of the Gospel Again it hath long continued and is used to this day in the Church of Rome that my Text is set in the front of the gradual for Easter-day and is repeated in the same manner constantly for six days after that high Feast which demonstrates that it hath principally been applied to the glorious mystery of the Resurrection Give me leave therefore to bring them both into my Treatise one after another And upon each to speak of two things De beneficio divino de officio humano the one half of the verse is Gods benignity This is the day which the Lord hath made the other half is mans acceptance and duty We will rejoyce c. You know I have already answered to the Interrogation Cujus Whose day this is Whose but Christs And for certain it cannot be his day as he is God from everlasting His goings out are from all eternity Micah v. iii. Again this is dies factus a day that is made and such an adjunct cannot sute with him that was never made but is the everlasting one before the world began It is that day therefore which was made with him when he was made flesh It is a curtesie among men for a Creditor to give a day to him that is behind hand to pay his debts Have patience with me says the servant that was arrested to the cruel Exactor and I will pay thee all But the Lord knew that it would not help us one whit to have the favour of the longest day that could be set to make payment for what we owe unto him nay the longer we live the longer is the Tally of our sins the reckoning will be the more enflamed by giving us time to discharge it Therefore God made a day for his Son and appointed him a season to offer up a price in our stead and through his satisfaction the hand-writing is discharged which was against us Yea but S. Luke remembers us that there are many days belonging to the Son Luk. xvii 22. The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man What day of all those is this Why not one but all those days since the world received him and received him with the glad tidings of Salvation all Evangelical days at large every day that we hear his voice and harden not our hearts is this day It may very well be opposed to that dismal day wherein our first Parents transgressed and fell that was a day which the Devil made and he took his pastime in it because the League of friendship was broken between God and man but the Lord made a new day to repair us again by the mediation of Jesus Christ Non est dies miseriae quam ipsi nobis fecimus sed dies redemptionis quam fecit Dominus I think it is St. Austins this is not the day of misery which we brought upon our selves but it is the good day of pacification and redemption which God created It is not to be thought that the whole current of the Gospel is called a day but that the nature of it will endure that name in some fit and excellent proportion For First There was no day until a day was set that Christ should come into the world darkness did cover the earth and gross Doctrin the People as the Prophet says no night that troubles melancholy people with strange and horrible Apparitions could be more dismal than the time was before some Evangelical Promises were preached to the drooping conscience Take a sinner or malefactor that knows not how God hath sealed his pardon and what is this earth better than a prison or a Dungeon unto him where he lies fettered with the bands of a long night and is exiled from the eternal providence as it is Wisd xvii 2. O what a Sun-shine there is in the salvation of Christs name which bringeth the Prisoners out of Captivity it is a day which is an introduction to an eternal day where there is light for evermore So says Arnobius Dies cui non succedit nox quam horae non dividunt quem umbra non impedit It is a day which is not divided by the short space of moments and hours no Eclipses can obscure it no night can succeed it Day began with Christ and it shall continue with him for ever Secondly The Gospel is a most brightsom day compared to that Age wherein the Jews walked under the Ordinances of Moses For what was that Law but an Evening with many shadows All things in their Religion were Types and Figures unrevealed which caused an ignorant Priesthood and a People of a gross capacity Wherefore St. Austin observes that our Saviour was brought forth into the world at midnight but the glory of the Lord which shone round about the Angel that brought the tidings made the night as clear as the day But the Law was delivered on Mount Sinah at Noontide but with so many mists and dark pillars of smoke that it made the day as obscure as the night Do but put your self to one Task to examine by the Contents of the Law how you will come to the knowledg of the Resurrection of Christ you
will not say but it was very meet for an Israelite under the Law to know it but alass they did grope in the dark and it is hard to say whether ever they did find it for what Type or shadow did come home to demonstrate it You must not reply that it did appear in Jonas who came forth alive after he had been three days and three nights in the belly of the Whale for this was no Lesson for them that lived in eight or nine Ages from Moses unto the days of Jonas Neither must you urge that the first Temple was pluckt down to the ground and another reared up in the place which Temple did so prefigure Christs body that in that respect Haggai says The glory of the second house was greater than the first Hag. ii 10. This could never inform the peoples judgment all the while that the Tabernacle was under Tents Truly all that I can lead you to in this case is to the Ark which was but an Epitome of the Temple Nay nor to the Ark it self but to the three holy Reliques which were laid up in the Ark in them with a little curious observation you may find a rude draught of the Resurrection of our Saviour The two Tables of the Law which God gave first to Moses were broken but they were new hewn and written over again there was the reparation of the work of God which seemed to have been utterly lost The Pot of Mannah was in the Ark and this resembled Christ the Pot was like his Humane Nature of the earth earthy The Manna like his Godhead was above nature and came from heaven why this Manna would not keep above two days at the most after that it would putrifie but that which was put into the Pot did out-last the two days of putrefaction and for ought we know was never corrupted Finally Aarons Rod was a dead dry stick but it shot forth like a living Tree and brought forth Almonds Now if the Resurrection of Christ the very Pillar of faith was to be collected out of such dark obscure shadows what a gloomy night was the time of the Law And what an illustrious day is the Gospel which speaks this mystery so plainly to the capacity even of Children and Ideots Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him Yet I will confess that we are not yet come to broad day-light till the general Resurrection of all flesh is accomplished Very sweetly says one of the Moderns Tempus gratiae aurora est quae diet vicinior est quam nocti This time of grace is not complete day but a complete morning which hath little in it of the night and much of the day That is if you compare us with those of the Synagogue we are partakers of the day If you compare us with the life to come when our glory shall be revealed and Christ shall be all in all then we are yet in a dusky condition and have not hitherto shaken off the night St. Paul hath nickt it with most proper words Rom. xiii 12. says he The night is far spent the day is at hand Processit nox not Praecessit as the Vulgar Latin does misread it darkness is much abated not quite dispersed for as yet we see darkly as in a glass but the dawning of the day is risen in our Horizon for God hath given us the explicite knowledg of all Mysteries that conduce to our Salvation When the Church had first rest from persecution it had leisure to invent a splendour of Ceremonies in setting forth the Service of God among others I find that this was practised in the fourth Age that when the Deacon went up to some high place to read the Gospel there were certain attendants in the Church called Acolythi that carried two Torches lighted before him Ad demonstrandum quod de tenebris infidelitatis venimus ad lucem fidei to signifie that we have thrown aside darkness and infidelity and are come by the help of the Gospel into marvelous light So St. Hierom against Vigilantius in the day-time in the Eastern Countries when the Gospel is read Candles are lighted not ad fugandas tenebras sed ad sigum laetitiae demonstrandum not that such artificial light adds any thing to the light of the day but it is a token that light is come to us and we are glad of the illumination Give us leave then to say without boasting that wheresoever the name of Christ is professed and in no place else there is the acceptable time there is the day of salvation As there was light in Goshen when all the Land of Egypt was in darkness But especially we shall shew that we do believe that the day spring from on high hath visited us if we keep that one rule which St. Paul hath enforced upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us walk honestly and decently as in the day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either the energy of the word means that because many eyes are witnesses of our dressing in the day we will then habit our selves more comely than in the night when none or only those of our Family behold us So the Christian Church is like a City upon an Hill which cannot be hid the eyes of all Nations are bent upon it therefore let us walk soberly and justly that we give no scandal to the enemies of the Gospel Be as careful to apparel your souls handsomely with all grace and vertue in the sight of God as you are observant to dress your bodies decently in the day that nothing deformed may appear in you to the eyes of men Or it may thus concord with the Apostles intention such as are dissolute will forbear to riot it in the day they that are drunken are drunken in the night A Nation that is more civil in the night than in the day is hardly to be found unless it be true that some do tax us for such a Nation but all distempers of roaring and mischief for the most part break out in darkness Well then since the Gospel is a perpetual day not so little as a Lanthorn unto our feet that is but dim but a light from heaven above the light of the Sun Acts xxvi 13. Let us walk honestly as children of the light knowing we are made a spectacle to God and Angels and Men. So far I have entreated upon the Lords benignity he hath not only crowned David to be a mighty Potentate in the Land of Canaan but in the day of his Son Christ Jesus he hath crowned us all Kings and Priests of righteousness and hath given us a long day to rejoyce in even for ever and ever Now follows our acceptance and duty since this day hath appeared to the wish of our heart We will rejoyce and be glad in it as who should say as the faithful Israelites did keep one day for Davids Inauguration so in the day of the
that any Martyr or Confessor departed hath done for Christs sake it is a shame for you if you do not covet to do as much or more than that at least accuse your self if you be not sorry that your frailties make you come short of the best Lay your hand every one upon his own conscience and you may well say after me sweet Jesu should any of thy Creatures love thee better than I Should any servant be more obedient than I Any Martyr be willing to suffer more than I Should Enoch that walked with God desire to please thee more than I Never will I give over to try if I can run before them for none of thine Elect is so much endebted to thy bloudy Passion as I am because none of them had so many sins to be forgiven Press on to be the nearest of them that shall stand before the presence of the Lord and account it among thy great sins if thy heart do not pant and yearn to be equal with the principal of the Saints And make not your estimation of a good man by this rule that his vertues are more than his vices Or as Guicciardine says who had cause to know what he wrote that Popes are praised for their goodness when they do not exceed the wickedness of other men and trust not to that fleshly sloth that a moderate competency of honesty is well enough Non omnes possunt esse Scipiones Maximi All men cannot be anointed with the oyl of gladness above their fellows If Noah and Abraham and Moses had roused up their spirit no better what should the Church have done for exquisite Semplars of Zeal and Faith but if it had wanted all these an absolute pattern of holiness had remained in Enoch upon the earth was no man created like him we must therefore carry some transcendent sanctity in our notions to know what it is to walk with God First It commends him that he had much conversation or as it were a familiar friendship with God Can two walk together unless they be agreed Amos iii. 3. Agreement is not all it imports as much as an endearing and a sociable benevolence We took sweet counsel together and walked in the house of God as friends Psal lv 14. Let this embolden none to walk and strout it in the body of the Church while others are at their Prayers in the Quire they are more bold and familiar with God than welcome I know not what greater contempt could be shewn by a civil man if he were present at the time of sacred hours in one of the Mosques of Mahomet But I will not digress To walk with God is to go hand in hand like a loving Associate and I need not mince it to say like the friend of God We are all servants properly naturâ debito in our Nature and in our debt to the Law Neither do we ever cease to be servants by the gift of grace but it is an Evangelical priviledge that some of those that are servants and obey his will in all things should be called the friends of God So our Saviour says to his Disciples after he had given them a taste of all saving knowledge Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you Now although the condition that all men lived in before Christ came into the world was the state of servants yet such Prophets and Patriarchs as were greatly illuminated with Evangelical faith praeter rationem status notwithstanding the bondage of Nature and of the Law were vouchsafed this Title the friends of God A thrice blessed name which vindicates us from Captivity it breaks our bonds asunder it makes us partakers of divine acquaintance it consigns us an interest in the love of Christ more than we dare boast of it And is this the way to procure it to walk with God What say you to walking through Fire and Sword What think you of walking through the Valley of the shadow of death Break not hands with such a God though it should come to a most bitter exigent But in that ease and safety that we live now few or none are put to any hardness for Christs sake No League in the world more sought for more willingly accepted no Amity less burdensom or more beneficial St. Austin in his Confessions brings in a couple that served the Roman Emperour thus debating the matter What can we look for in this Palace more than to be called the friends of the Emperour This is no sure unmovable favour when we have it and how long must we wait and attend before we get it Amicus Dei si esse voluero ecce nunc fio Let me turn to God to day and desire to be his friend it shall be done instantly and never delayed So they resolved though their courses were excentrick to the way of honour and preferment they would walk in righteousness to be called the friends of Christ and so Enoch walked with God Vera amicitia est idem velle idem nolle says the Oratour A friendship will hold fast between them that chuse the same things and refuse the same things and agree in all things So that to walk with God so far till it grow to the tide of a friendship is no more nor no less than Fiat voluntas tua The will of the Lord be done The fore-cited Clemens in his lately revived Epistle instead of saying that Enoch walked with God phraseth it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God found him to be a just man through all obedience and so translated him and the Chaldee Paraphrase He walked in the fear of the Lord turning neither to the right hand nor to the left I know the word being metaphorical may be varied and followed in many senses and all according to a godly Canou Gregory the Great deviseth this distinction of the word out of his own ingenuity Some walk from God as Apostates and Demas that turned to the world Some walk against God or set their face against him as the proud and rebellious so the stiff-necked Israelites Ye walk contrary to me Lev. xvi 21. But some on the laudable part may be said to walk before God as the Prophets so John the Baptist was a forerunner of Christ He went before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways Some walk after God as humble Penitents and those that take up their Cross and follow him Finally A religious Magistrate that is solo Deo minor whose power is from God and useth that power as he ought he walks with God and he that despiseth him despiseth the Lord. Every whit of this may be maintained with good construction but lest the phrase should be dissected too much to the loss of the sense I will rather be rude in expression than subtil to
mans excogitation is frivolous Indeed Ceremonies for the most part are unprescribed that particular Churches may be their own carvers in them only let them beware that they use their liberty discreetly But the offering of burnt Sacrifices is a matter of substance how came this into Noahs heart to do it By divine information certainly At some time about the beginning of time God did appoint a form of Religion to Adam and his Posterity which in the Breviary of the Book of Genesis is omitted which Lesson was read to Cain and Abel from whom they undertook the solemnity of Sacrifice and the Candle was lighted from hand to hand till the Tradition came safe to Noah Or thus very briefly Which God did deliver to Adam which Adam did commit ro Jared he to Methusalem which Methusalem did commend to Noah Never imagine that they were appointed precisely about the food of their body that is in the Letter of the Book and no instruction delivered for the food of their Soul That were such an omission that the worst Lawgiver would prevent much more the wisest The Lord did set his holy Patriarchs in order from succession to succession till the Law was written to communicate true Religion And it is St. Hieroms rule Omne verum à quocunque dicitur à spiritu sancto est Every mouth that speaks truth speaks it from the Holy Ghost From Abel downward all those whose Oblations had a sweet savour offered by Faith if by Faith then by Precept and Instruction for Faith comes by hearing Rom. x. 17. Sacrifice then was that Divine Worship which God revealed did please him that was the general approbation I do not say that every time they kept that duty they had need of a new and a special Commission St. Ambrose says that Noah did this good work of his own genius and not by any new particular Commandment Qui debitum gratiae ut à se exigatur expectat ingratus est A man must not stay after he hath received a benefit till God say unto him thank me now for such thankfulness were ingratitude Yet St. Ambrose hath far more voices against him than of his part that this holy Father had special directions for the solemnizing this Sacrifice and that expresly it was revealed unto him upon the taking in of seven of the clean beasts into the Ark Gen. vii 2. Of clean beasts by sevens that three Pairs were for propagation and the single odd one the seventh of clean Beasts and clean Fowls the celebs animal the pure Creature which mixt with no female was to be dedicated in an whole burnt-offering to the Lord. And then this example will so little favour Will-worship that it utterly beats it down the invention of man had so little hand in it that it was Scientia à Deo indita an inspiration immediately put into the Prophet by the will of God The reason why the bloud of Beasts was poured out to the Lord and well accepted of him will be ripe to be rendred by and by when I have first shewn in a word that Religion did never discord from it self by mutation of times The Saints in all Ages had the same Faith the same Worship the same Hope and expectation Pietas ante legem in lege post legem piissime sibi concordat Piety in the Law before the Law and since the Law is constantly the same and did never vary Mark therefore from this Text that the Levitical Ordinances of Moses in many things are but a renovation and amplification of Ceremonial Customs before the Law I said in many things that I might not fall into the same error with them who have overlasht that all the Ceremonial Law was in use and practice with the Patriarchs and that Moses did but compile and gather it up into a body If these men had been askt where they did read of the Levites and all the ritual Orders of the Priesthood before Moses where concerning the trial of Leprosie of Jealousie and an hundred things more I know they must be gravell'd and could not answer Nay in the next Chapter and the third verse says the Lord to Noah Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you but many living things were prohibited to the Jews in the Law of Ordinances that they should not eat them But this ground I know cannot be shaken that many parts of the Ceremonial Law had clear passage in the Church presently after the Floud long before they came forth in Moses name And the whole Moral Law was acknowledged to be just and righteous even from the beginning of the world Sacrifices Altars distinction of clean from unclean abstaining from bloud and things strangled Vows the Brother to raise up seed unto the Brother that died without Issue these are all purely Ceremonial and yet in practice before ever Jacob went down into Egypt and that was 210 years before ever the Levitical Institutions were enacted And that all the Ten Commandments were ingrafted in the good seeds of nature there are such evident examples for them in all the book of Genesis that it will be less tedious for you to ruminate upon them than for me to remember them But as a Book which is ill set forth or rare to be had is sometimes reprinted again in a good Edition by them that are careful to propagate Learning So those things Moral and Ceremonial which were in use before were revived again when the Law was committed to Writing and called the Scripture partly because the Age of man grew short and the Tradition of Religion through the more hands it went was the more corrupted and because the Devil did superseminare in corde scatter so many Tares among the Wheat that the pure Law was scarce to be found in mans heart and partly men were grown so guilty of the Law that they would not look into their own hearts where they found thoughts accusing them Facti sunt fugitivi à cordibus suis says St. Austin they shunned to look into their own knowledge and conscience which did condemn them therefore it was necessary to have the Law written that it might come unto men since men did run from it But the effects and grounds both of Ceremonial Sacrifices and Moral Precepts were in force from the beginning And we may say with Solomon There is no new thing under the Sun that which is called new hath been already of old time which was before us Eccles i. 10. And because all things which are written are written for our instruction I will spare some time to shew that it concerns us even after the cessation of all Sacrifice to learn why the Lord would be honoured with the bloud of beasts and with the fat of Sacrifices One of the best and choicest of the Fathers thought it such a gross kind of serving of God to kill Oxen and Sheep and throw their flesh into the fire such a tyrannizing over the
not taken reward against the innocent a clean eye that doth not look so far till it make the Soul commit fornication undefiled lips which have not defiled the holy name of the Most High and above all an heart that hath no savage inhumane malice in it Make clean the inside of the Platter or the best meat that you eat will be so unclean unto you that you will make the Table of the Lord become the Table of Devils Therefore as great persons in their Galleries keep the patterns of virtues in colours or in sculpture so these Creatures were forbidden to the Jews as the patterns and representments of inward uncleanness and ghostly pollution 3. If God can find uncleanness in these dumb things which follow their natural inclination and do not violate it what filthiness is in us in whom the rebellion of concupiscence is always burning We are all as an unclean thing says the Prophet an original leprosie hath overspread us but we must wash in the Bethesda of Christs bloud and we shall be purified from our sins So I have tried the Law briefly what is clean and unclean both for Meats and Sacrifice How stood it with Tradition before the Law Now I come close to that First as for Meats when flesh began to be meat all things were clean before the Law was given without restriction Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things Gen. ix 3. And for sacrifice Theodoret and Beda think that all things promiscuously might be sacrificed before the Law there was nothing then disallowed as unclean and that Moses wrote the Book of Genesis since the Law and that some things were call'd unclean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by anticipation But all ancient Expositors beside make a part against them that the Patriarchs received an institution from the beginning by Divine revelation delivered to Adam of what kind only and with exclusion of all things else they should sacrifice unto him And the Lord God caused Noah to receive clean Beasts and clean Fowls by sevens that the odd one might be allotted in due time for a Burnt-offering Therefore Rabbi Eleezar paraphraseth my Text that Noah brought out an Heifer a Sheep and a Goat a Turtle Dove and a Pigeon and offered these five creatures of every clean Beast and of every clean foul upon the Altar And to confirm it the more those are the very particulars and none other which God caused Abraham to present unto him Gen. xv 9. This Exposition yet some man will say had been much the clearer if it had been written that Abel had brought an Offering of clean things unto the Lord. But require it not beloved because it needed not Abel was a Keeper of sheep and Abel brought of the firstlings de grege suo says the Text therefore it is all one to say he presented a clean Sacrifice As Noah by due estimation of circumstances cannot be said to come short of Abel in that his Offering is not said to be de primitiis of the first birth of the Flock for he had no firstlings perhaps in the Ark but since he had not primitias pecorum yet he had primitias temporis he consecrated the first minutes of time unto the Lord as soon as ever he came out of the Ark and the choicest things that were in the Ark of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl For this is a common Law in every thing if it be for the name of the Good God let it be of the goodliest and best If one build an House of Prayer let it be fairer than his own Dwelling if he feed the hungry let it be of the wholsomest of the Table if he sanctify any thing for the ornament of Gods House let it be of the costliest if he preach Gods Word let it come from his studied and best industry and not with extemporary sawciness which some do they say for conscience I say for laziness and therein imitate Gonzaga the Jesuit of whom one of his own Fatherhood says he would preach ridiculously on purpose that he might be scorn'd and laught at Levit. iii. 16. all the fat is the Lords that is bring him none but the best the purest and choicest Oblations of clean Beasts and of clean Fowls to which I make but this short Appendix that as there were unclean Cattel as well as clean in the Ark so the ungodly are mixt in the Church with the righteous but the faithful only are the sacrifice of good acceptation and of sweet savour Good and bad are in the Ark but the pure and undefiled are received upon the Altar Many of the coarsest sort belong to the outward Society of the Church hypocrites seducers men empoisoned and empoisoning with malice but they are not of that principal and high degree that the blessings of the Church are made effectual in them and their souls offered up to the Lord on the Golden Altar before the Throne which is an Allegory of Christ Revel viii 3. So St. Austin differenceth the two diverse Tribes of the Church alii sunt in domo Dei ut ipsi etiam sint domus Dei c. Some are in such sort in the House of God that they also are the House of God and some are so in the House of God that they pertain not to the Frame and Fabrick of it But here the similitude concurs not between the unclean Beasts in the Ark and Hypocrites in the Church between the clean ones and the elect for once a clean beast and ever clean once an unclean and ever so accounted by the Law but How many are there that now wallow in all impurity and filthiness that hereafter we hope may be converted prove chast and undefiled How many that either blaspheme or know not Christ who we trust and expect shall be illuminated and believe These are sheep in Gods preordination yet for the present are unclean and follow the voice of a stranger On the other side How many have we known that have been chast for a while and afterward plunged themselves in sensuality How many that have vowed to bear the Cross of Christ and yet denied him How many that have eaten of the Lords Table and yet have resolv'd in their heart to betray their fellow Disciples as Judas did to betray Christ These had the seeds of righteousness and yet proved unclean which says let him that standeth take heed lest he fall and take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart to depart from the Living God To be brief in the remainder There is no separation now between clean and unclean things Rabbi Moses is quoted by Lyra for this saying nulla animalia erunt immunda tempore Messia when the Messias comes no living things shall be accounted unclean by any legal imputation So it is come to pass indeed and we have witness out of the mouth of an
perfection of virtue that the Lord may say this my Son is like Joseph the comfort of old Israel a Plant which I set in a lucky hour it brings forth fragrant flowers of obedience of alms of charity to delight me and as old Isaac said I smell the savour of my Son like the savour of a Field which is newly mown from which all dispreading weeds and luxury are quite cut down You flow with vain delights but that is Gods contristation You please your selves with filthy communication but St. Paul says you grieve the Holy spirit Ephes iv You are sportful and merry even till calamity comes upon you but the security of Jerusalem causeth Christ to weep Properly grief and vexation are not incident to God or to the Eternal Spirit you shall know to your cost that when our voluptuous life is chang'd to howling and gnashing of teeth Angels shall sing about his Throne without ceasing but wicked men do what lies in them to put Christ to sorrow and sadness as earthly Parents eat their own heart and macerate themselves when their Children will not be ruled by their authority Comment thus I beseech you upon all your unlawful pleasures Can there be any rellish in that joy wherewith you grieve your Redeemer any sweetness in that sacriledg wherein God is impoverished Will you sing placebo to any man to grate the ear of the Most High Will you perfume your self for the Chamber of a Curtezan and stink in the nostrils of the Lord no I will abandon all my delights that He may be pleased in my mortification I will mourn continually in repentance that He may smile at it the zeal of his House shall eat me up I will burn with devotion that He may smell a sweet savour The dolor and smart of any present calamity doth not trouble a righteous man so much as that he feels the wrath of God upon him so prosperity peace health nay Heaven it self make him not so happy as to collect from the sense of his benefits that the Lord is delighted with him This is the Nuptial Song which we look for when we are married to the Lamb as the Bridegroom rejoyceth over the Bride so shall the Lord rejoyce over thee Isa 62.5 Here it is to be admonished that nothing is so savoury and delightful which we do as what the Lord doth himself non tam delectatur ut aliquid accipiat quà m ut aliquid det his love is very bountiful and better pleased to give than to take Therefore in no place of Scripture did his joy break forth so gaudily as in the Parable where he bad his Servants kill the fatted Calf to bid his penitent Child welcom home whereupon says Chrysologus immolabat vitulum i. filium gaudebat he rejoyced in the death of his own Son for our sakes because his mercy was free to have mercy on whom He pleased in that propitiatory Sacrifice The Jews would bring thousands of Rams to the Altar at this day the Lord will have none of them because they will not bring them in the faith of that Sacrifice wherein alone He is well pleased If abundance of Oblations would have made a grateful steam to mount up to Heaven they had done it long agoe Josephus says against Appio that 5000 of their Levites took their turn every week to attend at the Altar I am sure much Sacrifice must be brought to employ so many hands but non est mihi voluntas in vobis says Malachi I have no pleasure in you nor in your gifts surely because they offered not up unto him the savour of his Son All manners of Religions do not please God that were in effect to say that all kind of smels had an odoriferous fragrancy You must plow with Gods Heifer present him with faith in the death of his own dearly beloved Son and your imperfect righteousness being perfum'd with that incense the Lord will take it for a sweet savour and call it perfect obedience Let me now make you partakers of the third Proviso that a rank stink steams from Beasts and Fowl burnt in the fire yet the piety of Noah did ascend up in a sweet smell to Heaven therefore let not such good things stink in the nostrils of men that did delight the Lord. It is Gods direction to gather tares in bundels so I will muster together the corrupt examples of those that were as senseless as Davids Idols They had noses and smelt not or at least they were so full of the putrefaction of their own sins that they complained there was an ill sent where indeed there was the fragrancy of most excellent virtue Pharaoh called Religion an idle mans Exercise says he ye are idle ye are idle and therefore ye would go into the Wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord. Michol scoff'd at David for being in an extasie of joy that the Ark was brought into Jerusalem The Pharisees disliked every good thing that Christ did and observe it I beseech you from thence they provoked the most dreadful words that ever came from Christs mouth He that sinneth against the Holy Ghost it shall neither be remitted to him in this world nor in the world to come Judas smelt no sweet savour in the ointment which a most pious woman poured upon our Saviour's head but complained quorsum perditio haec to what purpose is this waste The scoffers of Jerusalem said the Disciples were full of new wine when they preached the Name of Christ in all tongues and languages New wine at Whitsuntide was never heard of for there are scarce new leaves upon the Vine at that season I wept and chustned my self with fasting and it was turned to my reproof says the holy Penitent It is altogether a fault that we will not commend nay that we will gibe and deride at that which is very good and devout in them that are of a contrary faction Sectaries whose courses I abhor yet somethings should not be scoffed at that they are diligent to come to Church that they read the Scriptures that they are not accustomed to rash and odious swearing let not these things be reckoned with their justly condemned hypocrisie Pontificians whose errors I decry yet their observing Canonical hours of Prayer their obedience to obey Ecclesiastical Laws their desire to kindle zeal by visiting those places where our Lord and Saviour frequented let these things be separated from their Superstitions As Seneca said of Learning quicquid bene scriptum est meum est whatsoever was well written by any man he took for his own as freely as if he had invented it so I say of Religion quicquid bene gestum est meum est whatsoever is praise-worthy in any Sect I will not scoff at it but imitate it When the Pharisees boasted of some of their good deeds haec oportuit fieri says our Saviour this is well this ought to have been done and not other things left undone Holofernes could not dislike
manner of superfluity The Morallists and Poets of the Heathen were wise men and when they character the best and happiest times of the World I am not presumptuous but confident of my knowledge that they all insist upon this that the men of that Age studied not for their Diet but took the voluntary Offerings of the Springs and Mountains Now we have left that praise and happiness to the Beasts and Fowls of the air who take the next thing they light upon to satisfie their thirst and hunger Non fuit noverca nobis natura ut homo sine tot artibus non possit vivere It is our own fault that we consume our Revenues and spend all our labour as the Wise-man says for the belly Nature is not so much a Stepdame to us alone that no less than two hundred Arts and Trades may be reckoned before his Table can be magnificently furnished This is the only conveniency of great sins which are very expenceful though not for the sin yet for the charge sake they use to vanish away by little and little I have the more hope my labour shall not be fruitless to exhort you to fall back to some laudable measure of ancient frugality Though it be a thing grown quite out of the constitution of your bodies to thirst for water as my Text says yet I would you would thirst less for wine and as one said though once our Saviour was so gracious to turn water into wine yet it were happy now on our part if he would infuse such temperance into us as to turn our wine into water See into what luxury we have sopt our Souls in the revolution of time see how we are metamorphosed in our appetite those Wines which were wont to be sold by the Apothecaries for a Drug are now become every Meals liquor at our Tables and Water which was the ordinary drink of man now it is never used but as a Potion and for some Medicinal operation So that which was our Physick is become our ordinary Drink and that which was our daily Drink is become our Physick Satis est populo fluviusque Ceresque though bread for hunger and water for thirst are but a bare enough yet such expressions from our Saviour who knows what is fittest for us will make the most of us I hope ashamed when we compare it with an Epicures too much But whether temperate or intemperate whether the poor Beggar that drinks of the running Brook or the rich Glutton that quaffs the bloud of the Grape at sundry times they feel a scarcity and want of moisture it is an affliction upon our nature that all men have their thirst The Schoolmen ask and which is more they contend among themselves whether hunger and thirst had befallen Mankind if they had never sinned against the Lord The Controversy comes to this issue This heavenly part of us which God breathed into the body it is both Anima and Spiritus a Soul and a Spirit and therefore it causeth both an animal life which consists in the faculties of nourishment augmentation of every part generation c. and it causeth by Gods gracious gift a spiritual life making this corruptible flesh of ours incorruptible and transfusing many more of its own excellencies into this gross substance and then it is a glorified Body These by the Divine ordination were appointed after a large space to be one after another so says St. Paul That was not first which was spiritual but that which was natural and afterward that which is spiritual It was necessary therefore while it was a natural body that sustenance must be taken and at such a time when man knew right well by his own constitution that it was fit to repair nature he could not err and be deceived in that in the state of innocency and at that time his appetite would call for it as a pleasant and wholesome thing to be taken for you know what a loathing thing it is to take meat and drink into the mouth without an appetite Here 's the scruple plainly laid down before you whether hunger and thirst did provoke such an appetite in man before he fell into disobedience I answer that this Controversy is but a bare mistaking of a word If hunger and thirst be largely taken for that sense which a man hath how the stomach must be replenisht for the maintenance of life so Adam before he fell had sensum indigentiae a far more exacting feeling than we have when nature was in indigency and must be supplied but strictly and properly hunger and thirst habent adjunctam molestiam cruciatum they come upon us with some molestiousness and torment and so they are only incident to wicked man where punishment is manifold ways inflicted upon transgression Where heat doth dry up moisture and parch the juyce of the veins there our thirsty soul doth gape like a barren and dry Land that is when one elementary quality doth feed upon another and consume it But before sin entred into the World there was such an orderly mixture of all parts in us that the Elements were at peace in our Body no quality did seek to over-master another and corrupt it but the pangs and girds of thirst did ensue upon just revenge Reason proved rebellious to the Law of God the sensual appetite grew rebellious to reason and the distemperature of the body grew rebellious to appetite Shall I need to tell you how the Israelites in a sore thirst were ready to renounce God in the Wilderness or how the strength of Sampson fainted till the Jaw bone besmeared with the bloud of his Enemies did run with water or how Darius in extremity of drought was glad to drink of a most putrified puddle Every man hath felt such anguish in himself at some time or other every little scarceness threatens death or is worse than death to them that want the friendship of God And as our appetite is never but sick of longing so the body troubles it with a perpetual craving that which it takes to day is forgot to morrow as if it never had been Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again That which nourisheth the Soul of man must be immortal like the Soul but that which nourisheth a corruptible Body it self is corruptible One lean Harvest in Egypt made seven rich ones be quite forgotten A short Fast will gnaw the bowels though Ahasuerus his long Feast had gone before it Whatsoever you taste the pleasure of it is not remembred in a minute the strength and virtue of it is gone in a few hours A man that is grown to the end of a full age if he would reckon by measure and proportion how much waste in threescore and ten years one Belly hath made it would make him wonder and say to himself am I run on the score so far for my daily sustenance is it not due that my Carkass should rot in the
was performed after the best form and exactness within the Precincts of this City therefore those that emulate the Jews in an holy way to magnify the Lord Jesus and to advance his Name in their reasonable service they carry this good report to be called the Jerusalem of God Obadiah's Cave conteined most Orthodox Prophets Capernaum had a Synagogue to preach in perhaps as good Sermons delivered there as in all Judea Joppa had many devout people in it Bethany afforded a Family which exceeded all others in love to our Saviour but if you will shape unto your selves the beautiful Churches of Christ you must pass by these reserving much praise unto them all for that wherein they did very well and you must extend your thoughts to the flourishing Profession of Gods Name at Jerusalem Thither the Tribes went up that they might worship together in their most populous Assemblies not like some in our days that keep at home when the Convocations of the Lord require their presence and flatter themselves with their own sufficiency as if they needed no Prayers to commend them to Heaven but their own But one Simon Stylita mounted up in his Pillar by himself is not an whole Jerusalem To keep Religion in life there is nothing more needful than that such as are of the Visible Church have communion and society one with another Beside in this Metropolis of the Land of Canaan the degrees of the holy Priesthood were conspicuous from the chief Pontif to the meanest Levite Not all fellows as Core would have it And why not every one as good as Aaron This would make Babel and not Salem Demetrius his concourse for all the World Act. xxix no man was tied to say by your leave to his Companion for every man was a Master of the Mutiny Let not the pride of them that cannot get preeminence cry down the Authority of them who have commanded from the Apostles to this Age And remember that St. Jude hath pointed out some who were Spots in the Church not in the Synagogue that perished in the gainsaying of Core Now Core's gainsaying if you will expound it to the Letter can be nothing else but a seditious attempt against Ecclesiastical Dignity Beside the sound of Jerusalem brings to our remembrance all Divine Offices that were done in the Temple to celebrate his glory who is wonderful above all wherein we succeed them either in the same or by clothing their Figures with a Substance They had appointed hours of Prayer day by day in the Publick Congregation for their sakes that will find out a little time between Morning and Evening to step out of the affairs of the World into the Courts of Heaven they had the Law preached and expounded with uncessant diligence there were no less than 460 Synagogues within the Circuit of that City in the days of Josephus so many Pulpits to inculcate Doctrin into the People It seems they had a form of Catechizing by that Conference which was held between our Saviour and the Doctors they had Psalmody according to the most skilful Musick of David and Asaph they had Incense to learn us devotion they had Sacrifices to teach us mortification The exercise of all which indeed was much kept down under captivity and during Antiochus his Persecution But in the days of peace and liberty it had this external face of holiness And that our solemn and outward Profession of Gods worship should be suitable to this decency and splendor and not shuffled up as if we took our Platform from such an obscure Village as Bethphage or Emmaus it is incited to do all things after a sacred comeliness and magnificence by the name of Jerusalem So it is and yet these Mosaical fashions are passed away But it is an indelible Character belonging to that place from whence the Church rejoyceth to take its name that the first foundations of Christianity were laid in Jerusalem for as Seneca said of the Heavens dignum idoneum spectaculum si tantum praeteriret it was a gay and a goodly sight though it did no more but move above our head and pass away how much better was it to us by the virtue of its light and influence So Jerusalem is famous for that Levitical Worship of God which is passed away and vanished but much more glorious for the influence dispersed from thence over all the World by the Apostolical preaching for out of Sion went the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Isa ii 3. Let us do it all favour says the Emperour Justin the Elder to Pope Hormisda for it is Mater Christiani nominis the Mother the Foundress of our Christian Profession We may take leave I think to discourse a little upon the wisdom of Gods good pleasure why this was the Brood-nest wherein the first Assembly was hatched that taught the Gospel First says Leo Vt ubi passus est Christus ignominiam ibi subiret gloriam Christ chose Bethlem for his Nativity but populous Jerusalem for his Passion where many might behold his opprobrious Death Lo in that soil where he became a scorn and dirision to them that were round about him he ascended into Heaven for Mount Olivet browed upon Jerusalem there he sent down the Holy Ghost there Faith and Repentance began to be preached in his Name there St. Peter made his first Sermon among devout men that were gathered together of every Nation under Heaven As there had been the Golgotha of his Humility so there he advanced the Standard of his Glory 2. Since our Saviour began to take his Kingdom upon him where should he proclaim himself first but in his Royal City there was the Court of David and of Solomon and meet it was that His Court should be there who was to sit upon the Seat of his Father David And it jumps well that he did not take possession of Jerusalem presently after he was baptized no not till he was crucified He did not actually reign in full Majesty till he triumphed over Death in his Resurrection From thenceforth the Royal Robe of Immortality was upon him and his Scepter in his hand to crush his Enemies and this was made known in the chief place of Gods Worship in the Gates of Jerusalem 3. Had the Gospel been preached in the beginning near about us in Europe or in Affrica or elsewhere far from that Country where Christ preached and suffered and rose again the news would have been strange and Unbelievers would have replied who are your Witnesses of these things But in the first utterance of Christian Faith to preach of his Passion within sight of Calvary of his Doctrin within the Temple of his Resurrection hard by Joseph of Arimathaea's Garden This was a demonstration of truth that it vented it self where it was best known Much unlike unto them who tell us in these parts what Miracles their Disciples do in India and tell them in India what Miracles they
Gospel He prosecutes the Trope from Ishmael the Son of the Bondwoman who was aliened from his Fathers house and from Isaac the Son of Sarah who was the Heir of the Promise And all this is curious and inlac'd like Mosaick work with most artificial correspondencies Thus Solomon delivered the Institutions of an honest life in plain and concise Proverbs but when he wrote upon the beauty of the Church he altered his stile into a polite and mystical Song And our Apostle doth frequently utter the things belonging to Justice and Temperance in lowly and vulgar forms of speech but when he goes about to describe the rights and graces of the Church then Paulò majora he is quite another man and handles that subject with many gradations of eloquence Witness my Text as in part I have unfolded it already which is a flower growing upon the stalk of this Allegory which I discuss the oftner to keep the Precept which David gives Psal xlviii Walk about Sion and go round about her tell the Towers thereof mark well her Bulwarks and consider her Palaces The Sion in that Psalm is the Jerusalem in my Text which consists of no ordinary Bays of building but all of sumptuous Architecture There is never a word in this Text but is either a Tower a Bulwark or a Palace of Jerusalem Mark them well go round about them says the Psalmist Her Towers rise up in state for Jerusalem is above she hath Bulwarks of safety for we are made free therein by the bloud of Christ Her Palaces are of large containment for she is the Mother of us all Out of six words in the verse I formerly considered six attributes of honour that belong to that Church which Christ hath purchased with his bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. She is a Jerusalem a visible fair City there is her external Communion 2. A Jerusalem above that is its internal Sanctity 3. A Jerusalem that is free which is her most proper Christian Badge and supernal Redemption 4. A Mother that is her fruitfulness 5. The Mother of us which imports a Brotherly Unity 6. The Mother of us all which expresseth the universality I have told and numbred the Towers of it and in a former day I proceeded to Jerusalem above Now I will mark her Bulwarks and consider her Palaces that she is free and the mother of us all Jerusalem which is above is free The precedent praise of the Church adheres unto this word for the consummation thereof If there be any that take upon them to belong to the New Jerusalem and to the City which is above let them shew the Copy of their Freedom that they are not led by the Spirit of Bondage but by the Spirit of Adoption There may be a plausible conversation of life in them that are out of the Pale of Jerusalem For Moral Vertues do not belong to Christian men as Christians but they pertain to them as men says Hooker There may be fair manifests of sanctity and the contempt of the world in their outward carriage whose heart is not above The sower morosity of the Pharisees would make you believe they renounced all vanities Pestilent Hereticks have exceeded that I may not say excelled in works of mortification Pelagius was of a demure honesty Vir ut audio non parvo profectu Christianus says St. Austin Severus Sulpitius says of Priscillian he was noted for many laudable parts of mind and body in fasting in humility in contentation So Anthimus and others Doth not this shew as if it were all for the world above And yet they had neither part nor lot in that matter The Reason because they had some bondage in them they were under a Captivity which they had not shaken off They had not liberale ingenium so that the last enquiry who belong to that Jerusalem above is upon this question Whether the truth hath made them free Joh. viii 52. For Jerusalem that is above is free It is a word that comprehends in it much favour and much duty And it shall pass under my hand with this examination 1. What this freedom is 2. How we got it 3. How we must use it Our freedom consists in a manumission from a four fold servitude 1. We are delivered from the Yoke of Ceremonies called the bondage of the Elements of this World in this Chapter verse 4. 2. We are most free for the New Covenants sake which is made with us For salvation is not offered us through the Works of the Law but through the Promise of grace We Brethren as Isaac was are Children of promise verse 28. 3. We have not received the Spirit of Bondage to fear but the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. viii 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Theophylact upon my Text the Gospel exhorts us gently it doth not affright us tyrannously 4. The rewards of the New Testament are not momentary things such as the Law propounded but heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the same Author we are not servants that do our duty for visible wages And all these together make the copy of a perfect freedom He that is under rudiments is under age he that is bound to the works of the Law is under condemnation He that is curbed by threatnings is under thraldom He that looks for momentary things from God is under base afflictions From all these Christ hath exempted us by the Gospel which is called the perfect Law of liberty Jam. i. in this complete sort our Jerusalem which is above is free First To be exempted from the incumbrance of well nigh a Million of Levitical Ceremonies will not appear so gracious a benefit as it is unless we take a great deal of leisure to mark it Never was any people so Paedagogically handled as the Jews were The observation of the greatest part of their days was calculated their meats were stinted their bread was prescribed They had Ordinances upon their Garments precise rules for the fruits that grew in the field directions for their building appointment for their Apparel Not so much but the very cutting of their hair was subject to a Commandment What strict Orders against Pollution What nice receits to cleanse pollution What tedious Traditions in their Oblations and Sacrifices What Punctilioes to be nicely kept in all the discharges of their Religion In Secular affairs they could do nothing wherein their soul delighted In Sacred affairs it was impossible for them to perform every thing which Moses enjoyned God knew how much addicted they were to their own inventions therefore he leaves them nothing either holy or profane to be managed by their own discretion but are quite rejected as unworthy to judge of the smallest matters and they had their hands full of these petty duties to leave no room to extraneous Superstitions Tertulliam adds Et Deus operosis officiis dedolaret God did plain and smooth the ruggedness of their nature with many
mans life by it self A just Father a just Counsellor a just Judge and so likewise in the particular condition of that Office a just Saviour and Mediator Out of this last acception surely we may best pick out the meaning of my Text. For this humility and obedience which our Saviour did now profess in coming to Jordan with the multitude to be baptized it could not be reduced to the observance of any Ceremony in the old Law nor to any Precept of the Ten Commandments wherein a necessary part of justice consisted but it was agreeable to the person of his Mediatorship and he was accountable for all such duties as parts of righteousness For let the Sacrament of Baptism be considered in two sorts First from the efficient cause that it was established by divine authority Secondly From the end in that it signifies the washing away of sins in both these respects it pertained to his Office to be baptized who was the Mediator between God and man In the former regard we have his own confession I came to do the will of my Father that sent me and although necessity did not lie upon him to meddle with that Ceremony which betokened the cleansing of sins yet it was expedient that he should not contemn but do honour to his Fathers Ordinance What did it concern him to be subject to his Parents To be Circumcized To keep the Feast days of the Jews But because it was a part of righteousness to apply himself devotionately to all divine Institutions In the latter regard though his own soul was pure neither was iniquity found in him Yet he bore the iniquity of us all and we have need of washing not our feet only but our hands and our head It is a full saying of Maximus to this purpose Justissimum erat quia totum suscepisset homimem ut per omnia hominis transiret sacramenta Since he took man upon him with the guilt of all his corruptions it behoved him to pass through all those Sacraments which are the means to take away our corruptions So you see what righteousness signifies in this place Non justitiam aequalitatis legis sed aequitatis vocationis Not such justice as is commanded in the Law but a decent equity according to the Office and vocation of his Mediatorship The next thing to be considered is the fulfilling of righteousness Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness Every one in whom the Spirit of God abides hath a good purpose to do justice and the works of the Law but he that fulfils righteousness and is exact in his ways without all reproof is the Son of God I say as for us that know God by faith and live in tabernacles of flesh wherein there is always malicious resistance against the inward operations of grace we are all transgressors of righteousness it is impossible we should fulfil it Let every man humble himself before God confessing that he is a great sinner because Christ humbled himself for us all to come to that Sacrament which is remediable for Sin St. Austin was troubled with one Celestinus who opposed him that one of the Sons of Adam might be exactly righteous in this life notwithstanding the manifold tentations of frailty St. Austin rejoyns are we not all taught to say the Lords Prayer But if any could be clear from trespasses he need not say Forgive us our trespasses We do not say therefore that there is a man without sin we say there may be a man without sin Quomodo autem possit per quem possit de hôc quaeritur But the question is how and by what means he may be so For the Orthodox Church did never mean a man could be so in this life untill he were translated to the Kingdom of Glory Attend what it is which the same Father brings under the compass of sin and let every man examine himself by that Peccatum est cum vel non est caritas quae esse debet vel minor est quà m esse debet sive hoc voluntate vitari possit sive non possit It is a sin either not to have charity which we ought to have or to have less charity than we ought to have Though we could avoid that defect by our own will or though we could not meaning sure our inability to fulfil the Law by the corruption we draw from our first Parents the guilt lies upon us for want of charity Who can tell how oft he offendeth Says David Is there any man then upon earth who can tell how oft he offendeth Rely not therefore upon thy self but upon Christ who alone was able to fulfil all righteousness The Devil tried him in the Wilderness whether the perfection of all justice were in him But was repelled and he could not draw him to forsake his righteousness The Scribes and Pharisees worse than Satan misdeemed the Doctrine of Christ how his Discipline would be some new thing quite different from obedience to the Law But our Saviour prevented their ill surmise saying I came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them Mat. v. 17. To destroy the Law is either to take the true sense from it by false interpretations or to cancell the force by which it obliged or lastly by malice and presumption to violate and infringe it For violation of the Law they did accuse him but not convince Pilate who did strive to do them favour was compelled to say I find no evil that he hath done For delivering the right sense and meaning of it his interpretations were most divine and discovered the vanity of Pharisaical Traditions Whereupon says Theophylact as a Painter laying fresh colours upon an old Picture Non delendo sed perficiendo tollit priorem imaginem makes as it were a new Image not by blotting out the old but by varnishing and washing it new again So Christ gave as it were a new Law to the Jews not by expunging or adding any thing but by applying the natural exposition to the Text. As for cancelling the force by which it tied it is true indeed that he did abrogate all Ceremonial Figures and Shadows because such things were to vanish away when the substance was exhibited in his own person Wherefore Cajetan marks the words accutely that Christ did not say I will destroy no part of the Law no not the Ceremonies but Non veni solvere they shall be laid aside hereafter but I came not to destroy them in my own person So St. Stephen was accused Acts vi 14. We heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth shall change the Customs which Moses hath delivered us Summarily therefore thus our Saviour fulfilled the Law and all righteousness The Law consists of four things Prophesies Moral Precepts Ceremonial Rites Judicial Statutes He fulfilled the Prophetical part personally exhibiting himself to be born to be crucified to rise the third day to ascend into glory In the