Happy is the man that feareth alway but he that hardneth his heart falleth into mischief Prov. xxviii 14. Now there is a fear of a finer thread which is timor filiorum this ariseth out of the love of God when we take care not to displease because He hath made us and poured all his benefits upon us because it is the best of all things to enjoy his favour Nothing so much to be loved as God therefore nothing so much to be feared that He be not offended they that love most abound with it This is a joyful fear which outlasts all the fears of this life The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever Psal xix 9. This reverential fear is in the Angels the Cherubins standing before God cover their faces with their wings awing his glorious Majesty the Elders before the throne fall down prostrate and cover their faces with their wings As the New Testament calls God charity God is love saith St. John so the Old Testament calls him fear Jacob swears by the fear of his father Isaac that is by God himself Gen. xxxi 43. Fear therefore is a vein that runs through all Religion and whatsoever buds out of Religion may be called fear it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all piety the first and the last The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledg Prov. i. 7. and the end of all is fear God and keep his Commandments Eccl. xxi 13. The Lord threatens to the end we should be dejected that 's worship annexed to servile fear and the Lord multiplies his blessings upon us to the end we should bow down and be thankful that 's worship annexed to filial fear True fear doth continually worship our Redeemer desperate fear like the impenitent Thief doth blaspheme him and these two differ as much as sharp sawce that gives an appetite to the stomach and poison that destroys the vitals So far that the word fear in the Law is chang'd into worship in the Gospel for so it was fit to refute the Devil who said all these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me And the worship of God is that Theme which without more circumstance now it befals me to handle What is it to worship God what is requir'd unto it every man knows that's the first question to be askt and I will make you a very satisfactory answer out of a devout example which is thus St. Matthew sayes there came a Leper and worshipped Christ saying Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Math. viâ—i 2. that 's the word of my Text. You shall meet with this party again Mark i. 40. What find we there there came a Leper to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beseeching him and kneeling down to him yet another Evangelist says more to make it clearer Luke v. 12. Behold a man full of leprosie fell on his face and besought him saying Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean The collection from hence is this when these scatter'd members are put together that to worship the Lord is to kneel down unto him to fall down on our face before him and to beseech him by earnest prayer Be advertised in one thing that to worship to kneel before to bow down unto in reverence are media vocabula as we say terms for civil respects between man and man as well as for religious offices between God and Man a great confusion falls out thereby in the handling of this doctrine and it cannot be avoided Saies St. Austin in linguâ latinâ non habemus ullum vocabulum quod solùm dicatur de cultu Dei there is not any word betokening the worship of God in the latin tongue so proper to it that it may not be communicated to man all tongues are alike in that poverty of expression In the New Testament the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is constantly kept for the outward worship of God saving that Matth. xviii the Servant who feared to be sold away he and all he had is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Parable speaks of an earthly Master though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Epiparabola come home to God in the English tongue the nearest word that is meant only of divine honour and a little too high for civil reverence is adoration If you say you adore an earthly man in our language we almost esteem it flattery But they are not words or outward gestures which can decide what it is which properly constitutes the essence of that worship which God claims The word adore I said might have a religious meaning with us but in no tongue else Saies Valla very well adorare includit orare supplicare voce uti plicare genu the word adore doth import the humble petition of the tongue and the supplication of the knee but these are things common and promiscuous to civil and holy uses All the reverent deportments of the body which piety ascribes to God civility without offence performs sometimes to Magistrates and Superiours It may be some Nations had their Customs to keep certain peculiar venerations of the body for God alone as the Athenians put Timagoras their Embassador to death quòd Regem Persarum tanquam Deum salutasset because he did obeisance to the King of Persia as to a God I know not what peculiar bendings of the body they appropriated to their Gods it was a national custom of their own and for my part I will not say a bad one but nature hath no such ground to limit the most humble gestures of the body to God alone Prophets in holy Scripture have faln on their face before Kings and great men have faln on their face before Prophets Though this doctrine be most true yet Cardinal Bellarmin did not pick out Abraham so luckily to make him the example of it He says that Abraham prostrated himself alike to God to Angels and to the Honourable men of the Sons of Heth. I say and will manifest it that the Scripture says he made a difference in his congees to them all Abram fell on his face and God talked with him Gen. xvii 3. When he went to meet the Angels he bowed himself toward the ground Gen. xviii 2. When he spake to the children of Heth Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people Gen. xxiii 7. You hear he fell on his face to God he bowed himself to the ground to the Angels and he bowed himself without more addition to the people of Heth. But this distinction is not kept by other holy men who walked perfectly before the Lord therefore I stand upon my former ground that neither by simple terms nor by postures and bowings of the body can it be resolv'd what worship is proper to the Lord for my part I could never make an intelligible interpretation of that
fell down to Images in Churches whereupon he took them down and brake them to pieces about the year 600 He writes to Gregory the first to know how he liked it Gregory answers you do very well to teach your people not to worship those Images but you might have let them remain for Ornament Thus Pope Gregory the first but before 160 years after Pope Gregory the third maintain'd tooth and nail against the Eastern Bishops they were to be worshipped What 's answered to all these authorites why the Fathers condemned the using Images after an unlawful manner they might even distinguish as well of lawful lying and lawful treason and adultery as to tell us a tale of lawful idolatry No Scripture no Tradition no Antiquity stands for them and verily no Reason for why is not every man adored for being the true Image of God as well as a Statue hear a subtilty man is capable of some civil reverence in himself if he were worshipped it would fall out the worship would be terminated unto him for himself but a portable God of mettal or stone deserves no honour for it self therefore it cannot likely be mistaken how all the veneration done to it is done for Gods sake what will they say then to such Images and Crucifixes as have moved their head and eyes miraculously such as have sweat like men spoke like men such things are often done by tricks and jugling is not that a scandal to the ignorant to make them bend the whole act of worship to the very Image as the Gentiles were often deluded by the Devil when he made his Idols and Oracles speak Thus they lay baits to destroy the soul of their weak brother to advance their own inventions And for the credit of all Miracles wrought before Image-worshipping let Biel speak sometimes such things are effected by the working of Satan to delude superstitious Devotaries Deo permittente exigentâ— talium infidelitate God permits it for their destruction and their own infidelity deserves it I am almost concluding mark what honour God hath peculiarly call'd for to himself and that 's to worship a thing religiously to impart it unto it He bad his Church of Israel kneel toward the Ark of his glory and worship him The people did not see the Ark for it was within the Veil but they were bidden to worship the Lord before his Footstool or before the Ark. Now to translate this manner of adoration to their own will-Will-worship to worship God before Images as He willed that himself in the Old Law should be worshipped looking towards the Ark is all one as if they had sacrificed to their Images which is confest idolatry But I pray you what satisfaction shall be made to my Text it satisfied the Devil and put him to silence Thou shalt worship c. Thus they shuffle with it when Christ says exclusively God only is to be worshipped all persons are excluded that claim latria but not appertinences or concomitances such as Images that are adored for the example sake Belike by this answer it must be so his Devilship must not be served or cringed but if he can turn himself into the shape of an Image of Christ or one of the Saints he might have his asking You see into how many shapes he turned himself in these Tentations he can change himself into an Angel of light and why not as easily into as fine an Image as ever Nebuchadonoser's was Thus their own wit may bring them to do the fowlest act in the world to fall down and worship the Devil How much better are our souls and our Religion in safety when we ascribe all praise glory service and worship to him only that sits upon the throne and to the Lamb for evermore AMEN THE TWENTY FIRST SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 11. Then the Devil leaveth him and behold Angels came and ministred unto him THat Conquerour that had given his Enemy a great overthrow was wont to set up a signal of his Conquest in the same place for every Passenger to look upon and it bore the name of a Trophee Therefore I will call this Text the Trophee of our Saviours Victory which he got of the Devil A Trophee advanced by the Holy Ghost to let us see the Adversary whom we chiefly fear is vanquishable and may be put to flight Never was such an Enemy subdued never were the weapons of holy Scripture used so skilfully before never did such fruit and benefit redound to the whole world from any victory and yet with what little ostentation is this great enterprize concluded Then the Devil leaveth him and behold Angels came and ministred unto him This is the way of God to do famous acts and not to noise it to men with all circumstances of exaggeration as we do now adays They are praised in these times that are Animalia gloriae that desire to do things worthy of renown that they may be praised And better let them spunge up fame than things famous should be omitted Yet there is a more Christian way than this For that divine learning which we gather from the Gospel leaves such impressions of modesty upon all worthy actions of Christ or of the Saints that their good works are never set out with the trappings of eloquence to adorn them barely related to be imitated and never garnish'd to be applauded This Text and every story which the Evangelists have recorded touching the miracles of Christ shall justifie this saying of his Joh. viii 50. I seek not mine own glory as Ennius said of Scipio Affricanus quantam columnam faciet populus Romanus quae res tuas loquatur What a great Pillar must the people of Rome make if all thy noble exploits were engraven upon it So I may say What a great Volume must the Holy Ghost have written if every Miracle of our Saviours had been amplified with a due compensation of glory That labour as I said is spared to teach us to be prodigal in doing good and thrifty in seeking praise Let a man do things laudable for vertue 's sake and no other respect and honour will follow him when his carkass is rotting as hair and nails and excrementitious parts of the body will grow when that body is dead and consuming So this Trophee of the great victory against Satan so I call'd my Text is as plain and modest terms as could be endited But as I doubt not but the Angels glorified our Saviour for it then so we will speak of the might of those marvellous acts now as the four and twenty Elders do Rev. xi 17. We give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty which art and wast and art to come because thou hast taken to thee great power and hast reigned and let us add because thou hast subdued our grievous enemy in all his tentations And according to that great humility and modesty which I said was very notable in this report of our
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
make supplications unto them When I commend my self to the Prayers of any man upon earth I attribute nothing unto him falsly as divine he hath ears to hear me he hath memory faith and chariry to commend his brethren to God But when I do the like to the Saints granting the distinction that they call upon them to intercede not to perform their request but when I do the like to them I make them stand in the place of God to hear all men every where at once perhaps lifting up their voice nay perchance no more than the thought of their heart unto them Solius Dei proprium est ubique omnes audire exandire It is the excellency of God alone to hear and attend to all men in all places at once Therefore he makes an Idol of that Saint in whom he supposeth as much vertue and excellency to hear him how much soever distant as is in God himself I omit burning Incense to their Shrines making Pilgrimages to their Sepulchres Building Churches wherein their memory may be worshipped and invoked And making Vows in their names which is one of the flowers of Gods eternal royalty They that are such earnest Devotees to Creatures and think there is not work enough for a Christian to worship God alone deserve that gross delusion which hath started from some of their own Confessions that many names are enrolled for glorified Saints and great Patrons of the Church whose souls are tormented in Hell Let God be worshipped for the holy Prophets Apostles and Martyrs departed so shall we our selves we trust one day have a place in that Coelestial Quire where the Lord our God is only worshipped and he only served day and night without ceasing AMEN THE TWENTIETH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve I Am come to this Text again in the zeal of Elias to let no kind of Idolater be unrebuked that doth not worship the Lord and serve him only according to these words which were Law at first and our Saviour by reciting them hath made them Gospel Take the Priests of Baal says that holy man and let not one of them escape 1 King xviii 40. I will trace his steps in this cause and will rather be a man of contention as Jeremy became by taking the Lords part then suffer Rags and Reliques Stocks and Stones to have an attractive virtue more than magnetical to draw religious honour and adoration unto them If men would hold their peace these things which I now proceed to arraign and condemn for having holy worship done unto them have no tongues to defend themselves They are not Angels or Saints departed they have neither life nor motion in them neither the Cedar that grows in Libanus nor the Hisop that grows on the top of the wall but the Trunck of the Cedar and such other things as Art hath made unfit for any further benefit of nature 'T is strange that sharp-witted men will take pains to extol such dull inanimate things as can never thank them And concerning inanimate liveless things how superstitiously such glory as belongeth to God alone hath been imparted unto them I shall spend my labours at this time for concerning rank Heathen Idol Gods imaginaries Deities and concerning the Host of Heaven above and the Spirits of darkness beneath how they are idolized by some I have maintained the judgment of our Church before But our quarrel against the Pontificians to vindicate all religious worship latrical and dulical to the Lord of Heaven alone is like a Suit in Law that holds many Terms as long a quarrel as upon any other common place in all Divinity I am in hand at this time with the same Controversie again to protest against four things namely 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religious adoration of the Reliques of Saints 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religious adoration of the Elements in the Lords Supper 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religious adoration of the Sign of the Cross and that most stiffely and impudently maintained 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Worship of Pictures and Images whether resembling Christ or his Saints Wo is it for the Church of Christ that we must spend an hour in these dissentions but what peace can there be while these Idolatries are maintained under the name of great devotion and anathema denounced against them that cry out for the Lord and for his Christ to them glory and worship and to none but them And now I have sounded the trumpet to this battel I betake me to the particulars propounded First that Religious adoration of Reliques confronts the verity of my Text c. But in the Exordium if any one shall ask how do our Opposites worship or serve Reliques or any of the aforenamed I will satisfie him that for the intentions of their heart in their inward reverence towards these things we could not accuse them but that they profess and teach it is religious and holy honour for if it were no more than precious estimation to some of those things we would not disfavour their practice but consent unto it and for their outward behaviour which expresseth the affections within judg if this be not to worship to kneel unto to kiss those things to prostrate the body to hold up the hands and eyes and uncover the head before them judg also if this be not serving of them censing of perfumes in those places lighting candles to honour them adorning with the richest cost of jewels and gold Circumgestation Procession Supplication Festival days appointed for their service and as much as all these Guilds and Religious Orders appointed to attend them This is square and open dealing that I impute Idolatry and Will-worship unto them upon grounds of practice and confession Nay I have not said all no not by half touching that over respect which is done to the Reliques of Christ and his Saints They exalt them above the Altar St. Ambrose thought it a great honour for himself or any deceased Bishop to lye under the Altar they call that adoration which is given to them meritorious The Priests teach the people that there is a kind of grace communicated to those Reliques they take Pilgrimages to them swear by them carry parts about as Prophylacticks against bodily and ghostly evil and pronounce indulgence for venial sins to them that fall down and worship them Beside the main sin see the uncertainty of all this Of Saints they have mightily multiplied the number and of their Reliques far more than is possible to belong unto them Yet it is impossible to know by faith who are Saints deceased but those whose memorial is recorded in Scripture and for their Reliques it is not denied they are conjectur'd at by mere humane credulity The bones of a Varlet may be carried in procession for the bones of a Martyr decem millia talium rerum Romae fiunt says L.
glory The former Promise honorantes honorabo was fit I told you for the day this latter minacy of Gods anger is rather fit for our Age and for the lamentable profanation of our times They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed Which words as it seems to me will best bear this division of two parts 1. Here is ignominia indigna a disdain much undeserved that God should be despised in the opinion of man 2. Here is ignominia dignissima a scorn and disdain justly deserved such a man set at nought in the eyes of God First I note that here is a disdain much undeserved that God should be despised in the eyes of man As one said that there were no Adulterers in Lacaedemon and as Solon thought that there could be no Parricides in Athens so I ask are there any in the world guilty of this blemish to despise God There have been some men so compleatly furnisht with Heroical virtues that they were esteemed to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men above the reach of obtrectation and envy surely then the mighty God whose glory is incomprehensible whose power is infinite his Majesty is far above contempt and disdain Beloved the enormity of this evil act to despise is not grosly against the Essence of God as if that could be contemned but by reducement it is a sin of so great extension and compass that it will be most necessary for your use and my orderly proceeding to confine our selves to a rule that hath certainty in it The properties of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or contempt are most distinctly set down in the 2. of the Philosophers Rhetor. as Artists know and them I will lay down before you by which when you examine your own practice you will know whether you be among those that despise God The first sign of despising is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we contemn that which we neglect to understand as when a prudent man will not beat his brains to study curious and unlawful Arts it is manifest he doth despise them so whomsoever thou art that art not painful to understand the Sum of thy faith and the mystery of thy salvation it must be granted that thou setst it at no price and estimation I do not say that every mans capacity will serve him to be a skilful Divine labour for so much knowledg as is referrâ—d to Gods Worship whatsoever the best enquire after beyond that Solomon calls it sorrow Eccl. i. I call it curiosity Brethren I beseech you be perswaded that ignorance is a fault for there is a Sacrifice appointed to make an attonement for it in the Old Law besides David had been uncharitable to pray to God to pour out his indignation upon the Heathen that do not know him unless their slothfulness not to know him did deserve it For your better satisfaction there is a threefold ignorance the first is called invincible ignorance that could not be helpt I call it the ignorance of the Woman of Samaria how could she tell that Christ was the Messias until he revealed it unto her this was not to be blamed The second is called affectata ignorance that is wilful and affected I call it the ignorance of Pharaoh Who is the Lord that I should let the people go He could not away with it to hear of the name of the Lord and therefore his opinion was that Religion was an idle mans exercise You are idle says he to Moses and therefore you say Let us go worship in the Wilderness A practised liar will not understand that every word of dissimulation in buying and selling is cosenage and hypocrisie A man that loves increase of wealth will not conceive that any usury is a gross sin and the bane of charity He that thinks a little is too much for the Church will not be informed that Sacrilege authorized by custom can be Sacrilege these proceed from stubborn and affected ignorance The third is called supina ignorance growing upon us by sloth and carelessness this I call the ignorance of Nicodemus he knew not the mystery of regeneration and what it was to be born again of the spirit simple education God knows for a Master in Israel I fear to speak it but it is most true there are many that know as little now adays with their Bibles open as our Forefathers knew in the time of Popery with their Bibles shut How many are there that pass for Believers like the men of Ephesus Act. xix and yet know not whether there be an Holy Ghost or no how many Anthropomorphites God help them that know not that God is an infinite Essence comprehended in no place but think he hath eyes and hands and feet according to the bare letter of the Scripture as whole Covents of Monks fell into that illiterate opinion says Socrates Your own regardlesness that you do not search into the ordinary discourses of Divinity it is the cause that most Sermons are obscure and fruitless to the hearers and that which we think is as easie as milk unto your Palats it is strong meat which cannot be digested because of your ignorance Thus when you set it so light whether you know the mystery of godliness or no is it not to despise the Lord Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those things which we despise we put out of mind and easily forget forgetfulness is a sign of contempt How many preservations how many strange deliverances have befaln us so apparently miraculous that our enemies were compell'd to say this was the finger of God and yet I am afraid most of us would seldom remember them if they were not printed in the Rubrick of our Almanack how much sooner is a sensless Winter tale remembred than a sacred story how new is that unto your ears this day in many things which perhaps you have heard from the Pulpit twenty times before that which we hear once a week concerning faith and good works is sooner out of our head than that which we hear but once in an age from a Proclamation as Tully said of old mens memories Nunquam quemquam audivi oblitum quo loco Thesaurum obruisset he never read of one that forgot where he had laid his treasure So those things only fix themselves in our head which are set in our heart and that only slides away like water which we regard not The first thing which the Devil stole from Eve was her memory God said in the day you eat you shall surely die she said she must not eat lest peradventure she should die Thus we forget instantly what God says like Eve nay we forget what our selves said like Peter he would not forsake his Master but hold out when all fail'd and alas he was the first that denied him how often is the next thing that follows our repentance fresh iniquity how often is the next thing after our prayers profaneness and then do we not forget what we said our selves Orlandine in
his Story of the Jesuits affairs makes his Protoplast Ignatius Loiola to be so fortunate in carrying all the substance of the Scripture in his mind that had the Scriptures been utterly lost a thing perchance which he wisht for Ignatius could have delivered all points of faith without book I would you were all as truly such as Orlandine fain'd and imagin'd him to be I would you were such as that Antonius of Padua who by those that admired his cunning in the Scriptures was called Arca Testamenti the Ark wherein the Law of God was laid up to be kept I would you would make them your inheritance as David did Thy testimonies have I claimed as mine inheritance for ever Like righteous Naboth though Ahab and Jezebel the Devil and the flesh would extort that Inheritance from you sooner die than part with it but when you are so oblivious and forgetful of all holy things Gods blessings your own repentance and the sweet relish of the Scriptures is it not a sign that you despise the Lord Thirdly contempt is seen in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to take it to heart not to be wounded with compassion when Sion is wasted and Gods honour is trampled under feet Like Gallio the Deputy in the 18. of the Acts that professed he sat in judgment to take up discords of civil peace but if a controversie come before him about the Law of God let it be right or wrong he would not meddle with it But Lot was grieved and afflicted with the filthy conversation of the Sodomites 2 Pet. ii 7. though Persecutions of bloud be not upon our land and O Lord be gracious still and for ever to keep them from us yet a righteous man suffers some persecution in his soul when filthy conversation jets about before his eyes Phineas was inflam'd with zeal to see Adultery in the Congregation and slew both Zimri and the Moabitess Num. 25. Ezekias rent his Garments and put on sackcloth when he heard the blasphemy of Rabshekah against the living God Horror hath taken hold on me says David because of the wicked that forsake thy Law Psal cxix 53. there is not such a Sacrifice offered up unto God says St. Ambrose as a zealous conscience that is eaten up as it were and consumed because the fear of God is imminish'd among the Sons of men nay says he take away zeal for Gods honour and you take away the office the excellency nay the very nature and substance of an Angel Old Polycarpus went always right with the true Doctrine of the Church but because Hereticks grated his ears with their unsavoury opinions he cries out Deus bone in quae tempora me reservasti at haec audiam Good Lord why do I live to hear such pestilent speeches against thy glory Beloved upon these your Festival days of pomp and ostentation give ear a little to the calamities which the Protestant Church doth suffer at this day under the hands of Tirants that do not love the purity of our Gospel Our Brethren that suffer the least share of their fury are threatned and besieged a most Valiant and Illustrious King through the covetousness and mutiny of his own Forces much weakned and dejected the florishing Inheritance of the Rhene quite rent away from the true and ancient Possessors Can O can you forget when the Tribe of Benjamin was as it were quite cut off with the edg of the sword that the Eleven Tribes remaining came to the House of the Lord and abode there till Evening and lift up their voices and wept sore and said O Lord God of Israel why is this come to pass in Israel that there should be to day one Tribe lacking in Israel The Country Palatine was a strong Pillar to uphold the happy proceedings of the Reformed Churches our Confederacy is now much weakned in that damage Away with Sports and Revels and gaudy Pastimes a Tribe it wanting this day in Israel let us mourn for it in our Prayers and engage our fortunes for it in the field He that doth not condole for the great blow given to the Church doth he not slight the miseries of Sion and depise the Lord Hearken now to the fourth sign of scorn and contempt which consists in this to speak ill of those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who are precious to God and of high esteem as when Hezekiah called the brasen Serpent Nehushtan a lump of Brass which the people did superstitiously adore it is manifest that Hezekiah did despise the vanity of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the saying is speak that which may be lucky and fortunate both to your selves and others let the Praises of God and his Saints be in your mouths the Lord delights to have their names exalted and magnified See what a commemoration S. Paul hath made of the faithful departed Heb. xi he passeth not over one without some Encomium of his zeal and piety nay our Saviour gave Mary Magdalen his blessing that wheresoever the Gospel was preached in all the world it should be reported to her honour what costly ointment she had poured upon his head and should we be so froward as some are to put down the solemn Holy-daies which are allotted to the memory of the Evangelists and Apostles upon whose foundation I mean their doctrin and not their person the Church is built throughout the world I fear that God would be offended at us and impute it to our disdain that we despised him because we grew weary to revive the memory of his Saints Many are willing that Bartholomew or any other Apostle should hold a Fair in the City for the quick uttering of Wares and Merchandize but they would not have the Church opened upon a solemn day for St. Bartholomews My Brethren both may be well done but the last of the two much better than the other for I hope you will know St. Bartholomew was a Churchman and not a Merchant Another fault there is let it lye upon the score of private persons and not upon the whole Church The adoration which the Church of Rome ascribes to the Blessed Virgin Mary the Invocation of Saints which they maintain St. Peters Supremacy and the Popes Succession in his person which they defend as their life these opinions are false and superstitious but none of those noble persons have therefore deserved ill at your hands that in the heat of the controversy we should insult over St. Peters faults or make havock of the Reliques of the Saints or speak slightly of that incomparable vessel the Virgin Mary and mince her title of Blessed when the sacred Hymn says that all generations shall call her blessed leave this to the railing Jew who in disdain calls our Saviour not Ben Mariam the Son of Mary but Ben Aariam the Son of her that is vile as smoak As for such backbiters of the glorious Children of God like as the smoak vanisheth so shall
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
of obedience but as the way to eternal life As a sick man takes the potions that are prescribed him not out of duty to the Physitian but out of due regard to his own recovery The similitude sorts with our infirmity Obtemperet medico ut surgat qui noluit credere ne aegrotaret says St. Austin Man would not obey the Physitian to prevent his sickness therefore let him use his after-wit and take those Sacramental means that are appointed to make him whole But fourthly there is lex privata a Law imposed upon some particular person in whose transgression neither were justice infringed nor Gods glory violated if his Command were not laid upon it and there is no scope in this but to make the passive humility of our soul that is our obedience more illustrious What was there in it else that the Man of God that came from Judah unto Bethel was charg'd neither to eat nor drink water in that place nor to return by the same way that he came there is no colour of Religious Worship in these observations but God would have him submit to his unquestionable Authority and you know his misery ensued when he was unperswaded to obey it Dominus cur jusserit viderit what profit there is to keep such private Laws as seem to carry no great substance in them let God look to that says the Father but be you obsequious That peremptory denuntiation upon pain of death not to eat of the Tree of knowledg of good and evil called the forbidden fruit no Theological wits could ever pass a ripe mature judgment upon it why it was so laid but that they and all we in them are to stoop under that sweet yoke of the Divine Will with absolute indefinite undiscoursed obedience It was no robbery to eat of it wherein God was defrauded of any thing that He stood in need of then it had been hurtful to him the fruit was not diseaseful or poisonous then it had been hurtful to them it was a pure Edict of Authority to let the best of all bodily Creatures know to what service and homage they were born as the vulgar Latin reads that verse Psal ix ult Constitue legislatorem super eos not as we translate it put them in fear O Lord but set a Lawgiver over them that they may know themselves to be but men Quomodo eris sub Domino nisi fueris sub praecepto so St. Austin upon that very instance of the forbidden fruit How are you under the Lord unless you be under the Law and not that Law which leans upon apparent reason for that Law is within you and therein you obey your self but that Law which flows from absolute Authority that 's without you and therein you stoop lowest under the power of God And this is the very condition of that word which the Angel spoke to Lot and those that were with him Look not behind thee neither stay in all the plain Wherein could it tend to the honour of God that they should set their face one way more than another perhaps you will say it was meant to the greater detestation of the Sodomites whom the Lord would not permit to have commiseration or any respect from good men or to urge them to make haste away with a kind of hyperbolical celerity As our Saviour sent his Disciples to preach in every City of Judaea with this speedy or prefestinating Command Salute no man by the way Luke x. 4. And Elisha imposed that post haste upon Gehazi his servant Gird up thy loyns and go thy way if thou meet any man salute him not and if any man salute thee answer him not again Suppose this or that were the secret drift of this Interdiction look not behind thee yet a little casting of the head on one side had not made their expedition the slower What need we seek a knot in a rush what need we prove her faulty for reasons that are not alleaged this convinceth obliquity enough in her sin that she did not observe the precise command of God in every gesture of her body In a word the thing it self commanded did not in it self bind the conscience but with the Command it did The eye is free to view all the works of the Lord unless something upon which it glanceth doth scandalize it with concupiscence Who suspects the contrary but that the crackling of the fire and the out-cries of them that perisht in those Cities that were consumed did rowze many in the neighbour Villages to look upon those places and lament them Did not Abraham rise up early in the morning and look toward the Land of the Plain and see the smoak of the Country go up as the smoak of a Furnace 't is soon answered Where there was no restraint there was no transgression But above all other Laws those which we may rather call Canons and Constitutions that impose the prestation of adiaphorous duties and prohibit other things that have no moral obliquity in them are most generous ways to heap reward upon the willing and to discover the stiff stomach of rebellion In all Injunctions Ecclesiastical and Political set aside charity edification unity peace of the Church or any other moral respect Put it only upon this that meer authority enforceth them which is just authority derived from Gods Ordinance God forbid we should need any haling or towing to them for he that sees the finger of Authority held up sees reason enough to obey and to recoil as Lots Wife did because the Commandment seem'd not to be weighty and ponderous is blind disobedience O 't is a blessed thing not to have a licentious itch upon a man not to desire scope and random but to submit chearfully to a punctual Discipline in all our actions and every circumstance of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is the praise of an Holy Father as if his soul had been created without a will Alas into what precipices would our fancy carry us if we were left to our selves to be libertines in any thing there would be nothing but confusion Deus servitute nostrâ non eget nos autem sine ejus dominatione esse non possumus nothing truer it is St. Austins God stands in no need of our service but we could not live without his command and governance 'T is hard to confine this point to brevity but I must break off only let me put you in mind that whereas the Jesuits set forth themselves to be the only Obedientiaries in the World so that to neglect the Precept of their Superior in a trifle they brand it for a flagitious crime yet the Jesuit a Lapide says upon my Text that he would not discord with them that hold the trespass of Lots Wife to be no more than venial error for either some sudden clap of thunder might make her start and look back unawares or else she thought not that the Angel gave her that
as if our charity could be altogether inoffensive No the Spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. viii but it doth not quite take away all infirmity we are not made of the substance of Angels while we travel in this mortal flesh Sanctification will leak out at certain crannies but all is made sure with cupio dissolvi take in sunder the soul and body by death and in the state of our Exaltation Mercy can never get away There is a molting time for these two Wings and the best Christian displumes certain feathers through tentation but O that I had wings like a Dove says David for then would I fly away and be at rest Now the last Point is that which troubles all the world especially our Western world which is in continual combat with our Romish Adversaries wherein the Art lies to preserve Truth that it may not forsake us But some there are clouds without water men unstable in their minds halting between God and Baal that think the whole Church is at a loss for truth and we can stedfastly trust to nothing For it will easily break prison out of the Syllogism of the old Philosophers witness so many busie disputations of late and the success so unprofitable it cannot be bound up in the laborious Tomes of Controversies no Age more industrious to write than ours hath been and none further from Peace To think that the limits of Truth are bound to St. Peters Chair so called is most childish and frivolous The two Testaments indeed are the touchstone of Truth but they are stained with presumptuous glosses and we do not ask now adays Quomodo scriptum est How is it written But Qomodo expositum est What is the intepretation of Expositors Lastly If we say that Truth is the Daughter of Time and that the reverend Antiquity of the Fathers must be her Register What if one say one thing and some another What if they be equally divided What if index expurgatorius spunge out all that should be justly alleadged And hear what Cyprian says Non dixit Christus ego sum consuetudo sed ego sum veritas Surely yet among these many conflicts there is a way to bind truth as a Crown unto us give me leave to unfold it without ornament of Language in a particular declaration In the midst of a froward Generation whose Wits sweat on both sides to win the day who would not take a sure course which cannot be reproved Now all the Law and the Prophets are comprised in these three things 1. In Prayer and Thanksgiving to God 2. In a sincere belief 3. In obedience to his Commandments The absolute form of Prayer is the same which Christ taught us Mat. vi The sum of our Belief is the Apostles Creed And the two Tables of the Law want nothing which should teach Religion and Justice towards God and men What Christianity can be more secure than this How can Truth forsake him that rules himself to the Letter of these holy Institutions and goes no further But whatsoever is more than this is tossed about with every blast of disputation it may be erroneous it may be Will-worship it cannot be the substance of things not seen it impeacheth Gods wisdom as if he would not reveal unto man the explicite way of his salvation When I come into the Temple and see a devout Monk running over the Hierarchy of heaven upon his Beads and filling the Saints with the noise of his complaints and when I see another Christian piercing the highest heavens with zeal and coming boldly to the Throne of Grace to God alone to which part shall he that is unlearned say Amen Beloved if Our Father would not serve the turn it may seem John Baptist did teach his Disciples to pray better than Christ Sweet Jesu they are thine own words therefore I cannot do amiss to turn me from the Angels when I have Christ for my Master but they that make the Elders about the Throne Partners with God in Invocation they cannot be so confident that truth doth not forsake them Again one Church entertains the craft of Demetrius and the Silversmiths even upon Gods own Shrine their eyes are filled with their molten Images when they look unto the hills from whence cometh their salvation But they distinguish that they keep their body to a lesser Religious Worship and not to the highest Adoration and they exalt the Image of the true God not the Idols of the heathen Our Church refuseth no Ornaments of Decency no Histories of Piety no remembrance of eternal Glory But the Law is not in our eye but in our heart and we pray as if it were our Saviour at midnight in the Garden when no resemblance could be before him What should a soul say here disquieted with the rents of Sion Why thus Lord thou hast forbidden all graven Similitudes thy Commandment did not comment upon a petty duty to the Saints a nice Hyperdulia to our Lady and an admirable Latria to thy self thou hast not made me so good a Lapidary to discern in stocks and stones between an Image and an Idol I may be an Idolater with the Inventions of the former I cannot err in the spiritual Worship of the latter Confounded then be all they that worship carved Images I will not let thy Truth forsake me Thirdly Concerning that inquinatissima purgatio that loathsom cleansing of sins after this life in torments which is a kind of Spanish Inquisition Why art thou so vexed O my soul And why do thoughts arise within thee So trust in God not as fearing the scorching Kitchin of Purgatory or the freezing of St. Patricks Lake for a season but as dreading an eternal death for ever not as if my punishment must be mitigated after my death by the Beads and Orizons and Bribery of my forgetful Executors but as if in my life they must be redeemed by the luke-warm bloud of Jesus Christ Then for the thing propounded I know my Saviour descended into Hell to triumph over Satan and bruize his head I know He ascended up into Heaven to make Intercession for us to God the Father this is my Creed I am sure and the third place is Apocrypha my belief is as broad as the holy Apostles made the pattern and if I stop mine ears at the rest I will not let thy truth forsake me Fourthly Concerning the material part of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper I take my Saviours words into the explication of my Faith This is my body this is my bloud But what have I to do to let men interpret Christs meaning when themselves confess it is such a mystery that cannot be comprehended Is it not enough for me to receive these precious gifts with thanksgiving but that I must argue how and after what manner Christ is present at that participation I am sure the outward Elements of Bread and Wine are there for as God gave me an heart to believe so he
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
trials of obedience Yet though their number was so great and cumbersom their weight had been more easie if they had been plain and perspicuous but the people underwent much geare and I think not one among an hundred did know the signification The substance of Religion was so darkly involved in the Types that happy was that Prophet or Prophets Son that could crack the shel to eat the kernel Who of the Vulgar rank could penetrate into the moral signification of those vices which were forbidden in the unclean Creatures Vt homines mundarentur pecora culpatu sunt says Tertullian The Law did seem to loath some beasts that we might know what God did love Was not the Salvation in Christ propounded to them in Signes And his death resembled in a Bullock slain at the Altar And what small comfort was there in that Pardon which was not intelligible to the poor Offendor Luther says well upon my Text that mans knowledge is unshackled it is at liberty when he discerns the naked truth in it self Cognitio est ancilla quando subjecta est velaminibus figurarum Our Wisdom is made a bondwoman subject to the captivity of Ignorance when it sees nothing but in the dark Glass of typical Obumbrations Thanks be to God that we are Scholars of the New Testament We are called to the manifestation of faith and love in Christ that we do not grope in darkness but walk in light for the Gospel is like a Glade which is cut through the grove of ancient Ceremonies Let me speak to this point once more Beside their excess in number and their cloudy obscurity there were unpleasing remembrances in them some that seemed to be mysteries of grace were likewise mystical Exprobrations and therefore referred by good Expositors to the hand-writing of Ordinances which is against us Col. ii 14. For Ceremonies take them not as Sacraments or Circumstances of Evangelical Service but as Yokes of the Law Nihil aliud erant quà m miseriae humanae publica professio They were imprints of humane misery not Expiations but Confessions of our iniquity Circumcision it accused the Israelites that they were born in sin Their frequent washings did testifie that there was filthiness in the Object The life of the Sacrifice spilt upon the ground pronounced him guilty of death that brought it to the Lord. I go no further because I would be compendious and I have said enough for this discovery that the Law of Ordinances was our Adversary But thanks be to that Saviour who blotted out the hand-writing payed the grand debt which we did owe and discharged the interest likewise when he evacuated the Levitical Ceremonies which is the first mark of the freedom of Jerusalem Yet be advised that we do not claim more immunity by this Chatter than is granted for that is ordinary to stretch out the name of liberty like cheveril Leather to what length we please some have assumed that they have good ground to blow up all our Modern Ceremonies with this Mine because Jerusalem is free from the yoke of Ordinances It is true our Jerusalem is free and therefore we are free for partus sequitur ventrem the Church appoints her own Orders of decency now and is not appointed nothing is imposed upon it with bond of necessary and perpetual observation the principality is upon her shoulders to make her Children submit to her prudent Constitutions But if particular men might challenge interest in this freedom as if they had scope to serve God with what order and comliness they pleased this were an uproar and not a freedom and a looseness like that of mad men when they have broke their Chains Certainly the liberty which God hath granted in setting our feet at large from these things with which the Priesthood of Aaron was charged it was to accommodate us with great grace and favour but if this should repel the bringing in of those Ceremonies which are means to beget the greater veneration of Religion the bounty of God which cannot be would turn to a prejudice his blessing to a cross and such as love the welfare of Sion might cry out O Lord we are oppressed with liberty Touching the substance of divine Worship it is written with Gods own finger in holy Scripture we must not add unto it Only God is pleased to try our judgment how we will administer it in the particular fashion His Worship is the Bread of Life sent down from heaven and not invented upon earth but for the manner of his Worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens says of humane Philosophy it is like the sauce in which the bread is dipt to make it savoury to this conditement Jerusalem is allowed to put her skil providing for comliness and honesty as a wise dispenser of the mysteries of God Was ever any thing of moment transacted without some graceful solemnity Or is man so governed by the Spirit that he can lift himself up to Heaven sufficiently by interiour Meditation I forget not that some will say yea the Body also serveth God by the tongue And I allow it for an excellent way to warm our zeal with the loud voice of prayer But this warmth will quickly cool unless some devout actions concur together and deeds are far more durable in the fancy than the memory of speech either to teach the understanding somewhat which it ought to consider or to move the heart to due reverence and regard which it ought to have in the performance of sacred matters Here let the new Jerusalem act her part this is her liberty to enjoyn such Ceremonies for the eye as may prepare the heart the better to feel the power of the grace of God and to prescribe such visible signs as will leave a deeper print behind them than bare exhortation I will add that by this power bequeathed to the Church some Jewish Ceremonies may be reteined as far as the state of the things will bear if they be followed only for outward order and not returning to that obstinately which must be disannulled because Christ is come in the flesh I confess that Spiritual Worship is best for it is most correspondent to his nature whom we worship God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit This is the reason that he says he hates Incense and effusion of bloud at his Altar such kind of service hath no assimilation with him who is incorporeal give him the Sacrifices of righteousness of prayers and mercy and thanksgiving qui corpus non est umbram non habet Approach not to him with shadows for he is a Spirit and not a Body yet in respect of us though not of himself he entertains the lowliness of bodily Worship as it hath a conveniency and conjunction with our nature The Lord is a Spirit and he even he alone gives law how he will be worshipped in spirit but we that worship him are bodily creatures and
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
therefore you shall find him thus speaking to the people in Josephus Country-men says he you know the Law and are not ignorant that God is in every place as well at Dan and Bethel as at Hierusalem Vbique vota exaudit ubique cultores suos respicit his ear is every where to hear your Prayers his eye is every where to see your Worship and therefore there is no such necessity as the Priests talk of to go up yearly to the Temple at Hierusalem This is Jeroboams Divinity in one act both an Heretick and a Traitor he took away the Crown from Gods anointed by violence and would take away the throne dedicated to God himself by fraudulence Beloved every Religion knew this that one house or more as the worship required was to be built unto the God before whom they prayed and in whose name they took an Oath before the Altar Dagon the Idol of the Philistins had his Temples and so had the rest and shall the Assemblies gathered in the name of Christ shall they only worship in the Mountains and in desart places The Angel hovered from above over the fields where the Shepherds abode because he was a Messenger of Heaven and therefore proclaim'd the Christ under the open heaven but men that have their habitation upon earth must not so preach Christ as if they had dropt out of the skies the presence of an Angel did consecrate the waste plains upon which the flocks were feeding any place was holy for that time where an Angel spoke but corruptible and sinful man must not think that it is his priviledge to do the like unless the place be set apart for Gods service by a lawful solemnity of dedication Philo the Jew makes mention of some that worshipt God with most fervent devotion in Egypt and the parts of Alexandria frequent in Prayers and Watchings and it appears to some they were Christians and they says Philo had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 religious buildings full of reverence and Majesty to praise the Lord. This that Philo speaks of was in the reign of Claudius the Emperour twelve years and no more after our Saviours Ascension into Heaven The Primitive Church flourishing the Apostles all living these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Oratories and Chappels were built so ancient is the practice to call upon God in such stately buildings as were appropriated to be the houses of Prayer and the Reverend Council of Gangra past this Canon against Eustachius an enemy to Church buildings If any man shall say the house of God is contemptible and the Assemblies vain let him be an Anathema And of the two circumstances of the place that the Angel appeared in the field before the Shepherds so much and no more Thirdly I observed for the time that it was night when the Angel came unto them I dispute not what time of the night it was The night was distributed into four watches assigning the space of three hours to a Watch to this end that he who could not endure the tediousness of a whole night to lie abroad under the open air might be relieved at the end of a watch by him that took his place and it is not improbable that this occasion fell out towards the last watch of the night For to Premonstrate that Christ came to bring light to enlighten every man that came into the world he was annunciated by the Angel both at the increase of the year and at the increase of the day Oriente Salvatore non solum humani generis salus sed etiam solis ipsius claritas innovatur says St. Ambrose at this day Salvation shin'd upon the soul of man which had been in the darkness of condemnation even as our Saviour was born toward the dawning of the morning when the Sun was peeping out of the darkness of the night Nay the same Father goes further You would think his phancy were Rhetorical or rather Poetical but he delivers it for a Doctrine which he did verily believe that it was late at night when the Angel came into the field Cum sol festinans ob dominicae nativitatis obsequium c. When the Sun in homage to our Saviours Nativity posted as it were and before the Stars had run their courses cut short the night shined upon the world many hours before the day expected him and thus he reasons if the Sun stood still in the day for the Prayers of Josuah why might not he shorten the night to behold our Saviours Nativity Wherefore at night this Babe of Glory was born that he might turn the night into day A meditation of St. Gregories may supply us with another reason the Sun-shine of the day is the great Oracle of manifestation the smallest Atoms then appear and whatsoever lay in obscurity is clearly discerned now we have no clear apprehension of the mysteries of faith in this life as if they lay naked before us Sancti quamdiu in hác vitâ sunt divinae naturae Secreta quasi sub quadam imaginatione conspiciunt The Saints in this world behold the secrets of the Divine Nature as if it were in the imagination of a dream as men think they see Visions when they sleep in the night I do not go about therefore to span those things which cannot be measured how that which is infinite and finite are one in personal Union how he was conceived by the Holy Ghost What perfection of knowledge and grace there was in his Infancy if you look into the Ark with the Bethlemites you may forfeit your eyes It is modesty to say these things are incomprehensible for the Angel did reveal them in the night They that raise questions and dispute about those depths concerning our Saviour which cannot be sounded look for thanks because they are industrious whereas their curiosity seems to me to use him no better than if they crowned him with thorns We must believe without appoizing the Articles of our Faith to the balance of reason and then though we see darkly in a glass we are children of the day But if we will scan the secrets of God by the scruples of humane wisdome then is our day turned into night One day telleth another and one night certifieth another Psal 19.2 That is says Bernard the day told unto the day when the Angel came unto the modest Virgin Mary the night certified the night that is the Serpent conferred with Eve when she was fond and curious I am yet under this pillar of Cloud I mean under this circumstance of time that the Angel Gabriel addrest unto the Shepherds by night Captivities that be famous in Scripture are three Under Pharaoh in Egypt under Cyrus in Babylon and under the Devil in the thraldom of sin Mark what issue every one of these had to obtain liberty 1. The Children of Israel arose at midnight and departed out of Egypt 2. Nehemiah and those few the first that