passions ready to over-run the banks not able to endure a thought that so much evil should befall his Master broke out into an over-confident and unseasonable interruption of him He took him and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee Besides his great kindness and affection to his Master the minds of the Apostles were not yet throughly purged from the hopes and expectations of a glorious reign of the Messiah so that Peter could not but look upon these sufferings as unbecoming and inconsistent with the state and dignity of the Son of God And therefore thought good to advise his Lord to take care of himself and while there was time to prevent and avoid them This our Lord who valued the redemption os Mankind infinitely before his own ease and safety resented at so high a rate that he returned upon him with this tart and stinging reproof Get thee behind me Satan The very same treatment which he once gave to the Devil himself when he made that insolent proposal to him To fall down and worship him though in Satan it was the result of pure malice and hatred in Peter only an error of love and great regard However our Lord could not but look upon it as mischievous and diabolical counsel prompted and promoted by the great Adversary of Mankind A way therefore says Christ with thy hellish and pernicious counsel Thou art an offence unto me in seeking to oppose and undermine that great design for which I purposely came down from 〈◊〉 In this thou savourest not the things of God but those that be of men in suggesting to me those little shifts and arts of safety and self-preservation which humane prudence and the love of mens own selves are wont to dictate to them By which though we may learn Peter's mighty kindness to our Saviour yet that herein he did not take his measures right A plain evidence that his infallibility had not yet taken place 5. About a week after this our Saviour being to receive a Type and Specimen of his future 〈◊〉 took with him his three more intimate Apostles Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and went up into a very high mountain which the Ancients generally conceive to have been Mount Thabor a round and very high mountain situate in the plains of Galilce And now was even literally fulfilled what the Psalmist had spoken Tabor and Hermon shall rejoyce in thy Name for what greater joy and triumph than to be peculiarly chosen to be the holy Mount whereon our Lord in so eminent a manner received from God the Father honour and glory and made such magnificent displays of his Divine power and Majesty For while they were here earnestly imployed in Prayer as seldom did our Lord enter upon any eminent action but he first made his address to Heaven he was suddenly transformed into another manner of appearance such a lustre and radiancy darted from his face that the Sun it self shines not brighter at Noon-day such beams of light reflected from his garments as out-did the light it self that was round about them so exceeding pure and white that the Snow might blush to compare with it nor could the Fullers art purifie any thing into half that whiteness an evident and sensible representation of the glory of that state wherein the just shall walk in white and shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father During this Heavenly scene there appeared Moses and Elias who as the Jews say shall come together clothed with all the brightness and majesty of a glorified state familiarly conversing with him and discoursing of the death and sufferings which he was shortly to undergo and his departure into Heaven Behold here together the three greatest persons that ever were the Ministers of Heaven Moses under God the Instituter and promulgator of the Law Elias the great reformer of it when under its deepest degeneracy and corruption and the blessed Jesus the Son of God who came to take away what was weak and imperfect and to introduce a more manly and rational institution and to communicate the last Revelation which God would make of his mind to the World Peter and the two Apostles that were with him were in the mean time fallen asleep heavy through want of natural rest it being probably night when this was done or else over-powred with these extraordinary appearances which the frailty and weakness of their present state could not bear were fallen into a Trance But now awaking were strangely surprised to behold our Lord surrounded with so much glory and those two great persons conversing with him knowing who they were probably by some particular marks and signatures that were upon them or else by immediate revelation or from the discourse which passed betwixt Christ and them or possibly from some communication which they themselves might have with them While these Heavenly guests were about to depart Peter in a great rapture and ecstasie of mind addressed himself to our Saviour telling him how infinitely they were pleased and delighted with their being there and to that purpose desiring his leave that they might erect three Tabernacles one for him one for Moses and one for Elias While he was thus saying a bright cloud suddenly over-shadowed and wrapt them up out of which came a voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him which when the Apostles heard and saw the cloud coming over them they were seised with a great consternation and fell upon their faces to the ground whom our Lord gently touched bade them arise and disband their fears whereupon looking up they saw none but their Master the rest having vanished and disappeared In memory of these great transactions Bede tells us that in pursuance of S. Peter's petition about the three Tabernacles there were afterwards three Churches built upon the top of this Mountain which in after times were had in great veneration which might possibly give some foundation to 〈◊〉 report which one makes that in his time there were shew'd the ruines of those three Tabernacles which were built according to S. Peter's desire 6. After this our Lord and his Apostle's having travelled through Galilce the gatherers of the Tribute-money came to Peter and asked him whether his Master was not obliged to pay the Tribute which God under the Mosaick Law commanded to be yearly paid by every Jew above Twenty years old to the use of the Temple which so continued to the times of Vespatian under whom the Temple being destroyed it was by him transferred to the use of the Capitol at Rome being to the value of half a Shekel or Fifteen pence of our money To this question of theirs Peter positively answers yes knowing his Master would never be backward either to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's or to God the things that are God's Peter going into the house
and that that Cross stained with his bloud had been left as a memorial of these matters An interpretation that was afterwards confirmed by another grave and learned Bramin who expounded the Inscription to the very same effect The judicious Reader will measure his belief of these things by the credit of the Reporters and the rational probability of the things themselves which for my part as I cannot certainly affirm to be true so I will not utterly conclude them to be false 6. FROM these first plantations of Christianity in the Eastern India's by our Apostle there is said to have been a continued series and succession of Christians hence called S. Thomas-Christians in those parts unto this day The Portugals at their first arrival here found them in great numbers in several places no less as some tell us than fifteen or sixteen thousand Families They are very poor and their Churches generally mean and sordid wherein they had no Images of Saints nor any representations but that of the Cross they are governed in Spirituals by an High-Priest whom some make an Armenian Patriarch of the Sect of Nestorius but in truth is no other than the Patriarch of Muzal the remainder as is probable of the ancient 〈◊〉 and by some though erroneously stiled Babylon residing Northward in the Mountains who together with twelve Cardinals two Patriarchs and several Bishops disposes of all affairs referring to Religion and to him all the Christians of the East yield subjection They promiscuously admit all to the Holy Communion which they receive under both kinds of Bread and Wine though instead of Wine which their Country affords not making use of the juice of Raisons steep'd one night in water and then pressed forth Children unless in case of sickness are not baptized till the fortieth day At the death of Friends their kindred and relations keep an eight days feast in memory of the departed Every Lord's-day they have their publick Assemblies for prayer and preaching their devotions being managed with great reverence and solemnity Their Bible at least the New Testament is in the Syriack Language to the study whereof the Preachers earnestly exhort the people They observe the times of Advent and Lent the Festivals of our Lord and many of the Saints those especially that relate to S. Thomas the Dominica in Albis or Sunday after Easter in memory of the famous confession which S. Thomas on that day made of Christ after he had been sensibly cured of his unbelief another on the first of July celebrated not only by Christians but by Moors and Pagans the people who come to his Sepulchre on Pilgrimage carrying away a little of the red Earth of the place where he was interred which they keep as an inestimable treasure and 〈◊〉 it sovereign against diseases They have a kind of Monasteries of the Religious who live in great abstinence and chastity Their Priests are shaven in fashion of a Cross have leave to marry once but denied a second time No marriages to be dissolved but by death These rites and customs they solemnly pretend to have derived from the very time of S. Thomas and with the greatest care and diligence do observe them at this day The End of S. Thomas's Life THE LIFE OF S. JAMES the Less S. IAMES Minor This Apostle being a Kinsman of our Lord and having Sale first Bishop of Hierusalem was cast down from the top of the Temple and after killed with a Fuâ—â—ers club Baron â—â—â— 1 o The Martyrdom of St. James y e lesse Mauh 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets stonest them which are sent unto thee S. James the Less proved to be the same with him that was Bishop of Jerusalem His Kindred and Relations The Son of Joseph by a former Wife The Brethren of our Lord who His Country what Our Lord's appearance to him after his Resurrection Invested in the See of Jerusalem by whom and why His authority in the Synod at Jerusalem His great diligence and fidelity in his Ministry The conspiracy of his Enemies to take away his Life His Discourse with the Scribes and Pharisees about the Messiah His Martyrdom and the manner of it His Burial where His Death resented by the Jews His strictness in Religion His Priesthood whence His singular delight in Prayer and efficacy in it His great love and charity to Men. His admirable Humility His Temperance according to the rules of the Nazarite Order The Love and respect of the People towards him His Death an inlet to the destruction of the Jewish Nation His Epistle when written What the design and purpose of it The Proto-evangelium ascribed to him 1. BEFORE we can enter upon the Life of this Apostle some difficulty must be cleared relating to his Person Doubted it has been by some whether this was the same with that S. James that was Bishop of Jerusalem three of this Name being presented to us S. James the Great this S. James the Less both Apostles and a third sirnamed the Just distinct say they from the former and Bishop of Jerusalem But this however pretending to some little countenance from antiquity is a very great mistake and built upon a sandy bottom For besides that the Scripture mentions no more than two of this Name and both Apostles nothing can be plainer than that that S. James the Apostle whom S. Paul calls our Lord's Brother and reckons with Peter and John one of the Pillars of the Church was the same that presided among the Apostles no doubt by vertue of his place it being his Episcopal Chair and determined in the Synod at Jerusalem Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus or 〈◊〉 out of him mention any more than two S. James put to death by Herod and S. James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem whom they expresly affirm to be the same with him whom S. Paul calls the Brother of our Lord. Once indeed 〈◊〉 makes our S. James one of the Seventy though elsewere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria he numbers him with the Chief of the Apostles and expresly distinguishes him from the Seventy Disciples Nay S. Hierom though when representing the Opinion of others he stiles him the Thirteenth Apostle yet elsewhere when speaking his own sence sufficiently proves that there were but two James the Son of 〈◊〉 and the other the Son of Alphaeus the one sirnamed the Greater the other the Less Besides that the main support of the other Opinion is built upon the authority of Clemens his Recognitions a Book in doubtful cases of no esteem and value 2. This doubt being removed we proceed to the History of his Life He was the Son as we may probably conjecture of Joseph afterwards Husband to the Blessed Virgin and his first Wife whom S. Hierom from Tradition stiles Escha Hippolytus Bishop of Porto calls Salome and further adds that she was the Daughter of Aggi Brother to Zacharias Father
Antiquitates Christianae OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS AS ALSO THE LIVES ACTS and MARTYRDOMS OF HIS APOSTLES IN TWO PARTS The First Part containing the Life of CHRIST Written by JER TAYLOR late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor The Second containing the Lives of the APOSTLES with an Enumeration and some Brief Remarks upon their first Successors in the Five Great APOSTOLICAL CHURCHES By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY By whom also is added an APPARATUS or Discourse Introductory to the whole Work concerning the Three Great Dispensations of the Church Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical Orig. câ—ntr Cels. lib. 1. dâ— Prâ—â—â—â— p. 1 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner M DC LXXV THE ANNUNTIATION Ave gratiâ plena Dominus tecum Benedicta tu inter mulieres Hail thou full of grace y e Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women Luke 1. 28. Will Fathorne sculp ANTIQUITATES CHRISTIANAE OR The Life and Death of the Holy JESUS AS ALSO The Lives Acts and Martyrdoms of his Apostles London Printed for R Royston at the Angell in Amen Corner 1675. TO THE Right Honourable and Right Reverend Father in God NATHANAEL Lord BISHOP of DURHAM And Clerk of the Closet to His MAJESTY MY LORD NOTHING but a great experience of Your Lordships Candor could warrant the laying what concernment I have in these Papers at Your Lordships feet Not but that the subject is in it self Great and Venemble and a considerable part of it built upon that Authority that needs no Patronage to defend it But to prefix Your Lordships Name to a subject so thinly and meanly manag'd may perhaps deserve a bigger Apologie than I can make I have only brought some few scattered handfuls of Primitive Story contenting my self to Glean where I could not Reap And I am well assur'd that Your Lordships wisdom and love to Truth would neither allow me to make my Materials nor to trade in Legends and Fabulous reports And yet alas how little solid Foundation is left to Build upon in these matters So fatally mischievous was the carelessness of those who ought to have been the Guardians of Books and Learning in their several Ages in suffering the Records of the Ancient Church to perish Vnfaithful Trustees to look no better after such Divine and inestimable Treasures committed to them Not to mention those infinite Devastations that in all Ages have been made by Wars and Flames which certainly have prov'd the most severe and merciless Plagues and Enemies to Books By such unhappy accidents as these we have been robb'd of the Treasures of the wiser and better Ages of the World and especially the Records of the first times of Christianity whereof scarce any footsteps do remain So that in this Enquiry I have been forc'd to traverse remote and desert paths ways that afford little fruit to the weary Passenger but the consideration that it was Primitive and Apostolical sweetned my journey and rendred it pleasant and delightful Our inbred thirst after knowledge naturally obliges us to pursue the notices of former times which are recommended to us with this peculiar advantage that the Stream must needs be purer and clearer the nearer it comes to the Fountain for the Ancients as Plato speaks were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better than we and dwelt nearer to the Gods And though'tis true the 〈◊〉 of those times is very obscure and dark and truth oft covered over with heaps of idle and improbable Traditions yet may it be worth our labour to seek for a few Jewels though under a whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heap of Rubbish Is not the Gleaning of the Ancients say the Jews better than the Vintage of later times The very fragments of Antiquity are Venerable and at once instruct our minds and gratifie our curiosity Besides I was somewhat the more inclinable to retire again into these studies that I might get as far as I could from the crowd and the noise of a quarrelsome and contentious Age. MY LORD We live in times wherein Religion is almost wholly disputed into talk and clamour men wrangle eternally about useless and insignificant Notions and which have no tendency to make a man either wiser or better And in these quarrels the Laws of Charity are violated and men persecute one another with hard names and characters of reproach and after all consecrate their fierceness with the honourable title of Zeal for Truth And what is yet a much sorer evil the Peace and Order of an excellent Church incomparably the best that ever was since the first Ages of the Gospel is broken down her holy Offices derided her solemn Assemblies deserted her Laws and Constitutions slighted the Guides and Ministers of Religion despised and reduc'd to their Primitive Character The Scum and Off-scouring of the World How much these evils have contributed to the 〈◊〉 and Impiety of the present Age I shall not take upon me to determine Sure I am the thing it self is too sadly visible men are not content to be modest and retired Atheists and with the Fool to say only in their hearts there is no God but 〈◊〉 appears with an open forehead and disputes its place in every company and without any regard to the Voice of Nature the Dictates of Conscience and the common sence of Mankind men peremptorily determine against a Supreme Being account it a pleasant divertisement to Droll upon Religion and a piece of Wit to plead for Atheism To avoid the 〈◊〉 and troublesome importunity of such uncomfortable Reflections I find no better way than to retire into those Primitive and better times those first and purest Ages of the Gospel when men really were what they pretended to be when a solid Piety and Devotion a strict Temperance and Sobriety a Catholick and unbounded Charity an exemplary Honesty and Integrity a great reverence for every thing that was Divine and Sacred rendred Christianity Venerable to the World and led not only the Rude and the Barbarous but the Learned and Politer part of Mankind in triumph after it But My Lord I must remember that the Minutes of great Men are Sacred and not to be invaded by every tedious impertinent address I have done when I have begg'd leave to acquaint Your Lordship that had it not been more through other mens fault than my own these Papers had many Months since waited upon You in the number of those Publick Congratulations which gave You joy of that great Place which You worthily sustain in the Church Which that You may long and prosperously enjoy happily adorn and successfully discharge to the honour of God the benefit of the Church and the endearing Your Lordships Memory to Posterity is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships faithfully devoted Servant WILLIAM CAVE TO THE READER THE design of the
the Angel's coming because it was a great necessity which was incumbent upon our Lord for his sadness and his Agony was so great mingled and compounded of sorrow and zeal fear and desire innocent nature and perfect grace that he sweat drops as great as if the bloud had started through little undiscerned fontinels and outrun the streams and rivers of his Cross. Euthymius and Theophylact say that the Evangelists use this as a tragical expression of the greatest Agony and an unusual sweat it being usual to call the tears of the greatest sorrow tears of 〈◊〉 But from the beginning of the Church it hath been more generally apprehended literally and that some bloud mingled with the 〈◊〉 substance issued from his veins in so great abundance that they moistened the ground and bedecked his garment which stood like a new firmament studded with stars portending an approaching storm Now he came from Bozrah with his garments red and bloudy And this Agony verified concerning the Holy Jesus those words of David I am poured out like water my bones are dispersed my heart in the midst of my body is like melting wax saith Justin Martyr Venerable Bede saith that the descending of these drops of bloud upon the earth besides the general purpose had also a particular relation to the present infirmities of the Apostles that our Blessed Lord obtained of his Father by the merits of those holy drops mercies and special support for them and that effusion redeemed them from the present participation of death And S. Austin meditates that the Body of our Lord all overspread with drops of bloudy sweat did prefigure the future state of Martyrs and that his Body mystical should be clad in a red garment variegated with the symbols of labour and passion sweat and bloud by which himself was pleased to purifie his Church and present her to God holy and spotless What collateral designs and tacite significations might be designed by this mysterious sweat I know not certainly it was a sad beginning of a most dolorous Passion and such griefs which have so violent permanent and sudden effects upon the body which is not of a nature symbolical to interiour and immaterial causes are proclaimed by such marks to be high and violent We have read of some persons that the grief and fear of one night hath put a cover of snow upon their heads as if the labours of thirty years had been extracted and the quintessence drank off in the passion of that night but if Nature had been capable of a greater or more prodigious impress of passion than a bloudy sweat it must needs have happened in this Agony of the Holy Jesus in which he undertook a grief great enough to make up the imperfect Contrition of all the Saints and to satisfie for the impenitencies of all the world 7. By this time the Traitor Judas was arrived at Gethsemani and being in the vicinage of the Garden Jesus rises from his prayers and first calls his Disciples from their sleep and by an Irony seems to give them leave to sleep on but reproves their drousiness when danger is so near and bids them henceforth take their rest meaning if they could for danger which now was indeed come to the Garden-doors But the Holy Jesus that it might appear he undertook the Passion with choice and a free election not only refused to flie but called his Apostles to rise that they might meet his Murtherers who came to him with swords and staves as if they were to surprise a Prince of armed Out-laws whom without force they could not reduce So also might Butchers do well to go armed when they are pleased to be afraid of Lambs by calling them Lions Judas only discovered his Master's retirements and betrayed him to the opportunities of an armed band for he could not accuse his Master of any word or private action that might render him obnoxious to suspicion or the Law For such are the rewards of innocence and prudence that the one secures against sin the other against suspicion and appearances 8. The Holy Jesus had accustomed to receive every of his Disciples after absence with entertainment of a Kiss which was the endearment of persons and the expression of the oriental civility and Judas was confident that his Lord would not reject him whose feet he had washed at the time when he foretold this event and therefore had agreed to signifie him by this sign and did so beginning war with a Kiss and breaking the peace of his Lord by the symbol of kindness which because Jesus entertained with much evenness and charitable expressions calling him Friend he gave evidence that if he retained civilities to his greatest enemies in the very acts of hostility he hath banquets and crowns and scepters for his friends that adore him with the kisses of Charity and love him with the sincerity of an affectionate spirit But our Blessed Lord besides his essential sweetness and serenity of spirit understood well how great benefits himself and all the World were to receive by occasion of that act of Judas and our greatest enemy does by accident to holy persons the offices of their dearest friends telling us our faults without a cloak to cover their deformities but out of malice laying open the circumstances of aggravation doing us affronts from whence we have an instrument of our Patience and restraining us from scandalous crimes lest we become a scorn and reproof to them that 〈◊〉 us And it is none of God's least mercies that he permits enmities amongst men that animosities and peevishness may reprove more sharply and correct with more severity and simplicity than the gentle hand of friends who are apter to bind our wounds up than to discover them and make them smart but they are to us an excellent probation how friends may best do the offices of friends if they would take the plainness of enemies in accusing and still mingle it with the tenderness and good affections of friends But our Blessed Lord called Judas Friend as being the instrument of bringing him to glory and all the World to pardon if they would 9. Jesus himself begins the enquiry and leads them into their errand and tells them he was JESUS of Nazareth whom they sought But this also which was an answer so gentle had in it a strength greater than the Eastern wind or the voice of thunder for God was in that still voice and it struck them down to the ground And yet they and so do we still persist to persecute our Lord and to provoke the eternal God who can with the breath of his mouth with a word or a sign or a thought reduce us into nothing or into a worse condition even an eternal duration of torments and cohabitation with a never-ending misery And if we cannot bear a soft answer of the merciful God how shall we dare to provoke the wrath of the Almighty Judge But in
these more special acts of favour than the rest is not easie to determine though surely our Lord who governed all his actions by Principles of the highest prudence and reason did it for wise and proper ends whether it was that he designed these three to be more solemn and peculiar witnesses of some particular passages of his life than the other Apostles or that they would be more eminently useful and serviceable in some parts of the Apostolick Office or that hereby he would the better prepare and encourage them against suffering as intending them for some more eminent kinds of Martyrdom or suffering than the rest were to undergo 4. NOR was it the least instance of that particular honour which our Lord conferr'd upon these three Apostles that at his calling them to the Apostolat he gave them the addition of a new Name and Title A thing not unusual of old for God to impose a new Name upon Persons when designing them for some great and peculiar services and employments thus he did to Abraham and Jacob. Nay the thing was customary among the Gentiles as had we no other instances might appear from those which the Scripture gives us of Pharaoh's giving a new name to Joseph when advancing him to be Vice-Roy of Egypt 〈◊〉 to Daniel c. Thus did our Lord in the Election of these three Apostles Simon he sirnamed Peter James the Son of Zebedee and John his Brother he sirnamed Boanerges which is the Sons of Thunder What our Lord particularly intended in this Title is easier to conjecture than certainly to determine some think it was given them upon the account of their being present in the Mount when a voice came out of the Cloud and said This is my beloved Son c. The like whereto when the People heard at another time they cried out that it Thundred But besides that this account is in it self very slender and inconsiderable if so then the title must equally have belonged to Peter who was then present with them Others think it was upon the account of their loud bold and resolute preaching Christianity to the World fearing no threatnings daunted with no oppositions but going on to thunder in the Ears of the secure sleepy World rouzing and awakening the consciences of Men with the earnestness and vehemency of their Preaching as Thunder which is called God's Voice powerfully shakes the natural World and breaks in pieces the 〈◊〉 of Lebanon Or if it relate to the Doctrines they delivered it may signifie their teaching the great mysteries and speculations of the Gospel in a profounder strain than the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theophylact notes which how true it might be of our S. James the Scripture is wholly silent but was certainly verified of his Brother John whose Gospel is so full of the more sublime notions and mysteries of the Gospel concerning Christ's Deity eternal prae-existence c. that he is generally affirmed by the Ancients not so much to speak as thunder Probably the expression may denote no more than that in general they were to be prime and eminent Ministers in this new scene and state of things the introducing of the Gospel or Evangelical dispensation being called a Voice shaking the Heavens and the Earth and so is exactly correspondent to the native importance of the Word signifying an Earth-quake or a vehement commotion that makes a noise like to Thunder 5. HOWEVER it was our Lord I doubt not herein had respect to the furious and resolute disposition of those two Brothers who seem to have been of a more fierce and fiery temper than the rest of the Apostles whereof we have this memorable instance Our Lord being resolved upon his Journy to Jerusalem sent some of his Disciples as Harbingers to prepare his way who coming to a Village of Samaria were uncivilly rejected and refused entertainment probably because of that old and inveterate quarrel that was between the Samaritans and the Jews and more especially at this time because our Saviour seemed to slight Mount Gerizim where was their staple and solemn place of worship by passing it by to go worship at Jerusalem the reason in all likelihood why they denied him those common courtesies and conveniences due to all Travellers This piece of rudeness and inhumanity was presently so deeply resented by S. James and his Brother that they came to their Master to know whether as Elias did of old they might not pray down Fire from Heaven to consume these barbarous and inhospitable People So apt are Men for every trifle to call upon Heaven to Minister to the extravagancies of their own impotent and unreasonable passions But our Lord rebukes their zeal tells them they quite mistook the case that this was not the frame and temper of his Disciples and Followers the nature and design of that Evangelical dispensation that he was come to set on foot in the World which was a more pure and perfect a more mild and gentle Institution than what was under the Old Testament in the times of Moses and Elias The Son of Man being come not to destroy mens lives but to save them 6. THE Holy Jesus not long after set forwards in his Journy to Jerusalem in order to his crucifixion and the better to prepare the minds of his Apostles for his death and departure from them he told them what he was to suffer and yet that after all he should rise again They whose minds were yet big with expectations of a temporal power and monarchy understood not well the meaning of his discourses to them However S. James and his Brother supposing the Resurrection that he spoke of would be the time when his Power and Greatness would commence prompted their Mother Salome to put up a Petition for them She presuming probably on her relation to Christ and knowing that our Saviour had promised his Apostles that when he was come into his Kingdom they should sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel and that he had already honoured her two Sons with an intimate familiarity after leave modestly asked for her address begg'd of him that when he took possession of his Kingdom her two Sons James and John might have the principal places of honour and dignity next his own Person the one sitting on his right hand and the other on his left as the Heads of Judah and Joseph had the first places among the Rulers of the Tribes in the Jewish Nation Our Lord directing his discourse to the two Apostles at whose suggestion he knew their Mother had made this address told them they quite mistook the nature of his Kingdom which consisted not in external grandeur and soveraignty but in an inward life and power wherein the highest place would be to take the greatest pains and to undergo the heaviest troubles and sufferings that they should do well to consider whether they were able to endure what
following APPARATUS is only to present the Reader with a short Scheme of the state of things in the preceding periods of the Church to let him see by what degrees and measures the Evangelical state was introduc'd and what Methods God in all Ages made use of to conduct Mankind in the paths of Piety and Vertue In the Infancy of the World he taught men by the Dictates of Nature and the common Notices of Good and Evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls them the most Ancient Law by lively Oracles and great Examples of Piety He set forth the Holy Patriarchs as Chrysostom observes as Tutors to the rest of Mankind who by their Religious lives might train up others to the practice of Vertue and as Physicians be able to cure the minds of those who were infected and overrun with Vice Afterwards says he having sufficiently testified his care of their welfare and happiness by many instances of a wise and benign Providence towards them both in the land of Canaan and in Egypt he gave them Prophets and by them wrought Signs and Wonders together with innumerable other expressions of his bounty At last finding that none of these Methods did succeed not Patriarchs not Prophets not Miracles not daily Warnings and Chastisements brought upon the World he gave the last and highest instance of his love and goodness to Mankind he sent his only begotten Son out of his own bosom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Physician both of Soul and Body who taking upon him the form of a Servant and being born of a Virgin conversed in the World and bore our sorrows and infirmities that by rescuing Humane Nature from under the weight and burden of Sin he might exalt it to Eternal Life A brief account of these things is the main intent of the following Discourse wherein the Reader will easily see that I considered not what might but what was fit to be said with respect to the end I designed it for It was drawn up under some more disadvantageous circumstances than a matter of this nature did require which were it worth the while to represent to the Reader might possibly plead for a softer Censure However such as it is it is submitted to the Readers Ingenuity and Candor W. C. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex AEd. Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. AN APPARATUS OR Discourse Introductory TO THE Whole WORK concerning the Three Great Dispensations OF THE CHURCH PATRIARCHAL MOSAICAL and EVANGELICAL SECT I. Of the PATRIARCHAL Dispensation The Tradition of Elias The three great Periods of the Church The Patriarchal Age. The Laws then in force natural or positive Natural Laws what evinced from the testimony of natural conscience The 〈◊〉 Precepts of the Sons of Noah Their respect to the Law of Nature Positive Laws under that dispensation Eating Blood why prohibited The mystery and signification of it Circumcision when commanded and why The Laws concerning Religion Their publick Worship what Sacrifices in what sence natural and how far instituted The manner of God's testifying his acceptance What the place of their publick Worship Altars and Groves whence Abraham's Oke its long continuance and destruction by Constantine The Original of the Druids The times of their religious Assemblies In process of time Genes 4. what meant by it The Seventh Day whether kept from the beginning The Ministers of Religion who The Priesthood of the first-born In what cases exercised by younger Sons The state of Religion successively under the several Patriarchs The condition of it in Adam's Family The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel and their different success whence Seth his great Learning and Piety The face of the Church in the time of Enosh What meant by Then began Men to call upon the Name of the Lord. No Idolatry before the Flood The Sons of God who The great corruption of Religion in the time of Jared Enoch's Piety and walking with God His translation what The incomparable sanctity of Noah and his strictness in an evil Age. The character of the men of that time His preservation from the Deluge God's Covenant with him Sem or 〈◊〉 whether the Elder Brother The confusion of Languages when and why Abraham's Idolatry and conversion His eminency for Religion noted in the several instances of it God's Covenant with him concerning the Messiah The Piety of Isaac and Jacob. Jacob's blessing the twelve Tribes and foretelling the Messiah Patriarchs extraordinary under this dispensation Melchisedeck who wherein a type of Christ. Job his Name Country Kindred Quality Religion Sufferings when he lived A reflection upon the religion of the old World and its agreement with Christianity GOD who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son For having created Man for the noblest purposes to love serve and enjoy his Maker he was careful in all Ages by various Revelations of his Will to acquaint him with the notices of his duty and to shew him what was good and what the Lord did require of him till all other Methods proving weak and ineffectual for the recovery and the happiness of humane nature God was pleased to crown all the former dispensations with the Revelation of his Son There is among the Jews an ancient Tradition of the House of Elias that the World should last Six Thousand Years which they thus compute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two Thousand Years empty little being recorded of those first Ages of the World Two Thousand Years the Law and Two Thousand the Days of the Messiah A Tradition which if it minister to no other purposes does yet afford us a very convenient division of the several Ages and Periods of the Church which may be considered under a three-fold Oeconomy the Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical dispensation A short view of the two former will give us great advantage to survey the later that new and better dispensation which God has made to the World 2. THE Patriarchal Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call it the days of emptiness commenced from the beginning of the World and lasted till the delivery of the Law upon Mount Sinai And under this state the Laws which God gave for the exercise of Religion and the Government of his Church were either Natural or Positive Natural Laws are those innate Notions and Principles whether speculative or practical with which every Man is born into the World those common sentiments of Vertue and Religion those Principia justi decori Principles of fit and right that naturally are upon the minds of Men and are obvious to their reason at first sight commanding what is just and honest and forbidding what is evil and uncomely and that not only in the general that what is good is to be embraced and what is evil to be avoided but in the particular instances of duty according to their conformity or repugnancy
not be eaten not only for the former reason but because God had designed it for particular purposes to be the great Instrument of Expiation and an eminent type of the Blood of the Son of God who was to dye as the great expiatory Sacrifice for the World Nay it was re-established by the Apostles in the infancy of Christianity and observed by the Primitive Christians for several Ages as we have elsewhere observed 5. THE other Precept was concerning Circumcision given to Abraham at the time of God's entring into Covenant with him God said unto Abraham Thou shalt keep my Covenant c. This is my Covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy Seed after thee every Man-child among you shall be circumcised and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your fore-skin and it shall be a token of the Covenant betwixt me and you God had now made a Covenant with Abraham to take his Posterity for his peculiar People and that out of them should arise the promised Messiah and as all foederal compacts have some solemn and external rites of ratification so God was pleased to add Circumcision as the sign and seal of this Covenant partly as it had a peculiar fitness in it to denote the promised Seed partly that it might be a discriminating badge of Abraham's Children that part whom God had especially chosen out of the rest of Mankind from all other People On Abraham's part it was a sufficient argument of his hearty compliance with the terms of this Covenant that he would so chearfully submit to so unpleasing and 〈◊〉 a sign as was imposed upon him For Circumcision could not but be both painful and dangerous in one of his Years as it was afterwards to be to all new-born Infants whence 〈◊〉 complained of Moses commanding her to circumcise her Son that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an husband of bloods a cruel and inhumane Husband And this the Jewes tell us was the reason why circumcision was omitted during their Fourty Years Journy in the Wilderness it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason of the trouble and inconvenience of the way God mercifully dispensing with the want of it 〈◊〉 it should hinder their travelling the soarness and weakness of the circumcised Person not comporting with hard and continual Journies It was to be administred the eighth day not sooner the tenderness of the Infant not well till then complying with it besides that the Mother of a Male-child was reckoned legally impure till the seventh Day not later probably because the longer it was deferred the more unwilling would Parents be to put their Children to pain of which they would every Day become more sensible not to say the satisfaction it would be to them to see their Children solemnly entred into Covenant Circumcision was afterwards incorporated into the Body of the Jewish Law and entertained with a mighty Veneration as their great and standing Priviledge relied on as the main Basis and Foundation of their 〈◊〉 and hopes of acceptance with Heaven and accounted in a manner equivalent to all the other Rites of the Mosaic Law 6. BUT besides these two we find other positive Precepts which though not so clearly expressed are yet sufficiently intimated to us Thus there seems to have been a Law that none of the Holy Line none of the Posterity of Seth should marry with Infidels or those corrupt and idolatrous Nations which God had rejected as appears in that it 's charged as a great part of the sin of the old World that the Sons of God matched with the Daughters of Men as also from the great care which Abraham took that his Son Isaac should not take a Wife of the Daughters of the Canaanites among whom he dwelt There was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jus Levirationis whereby the next Brother to him who died without Issue was obliged to marry the Widow of the deceased and to raise up seed unto his Brother the contempt whereof cost Onan his Life together with many more particular Laws which the story of those Times might suggest to us But what is of most use and importance to us is to observe what Laws God gave for the administration of his Worship which will be best known by considering what worship generally prevailed in those early Times wherein we shall especially remarque the nature of their publick Worship the Places where the Times when and the Persons by whom it was administred 7. IT cannot be doubted but that the Holy Patriarchs of those days were careful to instruct their Children and all that were under their charge their Families being then very vast and numerous in the Duties of Religion to explain and improve the natural Laws written upon their minds and acquaint them with those Divine Traditions and positive Revelations which they themselves had received from God this being part of that great character which God gave of Abraham I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment To this they joyned Prayer and Invocation than which no duty is more natural and necessary more natural because it fitly expresses that great reverence and veneration which we have for the Divine Majesty and that propensity that is in Mankind to make known their wants none more necessary because our whole dependance being upon the continuance and constant returns of the Divine power and goodness 't is most reasonable that we should make our Daily addresses to him in whom we live move and have our being Nor were they wanting in returns of praise and solemn celebrations of the goodness of Heaven both by entertaining high and venerable thoughts of God and by actions suitable to those honourable sentiments which they had of him In these acts of worship they were careful to use gestures of the greatest reverence and submission which commonly was prostration Abraham bowed himself towards the ground and when God sent the Israelites the happy news of their deliverance out of Egypt they bowed their Heads and worshipped A posture which hath ever been the usual mode of adoration in those Eastern Countries unto this day But the greatest instance of the Publick Worship of those times was Sacrifices a very early piece of Devotion in all probability taking its rise from Adam's fall They were either Eucharistical expressions of thankfulness for blessings received or expiatory offered for the remission of sin Whether these Sacrifices were first taken up at Mens arbitrary pleasure or positively instituted and commanded by God might admit of a very large enquiry But to me the case seems plainly this that as to Eucharistical 〈◊〉 such as first-fruits and the like oblations Mens own reason might suggest and perswade them that it was fit to present them as the most natural significations of a thankful mind And thus far there might be Sacrifices in the
state of Innocence for Man being created under such excellent circumstances as he was in Paradise could not but know that he owed to God all possible gratitude and subjection obedience he owed him as his Supreme Lord and Master gratitude as his great Patron and Benefactor and was therefore obliged to pay to him some Eucharistical Sacrifices as a testimony of his grateful acknowledgment that he had both his being and preservation from him But when sin had changed the scene and Man-kind was sunk under a state of guilt he was then to seek for a way how to pacifie God's anger and this was done by bloody and expiatory sacrifices which God accepted in the sinners stead And as to these it seems reasonable to suppose that they should be founded upon a positive Institution because pardon of sin being a matter of pure grace and favour whatever was a means to signifie and convey that must be appointed by God himself first revealed to Adam and by him communicated to his Children The Deity propitiated by these atonements was wont to testifie his acceptance of them by some external and visible sign Thus Cain sensibly perceived that God had respect to Abel's sacrifice and not to his though what this sign was it is not easie to determine Most probably it was fire from Heaven coming down upon the Oblation and consuming it For so it frequently was in the Sacrifices of the Mosaic dispensation and so we find it was in that famous Sacrifice of Abraham a Lamp of Fire passed between the parts of the Sacrifice Thus when 't is said God had respect to Abel and to his offering Theodotion renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he burnt it and to this custome the Psalmist alludes in that Petition Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reduce thy burnt-offering into ashes 8. WHERE it was that this Publick Worship was performed is next to be enquired into That they had fixed and determinate Places for the discharge of their religious Duties those especially that were done in common is greatly probable Nature and the reason of things would put them upon it And this most think is intended in that phrase where it is said of Cain and Abel that they brought their oblations that is as Aben-Ezra and others expound it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the place set apart for divine worship And this probably was the reason why Cain though vexed to the heart to see his Brother preferred before him did not presently set upon him the solemnity and religion of the Place and the sensible appearances of the Divine Majesty having struck an awe into him but deferred his murdrous intentions till they came into the Field and there fell upon him For their Sacrifices they had Altars whereon they offered them contemporary no doubt with Sacrifices themselves though we read not of them till after the Flood when Noah built an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt-offerings upon it So Abraham immediately after his being called to the worship of the true God in Sichem built an Altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him and removing thence to a Mountain Eastward he built another Altar and called on the Name of the Lord as indeed he did almost in every place where he came Thus also when he dwelt at Beer-sheba in the Plains of Mamre he planted a Grove there and called on the Name of the Lord the everlasting God This no doubt was the common Chappel or Oratory whither Abraham and his numerous Family and probably those whom he gained to be Proselytes to his Religion were wont to retire for their publick adorations as a Place infinitely advantageous for such Religious purposes And indeed the Ancient devotion of the World much delighted in Groves in Woods and Mountains partly for the conveniency of such Places as better composing the thoughts for divine contemplations and resounding their joynt-praises of God to the best advantage partly because the silence and retiredness of the Place was apt to beget a kind of sacred dread and horrour in the mind of the Worshipper Hence we find in Ophrah where Gideon's Father dwelt an Altar to Baal and a Grove that was by it and how common the superstitions and idolatries of the Heathen-world were in Groves and High-places no Man can be ignorant that is never so little conversant either in prophane or sacred stories For this reason that they were so much abused to idolatry God commanded the Israelites to destroy their Altars break down their Images and cut down their Groves and that they should not plant a Grove of any Trees near unto the Altar of the Lord lest he should seem to countenance what was so universally prostituted to false worship and idolatry But to return to Abraham He planted a Grove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tree which the Ancients generally make to have been a large spreading Oake and some foundation there is for it in the sacred Text for the place where Abraham planted it is called the Plain of Mamre or as in the Hebrew he dwelt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Oakes of Mamre and so the Syriac renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The House of the Oake The name whereof Josephus tells us was Ogyges and it is not a conjecture to be despised that Noah might probably inhabit in this place and either give the name to it or at least derive his from it Ogyges being the Name by which he is usually described in forreign Writers This very Oake S. Hierom assures us and Eusebius intimates as much was yet standing till the time of Constantine and worshipped with great superstition And Sozomen tells us more particularly that there was a famous Mart held there every Summer and a Feast celebrated by a general confluence of the neighbouring Countries and Persons of all Religions both Christians Jews and Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one doing honour to this Place according to the different Principles of their Religion but that Constantin being offended that the Place should be prophan'd with the superstitions of the Jews and the idolatry of the Gentiles wrote with some severity to Macarius the Bishop of Jerusalem and the Bishops of Palestin that they should destroy the Altars and Images and deface all Monuments of Idolatry and restore the Place to its ancient Sanctity Which was accordingly done and a Church 〈◊〉 in the Place where God was purely and sincerely worshipped From this Oake the ordinary place of Abraham's worship and devotion the Religion of the Gentiles doubtless derived its Oakes and Groves and particularly the Druids the great and almost only Masters and Directors of all Learning and Religion among the Ancient Brittains hence borrowed their Original who are so notoriously known to have lived wholly under Oakes and Groves and there to have delivered their Doctrines and Precepts and to have
veneration for the holiness and purity of their lives When Seth came to lie upon his death-bed he summoned his Children their Wives and Families together blessed them and as his last Will commanded them to worship God adjuring them by the bloud of Abel their usual and solemn oath that they should not descend from the holy Mount to hold any correspondence or commerce with Cain or his wicked faction And then breathed his last A command say my Authors which they observed for seven generations and then came in the promiscuous mixtures 13. To Seth succeeded his Son Enos who kept up the glory and purity of Religion and the honour of the holy Line Of his time it is particularly recorded then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. The ambiguity of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying sometimes to prophane sometimes to begin hath begotten various apprehensions among learned men concerning this place and led them not only into different but quite contrary sences The words are by some rendred thus Then men prophaned in calling upon the name of the Lord which they thus explain that at that time when Enos was born the true worship and service of God began to sink and fail corruption and idolatry mightily prevailing by reason of Cains wicked and apostate Family and that as a sad memorial of this corrupt and degenerate Age holy Seth called his son's name Enosh which not only simply signifies a man but a poor calamitous miserable man And this way go many of the Jews and some Christian writers of great name and note Nay Maimonides one of the wisest and soberest of all the Jewish writers begins his Tract about Idolatry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the times of Enosh referring to this very passage he tells us that men did then grievously erre and that the minds of the wise men of those days were grown gross and stupid yea that Enos himself was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among those that erred and that their Idolatry consisted in this That they worshipped the Stars and the Host of Heaven Others there are who expresly assert that 〈◊〉 was the first that invented Images to excite the Spirit of the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that by their mediation men might invocate and call upon God But how infirm a foundation this Text is to build all this upon is evident For besides what some have observed that the Hebrew phrase is not tolerably reconcileable with such a sence if it were yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one of the Rabbins has well noted that there wants a foundation for any such exposition no mention being made in Moses his story of any such false Gods as were then worshipped no footsteps of Idolatry appearing in the World till after the Flood Nor indeed is it reasonable to suppose that the Creation of the World being yet fresh in memory and Divine Traditions so lately received from Adam and God frequently communicating himself to men that the case being thus men could in so short a time be fallen under so great an apostasie as wholly to forget and renounce the true God and give Divine honours to senseless and inanimate creatures I can hardly think that the Cainites themselves should be guilty of this much less Enosh and his Children The meaning of the words then is plainly this That in Enosh his time the holy Line being greatly multiplied they applied themselves to the worship of God in a more publick and remarkable manner either by framing themselves into more distinct societies for the exercise of publick worship or by meeting at more fixed and stated times or by invocating God under more solemn and peculiar rites than they had done before And this probably they did the rather to obviate that torrent of prophaneness and impiety which by means of the sons of Cain they saw flowing in upon the World This will be further confirmed if we take the words as by some they are rendred then men began to be called by the name of the Lord that is the difference and separation that was between the children of Seth and Cain every day ripening into a wider distance the posterity of Seth began to take to themselves a distinctive title that the World might the better distinguish between those who kept to the service of God and those who threw off Religion and let loose the reins to disorder and impiety And hereof we meet with clear intimation in the story of those times when we read of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sons of God who doubtless were the pious and devout posterity of Seth calling themselves after the name of the Lord whom they constantly and sincerely worshipped notwithstanding the fancy of Josephus and the Fathers that they were Angels or that of the Jewish Paraphrasts that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sons of great men and Princes in opposition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sons of men the impure and debauched posterity of Cain who made light of Religion and were wholly governed by 〈◊〉 and sensual inclinations And the matching of these sons of God with the daughters of men that is those of the Family of Cain and the fatal consequences of those unhappy marriages was that which provoked God to destroy the World I have no more to add concerning Enosh than that we are told that dying he gave the same commands to his Children which he had received of his Father that they should make Religion their great care and business and keep themselves pure from society and converse with the Line of Cain 14. AFTER Enosh was his son Kenan who as the Arabian Historian informs us ruled the people committed to him by a wise and excellent government and gave the same charge at his death that had been given to him Next Kenan comes Mahalcleel who carries devotion and piety in his very name signifying one that praises God of whom they say that he trained up the people in ways of justice and piety blessed his Children at his death and having charged them to separate from the Cainites appointed his son Jared to be his successor whose name denotes a descent probably either because of the notable decrease and declension of piety in his time or because in his days some of the Sethites descended from the holy Mountain to mix with the posterity of Cain For so the Oriental writers inform us that a great noise and shout coming up from the Valley an hundred of the holy Mountaineers agreed to go down to the sons of Cain whom Jared endeavoured to hinder by all the arts of counsel and perswasion But what can stop a mind bent upon an evil course down they went and being ravished with the beauty of the Cainite-women promiscuously committed folly and lewdness with them from whence sprang a race of Giants men of vast and robust bodies but of more vicious and ungovernable
his people and free liberty to go serve and worship the God of their Fathers And that he might not seem a mere pretender to Divine revelation but that he really had an immediate commission from Heaven God was pleased to furnish him with extraordinary Credentials and to seal his Commission with a power of working Miracles beyond all the Arts of Magick and those tricks for which the Egyptian Sorcerers were so famous in the World But Pharaoh unwilling to part with such useful Vassals and having oppressed them beyond possibility of reconcilement would not hearken to the proposal but sometimes downright rejected it otherwhiles sought by subtil and plausible pretences to evade and shift it off till by many astonishing Miracles and severe Judgments God extorted at length a grant from him Under the conduct of Moses they set forwards after at least two hundred years servitude under the Egyptian yoke and though 〈◊〉 sensible of his error with a great Army pursued them either to cut them off or bring them back God made way for them through the midst of the Sea the waters becoming like a wall of Brass on each side of them till being all passed to the other 〈◊〉 those invisible cords which had hitherto tied up that liquid Element bursting in sunder the waters returned and overwhelmed their enemies that pursued them Thus God by the same stroke can protect his friends and punish his enemies Nor did the Divine Providence here take its leave of them but became their constant guard and defence in all their journeys waiting upon them through their several stations in the wilderness the most memorable whereof was that at Mount Sinai in Arabia The place where God delivered them the pattern in the Mount according to which the form both of their Church and State was to be framed and modelled In order hereunto Moses is called up into the Mount where by Fasting and Prayer he conversed with Heaven and received the body of their Laws Three days the people were by a pious and devout care to sanctifie and prepare themselves for the promulgation of the Law they might not come near their Wives were commanded to wash their clothes as an embleme and representation of that cleansing of the heart and that inward purity of mind where with they were to entertain the Divine will On the third day in the morning God descended from Heaven with great appearances of Majesty and terror with thunders and lightnings with black clouds and tempests with shouts and the loud noise of a trumpet which trumpet say the Jews was made of the horn of that Ram that was offered in the room of Isaac with fire and smoke on the top of the Mount ascending up like the smoke of a Furnace the Mountain it self greatly quaking the people trembling nay so terrible was the sight that Moses who had so frequently so familiarly conversed with God said I exceedingly fear and quake All which pompous trains of terror and magnificence God made use of at this time to excite the more solemn attention to his Laws and to beget a greater reverence and veneration for them in the minds of the people and to let them see how able he was to call them to account and by the severest penalties to vindicate the violation of his Law 4. THE Code and Digest of those Laws which God now gave to the Jews as the terms of that National Covenant that he made with them consisted of three sorts of Precepts Moral Ecelesiastical and Political which the Jews will have intimated by those three words that so frequently occur in the writings of Moses Laws Statutes and Judgments By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laws they understand the Moral Law the notices of good and evil naturally implanted in mens minds By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Statutes Ceremonial Precepts instituted by God with peculiar reference to his Church By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Judgments Political Laws concerning Justice and Equity the order of humane society and the prudent and peaceable managery of the Commonwealth The Moral Laws inserted into this Code are those contained in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the ten words that were written upon two Tables of Stone These were nothing else but a summary Comprehension of the great Laws of Nature engraven at first upon the minds of all men in the World the most material part whereof was now consigned to writing and incorporated into the body of the Jewish Law I know the Decalogue is generally taken to be a complete System of all natural Laws But whoever impartially considers the matter will find that there are many instances of duty so far from being commanded in it that they are not reducible to any part of it unless hook'd in by subtilties of wit and drawn thither by forc'd and unnatural inferences What provision except in one case or two do any of those Commandments make against neglects of duty Where do they obligue us to do good to others to love assist relieve our enemies Gratitude and thankfulness to benefactors is one of the prime and essential Laws of Nature and yet no where that I know of unless we will have it implied in the Preface to the Law commanded or intimated in the Decalogue With many other cases which 'tis naturally evident are our duty whereof no footsteps are to be seen in this Compendium unless hunted out by nice and sagacious reasonings and made out by a long train of consequences never originally intended in the Commandment and which not one in a thousand are capable of deducing from it It is probable therefore that God reduc'd only so many of the Laws of Nature into writing as were proper to the present state and capacities of that people to whom they were given superadding some and explaining others by the Preaching and Ministery of the Prophets who in their several Ages endeavoured to bring men out of the Shades and Thickets into clear light and Noon-day by clearing up mens obligations to those natural and essential duties in the practice whereof humane nature was to be advanced unto its just accomplishment and perfection Hence it was that our Lord who came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil and perfect it has explained the obligations of the natural Law more fully and clearly more plainly and intelligibly rendred our duty more fixed and certain and extended many instances of obedience to higher measures to a greater exactness and perfection than ever they were understood to have before Thus he commands a free and universal charity not only that we love our friends and relations but that we love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us He hath forbidden malice and revenge with more plainness and smartness obliged us not only to live according to the measures of sobriety but extended it to self-denial and taking
the doctrine which these men taught that though they were to love their neighbours that is Jewes yet might they hate their enemies In these and such like instances they had notoriously abused and evacuated the Law and in a manner rendred it of no effect And therefore when our Lord as the great Prophet sent from God came into the World the first thing he did after the entrance upon his publick Ministry was to cleanse and purifie the Law and to remove that rubbish which the Jewish Doctors had cast upon it He rescued it out of the hands of their poysonous and pernicious expositions restored it to its just authority and to its own primitive sence and meaning he taught them that the Law did not only bind the external act but prescribe to the most inward motions of the mind and that whoever transgresses here is no less obnoxious to the Divine Justice and the penalties of the Law than he that is guilty of the most gross and palpable violations of it he shewed them how infinitely more pure and strict the command was than these Impostors had represented it and plainly told them that if ever they expected to be happy they must look upon the Law with an other-guise eye and follow it after another rate than their blind and deceitful Guides did For I say unto you Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you can in no case enter into the Kingdome of God 20. THE other way by which they corrupted and dishonoured the Law and weakned the power and reputation of it was by preferring before it their Oral and unwritten Law For besides the Law consigned to Writing they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Law delivered by word of mouth whose pedigree they thus deduce They tell us that when Moses waited upon God Fourty Days in the Mount he gave him a double Law one in Writing the other Traditionary containing the sence and explication of the former being come down into his Tent he repeated it first to Aaron then to Ithamar and Eleazar his Sons then to the Seventy Elders and lastly to all the People the same Persons being all this while present Aaron who had now heard it four times recited Moses being gone out again repeated it before them after his departure out of the Tent his two Sons who by this had heard it as oft as their Father made another repetition of it by which means the Seventy Elders came to hear it four times and then they also repeated it to the Congregation who had now also heard it repeated four times together once from Moses then from Aaron then from his Sons and lastly from the Seventy Elders after which the Congregation broke up and every one went home and taught it his Neighbour This Oral Law Moses upon his Death-bed repeated to 〈◊〉 he delivered it to the Elders they to the Prophets the Prophets to the men of the great Synagogue the last of whom was Symeon the Just who delivered it to Antigonus Sochaeus and he to his Successors the wise Men whose business it was to recite it and so it was handed through several Generations the names of the Persons who delivered it in the several Ages from its first rise under Moses till above an Hundred Years after Christ being particularly enumerated by Maimonides At last it came to R. Jehuda commonly stiled by the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our holy Master the Son of Rabban Symeon who flourished a little before the time of the Emperour Antoninus who considering the unsetled and tottering condition of his own Nation and how apt these traditionary Precepts would be to be forgotten or mistaken by the weakness of Mens memories or the perversness of their wits or the dispersion of the Jews in other Countries collected all these Laws and Expositions and committed them to Writing stiling his Book Mishnaioth or the Repetition This was asterwards illustrated and explained by the Rabbines dwelling about Babylon with infinite cases and controversies concerning their Law whose resolutions were at last compiled into another Volume which they called Gemara or Doctrin and both together constitute the intire Body of the Babylonish Talmud the one being the Text the other the Comment The folly and vanity of this account though it be sufficiently evident to need no confutation with any wise and discerning Man yet have the Jewes in all Ages made great advantage of it magnifying and extolling it above the written Law with Titles and Elogies that hyperbolize into blasphemy They tell us that this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of the Law for whose sake it was that God entred into Covenant with the Israelites that without this the whole Law would lye in the dark yea be meer obscurity and darkness it self as being contrary and repugnant to it self and defective in things necessary to be known that it is joy to the heart and health to the bones that the words of it are more lovely and desirable than the words of the Law and a greater sin to violate the one than thé other that it 's little or no commendation for a Man to read the Bible but to study the Mishna is that for which a Man shall receive the reward of the other World and that no Man can have a peaceable and quiet conscience who leaves the study of the Talmud to go to that of the Bible that the Bible is like Water the Mishna like Wine the Talmud like spiced Wine that all the words of the Rabbins are the very words of the living God from which a Man might not depart though they should tell him his right hand were his left and his left his right nay they blush not nor tremble to assert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that to study in the holy Bible is nothing else but to lose our time I will mention but one bold and blasphemous sentence more that we may see how far these desperate wretches are given over to a spirit of impiety and infatuation they tell us that he that dissents from his Rabbin or Teacher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissents from the Divine Majesty but he that believes the words of the wise men believes God himself 21. STRANGE that Men should so far offer violence to their reason so far conquer and subdue their conscience as to be able to talk at this wild and prodigious rate and stranger it would seem but that we know a Generation of Men great Patrons of Tradition too in another Church who mainly endeavour to debase and suppress the Scriptures and value their unwritten Traditions at little less rate than this But I let them pass This is no novel and upstart humour of the Jews they were notoriously guilty of it in our 〈◊〉 days whom we find frequently charging them with their superstitious observances of many little rites and usages derived from the Traditions of the Elders wherein they placed the main of
and perfection whereof he designed should be brought in by Christ. And how admirably did God herein condescend to the temper and humor of that people for being of a more rough and childish disposition apt to be taken with gaudy and sensible objects by the external and pompous institutions of the Ceremonial Dispensation he prepared them for better things as children are brought on by things accommodate to their weak capacities The Church was then an heir under age and was to be trained up in such a way as agreed best with its Infant-temper till it came to be of a more ripe manly age able to digest Evangelical mysteries and then the cover and the veil was taken off and things made to appear in their own form and shape 7. HENCE in the next place appears our happiness above them that we are redeemed from those many severe and burdensom impositions wherewith they were clogg'd and are now obliged only to a more easie and reasonable service That the Law was a very grievous and 〈◊〉 Dispensation is evident to any that considers how much it consisted of carnal ordinances costly duties chargeable sacrifices and innumerable little Rites and Ceremonies Under that state they were bound to undergo yea even new-born Infants the bloudy and painful 〈◊〉 of Circumcision to abstain from many sorts of food useful and pleasant to man's life to keep multitudes of solemn and stated times new Moons and Ceremonial Sabbaths to take long and tedious journeys to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices at the Temple to observe daily washings and purifications to use infinite care and caution in every place for if by chance they did but touch an unclean thing besides their present confinement it put them to the expences of a sacrifice with hundreds more troublesome and costly observances required of them A cruel bondage heavy burdens and grievous to be born under the weight whereof good men did then groan and earnestly breath after the time of reformation the very Apostles complained that it was a yoke upon their necks which neither their Fathers nor they were able to bear But this yoke is taken off from our shoulders and the way open into the liberties of the children of God The Law bore a heavy hand over them as children in their minority we are got from under the rod and lash of its tutorage and Pedagogie and are no more subject to the severity of its commands to the exact punctilio's and numerousness of its impositions Our Lord has removed that low and troublesome Religion and has brought in a more manly and rational way of worship more suitable to the perfections of God and more accommodate to the reason and understandings of men A Religion incomparably the wisest and the best that ever took place in the World God did not settle the Religion of the Jews and their way of worship because good and excellent in it self but for its suitableness to the temper of that people Happy we whom the Gospel has freed from those intolerable observances to which they were obliged and has taught us to serve God in a better way more 〈◊〉 and acceptable more humane and natural and in which we are helped forwards by greater aids of Divine assistence than were afforded under that Dispensation All which conspire to render our way smooth and plain Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easie and my burden is light 8. THIRDLY the Dispensation of the Gospel is founded upon more noble and excellent promises A better Covenant established upon better promises And better promises they are both for the nature and clearness of their revelation They were of a more sublime and excellent nature as being promises of spiritual and eternal things such as immediately concerned the perfection and happiness of mankind grace peace pardon and eternal life The Law strictly considered as a particular Covenant with the Jews at Mount Sinai had no other promises but of temporal blessings plenty and prosperity and the happiness of this life This was all that appeared above-ground and that was expresly held forth in that transaction whatever might otherwise by due inferences and proportions of reason be deduced from it Now this was a great defect in that Dispensation it being by this means considering the nature and disposition of that people and the use they would make of it apt to intangle and debase the minds of men and to arrest their thoughts and desires in the pursuit of more sublime and better things I do not say but that under the Old Testament there were promises of spiritual things and of eternal happiness as appears from 〈◊〉 Psalms and some passages in the Books of the Prophets But then these though they were under the Law yet they were not of the Law that is did not properly belong to it as a legal Covenant God in every age of the Jewish Church raising up some extraordinary persons who preached notions to the people above the common standard of that Dispensation and who spoke things more plainly by how much nearer they approached the times of the Messiah But under the Christian Oeconomy the promises are evidently more pure and spiritual not a temporal Canaan external prosperity or pardon of ceremonial uncleanness but remission of sins reconciliation with God and everlasting life are proposed and offered to us Not but that in some measure temporal blessings are promised to us as well as them only with this difference to them earthly blessings were pledges of spiritual to us spiritual blessings are ensurances of temporal so far as the Divine wisdom sees fit for us Nor are they better in themselves than they are clearly discovered and revealed to us Whatever spiritual blessings were proposed under the former state were obscure and dark and very few of the people understood them But to us the veil is taken off and we behold the glory of the Lord with open face especially the things that relate to another World for this is the promise that he hath promised us even Eternal Life Hence our Lord is said to have brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel Which he may be justly said to have done inasmuch as he has given the greatest certainty and the clearest account of that state He hath given us the greatest assurance and certainty of the thing that there is such a state The happiness of the other World was a notion not so firmly agreed upon either amongst Jews or Gentiles Among the Jews it was peremptorily denied by the Sadducees a considerable Sect in that Church which we can hardly suppose they would have done had it been clearly propounded in the Law of Moses And among the Heathens the most sober and considering persons did at some times at least doubt of it witness that confession of Socrates himself the wisest and best man that ever was in the Heathen World who when he came to plead his cause before his Judges and
had bravely discoursed of the happy state of good men in the other Life plainly consessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and 〈◊〉 which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our 〈◊〉 state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it 〈◊〉 uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the insluences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and sloods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit 〈◊〉 enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to 〈◊〉 in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this 〈◊〉 is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods 〈◊〉 by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he 〈◊〉 down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when out Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so t were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious
an uncertain hill and the way to it had been upon the waters upon which no spirit but that of Contradiction and Discord did ever move for the man should have tended to an end of an uncertain dwelling and walked to it by ways not discernible and arrived thither by chance which because it is irregular would have discomposed the pleasures of a Christian Hope as the very disputing hath already destroyed Charity and disunited the continuity of Faith and in the consequent there would be no Vertue and no Felicity But God who never loved that Man should be too ambitiously busie in imitating his Wisedom and Man lost Paradise for it is most desirous we should imitate his Goodness and transcribe copies of those excellent Emanations from his Holiness whereby as he communicates himself to us in Mercies so he propounds himself imitable by us in Graces And in order to this God hath described our way plain certain and determined and although he was pleased to leave us indetermined in the Questions of exteriour Communion yet he put it past all question that we are bound to be Charitable He hath placed the Question of the state of Separation in the dark in hidden and undiscerned regions but he hath opened the windows of Heaven and given great light to us teaching how we are to demean our selves in the state of Conjunction Concerning the Salvation of Heathens he was not pleased to give us account but he hath clearly described the duty of Christians and tells upon what terms alone we shall be saved And although the not inquiring into the ways of God and the strict rules of practice have been instrumental to the preserving them free from the serpentine enfoldings and labyrinths of Dispute yet God also with a great design of mercy hath writ his Commandments in so large characters and engraven them in such Tables that no man can want the Records nor yet skill to read the hand-writing upon this wall if he understands what he understands that is what is placed in his own spirit For God was therefore desirous that humane nature should be perfected with moral not intellectual Excellencies because these only are of use and compliance with our present state and conjunction If God had given to Eagles an appetite to swim or to the Elephant strong desires to fly he would have ordered that an abode in the Sea and the Air respectively should have been proportionable to their manner of living for so God hath done to Man fitting him with such Excellencies which are useful to him in his ways and progress to Perfection A man hath great use and need of Justice and all the instances of Morality serve his natural and political ends he cannot live without them and be happy but the filling the rooms of the Understanding with aiery and ineffective Notions is just such an Excellency as it is in a Man to imitate the voice of Birds at his very best the Nightingale shall excel him and it is of no use to that End which God designed him in the first intentions of creation In pursuance of this consideration I have chosen to serve the purposes of Religion by doing assistence to that part of Theologie which is wholly practical that which makes us wiser therefore because it makes us 〈◊〉 And truly my Lord it is enough to weary the spirit of a Disputer that he shall argue till he hath lost his voice and his time and sometimes the Question too and yet no man shall be of his mind more than was before How few turn Lutherans or Calvinists or Roman Catholicks from the Religion either of their Country or Interest Possibly two or three weak or interested phantastick and easie prejudicate and effeminate understandings pass from Church to Church upon grounds as weak as those for which formerly they did dissent and the same Arguments are good or bad as exteriour accidents or interiour appetites shall determine I deny not but for great causes some Opinions are to be quitted but when I consider how few do forsake any and when any do oftentimes they chuse the wrong side and they that take the righter do it so by contingency and the advantage also is so little I believe that the triumphant persons have but small reason to please themselves in gaining Proselytes since their purchase is so small and as inconsiderable to their triumph as it is unprofitable to them who change for the worse or for the better upon unworthy motives In all this there is nothing certain nothing noble But he that follows the work of God that is labours to gain Souls not to a Sect and a Subdivision but to the Christian Religion that is to the Faith and Obedience of the Lord JESUS hath a promise to be assisted and rewarded and all those that go to Heaven are the purchase of such undertakings the fruit of such culture and labours for it is only a holy life that lands us there And now my Lord I have told you my reasons I shall not be ashamed to say that I am weary and toiled with rowing up and down in the seas of Questions which the Interests of Christendom have commenced and in many Propositions of which I am heartily perswaded I am not certain that I am not deceived and I find that men are most confident of those Articles which they can so little prove that they never made Questions of them But I am most certain that by living in the Religion and fear of God in Obedience to the King in the Charities and duties of Communion with my Spiritual Guides in Justice and Love with all the world in their several proportions I shall not fail of that End which is perfective of humane nature and which will never be obtained by Disputing Here therefore when I had fixed my thoughts upon sad apprehensions that God was removing our Candlestick for why should be not when men themselves put the Light out and pull the Stars from their Orbs so hastening the day of God's Judgment I was desirous to put a portion of the holy fire into a Repository which might help to re-enkindle the Incense when it shall please God Religion shall return and all his Servants sing In convertendo captivitatem Sion with a voice of Eucharist But now my Lord although the results and issues of my retirements and study do naturally run towards You and carry no excuse for their forwardness but the confidence that your Goodness rejects no emanation of a great affection yet in this Address I am apt to promise to my self a fair interpretation because I bring you an instrument and auxiliaries to that Devotion whereby we believe you are dear to God and know that you are to good men And if these little sparks of holy fire which I have heaped together do not give life to your prepared and already-enkindled Spirit yet they will sometimes help to entertain a Thought to actuate a Passion to imploy and hallow
a Fancy and put the body of your Piety into fermentation by presenting you with the circumstances and parts of such Meditations which are symbolical to those of your daily Office and which are the passe-temps of your severest hours My Lord I am not so vain to think that in the matter of Devotion and the rules of Justice and Religion which is the business of your life I can add any thing to your heap of excellent things but I have known and felt comfort by reading or hearing from other persons what I knew my self and it was unactive upon my spirit till it was made vigorous and effective from without And in this sence I thought I might not be useless and impertinent My Lord I designed to be instrumental to the Salvation of all persons that shall read my Book But unless because Souls are equal in their substance and equally redeemed we are obliged to wish the Salvation of all men with the greatest that is with equal desires I did intend in the highest manner I could to express how much I am to pay to you by doing the offices of that Duty which although you less need yet I was most bound to pay even the duties and charities of Religion having this design that when posterity for certainly they will learn to distinguish things and persons shall see your Honoured Name imployed to separate and rescue these Papers from contempt they may with the more confidence expect in them something fit to be offered to such a Personage My Lord I have my end if I serve God and You and the needs and interests of Souls but shall think my return full of reward if you shall give me pardon and put me into your Litanies and account me in the number of your Relatives and Servants for indeed my Lord I am most heartily Your Lordship's most affectionate and most obliged Servant JER TAYLOR THE CONTENTS THE PREFACE fol. I. An Exhortation to the Imitation of the Life of CHRIST fol. i SECT I. The History of the Conception of JESUS pag. 1. Considerations upon the Annunciation of the Blessed MARY and the Conception of the Holy Jesus p. 3. SECT II. The Bearing of JESUS in the 〈◊〉 of the Blessed 〈◊〉 p. 7. Considerations concerning the circumstances of the Interval between the Conception and Nativity p. 8. SECT III. The Nativity of our Blessed Saviour JESUS p. 13. Considerations upon the Birth of our Blessed Saviour JESUS p. 15. Discourse 1. Of Nursing Children in imitation of the Blessed Virgin-Mother p. 18. SECT IV. Of the great and glorious Accidents happening about the Birth of JESUS p. 25. Considerations upon the Apparition of the Angels to the Shepherds p. 28. Considerations upon the Epiphany of the Blessed JESUS by a Star and the Adoration of JESUS by the Eastern Magi. p. 31. SECT V. Of the Circumcision of JESUS and his Presentation in the Temple p. 35. Considerations upon the Circumcision of the Holy Child JESUS p. 36. Discourse 2. Of the Vertue of Obedience p. 40. Considerations upon the Presentation of JESUS in the Temple p. 51. Discourse 3. Of Meditation p. 54. SECT VI. Of the Death of the Holy Innocents or the Babes of Bethlehem and the Flight of JESUS into Egypt p. 65. Considerations upon the Death of the Innocents and the Flight of the Holy JESUS into Egypt p. 67. SECT VII Of the younger years of JESUS and his Disputation with the Doctors in the Temple p. 73. Considerations upon the Disputation of JESUS with the Doctors in the Temple p. 74. SECT VIII Of the Preaching of John the Baptist preparative to the Manifestation of JESUS p. 77. Considerations upon the Preaching of John the Baptist. p. 78. Discourse 4. Of Mortification and corporal Austerities p. 82. SECT IX Of JESUS being Baptized and going into the Wilderness to be tempted p. 93. Considerations upon the Baptizing Fasting and Temptation of the Holy JESUS by the Devil p. 95. Discourse 5. Of Temptation p. 102. Discourse 6. Of Baptism p. 116. Of Baptizing Infants p. 127. SECT X. Of the first Manifestation of JESUS by the Testimony of John and a Miracle p. 151. Considerations touching the Vocation of five Disciples and of the first Miracle of JESUS done at Cana in Galilee p. 155. Discourse 7. Of Faith p. 159. SECT XI Of CHRIST's going to Jerusalem to the Passeover the first time after his Manifestation and what followed till the expiration of the Office of John the Baptist. p. 167. Considerations upon the first Journey of the Holy JESUS to Jerusalem when he whipt the Merchants out of the Temple p. 169. Discourse 8. Of the Religion of Holy Places p. 171. SECT XII Of JESUS's departure into Galilee his manner of Life Miracles and Preaching his calling of Disciples and what happened until the second Passeover p. 181. Considerations upon the Entercourse happening between the Holy JESUS and the Woman of Samaria p. 187. Considerations upon CHRIST's first Preaching and the Accidents happening about that time p. 193. Discourse 9. Of Repentance p. 197. Upon CHRIST's Sermon on the Mount and of the Eight Beatitudes p. 221. Discourse 10. Upon that part of the Decalogue which the Holy JESUS adopted into the Institution and obligation of Christianity p. 231. Of the three additional Precepts which CHRIST super induced and made parts of the Christian Law Discourse 11. Of CHARITY with its parts Forgiving Giving not Judging p. 232. Of Alms. p. 258. Discourse 12. Of the second additional Precept of CHRIST viz. Of PRAYER p. 261. Discourse 13. Of the third additional Precept of CHRIST viz. of the manner of FASTING p. 272. Discourse 14. Of the Miracles which JESUS wrought for confirmation of his Doctrine during the whole time of his Preaching p. 277. SECT XIII Of the Second Year of the Preaching of JESUS p. 289. Discourse 15. Of the Excellency 〈◊〉 Reasonableness and Advantages of bearing CHRIST's Yoke and living according to his Institution p. 295. Discourse 16. Of Certainty of 〈◊〉 p. 313. SECT XIV Of the Third Year of the Preaching of JESUS p. 319. Discourse 17. Of Scandal or Giving and taking Offence p. 328. Discourse 18. Of the Causes and Manner of the Divine Judgments p. 335. SECT XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus until the Death and Burial of JESUS p. 345. Considerations of some preparatory Accidents before the entrance of JESUS into his Passion p. 357. Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples feet by JESUS and his Sermon of 〈◊〉 p. 363. Discourse 19. Of the Institution and Reception of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper p. 369. Considerations upon the Accidents happening on the Vespers of the Passion p. 383. Considerations upon the Scourging and other Accidents happening from the Apprehension till the Crucifixion of JESUS p. 389. Discourse 20. Of Death and the due manner of Preparation to it p. 397. Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy JESUS p. 411. SECT XVI Of the Resurrection and
Scepter from Judah and the Law-giver from between his feet when the number of Daniel's Years was accomplished and the Egyptian and Syrian Kingdoms had their period God having great compassion towards mankind remembring his Promises and our great Necessities sent his Son into the world to take upon him our Nature and all that guilt of Sin which stuck close to our Nature and all that Punishment which was consequent to our Sin which came to pass after this manner 2. In the days of Herod the King the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a City of Galilce named Nazareth to a holy Maid called Mary espoused to Joseph and found her in a capacity and excellent disposition to receive the greatest Honour that ever was done to the daughters of men Her imployment was holy and pious her person young her years florid and springing her Body chaste her Mind humble and a rare repository of divine Graces She was full of grace and excellencies And God poured upon her a full measure of Honour in making her the Mother of the 〈◊〉 For the Angel came to her and said 〈◊〉 thou that art highly 〈◊〉 the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women 3. We cannot but imagine the great mixture of innocent disturbances and holy passions that in the first address of the Angel did rather discompose her settledness and interrupt the silence of her spirits than dispossess her dominion which she ever kept over those subjects which never had been taught to rebel beyond the mere possibilities of natural imperfection But if the Angel appeared in the shape of a Man it was an unusual arrest to the Blessed Virgin who was accustomed to retirements and solitariness and had not known an experience of admitting a comely person but a stranger to her closet and privacies But if the Heavenly Messenger did retain a Diviner form more symbolical to Angelical nature and more proportionable to his glorious Message although her daily imployment was a conversation with Angels who in their daily ministring to the Saints did behold her chaste conversation coupled with 〈◊〉 yet they used not any affrighting glories in the offices of their daily attendances but were seen only by spiritual discernings However so it happened that when she saw him she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner of Salutation this should be 4. But the Angel who came with designs of honour and comfort to her not willing that the inequality and glory of the Messenger should like too glorious a light to a weaker eye rather confound the Faculty than enlighten the Organ did before her thoughts could find a tongue invite her to a more familiar confidence than possibly a tender Virgin though of the greatest serenity and composure could have put on in the presence of such a Beauty and such a Holiness And the Angel said unto her Fear not Mary for thou hast found favour with God And behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son and shalt call his name JESUS 5. The Holy Virgin knew her self a person very unlikely to be a Mother For although the desires of becoming a Mother to the MESSIAS were great in every of the Daughters of Jacob and about that time the expectation of his Revelation was high and pregnant and therefore she was espoused to an honest and a just person of her kindred and family and so might not despair to become a Mother yet she was a person of a rare Sanctity and so mortified a spirit that for all this Desponsation of her according to the desire of her Parents and the custom of the Nation she had not set one step toward the consummation of her Marriage so much as in thought and possibly had set her self back from it by a vow of Chastity and holy Coelibate For Mary said unto the Angel How shall this be seeing I know not a man 6. But the Angel who was a person of that nature which knows no conjunctions but those of love and duty knew that the Piety of her Soul and the Religion of her chaste purposes was a great imitator of 〈◊〉 Purity and therefore perceived where the Philosophy of her question did consist and being taught of God declared that the manner should be as miraculous as the Message it self was glorious For the Angel told her that this should not be done by any way which our sin and the shame of Adam had unhallowed by turning Nature into a blush and forcing her to a retirement from a publick attesting the means of her own preservation but the whole matter was from God and so should the manner be For the Angel said unto her The Holy Ghost shall come upon 〈◊〉 and the power of the Highest shall over shadow thee therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God 7. When the Blessed Virgin was so ascertain'd that she should be a Mother and a Maid and that two Glories like the two Luminaries of Heaven should meet in her that she might in such a way become the Mother of her Lord that she might with better advantages be his Servant then all her hopes and all her desires received such satisfaction and filled all the corners of her Heart so much as indeed it was fain to make room for its reception But she to whom the greatest things of Religion and the transportations of Devotion were made familiar by the assiduity and piety of her daily practices however she was full of joy yet she was carried like a full vessel without the violent tossings of a tempestuous passion or the wrecks of a stormy imagination And as the power of the Holy Ghost did descend upon her like rain into a fleece of wool without any obstreperous noises or violences to nature but only the extraordinariness of an exaltation so her spirit received it with the gentleness and tranquillity fitted for the entertainment of the spirit of love and a quietness symbolical to the holy Guest of her spotless womb the Lamb of God for she meekly replied Behold the handmaid of the Lord be it unto me according unto thy word And the Angel departed from her having done his message And at the same time the holy Spirit of God did make her to conceive in her womb the immaculate Son of God the Saviour of the World Ad SECT I. Considerations upon the Annunciation of the Blessed MARY and the Conception of the Holy JESVS 1. THat which shines brightest presents it self first to the eye and the devout Soul in the chain of excellent and precious things which are represented in the counsel design and first beginnings of the work of our Redemption hath not 〈◊〉 to attend the twinkling of the lesser Stars till it hath stood and admired the glory and eminencies of the Divine Love manifested in the Incarnation of the Word eternal God had no necessity in order to the conservation or
but make it the more prudent and wary lest it intangle us in a vanity of spirit God having ordered that our spirits should be affected with dispositions in some degrees contrary to exteriour events that we be fearful in the affluence of prosperous things and joyful in adversity as knowing that this may produce benefit and advantage and the changes that are consequent to the other are sometimes full of mischiefs but always of danger But her Silence and Fear were her Guardians that to prevent excrescencies of Joy this of vainer complacency 9. And it is not altogether inconsiderable to observe that the holy Virgin came to a great perfection and state of Piety by a few and those modest and even exercises and external actions S. Paul travelled over the World preached to the Gentiles disputed against the Jews confounded Hereticks writ excellently-learned Letters suffered dangers injuries affronts and persecutions to the height of wonder and by these violences of life action and patience obtained the Crown of an excellent Religion and Devotion But the holy Virgin although she was ingaged sometimes in an active life and in the exercise of an ordinary and small oeconomy and government or ministeries of a Family yet she arrived to her Perfections by the means of a quiet and silent Piety the internal actions of Love Devotion and Contemplation and instructs us that not only those who have opportunity and powers of a magnificent Religion or a pompous Charity or miraculous Conversion of Souls or assiduous and effectual Preachings or exteriour demonstrations of corporal Mercy shall have the greatest crowns and the addition of degrees and accidental rewards but the silent affections the splendors of an internal Devotion the unions of Love Humility and Obedience the daily offices of Prayer and Praises sung to God the acts of Faith and Fear of Patience and Meekness of Hope and Reverence Repentance and Charity and those Graces which walk in a veil and silence make great ascents to God and as sure progress to favour and a Crown as the more ostentous and laborious exercises of a more solemn Religion No 〈◊〉 needs to complain of want of power or opportunities for Religious perfections a devout woman in her Closet praying with much zeal and affections for the conversion of Souls is in the same order to a shining like the stars in glory as he who by excellent discourses puts it into a more forward disposition to be actually performed And possibly her Prayers obtained energy and force to my Sermon and made the ground fruitful and the seed spring up to life eternal Many times God is present in the still voice and private retirements of a quiet Religion and the constant spiritualities of an ordinary life when the loud and impetuous winds and the shining fires of more laborious and expensive actions are profitable to others only like a tree of Balsam distilling precious liquor for others not for its own use The PRAYER O Eternal and Almighty God who didst send thy holy Angel in embassy to the Blessed Virgin-Mother of our Lord to manifest the actuating 〈◊〉 eternal Purpose of the 〈◊〉 of Mankind by the Incarnation of thine eternal Son put me by the 〈◊〉 of thy Divine Grace into such holy dispositions that I may never impede the event and effect of those mercies which in the counsels of thy Predestination thou didst design for me Give me a promptness to obey thee to the degree and semblance of Angelical alacrity give me holy Purity and Piety Prudence and Modesty like those Excellencies which thou didst create in the ever-blessed Virgin the Mother of God grant that my imployment be always holy unmixt with worldly affections and as much as my condition of life will bear retired from secular interests and disturbances that I may converse with Angels entertain the Holy JESUS conceive him in my Soul nourish him with the expresses of most innocent and holy affections and bring him forth and publish him in a life of Piety and Obedience that he may dwell in me for ever and I may for ever dwell with him in the house of eternal pleasures and glories world without end Amen SECT II. The Bearing of JESUS in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin MARY visiting ELIZABETH S. LUKE 1. 43. And whence is this to me that y e Mother of my LORD should come to me Josephs Dreame S MAT 1. 20. Joseph thou son of David Feare not to 〈◊〉 unto thee Marâ—â— thy wife for that 〈◊〉 is conceived in her is of the Holy 〈◊〉 1. ALthough the Blessed Virgin had a faith as prompt and ready as her Body was chast and her Soul pure yet God who uses to give full measure shaken together and running over did by way of confirmation and fixing the confidence of her assent give an instance of his Omnipotency in the very particular of an extraordinary Conception For the Angel said Behold thy Cousin Elizabeth hath also conceived a son in her old age and this is the sixth month with her that was called barren For with God nothing shall be impossible A less argument would have satisfied the necessity of a Faith which had no scruple and a greater would not have done it in the incredulity of an ungentle and pertinacious spirit But the Holy Maid had complacency enough in the Message and holy desires about her to carry her understanding as far as her affections even to the fruition of the Angel's Message which is such a sublimity of Faith that it is its utmost consummation and shall be its Crown when our Faith is turned into Vision our Hopes into actual Possessions and our Grace into Glory 2. And she who was now full of God bearing God in her Virgin-Womb and the Holy Spirit in her Heart who had also over-shadowed her enabling her to a supernatural and miraculous Conception arose with haste and gladness to communicate that joy which was designed for all the World and she found no breast to pour forth the first emanations of her over-joyed heart so fit as her Cousin Elizabeth's who had received testimony from God to have been righteous walking in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless who also had a special portion in this great honour for she was designed to be the Mother of the Baptist who was sent as a fore-runner to prepare the ways of the Lord and to make his paths straight And Mary arose in those days and went into the Hill-countrey with haste into a City of Judah 3. Her Haste was in proportion to her Joy and desires but yet went no greater pace than her Religion for as in her journey she came near to Jerusalem she turned in that she might visit His Temple whose Temple she her self was now and there not only to remember the pleasures of Religion which she had felt in continual descents and showers falling on her pious heart for the space of eleven years attendance there in her Childhood but also to pay the
and complacencies by the sweetnesses of a holy Conscience and joys spiritual promotes our temporal interests by the gains and increases of the rewards of Charity and by securing God's providence over us while we are in the pursuit of the Heavenly Kingdom And as in these dispositions she climb'd the mountains with much facility so there is nothing in our whole life of difficulty so great but it may be managed by those assistances we receive from the Holiest Jesus when we carry him about us as the valleys are exalted so the mountains are made plain before us 5. When her Cousin Elizabeth saw the Mother of her Lord come to visit her as the Lord himself descended to visit all the world in great humility she was pleased and transported to the height of wonder and prophecy and the Babe sprang in her womb and was sanctified first doing his homage and adoration to his Lord that was in presence And we also although we can do nothing unless the Lord first prevent us with his gracious visitation yet if he first come unto us and we accept and entertain him with the expresses and correspondencies of our duty we shall receive the grace and honour of Sanctification But if S. Elizabeth who received testimony from God that she walked in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless was carried into ecstasie wondring at the dignation and favour done to her by the Mother of her Lord with what preparations and holy solemnities ought we to entertain his addresses to us by his Holy Sacrament by the immissions of his Spirit by the assistances of his Graces and all other his vouchsafings and descents into our hearts 6. The Blessed Virgin hearing her Cousin full of spirit and prophecy calling her blessed and praising her Faith and confirming her Joy instantly sang her hymn to God returning those praises which she received to him to whom they did appertain For so we should worship God with all ourpraises being willing upon no other condition to extend one hand to receive our own honour but that with the other we might transmit it to God that as God is honoured in all his Creatures so he may be honoured in us too looking upon the Graces which God hath given us but as greater instruments and abilities to serve him being none of ours but talents which are intrusted into our Banks to be improved But as a precious Pearl is orient and medicinal because God hath placed those excellencies in it for ends of his own but it self is dcad to all apprehensions of it and knows no reflexions upon its own value only God is magnified in his work so is every pious person precious and holy but mortified to all vainer complacencies in those singularities and eminencies which God placed there because he was so pleased saying there he would have a Temple built because from thence he would take delight to receive glory and adoration 7. After all these holy and festival joys which the two glad Mothers feasted themselves withal a sad cloud did intervene and passed before the face of the Blessed Virgin The just and righteous Joseph her espoused Husband perceiving her to be with child was minded to put her away as not knowing the Divinity of the fountain which watered the Virgin 's sealed and hallowed Womb and made it fruitful But he purposed to do it privily that he might preserve the reputation of his Spouse whose Piety he knew was great and was sorrowful it should now set in a sad night and be extinct But it was an exemplar charity and reads to us a rule for our deportment towards erring and lapsed persons that we intreat them with meekness and pity and fear not hastening their 〈◊〉 nor provoking their spirit nor making their remedy desperate by using of them rudely till there be no worse thing for them to fear if they should be dissolved into all licentiousness For an open shame is commonly protested unto when it is remediless and the person either despairs and sinks under the burthen or else grows impudent and tramples upon it But the gentleness of a modest and charitable remedy preserves that which is Vertue 's girdle Fear and Blushing and the beginning of a punishment chides them into the horrour of remembrance and guilt but preserves their meekness and modesty because they not feeling the worst of evils dare not venture upon the worst of sins 8. But it seems the Blessed Virgin having received this greatest honour had not made it known to her Husband Joseph and when she went to her Cousin Elizabeth the Virgin was told of it by her Cousin before she spake of it her self for her Cousin had it by revelation and the spirit of prophecy And it is in some circumstances and from some persons more secure to conceal Visions and those heavenly Gifts which create estimations among men than to publish them which may possibly minister to vanity and those exteriour Graces may do God's work though no observer note them but the person for whose sake they are sent like rain falling in uninhabited Valleys where no eye observes showers yet the Valleys laugh and sing to God in their refreshment without a witness However it is better to hear the report of our good things from the mouths of others than from our selves and better yet if the beauty of the Tabernacle be covered with skins that none of our beauties be seen but by worshippers that is when the glory of God and the interests of Religion or Charity are concerned in their publication For so it happened to be in the case of the Blessed Virgin as she related to her Cousin Elizabeth and so it happened not to be as she referred to her Husband Joseph 9. The Holy Virgin could not but know that Joseph would be troubled with sorrow and insecure apprehensions concerning her being with child but such was her Innocence and her Confidence in God that she held her peace expecting which way God would provide a remedy to the inconvenience for if we commit our selves to God in well doing as unto a faithful Creator preserving the tranquillity of our spirits and the evenness of our temper in the assault of infamy and disreputation God who loves our Innocence will be its Patron and will assert it from the scandal if it be expedient for us if it be not it is not fit we should desire it But if the Holy Jesus did suffer his Mother to fall into misinterpretation and suspect which could not but be a great affliction to her excellent spirit rarely temper'd as an Eye highly sensible of every ruder touch we must not think it strange if we be tried and pressed with a calamity and unhandsome accidents only remember that God will find a remedy to the trouble and will sanctifie the affliction and secure the person if we be innocent as was the Holy Virgin 10. But Joseph was not hasty in the execution of his purposes nor of making
Relatives of the Roman Empire neither doth it appear that the Romans laid a new Tribute on the Jews before the Confiscation of the goods of Archelaus Augustus therefore sending special Delegates to tax every City made onely an inquest after the strength of the Roman Empire in men and moneys and did himself no other advantage but was directed by him who rules and turns the hearts of Princes that he might by verifying a Prophecy signifie and publish the Divinity of the Mission and the Birth of Jesus 2. She that had conceived by the operation of that Spirit who dwells within the element of Love was no ways impeded in her journey by the greatness of her burthen but arrived at Bethlehem in the throng of strangers who had so filled up the places of hospitality and publick entertainment that there was no room for Joseph and Mary in the Inne But yet she felt that it was necessary to retire where she might softly lay her Burthen who began now to call at the gates of his prison and Nature was ready to let him forth But she that was Mother to the King of all the creatures could find no other but a Stable a Cave of a rock whither she retired where when it began to be with her after the manner of women she humbly bowed her knees in the posture and guise of worshippers and in the midst of glorious thoughts and highest speculation brought forth her first born into the world 3. As there was no sin in the Conception so neither had she pains in the Production as the Church from the days of Gregory Nazianzen untill now hath piously believed though before his days there were some opinions to the contrary but certainly neither so pious nor so reasonable For to her alone did not the punishment of Eve extend that in sorrow she should bring forth For where nothing of Sin was an ingredient there Misery cannot cohabit For though amongst the daughters of men many Conceptions are innocent and holy being sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer hallowed by Marriage designed by Prudence seasoned by Temperance conducted by Religion towards a just an hallowed and a holy end and yet their Productions are in sorrow yet this of the Blessed Virgin might be otherwise because here Sin was no relative and neither was in the principle nor the derivative in the act nor in the habit in the root nor in the branch there was nothing in this but the sanctification of a Virgin 's Womb and that could not be the parent of sorrow especially that gate not having been opened by which the Curse always entred And as to conceive by the Holy Ghost was glorious so to bring forth any of the fruits of the spirit is joyful and full of felicities And he that came from his grave fast tied with a stone and signature and into the College of Apostles the doors being shut and into the glories of his Father through the solid orbs of all the Firmament came also as the Church piously believes into the World so without doing violence to the virginal and pure body of his Mother that he did also leave her Virginity entire to be as a seal that none might open the gate of that Sanctuary that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the Prophet This gate shall be shut it shall not be opened and no man shall enter in by it because the Lord God of Israel hath entred by it therefore it shall be shut 4. Although all the World were concerned in the Birth of this great Prince yet I find no story of any one that ministred at it save onely Angels who knew their duty to their Lord and the great Interests of that person whom as soon as he was born they presented to his Mother who could not but receive him with a joy next to the rejoycings of glory and beatifick vision seeing him to be born her Son who was the Son of God of greater beauty than the Sun purer than Angels more loving than the Seraphims as dear as the eye and heart of God where he was from eternity engraven his beloved and his onely-begotten 5. When the Virgin-Mother now felt the first tenderness and yernings of a Mother's bowels and saw the Saviour of the World born poor as her fortunes could represent him naked as the innocence of Adam she took him and wrapt him in swadling cloaths and after she had a while cradled him in her arms she laid him in a manger for so was the design of his Humility that as the last Scene of his life was represented among Thieves so the first was amongst Beasts the sheep and the oxen according to that mysterious Hymn of the Prophet Habakkuk His brightness was as the light he had horns coming out of his hand and there was the hiding of his power 6. But this place which was one of the great instances of his Humility grew to be as venerable as became an instrument and it was consecrated into a Church the Crib into an Altar where first lay that Lamb of God which afterwards was sacrificed for the sins of all the World And when Adrian the Emperour who intended a great despite to it built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in that place where the Holy Virgin-Mother and her more Holy Son were humbly laid even so he could not obtain but that even amongst the Gentile inhabitants of the neighbouring Countries it was held in an account far above scandal and contempt For God can ennoble even the meanest of creatures especially if it be but a relative and instrumental to Religion higher than the injuries of scoffers and malicious persons But it was then a Temple full of Religion full of glory when Angels were the Ministers the Holy Virgin was the Worshipper and CHRIST the Deity Ad SECT III. Considerations upon the Birth of our Blessed Saviour JESVS 1. ALthough the Blessed Jesus desired with the 〈◊〉 of an inflamed love to be born and to finish the work of our Redemption yet he did not prevent the period of Nature nor break the laws of the Womb and antedate his own sanctions which he had established 〈◊〉 ever He staid nine months and then brake forth as a Giant joyful to run his course For premature and hasty actions and such counsels as know not how to expect the times appointed in God's decree are like hasty fruit or a young person snatcht away in his florid age sad and untimely He that hastens to enjoy his wish before the time raises his own expectation and yet makes it unpleasant by impatience and loseth the pleasure of the fruition when it comes because he hath made his desires bigger than the thing can satisfie He that must eat an hour before his time gives probation of his intemperance or his weakness and if we dare not trust God with the Circumstance of the event and stay
his leisure either we disrepute the infinity of his Wisdom or give clear demonstration of our own vanity 2. When God descended to earth he chose to be born in the Suburbs and retirement of a small Town but he was pleased to die at Jerusalem the Metropolis of Judaea Which chides our shame and pride who are willing to publish our gayeties in Piazza's and the corners of the streets of most populous places but our defects and the instruments of our humiliation we carry into desarts and cover with the night and hide them under ground thinking no secrecy dark enough to hide our shame nor any theatre large enough to behold our pompous vanities for so we make provisions for Pride and take great care to exclude Humility 3. When the Holy Virgin now perceived that the expectation of the Nations was arrived at the very doors of revelation and entrance into the World she brought forth the Holy Jesus who like Light through transparent glass past through or a ripe Pomegranate from a fruitful tree fell to the earth without doing violence to its Nurse and Parent She had no ministers to attend but Angels and neither her Poverty nor her Piety would permit her to provide other Nurses but her self did the offices of a tender and pious Parent She kissed him and worshipped him and thanked him that he would be born of her and she suckled him and bound him in her arms and swadling-bands and when she had 〈◊〉 to God her first scene of joy and Eucharist she softly laid him in the manger till her desires and his own necessities called her to take him and to rock him softly in her arms and from this deportment she read a lecture of Piety and maternal care which Mothers should perform toward their children when they are born not to neglect any of that duty which nature and maternal piety requires 4. Jesus was pleased to be born of a poor Mother in a poor place in a cold winter's night far from home amongst strangers with all the circumstances of humility and poverty And no man will have cause to complain of his course Robe if he remembers the swadling-clothes of this Holy Child nor to be disquieted at his hard Bed when he considers Jesus laid in a manger nor to be discontented at his thin Table when he calls to mind the King of Heaven and Earth was fed with a little breast-milk But since the eternal wisdom of the Father who knew to chuse the good and refuse the evil did chuse a life of Poverty it gives us demonstration that Riches and Honors those idols of the World's esteem are so far from creating true felicities that they are not of themselves eligible in the number of good things however no man is to be ashamed of innocent Poverty of which many wise men make Vows and of which the Holy Jesus made election and his Apostles after him made publick profession And if any man will chuse and delight in the affluence of temporal good things suffering himself to be transported with caitive affections in the pleasures of every day he may well make a question whether he shall speed as well hereafter since God's usual method is that they only who follow Christ here shall be with him for ever 5. The Condition of the person 〈◊〉 was born is here of greatest consideration For he that cried in the Manger that suck'd the paps of a Woman that hath exposed himself to Poverty and a world of inconveniences is the Son of the living God of the same substance with his Father begotten before all Ages before the Morning-stars he is GOD eternal He is also by reason of the personal Union of the Divinity with his Humane nature the Son of God not by Adoption as good Men and beatified Angels are but by an extraordinary and miraculous Generation He is the Heir of his Father's glories and possessions not by succession for his Father cannot die but by an equality of communication He is the express image of his Father's person according to both Natures the miracle and excess of his Godhead being as upon wax imprinted upon all the capacities of his Humanity And after all this he is our Saviour that to our duties of wonder and adoration we may add the affections of love and union as himself besides his being admirable in himself is become profitable to us Verè Verbum hoc est abbreviatum saith the Prophet The eternal Word of the Father is shortned to the dimensions of an infant 6. Here then are concentred the prodigles of Greatness and Goodness of Wisdom and Charity of Meekness and Humility and march all the way in mysterie and incomprehensible mixtures if we consider him in the bosome of his Father where he is seated by the postures of Love and essential Felicity and in the Manger where Love also placed him and an infinite desire to communicate his Felicities to us As he is God his Throne is in the Heaven and he fills all things by his immensity as he is Man he is circumscribed by an uneasie Cradle and cries in a Stable As he is God he is seated upon a super-exalted Throne as Man exposed to the lowest estate of uneasiness and need As God clothed in a robe of Glory at the same instant when you may behold and wonder at his Humanity wrapped in cheap and unworthy Cradle-bands As God he is incircled with millions of Angels as Man in the company of Beasts As God he is the eternal Word of the Father Eternal sustained by himself all-sufficient and without need and yet he submitted himself to a condition imperfect inglorious indigent and necessitous And this consideration is apt and natural to produce great affections of love duty and obedience desires of union and conformity to his sacred Person Life Actions and Laws that we resolve all our thoughts and finally determine all our reason and our passions and capacities upon that saying of St. Paul He that loves not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be accursed 7. Upon the consideration of these Glories if a pious soul shall upon the supports of Faith and Love enter into the Stable where this great King was born and with affections behold every member of the Holy Body and thence pass into the Soul of Jesus we may see a scheme of holy Meditations enough to entertain all the degrees of our love and of our understanding and make the mysterie of the Nativity as fruitful of holy thoughts as it was of Blessings to us And it may serve instead of a description of the Person of Jesus conveyed to us in imperfect and Apocryphal schemes If we could behold his sacred Feet with those affections which the Holy Virgin did we have transmitted to us those Mysteries in story which she had first in part by spiritual and divine infused light and afterwards by observation Those holy Feet tender and unable to support his sacred Body should bear him over
hast superadded Reason making those first propensities of Nature to be reasonable in order to Society and a conversation in Communities and Bodies politick and hast by several laws and revelations directed our Reasons to nearer applications to thee and performance of thy great End the glory of our Lord and Father teach me strictly to observe the order of Creation and the designs of the Creatures that in my order I may do that service which every creature does in its proper capacity Lord let me be as constant in the ways of Religion as the Sun in his course as ready to follow the intimations of thy Spirit as little Birds are to obey the directions of thy Providence and the conduct of thy hand and let me never by evil customs or vain company or false persuasions extinguish those principles of Morality and right Reason which thou hast imprinted in my understanding in my creation and education and which thou hast ennobled by the superadditions of Christian institution that I may live according to the rules of Nature in such things which she teaches modestly temperately and affectionately in all the parts of my natural and political relations and that I proceeding from Nature to Grace may henceforth go on from Grace to Glory the crown of all Obedience prudent and holy walking through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT IV. Of the great and glorious Accidents happening about the Birth of JESVS The Angels appearing to the Shepherds S. LUKE 2. 14. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men The Epiphanie S. MAT 2. 11. When they had opened their treasures they presented unto him gifts Gold and Frank incense and Myrrhe 1. ALthough the Birth of Christ was destitute of the usual excrescences and less necessary Pomps which used to signifie and illustrate the birth of Princes yet his first Humility was made glorious with Presages Miracles and Significations from Heaven which did not only like the furniture of a Princely Bed-chamber speak the riches of the Parent or greatness of the Son within its own walls but did declare to all the world that their Prince was born publishing it with figures and representments almost as great as its Empire 2. For when all the world did expect that in Judaea should be born their Prince and that the incredulous world had in their observation slipt by their true Prince because he came not in pompous and secular illustrations upon that very stock Vespasian was nurs'd up in hope of the Roman Empire and that hope made him great in designs and they being prosperous made his fortunes correspond to his hopes and he was indeared and engaged upon that fortune by the Prophecy which was never intended him by the Prophet But the fortune of the Roman Monarchy was not great enough for this Prince design'd by the old Prophets And therefore it was not without the influence of a Divinity that his Decessor Augustus about the time of Christ's Nativity refused to be called LORD possibly it was to entertain the people with some hopes of restitution of their Liberties till he had grip'd the Monarchy with a stricter and faster hold but the Christians were apt to believe that it was upon the 〈◊〉 of a Sibyll foretelling the birth of a greater Prince to whom all the world should pay adoration and that the Prince was about that time born in Judaea the Oracle which was dumb to Augustus's question told him unask'd the Devil having no tongue permitted him but one to proclaim that an Hebrew child was his Lord and Enemy 3. At the Birth of which Child there was an universal Peace through all the World For then it was that Augustus Caesar having composed all the Wars of the World did the third time cause the gates of Janus's Temple to be shut and this Peace continued for twelve years even till the extreme old age of the Prince until rust had sealed the Temple doors which opened not till the Sedition of the 〈◊〉 and the Rebellion of the Dacians caused Augustus to arm For he that was born was the Prince of Peace and came to reconcile God with man and man with his brother and to make by the sweetness of his Example and the influence of a holy Doctrine such happy atonements between disagreeing natures such confederations and 〈◊〉 between Enemies that the Wolf and the Lamb should lie down together and a little child boldly and without danger put his finger in the nest and cavern of an Asp and it could be no less than miraculous that so great a Body as the Roman Empire consisting of so many parts whose Constitutions were differing their Humours contrary their Interests contradicting each others greatness and all these violently oppressed by an usurping power should have no limb out of joynt not so much as an aking tooth or a rebelling humour in that huge collection of parts but so it seemed good in the eye of Heaven by so great and good a symbol to declare not only the Greatness but the Goodness of the Prince that was then born in Judaea the Lord of all the World 4. But because the Heavens as well as the Earth are his Creatures and do serve him at his Birth he received a sign in Heaven above as well as in the Earth beneath as an homage paid to their common Lord. For as certain Shepherds were keeping watch over their slocks by night near that part where Jacob did use to feed his cattel when he was in the land of Canaan the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them Needs must the Shepherds be afraid when an Angel came arrayed in glory and clothed their persons in a robe of light great enough to confound their senses and scatter their understandings But the Angel said unto them Fear not for I bring unto you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. The Shepherds needed not be invited to go see this glorious sight but lest their fancy should rise up to an expectation of a Prince as externally glorious as might be hoped for upon the consequence of so glorious an Apparition the Angel to prevent the mistake told them of a Sign which indeed was no other than the thing 〈◊〉 but yet was therefore a Sign because it was so remote from the common probability and exspectation of such a birth that by being a Miracle so great a Prince should be born so poorly it became an instrument to signifie it self and all the other parts of mysterious consequence For the Angel said This shall be a sign unto you Ye shall find the Babe wrapt in swadling-cloaths lying in a manger 5. But as Light when it first begins to gild the East scatters indeed the darknesses from the earth but ceases not to increase its 〈◊〉
and the sons of Israel never murmured when God bad them borrow jewels and ear-rings and spoil the Egyptians But because God restrained these desires our duties are the harder because they are fetters to our Liberty and contradictions to those natural inclinations which also are made more active by evil custom and unhandsome educations From which Premisses we shall observe in order to practice That sin creeps upon us in our education so tacitely and undiscernibly that we mistake the cause of it and yet so prevalently and effectually that we judge it to be our very nature and charge it upon Adam to lessen the imputation upon us or to increase the licence or the confidence when every one of us is the Adam the man of sin and the parent of our own impurities For it is notorious that our own iniquities do so discompose our naturals and evil customs and examples do so incourage impiety and the Law of God enjoyns such Vertues which do violence to Nature that our proclivity to sin is occasioned by the accident and is caused by our selves what-ever mischief Adam did to us we do more to our selves We are taught to be revengeful in our Cradles and are taught to strike our Neighbour as a means to still our frowardness and to satisfie our wranglings Our Nurses teach us to know the greatness of our Birth or the riches of our Inheritance or they learn us to be proud or to be impatient before they learn us to know God or to say our Prayers And then because the use of Reason comes at no definite time but insensibly and divisibly we are permitted such acts with impunity too long deferring to repute them to be sins till the habit is grown strong natural and masculine and because from the infancy it began in inolinations and tender overtures and slighter actions Adam is laid in the fault and Original sin did all and this clearly we therefore confess that our faults may seem the less and the misery be pretended natural that it may be thought to be irremediable and therefore we not engaged to endeavour a cure so that the confession of our original sin is no imitation of Christ's Humility in suffering Circumcision but too often an act of Pride Carelesness Ignorance and Security 8. At the Circumcision his Parents imposed the Holy Name told to the Virgin by the Angel his Name was called JESUS a Name above every name For in old times God was known by names of Power of Nature of Majesty But his name of Mercy was reserved till now when God did purpose to pour out the whole treasure of his Mercy by the mediation and ministry of his Holy Son And because God gave to the Holy Babe the name in which the treasures of Mercy were deposited and exalted this name above all names we are taught that the purpose of his Counsel was to exalt and magnifie his Mercy above all his other works he being delighted with this excellent demonstration of it in the Mission and Manifestation and Crucifixion of his Son he hath changed the ineffable Name into a name utterable by man and desirable by all the world the Majesty is all arrayed in robes of Mercy the Tetragrammation or adorable Mystery of the Patriarchs is made fit for pronunciation and expression when it becometh the name of the Lord 's CHRIST And if JEHOVAH be full of majesty and terrour the name JESUS is full of sweetness and mercy It is GOD clothed with circumstances of facility and opportunities of approximation The great and highest name of GOD could not be pronounced truly till it came to be sinished with a Guttural that made up the name given by this Angel to the Holy Child nor God received or entertained by men till he was made humane and sensible by the adoption of a sensitive nature like Vowels pronunciable by the intertexture of a Consonant Thus was his Person made tangible and his Name utterable and his Mercy brought home to our necessities and the Mystery made explicate at the Circumcision of this Holy Babe 9. But now God's mercy was at full Sea now was the time when God made no reserves to the effusion of his mercy For to the Patriarchs and persons of eminent Sanctity and imployment in the elder Ages of the World God according to the degrees of his manifestation or present purpose would give them one letter of this ineffable Name For the reward that Abraham had in the change of his name was that he had the honour done him to have one of the letters of Jehovah put into it and so had Joshua when he was a type of Christ and the Prince of the Israelitish Armies and when God took away one of these letters it was a curse But now he communicated all the whole Name to this Holy Child and put a letter more to it to signifie that he was the glory of God the express image of his Father's person God Eternal and then manifested to the World in his Humanity that all the intelligent world who expected Beatitude and had treasured all their hopes in the ineffable Name of GOD might find them all with ample returns in this Name of JESUS which God hath exalted above every name even above that by which God in the Old Testament did represent the greatest awfulness of his Majesty This miraculous Name is above all the powers of Magical Inchantments the nightly rites of Sorcerers the Secrets of Memphis the Drugs of Thessaly the silent and mysterious Murmurs of the wise Chaldees and the Spells of Zoroastres This is the Name at which the Devils did tremble and pay their inforced and involuntary adorations by confessing the Divinity and quitting their possessions and usurped habitations If our prayers be made in this Name God opens the windows of Heaven and rains down benediction at the mention of this Name the blessed Apostles and Hermione the daughter of St. Philip and Philotheus the son of Theophila and St. Hilarion and St. Paul the Eremite and innumerable other Lights who followed hard after the Sun of Righteousness wrought great and prodigious Miracles Signs and wonders and healings were done by the Name of the Holy Child JESUS This is the Name which we should ingrave in our hearts and write upon our fore-heads and pronounce with our most harmonious accents and rest our faith upon and place our hopes in and love with the overflowings of charity and joy and adoration And as the revelation of this Name satisfied the hopes of all the World so it must determine our worshippings and the addresses of our exteriour and interiour Religion it being that Name whereby God and God's mercies are made presential to us and proportionate objects of our Religion and affections The PRAYER MOst Holy and ever-Blessed Jesu who art infinite in Essence glorious in Mercy mysterious in thy Communications affable and presential in the descents of thy Humanity I
that are uncomely 17. If you will be secure remove your tent dwell farther off God hath given us more liberty than we may safely use and although God is so gracious as to comply much with our infirmities yet if we do so too as God's goodness in indulging liberty to us was to prevent our sinning our complying with our selves will engage us in it But if we imprison and confine our affections into a narrower compass then our 〈◊〉 may be imperfect but will not easily be criminal The dissolution of a scrupulous and strict person is not into a vice but into a less degree of vertue he that makes a conscience of loud Laughter will not easily 〈◊〉 drawn into the wantonnesses of Balls and Revellings and the longer and more impure Carnivalls This is the way to secure our Obedience and no men are so curious of their health as they that are scrupulous of the Air they breathe in But now for our Obedience to Man that hath distinct considerations and apart 18. First All obedience to Man is for God's sake for God imprinting his Authority upon the sons of men like the Sun reflecting upon a cloud produces a Parelius or a representation of his own glory though in great distances and imperfection it is the Divine Authority though character'd upon a piece of clay and imprinted upon a weak and imperfect man And therefore obedience to our Superiours must be universal in respect of persons to all Superiours This precept is expresly Apostolical Be subject to every constitution and authority of man for the Lord's sake It is for God's sake and therefore to every one Whether it be to the King as supreme or to his Ministers in subordination That 's for Civil government For Ecclesiastical this Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account All upon whom any ray of the Divine Authority is imprinted whether it be in greater or smaller Characters are in proportion to their authority to be obeyed to all upon the same ground for there is no power but of God So that no infirmity of person no undervaluing circumstance no exteriour accident is an excuse for disobedience and to obey the Divine authority passing through the dictates of a wise excellent and prudent Governour but to neglect the impositions of a looser head is to worship Christ onely upon the Mount Tabor and in the glories of his 〈◊〉 and to despise him upon Mount Calvary and in the clouds of his inglorious and humble Passion Not onely to the good and gentle so S. Peter but to the harsh and rigid And it was by Divine providence that all those many and stricter precepts of obedience to Governours in the New Testament were 〈◊〉 by instances of Tyrants Persecutors Idolaters and Heathen Princes and for others amongst whom there was variety of disposition there is no variety of imposition but all excuses are removed and all kinds of Governours drawn into the sanction and sacredness of Authority 19. Secondly Not onely to all Governours but in all things we must obey Children obey your Parents in all things and Servants obey your Masters in all things And this also is upon the same ground Do it as unto Christ as unto the Lord and not unto men But then this restrains the universality of obedience that it may run within its own chanel as unto the Lord therefore nothing against the Divine Commandment For if God speaks to us by man transmitting Laws for conservation of Civil society for 〈◊〉 policy for Justice and personal advantages for the interests of Vertue and Religion for discountenancing of Vice we are to receive it with the same Veneration as if God spake himself to us immediately But because by his terrour upon Mount Sinai he gave testimony how great favour it is to speak to us by the ministration of our brethren it were a strange impudence when we desire a proportionable and gentle instrument of Divine commands we should for this very proportion despise the Minister like the frogs in the Apologue insulting upon their wooden King But then if any thing come contrary to a Divine Law know it is the voice of Jacob of the Supplanter not of the right Heir and though we must obey man for God's sake yet we must never disobey God for man's sake In all things else we finde no exception but according as the Superiours intend the obligation and express it by the signature of Laws Customes Interpretations Permissions and Dispensations that is so far as the Law is obligatory in general and not dispensed with in particular so far Obedience is a duty in all instances os acts where no sin is ingredient 20. Thirdly And here also the smalness and cheapness of the duty does not tolerate disobedience for the despising the smallest Injunction is an act of as formal and direct Rebellion as when the prevarication is in a higher instance It is here as in Divine Laws but yet with some difference For small things do so little cooperate to the end of humane Laws that a smaller reason does by way of interpretation and tacite permission dispense than can in a Divine Sanction though of the lowest offices Because God commands duties not for the end to which they of themselves do co-operate but to make sacred his Authority and that we by our obedience may confess him to be Lord But in humane Laws the Authority is made sacred not primarily for it self but principally that the Laws made in order to the conservation of Societies may be observed So that in the neglect of the smallest of Divine Ordinances we as directly oppose God's great purpose and intendment as in greater matters God's dominion and authority the conservation of which was his principal intention is alike neglected But in omitting an humane Imposition of small concernment the case is different it is certain there is not any considerable violence done to the publick interest by a contemptible omission of a Law the thing is not small if the Commonwealth be not safe and all her great ends secured but if they be then the Authority is inviolate unless a direct contempt were intended for its being was in order to that end not for it self as it is in the case of Divine Laws but that the publick interest be safe 21. And therefore as great matters of humane Laws may be omitted for great reasons so may smaller matters for smaller reasons but never without reason for causelesly and contemptuously are all one But in the application of the particulars either the Laws themselves or Custom or the prudence of a sincere righteous man or of a wise and disinterest person is to be the Judge But let no man's confidence increase from the smalness of the matter to a contempt of the Authority for there are some sins whose malignity is accidentally increased by the slightness of
Princes in the conspiracy of Dathan that 's for the Temporal And to encourage this Duty I shall use no other words than those of Achilles in Homer They that obey in this world are better than they that command in Hell A PRAYER for the Grace of Holy OBEDIENCE O Lord and Blessed Saviour Jesus by whose Obedience many became righteous and reparations were made of the ruines brought to humane Nature by the Disobedience of Adam thou camest into the world with many great and holy purposes concerning our Salvation and hast given us a great precedent of Obedience which that thou mightest preserve to thy Heavenly Father thou didst neglect thy Life and becamest obedient even to the death of the Cross O let me imit ate so blessed example and by the merits of thy Obedience let me obtain the grace of Humility and Abnegation of all my own desires in the clearest Renunciation of my Will that I may will and refuse in conformity to thy sacred Laws and holy purposes that I may do all thy will chearfully chusingly humbly confidently and continually and thy will may be done upon me with much mercy and fatherly dispensation of thy Providence Amen 2. LOrd let my Understanding adhere to and be satisfied in the excellent 〈◊〉 of thy Commandments let my Affections dwell in their desires and all my other Faculties be set on daily work for performance of them and let my love to obey thee make me dutiful to my Superiors upon whom the impresses of thy Authority are set by thine own hand that I may never despise their Persons nor refuse their Injunctions nor chuse mine own work nor murmur at their burthens nor dispute the prudence of the Sanction nor excuse my self nor pretend 〈◊〉 or impossibilities but that I may be 〈◊〉 in my desires and resigned to the will of those whom thou hast set over me that since all thy Creatures obey thy word I alone may not disorder the Creation and cancel those bands and intermedial links of Subordination whereby my duty should pass to 〈◊〉 and thy glory but that my Obedience being united to thy Obedience I may also have my portion in the 〈◊〉 of thy Kingdom O Lord and Blessed Saviour Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple 1. THE Holy Virgin-Mother according to the Law of Moses at the expiration of a certain time came to the Temple to be purified although in her sacred Parturition she had contracted no Legal impurity yet she exposed her self to the publick opinion and common reputation of an ordinary condition and still amongst all generations she is in all circumstances accounted blessed and her reputation no tittle altered save only that it is made the more sacred by this testimony of her Humility But this we are taught from the consequence of this instance That if an End principally designed in any Duty should be supplied otherwise in any particular person the Duty is nevertheless to be observed and then the obedience and publick order is reason enough for the observation though the proper End of its designation be wanting in the single person Thus is Fasting designed for mortification of the flesh and killing all its unruly appetites and yet Married persons who have another remedy and a Virgin whose Temple is hallowed by a gift and the strict observances of Chastity may be tied to the Duty and if they might not then Fasting were nothing else but a publication of our impure desires and an exposing the person to the confidence of a bold temptation whilst the young men did observe the Faster to be tempted from within But the Holy Virgin from these acts of which in signification she had no need because she sinned not in the Conception nor was impure in the production expressed other Vertues besides Obedience such as were humble thoughts of her self Devotion and Reverence to publick Sanctions Religion and Charity which were like the pure leaves of the whitest Lily fit to represent the beauties of her innocence but were veiled and shadowed by that sacramental of the Mosaick Law 2. The Holy Virgin received the greatest favour that any of the Daughters of Adam ever did and knowing from whence and for whose glory she had received it returns the Holy Jesus in a Present to God again for she had nothing so precious as himself to make oblation of and besides that every first-born among the Males was holy to the Lord this Child had an eternal and essential Sanctity and until he came into the World and was made apt for her to make present of him there was never in the world any act of Adoration proportionable to the honour of the great God but now there was and the Holy Virgin made it when she presented the Holy Child Jesus And now besides that we are taught to return to God whatsoever we have received from him if we unite our Offerings and Devotions to this holy Present we shall by the merit and excellency of this Oblation exhibit to God an Offertory in which he cannot but delight for the combination's sake and society of his Holy Son 3. The Holy Mother brought five Sicles and a pair of Turtle-doves to redeem the Lamb of God from the Anathema because every first-born was to be sacrificed to God or redeemed if it was clean it was the poor man's price and the Holy Jesus was never set at the greater prices when he was estimated upon earth For he that was Lord of the Kingdom chose his portion among the poor of this World that he might advance the poor to the riches of his inheritance and so it was from his Nativity hither For at his Birth he was poor at his Circumcision poor and in the likeness of a sinner at his Presentation poor and like a sinner and a servant for he chose to be redeemed with an ignoble price The five Sicles were given to the Priest for the redemption of the Child and if the Parents were not able he was to be a servant of the Temple and to minister in the inferiour offices to the Priest and this was God's seizure and possession of him for although all the servants of God are his inheritance yet the Ministers of Religion who derive their portion of temporals from his title who live upon the Corban and eat the meat of the Altar which is God's peculiar and come nearer to his Holiness by the addresses of an immediate ministration are God's own upon another and a distinct challenge But because Christ was to be the Prince of another Ministry and the chief Priest of another Order he was redeemed from attending the Mosaick Rites which he came to 〈◊〉 that he might do his Father's business in establishing the Evangelical Only remember that the Ministers of Religion are but God's 〈◊〉 as they are not Lords of God's portion and therefore must dispense it like Stewards not like Masters so the People are 〈◊〉 their Patrons in paying nor
will not be stopt by purposes and easie desires 13. Since therefore the Body is the instrument of sins the fewel and the incentive our Mortification must reach thither also at least in some degrees or it will be to small purpose to think of mortifying our spirit in some instances of Temptation In vain does that man think to keep his honour and Chastity that invites his Lust to an activeness by soft beds and high diet and idleness and opportunity Make the Soul's instrument unapt and half the work is done And this is true in all instances of Carnality or natural desires whose scene lies in the lower region of Passions and are acted by the Body but the operation of the cure must be in proportion to the design as the mortification of the Spirit is in several degrees so the mortification of the Body also hath its several parts of prudence injunction and necessity For the prescribing all sorts of Mortifications corporal indefinitely and indiseriminately to all persons without separation of their ends and distinct capacities is a snare to mens Consciences makes Religion impertinently troublesome occasions some men to glory in corporal Austerity as if of it self it were an act of Piety and a distinction of the man from the more imperfect persons of the world and is all the way unreasonable and inartificial 14. First Therefore such whose ingagements in the world or capacities of person confine them to the lowest and first step of Mortification those who fight only for life and liberty not for priviledges and honour that are in perpetual contestation and close fightings with sin it is necessary that their Body also be mortified in such a degree that their desires transport them not beyond the permissions of Divine and humane Laws let such men be strict in the rules of Temperance and Sobriety be chaste within the laws of Marriage cherish their body to preserve their health and their health to serve God and to do their offices To these persons the best instruments of Discipline are the strict laws of Temperance denying all transgressions of the appetite boiling over its margent and proper limit assiduous Prayer and observation of the publick laws of 〈◊〉 which are framed so moderate and even as to be proportionable to the common manner of living of persons secular and incumbred For though many persons of common imployments and even manner of living have in the midst of worldly avocations undertaken Austerities very rude and rigorous yet it was in order to a higher mortification of spirit and it is also necessary they should if either naturally or habitually or easily they suffer violent transportation of Passions for since the occasions of anger and disturbance in the world frequently occur if such Passions be not restrained by greater violence than is competent to the ordinary offices of a moderate Piety the cure is weaker than the humour and so leaves the work imperfect 15. Secondly But this is coincident to the second degree of Mortification for if either out of desire of a farther step towards perfection or out of the necessities of nature or evil customs it be necessary also to subdue our Passions as well as the direct invitations to sin in both these cases the Body must suffer more Austerities even such as directly are contrariant to every passionate disturbance though it be not ever sinful in the instance All Mortifiers must abstain from every thing that is unlawful but these that they may abstain from things unlawful must also deny to themselves satisfaction in things lawful and pleasant and this is in a just proportion to the End the subduing the Passions lest their liberty and boldness become licentious And we shall easier deny their importunity to sin when we will not please them in those things in which we may such in which the fear of God and the danger of our Souls and the convictions of Reason and Religion do not immediately cooperate And this was the practice of David when he had thirsted for the water of Bethlehem and some of his Worthies ventured their lives and brought it he refused to drink it but poured it upon the ground unto the Lord that is it became a Drink-offering unto the Lord an acceptable Oblation in which he 〈◊〉 his desires to God denying himself the satisfaction of such a desire which was natural and innocent save that it was something nice delicate and curious Like this was the act of the Fathers in the mountain Nitria to one of which a fair cluster of dried grapes being sent he refused to taste them lest he should be too sensual and much pleased but sent them to another and he to a third and the same consideration transmitted the Present through all their Cells till it came to the first man again all of them not daring to content their appetite in a thing too much desired lest the like importunity in the instance of a sin should prevail upon them To these persons the best instruments of Discipline are subtractions rather than imposition of Austerities let them be great haters of corporal pleasures eating for necessity diet 〈◊〉 and cheap abridging and making short the opportunities of natural and permitted solaces refusing exteriour comforts not chusing the most pleasant object nor suffering delight to be the end of eating and therefore separating delight from it as much as prudently they may not being too importunate with God to remove his gentler hand of paternal correction but inuring our selves to patient suffering and indifferent acceptation of the Cross that God lays upon us at no hand living delicately or curiously or impatiently And this was the condition of S. Paul suffering with excellent temper all those persecutions and inconveniences which the enemies of Religion loaded him withall which he called bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body and carrying about in his body the dying or mortification of the Lord Jesus it was in the matter of Persecution which because he bare patiently and was accustomed to and he accepted with indifference and renunciation they were the mortifications and the marks of Jesus that is a true 〈◊〉 to the Passion of Christ and of great effect and interest for the preventing sins by the mortification of his natural desires 16. Thirdly But in the pale of the Church there are and have been many tall Cedars 〈◊〉 tops have reached to Heaven some there are that chuse afflictions of the Body that by turning the bent and inclination of their affections into sensual 〈◊〉 they may not only cut off all pretensions of Temptation but grow in spiritual Graces and perfections intellectual and beatified To this purpose they served themselves with the instances of Sack-cloth Hard lodging long Fasts Pernoctation in prayers Renunciation of all secular possessions great and expensive Charity bodily Labours to great weariness and affiction and many other prodigies of voluntary suffering which Scripture and the
It looked of a blew mould the bone of the nose laid bare the flesh of the neather lip quite fallen off his mouth full of worms and in his eye-pits two hungry Toads feasting upon the remanent portion of flesh and moisture and so he dwelt in his house of darkness And if every person tempted by an opportunity of Lust or intemperance would chuse such a room for his privacy that company for his witness that object to allay his appetite he would soon find his spirit more sober and his desires obedient I end this with the counsel of S. Bernard Let every man in the first address to his actions consider whether if he were now to die he might safely and prudently do such an act and whether he would not be infinitely troubled that death should surprise him in the present dispositions and then let him proceed accordingly For since our treasure is in earthen vessels which may be broken in pieces by the collision of ten thousand accidents it were not safe to treasure up wrath in them for if we do we shall certainly drink it in the day of recompence 37. Thirdly Before and in and 〈◊〉 all this the Blessed Jesus propounds Prayer as a remedy against Temptations Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation For besides that Prayer is the great instrument of obtaining victory by the grace of God as a fruit of our desires and of God's natural and essential goodness the very praying against a Temptation if it be hearty servent and devout is a denying of it and part of the victory for it is a 〈◊〉 the entertainment of it it is a positive rejection of the crime and every consent to it is a ceasing to pray and to desire remedy And we shall observe that whensoever we begin to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit our Prayers against it lessen as the consent increases there being nothing a more direct enemy to the Temptation than Prayer which as it is of it self a professed hostility against the crime so it is a calling in auxiliaries from above to make the victory more certain If Temptation sets upon thee do thou set upon God for he is as soon overcome as thou art as soon moved to good as thou art to evil he is as quickly invited to pity thee as thou to ask him provided thou dost not finally rest in the petition but pass into action and endeavour by all means humane and moral to quench the 〈◊〉 newly kindled in thy bowels before it come to devour the marrow of the bones For a strong Prayer and a lazy incurious unobservant walking are contradictions in the discourses of Religion 〈◊〉 tells us a story of a young man solicited by the spirit of Uncleanness who came to an old Religious person and begged his prayers It was in that Age when God used to answer Prayers of very holy persons by more clear and familiar significations of his pleasure than he knows now to be necessary But after many earnest prayers sent up to the throne of Grace and the young man not at all bettered upon consideration and enquiry of particulars he found the cause to be because the young man relied so upon the Prayers of the old Eremite that he did nothing at all to discountenance his Lust or contradict the Temptation But then he took another course enjoyned him Austerities and exercises of Devotion gave him rules of prudence and caution tied him to work and to stand upon his guard and then the Prayers returned in triumph and the young man trampled upon his Lust. And so shall I and you by God's grace if we pray earnestly and frequently if we watch carefully that we be not surprised if we be not idle in secret nor talkative in publick if we read Scriptures and consult with a spiritual Guide and make Religion to be our work that serving of God be the business of our life and our designs be to purchase Eternity then we shall walk safely or recover speedily and by doing advantages to 〈◊〉 secure a greatness of Religion and spirituality to our spirits and understanding But remember that when Israel fought against Amalek Moses's prayer and Moses's hand secured the victory his Prayer grew ineffectual when his Hands were slack to remonstrate to us that we must cooperate with the grace of God praying devoutly and watching carefully and observing prudently and labouring with diligence and assiduity The PRAYER ETernal God and most merciful Father I adore thy Wisdom Providence and admirable Dispensation of affairs in the spiritual Kingdom of our Lord Jesus that thou who art infinitely good dost permit so many sadnesses and dangers to discompose that order of things and spirits which thou didst create innocent and harmless and dost design to great and spiritual perfections that the emanation of good from evil by thy over-ruling power and excellencies may force glory to thee from our shame and honour to thy Wisdom by these contradictory accidents and events Lord have pity upon me in these sad disorders and with mercy know my infirmities Let me by suffering what thou pleasest cooperate to the glorification of thy Grace and magnifying thy Mercy but never let me consent to sin but with the power of thy Majesty and mightiness of thy prevailing Mercy rescue me from those 〈◊〉 of dangers and enemies which daily seck to 〈◊〉 that Innocence with which thou didst cloath my Soul in the New birth Behold O God how all the Spirits of Darkness endeavour the extinction of our hopes and the dispersion of all those Graces and the prevention of all those 〈◊〉 which the Holy Jesus hath purchased for every loving and obedient Soul Our very 〈◊〉 and drink are full of poison our Senses are snares our 〈◊〉 is various Temptatio our sins are inlets to more and our good actions made occasions of sins Lord deliver me from the Malice of the Devil from the Fallacies of the World from my own Folly that I be not devoured by the first nor cheated by the second nor betrayed by my self but let thy Grace which is sufficient for me be always present with me let thy Spirit 〈◊〉 me in the spiritual 〈◊〉 arming my Understanding and securing my Will and 〈◊〉 my Spirit with resolutions of Piety and incentives of Religion and deleteries of Sin that the dangers I am encompassed withall may become unto me an occasion of victory and trimph through the aids of the Holy Ghost and by the Cross of the Lord Jesus who hath for himself and all his servants triumphed over Sin and Hell and the Grave even all the powers of Darkness from which by the mercies of Jesus and the merits of his Passion now and ever deliver me and all thy 〈◊〉 people Amen DISCOURSE VI. Of Baptism Part I. 1. WHen the Holy Jesus was to begin his Prophetical Office and to lay the foundation of his Church on the Corner-stone he first temper'd the Cement
may soon be washed but to be healed is a work of a long cure 3. Thirdly The Dispositions which are required to the ordinary susception of Baptism are not necessary to the efficacy or required to the nature of the Sacrament but accidentally and because of the superinduced necessities of some men and therefore the Conditions are not regularly to be required But in those accidents it was necessary for a Gentile Proselyte to repent of his sins and to believe in Moses's Law before he could be circumcised but Abraham was not tied to the same Conditions but only to Faith in God but Isaac was not tied to so much and Circumcision was not of Moses but of the Fathers and yet after the sanction of Moses's Law men were tied to conditions which were then made necessary to them that entred into the Covenant but not necessary to the nature of the Covenant it self And so it is in the susception of Baptism If a sinner enters into the Font it is necessary he be stripped of those appendages which himself sewed upon his Nature and then Repentance is a necessary disposition if his Understanding hath been a stranger to Religion polluted with evil Principles and a false Religion it is necessary he have an actual Faith that he be given in his Understanding up to the obedience of Christ. And the reason of this is plain Because in these persons there is a disposition contrary to the state and effects of Baptism and therefore they must be taken off by their contraries Faith and Repentance that they may be reduced to the state of pure Receptives And this is the sence of those words of our Blessed Saviour Unless ye become like one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that is Ye cannot be admitted into the Gospel-Covenant unless all your contrarieties and impediments be taken from you and you be as apt as children to receive the new immissions from Heaven And this Proposition relies upon a great Example and a certain Reason The Example is our Blessed Saviour who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debitor he had committed no sin and needed no Repentance he needed not to be saved by Faith for of Faith he was the Author and Finisher and the great object and its perfection and reward and yet he was baptized by the Baptism of John the Baptism of Repentance And therefore it is certain that Repentance and Faith are not necessary to the susception of Baptism but necessary to some persons that are baptized For it is necessary we should much consider the difference If the Sacrament by any person may be justly received in whom such Dispositions are not to be sound then the Dispositions are not necessary or intrinsecal to the susception of the Sacrament and yet some persons coming to this Sacrament may have such necessities of their own as will make the Sacrament ineffectual without such Dispositions These I call necessary to the person but not to the Sacrament that is necessary to all such but not necessary to all absolutely And Faith is necessary sometimes where Repentance is not sometimes Repentance and Faith together and sometimes otherwise When Philip baptized the Eunuch he only required of him to believe not to repent But S. Peter when he preached to the Jews and converted them only required Repentance which although it in their case implied Faith yet there was explicit stipulation for it they had crucified the Lord of life and if they would come to God by Baptism they must renounce their sin that was all was then stood upon It is as the case is or as the persons have superinduced necessities upon themselves In Children the case is evident as to the one part which is equally required I mean Repentance the not doing of which cannot prejudice them as to the susception of Baptism because they having done no evil are not bound to repent and to repent is as necessary to the susception of Baptism as Faith is But this shews that they are accidentally necessary that is not absolutely not to all not to Insants and if they may be excused from one duty which is indispensably necessary to Baptism why they may not from the other is a secret which will not be found out by these whom it concerns to believe it 4. And therefore when our Blessed Lord made a stipulation and express Commandment for Faith with the greatest annexed penalty to them that had it not He that believeth not shall be damned the proposition is not to be verified or understood as relative to every period of time for then no man could be converted from Insidelity to the Christian Faith and from the power of the Devil to the Kingdom of Christ but his present Infidelity shall be his final ruine It is not therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a Sentence but a 〈◊〉 a Prediction and Intermination It is not like that saying God is true and every man a lier and Every good and every perfect gift is from above for these are true in every instant without reference to circumstances but He that believeth not shall be damned is a Prediction or that which in Rhetorick is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Use because this is the affirmation of that which usually or frequently comes to pass such as this He that strikes with the sword shall perish by the sword He that robs a Church shall be like a wheel of a vertiginous and unstable estate He that loves wine and oyl shall not be rich and therefore it is a declaration of that which is universally or commonly true but not so that in what instant soever a man is not a believer in that instant it is true to say he is damned for some are called the third some the sixth some the ninth hour and they that come in being first called at the eleventh hour shall have their reward so that this sentence stands true at the day and the judgment of the Lord not at the judgment or day of man And in the same necessity as Faith stands to Salvation in the same it stands to Baptism that is to be measured by the whole latitude of its extent Our Baptism shall no more do all its intention unless Faith supervene than a man is in possibility of being saved without Faith it must come in its due time but is not indispensably necessary in all instances and periods Baptism is the seal of our Election and adoption and as Election is brought to effect by Faith and its consequents so is Baptism but to neither is Faith necessary as to its beginning and first entrance To which also I add this Consideration That actual Faith is necessary not to the susception but to the consequent effects of Baptism appears because the Church and particularly the Apostles did baptize some persons who had not Faith but were Hypocrites such as were Simon Magus Alexander the
faults of Parents and Kings and relatives do bring evil upon their Children and subjects and correlatives it is but equal that our children may have benefit also by our charity and 〈◊〉 But concerning making an agreement for them we find that God was confident concerning Abraham that he would teach his children and there is no doubt but Parents have great power by strict education and prudent discipline to efform the minds of their children to Vertue 〈◊〉 did expresly undertake for his houshold I and my house will serve the Lord and for children we may better do it because till they are of perfect choice no Government in the world is so great as that of Parents over their children in that which can concern the parts of this Question for they rule over their Understandings and children know nothing but what they are told and they believe it infinitely And it is a rare art of the Spirit to engage Parents to bring them up well in the 〈◊〉 and admonition of the Lord and they are persons obliged by a superinduced band they are to give them instructions and holy principles as they give them meat And it is certain that Parents may better stipulate for their Children than the Church can for men and women For they may be present Impostors and Hypocrites as the Church story tells of some and consequently are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not really converted and ineffectively baptized and the next day they may change their resolution and grow weary of their Vow and that is the most that Children can do when they come to age and it is very much in the Parents whether the Children shall do any such thing or no. purus insons Ut me collandem si vivo charus amicis Causa fuit Pater his Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnes Circum Doctores aderat quid multa pudicum Qui primus virtutis honos servavit ab omni Non solùm facto verùm opprobrio quoque turpi ob hoc nunc Laus illi debetur à me gratia major For education can introduce a habit and a second nature against which Children cannot kick unless they do some violence to themselves and their inclinations And although it fails too 〈◊〉 when-ever it fails yet we pronounce prudently concerning future things when we have a less influence into the event than in the present case and therefore are more unapt persons to stipulate and less reason in the thing it self and therefore have not so much reason to be confident Is not the greatest prudence of Generals instanced in their foreseeing 〈◊〉 events and guessing at the designs of their enemies concerning which they have less reason to be confident than Parents of their childrens belief of the Christian Creed To which I add this consideration That Parents or Godfathers may therefore safely and prudently promise that their Children shall be of the Christian Faith because we not only see millions of men and women who not only believe the whole Creed only upon the stock of their education but there are none that ever do renounce the Faith of their Country and breeding unless they be violently tempted by 〈◊〉 or weakness antecedent or consequent He that sees all men almost to be Christians because they are bid to be so need not question the fittingness of Godfathers promising in behalf of the Children for whom they answer 29. And however the matter be for Godfathers yet the tradition of baptizing Infants passed through the hands of 〈◊〉 Omnem aetatem sanctificans per illam quae ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 similitudinem Omnes 〈◊〉 venit per semetipsum salvare omnes inquam qui per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Deum infantes parvulos 〈◊〉 juvenes seniores Ideo per 〈◊〉 venit 〈◊〉 infantibus infans factus sanctificans infantes in parvulis 〈◊〉 c. Christ did sanctifie every age by his own susception of it and similitude to it For he came to save all men by himself I say all who by him are born again unto God infants and children and boys and young men and old men He was made an Infant to Infants sanctifying Infants a little one to the little ones c. And Origen is express 〈◊〉 traditionem ab Apostolis suscepit 〈◊〉 parvulis dare Baptismum The Church hath received a Tradition from the 〈◊〉 to give Baptism to Children And S. 〈◊〉 in his Epistle to 〈◊〉 gives account of this Article for being questioned by some less 〈◊〉 persons whether it were lawful to baptize Children before the eighth day he gives account of the whole Question And a whole Council of sixty six Bishops upon very good reason decreed that their Baptism should at no hand be deferred though whether six or eight or ten days was no matter so there be no danger or present necessity The whole Epistle is worth the reading 30. But besides these Authorities of such who writ before the starting of the Pelagian Questions it will not be useless to bring the discourses of them and others I mean the reason upon which the Church did it both before and after 31. 〈◊〉 his Argument was this Christ took upon him our Nature to sanctific and to save it and passed through the several periods of it even unto death which is the symbol and effect of old age and therefore it is certain he did sanctifie all the periods of it and why should he be an Infant but that Infants should receive the crown of their age the 〈◊〉 of their stained nature the sanctification of their persons and the saving of their 〈◊〉 by their Infant Lord and elder Brother 32. Omnis 〈◊〉 anima 〈◊〉 in Adam censetur 〈◊〉 in Christo recenseatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every Soul is accounted in Adam till it be new accounted in Christ and so long as it is accounted in Adam so long it is unclean and we know no unclean thing 〈◊〉 enter into Heaven and therefore our Lord hath desined it Unless 〈◊〉 be born of Water and the Spirit ye cannot 〈◊〉 into the Kingdom of Heaven that is ye cannot be holy It was the argument of 〈◊〉 which the rather is to be received because he was one less favourable to the Custom of the Church in his time of baptizing Infants which Custom he noted and acknowledged and hath also in the preceding discourse fairly proved And indeed that S. Cyprian may superadd his symbol God who is no accepter of persons will also be no accepter of ages For if to the greatest delinquents 〈◊〉 long before against God remission of sins be given when afterwards they believe and from Baptism and from Grace no man is forbidden how much more ought not an 〈◊〉 be forbidden who being new born hath 〈◊〉 nothing save only that being in the 〈◊〉 born of Adam in his first birth he hath contracted the contagion of an old death who therefore comes the easier to obtain 〈◊〉 of sins because
the time of his first MIRACLE until the Second Year of his PREACHING WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE SECOND PART Chrysost. ad Demet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675. TO The Right Honourable and Excellent Lady THE LADY MARY Countess Dowager of NORTHAMPTON I AM now to present to your Honour part of that Production of which your great love to Sanctity was Parent and which was partly designed to satisfie those great appetites to Vertue which have made you hugely apprehensive and forward to entertain any Instrument whereby you may grow and encrease in the Service of God and the Communion and Charities of holy people Your Honour best knows in what Soil the first Design of these Papers grew and but that the Excellent Personage who was their first Root is transplanted for a time that he may not have his righteous Soul vexed with the impurer Conversation of ill-minded men I am confident you would have received the fruits of his abode to more excellent purposes But because he was pleased to leave the managing of this to me I hope your Honour will for his sake entertain what that rare Person conceived though I was left to the pains and danger of bringing forth and that it may dwell with you for its first relation rather than be rejected for its appendent imperfections which it contracted not in the fountain but in the chanels of its progress and emanation Madam I shall beg of God that your Honour may receive as great increment of Piety and ghostly strength in the reading this Book as I receive honour if you shall be pleased to accept and own this as a confession of your great Worthiness and a testimony of the Service which ought to be payed to your Honour by Madam Your Honour 's most humble and most obliged Servant JER TAYLOR SECT X. Of the first Manifestation of JESVS by the Testimony of John and a Miracle Iohn points to Iesus The next day Iohn seeth Iesus coming unto him and saith Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world This is he of whom I said after me cometh a man which is preserred before me for he was before me And I knew him not but that he should be made manifest to Israel Ioh. 1. 29 30 31. Christ turns water into wine There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee And there were set there six water pots of stone after the manner of the purifying of the Iewes containing two or three firkins a peice Iesus saith unto them fill the water pots with water and they filled them to the brim Iesus saith unto them draw out now c. This begin̄ing of miracles did Iesus in Cana of Galilee and manifested forth his glory Ioh. 2 6 7 8-11 1. AFTER that the Baptist by a sign from Heaven was confirmed in spirit and understanding that Jesus was the Messias he immediately published to the Jews what God had manifested to him and first to the Priests and 〈◊〉 sent in legation from the Sanhedrim he professed indefinitely in answer to their question that himself was not the CHRIST nor Elias nor that Prophet whom they by a special Tradition did expect to be revealed they knew not when And concerning himself definitely he said nothing but that he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness Make straight the way of the Lord. He it was who was then amongst them but not known a person of great dignity to whom the Baptist was not worthy to do the office of the lowest Ministery who coming after John was preferred far before him who was to increase and the Baptist was to decrease who did baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire 2. This was the Character of his personal Prerogatives but as yet no demonstration was made of his Person till after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus and then when-ever the Baptist saw Jesus he points him out with his finger Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the World This is he Then he shews him to Andrew Simon Peter's brother with the same designation and to another Disciple with him who both followed Jesus and abode with him all night Andrew brings his brother Simon with him and then Christ changes his name from Simon to Peter or Cephas which signifies a Stone Then Jesus himself finds out Philip of Bethsaida and bad him follow him and Philip finds out Nathanael and calls him to see Thus persons bred in a dark cell upon their first ascent up to the chambers of light all run staring upon the beauties of the Sun and call the partners of their darkness to communicate in their new and stranger revelation 3. When Nathanael was come to Jesus Christ saw his heart and gave him a testimony to be truly honest and full of holy simplicity a true Israelite without guile And Nathanael being overjoyed that he had found the Messias believing out of love and loving by reason of his joy and no suspicion took that for a proof and verification of his person which was very insufficient to 〈◊〉 a doubt or ratifie a probability But so we believe a story which we love taking probabilities for demonstrations and casual accidents for probabilities and any thing creates vehement presumptions in which cases our guides are not our knowing faculties but our 〈◊〉 and if they be holy God guides them into the right perswasions as he does little birds to make rare nests though they understand not the mystery of operation nor the design and purpose of the action 4. But Jesus took his will and forwardness of affections in so good part that he promised him greater things and this gave occasion to the first Prophecy which was made by Jesus For Jesus said 〈◊〉 him 〈◊〉 I said I saw thee under the Fig-tree believest thou Thou shalt see greater things than these and then he prophesied that he should see Heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man But being a Doctor of the Law Christ chose him not at all to the Colledge of Apostles 5. Much about the same time there happened to be a Marriage in Cana 〈◊〉 Galilee in the vicinage of his dwelling where John the Evangelist is by some supposed to have been the Bridegroom but of this there is no certainty and thither Jesus being with his 〈◊〉 invited he went to do civility to the persons espoused and to do honour to the holy rite of Marriage The persons then married were but of indifferent fortunes richer in love of neighbours than in the 〈◊〉 of rich possessions they had more company than wine For the Master of the Feast whom according to the order and piety of the Nation they chose 〈◊〉 the order of Priests to be the president of the Feast
holy and the scene of representing Prayers which in type intimates the same thing which is involved in the expression of the next words My House shall be called the House of Prayer to all Nations now and for ever to the Jews and to the Gentiles in all circumstances and variety of Time and Nation God's Houses are holy in order to holy uses the time as unlimited as the Nations were indefinite and universal Which is the more observable because it was of the outward Courts not whither Moses's Rites alone were admitted but the natural Devotion of Jews and Gentile-Proselytes that Christ affirmed it to be holy to be the House of God and the place of Prayer So that the Religion of publick places of Prayer is not a Rite of Levi but a natural and prudent circumstance and advantage of Religion in which all wise men agree who therefore must have some common principle with influence upon all the World which must be the univocal cause of the consent of all men which common principle must either be a dictate of natural or prime Reason or else some Tradition from the first Parents of mankind which because it had order in it beauty Religion and confirmation from Heaven and no reason to contest against it it hath surprised the understanding and practices of all Nations And indeed we find that even in Paradise God had that which is analogical to a Church a distinct place where he manifested himself present in proper manner For Adam and Eve when they had sinned hid themselves from the Presence of the Lord and this was the word in all descent of the Church for the being of God in holy places the Presence of the Lord was there And probably when Adam from this intimation or a greater direction had taught Cain and Abel to offer sacrifice to God in a certain place where they were observed of each in their several Offerings it became one of the rules of Religion which was derived to their posterity by tradition the only way they had to communicate the dictates of Divine commandment 8. There is no more necessary to be added in behalf of Holy Places and to assert them into the family and relatives of Religion our estimate and deportment towards them is matter of practice and therefore of proper consideration To which purpose I consider that Holy Places being the residence of God's Name upon earth there where he hath put it that by fiction of Law it may be the sanctuary and the last resort in all calamities and need God hath sent his Agents to possess them in person for him Churches and Oratories are regions and courts of Angels and they are there not only to minister to the Saints but also they possess them in the right of God There they are so the greatest and Prince of Spirits tells us the Holy Ghost I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne and his train filled the Temple Above it stood the Seraphim that was God's train and therefore holy David knew that his addresses to God were in the presence of Angels I will praise thee with my whole heart before the gods will i sing praise unto thee before the Angels so it is in the Septuagint And that we might know where or how the Kingly worshipper would pay this adoration he adds I will worship towards thy holy 〈◊〉 And this was so known by him that it became expressive of God's manner of presence in Heaven The Chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels and the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place God in the midst of Angels and the Angels in the midst of the 〈◊〉 place and God in Heaven in the midst of that holy circle as 〈◊〉 as he is amongst Angels in the recesses of his Sanctuary Were the rudiments of the Law worthy of an attendance of Angels and are the memorials of the Gospel destitute of so brave a retinue Did the beatisied Spirits wait upon the Types and do 〈◊〉 decline the office at the ministration of the Substance Is the nature of Man made worse since the Incarnation of the Son of God and have the Angels purchased an exemption from their ministery since Christ became our brother We have little reason to think so And therefore S. Paul still makes use of the argument to press women to modesty and humility in Churches because of the Angels And upon the same stock S. Chrysostome chides the people of his Diocese for walking and laughing and prating in Churches The Church is not a shop of manufactures or merchandise but the place of Angels and of Archangels the Court of God and the image or representment of Heaven it self 9. For if we consider that Christianity is something more than ordinary that there are Mysteries in our Religion and in none else that God's Angels are ministring spirits for 〈◊〉 good and especially about the conveyances of our Prayers either we must think very low of Christianity or that greater things are in it than the presence of Angels in our Churches and yet if there were no more we should do well to behave our selves there with the thoughts and apprehensions of Heaven about us always remembring that our business there is an errand of Religion and God is the object of our Worshippings and therefore although by our weakness we are fixt in the lowness of men yet because God's infinity is our object it were very happy if our actions did bear some few degrees of a proportionable and commensurate address 10. Now that the Angels are there in the right of God and are a manner and an exhibition of the Divine Presence is therefore certain because when-ever it is said in the Old Testament that God appeared it was by an Angel and the Law it self in the midst of all the glorious terrors of its manisestation was ordained by Angels and a word spoken by Angels and yet God is said to have descended upon the Mount and in the greatest glory that ever shall be revealed till the consummation of all things the instrument of the Divine splendour is the apparition of Angels for when the Holy Jesus shall come in the glory of his Father it is added by way of explication that is with an 〈◊〉 of Angels 11. The result is those words of God to his people Reverence my 〈◊〉 For what God loves in an especial manner it is most fit we should esteem accordingly God loves the gates of Sion more than all the 〈◊〉 of Jacob. The least turf of hallowed glebe is with God himself of more value than all the Champain of common possession it is better in all sences The Temple is better than gold said our Blessed Saviour and therefore it were well we should do that which is expressed in the command of giving reverence to it for we are too apt to pay undue devotions to gold Which precept the holiest of
narration of his servants he found to be true and that he recovered at the same time when Jesus spake these'salutary and healing words Upon which accident he and all his house became Disciples 7. And now Jesus left Nazareth and came to Capernaum a maritime Town and of great resort chusing that for his scene of Preaching and his place of dwelling For now the time was fulfilled the office of the Baptist was expired and the Kingdom of God was at hand He therefore preached the summ of the Gospel Faith and Repentance Repent ye and believe the Gospel And what that Gospel was the summ and series of all his Sermons afterwards did declare 8. The work was now grown high and pregnant and Jesus saw it convenient to chuse Disciples to his ministery and service in the work of Preaching and to be witnesses of all that he should say do or teach for ends which were afterwards made publick and excellent Jesus therefore as he walked by the Sea of Galilee called Simon and Andrew who knew him before by the preaching of John and now left all their ship and their net and followed him And when he was gone a little farther he calls the two sons of Zebedee James and John and they went after him And with this family he goes up and down the whole Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom healing all manner of diseases curing Demoniacks cleansing Lepers and giving strength to Paralyticks and lame people 9. But when the people pressed on him to hear the word of God he stood by the Lake of Genesareth and presently entring into Simon 's ship commanded him to lanch into the deep and from thence he taught the people and there wrought a Miracle for being Lord of the Creatures he commanded the fishes of the sea and they obeyed For when Simon who had fished all night in vain let down his net at the command of Jesus he inclosed so great a multitude of fishes that the Net brake and the fishermen were amazed and fearful at so prodigious a draught But beyond the Miracle it was intended that a representation should be made of the plenitude of the Catholick Church and multitudes of Believers who should be taken by Simon and the rest of the Disciples whom by that Miracle he consign'd to become fishers of men who by their artifices of prudence and holy Doctrine might gain Souls to God that when the Net should be drawn to shore and separation made by the Angels they and their Disciples might be differenced from the reprobate portion 10. But the light of the Sun uses not to be confined to a Province or a Kingdom so great a Prophet and so divine a Physician and so great Miracles created a same loud as thunder but not so full of sadness and presage Immediately the fame of Jesus went into all Syria and there came to him multitudes from Galilee Decapolis Jerusalem and Judaea And all that had any sick with divers deseases brought them to him and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them And when he cured the Lunaticks and persons possessed with evil spirits the Devils cried out and confessed him to be CHRIST the Son of God but he suffered them not chusing rather to work Faith in the perswasions of his Disciples by moral arguments and the placid demonstrations of the Spirit that there might in Faith be an excellency in proportion to the choice and that it might not be made violent by the conviction and forced testimonies of accursed and unwilling spirits 11. But when Jesus saw his assembly was grown full and his audience numerous he went up into a mountain and when his Disciples came unto him he made that admirable Sermon called the Sermon upon the Mount which is a Divine repository of such excellent Truths and mysterious Dictates of secret Theology that contains a Breviary of all those Precepts which integrate the Morality of Christian Religion pressing the Moral Precepts given by Moses and enlarging their obligation by a stricter sence and more severe exposition that their righteousness might exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees preaches Perfection and the doctrines of Meekness Poverty of spirit Christian mourning desire of holy things Mercy and Purity Peace and toleration of injuries affixing a special promise of blessing to be the guerdon and inheritance of those Graces and spiritual excellencies He explicates some parts of the Decalogue and adds appendices and precepts of his own He teaches his Disciples to Pray how to Fast how to give Alms contempt of the world not to judge others forgiving injuries an indifferency and incuriousness of temporal provisions and a seeking of the Kingdom of God and its appendent righteousness 12. When Jesus had finished his Sermon and descended from the mountain a poor leprous person came and worshipped and begged to be cleansed which Jesus soon granted engaging him not to publish it where he should go abroad but sending him to the Priest to offer an oblation according to the Rites of Moses's Law and then came directly to Capernaum and taught in their Synagogues upon the Sabbath-days where in his Sermons he expressed the dignity of a Prophet and the authority of a person sent from God not inviting the people by the soft arguments and insinuations of Scribes and Pharisees but by demonstrations and issues of Divinity There he cures a Demoniack in one of their Synagogues and by and by after going abroad he heals Peter's wives 〈◊〉 of a Fever insomuch that he grew the talk of all men and their wonder till they flocked so to him to see him to hear him to satisfie their curiosity and their needs that after he had healed those multitudes which beset the house of Simon where he cured his Mother of the Fever he retired himself into a desert place very early in the morning that he might have an opportunity to pray free from the oppressions and noises of the multitude 13. But neither so could he be hid but like a light shining by the fringes of a curtain he was soon discovered in his solitude for the multitude found him out imprisoning him in their circuits and undeniable attendances But Jesus told them plainly he must preach the Gospel to other Cities also and therefore resolved to pass to the other side of the Lake of Genesareth so to quit the throng Whither as he was going a Scribe offered himself a Disciple to his Institution till Jesus told him his condition to be worse than foxes and birds for whom an habitation is provided but none for him no not a place where to bow his head and find rest And what became of this forward Professor afterward we find not Others that were Probationers of this fellowship Jesus bound to a speedy profession not suffering one to go home to bid his Friends farewell nor another so much as to bury his dead 14. By the time Jesus got to the Ship it was late and
Souls let them have the diligence and the craft of Fishers the watchfulness and care of Shepherds the prudence of Politicks the tenderness of Parents the spirit of Government the wariness of Observation great knowledge of the dispositions of their people and experience of such advantages by means of which they may serve the ends of God and of Salvation upon their Souls 7. When Peter had received the fruits of a rich Miracle in the prodigious and prosperous draught of fishes he instantly falls down at the feet of Jesus and confesses himself a sinner and unworthy of the presence of Christ. In which confession I not only consider the conviction of his Understanding by the testimony of the Miracle but the modesty of his spirit who in his exaltation and the joy of a sudden and happy success retired into Humility and consideration of his own unworthiness lest as it happens in sudden joys the lavishness of his spirit should transport him to intemperance to looser affections to vanity and garishness less becoming the severity and government of a Disciple of so great a Master For in such great and sudden accidents men usually are dissolved and melted into joy and inconsideration and let fly all their severe principles and discipline of manners till as Peter here did though to another purpose they say to Christ Depart from me O Lord as if such excellencies of joys like the lesser Stars did disappear at the presence of him who is the fountain of all joys regular and just When the spirits of the Body have been bound up by the cold Winter air the warmth of the Spring makes so great an aperture of the passages and by consequence such dissolution of spirits in the presence of the Sun that it becomes the occasion of Fevers and violent diseases Just such a thing is a sudden Joy in which the spirits leap out from their cells of austerity and sobriety and are warmed into Fevers and wildnesses and forfeiture of all Judgment and vigorous understanding In these accidents the best advice is to temper and allay our joys with some instant consideration of the vilest of our sins the shamefulness of our disgraces the most dolorous accidents of our lives the worst of our fears with meditation of Death or the terrours of Dooms-day or the unimaginable miseries of damned and accursed spirits For such considerations as these are good instruments of Sobriety and are correctives to the malignity of excessive Joys or temporal prosperities which like Minerals unless allayed by art prey upon the spirits and become the union of a contradiction being turned into mortal medicines 8. At this time Jesus preached to the people from the Ship which in the fancies and tropical discoursings of the old Doctors signifies the Church and declares that the Homilies of order and authority must be delivered from the Oracle they that preach must be sent and God hath appointed Tutors and Instructors of our Consciences by special designation and peculiar appointment if they that preach do not make their Sermons from the Ship their discourses either are the false murmurs of Hereticks and false Shepherds or else of Thieves and invaders of Authority or corrupters of Discipline and Order For God that loves to hear us in special places will also be heard himself by special persons and since he sent his Angels Ministers to convey his purposes of old then when the Law was ordained by Angels as by the hands of a Mediatour now also he will send his servants the sons of men since the new Law was ordained by the Son of man who is the Mediatour between God and man in the New Covenant And therefore in the Ship Jesus preach'd but he had first caused it to put off from land to represent to us that the Ship in which we preach must be put off from the vulgar communities of men separate from the people by the designation of special appointment and of special Holiness that is they neither must be common men nor of common lives but consecrated by order and hallowed by holy living lest the person want authority in destitution of a Divine Character and his Doctrine lose its energy and power when the life is vulgar and hath nothing in it holy and extraordinary 9. The Holy Jesus in the choice of his Apostles was resolute and determined to make election of persons bold and confident for so the Galilaeans were observed naturally to be and Peter was the boldest of the Twelve and a good Sword-man till the spirit of his Master had fastened his sword within the scabbard and charmed his spirit into quietness but he never chose any of the Scribes and Pharisees none of the Doctors of the Law but persons ignorant and unlearned which in design and institutions whose divinity is not demonstrated from other Arguments would seem an art of concealment and distrust But in this which derives its raies from the fountain of wisdom most openly and infallibly it is a contestation against the powers of the world upon the interests of God that he who does all the work might have all the glory and in the productions in which he is fain to make the instruments themselves and give them capacity and activity every part of the operation and causality and effect may give to God the same honour he had from the Creation for his being the only workman with the addition of those degrees of excellency which in the work of Redemption of Man are beyond that of his Creation and first being The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu Lord of the Creatures and Prince of the Catholick Church to whom all Creatures obey in acknowledgment of thy supreme Dominion and all according to thy disposition cooperate to the advancement of thy Kingdom be pleased to order the affairs and accidents of the world that all things in their capacity may do the work of the Gospel and cooperate to the good of the Elect and retrench the growth of Vice and advance the interests of Vertue Make all the states and orders of men Disciples of thy holy Institution Let Princes worship thee and defend Religion let thy Clergy do thee honour by personal zeal and vigilancy over their Flocks let all the world submit to thy Scepter and praise thy Righteousness and adore thy Judgments and revere thy Laws and in the multitudes of thy people within the enclosure of thy Nets let me also communicate in the offices of a strict and religious duty that I may know thy voice and obey thy call and entertain thy Holy Spirit and improve my talents that I may also communicate in the blessings of the Church and when the Nets shall be drawn to the shore and the Angels shall make separation of the good Fishes from the bad I may not be rejected or thrown into those Seas of fire which shall afflict the enemies of thy Kingdom but be admitted into the societies of Saints and the everlasting communion of
thy 〈◊〉 and Glories O Blessed and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE IX Of Repentance 1. THE whole Doctrine of the Gospel is comprehended by the Holy Ghost in these two Summaries Faith and Repentance that those two potent and imperious Faculties which command our lower powers which are the fountain of actions the occasion and capacity of Laws and the title to reward or punishment the Will and the Understanding that is the whole man considered in his superiour Faculties may become subjects of the Kingdom servants of Jesus and heirs of glory Faith supplies our imperfect conceptions and corrects our Ignorance making us to distinguish good from evil not onely by the proportions of Reason and Custome and old Laws but by the new standard of the Gospel it teaches us all those Duties which were enjoyned us in order to a participation of mighty glories it brings our Understanding into subjection making us apt to receive the Spirit for our Guide Christ for our Master the Gospel for our Rule the Laws of Christianity for our measure of good and evil and it supposes us naturally ignorant and comes to supply those defects which in our Understandings were left after the spoils of Innocence and Wisdome made in Paradise upon Adam's prevarication and continued and encreased by our neglect evil customes voluntary deceptions and infinite prejudices And as Faith presupposes our Ignorance so Repentance presupposes our Malice and Iniquity The whole design of Christ's coming and the Doctrines of the Gospel being to recover us from a miserable condition from Ignorance to spiritual Wisdome by the conduct of Faith and from a vicious habitually-depraved life and ungodly manners to the purity of the Sons of God by the instrument of Repentance 2. And this is a loud publication of the excellency and glories of the Gospel and the felicities of man over all the other instances of Creation The Angels who were more excellent Spirits than humane Souls were not comprehended and made safe within a Covenant and Provisions of Repentance Their first act of volition was their whole capacity of a blissful or a miserable Eternity they made their own sentence when they made their first election and having such excellent Knowledge and no weaknesses to prejudge and trouble their choice what they first did was not capable of Repentance because they had at first in their intuition and sight all which could afterward bring them to Repentance But weak Man who knows first by elements and after long study learns a syllable and in good time gets a word could not at first know all those things which were sufficient or apt to determine his choice but as he grew to understand more saw more reasons to rescind his first elections The Angels had a full peremptory Will and a satisfied Understanding at first and therefore were not to mend their first act by a second contradictory But poor Man hath a Will alwayes strongest when his Understanding is weakest and chuseth most when he is least able to determine and therefore is most passionate in his desires and follows his object with greatest earnestness when he is blindest and hath the least reason so to do And therefore God pitying Man begins to reckon his choices to be criminal just in the same degree as he gives him Understanding The violences and unreasonable actions of Childhood are no more remembred by God than they are understood by the Child The levities and passions of Youth are not aggravated by the imputation of Malice but are sins of a lighter dye because Reason is not yet impressed and marked upon them with characters and tincture in grain But he who when he may chuse because he understands shall chuse the evil and reject the good stands marked with a deep guilt and hath no excuse left to him but as his degrees of Ignorance left his choice the more imperfect And because every sinner in the style of Scripture is a fool and hath an election as imperfect as is the action that is as great a declension from Prudence as it is from Piety and the man understands as imperfectly as he practises therefore God sent his Son to take upon him not the nature of Angels but the 〈◊〉 of Abraham and to propound Salvation upon such terms as were possible that is upon such a Piety which relies upon experience and trial of good and evil and hath given us leave if we chuse amiss at first to chuse again and chuse better Christ having undertaken to pay for the issues of their first follies to make up the breach made by our first weaknesses and abused understandings 3. But as God gave us this mercy by Christ so he also revealed it by him He first used the Authority of a Lord and a Creator and a Law-giver he required Obedience indeed upon reasonable terms upon the instance of but a few Commandments at first which when he afterwards multiplied he also appointed ways to expiate the smaller irregularities but left them eternally bound without remedy who should do any great violence or a crime But then he bound them but to a Temporal death Only this as an eternal death was also tacitely implied so also a remedy was secretly ministred and Repentance particularly preached by Homilies distinct from the Covenant of Moses's Law The Law allowed no Repentance for greater crimes he that was convicted of Adultery was to die without mercy but God pitied the miseries of man and the inconveniences of the Law and sent Christ to suffer for the one and remedy the other for so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and that Repentance and Remission of sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations And now this is the last and only hope of Man who in his natural condition is imperfect in his customs vicious in his habits impotent and criminal Because Man did not remain innocent it became necessary he should be penitent and that this Penitence should by some means be made acceptable that is become the instrument of his Pardon and restitution of his hope Which because it is an act of favour and depends wholly upon the Divine dignation and was revealed to us by Jesus Christ who was made not onely the Prophet and Preacher but the Mediatour of this New Covenant and mercy it was necessary we should become Disciples of the Holy Jesus and servants of his Institution that is run to him to be made partakers of the mercies of this new Covenant and accept of him such conditions as he should require of us 4. This Covenant is then consigned to us when we first come to Christ that is when we first profess our selves his Disciples and his servants Disciples of his Doctrine and servants of his Institution that is in Baptism in which Christ who died for our sins makes us partakers of his death For we are buried by Baptism into his death saith S. Paul Which was also
proportionable reception of his and hath also commanded us to ask pardon all days of our life even in our daily offices and to beg it in the measure and rule of our own Charity and Forgiveness to our Brother And therefore God in his infinite wisdom foreseeing our frequent relapses and considering our infinite infirmities appointed in his Church an ordinary ministery of Pardon designing the Minister to pray for sinners and promising to accept him in that his advocation or that he would open or shut Heaven respectively to his act on earth that is he would hear his prayers and verifie his ministery to whom he hath committed the word of Reconciliation This became a duty to Christian Ministers Spiritual persons that they should restore a person overtaken in a fault that is reduce him to the condition he begins to lose that they should pray over sick persons who are also commanded to confess their sins and God hath promised that the sins they have committed shall be forgiven them Thus S. Paul absolved the incestuous excommunicate Corinthian in the person of Christ he forgave him And this also is the confidence S. John taught the Christian Church upon the stock of the excellent mercy of God and propitiation of Jesus If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all 〈◊〉 Which discourse he directs to them who were Christians already initiated into the Institution of Jesus And the Epistles which the Spirit sent to the Seven Asian Churches and were particularly addressed to the Bishops the Angels of those Churches are exhortations some to Perseverance some to Repentance that they may return from whence they are fallen And the case is so with us that it is impossible we should be actually and perpetually free from sin in the long succession of a busie and impotent and a tempted conversation And without these reserves of the Divine grace and after-emanations from the Mercy-seat no man could be saved and the death of Christ would become inconsiderable to most of his greatest purposes for none should have received advantages but newly-baptized persons whose Albs of Baptism served them also for a winding-sheet And therefore our Baptism although it does consign the work of God presently to the baptized person in great certain and intire effect in order to the remission of what is past in case the Catechumen be rightly disposed or hinders not yet it hath also influence upon the following periods of our life and hath admitted us into a lasting state of Pardon to be renewed and actually applied by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and all other Ministeries Evangelical and so long as our Repentance is timely active and affective 18. But now although it is infinitely certain that the gates of Mercy stand open to sinners after Baptism yet it is with some variety and greater difficulty He that renounces Christianity and becomes Apostate from his Religion not by a seeming abjuration under a storm but by a voluntary and hearty dereliction he seems to have quitted all that Grace which he had received when he was illuminated and to have lost the benefits of his Redemption and former expiation And I conceive this is the full meaning of those words of S. Paul which are of highest difficulty and latent sense For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned c. if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance The reason is there subjoyned and more clearly explicated a little after For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more sacrifice for sins For he hath counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace The meaning is divers according to the degrees of apostasie or relapse They who fall away after they were once enlightned in Baptism and felt all those blessed effects of the sanctification and the emanations of the Spirit if it be into a contradictory state of sin and mancipation and obstinate purposes to serve Christ's enemies then there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of Judgment but if the backsliding be but the interruption of the first Sanctity by a single act or an unconformed unresolved unmalicious habit then also it is impossible to renew them unto Repentance viz. as formerly that is they can never be reconciled as before integrally fully and at once during this life For that Redemption and expiation was by Baptism into Christ's death and there are no more deaths of Christ nor any more such sacramental consignations of the benefit of it there is no more sacrifice for sins but the Redemption is one as the Sacrifice is one in whose virtue the Redemption does operate And therefore the Novatians who were zealous men denied to the first sort of persons the peace of the Church and remitted them to the Divine Judgment The Church her self was sometimes almost as zealous against the second sort of persons lapsed into capital crimes granting to them Repentance but once by such disciplines consigning this truth That every recession from the state of Grace in which by Baptism we were established and consigned is a farther step from the possibilities of Heaven and so near a ruine that the Church thought them persons fit to be transmitted to a Judicature immediately Divine as supposing either her power to be too little or the others malice too great or else the danger too violent or the scandal insupportable For concerning such persons who once were pious holy and forgiven for so is every man and woman worthily and aptly baptized and afterwards fell into dissolution of manners extinguishing the Holy Ghost doing despite to the Spirit of Grace crucisying again the Lord of Life that is returning to such a condition from which they were once recovered and could not otherwise be so but by the death of our dearest Lord I say concerning such persons the Scripture speaks very suspiciously and to the sense and signification of an infinite danger For if the speaking a word against the Holy Ghost be not to be pardoned here nor hereafter what can we imagine to be the end of such an impiety which crucifies the Lord of Life and puts him to an open shame which quenches the Spirit doing despite to the Spirit of Grace Certainly that is worse than speaking against him And such is every person who falls into wilful Apostasie from the Faith or does that violence to Holiness which the other does to Faith that is extinguishes the sparks of Illumination quenches the Spirit and is habitually and obstinately criminal in any kind For the same thing that 〈◊〉 was in the first period of the world and Idolatry in the second the same is Apostasie in the last it is a state wholly contradictory to all our religious relation to God according to the
the same Saint When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord but if we would judge our selves we should not be judged where he expounds judged by chastened if we were severer to our selves God would be gentle and 〈◊〉 And there are only these two cautions to be annexed and then the direction is sufficient 1. That when promise of Pardon is annexed to any of these or another Grace or any good action it is not to be understood as if alone it were effectual either to the abolition or pardon of sins but the promise is made to it as to a member of the whole body of Piety In the coadunation and conjunction of parts the title is firm but not at all in distinction and separation For it is certain if we fail in one we are guilty of all and therefore cannot be repaired by any one Grace or one action or one habit And therefore Charity hides a multitude of sins with men and God too Alms deliver from death 〈◊〉 pierceth the clouds and will not depart before its answer be gracious and Hope purifieth and makes not ashamed and Patience and Faith and Piety to parents and Prayer and the eight Beatitudes have promises of this life and of that which is to come respectively and yet nothing will obtain these promises but the harmony and uniting of these Graces in a holy and habitual confederation And when we consider the Promise as singularly relating to that one Grace it is to be understood comparatively that is such persons are happy if compared with those who have contrary dispositions For such a capacity does its portion of the work towards complete Felicity from which the contrary quality does estrange and disintitle us 2. The special and minute actions and instances of these three preparatives of Repentance are not under any command in the particulars but are to be disposed of by Christian prudence in order to those ends to which they are most aptly instrumental and designed such as are Fasting and corporal severities in Satisfaction or the punitive parts of Repentance they are either vindictive of what is past and so are proper acts or effects of Contrition and godly sorrow or else they relate to the present and future estate and are intended for correction or emendation and so are of good use as they are medicinal and in that proportion not to be omitted And so is Confession to a Spiritual person an excellent instrument of Discipline a bridle of intemperate Passions an opportunity of Restitution Ye which are spiritual 〈◊〉 such a person overtaken in a fault saith the Apostle it is the application of a remedy the consulting with a guide and the best security to a weak or lapsed or an ignorant person in all which cases he is 〈◊〉 to judge his own questions and in these he is also committed to the care and conduct of another But these special instances of Repentance are capable of suppletories and are like the corporal works of Mercy necessary only in time and place and in accidental obligations He that relieves the poor or visits the sick chusing it for the instance of his Charity though he do not redeem captives is charitable and hath done his Alms. And he that cures his sin by any instruments by external or interiour and spiritual remedies is penitent though his diet be not 〈◊〉 and afflictive or his lodging hard or his sorrow bursting out into tears or his expressions passionate and dolorous I only add this that acts of publick Repentance must be by using the instruments of the Church such as she hath appointed of private such as by experience or by reason or by the counsel we can get we shall learn to be most effective of our penitential purposes And yet it is a great argument that the exteriour expressions of corporal severities are of good benefit because in all Ages wise men and severe Penitents have chosen them for their instruments The PRAYER O Eternal God who wert pleased in mercy to look upon us when we were in our 〈◊〉 to reconcile us when we were enemies to forgive us in the midst of our provocations of thy infinite and eternal Majesty finding out a remedy for us which man-kind could never ask even making an atonement for us by the death of thy Son sanctifying us by the bloud of the everlasting Covenant and thy all-hallowing and Divinest Spirit let thy 〈◊〉 so perpetually assist and encourage my endeavours conduct my will and fortifie my intentions that 〈◊〉 may persevere in that holy condition which thou hast put me in by the grace of the Covenant and the mercies of the Holy Jesus O let me never fall into those sins and retire to that vain conversation from which the eternal and merciful Saviour of the World hath redeemed me but let me grow in Grace adding Vertue to vertue reducing my purposes to act and increasing my acts till they grow into habits and my habits till they be confirmed and still confirming them till they be consummate in a blessed and holy perseverance Let thy Preventing grace dash all Temptations in their approach let thy Concomitant grace enable me to resist them in the assault and overcome them in the fight that my hopes be never discomposed nor my Faith weakned nor my confidence made remiss or my title and portion in the Covenant be lessened Or if thou permittest me at any time to 〈◊〉 which Holy Jesu avert for thy mercy and compession sake yet let me not sleep in sin but recall me instantly by the clamours of a nice and tender Conscience and the quickning Sermons of the Spirit that I may never pass from sin to sin from one degree to another lest sin should get the dominion over me lest thou be angry with me and reject me from the Covenant and I perish Purifie me from all 〈◊〉 sanctifie my spirit that I may be holy as thou art and let me never provoke thy jealousie nor presume upon thy goodness nor distrust thy mercies nor 〈◊〉 my Repentance nor rely upon vain confidences but that I may by a constant sedulous and timely endeavour make my calling and election sure living to thee and dying to thee that having sowed to the Spirit I may from thy mercies reap in the Spirit bliss and eternal sanctity and everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Saviour our hope and our mighty and ever-glorious Redeemer Amen Vpon Christ ' s Sermon on the Mount and of the Eight Beatitudes Moses delivers the Law Joh. 1. 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. These words the Lord spake unto all the Assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire with a great voice he wrote them in two Tables of stone delivered them unto me Deut. 5. 22. Christ preaches in the Mount He went up into a mountain opened his mouth taught them saying Blessed are the poor in
was a Law of Works that is especially and in its first intention But this being less perfect the Holy Jesus inverted the order 1. For very little of Christianity stands upon the outward action Christ having appointed but two Sacraments immediately and 2. a greater restraint is laid upon the passions desires and first motions of the spirit than under the severity of Moses and 3. they are threatned with the same curses of a sad eternity with the acts proceeding from them and 4. because the obedience of the spirit does in many things excuse the want of the outward act God always requiring at our hands what he hath put in our power and no more and 5. lastly because the spirit is the principle of all actions moral and spiritual and certainly productive of them when they are not impeded from without therefore the Holy Jesus hath secured the fountain as knowing that the current must needs be healthful and pure if it proceeds through pure chanels from a limpid and unpolluted principle 4. And certainly it is much for the glory of God to worship him with a Religion whose very design looks upon God as the searcher of our hearts and Lord of our spirits who judges the purposes as a God and does not only take his estimate from the outward action as a man And it is also a great reputation to the Institution it self that it purifies the Soul and secures the secret cogitations of the mind It punishes Covetouiness as it judges Rapine it condemns a Sacrilegious heart as soon as an Irreligious hand it detests hating of our Brother by the same aversation which it expresses against doing him 〈◊〉 He that curses in his heart shall die the death of an explicite and bold Blasphemer murmur and repining is against the Laws of Christianity but either by the remissness of Moses's Law or the gentler execution of it or the innovating or lessening glosses of the Pharisees he was esteemed innocent whose actions were according to the letter not whose spirit was conformed to the intention and more secret Sanctity of the Law So that our Righteousness must therefore exceed the Pharisaical standard because our spirits must be pure as our hands and the heart as regular as the action our purposes must be sanctified and our thoughts holy we must love our Neighbour as well as relieve him and chuse Justice with adhesion of the mind as well as carry her upon the palms of our hands And therefore the Prophets foretelling the Kingdom of the Gospel and the state of this Religion call it a writing the Laws of God in our hearts And S. Paul distinguishes the Gospel from the Law by this only measure We are all Israelites of the seed of Abraham heirs of the same inheritance only now we are not to be accounted Jews for the outward consormity to the Law but for the inward consent and obedience to those purities which were secretly signified by the types of Moses They of the Law were Jews outwardly their Circumcision was outward in the flesh their praise was of men We are Jews inwardly our Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter and our praise is of God that is we are not judged by the outward act but by the mind and the intention and though the acts must sollow in all instances where we can and where they are required yet it is the less principal and rather significative than by its own strength and energy operative and accepted 5. S. Clemens of Alexandria saith the Pharisees righteousness consisted in the not doing evil and that Christ superadded this also that we must do the contrary good and so exceed the Pharisaical measure They would not wrong a Jew nor many times relieve him they reckoned their innocence by not giving offence by walking blameless by not being accused before the Judges sitting in the gates of their Cities But the balance in which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Christians is not only the avoiding evil but doing good the following peace with all men and holiness the proceeding from faith to faith the adding vertue to vertue the persevering in all holy conversation and godliness And therefore S. Paul commending the grace of universal Charity says that Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law implying that the prime intention of the Law was that every man's right be secured that no man receive wrong And indeed all the Decalogue consisting of Prohibitions rather than Precepts saving that each Table hath one positive Commandment does not obscurely verifie the doctrine of S. Clement's interpretation Now because the Christian Charity abstains from doing all injury therefore it is the fulfilling of the Law but because it is also patient and liberal that it suffers long and is kind therefore the Charity commanded in Christ's Law exceeds that Charity which the Scribes and Pharisees reckoned as part of their Righteousness But Jesus himself does with great care in the particulars instance in what he would have the Disciples to be eminent above the most strict Sect of the Jewish Religion 1. in practising the moral Precepts of the Decalogue with a stricter interpretation 2. and in quitting the Permissions and licences which for the hardness of their heart Moses gave them as indulgences to their persons and securities against the contempt of too severe Laws 6. The severity of exposition was added but to three Commandments and in three indulgences the permission was taken away But because our great Law-giver repeated also other parts of the Decalogue in his after-Sermons I will represent in this one view all that he made to be Christian by adoption 7. The first Commandment Christ often repeated and enforced as being the basis of all Religion and the first endearment of all that relation whereby we are capable of being the sons of God as being the great Commandment of the Law and comprehensive of all that duty we owe to God in the relations of the vertue of Religion Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Lord and Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength This is the first Commandment that is this comprehends all that which is moral and eternal in the first Table of the 〈◊〉 8. The Duties of this Commandment are 1. To worship God alone with actions proper to him and 2. to love and 3. obey him with all our faculties 1. Concerning Worship The actions proper to the Honour of God are to offer Sacrifice Incense and Oblations making Vows to him Swearing by his Name as the instrument of secret testimony confessing his incommunicable Attributes and Praying to him for those Graces which are essentially annexed to his dispensation as Remission of sins Gifts of the Spirit and the grace of 〈◊〉 and Life
eternal Other acts of Religion such as are uncovering the head 〈◊〉 the knee falling upon our face stooping to the ground reciting praises are by the consent of Nations used as testimonies of civil or religious veneration and do not always pass for confessions of a Divinity and therefore may be without sin used to Angels or Kings or Governours or to persons in any sence more excellent than our selves provided they be intended to express an excellency no greater than is proper to their dignities and persons not in any sence given to an Idol or false Gods But the first sort are such which all the world hath consented to be actions of Divine and incommunicable Adoration and such which God also in several Religions hath reserved as his own appropriate regalities and are Idolatry if given to any Angel or man 9. The next Duties are 2. Love 3. and Obedience but they are united in the Gospel This is Love that we keep his Commandments and since we are for God's sake bound also to love others this Love is appropriate to God by the extension of parts and the intension of degrees The Extension signifies that we must serve God with all our Faculties for all division of parts is hypocrisie and a direct prevarication our Heart must think what our Tongue speaks our Hands act what we promise or purpose and God's enemies must have no share so much as in appearance or dissimulation Now no Creature can challenge this and if we do Justice to our neighbours though unwillingly we have done him no injury for in that case he only who sees the irregularity of our thoughts is the person injured And when we swear to him our heart must swear as well as our tongue and our hands must pay what our lips have promised or else we provoke him with an imperfect sacrifice we love him not with all our mind with all our strength and all our faculties 10. But the difficulty and question of this Commandment lies in the Intension For it is not enough to serve God with every Capacity Passion and Faculty but it must be every degree of every Faculty all the latitude of our Will all the whole intension of our Passions all the possibility and energy of our Senses and our Understanding which because it is to be understood according to that moderate sentence and account which God requires of us set in the midst of such a condition so attended and depressed and prejudiced the full sence of it I shall express in several Propositions 11. First The Intension of the Love to which we are obliged requires not the Degree which is absolutely the greatest and simply the most perfect For there are degrees of Grace every one of which is pleasing to God and is a state of Reconciliation and atonement and he that breaks not the bruised reed nor quenches the smoaking slax loves to cherish those endeavours which beginning from small principles pass through the variety of degrees and give demonstration that though it be our duty to contend for the best yet this contention is with an enemy and that enemy makes an abatement and that abatement being an imperfection rather than a sin is actually consistent with the state of Grace the endeavour being in our power and not the success the perfection is that which shall be our reward and therefore is not our present duty And indeed if to do the best action and to love God as we shall do in Heaven were a present obligation it would have been clearly taught us what is simply the best action whereas now that which is of it self better in certain circumstances is less perfect and sometimes not lawful and concerning those circumstances we have no rules nor any guide but prudence and probable inducements so that it is certain in our best endeavours we should only increase our scruples in stead of doing actions of the highest perfections we should crect a tyranny over our Consciences and no augmentation of any thing but the trouble And therefore in the Law of Moses when this Commandment was given in the same words yet that the sence of it might be clear the analogy of the Law declared that their duty had a latitude and that God was not so strict a task-master but that he left many instances of Piety to the voluntary Devotion of his servants that they might receive the reward of Free-will-offerings But if these words had obliged them to the greatest degree that is to all the degrees of our capacities in every instance every act of Religion had been duty and necessity 12. And thus also it was in the Gospel Ananias and Sapphira were killed by sentence from Heaven for not performing what was in their power at first not to have promised but because they brought an obligation upon themselves which God brought not and then prevaricated they paid the forfeiture of their lives S. Paul took no wages of the Corinthian Churches but wrought night and day with his own hand but himself says he had power to do otherwise There was laid upon him a necessity to preach but no necessity to preach without wages and support There is a good and a better in Virginity and Marriage and yet there is no command in either but that we abstain from sin we are left to our own election for the particular having no necessity but power in our will David prayed seven times a day and Daniel prayed three times and both were beloved of God The Christian masters were not bound to manumit their slaves and yet were commended if they did so Sometimes the Christians fled in Persecution S. Paul did so and S. Peter did so and S. Cyprian did so and S. Athanasius and many more But time was when some of these also chose to suffer death rather than to fly And if to fly be a permission and no duty there is certainly a difference of degrees in the choice to fly is not so great a suffering as to die and yet a man may innocently chuse the easier And our Blessed Lord himself who never failed of any degree of his obligations yet at some time prayed with more zeal and servour than at other times as a little before his Passion Since then at all times he did not do actions of that degree which is absolutely the greatest it is evident that God's goodness is so great as to be content with such a Love which parts no share between him and sin and leaves all the rest under such a liberty as is only encouraged by those extraordinary rewards and crowns proportioned to heroical endeavours It was a pretty Question which was moved in the Solitudes of Nitria concerning two Religious Brothers the one gave all his goods to the poor at once the other kept the inheritance and gave all the revenue None of all the Fathers knew which was absolutely the better at once to renounce all or by repetition of charitable acts
his unreasonableness will give him a new degree of torment when he shall find himself in flames for being a stupid an Atheistical an irreligious fool This only I desire should be observed that our Blessed Master forbids not only swearing by God but by any Creature for every Oath by a creature does involve and tacitely relate to God And therefore saith Christ Swear not by Heaven for it is the throne of God and he that sweareth by the throne of God sweareth by it and by him that sitteth thereon So that it is not a less matter to swear by a Creature than to swear by God for a Creature cannot be the instrument of testimony but as it is a relative to God and it by implication calls the God of that Creature to witness So that although in such cases in which it is permitted to swear by God we may in those cases express our Oath in the form of advocating and calling the Creature as did the primitive Christians swearing by the health of their Emperour and as Joseph swearing by the life of Pharaoh and as Elisha swearing by the life of Elias and as did S. Paul protesting by the rejoycing he had in Jesus Christ and as we in our forms of swearing in Courts of Judicature touch the Gospels saying So help me God and the Contents of this Book and in a few Ages lately past Bishops and Priests sometimes swore upon the Cross sometimes upon the Altar sometimes by their holy Order yet we must remember that this in other words and ceremonies is but a calling God for witness and he that swears by the Cross swears by the holy Crucifix that is Jesus crucified thereon And therefore these and the like forms are therefore not to be used in ordinary communication because they relate to God they are as obligatory as the immediate invocation of his Holiness and Majesty and it was a Judaical vanity to think swearing by Creatures was less obliging they are just with the same restraints made to be religious as the most solemn invocation of the holy and reverend Name of God lawful or unlawful as the other unless the swearing by a Creature come to be spoiled by some other intervening circumstance that is with a denying it to relate to God for then it becomes Superstition as well as Profanation and it gives to a Creature what is proper to God or when the Creature is contemptible or less than the gravity of the matter as if a man should swear by a Fly or the shadow of a Tree or when there is an indecorum in the thing or something that does at too great distance relate to God for that which with greatest vicinity refers to God in several Religions is the best instrument of an Oath and nearest to God's honour as in Christianity are the Holy Sacrament the Cross the Altar and the Gospels and therefore too great a distance may be an indecency next to a disparagement This only may be added to this consideration That although an Oath which is properly calling God or God's relative into testimony is to be understood according to the former Discourse yet there may be great affirmations or negations respectively and confirmed by forms of vehement asseveration such as the customes of a Nation or consent shall agree upon and those do in some cases promote our belief or confirm our pretensions better than a plain Yea or No because by such consent the person renders himself infamous if he breaks his word or trust And although this will not come under the restraint of Christ's words because they are not properly Oaths but circumstances of earnest affirmation or negation yet these are humane Attestations introduced by custome or consent and as they come not under the notion of Swearing so they are forms of testimony and collateral engagement of a more strict truth 24. The Holy Jesus having specified the great Commandment of loving God with all our heart in this one instance of hallowing and keeping his Name sacred that is from profane and common talk and less prudent and unnecessary entercourses instanced in no other commandment of Moses but having frequent occasion to speak of the Sabbath for ever expresses his own dominion over the Day and that he had dissolved the bands of Moses in this instance that now we were no more obliged to that Rest which the 〈◊〉 religiously observed by prescript of the Law and by divers acts against securities of the then-received practices did desecrate the day making it a broken yoke and the first great instance of Christian Liberty And when the Apostle gave instructions that no man should judge his 〈◊〉 in a Holy-day or New-moons or the Sabbath-days he declared all the Judaical Feasts to be obliterated by the spunge which Jesus tasted on the Cross it was within the Manuscript of Ordinances and there it was cancelled And there was nothing moral in it but that we do honour to God for the Creation and to that and all other purposes of Religion separate and hallow some portion of our time The Primitive Church kept both the Sabbath and the Lord's day till the time of the 〈◊〉 Council about 300 years after Christ's nativity and almost in every thing made them equal and therefore did not esteem the Lord's day to be substituted in the place of the obliterated Sabbath but a Feast celebrated by great reason and perpetual consent without precept or necessary Divine injunction But the liberty of the Church was great they found themselves disobliged from that strict and necessary Rest which was one great part of the Sabbatick rites only they were glad of the occasion to meet often for offices of Religion and the day served well for the gaining and facilitating the Conversion of the Jews and for the honourable sepulture of the Synagogue it being kept so long 〈◊〉 the forty days mourning of Israel for the death of their Father Jacob but their liberty they improved not to licence but as an occasion of more frequent assemblies And there is something in it for us to imitate even to sanctifie the Name of God in the great work of the Creation reading his praises in the book of his Creatures and taking all occasions of religious acts and offices though in none of the Jewish circumstances 25. Concerning the observation of the Lord's Day which now the Church observes and ever did in remembrance of the Resurrection because it is a day of positive and Ecclesiastical institution it is fit that the Church who instituted the day should determine the manner of its observation It was set apart in honour of the Resurrection and it were not ill if all Churches would into the weekly Offices put some memorial of that mystery that the reason of the Festival might be remembred with the day God thanked with the renewing of the Offices But because Religion was the design of the Feast and 〈◊〉
proportions several degrees of punishment in the other world which he apportions to the degrees of death which had ever been among the Jews viz. the Sword Stoning to death which were punishments legal and judicial and the Burning infants in the Valley of Hinnom which was a barbarous and superstitious custome used formerly by their Fathers in imitation of the Phoenician accursed rites 35. The remedies against Anger which are prescribed by Masters of spiritual life are partly taken from rules of Prudence partly from Piety and more precise rules of Religion In Prudence 1. Do not easily entertain or at all encourage or willingly hear or promptly believe Tale-bearers and reporters of other mens faults for oftentimes we are set on fire by an ignis 〈◊〉 a false flame and an empty story 2. Live with peaceable people if thou canst 3. Be not inquisitive into the misdemeanours of others or the reports which are made of you 4. Find out reasons of excuse to alleviate and lessen the ignorances of a friend or carelesnesses of a servant 5. Observe what object is aptest to inflame thee and by special arts of fortification stop up the avenues to that part If Losses if Contempt if Incivilities if Slander still make it the greatest part of your imployment to subdue the impotency of that Passion that is more apt to raise tempests 6. Extirpate petty curiosities of Apparel Lodging Diet and learn to be indifferent in circumstances and if you be apt to be transported with such little things do some great thing that shall cut off their frequent intervening 7. Do not multiply secular cares and troublesome negotiations which have variety of conversation with several humours of men and accidents of things but frame to thy self a life simple as thou canst and free from all affectations 8. Sweeten thy temper and allay the violence of thy spirit with some convenient natural temperate and medicinal solaces for some dispositions we have seen inflamed into Anger and often assaulted by Peevishness through immoderate fasting and inconvenient austerities 9. A gentle answer is an excellent Remora to the progresses of Anger whether in thy self or others For Anger is like the waves of a troubled sea when it is corrected with a soft reply as with a little strand it retires and leaves nothing behind it but froth and shells no permanent mischief 10. Silence is an excellent art and that was the advice which S. Isaac an old religious person in the Primitive Church is reported to have followed to suppress his Anger within his breast and use what means he could there to strangle it but never permitting it to go forth in language Anger and Lust being like fire which if you enclose suffering it to have no emission it perishes and dies but give it the smallest vent and it rages to a consumption of all it reaches And this advice is coincident with the general rule which is prescribed in all temptations that Anger be suppressed in its cradle and first assaults 11. Lastly let every man be careful that in his Repentance or in his Zeal or his Religion he be as dispassionate and free from Anger as is possible lest Anger pass upon him in a reflex act which was rejected in the direct Some mortifiers in their contestation against Anger or any evil or troublesome principle are like Criers of Assizes who calling for silence make the greatest noise they are extremely angry when they are fighting against the habit or violent inclinations to Anger 36. But in the way of more strict Religion it is advised that he who would cure his Anger should pray often It is S. Austin's counsel to the Bishop Auxilius that like the Apostles in a storm we should awaken Christ and call to him for aid lest we shipwreck in so violent 〈◊〉 and impetuous disturbances 2. Propound to thy self the example of Meek and Patient persons remembring always that there is a family of Meek Saints of which Moses is the Precedent a family of Patient Saints under the conduct of Job every one in the mountain of the Lord shall be gathered to his own Tribe to his own Family in the great day of Jubilee and the Angry shall perish with the effects of Anger and peevish persons shall be vexed with the disquietness of an eternal worm and sting of a vexatious Conscience if they suffer here the transportations and saddest effects of an unmortified habitual and prevailing anger 3. Above all things endeavour to be humble to think of thy self as thou deservest that is meanly and unworthily and in reason it is to be presumed thou wilt be more patient of wrong quiet under affronts and injuries susceptive of inconveniences and apt to entertain all adversities as instruments of Humiliation deleteries of Vice corrections of undecent Passions and instruments of Vertue 4. All the Reason and all the Relations and all the Necessities of mankind are daily arguments against the violences and inordinations of Anger For he that would not have his Reason confounded or his discourse useless or his family be a den of Lions he that would not have his Marriage a daily duel or his Society troublesome or his Friendship formidable or his Feasts bitter he that delights not to have his Discipline cruel or his Government tyrannical or his Disputations violent or his Civilities unmannerly or his Charity be a rudeness or himself brutish as a Bear or peevish as a Fly or miserable upon every accident and in all the changes of his life must mortifie his Anger For it concerns us as much as Peace and Wisdome and Nobleness and Charity and Felicity are worth to be at peace in our breasts and to be pleased with all God's Providence and to be in charity with every thing and with every man 37. Thou shalt not commit Adultery These two Commandments are immediate to each other and of the greatest cognation for Anger and Lust work upon one subject and the same fervours of bloud which make men revengeful will also make men unchast But the prohibition is repeated in the words of the old Commandment so it was said to them of old which was not only a prohibition of the violation of the rights of Marriage but was even among the Jews extended to signifie all mixture of sexes not matrimonial For Adultery in Scripture is sometimes used to signifie Fornication and Fornication for Adultery as it is expressed in the permissions of Divorce in the case of Fornication and by Moses's Law Fornication also was forbidden and it was hated also and reproved in the natural But it is very probable that this Precept was restrained only to the instance of Adultery in the proper sense that is violation of Marriage for Moses did in other annexes of the Law forbid Fornication And as a blow or wound was not esteemed in Moses's Law a breach of the sixth Commandment so neither was any thing but Adultery esteemed a violation of the
to chuse the time and the end for us and though we must prevaricate neither yet we may improve both we must not go less but we may enlarge and when Fasting is commanded only for 〈◊〉 we may also use it to Prayers and to Mortification And we must be curious that we do not obey the letter of the prescription and violate the intention but observe all that care in publick Fasts which we do in private knowing that our private ends are included in the publick as our persons are in the communion of Saints and our hopes in the common inheritance of sons and see that we do not fast in order to a purpose and yet use it so as that it shall be to no purpose Whosoever so fasts as that it be not effectual in some degree towards the end or so fasts that it be accounted of it self a duty and an act of Religion without order to its proper end makes his act vain because it is unreasonable or vain because it is superstitious The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesu who didst for our sake fast forty days and forty nights and hast left to us thy example and thy prediction that in the days of thy absence from us we thy servants and children of thy Bride-chamber should fast teach us to do this act of discipline so that it may become an act of Religion Let us never be like Esau valuing a dish of meat above a blessing but let us deny our appetites of meat and drink and accustom our selves to the yoak and subtract the fuel of our Lusts and the incentives of all our unworthy desires that our bodies being free from the intemperances of nutriment and our spirits from the load and pressure of appetite we may have no desires but of thee that our outward man daily decaying by the violence of time and mortified by the abatements of its too free and unnecessary support it may by degrees resign to the intire dominion of the Soul and may pass from vanity to Piety from weakness to ghostly strength from darkness and mixtures of impurity to great transparences and clarity in the society of a beatified Soul reigning with thee in the glories of Eternity O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE XIV Of the Miracles which JESVS wrought for confirmation of his Doctrine during the whole time of his Preaching Mary Martha A woman named Martha received him into her house And her sister Mary sat at Iesus feet and heard his word But Martha was cumbred about much serving And Iesus said unto her Martha Martha thou art careful troubled about many things but one thing is needfull Mary hath chosen that good part Luk. 10. 38 39 40 41 42. The dried hand healed devil cast out Mat 12. 10 And behold There was a man which had his hand dryed up c. 13. Then said he unto the man stretch sorth thine hand c. 22. Then was brought to him one possessed with a Devill c. and he healed him 1. WHen Jesus had ended his Sermon on the Mount he descended into the valleys to consign his Doctrine by the power of Miracles and the excellency of a rare Example that he might not lay a yoak upon us which himself also would not bear But as he became the authour so also the finisher of our Faith what he designed in proposition he represented in his own practice and by these acts made a new Sermon teaching all Prelates and spiritual persons to descend from their 〈◊〉 of contemplation and the authority and business of their discourses to apply themselves to do more material and corporal mercies to afflicted persons and to preach by Example as well as by their Homilies For he that teaches others well and practises contrary is like a fair candlestick bearing a goodly and bright taper which sends forth light to all the house but round about it self there is a shadow and circumstant darkness The Prelate should be the light consuming and spending it self to enlighten others scattering his rays round about from the 〈◊〉 of Contemplation and from the 〈◊〉 of Practice but himself always tending upwards till at last he expires into the element of Love and celestial fruition 2. But the Miracles which Jesus did were next to infinite and every circumstance of action that passed from him as it was intended for Mercy so also for Doctrine and the impotent or diseased persons were not more cured than we instructed But because there was nothing in the actions but what was a pursuance of the Doctrines delivered in his Sermons in the Sermon we must look after our Duty and look upon his practice as a verification of his Doctrine instrumental also to other purposes Therefore in general if we consider his Miracles we shall see that he did design them to be a compendium of Faith and Charity For he chose to instance his Miracles in actions of Mercy that all his powers might especially determine upon bounty and Charity and yet his acts of Charity were so miraculous that they became an argument of the Divinity of his Person and Doctrine Once he turned water into wine which was a mutation by a supernatural power in a natural suscipient where a person was not the subject but an Element and yet this was done to rescue the poor Bridegroom from affront and trouble and to do honour to the holy rite of Marriage All the rest unless we except his Walking upon the waters during his natural life were actions of relief and mercy according to the design of God manifesting his power most chiefly in shewing mercy 3. The great design of Miracles was to prove his Mission from God to convince the world of sin to demonstrate his power of forgiving sins to indear his Precepts and that his Disciples might believe in him and that believing they might have life through his name For he to whom God by doing Miracles gave testimony from Heaven must needs be sent from God and he who had received power to restore nature and to create new organs and to extract from incapacities and from privations to reduce habits was Lord of Nature and therefore of all the world And this could not but create great confidences in his Disciples that himself would verifie those great Promises upon which he established his Law But that the argument of Miracles might be infallible and not apt to be reproved we may observe its eminency by divers circumstances of probability heightned up to the degree of moral demonstration 4. First The Holy Jesus did Miracles which no man before him or at that time ever did Moses smote the Rock and water gushed out but he could not turn that water into wine Moses cured no diseases by the empire of his will or the word of his mouth but Jesus healed all infirmities Elisha raised a dead Child to life but Jesus raised one who had been dead four
your temporal's but to make your noble usages of me and mine to become like your other Charities productive of advantages to the standers by For although the beams of the Sun reflected from a marble return not home to the body and fountain of light yet they that walk below feel the benefit of a doubled heat so whatever reflexions or returns of your Favours I can make although they fall short of what your Worth does most reasonably challenge and can proceed but towards you with forward desires and distant approaches yet I am desirous to believe that those who walk between us may receive assistences from this entercourse and the following Papers may be auxiliary to the enkindling of their Piety as to the confirming and establishing yours For although the great Prudence of your most Noble Lord and the modesties of your own temperate and sweeter dispositions become the great endearments of Vertue to you yet because it is necessary that you make Religion the business of your life I thought it not an impertinent application to express my thankfulness to your Honour by that which may best become my duty and my gratitude because it may do you the greatest service Madam I must beg your pardon that I have opened the sanctuary of your retired Vertues but I was obliged to publish the endearments and favours of your Noble Lord and your self towards me and my relatives For as your hands are so clasp'd that one Ring is the ligature of them both so I have found emanations from that conjuncture of hands with a consent so forward and apt that nothing can satisfie for my obligations but by being in the greatest eminency of thankfulness and humility of person MADAM Your Honour 's most obliged and most humble Servant JER TAYLOR TO The Right Honourable and Vertuous Lady The LADY ALICE Countess of CARBERY MADAM BY the Divine Providence which disposes all things wisely and charitably you are in the affections of your Noblest Lord Successor to a very dear and most Excellent person designed to fill up those offices of Piety to her dear pledges which the hast which God made to glorify and secure her would not permit her to finish I have much ado to refrain from telling great stories of her Wisdom Piety Judgment Sweetness and Religion but that it would renew the wound and make our sins bleed afresh at the memory of that dear Saint and we hope that much of the storm of the Divine anger is over because he hath repaired the breach by sending you to go on upon her account and to give countenance and establishment to all those Graces which were warranted and derived from her example Madam the Nobleness of your Family your Education and your excellent Principles your fair dispositions affable Comportment have not only made all your servants confident of your Worthiness and great Vertues but have disposed you so highly and necessarily towards an active and a zealous Religion that we expect it should grow to the height of a great Example that you may draw others after you as the eye follows the light in all the angles of its retirement or open stages of its publication In order to this I have chosen your Honour into a new relation and have endeared you to this instrument of Piety that if you will please to do it countenance and imploy it in your counsels and pious offices it may minister to your appetites of Religion which as they are already fair and prosperous so they may swell up to a vastness large enough to entertain all the secrets and pleasures of Religion that so you may add to the Blessings and Prosperities which already dwell in that Family where you are now fixed new title to more upon the stock of all those Promises which have secured and entailed Felicities upon such persons who have no vanities but very many Vertues Madam I could not do you any service but by doing my self this honour to adorn my Book with this fairest title and inscription of your Name You may observe but cannot blame my ambition so long as it is instanced in a religious service and means nothing but this that I may signifie how much I honour that Person who is designed to bring new Blessings to that Family which is so Honourable in it self and for so many reasons dear to me Madam upon that account besides the stock of your own Worthiness I am Your Honour 's most humble and obedient Servant JER TAYLOR SECT XIII Of the Second Year of the Preaching of JESVS The poole of Bethesda IOH. 5. 8. 9. Iesus saith unto him Rise take up thy bed and walk and immediately the man was made whol and walked and on the same day was the Sabboath place this to the third Sunday in Advent Marie washing CHRISTS feet IOH. 12. 7 Then said Iesus let her alone Against the day of my burying hath she kept this 8 For the poore alwayes ye haue with you but me ye haue not alwayes Monday before Easter 1. WHEN the First Year of Jesus the year of Peace and undisturbed Preaching was expired there was a Feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem This Feast was the second Passeover he kept after he began to preach not the Feast of Pentecost or Tabernacles both which were passed before Jesus came last from Judaea whither when he was now come he finds an impotent person lying at the pool of Bethesda waiting till the Angel should move the waters after which whosoever first stepped in was cured of his infirmity The poor man had waited thirty eight years and still was prevented by some other of the Hospital that needed a Physician But Jesus seeing him had pity on him cured him and bade him take up his bed and walk This cure happened to be wrought upon the Sabbath for which the Jews were so moved with indignation that they thought to 〈◊〉 him And their anger was enraged by his calling himself the Son of God and making himself equal with God 2. Upon occasion of this offence which they snatched at before it was ministred Jesus discourses upon his Mission and derivation of his authority from the Father of the union between them and the excellent communications of power participation of dignity delegation of judicature reciprocations and reflexions of honour from the Father to the Son and back again to the Father He preaches of life and Salvation to them that believe in him prophesies of the resurrection of the dead by the efficacy of the voice of the Son of God speaks of the day of Judgment the differing conditions after of Salvation and Damnation respectively confirms his words and mission by the testimony of John the Baptist of Moses and the other Scriptures and of God himself And still the scandal rises higher for in the second Sabbath after the first that is in the first day of unleavened bread which happened the next day after the
material and circumstantiate actions of Piety For these have great powers and influences even in Nature to restore health and preserve our lives Witness the sweet sleeps of temperate persons and their constant appetite which Timotheus the son of Conon observed when he dieted in Plato's Academy with severe and moderated diet They that sup with Plato are well the next day Witness the symmetry of passions in meek men their freedome from the violence of inraged and passionate indispositions the admirable harmony and sweetness of content which dwells in the retirements of a holy Conscience to which if we add those joys which they only understand truly who feel them inwardly the joys of the Holy Ghost the content and joys which are attending upon the lives of holy persons are most likely to make them long and healthful For now we live saith S. Paul if ye stand fast in the Lord. It would prolong S. Paul's life to see his ghostly children persevere in holiness and if we understood the joys of it it would do much greater advantage to our selves But if we consider a spiritual life abstractedly and in it self Piety produces our life not by a natural efficiency but by Divine benediction God gives a healthy and a long life as a reward and blessing to crown our Piety even before the sons of men For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the Earth but they that be cursed of him shall be cut off So that this whole matter is principally to be referred to the act of God either by ways of nature or by instruments of special providence rewarding Piety with a long life And we shall more fully apprehend this if upon the grounds of Scripture Reason and Experience we weigh the contrary Wickedness is the way to shorten our days 19. Sin brought Death in first and yet Man lived almost a thousand years But he sinned more and then Death came nearer to him for when all the World was first drowned in wickedness and then in water God cut him shorter by one half and five hundred years was his ordinary period And Man sinned still and had strange imaginations and built towers in the air and then about Peleg's time God cut him shorter by one half yet two hundred and odd years was his determination And yet the generations of the World returned not unanimously to God and God cut him off another half yet and reduced him to one hundred and twenty years And by Moses's time one half of the final remanent portion was pared away reducing him to threescore years and ten so that unless it be by special dispensation men live not beyond that term or thereabout But if God had gone on still in the same method and shortned our days as we multiplied our sins we should have been but as an Ephemeron Man should have lived the life of a Fly or a Gourd the morning should have seen his birth his life have been the term of a day and the evening must have provided him of a shroud But God seeing Man's thoughts were onely evil continually he was resolved no longer so to strive with him nor destroy the kinde but punish individuals onely and single persons and if they sinned or if they did obey regularly their life should be proportionable This God set down for his rule Evil shall 〈◊〉 the wicked person and He that keepeth the Commandments keepeth his own Soul but he that despiseth his own ways shall die 20. But that we may speak more exactly in this Probleme we must observe that in Scripture three general causes of natural death are assigned Nature Providence and Chance By these three I onely mean the several manners of Divine influence and operation For God only predetermines and what is changed in the following events by Divine permission to this God and Man in their several manners do cooperate The saying of David concerning Saul with admirable Philosophy describes the three ways of ending Man's life David said furthermore As the LORD liveth the LORD shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battel and perish The first is special Providence The second means the term of Nature The third is that which in our want of words we call Chance or Accident but is in effect nothing else but another manner of the Divine Providence That in all these Sin does interrupt and retrench our lives is the undertaking of the following periods 21. First In Nature Sin is a cause of dyscrasies and distempers making our bodies healthless and our days few For although God hath prefixed a period to Nature by an universal and antecedent determination and that naturally every man that lives temperately and by no supervening accident is interrupted shall arrive thither yet because the greatest part of our lives is governed by will and understanding and there are temptations to Intemperance and to violations of our health the period of Nature is so distinct a thing from the period of our person that few men attain to that which God had fixed by his first law and 〈◊〉 purpose but end their days with folly and in a period which God appointed 〈◊〉 with anger and a determination secondary consequent and accidental And therefore says David Health is far from the 〈◊〉 for they regard not thy statutes And to this purpose is that saying of Abenezra He that is united to God the Fountain of Life his Soul being improved by Grace communicates to the Body an establishment of its radical moisture and natural heat to make it more healthful that so it may be more instrumental to the spiritual operations and productions of the Soul and it self be preserved in perfect constitution Now how this blessing is contradicted by the impious life of a wicked person is easie to be understood if we consider that from drunken Surfeits come Dissolution of members Head-achs Apoplexies dangerous Falls Fracture of bones Drenchings and dilution of the brain Inslammation of the liver Crudities of the stomach and thousands more which Solomen sums up in general terms Who hath woe who hath sorrow who hath redness of eyes they that tarry long at the 〈◊〉 I shall not need to instance in the sad and uncleanly consequents of Lusts the wounds and accidental deaths which are occasioned by Jealousies by Vanity by Peevishness vain Reputation and Animosities by Melancholy and the despair of evil Consciences and yet these are abundant argument that when God so permits a man to run his course of Nature that himself does not intervene by an extraordinary 〈◊〉 or any special acts of providence but only gives his ordinary assistence to natural causes a very great part of men make their natural period shorter and by sin make their days miserable and few 22. Secondly Oftentimes Providence intervenes and makes the way shorter God for the iniquity of man not suffering Nature to take her course but stopping
her in the midst of her journey Against this David prayed O my God cut me 〈◊〉 off in the midst of my days But in this there is some variety For God does it sometimes in mercy sometimes in judgment The righteous die and no man regardeth not considering that they are taken away from the evil to come God takes the righteous man hastily to his Crown lest temptation snatch it from him by interrupting his hopes and sanctity And this was the case of the old World For from Adam to the Floud by the Patriarchs were eleven generations but by Cain's line there were but eight so that Cain's posterity were longer liv'd because God intending to bring the Floud upon the World took delight to rescue his elect from the dangers of the present impurity and the future Deluge Abraham lived five years less than his son Isaac it being say the Doctors of the Jews intended for mercy to him that he might not see the iniquity of his Grandchild 〈◊〉 And this the Church for many Ages hath believed in the case of baptized Infants dying before the use of Reason For besides other causes in the order of Divine Providence one kind of mercy is done to them too for although their condition be of a lower form yet it is secured by that timely shall I call it or untimely death But these are cases extraregular ordinarily and by rule God hath revealed his purposes of interruption of the lives of sinners to be in anger and judgment for when men commit any signal and grand impiety God suffers not Nature to take her course but strikes a stroke with his own hand To which purpose I think it a remarkable instance which is reported by 〈◊〉 that for 3332 years even to the twentieth Age there was not one example of a Son that died before his Father but the course of Nature was kept that he who was first born in the descending line did die first I speak of natural death and therefore Abel cannot be opposed to this observation till that Terah the father of Abraham taught the People to make Images of clay and worship them and concerning him it was first remarked that Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity God by an unheard-of Judgment and a rare accident punishing his newly-invented crime And when-ever such 〈◊〉 of a life happens to a vicious person let all the world acknowledge it for a Judgment and when any man is guilty of evil habits or unrepented sins he may therefore expect it because it is threatned and designed for the lot and curse of such persons This is threatned to Covetousness Injustice and Oppression As a Partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days and at his end shall be a Fool. The same is threatned to Voluptuous persons in the highest caresses of delight and Christ told a parable with the same design The rich man said Soul take thy ease but God answered O fool this night shall thy Soul be required of thee Zimri and Cozbi were slain in the trophies of their Lust and it was a sad story which was told by Thomas Cantipratanus Two Religious persons tempted by each other in the vigour of their youth in their very first pleasures and opportunities of sin were both struck dead in their embraces and posture of entertainment God smote Jeroboam for his Usurpation and Tyranny and he died Saul died for Disobedience against God and asking counsel of a Pythonisse God smote 〈◊〉 with a Leprosie for his profaneness and distressed 〈◊〉 sorely for his Sacrilege and sent a horrid disease upon Jehoram for his Idolatry These instances represent Voluptuousness and Covetousness Rapine and Injustice Idolatry and Lust Profaneness and Sacrilege as remarked by the signature of exemplary Judgments to be the means of shortening the days of man God himself proving the Executioner of his own fierce wrath I instance no more but in the singular case of Hananiah the false Prophet Thus saith the LORD Behold I will cut thee from off the face of the earth this year thou shalt die because thou hast taught Rebellion against the LORD That is the curse and portion of a false Prophet a short life and a suddén death of God's own particular and more immediate 〈◊〉 23. And thus also the sentence of the Divine anger went forth upon criminal persons in the New Testament Witness the Disease of Herod Judas's Hanging himself the Blindness of 〈◊〉 the Sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira the Buffetings with which Satan 〈◊〉 the bodies of persons excommunicate Yea the blessed Sacrament of CHRIST's Body and Bloud which is intended for our spiritual life if it be unworthily received proves the cause of a natural death For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many are fallen asleep saith S. Paul to the 〈◊〉 Church 24. Thirdly But there is yet another manner of ending man's life by way of Chance or Contingency meaning thereby the manner of God's Providence and event of things which is not produced by the disposition of natural causes nor yet by any particular and special act of God but the event which depends upon accidental causes not so certain and regular as Nature not so conclusive and determined as the acts of decretory Providence but comes by disposition of causes irregular to events rare and accidental This David expresses by entring into battel and in this as in the other we must separate cases extraordinary and rare from the ordinary and common Extraregularly and upon extraordinary reasons and permissions we find that holy persons have miscarried in battel So the 〈◊〉 fell before Benjamin and Jonathan and 〈◊〉 and many of the Lord's champions fighting against the Philistines but in these deaths as God served other ends of Providence so he kept to the good men that fell all the mercies of the Promise by giving them a greater blessing of event and compensation In the more ordinary course of Divine dispensation they that prevaricate the Laws of God are put out of protection God withdraws his special Providence or their tutelar Angel and leaves them exposed to the influences of Heaven to the power of a Constellation to the accidents of humanity to the chances of a Battel which are so many and various that it is ten thousand to one a man in that case never escapes and in such variety of contingencies there is no probable way to assure our safety but by a holy life to endear the Providence of God to be our Guardian It was a remarkable saying of Deborah The Stars sought in their courses 〈◊〉 in their orbs against Sisera Sisera fought when there was an evil Aspect or malignant influence of Heaven upon him For even the smallest thing that is in opposition to us is enough to turn the
satisfie his curiosity but is certain never to enter that way It is like enquiring into fortunes concerning which Phavorinus the Philosopher spake not unhandsomely They that foretell events of destiny and secret providence either foretell sad things or prosperous If they promise prosperous and deceive you are made miserable by a vain speculation If they threaten ill fortune and say false thou art made wretched by a false fear But if they foretell adversity and say true thou art made miserable by thy own apprehension before thou art so by destiny and many times the fear is worse than the evil feared But if they promise felicities and promise truly what shall come to pass then thou shalt be wearied by an impatience and a suspended hope and thy hope shall ravish and deflower the joys of thy possession Much of it is hugely applicable to the present Question and our Blessed Lord when he was petitioned that he would grant to the two sons of Zebedee that they might sit one on the right hand and the other on the left in his Kingdom rejected their desire and only promised them what concerned their duty and their suffering referring them to that and leaving the final event of men to the disposition of his Father This is the great Secret of the Kingdom which God hath locked up and sealed with the counsels of Eternity The sure foundation of God standeth having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his This seal shall never be broken up till the great day of Christ in the mean time the Divine knowledge is the only 〈◊〉 of the final sentences and this way of God is unsearchable and past finding out And therefore if we be solicitous and curious to know what God in the counsels of Eternity hath decreed concerning us he hath in two fair Tables described all those sentences from whence we must take accounts the revelations of Scripture and the book of Conscience The first recites the Law and the conditions the other gives in evidence the first is clear evident and conspicuous the other when it is written with large characters may also be discerned but there are many little accents periods distinctions and little significations of actions which either are there written in water or fullied over with carelesness or blotted with forgetfulness or not legible by ignorance or misconstrued by interest and partiality that it will be extremely difficult to read the hand upon the wall or to copy out one line of the eternal sentence And therefore excellent was the counsel of the Son of Sirach 〈◊〉 not out the things that are 〈◊〉 hard for thee 〈◊〉 search the things that are above thy strength 〈◊〉 what is 〈◊〉 thee think thereupon with reverence for it is not 〈◊〉 for thee 〈◊〉 see with thine eyes the things that are in secret For whatsoever God hath revealed in general concerning Election it concerns all persons within the pale of Christianity He hath conveyed notice to all Christian people that they are the sons of God that they are the 〈◊〉 of Eternity coheirs 〈◊〉 Christ partakers of the Divine nature meaning that such they are by the design of God and the purposes of the manifestation of his Son The Election 〈◊〉 God is disputed in Scripture to be an act of God separating whole Nations and rejecting others in each of which many particular instances there were contrary to the general and universal purpose and of the elect nations many particulars perished and many of the rejected people sate down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven and to those persons to whom God was more particular and was pleased to shew the scrowls of his eternal counsels and to reveal their particular Elections as he did to the twelve Apostles he shewed them wrapped up and 〈◊〉 and to take off their confidences or presumptions he gave probation in one instance that those scrowls may be cancelled that his purpose concerning particulars may be altered by us and 〈◊〉 that he did not discover the bottom of the Abysse but some purposes of special grace and 〈◊〉 design But his peremptory final 〈◊〉 Decree he keeps in the cabinets of the eternal ages never to be unlocked till the Angel of the Covenant shall declare the unalterable universal Sentence 3. But as we take the measure of the course of the Sun by the dimensions of the shadows made by our own bodies or our own instruments so must we take the measures of Eternity by the span of a man's hand and guess at what God decrees of us by considering how our relations and endearments are to him And it is observable that all the confidences which the Spirit of God hath created in the Elect are built upon Duty and stand or fall according to the strength or weakness of such supporters We know we are translated from death to life by our love unto the Brethren meaning that the performance of our duty is the best consignation to Eternity and the only testimony God gives us of our Election And therefore we are to make our judgments accordingly And here I consider that there is no state of a Christian in which by virtue of the Covenant of the Gospel it is effectively and fully declared that his sins are actually pardoned but only in Baptism at our first coming to Christ when he redeems us from our 〈◊〉 conversation when he makes us become Sons of God when he justifies us 〈◊〉 by his grace when we are purified by Faith when we make a Covenant with Christ to live 〈◊〉 ever according to his Laws And this I shall suppose I have already proved and explicated in the Discourse of Repentance So that whoever is certain he hath not offended God since that time and in nothing transgresseth the Laws of Christianity he is certain that he actually remains in the state of Baptismal purity but it is too certain that this certainty remains not long but we commonly throw some dirt into our waters of Baptism and stain our white robe which we then put on 4. But then because our restitution to this state is a thing that consists of so many parts is so divisible various and uncertain whether it be arrived to the degree of Innocence and our Innocence consists in a Mathematical point and is not capable of degrees any more than Unity because one stain destroys our being innocent it is therefore a very difficult matter to say that we have done all our duty towards our restitution to Baptismal grace and if we have not done all that we can do it is harder to say that God hath accepted that which is less than the conditions we entred into when we received the great Justification and Pardon of sins We all know we do less than our duty and we hope that God makes abatements for humane infirmities but we have but a few rules to judge by and they not infallible in themselves and we yet
men do very indiscreetly and may occasion the alienation of some mens minds from the entertainments of Religion but this being accidental to the thing it self and to the purpose of the man is not the Sin of Scandal but it is the Indiscretion of Scandal if by such means he divorces any man's mind from the cohabitation and unions of Religion and yet if the purpose of the man be to affright weaker and unwise persons it is a direct Scandal and one of those ways which the Devil uses toward the peopling of his kingdom it is a plain laying of a snare to entrap feeble and uninstructed souls 5. But if the pious action have been formerly joyned with any thing that is truly criminal with Idolatry with Superstition with impious Customs or impure Rites and by retaining the Piety I give cause to my weak brother to think I approve of the old appendage and by my reputation invite him to swallow the whole action without discerning the case is altered I am to omit that pious action if it be not under command until I have acquitted it from the suspicion of evil company But when I have done what in prudence I guess sufficient to thaw the frost of jealousie to separate those dissonancies which formerly seemed united I have done my duty of Charity by endeavouring to free my brother from the snare and I have done what in Christian prudence I was obliged when I have protested against the appendent crime If afterwards the same person shall entertain the crime upon pretence of my example who have plainly 〈◊〉 it he lays the snare for himself and is glad of the pretence or will in spite enter into the net that he might think it reasonable to rail at me I may not with Christian charity or prudence wear the picture of our Blessed Lord in rings or medals though with great affection and designs of doing him all the honour that I can if by such Pictures I invite persons apt more to follow me than to understand me to give Divine honour to a Picture but when I have declared my hatred of Superstitious worshippings and given my brother warning of the snare which his own mistake or the Devil's malice was preparing for him I may then without danger signifie my Piety and affections in any civil representments which are not against God's Law or the Customs of the Church or the analogy of Faith And there needs no other reason to be given for this Rule than that there is no reason to be given against it if the nature of the thing be innocent and the purpose of the man be pious and he hath used his moral industry to secure his brother against accidental mischances and abuses his duty in this particular can have no more parts and instances 6. But it is too crude an assertion to affirm indefinitely that whatsoever hath been abused to evil or superstitious purposes must presently be abjured and never entertained for fear of Scandal for it is certain that the best things have been most abused Have not some persons used certain verses of the Psalter as an antidote against the Tooth-ach and carried the blessed Sacrament in pendants about their necks as a charm to countermand Witches and S. John's Gospel as a spell against wild beasts and wilder untamed spirits Confession of sins to the Ministers of Religion hath been made an instrument to serve base ends and so indeed hath all Religion been abused and some persons have been so receptive of Scandal that they suspected all Religion to be a mere stratagem because they have observed very many men have used it so For some natures are like Spunges or Sugar whose utmost verge if you dip in Wine it drowns it self by the moisture it sucks up and is drenched all over receiving its alteration from within it s own nature did the mischief and plucks on its own dissolution And these men are greedy to receive a Scandal and when it is presented but in small instances they suck it up to the dissolution of their whole Religion being glad of a quarrel that their impieties may not want all excuse But yet it is certainly very unreasonable to reject excellent things because they have been abused as if separable accidents had altered natures and essences or that they resolve never to forgive the duties for having once fallen into the hands of unskilful or malicious persons Hezekiah took away the brazen Serpent because the people abused it to Idolatry but the Serpent had long before lost its use and yet if the people had not been a peevish and refractory and superstitious people in whose nature it was to take all occasions of Superstition and farther yet if the taking away such occasions and opportunities of that Sin in special had not been most agreeable with the designs of God in forbidding to the people the common use of all Images in the second Commandment which was given them after the erection of that brazen Statue Hezekiah possibly would not or at least had not been bound to have destroyed that monument of an old story and a great blessing but have sought to separate the abuse from the minds of men and retained the Image But in Christianity when none of these circumstances occur where by the greatness and plenty of revelations we are more fully instructed in the ways of Duty and when the thing it self is pious and the abuse very separable it is infinite disparagement to us or to our Religion either that our Religion is not sufficient to cure an abuse or that we will never part with it but we must unpardonably reject a good because it had once upon it a crust or spot of leprosie though since it hath been washed in the waters of Reformation The Primitive Christians abstained from actions of themselves indifferent which the unconverted people used if those actions were symbolical or adopted into false Religions or not well understood by those they were bound to satisfie But when they had washed off the accrescences of Gentile Superstition they chose such Rites which their neighbours used and had designs not imprudent or unhandsome and they were glad of a Heathen Temple to celebrate the Christian Rites in them and they made no other change but that they ejected the Devil and invited their Lord into the possession 7. Thirdly In things merely indifferent whose practice is not limited by command nor their nature heightned by an appendent Piety we must use our liberty so as may not offend our Brother or lead him into a sin directly or indirectly For Scandal being directly against Charity it is to be avoided in the same measure and by the same proportions in which Charity is to be pursued Now we must so use our selves that we must cut off a foot or pluck out an eye rather than the one should bear us and the other lead us to sin and death we must rather rescind all the natural and sensual
a great calamity within a little while after the Spirit of God had sent them two Epistles by the ministery of S. Paul their Cities were buried in an Earthquake and yet we have reason to think they were Churches beloved of God and Congregations of holy People The PRAYER OEternal and powerful God thou just and righteous Governour of the world who callest all orders of men by Precepts Promises and Threatnings by Mercies and by Judgments teach us to admire and adore all the Wisdome the effects and infinite varieties of thy Providence and make us to dispose our selves so by Obedience by Repentance by all the manners of Holy living that we may never provoke thee to jealousie much less to wrath and indignation against us Keep far from us the Sword of the destroying Angel and let us never perish in the publick expresses of thy wrath in diseases Epidemical with the furies of War with calamitous sudden and horrid Accidents with unusual Diseases unless that our so strange fall be more for thy glory and our eternal benefit and then thy will be done We beg thy grace that we may chearfully conform to thy holy will and pleasure Lord open our understandings that we may know the meaning of thy voice and the signification of thy language when thou speakest 〈◊〉 Heaven in signs and Judgments and let a holy fear so soften our spirits and an intense love so 〈◊〉 and sanctifie our desires that we may apprehend every intimation of thy pleasure at its first and remotest and most obscure representment that so we may with Repentance go out to meet thee and prevent the expresses of thine anger Let thy restraining grace and the observation of the issues of thy Justice so allay our spirits that we be not severe and forward in condemning others nor backward in passing sentence upon our selves Make us to obey thy voice described in holy Scripture to tremble at thy voice expressed in wonders and great effects of Providence to condemn none but our selves nor to enter into the recesses of thy Sanctuary and search the forbidden records of Predestination but that we may read our duty in the pages of Revelation not in the labels of accidental effects that thy Judgments may confirm thy Word and thy Word teach us our Duty and we by such excellent instruments may enter in and grow up in the ways of Godliness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus untill the Death and Burial of JESVS Bartimeus healed of blindnesse Mark 10. 46. And as he went out of Iericho with his Disciples and a great number of people blind Bartimeus sate by the high way begging 47. And when he heard that it was Iesus of Nazareth he began to cry out and say Iesus thou son of David have mercy on me Lazarus raysed from death Ioh. 11. 44. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with gravecloths and his face was bound about with a napkin Iesus saith unto them Loose him and let him go 45. Then Many of the Iewes which came to Mary and had seen the things which Iesus did believed on him 1. VVHile Jesus was in Galilee messengers came to him from Martha and her Sister Mary that he would hasten into Judaea to Bethany to relieve the sickness and imminent dangers of their Brother Lazarus But he deferred his going till Lazarus was dead purposing to give a great probation of his Divinity Power and Mission by a glorious Miracle and to give God glory and to receive reflexions of the glory upon himself For after he had stayed two days he called his Disciples to go with him into Judaea telling them that Lazarus was dead but he would raise him out of that sleep of death But by that time Jesus was arrived at Bethany he found that Lazarus had been dead four days and now near to putrefaction But when Martha and Mary met him weeping their pious tears for their dead Brother Jesus suffered the passions of piety and humanity and wept distilling that precious liquor into the grave of Lazarus watering the dead plant that it might spring into a new life and raise his head above the ground 2. When Jesus had by his words of comfort and institution strengthened the Faith of the two mourning Sisters and commanded the stone to be removed from the grave he made an address of Adoration and Eucharist to his Father confessing his perpetual propensity to hear him and then cried out Lazarus come forth And he that was dead came forth from his bed of darkness with his night-cloaths on him whom when the Apostles had unloosed at the command of Jesus he went to Bethany and many that were present believed on him but others wondring and malicious went and told the Pharisees the story of the Miracle who upon that advice called their great Council whose great and solemn cognisance was of the greater causes of Prophets of Kings and of the holy Law At this great Assembly it was that Caiaphas the High Priest prophesied that it was expedient one should die for the people And thence they determined the death of Jesus But he knowing they had passed a decretory sentence against him retired to the City 〈◊〉 in the Tribe of Judah near the desart where he stayed a few days till the approximation of the Feast of Easter 3. Against which Feast when Jesus with his Disciples was going to Jerusalem he told them the event of the journey would be that the Jews should deliver him to the Gentiles that they should scourge him and mock him and crucifie him and the third day he should rise again After which discourse the Mother of 〈◊〉 's Children begg'd of Jesus for her two Sons that one of them might sit at his right hand the other at the left in his Kingdom For no discourses of his Passion or intimations of the mysteriousness of his Kingdom could yet put them into right understandings of their condition But Jesus whose heart and thoughts were full of phancy and apprehensions of the neighbour Passion gave them answer in proportion to his present conceptions and their future condition For if they desired the honours of his Kingdom such as they were they should have them unless themselves did decline them they should drink of his Cup and dip in his Lavatory and be washed with his baptism and sit in his Kingdom if the heavenly Father had prepared it for them but the donation of that immediately was an issue of Divine election and predestination and was only competent to them who by holy living and patient suffering put themselves into a disposition of becoming vessels of Election 4. But as Jesus in this journey came near Jericho he cures a blind man who sate begging by the way-side and espying Zaccheus the chief of the Publicans upon a tree that he being low of stature might upon that advantage of station see Jesus passing by he invited
himself to his house who received him with gladness and repentance of his crimes purging his Conscience and filling his heart and house with joy and sanctity for immediately upon the arrival of the Master at his house he offered restitution to all persons whom he had injured and satisfaction and half of his remanent estate he gave to the poor and so gave the fairest entertainment to Jesus who brought along with him Salvation to his house There it was that he spake the Parable of the King who concredited divers talents to his servants and having at his return exacted an account rewarded them who had improved their bank and been faithful in their trust with rewards proportionable to their capacity and improvement but the negligent servant who had not meliorated his stock was punished with ablegation and 〈◊〉 to outer darkness And from hence sprang up that dogmatical proposition which is mysterious and 〈◊〉 in Christianity To him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken away even what he hath After this going forth of Jericho he cured two blind men upon the way 5. Six days before Easter Jesus came to Bethany where he was feasted by Martha and Mary and accompanied by Lazarus who sate at the table with Jesus But Mary brought a pound of Nard Pistick and as formerly she had done again anoints the feet of Jesus and fills the house with the odour till God himself smelt thence a savour of a sweet-smelling sacrifice But Judas Iscariot the Thief and the Traitor repined at the vanity of the expence as he pretended because it might have been sold for three hundred pence and have been given to the poor But Jesus in his reply taught us that there is an opportunity for actions of Religion as well as of Charity Mary did this against the Burial of Jesus and her Religion was accepted by him to whose honours the holocaust of love and the oblations of alms-deeds are in their proper seasons direct actions of worship and duty But at this meeting there came many Jews to see Lazarus who was raised from death as well as to see Jesus and because by occasion of his Resurrection many of them believed on Jesus therefore the Pharisees deliberated about putting him to death But God in his glorious providence was pleased to preserve him as a trumpet of his glories and a testimony of the Miracle thirty years after the death of Jesus 6. The next day being the fifth day before the Passeover Jesus came to the foot of the mount of Olives and sent his Disciples to Bethphage a village in the neighbourhood commanding them to unloose an asse and a colt and bring them to him and to tell the owners it was done for the Master's use and they did so and when they brought the Asse to Jesus he rides on him to Jerusalem and the People having notice of his approach took branches of Palm-trees and went out to meet him strewing branches and garments in the way crying out Hosanna to the son of David Which was a form of exclamation used to the honour of God and in great Solemnities and signifies Adoration to the Son of David by the rite of carrying branches which when they used in procession about their Altars they used to pray Lord save us Lord prosper us which hath occasioned the reddition of Hoschiannah to be amongst some that Prayer which they repeated at the carrying of the Hoschiannah as if it self did signifie Lord save us But this honour was so great and unusual to be done even to Kings that the Pharisees knowing this to be an appropriate manner of address to God said one to another by way of wonder Hear ye what these men say For they were troubled to hear the People revere him as a God 7. When Jesus from the mount of Olives beheld Jerusalem he wept over it and foretold great sadnesses and infelicities futurely contingent to it which not only happened in the sequel of the story according to the main issues and significations of this Prophecy but even to minutes and circumstances it was verified For in the mount of Olives where Jesus shed tears over perishing Jerusalem the Romans first pitched their Tents when they came to its final overthrow From thence descending to the City he went into the Temple and still the acclamations followed him till the Pharisees were ready to burst with the noises abroad and the tumults of envy and scorn within and by observing that all their endeavours to suppress his glories were but like clapping their hands to veil the Sun and that in despight of all their stratagems the whole Nation was become Disciple to the glorious Nazarene And there 〈◊〉 cured certain persons that were blind and lame 8. But whilest he abode at Jerusalem certain Greeks who came to the Feast to worship made their address to Philip that they might be brought to Jesus Philip tells Andrew and they both tell Jesus who having admitted them discoursed many things concerning his Passion and then prayed a petition which is the end of his own Sufferings and of all humane actions and the purpose of the whole Creation Father glorifie thy Name To which he was answered by a voice from Heaven I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again But this nor the whole series of Miracles that he did the Mercies the Cures nor the divine Discourses could gain the Faith of all the Jews who were determined by their humane interest for many of the Rulers who believed on him durst not confess him because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God Then Jesus again exhorted all men to believe on him that so they might in the same act believe on God that they might approach unto the light and not abide in darkness that they might obey the commandments of the Father whose express charge it was that Jesus should preach this Gospel and that they might not be judged at the last Day by the Word which they have rejected which Word to all its observers is everlasting life After which Sermon retiring to Bethany he abode there all Night 9. On the morrow returning to Jerusalem on the way being hungry he passed by a Fig-tree where expecting fruit he found none and cursed the Fig-tree which by the next day was dried up and withered Upon occasion of which preternatural event Jesus discoursed of the power of Faith and its power to produce Miracles But upon this occasion others the Disciples of Jesus in after-Ages have pleased themselves with phancies and imperfect descants as that he cursed this Tree in mystery and secret intendment it having been the tree in the eating whose fruit Adam prevaricating the Divine Law made an inlet to sin which brought in death and the sadnesses of Jesus's Passion But Jesus having entred the City came into the Temple and preached the Gospel and the chief Priests and
Scribes questioned his commission and by what authority he did those things But Jesus promising to answer them if they would declare their opinions concerning John's Baptism which they durst not for fear of displeasing the people or throwing durt in their own faces was acquitted of his obligation by their declining the proposition 10. But there he reproved the Pharisees and Rulers by the Parable of two Sons the first whereof said to his Father he would not obey but repented and did his command the second gave good words but did nothing meaning that persons of the greatest improbability were more heartily converted than they whose outside seemed to have appropriated Religion to the labels of their frontlets He added a Parable of the Vineyard let out to Husbandmen who killed the servants sent to demand the fruits and at last the Son himself that they might invade the inheritance but made a sad commination to all such who should either stumble at this stone or on whom this stone should fall After which and some other reprehensions which he so veiled in Parable that it might not be expounded to be calumny or declamation although such sharp Sermons had been spoken in the People's hearing but yet so transparently that themselves might see their own iniquity in those modest and just representments the Pharisees would fain have seised him but they durst not for the People but resolved if they could to entangle him in his talk and therefore sent out spies who should pretend sanctity and veneration of his person who with a goodly 〈◊〉 preface that Jesus regarded no man's person but spake the word of God with much simplicity and justice desired to know if it were lawful to pay tribute to 〈◊〉 or not A question which was of great dispute because of the numerous Sect of the 〈◊〉 who denied it and of the affections of the People who loved their Money and their Liberty and the Privileges of their Nation And now in all probability he shall fall under the displeasure of the People or of Caesar. But Jesus called to see a peny and 〈◊〉 it to be superscribed with Caesar's image with incomparable wisdome he brake their snare and established an Evangelical proposition for ever saying Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's 11. Having so excellently and so much to their wonder answered the Pharisees the Sadduces bring their great objection to him against the Resurrection by putting case of a Woman married to seven Husbands and whose Wife should she be in the Resurrection thinking that to be an impossible state which ingages upon such seeming incongruities that a woman should at once be wife to seven men But Jesus first answered their objection telling them that all those relations whose 〈◊〉 is in the imperfections and passions of 〈◊〉 and bloud and duties here below shall cease in that state which is so spiritual that it is like to the condition of Angels amongst whom there is no difference of sex no cognations no genealogies or derivation from one another and then by a new argument proves the Resurrection by one of God's appellatives who did then delight to be called the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob for since God is not the God of the dead but of the living unto him even these men are alive and if so then either they now exercise acts of life and therefore shall be restored to their bodies that their actions may be compleat and they not remain in a state of imperfection to all eternity or if they be alive and yet cease from operation they shall be much rather raised up to a condition which shall actuate and make perfect their present capacities and dispositions lest a power and inclination should for ever be in the root and never rise up to fruit or herbage and so be an eternal vanity like an old bud or an eternal child 12. After this the Pharisees being well pleased not that Jesus spake so excellently but that the Sadduces were 〈◊〉 came to him asking which was the great Commandment and some other things more out of curiosity than pious desires of satisfaction But at last Jesus was pleased to ask them concerning CHRIST whose son he was They answered The Son of David but he replying How then doth David call him Lord The LORD said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand c. they had nothing to answer But Jesus then gave his Disciples caution against the Pride the Hypocrisie and the Oppression of the Scribes and Pharisees and commended the poor widow's oblation of her two mites into the treasury it being a great love in a little print for it was all her living All this was spoken in the Temple the goodly stones of which when the Apostles beheld with wonder they being white and firm twenty cubits in length twelve in breadth eight in depth as Josephus reports Jesus prophesies the destruction of the place concerning which Prediction when the Apostles being with him at the mount of Olives asked him privately concerning the time and the ligns of so sad event he discoursed largely of his coming to Judgment against that City and interweaved Predictions of the universal Judgment of all the world of which this though very sad was but a small adumbration adding Precepts of Watchfulness and standing in preparation with hearts filled with grace our lamps always shining that when the Bridegroom shall come we may be ready to enter in which was intended in the Parable of the five wise Virgins and concluded his Sermon with a narrative of his Passion foretelling that within two days he should be crucisied 13. Jesus descended from the mount and came to Bethany and turning into the house of Simon the Leper Mary 〈◊〉 Magdalen having been reproved by Judas for spending ointment upon 〈◊〉 's 〈◊〉 it being so unaccustomed and large a profusion thought now to speak her love once more and trouble no body and therefore the poured ointment on his sacred head believing that being a pompousness of a more accustomed festivity would be indulged to the expressions of her affection but now all the Disciples murmured wondring at the prodigiousness of the woman's Religion great enough to consume a Province in the 〈◊〉 of her thankfulness and duty But Jesus now also entertained the sincerity of her miraculous love adding this Prophecy that where the Gospel should be preached there also a record of this act should be kept as a perpetual monument of her Piety and an attestation of his Divinity who could foretell future 〈◊〉 Christianity receiving the greatest argument from that which S. Peter calls the surer word of Prophecy meaning it to be greater than the testimony of Miracles not easie to be dissembled by impure spirits and whose efficacy should descend to all Ages for this Prophecy shall for ever be fulfilling and being every day verified does every day preach the Divinity of Christ's 〈◊〉 and of his
he did and the expresses of his power saying He saved others himself he cannot save others saying Let him come down from the Cross if he be the King of the Jews and we will believe in him and others according as their Malice was determined by phancy and occasion added weight and scorn to his pains and of the two Malefactors that were crucified with him one reviled him saying If thou be the CHRIST save thy self and us And thus far the Devil prevailed undoing himself in riddle provoking men to do despite to Christ and to heighten his Passion out of hatred to him and yet doing and promoting that which was the ruine of all his own Kingdom and potent mischiefs like the Jew who in indignation against Mercury threw stones at his Image and yet was by his Superiour judged idolatrous that being the manner of doing honour to the Idol among the Gentiles But then Christ who had upon the Cross prayed for his enemies and was heard of God in all that he desired felt now the beginnings of success For the other Thief whom the present pains and circumstances of Jesus's Passion had softned and made believing reproved his fellow for not fearing God confessed that this death happened to them deservedly but to Jesus causelesly and then prayed to Jesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom Which combination of pious acts and miraculous Conversion Jesus entertained with a speedy promise of a very great felicity promising that upon that very day he should be with him in Paradise 33. Now there were standing by the Cross the Mother of Jesus and her Sister and Mary Magdalen and John And Jesus being upon his Death-bed although he had no temporal estate to bestow yet he would make provision for his Mother who being a Widow and now childless was likely to be exposed to necessity and want and therefore he did arrogate John the beloved Disciple into Marie's kindred making him to be her adopted Son and her to be his Mother by fiction of Law Woman behold thy son and Man behold thy Mother And from that time forward John took her home to his own house which he had near mount Sion after he had sold his inheritance in Galilee to the High Priest 34. While these things were doing the whole frame of Nature seemed to be dissolved and out of order while their LORD and Creator suffered For the Sun was so darkened that the Stars appeared and the Eclipse was prodigious in the manner as well as in degree because the Moon was not then in Conjunction but full and it was noted by Phlegon the freed man of the Emperor Hadrian by Lucian out of the Acts of the Gauls and Dionysius while he was yet a Heathen excellent Scholars all great Historians and Philosophers who also noted the day of the week and hour of the day agreeing with the circumstances of the Cross. For the Sun hid his head from beholding such a prodigy of sin and sadness and provided a veil for the nakedness of Jesus that the women might be present and himself die with modesty 35. The Eclipse and the Passion began at the sixth hour and endured till the ninth about which time Jesus being tormented with the unsufferable load of his Father's wrath due for our sins and wearied with pains and heaviness cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and as it is thought repeated the whole two and twentieth Psalm which is an admirable Narrative of the Passion full of Prayer and sadness and description of his pains at first and of Eucharist and joy and prophecy at the last But these first words which it is certain and recorded that he spake were in a language of it self or else by reason of distance not understood for they thought he had called for Elias to take him down from the Cross. Then Jesus being in the agonies of a high Fever said I thirst And one ran and filled a spunge with vinegar wrapping it with hyssop and put it on a reed that he might drink The Vinegar and the Spunge were in Executions of condemned persons set to stop the too violent issues of bloud and to prolong the death but were exhibited to him in scorn mingled with gall to make the mixture more horrid and ungentle But Jesus tasted it only and refused the draught And now knowing that the Prophecies were fulfilled his Father's wrath appeased and his torments satisfactory he said It is finished and crying with a loud voice Father into thy hands I commend my spirit he bowed his head and yielded up his spirit into the hands of God and died hastning to his Father's glories Thus did this glorious Sun set in a sad and clouded West running speedily to shine in the other world 36. Then was the veil of the Temple which separated the secret Mosaick Rites from the eyes of the people rent in the midst from the top to the bottom and the Angels Presidents of the Temple called to each other to depart from their seats and so great an Earthquake happened that the rocks did rend the mountains trembled the graves opened and the bodies of dead persons arose walking from their coemeteries to the Holy City and appeared unto many and so great apprehensions and amazements happened to them all that stood by that they departed smiting their breasts with sorrow and fear and the Centurion that ministred at the execution said Certainly this was the Son of God and he became a Disciple renouncing his military imployment and died a Martyr 37. But because the next day was the Jews Sabbath and a Paschal Festival besides the Jews hastened that the bodies should be taken from the Cross and therefore sent to 〈◊〉 to hasten their death by breaking their legs that before Sun-set they might be taken away according to the Commandment and be buried The souldiers therefore came and brake the legs of the two Thieves but espying and wondring that Jesus was already dead they brake not his legs for the Scripture foretold that a bone of him should not be broken but a souldier with his lance pierced his side and immediately there streamed out two rivulets of Water and Bloud But the Holy Virgin-Mother whose Soul during this whole passion was pierced with a sword and sharper sorrows though she was supported by the comforts of Faith and those holy Predictions of his Resurrection and future glories which Mary had laid up in store against this great day of expence now that she saw her Holy Son had suffered all that our necessities and their malice could require or inflict caused certain ministers with whom she joyned to take her dead Son from the Cross whose Body when she once got free from the nails she kissed and embraced with entertainments of the nearest vicinity that could be expressed by a person that was holy and sad and a Mother weeping for her dead Son 38. But she was highly
the griefs of a Christian whether they be instances of Repentance or parts of Persecution or exercises of Patience end in joy and endless comfort Thus Jesus like a Rainbow half made of the glories of light and half of the moisture of a cloud half triumph and half sorrow entred into that Town where he had done much good to others and to himself received nothing but affronts yet his tenderness encreased upon him and that very journey which was Christ's last solemn visit for their recovery he doubled all the instruments of his Mercy and their Conversion He rode in triumph the 〈◊〉 sang Hosannah to him he cured many diseased persons he wept for them and pitied them and sighed out the intimations of a Prayer and did penance for their ingratitude and stayed all day there looking about him towards evening and no man would invite him home but he was forced to go to Bethany where he was sure of an hospitable entertainment I think no Christian that reads this but will be full of indignation at the whole City who for malice or for fear would not or durst not receive their Saviour into their houses and yet we do worse for now that he is become our Lord with mightier demonstrations of his eternal power we suffer him to look round about upon us for months and years together and possibly never entertain him till our house is ready to rush upon our heads and we are going to unusual and stranger habitations And yet in the midst of a populous and mutinous City this great King had some good subjects persons that threw away their own garments and laid them at the feet of our Lord that being devested of their own they might be re-invested with a robe of his Righteousness wearing that till it were changed into a stole of glory the very ceremony of their reception of the Lord became symbolical to them and expressive of all our duties 7. But I consider that the Blessed Jesus had affections not less than infinite towards all mankind and he who wept upon Jerusalem who had done so great despight to him and within five days were to fill up the measure of their iniquities and do an act which all Ages of the world could never repeat in the same instance did also in the number of his tears reckon our sins as sad considerations and incentives of his sorrow And it would well become us to consider what great evil we do when our actions are such as for which our Blessed Lord did weep He who was seated in the bosom of Felicity yet he moistened his 〈◊〉 Lawrels upon the day of his Triumph with tears of love and bitter allay His day of Triumph was a day of Sorrow and if we would weep for our sins that instance of sorrow would be a day of triumph and 〈◊〉 8. From hence the Holy Jesus went to Pethany where he had another manner of reception than at the Holy City There he supped for his goodly day of Triumph had been with him a fasting-day And Mary Magdalen who had spent one box of Nard pistick upon our Lord's feet as a sacrifice of Eucharist for her Conversion now bestowed another in thankfulness for the restitution of her Brother Lazarus to life and consigned her Lord unto his Burial And here she met with an evil interpreter 〈◊〉 an Apostle one of the Lord 's own Family pretended it had been a better Religion to have given it to the poor but it was Malice and the spirit either of Envy or Avarice in him that passed that sentence for he that sees a pious action well done and seeks to undervalue it by telling how it might have been better reproves nothing but his own spirit For a man may do very well and God would accept it though to say he might have done better is to say only that action was not the most perfect and absolute in its kind but to be angry at a religious person and without any other pretence but that he might have done better is spiritual Envy for a pious person would have nourished up that infant action by love and praise till it had grown to the most perfect and intelligent Piety But the event of that man gave the interpretation of his present purpose and at the best it could be no other than a rash judgment of the action and intention of a religious thankful and holy person But she found her Lord who was her 〈◊〉 in this become her Patron and her Advocate And hereafter when we shall find the Devil the great Accuser of God's Saints object against the Piety and Religion of holy persons a cup of cold water shall be accepted unto reward and a good intention heightned to the value of an exteriour expression and a piece of gum to the equality of a 〈◊〉 and an action done with great zeal and an intense love be acquitted from all its adherent imperfections Christ receiving them into himself and being like the Altar of incense hallowing the very smoak and raising it into a flame and entertaining it into the embraces of the firmament and the bosom of Heaven Christ himself who is the Judge of our actions is also the entertainer and object of our Charity and Duty and the Advocate of our persons 9. Judas who declaimed against the woman made tacite reflexions upon his Lord for suffering it and indeed every obloquy against any of Christ's servants is looked on as an arrow shot into the heart of Christ himself And now a Persecution being begun against the Lord within his own Family another was raised against him from without For the chief Priests took crafty counsel against Jesus and called a Consistory to contrive how they might destroy him and here was the greatest representment of the goodness of God and the ingratitude of man that could be practised or understood How often had Jesus poured forth tears for them how many sleepless nights had he awaked to do them advantage how many days had he spent in Homilies and admirable visitations of Mercy and Charity in casting out Devils in curing their sick in correcting their delinquencies in reducing them to the ways of security and peace and that we may use the greatest expression in the world that is his own in gathering them as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings to give them strength and warmth and life and ghostly nourishment And the chief Priests together with their faction use all arts and watch all opportunities to get Christ not that they might possess him but to destroy him little considering that they extinguish their own eyes and destroy that spring of life which was intended to them for a blissful immortality 10. And here it was that the Devil shewed his promptness to furnish every evil-intended person with apt instruments to act the very worst of his intentions the Devil knew their purposes and the aptness and proclivity of Judas and by bringing these together he
served their present design and his own great intendment The Devil never fails to promote every evil purpose and except where God's restaining grace does intervene and interrupt the opportunity by interposition of different and cross accidents to serve other ends of Providence no man easily is fond of wickedness but he shall receive enough to ruine him Indeed Nero and Julian both witty men and powerfull desired to have been Magicians and could not and although possibly the Devil would have corresponded with them who yet were already his own in all degrees of security yet God permitted not that lest they might have understood new ways of doing despight to Martyrs and 〈◊〉 Christians And it concerns us not to tempt God or invite a forward enemy for as we are sure the Devil is ready to promote all vicious desires and bring them out to execution so we are not sure that God will not permit him and he that desires to be undone and cares not to be prevented by God's restraining grace shall finde his ruine in the folly of his own desires and become wretched by his own election Judas hearing of this Congregation of the Priests went and offered to betray his Lord and made a Covenant the Price of which was Thirty Pieces of Silver and he returned 11. It is not intimated in the History of the Life of Jesus that Judas had any Malice against the Person of Christ for when afterwards he saw the matter was to end in the death of his Lord he repented but a base and unworthy spirit of Covetousness possessed him and the reliques of 〈◊〉 for missing the Price of the Ointment which the holy Magdalen had poured upon his feet burnt in his bowels with a secret dark melancholick 〈◊〉 and made an eruption into an act which all ages of the world could never parallel They appointed him for hire thirty pieces and some say that every piece did in value equal ten ordinary current Deniers and so Judas was satisfied by receiving the worth of the three hundred pence at which he valued the Nard pistick But hereafter let no Christian be ashamed to be despised and undervalued for he will hardly meet so great a reproach as to have so disproportioned a price set upon his life as was upon the Holy Jesus S. Mary 〈◊〉 thought it not good enough to aneal his sacred feet Judas thought it a sufficient price for his head for Covetousness aims at base and low purchaces whilest holy Love is great and comprehensive as the bosome of Heaven and aims at nothing that is less than infinite The love of God is a holy fountain limpid and pure sweet and salutary lasting and eternal the love of Mony is a vertiginous pool sucking all into it to destroy it it is troubled and uneven giddy and unsafe serving no end but its own and that also in a restless and uneasie motion The love of God spends it self upon him to receive again the reflexions of grace and benediction the love of Money spends all its desires upon it sell to purchase nothing but unsatisfying instruments of exchange or supernumerary provisions and ends in dissatisfaction and emptiness of spirit and a bitter curse S. Mary Magdalen was defended by her Lord against calumny and rewarded with an honourable mention to all Ages of the Church besides the unction from above which she shortly after received to consign her to crowns and sceptres but Judas was described in the Scripture the Book of life with the black character of death he was disgraced to eternal Ages and presently after acted his own tragedy with a sad and ignoble death 12. Now all things being fitted our Blessed Lord sends two Disciples to prepare the Passeover that he might fulfill the Law of Moses and pass from thence to institutions Evangelical and then fulfill his Sufferings Christ gave them a sign to guide them to the house a man bearing a pitcher of water by which some that delight in mystical significations say was typified the Sacrament of Baptism meaning that although by occasion of the Paschal solemnity the holy Eucharist was first instituted yet it was afterwards to be applied to practice according to the sence of this accident only baptized persons were apt suscipients of the other more perfective Rite as the taking nutriment supposes persons born into the world and within the common conditions of humane nature But in the letter it was an instance of the Divine omniscience who could pronounce concerning accidents at distance as if they were present and yet also like the provision of the Colt to ride on it was an instance of Providence and security of all God's sons for their portion of temporals Jesus had not a Lamb of his own and possibly no money in the bags to buy one and yet Providence was his guide and the charity of a good man was his Proveditore and he found excellent conveniences in the entertainments of a hospitable good man as if he had dwelt in Ahab's Ivory-house and had had the riches of Solomon and the meat of his houshold The PRAYER O Holy King of Sion Eternal Jesus who with great Humility and infinite Love didst enter into the Holy City riding upon an Asse that thou mightest verisie the Predictions of the Prophets and give example of Meekness and of the gentle and paternal government which the eternal Father laid upon thy shoulders be pleased deares̄t Lord to enter into my Soul with triumph trampling over all thine enemies and give me grace to entertain thee with joy and adoration with abjection of my own desires with lopping off all my supersluous branches of a temporal condition and spending them in the offices of Charity and Religion and devesting my self of all my desires laying them at thy holy feet that I may bear the yoke and burthen of the Lord with alacrity with love and the wonders of a satisfied and triumphant spirit Lord enter in and take possession and thou to whose honour the very stones would give testimony make my stony heart an instrument of thy praises let me strew thy way with flowers of Vertue and the holy Rosary of Christian Graces and by thy aid and example let us also triumph over all our infirmities and hostilities and then lay our victories at thy feet and at last follow thee into thy heavenly Jerusalem with palms in our hands and joy in our hearts and eternal acclamations on our lips rejoycing in thee and singing Hallelujahs in a happy Eternity to thee O holy King of Sion eternal Jesus Amen 2. O Blessed and dear Lord who wert pleased to permit thy self to be sold to the assemblies of evil persons for a vile price by one of thy own servants for whom thou hadst done so great favours and hadst designed a crown and a throne to him and he turned himself into a sooty coal and entred into the portion of evil Angels teach us to value thee above all the joys of men to prize
thee at an estimate beyond all the wealth of nature to buy wisdome and not to sell it to part with all that we may enjoy thee and let no temptation abuse our understandings no loss vex us into impatience no frustration of hope fill us with indignation no pressure of calamitous accidents make us angry at thee the fountain of love and blessing no Covetousness transport us into the suburbs of Hell and the regions of sin but make us to love thee as well as ever any creature loved thee that we may never burn in any fires but of a holy love nor sink in any inundation but what proceeds from penitential showrs and suffer no violence but of implacable desires to live with thee and when thou callest us to suffer with thee and for thee 3. LOrd let me never be betrayed by my self or any violent accident and 〈◊〉 temptation let me never be sold for the vile price of temporal gain or transient pleasure or a pleasant dream but since thou hast bought me with a price even then when thou wert sold thy self let me never be separated from thy possession I am thine bought with a price Lord save me and in the day when thou bindest up thy Jewels remember Lord that I cost thee as dear as any and therefore cast me not into the portion of Judas but let me walk and dwell and bathe in the field of thy bloud and pass from hence pure and sanctified into the society of the elect Apostles receiving my part with them and my lot in the communications of thy inheritance O gracious Lord and dearest Saviour Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples Feet by JESUS and his Sermon of Humility He washeth his Disciples feet Iohn 13. 5. After that he powreth water into a baso◠and began to wash the Disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded 6. Then cometh he to Simon Peter Peter saith unto him Lord doest thou wash my feet The Institution of his last Supper Mark 14. 22. And as they did eat Lesus took bread blessed brake it gaue to them said Take eat this is my body And he took y e Cup when he had given thanks he gave it to them they all dranke of it In the 〈◊〉 of the Communion 1. THE Holy JESUS went now to eat his last Paschal Supper and to finish the work of his Legation and to fulfill that part of the Law of Moses in every of its smallest and most minute particularities in which also the actions were significant of spiritual duties which we may transfer from the letter to the spirit in our own instances That as JESUS ate the Paschal Lamb with a staff in his Hand with his Loins girt with sandals on his Feet in great haste with unlevened Bread and with bitter Herbs so we also should do all our services according to the signification of these symbols leaning upon the Cross of JESUS for a staff and bearing the rod of his Government with Loins girt with Angelical Chastity with shoes on our Feet that so we may guard and have custody over our affections and be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace eating in haste as becomes persons hungring and thirsting after Righteousness doing the work of the Lord zealously and fervently without the leven of Malice and secular interest with bitter herbs of Self-denial and Mortification of our sensual and inordinate desires The sence and mystery of the whole act with all its circumstances is That we obey all the Sanctions of the Divine Law and that every part of our Religion be pure and peaceable chaste and obedient confident in God and diffident in our selves frequent and zealous humble and resigned just and charitable and there will not easily be wanting any just circumstance to hallow and consecrate the action 2. When the Holy Jesus had finished his last Mosaic Rite he descends to give example of the first fruit of Evangelical Graces he rises from Supper lays aside his garment like a servant and with all the circumstances of an humble ministery washes the feet of his Disciples beginning at the first S. Peter until he came to Judas the Traitor that we might in one scheme see a rare conjunction of Charity and Humility of Self-denial and indifferency represented by a person glorious and great their Lord and Master sad and troubled And he chose to wash their feet rather than their head that he might have the opportunity of a more humble posture and a more apt signification of his Charity Thus God lays every thing aside that he may serve his servants Heaven stoops to earth and one abyss calls upon another and the Miseries of man which were next to infinite are excelled by a Mercy equal to the immensity of God And this washing of their feet which was an accustomed civility and entertainment of honoured strangers at the beginning of their meal Christ deferred to the end of the Paschal Supper that it might be the preparatory to the second which he intended should be festival to all the world S. Peter was troubled that the hands of his Lord should wash his servants feet those hands which had opened the eyes of the blind and cured lepers and healed all diseases and when lift up to Heaven were omnipotent and could restore life to dead and buried persons he counted it a great indecency for him to suffer it but it was no more than was necessary for they had but lately been earnest in dispute for Precedency and it was of it self so apt to swell into tumour and inconvenience that it was not to be cured but by some Prodigy of Example and Miracle of Humility which the Holy Jesus offered to them in this express calling them to learn some great Lesson a Lesson which God descended from Heaven to earth from riches to poverty from essential innocence to the disreputation of a sinner from a Master to a Servant to learn us that is that we should esteem our selves but just as we are low sinful miserable needy and unworthy It seems it is a great thing that man should come to have just and equal thoughts of himself that God used such powerful arts to transmit this Lesson and engrave it in the spirits of men and if the Receipt fails we are eternally lost in the mists of vanity and enter into the condition of those Angels whom Pride transformed and spoiled into the condition of Devils and upon consideration of this great example Guericus a good man cried out Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome my Pride this Example hath mastered me I deliver my self up into thy hands never to receive liberty or exaltation but in the condition of thy humblest servant 3. And to this purpose S. Bernard hath an affectionate and devout consideration saying That some of the Angels as soon as they were created had an ambition to
become like God and to aspire into the Throne which God had appointed to the Holy Jesus in eternal ages When God created Man presently the Devil rubbed his Leprosie upon him and he would needs be like God too and Satan promised him that he should As the evil Angels would have been like to God in Power and Majesty so Man would have been like him in Knowledge and have imitated the Wisdome of the Eternal Father But Man had the fate of Gehezi he would needs have the talent and garments of Lucifer and he had also his plague he lost Paradise for his Pride And now what might befit the Son of God to do seeing Man so lost and God so zealous of his honour I see saith he that by occasion of me the Father loses his Creatures for they have all aspired to be like me and are fallen into the greatest infelicities Behold I will go towards man in such a form that whosoever from henceforth would become like me shall be so and be a gainer by it And for this cause the Son of God came from Heaven and made himself a poor humble person and by all the actions of his life commented upon the present discourse Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart Blessed be that mercy and bounty which moved Almighty God to condescend to that so great appetite we had of being like him for now 〈◊〉 may be like unto God but it must be by Humility of which he hath given us an example powerful as Miracles and great as our own Pride and Misery 4. And indeed our Blessed Lord knowing that Examples are like Maps and perfect Schemes in which the whole Continent may at once be represented to the eye to all the purposes of art and benefit did in the latter end of his life draw up the dispersions and larger harvest of his Precepts binding them in the bundle of great Examples and casting them into actions as into summs total for so this act of Washing the feet of his own Ministers and then dying for them and for all his enemies did preach the three great 〈◊〉 of Evangelical Perfection with an admirable energy and abbreviature Humility and Charity and Sufferings being to Christianity as the Body and the Soul and the Spirit are to the whole man For no man brings a sad Funeral into the theatre to make his spectators merry nor can well preach Chastity in the impurity of the Bordelli or perswade Temperance when himself is full of wine and luxury and enters into the baths to boil his undigested meat that he may return to his second supper and breaths forth impure belchings together with his Homily a poor Eremite or a severely-living Philosopher into whose life his own Precepts have descended his Doctrin is mingled with his Soul mingles also effect and virtue with Homilies and incorporates his Doctrine in the hearts of his Disciples And this the Holy Jesus did in his own person bearing the burthen first upon his own shoulders that we may with better alacrity undergo what our Blessed Lord bears with us and for us But that we may the better understand what our Blessed Lord designed to us in this Lecture let us consider the proper acts of Humility which integrate the Vertue 5. The first is Christ's Humble man thinks meanly of himself and there is great reason every man should For his Body is but rottenness and infirmity covered with a fair mantle a dunghil overcast with snow and if we consider sadly that from Trees and Plants come oile balsam wine spices and aromatick odors and that from the sinks of our Body no such sweet or salutary emanations are observed we may at least think it unreasonable to boast our Beauty which is nothing but a clear and well-coloured skin which every thing in the world can spoil nor our Strength which an Ague tames into the infirmities of a child and in which we are excelled by a Bull nor any thing of our Body which is nothing but an unruly servant of the Soul marked with characters of want and dependence and begging help from all the elements and upon a little disturbance growing troublesome to it self by its own impurities And yet there is no reason in respect of the Soul for any man to exalt himself above his Brother because all reasonable Souls are equal and that one is wise and another is foolish or less learned is by accident and extrinsick causes God at first makes all alike but an indisposed Body or an mopportune Education or evil Customs superinduce variety and difference And if God discerns a man from his Brother by distinction of Gifts it alters not the case still the man hath nothing of himself that can call him excellent it is as if a Wall upon which the Sun reflects should boast it self against another that stands in the shadow Greater glory is to be paid to God for the discerning Gifts but to take any of it to our selves and rise higher than our Brother or advance our own opinion is as if a man should be proud of being in debt and think it the greater excellency that he is charged with heavier and more severe accounts 6. This act consists not in declamations and forms of Satyre against our selves saying I am a miserable sinful creature I am proud or covetous or ignorant For many men say so that are not willing to be thought so Neither is Humility a vertue made up of wearing old cloaths or doing servile and mean imployments by voluntary undertaking or of sullen gestures or demiss behaviour and artifice of lowly expressions for these may become snares to invite and catch at Honour and then they are collateral designs of Pride and direct actions of Hypocrisie But it consists in a true understanding of our own condition and a separating our own Nothing from the good we have received and giving to God all the glory and taking to our selves all the shame and dishonour due to our sinful condition He that thinks himself truly miserable and vilified by sin hates it perfectly and he that knows himself to be nothing cannot be exalted in himself and whatsoever is besides these two extremes of a natural Nothing and a superadded Sin must be those good things we have received which because they derive from God must make all their returns thither But this act is of greater difficulty in persons pious full of Gifts and eminent in Graces who being fellow-workers together with God sometimes grow tacitely and without notice given to 〈◊〉 in themselves and with some freer phancy ascribe too much of the good action to their own choice and diligence and take up their crowns which lie at the foot of the throne and set them upon their own heads For a Sinner to desire to be esteemed a sinner is no more Humility than it is for the son of a Plow-man to confess his Father but indeed it is hard for a
praise of men from unhandsome actions from flatteries and unworthy discourses nor entertain the praise with delight though it proceed from better principles but fear and tremble lest we deserve punishment or lose a reward which thou hast deposited for all them that seek thy glory and despise their own that they may imitate the example of their Lord. Thou O Lord didst triumph over Sin and Death subdue also my proud Understanding and my prouder Affections and bring me under thy yoak that I may do thy work and obey my Superiours and be a servant of all my brethren in their necessities and esteem my self inferiour to all men by a deep sense of my own unworthiness and in all things may obey thy Laws and conform to thy precedents and enter into thine inheritance O Holy and Eternal Jesus Amen DISCOURSE XIX Of the Institution and Reception of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 1. AS the Sun among the Stars and Man among the sublunary creatures is the most eminent and noble the Prince of the inferiours and their measure or their guide so is this action among all the instances of Religion it is the most perfect and consummate it is an union of Mysteries and a consolidation of Duties it joyns God and Man and confederates all the Societies of men in mutual complexions and the entertainments of an excellent Charity it actually performs all that could be necessary for Man and it presents to Man as great a thing as God could give for it is impossible any thing should be greater than himself And when God gave his Son to the world it could not be but he should give us all things else and therefore this Blessed Sacrament is a consigning us to all Felicities because after a mysterious and ineffable manner we receive him who is Light and Life the fountain of Grace and the sanctifier of our secular comforts and the author of Holiness and Glory But as it was at first so it hath been ever since Christ came into the world and the world knew him not so Christ hath remained in the world by the communications of this Sacrament and yet he is not rightly understood and less truly valued But Christ may say to us as once to the woman of Samaria Woman if thou didst know the gift of God and who it is that speaks to thee thou wouldst ask him So if we were so wise or so fortunate to know the excellency of this Gift of the Lord it would fill us full of wonder and adoration joy and thankfulness great hopes and actual felicities making us heirs of glory by the great additions and present increment of Grace 2. After supper Jesus took bread and blessed it and made it to be a heavenly gift He gave them bread and told them it was his body that Body which was broken for the redemption of Man for the Salvation of the world S. Paul calls it bread even after Consecration The Bread which we break is it not the communication of the Body of Christ So that by divine Faith we are taught to express our belief of this Mystery in these words The Bread when it is consecrated and made sacramental is the Body of our Lord and the fraction and distribution of it is the communication of that Body which died for us upon the Cross. He that doubts of either of the parts of this Proposition must either think Christ was not able to verifie his word and to make bread by his benediction to become to us to be his body or that S. Paul did not well interpret and understand this Mystery when he called it bread Christ reconciles them both calling himself the bread of life and if we be offended at it because it is alive and therefore less apt to become food we are invited to it because it is bread and if the Sacrament to others seem less mysterious because it is bread we are heightned in our Faith and reverence because it is life The Bread of the Sacrament is the life of our Soul and the Body of our Lord is now conveyed to us by being the Bread of the Sacrament And if we consider how easie it is to Faith and how impossible it seems to Curiosity we shall be taught confidence and modesty a resigning our understanding to the voice of Christ and his Apostles and yet expressing our own articles as Christ did in indefinite significations And possibly it may not well consist with our Duty to be inquisitive into the secrets of the Kingdom which we see by plain event hath divided the Church almost as much as the Sacrament hath united it and which can only serve the purposes of the School and of evil men to make Questions for that and Factions for these but promote not the ends of a holy life Obedience or Charity 3. Some so observe the literal sence of the words that they understand them also in a natural Some so alter them by metaphors and preternatural significations that they will not understand them at all in a proper We see it we feel it we taste it and we smell it to be Bread and by Philosophy we are led into a belief of that substance whose accidents these are as we are to believe that to be fire which burns and flames and shines but Christ also affirmed concerning it This is my Body and if Faith can create an assent as strong as its object is infallible or can be as certain in its conclusion as sense is certain in its apprehensions we must at no hand doubt but that it is Christ's Body Let the sence of that be what it will so that we believe those words and whatsoever that sence is which Christ intended that we no more doubt in our Faith than we do in our Sense then our Faith is not reproveable It is hard to do so much violence to our Sense as not to think it Bread but it is more unsafe to do so much violence to our Faith as not to believe it to be Christ's Body But it would be considered that no interest of Religion no saying of Christ no reverence of Opinion no sacredness of the Mystery is disavowed if we believe both what we hear and what we see He that believes it to be Bread and yet verily to be Christ's Body is only tied also by implication to believe God's Omnipotence that he who affirmed it can also verifie it And they that are forward to believe the change of substance can intend no more but that it be believed verily to be the Body of our Lord. And if they think it impossible to reconcile its being Bread with the verity of being Christ's Body let them remember that themselves are put to more difficulties and to admit of more Miracles and to contradict more Sciences and to refuse the testimony of Sense in affirming the special manner of Transubstantiation And therefore it were safer to admit the words in their first sence in
which we shall no more be at war with Reason nor so much with Sense and not at all with Faith And for persons of the contradictory perswasion who to avoid the natural sence affirm it only to be figurative since their design is only to make this Sacrament to be Christ's Body in the sence of Faith and not of Philosophy they may remember that its being really present does not hinder but that all that reality may be spiritual and if it be Christ's Body so it be not affirmed such in a natural sence and manner it is still only the object of Faith and spirit and if it be affirmed only to be spiritual there is then no danger to Faith in admitting the words of Christ's institution This is my Body I suppose it to be a mistake to think what soever is real must be natural and it is no less to think spiritual to be only figurative that 's too much and this is too little Philosophy and Faith may well be reconciled and whatsoever objection can invade this union may be cured by modesty And if we profess we understand not the manner of this Mystery we say no more but that it is a Mystery and if it had been necessary we should have construed it into the most latent sence Christ himself would have given a Clavis and taught the Church to unlock so great a Secret Christ said This is my Body this is my 〈◊〉 S. Paul said The bread of blessing that we break is the communication of the body of Christ and the Chalice which we bless is the communication of the bloud of Christ and We are all one body because we eat of one bread One proposition as well as the other is the matter of Faith and the latter of them is also of Sense one is as literal as the other and he that distinguishes in his belief as he may place the impropriety upon which part he please and either say it is improperly called Bread or improperly called Christ's Body so he can have nothing to secure his proposition from errour or himself from boldness in decreeing concerning Mysteries against the testimonies of Sense or beyond the modesty and simplicity of Christian Faith Let us love and adore the abyss of Divine Wisdom and Goodness and entertain the Sacrament with just and holy receptions and then we shall receive all those fruits of it which an earnest disputer or a peremptory dogmatizer whether he happen right or wrong hath no warrant to expect upon the interest of his Opinion 4. In the Institution of this Sacrament Christ manifested first his Almighty Power secondly his infinite Wisdome and thirdly his unspeakable Charity First his Power is manifest in making the Symbols to be the instruments of conveying himself to the spirit of the Receiver He nourishes the Soul with Bread and feeds the Body with a Sacrament he makes the Body spiritual by his Graces there ministred and makes the Spirit to be united to his Body by a participation of the Divine nature In the Sacrament that Body which is reigning in Heaven is exposed upon the Table of blessing and his Body which was broken for us is now broken again and yet remains impassible Every consecrated portion of bread and wine does exhibit Christ intirely to the faithful Receiver and yet Christ remains one while he is wholly ministred in 10000 portions So long as we call these mysterious and make them intricate to exercise our Faith and to represent the wonder of the Mystery and to encrease our Charity our being inquisitive into the abyss can have no evil purposes God hath instituted the Rite in visible Symbols to make the secret Grace as presential and discernible as it might that by an instrument of Sense our spirits might be accommodated as with an exteriour object to produce an internal act But it is the prodigy of a miraculous power by instruments so easie to produce effects so glorious This then is the object of Wonder and Adoration 5. Secondly And this effect of Power does also remark the Divine Wisdome who hath ordained such Symbols which not only like spittle and clay toward the curing blind eyes proclaim an Almighty Power but they are apposite and proper to signifie a Duty and become to us like the Word of Life and from Bread they turn into a Homily For therefore our wisest Master hath appointed Bread and Wine that we may be corporally united to him that as the Symbols becoming nutriment are turned into the substance of our bodies so Christ being the food of our Souls should assimilate us making us partakers of the Divine Nature It also tells us that from hence we derive life and holy motion for in him we live and move and have our being He is the staff of our life and the light of our eyes and the strength of our spirit He is the Viand for our journey and the antepast of Heaven And because this holy Mystery was intended to be a Sacrament of Union that Lesson is morally represented in the Symbols That as the salutary juice is expressed from many clusters running into one 〈◊〉 and the Bread is a mass made of many grains of Wheat so we also as the Apostie infers from hence himself observing the analogy should be one bread and one bodr because we partake of that one bread And it were to be wished that from hence also all Christians would understand a signification of another Duty and that they would 〈◊〉 communicate as remembring that the Soul may need a frequent ministration as well as the Body its daily proportion This consideration of the Divine Wisdome is apt to produce Reverence Humility and Submission of our understanding to the immensity of God's unsearchable abysses 6. Thirdly But the story of the Love of our dearest Lord is written in largest characters who not only was at that instant busie in doing Man the greatest good even then when man was contriving his death and his dishonour but contrived to represent his bitter Passion to us without any circumstances of horror in symbols of pleasure and delight that we may taste and see how gracious our LORD is who would not transmit the record of his Passion to us in any thing that might trouble us No Love can be greater than that which is so beatifical as to bestow the greatest good and no Love can be better expressed than that which although it is productive of the greatest blessings yet is curious also to observe the smallest circumstances And not only both these but many other circumstances and arguments of Love concur in the Holy Sacrament 1. It is a tenderness of affection that ministers wholsome Physick with arts and instruments of pleasure And such was the Charity of our Lord who brings health to us in a golden Chalice life not in the bitter drugs of Egypt but in spirits and quintessences giving us apples of Paradise at the same time yielding food and health
Purity the meek persons of Content and Humility yet vicious and corrupted palats find also the gust of death and Coloquintida The Sybarites invited their women to their solemn sacrifices a full year before the solemnity that they might by previous dispositions and a long foresight 〈◊〉 with gravity and fairer order the celebration of the rites And it was a reasonable answer of Pericles to one that ask'd him why he being a Philosophical and severe person came to a wedding trimmed and adorned like a Paranymph I come adorned to an adorned person trimmed to a Bridegroom And we also if we come to the marriage of the Son with the Soul which marriage is celebrated in this sacred Mystery and have not on a wedding garment shall be cast into outer darkness the portion of undressed and unprepared souls 12. For from this Sacrament are excluded all unbaptized persons and such who lie in a known sin of which they have not purged themselves by the apt and proper instruments of Repentance For if the Paschal Lamb was not to be eaten but by persons pure and clean according to the sanctifications of the Law the Son of God can less endure the impurities of the Spirit than God could 〈◊〉 the uncleannesses of the Law S. Paul hath given us instruction in this First let a man examine himself and so let him eat For he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's body That is although in the Church of Corinth by reason of the present Schism the publick Discipline of the Church was neglected and every man permitted to himself yet even then no man was disobliged from his duty of private Repentance and holy preparations to the perception of so great a mystery that the Lord's body may be discerned from common nutriment Now nothing can so unhallow and desecrate the rite as the remanent affection to a sin or a crime unrepented of And Self-examination is prescribed not for it self but in order to abolition of sin and death for it self is a relative term and an imperfect duty whose very nature is in order to something beyond it And this was in the Primitive Church understood to so much severity that if a man had relapsed after one publick Repentance into a 〈◊〉 crime he was never again readmitted to the holy Communion and the Fathers of the Council of 〈◊〉 call it a mocking and jesting at the Communion of our Lord to give it once again after a Repentance and a relapse and a second or third postulation And indeed we use to make a sport of the greatest instruments of Religion when we come to them after an habitual vice whose face we have it may be wetted with a tear and breathed upon it with a sigh and abstained from the worst of crimes for two or three days and come to the Sacrament to be purged and to take our rise by going a little back from our sin that afterwards we may leap into it with more violence and enter into its utmost angle This is dishonouring the body of our Lord and deceiving our selves Christ and Belial cannot cohabit unless we have left all our sins and have no fondness of affection towards them unless we hate them which then we shall best know when we leave them and with complacency entertain their contraries then Christ hath washed our feet and then he invites us to his holy Supper Hands dipt in bloud or polluted with unlawful gains or stained with the spots of flesh are most unfit to handle the holy body of our Lord and minister nourishment to the Soul Christ loves not to enter into the mouth full of cursings oathes blasphemies revilings or evil speakings and a heart full of vain and vicious thoughts stinks like the lake of Sodom he finds no rest there and when he enters he is vexed with the unclean conversation of the impure inhabitants and flies from thence with the wings of a Dove that he may retire to pure and whiter habitations S. Justin Martyr reckoning the predispositions required of every faithful soul for the entertainment of his Lord says that it is not lawful for any to eat the Eucharist but to him that is washed in the laver of regeneration sor the remission of sins that believes Christ's Doctrine to be true and that lives according to the Discipline of the Holy Jesus And therefore S. Ambrose refused to minister the holy Communion to the Emperor Theodostus till by publick Repentance he had reconciled himself to God and the society of faithsul people after the furious and cholerick rage and slaughter committed at Thessalonica And as this act was like to cancellating and a circumvallation of the holy mysteries and in that sence and so far was a proper duty sor a Prelate to whose dispensation the rites are committed so it was an act of duty to the Emperor of paternal and tender care not of proper authority or jurisdiction which he could not have over his Prince but yet had a care and the supravision of a Teacher over him whose Soul S. Ambrose had betrayed unless he had represented his indisposition to communicate in expressions of Magisterial or Doctoral authority and truth For this holy Sacrament is a nourishment of spiritual life and therefore cannot with effect be ministred to them who are in the state of spiritual death it is giving a Cordial to a dead man and although the outward rite be ministred yet the Grace of the Sacrament is not communicated and therefore it were well that they also abstained from the rite it self For a fly can boast of as much priviledge as a wicked person can receive from this holy Feast and oftentimes pays his life sor his access to sorbidden delicacies as certainly as they 13. It is more generally thought by the Doctors of the Church that our Blessed Lord administred the Sacrament to Judas although he knew he sold him to the Jews Some others deny it and suppose Judas departed presently after the sop given him before he communicated However it was Christ who was Lord of the Sacraments might dispense it as he pleased but we must minister and receive it according to the rules he hath since described but it becomes a precedent to the Church in all succeeding Ages although it might also have in it something extraordinary and apter to the first institution for because the fact of Judas was secret not yet made notorious Christ chose rather to admit him into the rites of external Communion than to separate him with an open shame for a fault not yet made open For our Blessed Lord did not reveal the man and his crime till the very time of ministration if Judas did communicate But if Judas did not communicate and that our Blessed Lord gave him the sop at the Paschal Supper 〈◊〉 at the interval between it and the institution of his own it is certain that
and tyranny over Consciences 14. The duty of Preparation that I here discourse of is such a Preparation as is a disposition to life it is not a matter of convenience or advantage to repent of our sins before the Communion but it is of absolute necessity we perish if we neglect it for we cat 〈◊〉 and Satan enters into us not Christ. And this Preparation is not the act of a day or a week but it is a new state of life no man that is an habitual sinner must come to this Feast till he hath wholly changed his course of life And then according as the actions of infirmity have made 〈◊〉 or greater invasion upon his peace and health so are the acts of Repentance to be proportioned in which the greatness of the prevarications their neighbourhood to death or their frequent repetition and the conduct of a Spiritual man are to give us counsel and determination When a ravening and hungry Wolf is destitute of prey he 〈◊〉 the turf and loads his stomach with the glebe he treads on but as soon as he finds better food he vomits up his first load Our secular and sensual affections are loads of earth upon the Conscience and when we approach to the Table of the Lord to eat the bread of the elect and to drink the wine of Angels we must reject such impure adhesions that holy persons being nourished with holy Symbols may be sanctified and receive the eternal reward of Holiness 15. But as none must come hither but they that are in the state of Grace or Charity and the love of God and their Neighbours and that the abolition of the state of sin is the necessary preparation and is the action of years and was not accepted as sufficient till the expiration of divers years by the Primitive Discipline and in some cases not till the approach of Death so there is another Preparation which is of less necessity which supposes the state of Grace and that oil is burning in our lamps but yet it is a preparation of ornament a trimming up the Soul a dressing the spirit with degrees and instances of Piety and progresses of perfection and it consists in setting apart some portion of our time before the Communion that it be spent in Prayer in Meditations in renewing the vows of holy Obedience in Examining our Consciences in Mortifying our lesser irregularities in Devotions and actions of precise Religion in acts of Faith of Hope of Charity of Zeal and holy desires in acts of Eucharist or Thanksgiving of Joy at the approach of so blessed opportunity and all the acts of Vertue whatsoever which have indefinite relation to this and to other mysteries but yet are specially to be exercised upon this occasion because this is the most perfect of external 〈◊〉 and the most mysterious instrument of sanctification and perfection There is no time or degree to be determined in this Preparation but they to whom much is forgiven will love much and they who 〈◊〉 the excellence and holiness of the Mystery the glory of the Guest that comes to inhabit and the undecency of the closet of their Hearts by reason of the adherencies of impurity the infinite benefit then designed and the increase of degrees by the excellence of these previous acts of Holiness will not be too inquisitive into the necessity of circumstances and measures but do it heartily and devoutly and reverently and as much as they can ever esteeming it necessary that the actions of so great solemnity should by some actions of Piety attending like handmaids be distinguished from common imployments and remarked for the principal and most solemn of religious actions The Primitive Church gave the holy Sacrament to Infants immediately after Baptism and by that act transmitted this Proposition That nothing was of absolute necessity but Innocency and purity from sin and a being in the state of Grace other actions of Religion are excellent addition to the dignity of the person and honour of the mystery but they were such of which Infants were not capable The summ is this After the greatest consociation of religious duties for Preparation no man can be sufficiently worthy to communicate let us take care that we be not unworthy by bringing a guilt with us or the remanent affection to a sin Est gloriosus sanè convictus Die Sed illi qui invitatur non qui invisus est 16. When the happy hour is come in which the Lord vouchsafes to enter into us and dwell with us and be united with his servants we must then do the same acts over again with greater 〈◊〉 intension confess the glories of God and thy own unworthiness praise his mercy with ecstasie of thanksgiving and joy make oblation of thy self of all thy faculties and capacities pray and read and meditate and worship And that thou mayest more opportunely do all this rise early to meet the Bridegroom pray for special assistance enter into the assembly of faithful people chearfully attend there diligently demean thy self reverently and before any other meat or drink receive the Body of thy Saviour with pure hands with holy intention with a heart full of joy and faith and hope and wonder and Eucharist These things I therefore set down irregularly and without method because in these actions no rule can be given to all persons and only such a love and such a Religion in general is to be recommended which will over-run the banks and not 〈◊〉 stand confined within the margent of rules and artificial prescriptions Love and Religion are boundless and all acts of grace relating to the present Mystery are sit and proportioned entertainments of our Lord. This only remember that we are by the Mystery of one bread confederated into one body and the communion of Saints and that the 〈◊〉 which we then commemorate was designed by our Lord for the benefit of all his Church Let us be sure to draw all faithful people into the society of the present Blessing joyning with the holy Man that ministers in prayers and offerings of that Mystery for the 〈◊〉 of all sorts of men of Christ's Catholick Church And it were also an excellent act of Christian communion and agreeable to the practice of the Church in all Ages to make an Oblation to God for the poor that as we are 〈◊〉 by Christ's body so we also should 〈◊〉 Christ's body making such returns as we can a grain of Frankincense in exchange for a Province an act of duty and Christian Charity as Eucharistical for the present Grace that all the body may rejoyce and glory in the Salvation of the Lord. 17. After thou hast received that pledge of immortality and antepast of glory even the Lord's Body in a mystery leave not thy Saviour there alone but attend him with holy thoughts and colloquies of Prayer and Eucharist It was sometime counted infamous for a woman to entertain a second love till the body of her
dead Husband was dissolved into ashes and disappeared in the form of a body And it were well that so long as the consecrated Symbols remain within us according to common estimate we should keep the flame bright and the perfume of an actual Devotion burning that our Communion be not a transient act but a permanent and lasting intercourse with our Lord. But in this every man best knows his own opportunities and necessities of diversion I only commend earnestly to practice that every Receiver should make a recollection of himself and the actions of the day that he improve it to the best advantage that he shew unto our Lord all the defects of his house all his poverty and weaknesses and this let every man do by such actions and Devotions which he can best attend and himself by the advice of a Spiritual man finds of best advantage I would not make the practice of Religion especially in such irregular instances to be an art or a burthen or a snare to scrupulous persons What S. Paul said in the 〈◊〉 of Charity I say also in this He that sows plentifully shall reap plentifully and he that 〈◊〉 sparingly shall gather at the same rate let every man do as himself purposeth in his heart Only it were well in this Sacrament of Love we had some correspondency and proportionable returns of Charity and religious affections 18. Some religious persons have moved a Question Whether it were better to communicate often or seldom some thinking it more reverence to those holy Mysteries to come but seldom while others say it is greater Religion or Charity to come frequently But I suppose this Question does not differ much from a dispute Whether is better to pray often or to pray seldom For whatsoever is commonly pretended against a frequent Communion may in its proportion object against a solemn Prayer 〈◊〉 affection to a sin enmity with neighbours secular avocations to the height of care and trouble for these either are great undecencies in order to a holy Prayer or else are direct irregularities and unhallow the Prayer And the celebration of the holy Sacrament is in it self and its own formality a sacred solemn and ritual Prayer in which we invocate God by the Merits of Christ expressing that adjuration not only in words but in actual representment and commemoration of his Passion And if the necessities of the Church were well considered we should find that a daily Sacrifice of Prayer and a daily Prayer of Sacrifice were no more but what her condition requires and I would to God the Governours of Churches would take care that the necessities of Kings and Kingdoms of Churches and States were represented to God by the most solemn and 〈◊〉 intercessions and Christ hath taught us none greater than the praying in the virtue and 〈◊〉 of his Sacrifice And this is the counsel that the Church received from Ignatius Haslen frequently to approach the 〈◊〉 the glory of God For when this is daily celebrated we break the powers of Satan who turns all his actions into 〈◊〉 and darts of fire But this concerns the Ministers of Religion who living in Communities and Colledges must make Religion the business of their lives and support Kingdoms and serve the interest of Kings by the prayer of a daily sacrifice And yet in this ministery the Clergy may serve their own necessary affairs if the ministration be divided into courses as it was by the oeconomy and wisdom of Solomon for the Temple 19. But concerning the Communion of Secular and lay persons the consideration is something different S. Austin gave this answer to it To receive the Sacrament every day I neither praise nor reprove at least let them receive it every Lord's day And this he spake to Husbandmen and Merchants At the first commencement of Christianity while the fervors Apostolical and the calentures of infant Christendom did last the whole assembly of faithsul people communicated every day and this lasted in Rome and Spain until the time of S. Jerome concerning which diligence he gives the same 〈◊〉 which I now recited from S. Austin for it suffered inconvenience by reason of a declining Piety and the intervening of secular interests But then it came to once a week and yet that was not every-where strictly observed But that it be received once every fortnight S. 〈◊〉 counsels very strongly to Eustochium a holy Virgin Let the 〈◊〉 confess their sins twice every month or 〈◊〉 and being fortified with the communion of the Lord's Body let them manfully fight against the Devil's forces and attempts A while 〈◊〉 it came to once a month then once a year then it fell from that too till all the Christians in the West were commanded to communicate every Easter by the Decree of a great Council above 500 years since But the Church of England finding that too little hath commanded all her Children to receive thrice every year at least intending that they should come oftner but of this she demands an account For it hath fared with this Sacrament as with other actions of Religion which have descended 〈◊〉 flames to still fires from fires to sparks from sparks to embers from embers to smoke from smoke to nothing And although the publick 〈◊〉 of Piety is such that in this present conjuncture of things it is impossible men should be reduced to a daily Communion yet that they are to communicate frequently is so a Duty that as no excuse but impossibility can make the omission innocent so the loss and consequent want is infinite and invaluable 20. For the holy Communion being a remembrance and sacramental repetition of Christ's Passion and the application of his Sacrifice to us and the whole Catholick Church as they who seldom communicate delight not to remember the Passion of our Lord and sin against his very purpose and one of the designs of institution so he cares not to receive the benefits of the Sacrifice who so neglects their application and reducing them to actual profit and 〈◊〉 Whence came the sanctimony of the primitive Christians whence came their strict observation of the Divine Commandments whence was it that they persevered in holy actions with hope and an unweary diligence from whence did their despising worldly things come and living with common possession and the distributions of an universal Charity Whence came these and many other excellencies but from a constant Prayer and a daily Eucharist They who every day represented the death of Christ every day were ready to die for Christ. It was the discourse of an ancient and excellent person And if we consider this Sacrament is intended to unite the spirits and affections of the world and that it is diffusive and powerful to this purpose for we are one body saith S. Paul because we partake of one bread possibly we may have reason to say that the wars of Kingdoms the animosity of Families the infinite
think the infelicities of our nature and the calamities of our temporal condition to become criminal so long as they make us not omit a duty or dispose us to the election of a crime or force us to swallow a temptation nor yet to exceed the value of their impulsive cause He that grieves for the loss of friends and yet had rather lose all the friends he hath than lose the love of God hath the sorrow of our Lord for his precedent And he that fears death and trembles at its approximation and yet had rather die again than sin once hath not sinned in his fear Christ hath hallowed it and the necessitous condition of his nature is his excuse But it were highly to be wished that in the midst of our caresses and levities of society in our festivities and triumphal merriments when we laugh at folly and rejoyce in sin we would remember that for those very merriments our Blessed Lord felt a bitter sorrow and not one vain and sinful laughter but cost the Holy Jesus a sharp pang and throe of Passion 4. Now that the Holy Jesus began to taste the bitter Cup he betook him to his great Antidote which himself the great Physician of our Souls prescribed to all the world to cure their calamities and to make them pass from miseries into vertue that so they may arrive at glory he prays to his heavenly Father he kneels down and not only so but falls flat upon the earth and would in humility and fervent adoration have descended low as the centre he prays with an intension great as his sorrow and yet with a dereliction so great and a conformity to the Divine will so ready as if it had been the most indifferent thing in the world for him to be delivered to death or from it for though his nature did decline death as that which hath a natural horrour and contradiction to the present interest of its preservation yet when he looked upon it as his heavenly Father had put it into the order of Redemption of the World it was that Baptism which he was straitned till he had accomplished And now there is not in the world any condition of prayer which is essential to the duty or any circumstances of advantage to its performance but were concentred in this one instance Humility of spirit lowliness of deportment importunity of desire a fervent spirit a lawful matter resignation to the will of God great love the love of a Son to his Father which appellative was the form of his address perseverance he went thrice and prayed the same prayer It was not long and it was so retired as to have the advantages of a sufficient solitude and opportune recollection for he was withdrawn from the most of his Disciples and yet not so alone as to lose the benefit of communion for Peter and the two Boanerges were near him Christ in this prayer which was the most fervent that he ever made on earth intending to transmit to all the world a precedent of Devotion to be transcribed and imitated that we should cast all our cares and empty them in the bosom of God being content to receive such a portion of our trouble back again which he assigns us for our spiritual emolument 5. The Holy Jesus having in a few words poured out torrents of innocent desires was pleased still to interrupt his Prayer that he might visit his charge that little flock which was presently after to be scattered he was careful of them in the midst of his Agonies they in his sufferings were fast asleep He awakens them gives them command to watch and pray that is to be vigilant in the custody of their senses and obervant of all accidents and to pray that they may be strengthened against all incursions of enemies and temptations and then returns to prayer and so a third time his Devotion still encreasing with his sorrow And when his Prayer was full and his sorrow come to a great measure after the third God sent his Angel to comfort him and by that act of grace then only expressed hath taught us to continue our Devotions so long as our needs last It may be God will not send a Comsorter till the third time that is after a long expectation and a patient 〈◊〉 and a lasting hope in the interim God supports us with a secret hand and in his own time will refresh the spirit with the visitations of his Angels with the emissions of comfort from the Spirit the Comforter And know this also that the holy Angel and the Lord of all the Angels stands by every holy person when he prays and although he draws before his glories the curtain of a cloud yet in every instant he takes care we shall not perish and in a just season dissolves the cloud and makes it to distill in holy dew and drops sweet as Manna pleasant as Nard and wholsome as the breath of Heaven And such was the consolation which the Holy Jesus received by the ministery of the Angel representing to Christ the Lord of the Angels how necessary it was that he should die for the glory of God that in his Passion his Justice Wisdom Goodness Power and Mercy should shine that unless he died all the World should perish but his bloud should obtain their pardon and that it should open the gates of Heaven repair the ruine of Angels establish a holy Church be 〈◊〉 of innumerable adoptive children to his Father whom himself should make heirs of glory and that his Passion should soon pass away his Father hearing and granting his Prayer that the Cup should pass speedily though indeed it should pass through him that it should be attended and followed with a glorious Resurrection with eternal rest and glory of his Humanity with the exaltation of his Name with a supreme dominion over all the world and that his Father should make him King of Kings and Prince of the Catholick Church These or whatsoever other comforts the Angel ministred were such considerations which the Holy Jesus knew and the Angel knew not but by communication from that God to whose assumed Humanity the Angel spake yet he was pleased to receive comfort from his servant just as God receives glory from his creatures and as he rejoyces in his own works even because he is good and gracious and is pleased so to do and because himself had caused a voluntary sadness to be interposed between the habitual knowledge and the actual consideration of these discourses and we feel a pleasure when a friendly hand lays upon our wound the plaister which our selves have made and applies such instruments and considerations of comfort which we have in notion and an ineffective habit but cannot reduce them to act because no man is so apt to be his own comforter which God hath therefore permitted that our needs should be the occasion of a mutual Charity 6. It was a great season for
this instance there was a rare mixture of effects as there was in Christ of Natures the voice of a Man and the power of God For it is observed by the Doctors of the Primitive Ages that from the Nativity of our Lord to the day of his Death the Divinity and Humanity did so communicate in effects that no great action passed but it was like the Sun shining through a cloud or a beauty with a thin veil drawn over it they gave illustration and testimony to each other The Holy Jesus was born a tender and a crying Infant but is adored by the Magi as a King by the Angels as their GOD. He is circumcised as a Man but a name is given him to signifie him to be the SAVIOUR of the World He flies into Egypt like a distressed Child under the conduct of his helpless Parents but as soon as he enters the Country the Idols fall down and confess his true Divinity He is presented in the Temple as the Son of man but by Simeon and Anna he is celebrated with divine praises for the MESSIAS the SON OF GOD. He is baptized in Jordan as a Sinner but the Holy Ghost descending upon him proclaimed him to be the well-beloved of God He is hungry in the Desart as a Man but sustained his body without meat and drink for forty days together by the power of his Divinity There he is tempted of Satan as a weak Man and the Angels of light minister unto him as their supreme Lord. And now a little before his death when he was to take upon him all the affronts miseries and exinanitions of the most miserable he receives testimonies from above which are most wonderful For he was tranfigured upon Mount Tabor entred triumphantly into Jerusalem had the acclamations of the people when he was dying he darkned the Sun when he was dead he opened the sepulchres when he was fast nailed to the Cross he made the earth to tremble now when he suffers himself to be apprehended by a guard of Souldiers he strikes them all to the ground only by replying to their answer that the words of the Prophet might be verified Therefore my people shall know my Name therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak behold it is I. 10. The Souldiers and servants of the Jews having recovered from their fall and risen by the permission of Jesus still persisted in their enquiry after him who was present ready and desirous to be sacrificed He therefore permitted himself to be taken but not his Disciples for he it was that set them their bounds and he secured his Apostles to be witnesses of his suffering and his glories and this work was the Redemption of the world in which no man could have an active share he alone was to tread the wine-press and time enough they should be called to a fellowship of sufferings But Jesus went to them and they bound him with cords and so began our liberty and redemption from slavery and sin and cursings and death But he was bound faster by bands of his own his Father's Will and Mercy Pity of the world Prophecies and Mysteries and Love held him fast and these cords were as strong as death and the cords which the Souldiers malice put upon his holy hands were but symbols and figures his own compassion and affection were the morals But yet he undertook this short restraint and condition of a prisoner that all sorts of persecution and exteriour calamities might be hallowed by his susception and these pungent sorrows should like bees sting him and leave their sting behind that all the sweetness should remain for us Some melancholick Devotions have from uncertain stories added sad circumstances of the first violence done to our Lord That they bound him with three cords and that with so much violence that they caused bloud to start from his tender hands That they 〈◊〉 then also upon him with a violence and incivility like that which their Fathers had used towards Hur the brother of Aaron whom they choaked with impure spittings into his throat because he refused to consent to the making a golden Calf These particulars are not transmitted by certain Records Certain it is they wanted no malice and now no power for the Lord had given himself into their hands 11. S. Peter seeing his Master thus ill used asked Master shall we strike with the sword and before he had his answer cut off the ear of Malchus Two swords there were in Christ's family and S. Peter bore one either because he was to kill the Paschal Lamb or according to the custom of the Country to secure them against beasts of prey which in that region were frequent and dangerous in the night But now he used it in an unlawful war he had no competent authority it was against the Ministers of his lawful Prince and against our Prince we must not draw a sword for Christ himself himself having forbidden us as his kingdom is not of this world so neither were his defences secular he could have called for many legions of Angels for his guard if he had so pleased and we read that one Angel slew 185000 armed men in one night and therefore it was a vast power which was at the command of our Lord and he needs not such low auxiliaries as an army of Rebels or a navy of Pirates to 〈◊〉 his cause he first lays the foundation of our happiness in his sufferings and hath ever since supported Religion by patience and suffering and in poverty and all the circumstances and conjunctures of improbable causes Fighting for Religion is certain to destroy Charity but not certain to support Faith S. Peter therefore may use his keys but he is commanded to put up his sword and he did so and presently he and all his fellows fairly ran away and yet that course was much the more Christian for though it had in it much infirmity yet it had no malice In the mean time the Lord was pleased to touch the ear of Malchus and he cured it adding to the first instance of power in throwing them to the ground an act of miraculous mercy curing the wounds of an enemy made by a friend But neither did this pierce their callous and obdurate spirits but they led him in uncouth ways and through the brook Cedron in which it is said the ruder souldiers plunged him and passed upon him all the affronts and rudenesses which an insolent and cruel multitude could think of to signifie their contempt and their rage And such is the nature of evil men who when they are not softned by the instruments and arguments of Grace are much hardned by them such being the purpose of God that either Grace shall cure sin or accidentally increase it that it shall either pardon it or bring it to greater punishment for so I have seen healthful medicines abused by the incapacities of a
with purple and crowned him with thorns and put a cane in his hand for a scepter and bowed their knees before him and saluted him with mockery with a Hail King of the Jews and 〈◊〉 beat him and spate upon him and then Pilate brought him forth and shewed this sad spectacle to the people hoping this might move them to compassion who never loved to see a man prosperous and are always troubled to see the same man in misery But the Earth which was cursed for Adam's sake and was sowed with thorns and thistles produced the full harvest of them and the Second Adam gathered them all and made garlands of them as ensigns of his Victory which he was now in pursuit of against Sin the Grave and Hell And we also may make our thorns which are in themselves 〈◊〉 and dolorous to be a Crown if we bear 〈◊〉 patiently and unite them to Christ's Passion and offer them to his honour and bear them in his cause and rejoyce in them for his sake And indeed after such a grove of 〈◊〉 growing upon the head of our Lord to see one of Christ's members soft delicate and effeminate is a great indecency next to this of seeing the Jews use the King of glory with the greatest reproach and infamy 12. But nothing prevailing nor the Innocence of Jesus nor his immunity from the sentence of Herod nor the industry and diligence of Pilate nor the misery nor the sight of the afflicted Lamb of God at last for so God decreed to permit it and Christ to 〈◊〉 it Pilate gave sentence of death upon him having first washed his hands of which God served his end to declare the Innocence of his Son of which in this whole process he was most curious and suffered not the least probability to adhere to him yet Pilate served no end of his nor preserved any thing of his innocence He that 〈◊〉 upon a Prince and cries Saving your honour you are a Tyrant and he that strikes a man upon the face and cries him mercy and undoes him and says it was in jest does just like that person that sins against God and thinks to be excused by saying it was against his Conscience that is washing our hands when they are stained in bloud as if a ceremony of purification were enough to cleanse a soul from the stains of a spiritual impurity So some refuse not to take any Oath in times of Persecution and say it obliges not because it was forced and done against their wills as if the doing of it were washed off by protesting against it whereas the protesting against it declares me criminal if I rather chuse not death than that which I profess to be a sin But all the persons which cooperated in this death were in this life consigned to a fearful judgment after it The Jews took the bloud which Pilate seemed to wash off upon themselves and their children and the bloud of this Paschal Lamb stuck upon their forehead and marked them not to escape but to fall under the sword of the destroying Angel and they perished either by a more hasty death or shortly after in the extirpation and miserable ruine of their Nation And Pilate who had a less share in the crime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a black character of a secular Judgment for not long after he was by Vitellius the President of Syria sent to Rome to answer to the crimes objected against him by the Jews whom to please he had done so much violence to his Conscience and by 〈◊〉 sentence he was banished to Vienna deprived of all his honours where he lived ingloriously till by impatience of his calamity he killed himself with his own hand And thus the bloud of Jesus shed for the Salvation of the world became to them a Curse and that which purifies the Saints stuck to them that shed it and mingled it not with the tears of Repentance to be a leprosie loathsome and incurable So Manna turns to worms and the wine of Angels to Vineger and Lees when it is received into impure vessels or tasted by wanton palats and the Sun himself produces Rats and Serpents when it reflects upon the dirt of Nilus The PRAYER O Holy and immaculate Lamb of God who wert pleased to 〈◊〉 shame and sorrow to be brought before tribunals to be accused maliciously betrayed treacherously condemned unjustly and scourged most 〈◊〉 suffering the most severe and most unhandsome inflictions which could be procured by potent subtle and extremest malice and didst 〈◊〉 this out of love greater than the love of Mothers more affectionate than the tears of joy and pity dropt from the eyes of most passionate women by these fontinels of bloud issuing forth life and health and pardon upon all thine enemies teach me to apprehend the baseness of Sin in proportion to the greatest of those calamities which my sin made it necessary for thee to susfer that I may hate the cause of thy 〈◊〉 and adore thy mercy and imitate thy charity and copy 〈◊〉 thy patience à nd humility and love thy person to the uttermost extent and degrees of my affections Lord what am I that the eternal Son of God should 〈◊〉 one stripe for me But thy Love is infinite and how great a misery is it to provoke by sin so great a mercy and despise so miraculous a goodness and to do fresh despite to the Son of God But our sins are innumerable and our infirmities are mighty Dearest Jesu pity me for I am accused by my own Conscience and am found guilty I am stripped naked of my Innocence and bound fast by Lust and tormented with stripes and wounds of enraged Appetites But let thy Innocence excuse me the robes of thy Righteousness cloath me thy Bondage set me free and thy Stripes heal me that thou being my Advocate my Physician my Patron and my Lord I may be adopted into the union of thy Merits and partake of the efficacy of thy Sufferings and be crowned as thou art having my sins changed to vertues and my thorns to rays of glory under thee our Head in the participations of Eternity O Holy and immaculate Lamb of God Amen DISCOURSE XX. Of Death and the due manner of Preparation to it 1. THE Holy Spirit of God hath in Scripture revealed to us but one way of preparing to Death and that is by a holy life and there is nothing in all the Book of Life concerning this exercise of address to Death but such advices which suppose the dying person in a state of Grace S. James indeed counsels that in sickness we should send for the Ministers Ecclesiastical and that they pray over us and that we confess our sins and they shall be forgiven that is those prayers are of great efficacy for the removing the sickness and taking off that punishment of sin and healing them in a certain degree according to the efficacy of the ministery and the dispositions or capacities of the sick person But
their friends and consider not that their friends are bound to accept the trouble as themselves to accept the sickness that to tend the sick is at that time allotted for the portion of their work and that Charity receives it as a duty and makes that duty to be a pleasure And however if our friends account us a burthen let us also accept that circumstance of affliction to our selves with the same resignation and indifferency as we entertain its occasion the Sickness it self and pray to God to enkindle a flame of Charity in their breasts and to make them compensation for the charge and trouble we put them to and then the care is at an end But others excuse their discontent with a more religious colour and call the disease their trouble and affliction because it impedes their other parts of Duty they cannot preach or study or do exteriour assistences of Charity and Alms or acts of Repentance and Mortification But it were well if we could let God proportion out our work and set our task let him chuse what vertues we shall specially exercise and when the will of God determines us it is more excellent to endure afflictions with patience equanimity and thankfulness than to do actions of the most pompous Religion and laborious or expensive Charity not only because there is a deliciousness in actions of Religion and choice which is more agreeable to our spirit than the toleration of sickness can be which hath great reward but no present pleasure but also because our suffering and our imployment is consecrated to us when God chuses it and there is then no mixture of imperfection or secular interest as there may be in other actions even of an excellent Religion when our selves are the chusers And let us also remember that God hath not so much need of thy works as thou hast of Patience Humility and Resignation S. Paul was far a more considerable person than thou canst be and yet it pleased God to shut him in prison for two years and in that intervall God secured and promoted the work of the Gospel and although 〈◊〉 was an excellent Minister yet God laid a sickness upon him and even in his disease gave him work enough to do though not of his own chusing And therefore fear it not but the ends of Religion or Duty will well enough proceed without thy health and thy own eternal interest when God so pleases shall better be served by Sickness and the Vertues which it occasions than by the opportunities of Health and an ambulatory active Charity 18. When thou art resigned to God use fair and appointed means for thy Recovery trust not in thy spirit upon any instrument of health as thou art willing to be disposed by God so look 〈◊〉 for any event upon the stock of any other cause or principle be ruled by the Physician and the people appointed to tend thee that thou neither become troublesome to them nor give any sign of impatience or a peevish spirit But this advice only means that thou do not disobey them out of any evil principle and yet if Reason be thy guide to chuse any other aid or sollow any other counsel use it temperately prudently and charitably It is not intended for a Duty that thou shouldst drink Oil in stead of Wine if thy Minister reach it to thee as did Saint Bernard nor that thou shouldst accept a Cake tempered with Linseed-oil in stead of Oil of Olives as did F. Stephen mentioned by 〈◊〉 but that thou tolerate the defects of thy servants and accept the evil accidents of thy disease or the unsuccessfulness of thy Physician 's care as descending on thee from the hands of God Asa was noted in Scripture that in his sickness he sought not to the Lord but to the Physicians Lewis the XI of France was then the miserablest person in his Kingdom when he made himself their servant courting them with great pensions and rewards attending to their Rules as Oracles and from their mouths waited for the sentence of life or death We are in these great accidents especially to look upon God as the disposer of the events which he very often disposes contrary to the expectation we may have of probable causes and sometimes without Physick we recover and with Physick and excellent applications we grow worse and worse and God it is that makes the remedies unprosperous In all these and all other accidents if we take care that the sickness of the Body derive not it self into the Soul nor the pains of one procure impatience of the other we shall alleviate the burthen and make it supportable and profitable And certain it is if men knew well to bear their sicknesses humbly towards God charitably towards our Ministers and chearfully in themselves there were no greater advantage in the world to be received than upon a sick bed and that alone hath in it the benefits of a Church of a religious Assembly of the works of Charity and labour And since our Soul 's eternal well-being depends upon the Charities and Providence and Veracity of God and we have nothing to show for it but his word and Goodness and that is infinitely enough it is but reason we be not more nice and scrupulous about the usage and accommodation of our Body if we accept at God's hand sadness and driness of affection and spiritual desertion patiently and with indifferency it is unhandsome to express our selves less satisfied in the accidents about our body 19. But if the Sickness proceed to Death it is a new charge upon our spirits and God calls for a final and intire Resignation into his hands And to a person who was of humble affections and in his life-time of a mortified spirit accustomed to bear the yoke of the Lord this is easie because he looks upon Death not only as the certain condition of Nature but as a necessary transition to a state of Blessedness as the determination of his sickness the period of humane inselicities the last change of condition the beginning of a new strange and excellent life a security against sin a freedom from the importunities of a Tempter from the tyranny of an imperious Lust from the rebellion of Concupiscence from the disturbances and tempests of the Irascible faculty and from the fondness and childishness of the Concupiscible and S. Ambrose says well the trouble of this life and the dangers are so many that in respect of them Death is a remedy and a fair proper object of desires And we finde that many Saints have prayed for death that they might not see the Persecutions and great miseries incumbent upon the Church and if the desire be not out of Impatience but of Charity and with resignation there is no reason to reprove it Elias prayed that God would take his life that he might not see the evils of Ahab and Jezebel and their vexatious intendments against the
though less perfectly it ought not to be denied and they less ought to neglect it 25. But as every man must put himself so also he must put his house in order make his Will if he have an Estate to dispose of and in that he must be careful to do Justice to every man and Charity to the poor according as God hath enabled him and though Charity is then very late if it begins not earlier yet if this be but an act of an ancient habit it is still more perfect as it succeeds in time and superadds to the former stock And among other acts of Duty let it be remembred that it is excellent Charity to leave our Will and desires clear plain and determinate that contention and Law-suits may be prevented by the explicate declaration of the Legacies At last and in all instances and periods of our following days let the former good acts be renewed let God be praised for all his Graces and Blessings of our life let him be intreated for Pardon of our sins let acts of Love and Contrition of Hope of Joy of Humility be the work of every day which God still permits us always remembring to ask remission for those sins we remember not And if the condition of our sickness permits it let our last breath expire with an act of Love that it may begin the Charities of Eternity and like a Taper burnt to its lowest base it may go out with a great emission of light leaving a sweet smell behind us to perfume our Coffin and that these lights newly made brighter or trimmed up in our sickness may shine about our Herse that they may become arguments of a pious sadness to our friends as the charitable Coats which Dorcas made were to the widows and exemplar to all those who observed or shall hear of our holy life and religious death But if it shall happen that the disease be productive of evil accidents as a disturbed phancy a weakned understanding wild discoursings or any deprivation of the use of Reason it concerns the sick persons in the happy intervalls of a quiet untroubled spirit to pray earnestly to God that nothing may pass from him in the rages of a Fever or worse distemper which may less become his duty or give scandal or cause trouble to the persons in attendance and if he shall also renounce and disclaim all such evil words which his disease may speak not himself he shall do the duty of a Christian and a prudent person And after these 〈◊〉 he may with Piety and confidence resign his Soul into the hands of God to be deposited in holy receptacles till the day of restitution of all things and in the mean time with a quiet spirit descend into that state which is the lot of Caesars and where all Kings and Conquerours have laid aside their glories The PRAYER O Eternal and Holy Jesus who by Death hast overcome Death and by thy Passion hast taken out its sting and made it to become one of the gates of Heaven and an entrance to Felicity have mercy upon me now and at the hour of my death let thy Grace accompany me all the days of my life that I may by a holy Conversation and an habitual performance of my Duty wait for the coming of our Lord and be ready to enter with thee at whatsoever hour thou shalt come Lord let not my death be in any sence unprovided nor untimely nor hasty but after the common manner of men having in it nothing extraordinary but an extraordinary Piety and the manifestation of a great and miraculous Mercy Let my Senses and Understanding be preserved intire till the last of my days and grant that I may die the death of the righteous having first discharged all my obligations of justice leaving none miserable and unprovided in my departure but be thou the portion of all my friends and relatives and let thy blessing descend upon their heads and abide there till they shall meet me in the bosom of our Lord. Preserve me ever in the communion and peace of the Church and bless my Death bed with the opportunity of a holy and a spiritual Guide with the assistence and guard of Angels with the perception of the holy Sacrament with Patience and dereliction of my own 〈◊〉 with a strong Faith and a firm and humble Hope with just measures of Repentance and great treasures of Charity to thee my God and to all the world that my Soul in the arms of the Holy Jesus may be deposited with safety and joy there to expect the revelation of thy Day and then to partake the glories of thy Kingdom O Eternal and Holy Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy JESUS He beareth his Cross Ioh 19. 16. 17. And they took Iesus and lead him away 17. And he bearing his Cross went forth into a place called the place of a Scult which is called in y e Hebrew Golgotha They Erect the Crucifixe Ioh 3. 14. 15. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in y e wilderness even so must y e Son of man be lifted up 15. That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but haue eternall life 1. WHen the Sentence of Death pronounced against the Lord was to be put in execution the Souldiers pulled off the Robe of mockery the scarlet Mantle which in jest they put upon him and put on his own garments But as Origen observes the Evangelist mentioned not that they took off the Crown of thorns what might serve their interest they pursue but nothing of remission or mercy to the afflicted Son of man but so it became the King of Sufferings not to lay aside his Imperial thorns till they were changed into Diadems of Glory But now Abel is led forth by his brother to be slain A gay spectacle to satisfie impious eyes who would not stay behind but attended and waited upon the hangman to see the Catastrophe of this bloudy Tragedy But when Piety looks on she beholds a glorious mystery Sin laughed to see the King of Heaven and Earth and the great lover of Souls in stead of the Scepter of his Kingdom to bear a Tree of 〈◊〉 and shame But Plety wept tears of pity and knew they would melt into joy when she should behold that Cross which loaded the shoulders of her Lord afterward sit upon the Scepters and be engraved and signed upon the Foreheads of Kings 2. It cannot be thought but the Ministers of Jewish malice used all the circumstances of affliction which in any case were accustomed towards malefactors and persons to be crucified and therefore it was that in some old Figures we see our Blessed Lord described with a Table appendent to the fringe of his garment set full of nails and pointed iron for so sometimes they afflicted persons condemned to that kind of Death and S. Cyprian affirms that Christ did stick to the wood that he carried being
galled with the iron at his heels and nailed even before his Crucifixion But this and the other accidents of his journey and their malice so crushed his wounded tender and virginal body that they were forced to lay the load upon a Cyrenian fearing that he should die with less shame and smart than they intended him But so he was pleased to take man unto his aid not only to represent his own need and the dolorousness of his Passion but to consign the duty unto man that we must enter into a 〈◊〉 of Christ's sufferings taking up the Cross of Martyrdom when God requires us enduring affronts being patient under affliction loving them that hate us and being benefactors to our enemies abstaining from sensual and intemperate delight forbidding to our selves lawful festivities and recreations of our weariness when we have an end of the spirit to serve upon the ruines of the bodie 's strength mortifying our desires breaking our own will not seeking our selves being entirely resigned to God These are the Cross and the Nails and the Spear and the Whip and all the instruments of a Christian's Passion And we may consider that every man in this world shall in some sence or other bear a Cross few men escape it and it is not well with them that do but they only bear it well that 〈◊〉 Christ and tread in his steps and bear it for his sake and walk as he walked and he that follows his own desires when he meets with a cross there as it is certain enough he will bears the cross of his Concupiscence and that hath no fellowship with the Cross of Christ. By the Precept of bearing the Cross we are not tied to pull evil upon our selves that we may imitate our Lord in nothing but in being afflicted or to personate the punitive exercises of Mortification and severe Abstinencies which were eminent in some Saints and to which they had special assistances as others had the gift of Chastity and for which they had special reason and as they apprehended some great necessities but it is required that we bear our own Cross so said our dearest Lord. For when the Cross of Christ is laid upon us and we are called to Martyrdom then it is our own because God made it to be our portion and when by the necessities of our spirit and the rebellion of our body we need exteriour mortifications and acts of self-denial then also it is our own cross because our needs have made it so and so it is when God sends us sickness or any other calamity what-ever is either an effect of our ghostly needs or the condition of our temporal estate it calls for our sufferance and patience and equanimity for therefore Christ hath suffered for us saith S. Peter leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who bore his Cross as long as he could and when he could no longer he murmured not but sank under it and then he was content to receive such aid not which he chose himself but such as was assigned him 3. Jesus was led out of the gates of Jerusalem that he might become the sacrifice for persons without the pale even for all the world And the daughters of Jerusalem followed him with pious tears till they came to Calvary a place difficult in the ascent eminent and apt for the publication of shame a hill of death and dead bones polluted and impure and there beheld him stript naked who cloaths the field with flowers and all the world with robes and the whole globe with the canopy of Heaven and so dress'd that now every circumstance was a triumph By his Disgrace he trampled upon our Pride by his Poverty and nakedness he triumphed over our Covetousness and love of riches and by his Pains chastised the Delicacies of our flesh and broke in pieces the fetters of Concupiscence For as soon as Adam was clothed he quitted Paradise and Jesus was made naked that he might bring us in again And we also must be despoil'd of all our exteriour adherencies that we may pass through the regions of duty and divine love to a society of blessed spirits and a clarified immortal and beatified estate 4. There they nailed Jesus with four nails fixed his Cross in the ground which with its fall into the place of its station gave infinite torture by so violent a concussion of the body of our Lord which rested upon nothing but four great wounds where he was designed to suffer a long and lingring torment For Crucifixion as it was an excellent pain sharp and passionate so it was not of quick effect towards taking away the life S. Andrew was two whole days upon the Cross and some Martyrs have upon the Cross been rather starved and devoured with birds than killed with the proper torment of the tree But Jesus took all his Passion with a voluntary susception God heightning it to the great degrees of torment supernaturally and he laid down his life voluntarily when his Father's wrath was totally appeased towards mankind 5. Some have phansied that Christ was pleased to take something from every condition of which Man ever was or shall be possessed taking Immunity from sin from Adam's state of Innocence Punishment and misery from the state of Adam fallen the fulness of Grace from the state of Renovation and perfect Contemplation of the Divinity and beatifick joys from the state of Comprehension and the blessedness of Heaven meaning that the Humanity of our Blessed Saviour did in the sharpest agony of his Passion behold the face of God and communicate in glory But I consider that although the two Natures of Christ were knit by a mysterious union into one Person yet the Natures still retain their incommunicable properties Christ as God is not subject to sufferings as a man he is the subject of miseries as God he is eternal as man mortal and commensurable by time as God the supreme Law-giver as man most humble and obedient to the Law and therefore that the Humane nature was united to the Divine it does not infer that it must in all instances partake of the Divine felicities which in God are essential to man communicated without necessity and by an arbitrary dispensation Add to this that some vertues and excellencies were in the Soul of Christ which could not consist with the state of glorified and beatified persons such as are Humility Poverty of spirit Hope Holy desires all which having their seat in the Soul suppose even in the supremest 〈◊〉 a state of pilgrimage that is a condition which is imperfect and in order to something beyond its present For therefore Christ ought to suffer saith our Blessed Lord himself and so enter into his glory And S. Paul affirms that we see Jesus made a little lower than the Angels for the suffering of death 〈◊〉 with glory and honour And again Christ humbled himself and became obedient unto
death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every name Thus his present life was a state of merit and work and as a reward of it he was crowned with glory and immortality his Name was exalted his Kingdom glorified he was made the Lord of all the Creatures the first-fruits of the Resurrection the exemplar of glory and the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church and because this was his recompence and the fruits of his Humility and Obedience it is certain it was not a necessary consequence and a natural efflux of the personal union of the Godhead with the Humanity This I discourse to this purpose that we may not in our esteem lessen the suffering of our dearest Lord by thinking he had the supports of actual Glory in the midst of all his Sufferings For there is no one minute or ray of Glory but its fruition does outweigh and make us insensible of the greatest calamities and the spirit of pain which can be extracted from all the infelicities of this world True it is that the greatest beauties in this world are receptive of an allay of sorrow and nothing can have pleasure in all capacities The most beautious feathers of the birds of Paradise the Estrich or the Peacock if put into our throat are not there so pleasant as to the eye But the beatifick joys of the least glory of Heaven take away all pain wipe away all tears from our eyes and it is not possible that at the same instant the Soul of Jesus should be ravished with Glory and yet abated with pains grievous and 〈◊〉 On the other side some say that the Soul of Jesus upon the Cross suffered the pains of Hell and all the torments of the damned and that without such sufferings it is not imaginable he should pay the price which God's wrath should demand of us But the same that reproves the one does also reprehend the other for the Hope that was the support of the Soul of Jesus as it confesses an imperfection that is not consistent with the state of Glory so it excludes the Despair that is the torment proper to accursed souls Our dearest Lord suffered the whole condition of Humanity Sin only excepted and freed us from Hell with suffering those sad pains and merited Heaven for his own Humanity as the Head and all faithful people as the Members of his mystical Body And therefore his life here was only a state of pilgrimage not at all trimmed with beatifick glories Much less was he ever in the state of Hell or upon the Cross felt the formal misery and spirit of torment which is the 〈◊〉 of damned spirits because it was impossible Christ should despair and without Despair it is impossible there should be a Hell But this is highly probable that in the intension of degrees and present anguish the Soul of our Lord might feel a greater load of wrath than is incumbent in every instant upon perishing souls For all the sadness which may be imagined to be in Hell consists in acts produced from principles that cannot surpass the force of humane or Angelical nature but the pain which our Blessed Lord endured for the expiation of our sins was an issue of an united and concentred anger was received into the heart of God and Man and was commensurate to the whole latitude of the Grace Patience and Charity of the Word incarnate The Crucisixion Mark 15 25. Erat autem Hora tertia crucifixerunt eum Mark 15 25. And is was the third houre they crucified him The takeing down from the Cross. Luk. 23 50 And there was a man named Ioseph a Counsellour he was a good man a lust y e same had not consented to y e counsell deed of them 52. This man went unto Pilate begged y e Body of Iesus 53 And he took it down wrapped it in linen layd it in a Sepulehre that was hewn in stone wherein never man before was layd 6. And now behold the Priest and the Sacrifice of all the world laid upon the Altar of the Cross bleeding and tortured and dying to reconcile his Father to us and he was arrayed with ornaments more glorious than the robes of Aaron The Crown of Thorns was his Mitre the Cross his Pastoral staffe the Nails piercing his hands were in stead of Rings the ancient ornament of Priests and his flesh rased and checker'd with blew and bloud in stead of the parti-coloured Robe But as this object calls for our Devotion our Love and Eucharist to our dearest Lord so it must needs irreconcile us to Sin which in the eye of all the world brought so great shame and pain and amazement upon the Son of God when he only became engaged by a charitable substitution of himself in our place and therefore we are assured by the demonstration of sense and experience it will bring death and all imaginable miseries as the just expresses of God's indignation and hatred for to this we may apply the words of our Lord in the prediction of miseries to Jerusalem If this be done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry For it is certain Christ infinitely pleased his Father even by becoming the person made 〈◊〉 in estimate of Law and yet so great Charity of our Lord and the so great love and pleasure of his Father exempted him not from suffering pains intolerable and much less shall those escape who provoke and displease God and despise so great Salvation which the Holy Jesus hath wrought with the expence of bloud and so precious a life 7. But here we see a great representation and testimony of the Divine Justice who was so angry with sin who had so severely threatned it who does so essentially hate it that he would not spare his only Son when he became a conjunct person relative to the guilt by undertaking the charges of our Nature For although God hath set down in holy Scripture the order of his Justice and the manner of its manifestation that one Soul shall not perish for the sins of another yet this is meant for Justice and for Mercy too that is he will not curse the Son for the Father's fault or in any relation whatsoever substitute one person for another to make him involuntarily guilty But when this shall be desired by a person that cannot finally perish and does a mercy to the exempt persons and is a voluntary act of the suscipient and shall in the event also redound to an infinite good it is no deflection from the Divine Justice to excuse many by the affliction of one who also for that very suffering shall have infinite compensation We see that for the sin of Cham all his posterity were accursed the Subjects of David died with the Plague because their Prince numbred the people Idolatry is punished in the children of the fourth generation
Saul's seven sons were hanged for breaking the League of Gibeon and Ahab's sin was punished in his posterity he escaping and the evil was brought upon his house in his son's days In all these cases the evil descended upon persons in near relation to the sinner and was a punishment to him and a misery to these and were either chastisements also of their own sins or if they were not they served other ends of Providence and led the afflicted innocent to a condition of recompence accidentally procured by that infliction But if for such relation's sake and oeconomical and political conjunction as between Prince and People the evil may be transmitted from one to another much rather is it just when by contract a competent and conjunct person undertakes to quit his relative Thus when the Hand steals the Back is whipt and an evil Eye is punished with a hungry Belly Treason causes the whole Family to be miserable and a Sacrilegious Grandfather hath sent a Locust to devour the increase of the Nephews 8. But in our case it is a voluntary contract and therefore no Injustice all parties are voluntary God is the supreme Lord and his actions are the measure of Justice we who had deserved the punishment had great reason to desire a Redeemer and yet Christ who was to pay the ransome was more desirous of it than we were for we asked it not before it was promised and undertaken But thus we see that Sureties pay the obligation of the principal Debtor and the Pledges of Contracts have been by the best and wisest Nations slain when the Articles have been broken The Thessalians slew 250 Pledges the Romans 300 of the Volsci and threw the Tarentines from the Tarpeian rock And that it may appear Christ was a person in all sences competent to do this for us himself testifies that he had power over his own life to take it up or lay it down And therefore as there can be nothing against the most exact justice and reason of Laws and punishments so it magnifies the Divine Mercy who removes the punishment from us who of necessity must have sunk under it and yet makes us to adore his Severity who would not forgive us without punishing his Son for us to consign unto us his perfect hatred against Sin to conserve the sacredness of his Laws and to imprint upon us great characters of fear and love The famous Locrian Zaleucus made a Law that all Adulterers should lose both their eyes his son was first unhappily surprised in the crime and his Father to keep a temper between the piety and soft spirit of a Parent and the justice and severity of a Judge put out one of his own eyes and one of his Sons So God did with us he made some abatement that is as to the person with whom he was angry but inflicted his anger upon our Redeemer whom he essentially loved to secure the dignity of his Sanctions and the sacredness of Obedience so marrying Justice and Mercy by the intervening of a commutation Thus David escaped by the death of his Son God chusing that penalty for the expiation and Cimon offered himself to prison to purchase the liberty of his Father Miltiades It was a filial duty in Cimon and yet the Law was satisfied And both these concurred in our great Redeemer For God who was the sole Arbitrator so disposed it and the eternal Son of God submitted to this way of expiating our crimes and became an argument of faith and belief of the great Article of Remission of sins and other its appendent causes and effects and adjuncts it being wrought by a visible and notorious Passion It was made an encouragement of Hope for he that spared not his own Son to reconcile us will with him give all things else to us so reconciled and a great endearment of our Duty and Love as it was a demonstration of his And in all the changes and traverses of our life he is made to us a great example of all excellent actions and all patient sufferings 9. In the midst of two Thieves three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain agony and dishonour all of them so eminent and vast that he who could not but hope whose Soul was enchased with Divinity and dwelt in the bosom of God and in the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity yet had a cloud of misery so thick and black drawn before him that he complained as if God had forsaken him but this was the pillar of cloud which conducted Israel into Canaan And as God behind the Cloud supported the Holy Jesus and stood ready to receive him into the union of his Glories so his Soul in that great desertion had internal comforts proceeding from consideration of all those excellent persons which should be adopted into the fellowship of his Sufferings which should imitate his Graces which should communicate his Glories And we follow this Cloud to our Country having Christ for our Guide and though he trode the way leaning upon the Cross which like the staffe of Egypt pierced his hands yet it is to us a comfort and support pleasant to our spirits as the sweetest Canes strong as the pillars of the earth and made apt for our use by having been born and made smooth by the hands of our Elder Brother 10. In the midst of all his torments Jesus only made one Prayer of sorrow to represent his sad condition to his Father but no accent of murmur no syllable of anger against his enemies In stead of that he sent up a holy charitable and effective Prayer for their forgiveness and by that Prayer obtained of God that within 55 days 8000 of his enemies were converted So potent is the prayer of Charity that it prevails above the malice of men turning the arts of Satan into the designs of God and when malice occasions the Prayer the Prayer becomes an antidote to malice And by this instance our Blessed Lord consigned that Duty to us which in his Sermons he had preached That we should forgive our enemies and pray for them and by so doing our selves are freed from the stings of anger and the storms of a revengeful spirit and we oftentimes procure servants to God friends to our selves and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven 11. Of the two Thieves that were crucified together with our Lord the one blasphemed the other had at that time the greatest Piety in the world except that of the Blessed Virgin and particularly had such a Faith that all the Ages of the Church could never shew the like For when he saw Christ in the same condemnation with himself crucisied by the Romans accused and scorned by the Jews forsaken by his own Apostles a dying distressed Man doing at that time no Miracles to attest his Divinity or Innocence yet then he confesses him to be a Lord and a King and his Saviour He confessed his own
shame and unworthiness he submitted to the death of the Cross and by his voluntary acceptation and tacite volition of it made it equivalent to as great a punishment of his own susception he shewed an incomparable modesty begging but for a remembrance only he knew himself so sinful he durst ask no more he reproved the other Thief for Blasphemy he confessed the world to come and owned Christ publickly he prayed to him he hoped in him and pitied him shewing an excellent Patience in this sad condition And in this I consider that besides the excellency of some of these acts and the goodness of all the like occasion for so exemplar Faith never can occur and until all these things shall in these circumstances meet in any one man he must not hope for so safe an Exit after an evil life 〈◊〉 the confidence of this example But now Christ had the key of Paradise in his hand and God blessed the good Thief with this opportunity of letting him in who at another time might have waited longer and been tied to harder conditions And indeed it is very probable that he was much advantaged by the intervening accident of dying at the same time with Christ there being a natural compassion produced in us towards the partners of our miseries For Christ was not void of humane passions though he had in them no imperfection or irregularity and therefore might be invited by the society of misery the rather to admit him to participate his joys and S. Paul proves him to be a merciful high Priest because he was touched with a feeling of our infirmities the first expression of which was to this blessed Thief Christ and he together sate at the Supper of bitter herbs and Christ payed his symbol promising that he should that day be together with him in Paradise 12. By the Cross of Christ stood the Holy Virgin Mother upon whom old Simeon's Prophecy was now verified for now she felt a sword passing through her very soul she stood without clamour and womanish noises sad silent and with a modest grief deep as the waters of the abysse but smooth as the face of a pool full of Love and Patience and Sorrow and Hope Now she was put to it to make use of all those excellent discourses her Holy Son had used to build up her spirit and fortifie it against this day Now she felt the blessings and strengths of Faith and she passed from the griefs of the Passion to the expectation of the Resurrection and she rested in this Death as in a sad remedy for she knew it reconciled God with all the World But her Hope drew a veil before her Sorrow and though her Grief was great enough to swallow her up yet her Love was greater and did swallow up her grief But the Sun also had a veil upon his face and taught us to draw a curtain before the Passion which would be the most artificial expression of its greatness whilest by silence and wonder we confess it great beyond our expression or which is all one great as the burthen and baseness of our sins And with this veil drawn before the face of Jesus let us suppose him at the gates of Paradise calling with his last words in a loud voice to have them opened that the King of glory might come in The PRAYER O Holy Jesus who for our sakes didst suffer incomparable anguish and pains commensurate to thy Love and our Miseries which were infinite that thou mightest purchase for 〈◊〉 blessings upon Earth and an inheritance in Heaven dispose us by Love Thankfulness Humility and Obedience to receive all the benefit of thy Passion granting unto us and thy whole Church remission of all our sins integrity of mind health of body competent maintenance peace in our days a temperate air fruitfulness of the earth unity and integrity of Faith extirpation of Heresies reconcilements of Schisms destruction of all wicked counsels intended against us and bind the hands of Rapine and Sacriledge that they may not destroy the vintage and root up the Vine it self Multiply thy Blessings upon us sweetest Jesus increase in us true Religion sincere and actual devotion in our Prayers Patience in troubles and whatsoever is necessary to our Soul's health or conducing to thy Glory Amen II. O Dearest Saviour I adore thy mercies and thy incomparable love expressed in thy so voluntary susception and affectionate suffering such horrid and sad Tortures which cannot be remembred without a sad compassion the waters of bitterness entred into thy Soul and the storms of Death and thy Father's anger broke thee all in pieces and what shall I do who by my sins have so tormented my dearest Lord what Contrition can be great enough what tears sufficiently expressive what hatred and detestation of my crimes can be equal and commensurate to those sad accidents which they have produced Pity me O Lord pity me dearest God turn those thy merciful eyes towards me O most merciful Redeemer for my sins are great like unto thy Passion full of sorrow and shame and a burthen too great for me to bear Lord who hast done so much for me now only speak the word and thy servant shall be whole Let thy Wounds heal me thy Vertues amend me thy Death quicken me that I in this life suffering the cross of a sad and salutary Repentance in the union and merits of thy 〈◊〉 and Passion may die with thee and rest with thee and rise again with thee and live with thee for ever in the possession of thy Glories O dearest Saviour Jesus Amen SECT XVI Of the Resurrection and Ascension of JESUS The Burial of Iesus Mat 27 57 When the even was come there came a rich man of Arimathea named Jo seph who also himself was Jesus Disciple he went to Pilate beggd the body of Jesus Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered And when Ioseph had taken the body he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth layd it in his own new tomb which he had hewen out in y e rock The Resurrection of Iesus Mat 28 2 And behold there was a great earthquake for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven came rolled back y e stone from the doore and sate upon it And for feare of him the keepers did shake became as dead men And the Angel sayd unto the woman Fear not ye for I know that ye seek Iesus that was crucified He is not here for he is Risen as he sayd 1. WHile it was yet early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought sweet spices to the Sepulchre that they might again embalm the Holy Body for the rites of Embalming among the Hebrews used to last forty days and their love was not satisfied with what Joseph had done They therefore hastned to the grave and after they had expended their money and bought the
of prepared torments he died a natural death in a good old age 5. After this Jesus having appointed a solemn meeting for all the Brethren that could be collected from the dispersion and named a certain mountain in 〈◊〉 appeared to five hundred Brethren at once and this was his most publick and solemn manifestation and while some doubted Jesus came according to the designation and spake to the eleven sent them to preach to all the world Repentance and Remission of sins in his Name promising to be with them to the end of the world He appeared also unto James but at what time is uncertain save that there is something concerning it in the Gospel of S. Matthew which the Nazarens of 〈◊〉 used and which it is likely themselves added out of report for there is nothing of it in our Greek Copies The words are these When the Lord had given the linen in which he was wrapped to the servant of the High Priest he went and appeared unto James For James had vowed after he received the Lord's Supper that he would eat no bread till he saw the Lord risen from the grave Then the Lord called for bread he blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said My Brother eat bread for the Son of man is risen from the sleep of death So that by this it should seem to be done upon the day of the Resurrection But the relation of it by S. Paul puts it between the appearance which he made to the five hundred and that last to the Apostles when he was to ascend into Heaven Last of all when the Apostles were at dinner he appeared to them upbraiding their incredulity and then he opened their understanding that they might discern the sence of Scripture and again commanded them to preach the Gospel to all the world giving them power to do Miracles to cast out Devils to cure 〈◊〉 and instituted the Sacrament of Baptism which he commanded should together with the Sermons of the Gospel be administred to all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Then he led them into Judaea and they came to Bethany and from thence to the mount Olivet and he commanded them to stay in Jerusalem till the Holy Ghost the promise of the Father should descend upon them which should be accomplished in few days and then they should know the times and the seasons and all things necessary for their ministration and service and propagation of the Gospel And while he discoursed many things concerning the Kingdom behold a Cloud came and parted Jesus from them and carried him in their sight up into Heaven where he sits at the right hand of God blessed for ever Amen 6. While his Apostles stood gazing up to Heaven two Angels appeared to them and told them that Jesus should come in like manner as he was taken away viz. with glory and majesty and in the clouds and with the ministry of Angels Amen Come Lord JESUS come quickly Ad SECT XVI Considerations upon the Accidents happening in the intervall after the Death of the Holy JESUS untill his Resurrection Jesus and Mary in the Garden Joh. 20. 14. 15. 16. Mary turning about saw Jesus standing knew not y t it was Jesus Jesus saith woman whom seekest thou Shee supposing him to be the garidner saith sir if thou have born him hence tell me etc. Jesus saith unto her Mary she turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is Master Jesus saith unto her touch me not for etc. Mary Magdalen came and told the desciples that she had seen the Lord. Our Lords Ascension Acts. 1. 9. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up a Cloud received him out of their sight 10. And while they stedfastly looked toward heaven behold two men stood by them in white apparell 11. Which also said this same Iesus shall so come as you have seen him go into heaven 1. THE Holy Jesus promised to the blessed Thief that he should that day be with him in Paradise which therefore was certainly a place or state of Blessedness because it was a promise and in the society of Jesus whose penal and afflictive part of his work of Redemption was finished upon the Cross. Our Blessed Lord did not promise he should that day be with him in his Kingdom for that day it was not opened and the everlasting doors of those interiour recesses were to be shut till after the Resurrection that himself was to ascend thither and make way for all his servants to enter in the same method in which he went before us Our Blessed Lord descended into Hell saith the Creed of the Apostles from the Sermon of Saint Peter as he from the words of David that is into the state of Separation and common receptacle of Spirits according to the style of Scripture But the name of Hell is no-where in Scripture an appellative of the Kingdom of Christ of the place of final and supreme Glory But concerning the verification of our Lord's promise to the beatified Thief and his own state of Separation we must take what light we can from Scripture and what we can from the Doctrine of the Primitive Church S. Paul had two great Revelations he was rapt up into Paradise and he was rapt up into the third Heaven and these he calls visions revelations not one but divers for Paradise is distinguished from the Heaven of the blessed being it self a receptacle of holy Souls made illustrious with visitation of Angels and happy by being a repository for such spirits who at the day of Judgment shall go forth into eternal glory In the interim Christ hath trod all the paths before us and this also we must pass through to arrive at the Courts of Heaven Justin Martyr said it was the doctrine of heretical persons to say that the Souls of the Blessed instantly upon the separation from their Bodies enter into the highest Heaven And Irenaeus makes Heaven and the intermediate receptacle of Souls to be distinct places both blessed but hugely differing in degrees Tertullian is dogmatical in the assertion that till the voice of the great Archangel be heard and as long as Christ sits at the right hand of his Father making intercession for the Church so long blessed Souls must expect the assembling of their brethren the great Congregation of the Church that they may all pass from their outer courts into the inward tabernacle the Holy of Holies to the Throne of God And as it is certain that no Soul could enter into glory before our Lord 〈◊〉 by whom we hope to have access so it is most agreeable to the proportion 〈◊〉 the mysteries of our Redemption that we believe the entrance into Glory to have been made by our Lord at his glorious Ascension and that his Soul went not thither before 〈◊〉 to come back again
Christ and took them as testimonies of that truth for the affirmation of which the High Priest had condemned our dearest Lord and although the heart of the Priest rent not even then when rocks did tear in pieces yet the people who saw the Passion 〈◊〉 their breasts and returned and confessed Christ. 3. The graves of the dead were opened at the Death but the dead boies of the Saints that slept arose not till the Resurrection of our Lord for he was the first fruits and they followed him as instant witnesses to publish the Resurrection of their Head which it is possible they declared to those to whom they appeared in the Holy City And amongst these the curiosity or pious credulity of some have supposed Adam and Eve Abraham Isaac and Jacob who therefore were 〈◊〉 to be buried in the Land of Promise as having some intimation or hope that they might be partakers of the earliest glories of the Messias in whose 〈◊〉 and distant expectation they lived and died And this calling up of company from their graves did publish to all the world not only that the Lord himself was risen according to his so 〈◊〉 and repeated predictions but that he meant to raise up all his servants and that all who believe in him should be partakers of the Resurrection 4. When the souldiers observed that Jesus was dead out of spite and impotent ineffective malice one of them pierced his holy side with a spear and the rock being smitten it gushed out with water and 〈◊〉 streaming forth two Sacraments to refresh the Church and opening a gate that all his brethren might enter in and dwell in the heart of God And so great a love had our Lord that he suffered his heart to be opened to shew as Eve was formed from the side of Adam so was the Church to be from the side of her Lord receiving from thence life and spiritual nutriment which he ministred in so great abundance and suffered himself to be pierced that all his bloud did stream over us until he made the fountain dry and reserved nothing of that by which he knew his Church was to live and move and have her being Thus the stream of Bloud issued out to become a fountain for the Sacrament of the Chalice and Water gushed out to fill the Fonts of Baptism and Repentance The Bloud being the testimony of the Divine Love calls upon us to die for his love when he requires it and the noise of the Water calls upon us to 〈◊〉 our spirits and present our Conscience to Christ holy and pure without spot or wrinkle The Bloud running upon us makes us to be of the cognation and family of God and the Water quenches the flames of Hell and the fires of Concupiscence 5. The friends and Disciples of the Holy Jesus having devoutly composed his Body to Burial anointed it washed it and condited it with spices and perfumes laid it in a Sepulchre hewen from a rock in a Garden which saith 〈◊〉 was therefore done to represent that we were by this death returned to Paradise and the Gardens of pleasures and Divine favours from whence by the prevarication of Adam man was expelled Here he finished the work of his Passion as he had begun it in a Garden and the place of sepulchre being a Rock serves the ends of pious succeeding Ages for the place remains in all Changes of government of Wars of Earthquakes and ruder accidents to this day as a 〈◊〉 of the Sepulchre of our dearest Lord as a sensible and proper confirmation of the perswasions of some persons and as an entertainment of their pious phancy and religious affections 6. But now it was that in the dark and undiscerned mansions there was a scene of the greatest joy and the 〈◊〉 horrour represented which yet was known since the first falling of the morning stars Those holy souls whom the Prophet Zechary calls prisoners of hope 〈◊〉 in the lake where there is no water that is no constant stream of joy to refresh their present condition yet supported with certain showers and gracious visitations from God and illuminations of their hope now that they saw their Redeemer come to change their condition and to improve it into the neighbourhoods of glory and clearer revelations must needs have the joy of intelligent and beatified understandings of redeemed captives of men forgiven after the sentence of death of men satisfied after a tedious expectation enjoying and seeing their Lord whom for so many Ages they had expected But the accursed spirits seeing the darkness of their prison shine with a new light and their Empire invaded and their retirements of horrour discovered wondered how a man durst venture thither or if he were a GOD how he should come to die But the Holy Jesus was like that body of light receiving into himself the reflexion of all the lesser rays of joy which the Patriarchs felt and being united to his 〈◊〉 of felicity apprehended it yet more glorious He now felt the effects of his bitter Passion to return upon him in Comforts every hour of which was abundant recompence for three hours Passion upon the Cross and became to us a great precedent to invite us to a toleration of the acts of Repentance Mortification and Martyrdom and that in times of suffering we live upon the stock and expence of Faith as remembring that 〈◊〉 few moments of infelicity are infinitely paid with every minute of glory and yet that the glory which is certainly consequent is so lasting and perpetual that it were enough in a lower joy to make amends by its continuation of eternity And let us but call to mind what thoughts we shall have when we die or are dead how we shall then without prejudice consider that if we had done our duty the trouble and the affliction would now be past and nothing remain but pleasures and felicities eternal and how infinitely happy we shall then be if we have done our duty and how miserable if not all the pleasures of sin disappearing and nothing surviving but a certain and everlasting torment Let us carry alway the same thoughts with us which must certainly then intervene and we shall meet the Holy Jesus and partake of his joys which over-flowed his holy Soul when he first entred into the possession of those excellent fruits and effects of his Passion 7. When the third day was come the Soul of Jesus returned from Paradise and the visitation of separate spirits and re-entred into his holy Body which he by his Divine power did redintegrate filling his veins with bloud healing all the wounds excepting those five of his hands feet and side which he reserved as Trophies of his victory and argument of his Passion And as he had comforted the Souls of the Fathers with the presence of his Spirit so now he saw it to be time to bring comfort to his Holy Mother to re-establish the tottering Faith of
his Disciples to verifie his Promise to make demonstration of his Divinity to lay some superstructures of his Church upon the foundation of his former Sermons to instruct them in the mysteries of his Kingdom to prepare them for the reception of the Holy Ghost and as he had in his state of Separation triumphed over Hell so in his Resurrection he set his foot upon Death and brought it under his dominion so that although it was not yet destroyed yet it is made his subject it hath as yet the condition of the Gibeonites who were not banished out of the land but they were made drawers of water and bewers of wood so is Death made instrumental to Christ's Kingdom but it abides still and shall till the day of Judgment but shall serve the ends of our Lord and promote the interests of Eternity and do benefit to the Church 8. And it is considerable that our Blessed Lord having told them that after three days he would rise again yet he shortened the time as much as was possible that he might verifie his own prediction and yet make his absence the less troublesome he rises early in the morning the first day of the week for so our dearest Lord abbreviates the days of our sorrow and lengthens the years of our consolation for he knows that a day of sorrow seems a year and a year of joy passes like a day and therefore God lessens the one and 〈◊〉 the other to make this perceived and that supportable Now the Temple which the Jews destroyed God raised up in six and thirty hours but this second Temple was more glorious than the first for now it was clothed with robes of glory with clarity agility and immortality and though like Moses descending from the mount he wore a veil that the greatness of his splendor might not render him unapt for conversation with his servants yet the holy Scripture affirms that he was now no more to see corruption meaning that now he was separate from the passibility and affections of humane bodies and could suffer S. Thomas to thrust his hand into the wound of his side and his singer into the holes of his hands without any grief or smart 9. But although the graciousness and care of the Lord had prevented all diligence and satisfied all desires returning to life before the most forward faith could expect him yet there were three Maries went to the grave so early that they prevented the rising of the Sun and though with great obedience they stayed till the end of the Sabbath yet as soon as that was done they had other parts of duty and affection which called with greatest importunity to be speedily satisfied And if Obedience had not bound the feet of Love they had gone the day before but they became to us admirable patterns of Obedience to the Divine Commandments For though Love were stronger than death yet Obedience was stronger than Love and made a rare dispute in the spirits of those holy Women in which the flesh and the spirit were not the litigants but the spirit and the spirit and they resisted each other as the Angel-guardian of the Jews resisted the tutelar Angel of Persia each striving who should with most love and zeal perform their charge and God determined And so he did here too For the Law of the Sabbath was then a Divine Commandment and although piety to the dead and to such a dead was ready to force their choice to do violence to their will bearing them up on wings of desire to the grave of the LORD yet at last they reconciled Love with Obedience For they had been taught that Love is best expressed in keeping of the Divine Commandments But now they were at liberty and sure enough they made use of its first minute and going so early to seek Christ they were sure they should find him 10. The Angels descended Guardians of the Sepulchre for God sent his guards too and they affrighted the Watch appointed by Pilate and the Priests but when the women came they spake like comforters full of sweetness and consolation laying aside their affrighting glories as knowing it is the will of their Lord that they should minister good to them that love him But a conversation with Angels could not satisfie them who came to look for the Lord of the Angels and found him not and when the Lord was pleased to appear to Mary Magdalen she was so swallowed up with love and sorrow that she entred into her joy and perceived it not she saw the Lord and knew him not For so from the closets of darkness they that immediately stare upon the Sun perceive not the beauties of the light and feel nothing but amazement But the voice of the Lord opened her eyes and she knew him and worshipped him but was denied to touch him and commanded to tell the Apostles for therefore God ministers to us comforts and revelations not that we may dwell in the sensible fruition of them our selves alone but that we communicate the grace to others But when the other women were returned and saw the Lord then they were all together admitted to the embracement and to kiss the feet of Jesus For God hath his opportunities and periods which at another time he denies and we must then rejoyce in it when he vouchsafes it and submit to his Divine will when he denies it 11. These good women had the first fruits of the apparition for their forward love and the passion of their Religion made greater haste to entertain a Grace and was a greater endearment of their persons to our Lord than a more sober reserved and less active spirit This is more safe but that is religious this goes to God by the way of understanding that by the will this is supported by discourse that by passions this is the sobriety of the Apostles the other was the zeal of the holy women and because a strong fancy and an earnest passion sixed upon holy objects are the most active and forward instruments of Devotion as Devotion is of Love therefore we find God hath made great expressions of his acceptance of such dispositions And women and less knowing persons and tender dispositions and pliant natures will make up a greater number in Heaven than the severe and wary and enquiring people who sometimes love because they believe and believe because they can demonstrate but never believe because they love When a great Understanding and a great Affection meet together it makes a Saint great like an Apostle but they do not well who make abatement of their religious passions by the severity of their Understanding It is no matter by which we are brought to Christ so we love him and obey him but if the production admit of 〈◊〉 that instrument is the most excellent which produces the greatest love and 〈◊〉 discourse and a sober spirit be in it self the best yet we do not always suffer that to be a
parent of as great Religion as the good women make their fancy their softness and their passion 12. Our Blessed Lord appeared next to Simon and though he and John ran forthtogether and S. John outran Simon although Simon Peter had denied and forsworn his Lord and S. John never did and followed him to his Passion and his death yet Peter had the savour of seeing Jesus first Which some Spiritual persons understand as a testimony that penitent 〈◊〉 have accidental eminences and priviledges sometimes 〈◊〉 to them beyond the temporal graces of the just and innocent as being such who not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the remanent and inherent evils even of repented sins and their aptnesses to relapse but also because those who are true Penitents who understand the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and that for a sinner to pass from death to 〈◊〉 from the state of sin into pardon and the state of Grace is a greater gift and a more excellent and improbable mutation than for a just man to be taken into glory out of gratitude to God and indearment 〈◊〉 so great a change added to a fear of returning to such danger and misery will re-enforce all their industry and double their study and 〈◊〉 more diligently and watch more carefully and redeem the 〈◊〉 and make amends for their omissions and oppose a good to the former evils beside the duties of the 〈◊〉 imployment and then commonly the life of a holy Penitent is more holy active zealous and impatient of Vice and more rapacious of Vertue and holy actions and arises to greater 〈◊〉 of Sanctity than the even and moderate affections of just persons who as our Blessed Saviour's expression is 〈◊〉 no Repentance that is no change of state nothing but a perseverance and an improvement of degrees There is more joy in heaven before the Angels of God over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 ninety nine just persons that need it not for where sin hath abounded there doth grace super abound and that makes joy in Heaven 13. The Holy Jesus having received the affections of his most passionate Disciples the women and S. 〈◊〉 puts himself upon the way into the company of two good men going to Emmaus with troubled spirits and a reeling faith shaking all its upper building but leaving some of its foundation firm To them the Lord discourses of the necessity of the Death and Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 and taught them not to take estimate of the counsels of God by the designs and proportions of man for God by ways contrary to humane judgment brings to pass the purposes of his eternal Providence The glories of Christ were not made pompous by humane circumstances his Kingdom was spiritual he was to enter into Felicities through the gates of Death he refused to do Miracles before 〈◊〉 and yet did them before the people he confuted his accusers by silence and did not descend from the Cross when they offered to believe in him if he would but 〈◊〉 them to be perswaded by greater arguments of his power the miraculous circumstances of his Death and the glories of his Resurrection and by walking in the secret paths of Divine election hath commanded us to adore his footsteps to admire and revere his Wisdom to be satisfied with all the events of Providence and to rejoyce in him if by Afflictions he makes us holy if by Persecutions he supports and enlarges his Church if by Death he brings us to life so we arrive at the communion of his Felicities we must let him chuse the way it being sufficient that he is our guide and our support and our exceeding great reward For therefore Christ preached to the two Disciples going to 〈◊〉 the way of the Cross and the necessity of that passage that the wisdom of God might be glorified and the conjectures of man ashamed But whilest his discourse lasted they knew him not but in the breaking of bread he discovered himself For he turned their meal into a Sacrament and their darkness to light and having to his Sermon added the Sacrament opened all their discerning faculties the eyes of their body and their understanding too to represent to us that when we are blessed with the opportunities of both those instruments we want no exteriour assistence to guide us in the way to the knowing and enjoying of our Lord. 14. But the Apparitions which Jesus made were all upon the design of laying the foundation of all Christian Graces for the begetting and establishing Faith and an active Confidence in their persons and building them up on the great fundamentals of the Religion And therefore he appointed a general meeting upon a mountain in Galilee that the number of witnesses might not only disseminate the same but establish the Article of the Resurrection for upon that are built all the hopes of a Christian and if the dead rise not then are we of all men most miserable in quitting the present possessions and entertaining injuries and affronts without hopes of reparation But we lay two gages in several repositories the Body in the bosome of the earth the Soul in the 〈◊〉 of God and as we here live by Faith and lay them down with hope so the 〈◊〉 is a restitution of them both and a state of re-union And therefore although the glory of our spirits without the body were joy great enough to make compensation for mere than the troubles of all the world yet because one shall not be glorified without the other they being of themselves incomplete substances and God having revealed nothing clearly concerning actual and complete felicities till the day of Judgment when it is promised our bodies shall rise therefore it is that the Resurrection is the great Article upon which we rely and which Christ took so much care to prove and ascertain to so many persons because if that should be disbelieved with which all our felicities are to be received we have nothing to establish our Faith or entertain our Hope or satisfie our desires or make retribution for that state of secular inconveniences in which by the necessities of our nature and the humility and patience of our Religion we are engaged 15. But I consider that holy Scripture onely instructs us concerning the life of this world and the life of the Resurrection the life of Grace and the life of Glory both in the body that is a life of the whole man and whatsoever is spoken of the Soul considers it as an essential part of man relating to his whole constitution not as it is of it self an intellectual and separate substance for all its actions which are separate and removed from the body are relative and incomplete Now because the Soul is an incomplete substance and created in relation to the Body and is but a part of the whole man if the Body were as eternal and incorruptible as the Soul yet the separation of the one from the other would be
helped by none comforted by none and he makes himself a companion of Devils to everlasting ages but in the judgment of Repentance and Tribunal of the Church the penitent sinner is prayed for by a whole army of militant Saints and causes joy to all the Church triumphant And to establish this Tribunal in the Church and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime and to appoint Physicians and Guardians of the Soul was one of the designs and mercies of the Resurrection of Jesus And let not any Christian man either by false opinion or an unbelieving spirit or an incurious apprehension undervalue or neglect this ministery which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the Church is built that the Church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck and the shivers of the broken heart may re-unite them pouring Oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin and restoring with meekness gentleness care counsel and authority persons overtaken in a fault For that act of Ministery is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in Heaven and that Authority is not contemptible which the Holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his Church the Holy Ghost But Christ intended that those whom he had made Guides of our Souls and Judges of our Consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon should also be used by us in all cases of our Souls and that we go to Heaven the way he hath appointed that is by offices and ministeries Ecclesiastical 17. When our Blessed Lord had so confirmed the Faith of the Church and appointed an Ecclesiastical Ministery he had but one work more to do upon earth and that was the Institution of the holy Sacrament of Baptism which he ordained as a solemn Initiation and mysterious Profession of the Faith upon which the Church is built making it a solemn Publication of our Profession the rite of Stipulation or entring Covenant with our Lord the solemnity of the Paction Evangelical in which we undertake to be Disciples to the Holy Jesus that is to believe his Doctrine to fear his Threatnings to rely upon his Promises and to obey his Commandments all the days of our life and he for his part actually performs much and promises more he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days purging our Souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence promising withall that if we perform our undertaking and remain in the state in which he now puts us he will continually assist us with his Spirit prevent and attend us with his Grace he will deliver us from the power of the Devil he will keep our Souls in merciful joyful and safe custody till the great Day of the Lord he will then raise our Bodies from the Grave he will make them to be spiritual and immortal he will re-unite them to our Souls and beatifie both Bodies and Souls in his own Kingdom admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories All which that he might verifie and prepare respectively in the presence of his Disciples he ascended into the bosome of God and the eternal comprehensions of celestial Glory The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast overcome Death and triumphed over all the powers of Hell Darkness Sin and the Grave manifesting the truth of thy Promises the power of thy Divinity the majesty of thy Person the rewards of thy Glory and the mercies and excellent designs of thy Evangelical Kingdom by thy glorious and powerful Resurrection preserve my Soul from eternal death and make me to rise from the death of Sin and to live the life of Grace loving thy Perfections adoring thy Mercy pursuing the interest of thy Kingdom being united to the Church under thee our Head conforming to thy holy Laws established in Faith entertained and confirmed with a modest humble and certain Hope and sanctified by Charity that I engraving thee in my heart and submitting to thee in my spirit and imitating thee in thy glorious example may be partaker of thy Resurrection which is my hope and my desire the support of my Faith the object of my Joy and the strength of my Confidence In thee Holy Jesus do I trust I confess thy Faith I believe all that thou hast taught I desire to perform all thy injunctions and my own undertaking my Soul is in thy hand do thou support and guide it and pity my infirmities and when thou shalt reveal thy great Day shew to me the mercies and effects of thy Advocation and Intercession and Redemption Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God for in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Thou art just thou 〈◊〉 merciful thou art gracious and compassionate thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective but make me capable and receptive of thy Mercies and then I am certain to receive them I am thine O save me thou art mine O Holy Jesus O dwell with me for ever and let me dwell with thee adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THE END 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE TABLE OF The Life of CHRIST Where are more Numbers than one the first Number denotes the Page the latter the Number of the Section A. ABsolution of dying Persons of what benefit 407. 23. Whether to be given to all that desire it 408. 24. Acceptable Year of the Lord what it means 186. 22. Actions of Jesus confuted his Accusers 390. 2. Acts of Vertue to be done by sick and dying Persons 405 406. 19 20. Accusation of Criminals not to be aggravated odiously 393. 8. It ought to be onely for purposes of Charity ibid. Accusation of innocent persons ought to be born patiently by the innocent 393. 9. Accusation of Jesus 352. 24. Adam buried in Golgotha 354. 31. Adoption of Sons 316. 7. Advent of our Lord must be entertained with joy 156. 3. Adultery made more criminal under the Gospel than under the Law 249. 37 c. Adultery of the eyes 250. 36. Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in the place of Christ's Birth 14. 6. Agony of Jesus in the Garden 350. 20. Agesilaus was more commended for his modesty and obedience than for his prosperous good Conduct 50. 25. Albes or white garments wore by the Church and why 393. 9 10. Alms intended for a defensative against Covetousness 258. 1. Ordinarily to be according to our ability ibid. Sometimes beyond in what cases ibid. Necessities of all indigent people are the object of our Alms 259. 3. Manner of Alms an office of Christian prudence ibid. The two Altars in Solomon's Temple what they did represent 83. 4. Ambitious seeking Ecclesiastical Dignities very criminal 96. 2. Ambition is
of Visions 61. 23. Sins of Infirmity explicated 105. 10. seq Intentions though good excuse not evil Actions 107. 13. Incontinence destroys the Spirit of Government 189. 5. Instruments weak and unlikely used by GOD to great purposes 197. Incarnation of Jesus instrumental to God's Glory and our Peace 31. Inevitable Infirmities consistent with a state of Grace 207. Injuries great and little to be forgiven 252. Intention of Spirit how necessary in our Prayers 267. 17. Images their Lawfulness or unlawfulness considered 237. 16. Admitted into the Church with difficulty and by degrees 237. 16. Images of Jupiter and Diana Cyndias did ridiculous and weak Miracles 279. 7. Imprisonment sanctified by the binding of Jesus 387. Ingratitude of Judas 360. 9. John the Baptist his Life and Death 66. 5. 77. 78. and 79. 93. 292. 18. His Baptism 93. Whether the form of it were in the Name of Christ to come ibid. Joyes spiritual increase by communication 156. 3. Joyes of Eternity recompense all our Sorrowes in every instant of their fruition 426. Joyes sudden and violent are to be allayed by reflexion on the vilest of our Sins 196. 7. John Patriarch of Alexandria appeased the anger of Patricius 245. 30. Innocence is security against evil Actions 10. Justice of GOD in punishing Jesus cleared 415. 7 8. Several degrees of Justification answerable to several degrees of Faith 162. 7. Judgment of Life and Death is to be only by the supreme Power or his Deputy 253. A Jew condemned of Idolatry for throwing stones though in detestation at the Idol of Mercury 354. 32. Judging our Brother how far prohibited 260. 5. Judas's name written in Heaven and blotted 〈◊〉 again 313. 1. His manner of death 352. 25. Ingrateful 360. 8. He valued the Ointment at the same rate he sold his Lord 361. 11. He enjoyed his Money not Ten Hours 386. 7. Julian desired but could not be a Magician 361. 10. Judgment of GOD upon Sinners their causes and manner 336. 1. seq Judgments National 340. 8. Not easily understood by Men 339. 5. Joseph of Arimath embalmed the Body of Jesus 356. 38. Whether Judas received the Holy Sacrament 375. 13. K. KIng and Church have the same Friends and Enemies 336. Kingdom of Christ not of this World 352. What it is 392. 8. Kingdom of God what 263. 5. Kingdom of Grace and Glory ibid. A King came to Jesus in behalf of his Son 182. 6. Kings specially to be prayed for 365. 13. King's Enemies how to be prayed against ibid. To Kill the assaulting Person in what cases lawful 253. 3. L. LAws evil make a National Sin 341. 10. Law of Nature Vide Pref. per tot 20. 7. Laws of Man to be obeyed but not always to be thought most reasonable 42. 7. 48. 21. Laws of God and Man in respect of the greatness of the subject matter compared 46. 49. Laws of Men bind not to Death or an insufferable Calamity rather than not to break them 48. 21. Laws of Superiours not to be too freely disputed by Subjects 49. 23. Laws of order to be observed even when the first reason ceases 52. 1. It is not safe to do all that is lawful 45. 15 16. Law and Gospel how differ 194. 3. 232. 3. 295. S. Paul often by a Fiction of Person speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but as under the imperfections of the Law 104. 8. Law of Nature perfected by Christianity Pref. Law of Moses a Law of Works how 232. Law of Jesus a Law of the Spirit and not of Works in what sence ibid. Law-Suits to be managed charitably 256. When lawful to be undertaken ibid. Lazarus restored to Life 345. 2. Leonigildus kill'd his Daughter for not communicating with the Arians 188. 2. Leven of Herod what 321. 8. Lepers cured 324. 18. Sent to the Priest ibid. Unthankful ibid. The Levantine Churches afflicted the cause uncertain 338. 4. S. Laurence his Gridiron less hot than his Love 358. 2. 7. 〈◊〉 17. Life of Man cut off for Sin 303. 305. It hath several periods ibid. 274. Good life necessary to make our Prayers acceptable 266. 13. A comparison between a Life in Solitude and in Society 80. 5. Lord's Supper the greatest of Christian Rites 369. It manifests God's Power 371. 4. His Wisdome and his Charity 371. 5 6. It is a Sacrament of Union 371. 5 6. A Sacrament and a Sacrifice in what sence 372. 7. As it is an act of the Ecclesiastical Officer of what efficacy 373. 8. It is expressed in mysterious words when the value is recited 373. Not to be administred to vicious persons 374. 12. Whether persons vicious under suspicion only are to be deprived of it 376. 13. How to be received 377. 15. What deportment to be used after it 378. 17. To be received by dying Persons 407. 23. Of what benefit it is to them ibid. Love and Obedience Duties of the first Commandment 234. 8. Love and Obedience reconciled 427. 9. Love of God its extension 234. 9. It s intension ibid. n. 11. Love the fulfilling of the Law explicated 233. 5. It consists in latitude 236. 13. It must exclude all affection to sin ibid. 14. Signs of true love to God 236. 14. Love to God with all our hearts possible and in what sence ibid. Love of God and love of money compared 361. 11. Lord's Day by what authority to be observed 244. 24. And how ibid. Lucian's Cynick an Hypocrite 366. 7. Likeness to God being desired at first ruined us now restores us 364. 3. Lying in that degree is criminal as it is injurious 250. 40. M. MArriage honoured by Christ's presence and the first Miracle 154. Hallowed to a Mystery 158. 8. Marriage-breakers are more criminal now than under Moses's Law 158. The smaller undecencies must be prevented or deprecated Of Martyrdom 229. 18. Magi at the sight of Christ's Poverty renounce the World and retire into Philosophy 28. 13. Mary a Virgin alwayes 14. 2. An excellent Personage 2 3. 8. She conceived Jesus without Sin and brought him forth without Pain 13. Her joy at the Prophecies concerning her Son attempered with Predictions of his Passion 30. 4. Full of Fears when she lost Jesus 73. 1. She went to the Temple to pray and there found him ibid. Full of Piety in Her countenance and deportment 113. 32. She converted many to thoughts of Chastity by her countenance and aspect ibid. Mary Magdalen's Story 377. 9. 360. 5. 391. 9. 346. 5. 349. 13. Mary's Choice preferred 326. 26. Mark for sook Jesus upon a Scandal taken but was reduced by S. Peter 320. 3. Malchus an Idumaean Slave smote Jesus on the Face 389. 1. Meditation described 54. It turns the understanding into spirit 55. Its Parts Actions manner of Exercise Fruits and Effects Disc. 3. per tot 54. Men ought not to run into the Ministery till they are called 99. 3.
Thomas P. 137. The Life of S. James the Less P. 143. The Life of S. Simon the Zealot P. 149. The Life of S. Jude P. 153. The Life of S. Matthias P. 157. The Life of S. Mark the Evangelist P. 161. The Life of S. Luke the Evangelist P. 167. Diptycha Apostolica Or an Enumeration of the Apostles and their Successors for the first three hundred years in the five great Churches said to have been founded by them pag. 171. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex AEd. Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. THE INTRODUCTION Christs faithfulness in appointing Officers in his Church The dignity of the Apostles above the rest The importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The nature of the Apostolick Office considered Respect had in founding it to the custom among the Jews Their Apostoli who The number of the Apostles limited Why twelve the several conjectures of the Ancients Their immediate election Their work wherein it consisted The Universality of their Commission Apostolical Churches what How soon the Apostles propagated Christianity through the World An argument for the Divinity of the Christian Religion inferr'd thence The power conveyed to the Apostles equally given to all Peter's superiority over the rest disprov'd both from Scripture and Antiquity The Apostles how qualified for their Mission Immediately taught the Doctrine they delivered Infallibly secur'd from Error in delivering it Their constant and familiar converse with their Master Furnished with a power of working Miracles The great evidence of it to prove a Divine Doctrine Miraculous powers conferr'd upon the Apostles particularly considered Prophecy what and when it ceas'd The gift of discerning Spirits The gift of Tongues The gift of Interpretation The unreasonable practice of the Church of Rome in keeping the Scripture and Divine Worship in an Unknown Tongue The gift of Healing Greatly advantageous to Christianity How long it lasted Power of Immediately inflicting corporal punishments and the great benefit of it in those times The Apostles enabled to confer miraculous powers upon others The Duration of the Apostolical Office What in it extraordinary what ordinary Bishops in what sence styled Apostles I. JESUS CHRIST the great Apostle and High Priest of our Profession being appointed by God to be the Supreme Ruler and Governour of his Church was like Moses faithful in all his house but with this honourable advantage that Moses was faithful as a Servant Christ as a Son over his own house which he erected established and governed with all possible care and diligence Nor could he give a greater instance either of his fidelity towards God or his love and kindness to the Souls of men than that after he had purchas'd a Family to himself and could now no longer upon earth manage its interests in his own person he would not return back to Heaven till he had constituted several Orders of Officers in his Church who might superintend and conduct its affairs and according to the various circumstances of its state administer to the needs and exigencies of his Family Accordingly therefore he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The first and prime Class of Officers is that of Apostles God hath set some in the Church first Apostles then secondarily Prophets c. First Apostles as far in office as honour before the rest their election more immediate their commission more large and comprehensive the powers and priviledges where with they were furnished greater and more honourable Prophecy the gift of Miracles and expelling Daemons the order of Pastors and Teachers were all spiritual powers and ensigns of great authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Chrysostom but the Apostolick eminency is far greater than all these which therefore he calls a spiritual Consulship an Apostle having as great preheminence above all other officers in the Church as the Consul had above all other Magistrates in Rome These Apostles were a few select persons whom our Lord chose out of the rest to devolve part of the Government upon their shoulders and to depute for the first planting and setling Christianity in the World He chose twelve whom he named Apostles of whose Lives and Acts being to give an Historical account in the following work it may not possibly be unuseful to premise some general remarks concerning them not respecting this or that particular person but of a general relation to the whole wherein we shall especially take notice of the importance of the word the nature of the imployment the fitness and qualification of the persons and the duration and continuance of the Office II. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sent is among ancient Writers applied either to things actions or persons To things thus those Dimissory letters that were granted to such who appeal'd from an Inferiour to a Superiour Judicature were in the language of the Roman Laws usually called Apostoli thus a Packet-boat was styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because sent up and down for advice and dispatch of business thus though in somewhat a different sence the lesson taken out of the Epistles is in the Ancient Greek Liturgies called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because usually taken out of the Apostles Writings Sometimes it is applied to actions and so imports no more than mission or the very act of sending thus the setting out a Fleet or a Naval expedition was wont to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Suidas tells us that as the persons designed for the care and management of the Fleet were called ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the very sending sorth of the Ships themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly what principally falls under our present consideration it is applied to persons and so imports no more than a messenger a person sent upon some special errand for the discharge of some peculiar affair in his name that sent him Thus Epaphroditus is called the Apostle or Messenger of the Philippians when sent by them to S. Paul at Rome thus Titus and his companions are styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messengers of the Churches So our Lord he that is sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Apostle or Messenger is not greater than him that sent him This then being the common notion of the word our Lord fixes it to a particular use applying it to those select persons whom he had made choice of to act by that peculiar authority and commission which he had deriv'd upon them Twelve whom he also named Apostles that is Commissioners those who were to be Embassadors for Christ to be sent up and down the World
determination of our Saviour when the Apostles were contending about this very thing which of them should be accounted the greatest he thus quickly decides the case The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them But ye shall not be so but whosover will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your Servant Than which nothing could have been more peremptorily spoken to rebuke this naughty spirit of preheminence Nor do we ever find S. Peter himself laying claim to any such power or the Apostles giving him the least shadow of it In the whole course of his affairs there are no intimations of this matter in his Epistle he styles himself but their fellow-Presbyter and expresly forbids the governours of the Church to Lord it over God's heritage When dispatched by the rest of the Apostles upon a message to Samaria he never disputes their authority to do it when accused by them for going in unto the Gentiles does he stand upon his prerogative no but submissively apologizes for himself nay when smartly reprov'd by S. Paul at Antioch when if ever his credit lay at stake do we find him excepting against it as an affront to his supremacy and a sawcy controlling his superiour surely the quite contrary he quietly submitted to the reproof as one that was sensible how justly he had 〈◊〉 it Nor can it be supposed but that S. Paul would have carried it towards him with a greater reverence had any such peculiar soveraignty been then known to the World How confidently does S. Paul assert himself to be no whit inferiour to the chiefest Apostles not to Peter himself the Gospel of the uncircumcision being committed to him as that of the circumcision was to Peter Is Peter oft named first among the Apostles elsewhere others sometimes James sometimes Paul and Apollos are placed before him Did Christ honour him with some singular commendations an honourable elogium conveys no super-eminent power and soveraignty Was he dear to Christ we know another that was the beloved Disciple So little warrant is there to exalt one above the rest where Christ made all alike If from Scripture we descend to the ancient Writers of the Church we shall find that though the Fathers bestow very great and honourable Titles upon Peter yet they give the same or what are equivalent to others of the Apostles Hesychius stiles S. James the Great the Brother of our Lord the Commander of the new Jerusalem the Prince of Priests the Exarch or chief of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the top or crown amongst the heads the great light amongst the Lamps the most illustrious and resplendent amongst the stars 't was Peter that preach'd but 't was James that made the determination c. Of S. Andrew he gives this encomium that he was the sacerdotal Trumpet the first born of the Apostolick Quire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prime and firm Pillar of the Church Peter before Peter the foundation of the foundation the first fruits of the beginning Peter and John are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equally honourable by S. Cyril with his whole Synod of Alexandria S. John says Chrysostom was Christ's beloved the Pillar of all the Churches in the world who had the Keys of Heaven drank of his Lords cup was wash'd with his Baptism and with confidence lay in his bosome And of S. Paul he tells us that he was the most excellent of all men the Teacher of the world the Bridegroom of Christ the Planter of the Church the wise Master-builder greater than the Apostles and much more to the same purpose Elsewhere he says that the care of the whole world was committed to him that nothing could be more noble or illustrious yea that his Miracles considered he was more excellent than Kings themselves And a little after he calls him the tongue of the earth the light of the Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of the faith the pillar and ground of truth And in a discourse on purpose wherein he compares Peter and Paul together he makes them of equal esteem and vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What greater than Peter What equal to Paul a Blessed pair 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who had the Souls of the whole world committed to their charge But instances of this nature were endless and infinite If the Fathers at any time style Peter Prince of the Apostles they mean no more by it than the best and purest Latine writers mean by princeps the first or chief person of the number more considerable than the rest either for his age or zeal Thus Eusebius tells us Peter was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prolocutor of all the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the greatness and generosity of his mind that is in Chrysostome's language he was the mouth and chief of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because eager and forward at every turn and ready to answer those questions which were put to others In short as he had no Prerogative above the rest besides his being the Chair-man and President of the Assembly so was it granted to him upon no other considerations than those of his age zeal and gravity for which he was more eminent than the rest VIII We proceed next to enquire into the fitness and qualification of the Persons commissionated for this employment and we shall finde them admirably qualified to discharge it if we consider this following account First They immediately received the Doctrine of the Gospel from the mouth of Christ himself he intended them for Legati à latere his peculiar Embassaders to the World and therefore furnished them with instructions from his own mouth and in order hereunto he train'd them up for some years under his own Discipline and institution he made them to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when to others it was not given treated them with the affection of a Father and the freedom and familiarity of a friend 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 They heard all his Sermons were privy both to his publick and private discourses what he preach'd abroad he expounded to them at home he gradually instructed them in the knowledge of Divine things and imparted to them the notions and mysteries of the Gospel not all at once but as they were able to bear them By which means they were sufficiently capable of giving a satisfactory account of that doctrine to others which had been so immediately so frequently communicated to themselves Secondly They were insallibly secured from error in delivering the Doctrins and Principles of Christianity for though they were
triumph over the Heathens He tells them that whoever would be at the pains to compare the best Law-makers either amongst the Greeks or Romans with our Fishermen and Publicans would soon perceive what a Divine vertue and efficacy there was in them above all others whereby they did not only conquer their neighbours not only the Greeks and Romans but brought over the most barbarous Nations to a compliance with the Laws of the Gospel and that not by force of Arms not by numerous bands of Souldiers not by methods of torture and cruelty but by meek perswasives and a convincing the World of the excellency and usefulness of those Laws which they propounded to them A thing which the wisest and best men of the Heathen-world could never do to make their dogmata and institutions universally obtain nay that Plato himself could never by all his plausible and insinuative arts make his Laws to be entertained by his own dear Athenians He farther shews them that the Laws published by our Fishermen and Tentmakers could never be abolished like those made by the best amongst them by the policies of Caius the power of Claudius the cruelties of Nero or any of the succeding Emperors but still they went on conquering and to conquer and made Millions both of Men and Women willing to embrace flames and to encounter Death in its most horrid shapes rather than dis-own and forsake them whereof he calls to witness those many Churches and Monuments every where erected to the memory of Christian Martyrs no less to the honour than advantage of those Cities and Countries and in some sence to all Mankind 7. THE summe of the Discourse is in the Apostles words that God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise the weak to confound those that are mighty the base things of the world things most vitified and despised yea and things which are not to bring to nought things that are These were the things these the Persons whom God sent upon this errand to silence the Wise the Scribe and the Disputer of this World and to make foolish the wisdome of this world For though the Jews required a sign and the Greeks sought after wisdome though the preaching a crucified Saviour was a scandal to the Jewes and foolishness to the learned 〈◊〉 yet by this foolishness of preaching God was pleased to save them that believed and in the event made it appear that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God stronger than men That so the honour of all might intirely redound to himself so the Apostle concludes that no Flesh should glory in his presence but that he that glorieth should glory in the Lord. SECT II. Of S. Peter from his first coming to Christ till his being call'd to be a Disciple Peter before his coming to Christ 〈◊〉 Disciple probably of John the Baptist. His first approaches to Christ. Our Lord's communication with him His return to his Trade Christ's entring into Peter's Ship and preaching to the people at the Sea of Galilee The 〈◊〉 draught of Fishes Peter's great astonishment at this evidence of our Lord's Divinity His call to be a Disciple Christ's return to Capernaum and healing Peter's Mother-in-Law THOUGH we find not whether Peter before his coming to Christ was engag'd in any of the particular Sects at this time in the Jewish Church yet is it greatly probable that he was one of the Disciples of John the Baptist. For first 't is certain that his brother Andrew was so and we can hardly think these two brothers should draw contrary ways or that he who was so ready to bring his brother the early tidings of the Messiah that the Sun of righteousness was already risen in those parts should not be as solicitous to bring him under the discipline and influences of John the Baptist the Day-star that went before him Secondly Peter's forwardness and curiosity at the first news of Christ's appearing to come to him and converse with him shew that his expectations had been awakened and some light in this matter conveyed to him by the preaching and ministry of John who was the voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths streight shewing them who it was that was coming after him 2. HIS first acquaintance with Christ commenced in this manner The Blessed Jesus having for thirty years passed through the solitudes of a private life had lately been baptized in Jordan and there publickly owned to be the Son of God by the 〈◊〉 solemn attestations that Heaven could give him whereupon he was immediately 〈◊〉 into the wilderness to a personal contest with the Devil for forty days together So natural is it to the enemy of mankind to malign our happiness and to seek to blast our joys when we are under the highest instances of the Divine grace and favour His enemy being conquered in three set battels and fled he returned hence and came down to Bethabara beyond Jordan where John was baptizing his Proselytes and endeavouring to satisfie the Jews who had sent to him curiously to enquire concerning this new Messiah that appeared among them Upon the great testimony which the Baptist gave him and his pointing to our Lord then passing by him two of John's disciples who were then with him presently followed after Christ one of which was Andrew Simon' s brother It was towards Evening when they came and therefore probably stayed with him all night during which Andrew had opportunity to inform himself and to satisfie his most scrupulous enquiries Early the next morning if not that very evening he hastned to acquaint his brother Simon with these glad tidings 'T is not enough to be good and happy alone Religion is a communicative principle that like the circles in the water delights to multiply it self and to diffuse its influences round about it and especially upon those whom nature has placed nearest to us He tells him they had found the long-look'd for Messiah him whom Moses and the Prophets had so signally foretold and whom all the devout and pious of that Nation had so long expected 3. SIMON one of those who look'd for the Kingdom of God and waited for redemption in Israel ravished with this joyful news and impatient of delay presently follows his brother to the place whither he was no sooner come but our Lord to give him an evidence of his Divinity salutes him at first 〈◊〉 by name tells him what and who he was both as to his name and kindred what title should be given him that that he should be call'd Cephas or Peter a name which he afterwards actually conferr'd upon him What passed further between them and whether these two brothers henceforward personally attended our Saviour's motions in the number of his Disciples the Sacred Story leaves us in the dark It seems probable that they stay'd with him
for some time till they were instructed in the first rudiments of his doctrine and by his leave departed home For it 's reasonable to suppose that our Lord being unwilling at this time especially to awaken the jealousies of the State by a numerous retinue might dismiss his Disciples for some time and Peter and Andrew amongst the rest who hereupon returned home to the exercise of their calling where he found them afterwards 4. IT was now somewhat more than a year since our Lord having entred upon the publick stage of action constantly went about doing good healing the sick and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom residing usually at 〈◊〉 and the parts about it where by the constancy of his preaching and the reputation of his miracles his fame spread about all those Countries by means whereof multitudes of people from all parts flock'd to him greedily desirous to become his Auditors And what wonder if the parch'd and barren Earth thirsted for the showers of Heaven It hapned that our Lord retiring out of the City to enjoy the privacies of contemplation upon the banks of the Sea of Galilee it was not long before the multitude found him out to avoid the crowd and press whereof he step'd into a Ship or Fisher-Boat that lay near to the shore which belonged to Peter who together with his companions after a tedious and unsuccessful night were gone a-shore to wash and dry their Nets He who might have commanded was yet pleased to intreat Peter who by this time was returned into his Ship to put a little from the shore Here being sate he taught the people who stood along upon the shore to hear him Sermon ended he resolv'd to seal up his doctrine with a miracle that the people might be the more effectually convinced that he was a Teacher come from God To this purpose he bad Simon lanch out further and cast his Net into the Sea Simon tells him they had don 't already that they had been fishing all the last night but in vain and if they could not succeed then the most proper season for that imployment there was less hope to speed now it being probably about Noon But because where God commands it is not for any to argue but obey at our Lord's instance he let down the Net which immediately inclosed so great a multitude of Fishes that the Net began to break and they were forced to call to their partners who were in a Ship hard by them to come in to their assistence A draught so great that it loaded both their Boats and that so full that it endangered their sinking before they could get safe to shore An instance wherein our Saviour gave an ocular demonstration that as Messiah God had put all things under his feet not only Fowls of the Air but the Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Seas 5. AMAZ'D they were all at this miraculous draught of Fishes whereupon Simon in an 〈◊〉 of admiration and a mixture of humility and fear threw himself at the feet of Christ and pray'd him to depart from him as a vile and a sinful person So evident were the appearances of Divinity in this miracle that he was over-powred and dazled with its brightness and lustre and reflecting upon himself could not but think himself unworthy the presence of so great a person so immediately sent from God and considering his own state Conscience being hereby more sensibly awakened was afraid that the Divine vengeance might pursue and overtake him But our Lord to abate the 〈◊〉 of his fears assures him that this miracle was not done to amaze and terrifie him but to strengthen and confirm his Faith that now he had nobler work and imployment for him instead of catching Fish he should by perswading men to the obedience of the Gospel catch the Souls of men And accordingly commanded him and his brother to follow him the same command which presently after he gave to the two Sons of 〈◊〉 The word was no sooner spoken and they landed but disposing their concerns in the hands of friends as we may presume prudent and reasonable men would they immediately left all and followed him and from this time Peter and the rest became his constant and inseparable Disciples living under the rules of his Discipline and Institutions 6. FROM hence they returned to 〈◊〉 where our Lord entring into Simon' s house the place in all likelihood where he was wont to lodge during his residence in that City found his Mother-in-law visited with a violent Fever No priviledges afford an exemption from the ordinary Laws of humane Nature Christ under her roof did not protect this Woman from the assaults and invasions of a Fever Lord behold he whom thou lovest is sick as they said concerning Lazarus Here a fresh opportunity offered it self to Christ of exerting his Divine Power No sooner was he told of it but he came to her bed-side rebuked the Paroxysms commanded the Fever to be gone and taking her by the hand to lift her up in a moment restored her to perfect health and ability to return to the business of her Family all cures being equally easie to Omnipotence SECT III. Of S. Peter from his Election to the Apostolate till the Confession which he made of Christ. The Election of the Apostles and our Lord 's solemn preparation for it The Powers and Commission given to them Why Twelve chosen Peter the first in order not power The Apostles when and by whom Baptized The Tradition of Euodius of Peter's being immediately Baptized by Christ rejected and its authorities proved in sufficient Three of the Apostles more intimately conversant with our Saviour Peter's being with Christ at the raising Jairus his Daughter His walking with Christ upon the Sea The creatures at God's command act contrary to their natural Inclinations The weakness of Peter's Faith Christ's power in commanding down the storm an evidence of his Divinity Many Disciples desert our Saviour's preaching Peter's prosession of constancy in the name of the rest of the Apostles OUR Lord being now to elect some peculiar persons as his immediate Vicegerents upon Earth to whose care and trust he might commit the building up of his Church and the planting that Religion in the World for which he himself came down from Heaven In order to it he privately over-night withdrew himself into a solitary Mountain commonly called the Mount of Christ from his frequent repairing thither though some of the Ancients will have it to be Mount Tabor there to make his solemn address to Heaven for a prosperous success on so great a work Herein leaving an excellent copy and precedent to the Governours of his Church how to proceed in setting apart persons to so weighty and difficult an employment Upon this Mountain we may conceive there was an Oratory or place of prayer probably intimated by S. Luke's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for such
Iron and that for three years and an half together as in the case of 〈◊〉 's prayer if he say to the Sea Divide 't will run upon heaps and become on both sides as firm as a wall of Marble Nothing can be more natural than for the fire to burn and yet at God's command it will forget its nature and become a screen and a fence to the three Children in the Babylonian Furnace What heavier than Iron or more natural than for gravity to tend downwards and yet when God will have it Iron shall float like Cork on the top of the water The proud and raging Sea that naturally refuses to bear the bodies of men while alive became here as firm as Brass when commanded to wait upon and do homage to the God of Nature Our Lord walking towards the Ship as if he had an intention to pass by it he was espied by them who presently thought it to be the Apparition of a Spirit Hereupon they were seiz'd with great terror and consternation and their fears in all likelihood heightned by the vulgar opinion that they are evil Spirits that chuse rather to appear in the night than by day While they were in this agony our Lord taking compassion on them calls to them and bids them not be afraid for that it was no other than he himself Peter the eagerness of whose temper carried him forward to all bold and resolute undertakings intreated our Lord that if it was he he might have leave to come upon the water to him Having received his orders he went out of the Ship and walked upon the Sea to meet his Master But when he found the wind to bear hard against him and the waves to rise round about him whereby probably the sight of Christ was intercepted he began to be afraid and the higher his fears arose the lower his Faith began to sink and together with that his body to sink under water whereupon in a passionate fright he cried out to our Lord to help him who reaching out his arm took him by the hand and set him again upon the top of the water with this gentle reproof O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt It being the weakness of our Faith that makes the influences of the Divine power and goodness to have no better effect upon us Being come to the Ship they took them in where our Lord no sooner arrived but the winds and waves observing their duty to their Sovereign Lord and having done the errand which they came upon mannerly departed and vanished away and the Ship in an instant was at the shore All that were in the Ship being strangely astonished at this Miracle and fully convinced of the Divinity of his person came and did homage to him with this confession Of a truth thou art the Son of God After which they went ashore and landed in the Country of Genezareth and there more fully acknowledged him before all the people 6. THE next day great multitudes flocking after him he entred into a Synagogue at Capernaum and taking occasion from the late Miracle of the loaves which he had wrought amongst them he began to discourse concerning himself as the true Manna and the Bread that came down from Heaven largely opening to them many of the more sublime and Spiritual mysteries and the necessary and important duties of the Gospel Hereupon a great part of his Auditory who had hitherto followed him finding their understandings gravelled with these difficult and uncommon Notions and that the duties he required were likely to grate hard upon them and perceiving now that he was not the Messiah they took him for whose Kingdom should consist in an external Grandeur and plenty but was to be managed and transacted in a more inward and Spiritual way hereupon fairly left him in open field and henceforth quite turned their backs upon him Whereupon our Lord turning about to his Apostles asked them whether they also would go away from him Peter spokes-man generally for all the rest answered whither should they go to mend and better their condition should they return back to Moses Alas he laid a yoke upon them which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Should they go to the Scribes and Pharisees they would feed them with Stones instead of Bread obtrude humane Traditions upon them for Divine dictates and Commands Should they betake themselves to the Philosophers amongst the Gentiles they were miserably blind and short-sighted in their Notions of things and their sentiments and opinions not only different from but contrary to one another No 't was he only had the words of Eternal life whose doctrine could instruct them in the plain way to Heaven that they had fully assented to what both John and he had said concerning himself that they were fully perswaded both from the efficacy of his Sermons which they heard and the powerful conviction of his Miracles which they had seen that he was the Son of the living God the true Messiah and Saviour of the World But notwithstanding this fair and plausible testimony he tells them that they were not all of this mind that there was a Satan amongst them one that was moved by the spirit and impulse and that acted according to the rules and interest of the Devil intimating Judas who should betray him So hard is it to meet with a body of so just and pure a constitution wherein some rotten member or distempered part is not to be found SECT IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passover Our Saviour's Journy with his Apostles to Caesarea The Opinions of the People concerning Him Peter's eminent Confession of Christ and our Lord 's great commendation of it Thou art Peter and upon this Rock c. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven how given The advantage the Church of Rome makes of these passages This confession made by Peter in the name of the rest and by others before him No personal priviledge intended to S. Peter the same things elsewhere promised to the other Apostles Our 〈◊〉 discourse concerning his 〈◊〉 Peter's unseasonable zeal in disswading him from it and our Lord 's severe rebuking him Christ's Transfiguration and the glory of it Peter how affected with it Peter's paying Tribute for Christ and himself This Tribute what Our Saviour's discourse upon it Offending brethren how oft to be forgiven The young man commanded to sell all What compensation made to the followers of Christ. Our Lord 's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem Preparation made to keep the Passover 1. IT was some time since our Saviour had kept his third Passover at Jerusalem when he directed his Journy towards Caesarea Philippi where by the way having like a lawful Master of his Family first prayed with his Aposlles he began to ask them having been more than two Years publickly conversant amongst them what the world thought concerning him They answered that
the Opinions of Men about him were various and different that some took him for John the Baptist lately risen from the dead between whose Doctrine Discipline and way of life in the main there was so great a Correspondence That others thought he was Elias probably judging so from the gravity of his Person freedom of his Preaching the fame and reputation of his Miracles especially since the Scriptures assured them he was not dead but taken up into Heaven and had so expresly foretold that he should return back again That others look'd upon him as the Prophet Jeremiah alive again of whose return the Jewes had great expectations in so much that some of them thought the Soul of Jeremias was re-inspired into 〈◊〉 Or if not thus at least that he was one of the more eminent of the ancient Prophets or that the Souls of some of these Persons had been breathed into him The Doctrine of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transmigration of Souls first broached and propagated by Pythagoras being at this time current amongst the Jews and owned by the Pharisees as one of their prime Notions and Principles 2. THIS Account not 〈◊〉 our Lord comes closer and nearer to them tells them It was no wonder if the common People were divided into these wild thoughts concerning him but since they had been always with him had been hearers of his Sermons and Spectators of his Miracles he enquired what they themselves thought of him Peter ever forward to return an Answer and therefore by the Fathers frequently stiled The Mouth of the Apostles told him in the name of the rest That he was the Messiah The Son of the living God promised of old in the Law and the Prophets heartily desired and looked for by all good men anointed and set apart by God to be the King Priest and Prophet of his People To this excellent and comprehensive confession of Peter's Our Lord returns this great Eulogie and Commendation Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven That is this Faith which thou hast now confessed is not humane contrived by Man's wit or built upon his testimony but upon those Notions and Principles which I was sent by God to reveal to the World and those mighty and solemn attestations which he has given from Heaven to the truth both of my Person and my Doctrine And because thou hast so freely made this Confession therefore I also say unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it That is that as thy Name signifies a Stone or Rock such shalt thou thy self be firm solid and immoveable in building of the Church which shall be so orderly erected by thy care and diligence and so firmly founded upon that faith which thou hast now confessed that all the assaults and attempts which the powers of Hell can make against it shall not be able to overturn it Moreover I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven That is thou shalt have that spiritual authority and power within the Church whereby as with Keys thou shalt be able to shut and lock out obstinate and impenitent sinners and upon their repentance to unlock the door and take them in again And what thou shalt thus regularly do shall be own'd in the Court above and ratified by God in Heaven 3. UPON these several passages the Champions of the Church of Rome mainly build the unlimited Supremacy and Infallibility of the Bishops of that See with how much truth and how little reason it is not my present purpose to discuss It may suffice here to remark that though this place does very much tend to exalt the honour of Saint Peter yet is there nothing herein personal and peculiar to him alone as distinct from and preserred above the rest of the Apostles Does he here make confession of Christ's being the Son of God Yet besides that herein he spake but the sence of all the rest this was no more than what others had said as well as he yea besore he was so much as call'd to be a Disciple Thus Nathanael at his first coming to Christ expresly told him Rabbi thou art the Son of God Thou art the King of Israel Does our Lord here stile him a Rock All the Apostles are elsewhere equally called Foundations yea said to be the Twelve Foundations upon which the Wall of the new Jerusalem that is the Evangelical Church is 〈◊〉 and sometimes others of them besides Peter are called Pillars as they have relation to the Church already built Does Christ here promise the Keys to Peter that is Power of Governing and of exercising Church-censures and of absolving penitent sinners The very same is elsewhere promised to all the Apostles and almost in the very same termes and words If thine offending Brother prove obstinate tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And elsewhere when ready to leave the World he tells them As my Father hath sent me even so send I you whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained By all which it is evident that our Lord did not here give any personal prerogative to S. Peter as Universal Pastor and Head of the Christian Church much less to those who were to be his Successors in the See of Rome But that as he made this Confession in the name of the rest of the Apostles so what was here promised unto him was equally intended unto all Nor did the more considering and judicious part of the Fathers however giving a mighty reverence to S. Peter ever understand it in any other sence Sure I am that Origen tells us that every true Christian that makes this confession with the same Spirit and Integrity which S. Peter did shall have the same blessing and commendation from Christ conferr'd upon him 4. THE Holy Jesus knowing the time of his Passion to draw on began to prepare the minds of his Apostles against that fatal Hour telling them what hard and bitter things he should suffer at Jerusalem what affronts and indignities he must undergo and be at last put to death with all the arts of torture and disgrace by the Decree of the Jewish Sanhedrim Peter whom our Lord had infinitely incouraged and indeared to him by the great things which he had lately said concerning him so that his spirits were now afloat and his
to give an account to his Master and to know his mind concerning it Christ prevented him with this question What thinkest thou Simon of whom do 〈◊〉 Kings exact Tribute of their own Children and Family or from other people Peter answered Not from their own Servants and Family but from Strangers To which our Lord presently replied That then according to his own argument and opinion both he himself as being the Son of God and they whom he had taken to be his Menial and Domestick 〈◊〉 were free from this Tax of Head-money yearly to be paid to God But rather than give offence by seeming to despise the Temple and to undervalue that Authority that had setled this Tribute he resolves to put himself to the expence and charges of a Miracle and therefore commanded Peter to go to the Sea and 〈◊〉 up the first Fish which came to his Hook in whose mouth he should find a piece of money a Stater in value a Shekel or half a Crown which he took and gave to the Collectors both for his Master and himself 7. OUR Lord after this discoursing to them how to carry themselves towards their offending Brethren Peter being desirous to be more particularly informed in this matter asked our Saviour How oft a man was obliged to forgive his Brother in case of offence and trespass whether seven times were not enough He told him That upon his Neighbours repentance he was not only bound to do it seven times but until seventy times seven that is he must be indulgent to him as oft as the offender returns and begs it and heartily professes his sorrow and repentance Which he further illustrates by a plain and excellent Parable and thence draws this Conclusion That the same measures either of compassion or cruelty which men show to their fellow Brethren they themselves shall meet with at the hands of God the Supreme Ruler and Justiciary of the World It was not long after when a brisk young man addressed himself to our Saviour to know of him by what methods he might best attain Eternal life Our Lord to humble his confidence bade him sell his Estate and give it to the poor and putting himself under his discipline he should have a much better treasure in Heaven The man was rich and liked not the counsel nor was he willing to purchase happiness at such a rate accordingly went away under great sorrow and discontent Upon which Christ takes occasion to let them know how hardly those men would get to Heaven who build their comfort and happiness upon the plenty and abundance of these outward things Peter taking hold of this opportunity ask'd What return they themselves should make who had quitted and renounced whatever they had for his sake and service Our Saviour answers that no man should be a loser by his service that for their parts they should be recompenced with far greater priviledges and that whoever should forsake houses or lands kindred and relations out of love to him and his Religion should enjoy them again with infinite advantages in this World if consistent with the circumstances of their state and those troubles and persecutions which would necessarily arise from the profession of the Gospel however they should have what would make infinite amends for all Eternal life in the other World 8. OUR Saviour in order to his last fatal journey to Jerusalem that he might the better comply with the prophecy that went before of him sent two of his Apostles who in all probability were Peter and John with an Authoritative Commission to fetch him an Asse to ride on he had none of his own he who was rich for our sakes made himself poor he lived upon charity all his life had neither an Asse to ride on nor an House where to lay his head no nor after his death a Tomb to lie in but what the charity of others provided for him whereon being mounted and attended with the festivities of the people he set forward in his journey wherein there appears an admirable mixture of humility and Majesty The Asse he rode on became the meanness and meekness of a Prophet but his arbitrary Commission for the fetching it and the ready obedience of its owners spake the prerogative of a King The Palms born before him the Garments strew'd in his way and the joyful Hosannahs and Acclamations of the people proclaim at once both the Majesty of a Prince and the Triumph of a Saviour For such expressions of joy we find were usual in publick and festival solemnities thus the Historian describing the Emperor Commodus his triumphant return to Rome tells us that the Senate and whole people of Rome to testifie their mighty kindness and veneration for him came out of the City to meet him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carrying Palms and Laurels along with them and throwing about all sorts of Flowers that were then in season In this manner our Lord being entred the City he soon after retired to Bethany whence he dispatched Peter and John to make preparation for the Passeover giving them instructions where he would have it kept Accordingly they found the person whom he had described to them whom they followed home to his house Whether this was the house of John the Evangelist as Nicephorus tells us situate near Mount Sion or of Simon the Leper or of Nicodemus or of Joseph of Arimathea as others severally conjecture seeing none of the Evangelists have thought fit to tells us it may not become us curiously to enquire SECT V. Of S. Peter from the last Passeover till the death of Christ. The Passeover celebrated by our Lord and his Apostles His washing their feet Peter's imprudent modesty The mystery and meaning of the action The Traitor who The Lord's Supper instituted Peter's confident promise of suffering with and for Christ. Our Lord's dislike of his confidence and foretelling his denial Their going to the Mount of Olives Peter renews his resolution His 〈◊〉 zeal and affection Our Saviour's Passion why begun in a Garden The bitterness of his Ante-passion The drowziness of Peter and the two sons of Zebedee Our Lord 's great candor towards them and what it ought to teach us Christ's apprehension and Peter's bold attempt upon Malchus Christ deserted by the Apostles Peter's following his Master to the High-Priests Hall and thrice denying him with Oaths and Imprecations The Galilean dialect what The Cock-crowing and Peter's repentance upon it ALL things being now prepared our Saviour with his Apostles comes down for the celebration of the Passcover And being entred into the house they all orderly took their places Our Lord who had always taught them by his practice no less than by his doctrine did now particularly design to teach them humility and charity by his own example And that the instance might be the greater he underwent the meanest offices of the Ministery towards the end therefore
of the Paschal Supper he arose from the Table and laying aside his upper garment which according to the fashion of those Eastern Countries being long was unfit for action and himself taking a Towel and pouring water into a Bason he began to wash all the Apostles feet not disdaining those of Judas himself Coming to Peter he would by no means admit an instance of so much condescension What the Master do this to the Servant the Son of God to so vile a sinner This made him a second time refuse it Thou shalt never wash my feet But our Lord soon corrects his imprudent modesty by telling him That if he wash'd him not he could have no part with him Insinuating the mystery of this action which was to denote Remission of sin and the purifying vertue of the Spirit of Christ to be poured upon all true Christians Peter satisfied with this answer soon altered his resolution Lord not my feet only but also my hands and my head If the case be so let me be wash'd all over rather than come short of my portion in thee This being done he returned again to the Table and acquainted them with the meaning and tendency of this mystical action and what force it ought to have upon them towards one another The washing it self denoted their inward and Spiritual cleansing by the Bloud and Spirit of Christ symbolically typified and 〈◊〉 by all the washings and Baptisms of the Mosaick Institution The washing of the feet respected our intire sanctification in our whole Spirit Soul and Body no part being to be left impure And then that all this should be done by so great a person their Lord and Master preached to their very senses a Sermon of the greatest humility and condescension and taught them how little reason they had to boggle at the meanest offices of kindness and charity towards others when he himself had stoop'd to solow an abasure towards them And now he began more immediately to reflect upon his sufferings and upon him who was to be the occasion of them telling them that one of them would be the Traitor to betray him Whereat they were strangely troubled and every one began to suspect himself till Peter whose love and care for his Master commonly made him start sooner than the rest made signs to S. John who lay in our Saviour's bosom to ask him particularly who it was which our Saviour presently did by making them understand that it was Judas Iscariot who not long after left the company 2. AND now our Lord began the Institution of his Supper that great solemn Institution which he was resolved to leave behind him to be constantly celebrated in all Ages of the Church as the standing monument of his love in dying for mankind For now he told them that he himself must leave them and that whither he went they could not come Peter not well understanding what he meant asked him whither it was that he was going Our Lord replied It was to that place whither he could not now follow him but that he should do it afterwards intimating the Martyrdom he was to undergo for the sake of Christ. To which Peter answered that he knew no reason why he might not follow him seeing that if it was even to the laying down of his life for his sake he was most ready and resolved to do it Our Lord liked not this over-confident presumption and therefore told him they were great things which he promised but that he took not the true measures of his own strength nor espied the snares and designs of Satan who desired no better an occasion than this to sift and winnow them But that he had prayed to Heaven for him That his faith might not fail by which means being strengthened himself he should be obliged to strengthen and confirm his brethren And whereas he so confidently assured him that he was ready to go along with him not only into prison but even to death it self our Lord plainly told him That not withstanding all his confident and generous resolutions before the Cock crowed twice that is before three of the Clock in the morning he would that very night three several times deny his Master With which answer our Lord wisely rebuked his confidence and taught him had he understood the lesson not to trust to his own strength but intirely to depend upon him who is able to keep us from salling Withall insinuating that though by his sin he would justly forseit the Divine grace and favour yet upon his repentance he should be restored to the honour of the Apostolate as a certain evidence of the Divine goodness and indulgence to him 3. HAVING sung an Hymn and concluded the whole affair he left the house where all these things had been transacted and went with his Apostles unto the Mount of Olives where he again put them in mind how much they would be offended at those things which he was now to suffer and Peter again renewed his resolute and undaunted promise of suffering and dying with him yea out of an excessive confidence told him That though all the rest should for sake and deny him yet would not 〈◊〉 deny him How far will zeal and an 〈◊〉 affection transport even a good man into vanity and presumption Peter questions others but never doubts himself So natural is self-love so apt are we to take the fairest measures of our selves Nay though our Lord had but a little before once and again reproved this vain humour yet does he still not only persist but grow up in it So hardly are we brought to espy our own faults or to be so throughly convinced of them as to correct and reform them This confidence of his inspired all the rest with a mighty courage all the Apostles likewise assuring him of their constant and unshaken adhering to him Our Lord returning the same answer to Peter which he had done before From hence they went down into the Village of Gethsemane where leaving the rest of the Apostles he accompanied with none but Peter James and John retired into a neighbouring Garden whither 〈◊〉 tells us Christians even in his time were wont to come solemnly to offer up their Prayers to Heaven and where as the Arabian Geographer informs us a fair and stately Church was built to the honour of the Virgin Mary to enter upon the Ante-scene of the fatal Tragedy that was now approaching it bearing a very fit proportion as some of the Fathers have observed that as the first Adam fell and ruin'd mankind in a Garden so a Garden should be the place where the second Adam should begin his Passion in order to the Redemption of the World Gardens which to us are places of repose and pleasure and scenes of divertisement and delight were to our Lord a school of Temptation a Theatre of great horrors and sufferings and the first approaches of the hour of
darkness 4. HERE it was that the Blessed Jesus laboured under the bitterest Agony that could fall upon humane Nature which the holy Story describes by words sufficiently expressive of the higest grief and sorrow he was afraid sorrowful and very heavy yea his Soul was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceeding sorrowful and that even unto death he was fore amazed and very heavy he was troubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Soul was shaken with a vehement commotion yea he was in an Agony a word by which the Greeks are wont to represent the greatest conflicts and anxieties The effect of all which was that he prayed more earnestly offering up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears as the Apostle expounds it and sweat as it were great drops of bloud falling to the ground What this bloudy sweat was and how far natural or extraordinary I am not now concerned to enquire Certain it is it was a plain evidence of the most intense grief and sadness for if an extreme fear or trouble will many times cast us into a cold sweat how great must be the commotion and conflict of our Saviour's mind which could force open the pores of his body lock'd up by the coldness of the night and make not drops of sweat but great drops or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies clods of bloud to issue from them While our Lord was thus contending with these Ante-Passions the three Apostles whom he had left at some distance from him being tired out with watching and disposed by the silence of the Night were fallen fast asleep Our Lord who had made three several addresses unto Heaven that if it might consist with his Father's will this bitter Cup might pass from him expressing herein the harmless and innocent desires of humane Nature which always studies its own preservation between each of them came to visit the Apostles and calling to Peter asked him Whether they could not watch with him one hour advising them to watch and pray that they enter'd not into temptation adding this Argument That the spirit indeed was willing but that the flesh was weak and that therefore there was the more need that they should stand upon their guard Observe here the incomparable sweetness the generous candor of our blessed Saviour to pass so charitable a censure upon an action from whence malice and ill-nature might have drawn monsters and prodigies and have represented it black as the shades of darkness The request which our Lord made to these Apostles was infinitely reasonable to watch with him in this bitter Agony their company at least being some refreshment to one under such sad fatal circumstances and this but for a little time one hour it would soon be over and then they might freely consult their own ease and safety 'T was their dear Lord and Master whom they now were to attend upon ready to lay down his life for them sweating already under the first skirmishes of his sufferings and expecting every moment when all the powers of darkness would fall upon him But all these considerations were drown'd in a profound security the men were fast asleep and though often awakened and told of it regarded it not as if nothing but ease and softness had been then to be dream'd of An action that look'd like the most prodigious ingratitude and the highest unconcernedness for their Lord and Master and which one would have thought had argued a very great coldness and indifferency of affection towards him But he would not set it upon the Tenters nor stretch it to what it might easily have been drawn to he imputes it not to their unthankfulness or want of affection nor to their carelesness of what became of him but merely to their infirmity and the weakness of their bodily temper himself making the excuse when they could make none for themselves the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Hereby teaching us to put the most candid and favourable construction upon those actions of others which are capable of various interpretations and rather with the Bee to suck honey than with the Spider to draw poison from them His last Prayer being ended he came to them and told them with a gentle rebuke That now they might sleep on if they pleased that the hour was at hand that he should be betrayed and delivered into the hands of men 5. WHILE he was thus discoursing to them a Band of Souldiers sent from the High Priests with the Traitor Judas to conduct and direct them rush'd into the Garden and seised upon him which when the Apostles saw they asked him whether they should attempt his rescue Peter whose ungovernable zeal put him upon all dangerous undertakings without staying for an answer drew his Sword and espying one more busie than the rest in laying hold upon our Saviour which was Malchus who though carrying Kingship in his name was but Servant to the High Priest struck at him with an intention to dispatch him but God over-ruling the stroak it only cut off his right Ear. Our Lord liked not this wild and unwarrantable zeal and therefore intreated their patience whilest he miraculously healed the Wound And turning to Peter bad him put up his Sword again told him that they who unwarrantably use the Sword should themselves perish by it that there was no need of these violent and extravagant courses that if he had a mind to be rid of his Keepers he could ask his Father who would presently send more than twelve Legions of Angels to his rescue and deliverance But he must drink the Cup which his Father had put into his hand for how else should the Scriptures be fulfilled which had expresly foretold That these things must be Whereupon all the Apostles forsook him and fled from him and they who before in their promises were as bold as Lions now it came to it like fearful and timorous Hares ran away from him Peter and John though staying last with him yet followed the same way with the rest preferring their own safety before the concernments of their Master 6. NO sooner was he apprehended by the Souldiers and brought out of the Garden but he was immediately posted from one Tribunal to another brought first to Annas then carried to Caiaphas where the Jewish Sanhedrim met together in order to his Trial and Condemnation Peter having a little recovered himself and gotten loose from his fears probably encouraged by his Companion S. John returns back to seek his Master And finding them leading him to the High Priest's Hall followed afar off to see what would be the event and issue But coming to the Door could get no admittance till one of the Disciples who was acquainted there went out and perswaded the Servant who kept the Door to let him in Being let into the Hall where the Servants and Officers stood round the Fire Peter also came thither to warm himself where being espied by the
Servant-maid that let him in and earnestly looking upon him she charged him with being one of Christ's Disciples which Peter publickly denied before all the Company positively affirming that he knew him not And presently withdrew himself into the Porch where he heard the Cock crow An intimation which one would have thought should have awakened his Conscience into a quick sense of his duty and the promise he had made unto his Master In the Porch another of the Maids set upon him charging him that he also was one of them that had been with Jesus of Nazareth which Peter stoutly denyed saying that he knew not Christ and the better to gain their belief to what he said ratified it with an Oath So natural is it for one sin to draw on another 7. ABOUT an Hour after he was a third time set upon by a Servant of the High Priest Malchus his Kinsman whose Ear Peter had lately cut off By him he was charged to be one of Christ's Disciples Yea that his very speech betrayed him to be a Galilean For the Galileans though they did not speak a different language had yet a different Dialect using a more confused and barbarous a broader and more unpolished way of pronunciation than the rest of the Jews whereby they were easily distinguishable in their speaking from other men abundant instances whereof there are extant in the Talmud at this day Nay not only gave this evidence but added that he himself had seen him with Jesus in the Garden Peter still resolutely denied the matter and to add the highest accomplishment to his sin ratified it not only with an Oath but a solemn Curse and execration that he was not the person that he knew not the man 'T is but a very weak excuse which S. Ambrose and some others make for this Act of Peter's in saying I knew not the Man He did well says he to deny him to be Man whom he knew to be God S. Hierom takes notice of this pious and well-meant excuse made for Peter though out of modesty he conceals the name of its Authors but yet justly censures it as trifling and frivolous and which to excuse Man from folly would charge God with falshood for if he did not deny him then our Lord was out when he said that that Night he should thrice deny him that is his Person and not only his humanity Certainly the best Apology that can be made for Peter is that he quickly repented of this great sin for no sooner had he done it but the Cock crew again at which intimation our Saviour turn'd about and earnestly looked upon him a glance that quickly pierced him to the Heart and brought to his remembrance what our Lord had once and again foretold him of how foully and shamefully he should deny him whereupon not being able to contain his sorrow he ran out of Doors to give it vent and wept bitterly passionately bewailing his folly and the aggravations of his sin thereby indeavouring to make some reparation for his fault and recover himself into the favour of Heaven and to prevent the execution of Divine Justice by taking a severe revenge upon himself by these penitential tears he endeavoured to wash off his guilt as indeed Repentance is the next step to Innocence SECT VI. Of S. Peter from Christ ' s Resurrection till his Ascension Our Lord's care to acquaint Peter with his Resurrection His going to the Sepulchre Christ's appearance to Peter when and the Reasons of it The Apostles Journey into Galilee Christ's appearing to them at the Sea of Tiberias His being discovered by the great draught of Fishes Christ's questioning Peter's love and why Feed my Sheep commended to Peter imports no peculiar supereminent power and soveraignty Peter's death and sufferings foretold Our Lord takes his last leave of the Apostles at Bethany His Ascension into Heaven The Chappel of the Ascension The Apostles joy at their Lord's Exaltation 1. WHAT became of Peter after his late Prevarication whether he followed our Saviour through the several stages of his Trial and personally attended as a Mourner at the Funerals of his Master we have no account left upon Record No doubt he stayed at Jerusalem and probably with S. John together with whom we first find him mentioned when both setting forwards to the Sepulchre which was in this manner Early on that Morning whereon our Lord was to return from the Grave Mary Magdalen and some other devout and pious Women brought Spices and Ointments with a design to Imbalm the Body of our crucified Lord. Coming to the Sepulchre at Sun-rising and finding the Door open they entred in where they were suddainly 〈◊〉 by an Angel who told them that Jesus was risen and bad them go and 〈◊〉 his Apostles and particularly Peter that he was returned from the dead and that he would go before them into Galilee where they should meet with him Hereupon they returned back and acquainted the Apostles with what had passed who beheld the story as the product of a weak frighted fancy But Peter and John presently hastned towards the Garden John being the younger and nimbler out-ran his Companion and came first thither where he only looked but entred not in either out of fear in himself or a great Reverence to our Saviour Peter though behind in space was before in zeal and being elder and more considerate came and resolutely entred in where they found nothing but the Linnen Clothes lying together in one place and the Napkin that was about his Head wrapped together in another which being disposed with so much care and order shewed what was falsly suggested by the Jewes that our Saviour's Body was not taken away by Thieves who are wont more to consult their escape than how to leave things orderly disposed behind them 2. THE same Day about Noon we may suppose it was that our Lord himself appeared alone to Peter being assured of the thing though not so precisely of the time That he did so S. Paul expresly tells us and so did the Apostles the two Disciples that came from Emmaus The Lord is risen and had appeared unto Simon which probably intimates that it was before his appearing to those two Disciples And indeed we cannot but think that our Lord would hasten the manifestation of himself to him as compassionating his case being overwhelmed with sorrow for the late shameful denial of his Master and was therefore willing in the first place to honour him with his presence at once to confirm him in the Article of his Resurrection and to let him see that he was restored to the place which before he had in his grace and favour S. Paul mentioning his several appearances after his Resurrection seems to make this the first of them That he was seen of Cephas Not that it was simply the first for he first appeared to the Women But as 〈◊〉 observes it was the first that
was given him in Heaven and in Earth by vertue whereof they should go teach and baptize all Nations and preach the Gospel to every Creature That they should feed God's slock Rule well inspect and watch ever those over whom they had the Authority and the Rule Words of as large and more express signification than those which were here spoken to S. Peter 5. OUR Lord having thus engaged Peter to a chearful compliance with the dangers that might attend the discharge and execution of his Office now particularly intimates to him what that fate was that should attend him telling him that though when he was young he girt himself lived at his own pleasure and went whither he pleased yet when he was old he should stretch forth his hands and another should gird and bind him and lead him whither he had no mind to go intimating as the Evangelist tells us by what death he should glorifie God that is by Crucifixion the Martyrdom which he afterward underwent And then rising up commanded him to follow him by this bodily attendance mystically implying his conformity to the death of Christ that he should follow him in dying for the truth and testimony of the Gospel It was not long after that our Lord appeared to them to take his last farewell of them when leading them out unto Bethany a little Village upon the Mount of Olives he briefly told them That they were the persons whom he had chosen to be the witnesses both of his Death and Resurrection a testimony which they should bear to him in all parts of the World In order to which he would after his Ascension pour out his Spirit upon them in larger measures than they had hitherto received that they might be the better fortified to grapple with that violent rage and sury wherewith both Men and Devils would endeavour to oppose them and that in the mean time they should return to Jerusalem and stay till these miraculous powers were from on high conferred upon them His discourse being ended laying his hands upon them he gave them his solemn blessing which done he was immediately taken from them and being attended with a glorious guard and train of Angels was received up into Heaven Antiquity tells us that in the place where he last trod upon the rock the impression of his feet did remain which could never afterwards be fill'd up or impaired over which Helena mother of the Great Constantine afterwards built a little Chappel called the Chappel of the Ascension in the floor whereof upon a whitish kind of stone modern Travellers tell us that the impression of his Foot is shewed at this day but 't is that of his right foot only the other being taken away by the Turks and as 't is said kept in the Temple at Jerusalem Our Lord being thus taken from them the Apostles were filled with a greater sense of his glory and majesty than while he was wont familiarly to converse with them and having performed their solemn adorations to him returned back to Jerusalem waiting for the promise of the Holy Ghost which was shortly after conferred upon them They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy They who lately were overwhelmed with sorrow at the very mention of their Lord's departure from them entertained it now with joy and triumph being fully satisfied of his glorious advancement at God's right hand and of that particular care and providence which they were sure he would exercise towards them in pursuance of those great trusts he had committed to them SECT VII S. Peter's Acts from our Lord's Ascension till the Dispersion of the Church The Apostles return to Jerusalem The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-room where they assembled what Peter declares the necessity of a new Apostles being chosen in the room of Judas The promise of the Holy Ghost made good upon the day of Pentecost The Spirit descended in the likeness of siery cloven tongues and why The greatness of the Miracle Peter's vindication of the Apostles from the standers of the Jews and proving Christ to be the promised Messiah Great numbers converted by his Sermon His going up to the Temple What their stated hours of Prayer His curing the impotent Cripple there and discourse to the Jews upon it What numbers converted by him Peter and John seised and cast into Prison Brought before the Sanhedrim and their resolute carriage there Their refusing to obey when commanded not to preach Christ. The great security the Christian Religion provides sor subjection to Magistrates in all lawful instances of Obedience The great severity used by Peter towards Ananias and Saphira The great Miracles wrought by him Again cast into Prison and delivered by an Angel Their appearing before the Sanhedrim and deliverance by the prudent counsels of Gamaliel 1. THE Holy Jesus being gone to Heaven the Apostles began to act according to the Power and Commission he had left with them In order whereunto the first thing they did after his Ascension was to fill up the vacancy in their Colledge lately made by the unhappy fall and Apostasie of Judas To which end no sooner were they returned to Jerusalem but they went 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into an upper-room Where this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was whether in the house of S. John or of Mary John-Mark's mother or in some of the out-rooms belonging to the Temple for the Temple had over the Cloisters several Chambers for the service of the Priests and Levites and as Repositories where the consecrated Vessels and Utensils of the Temple were laid up though it be not probable that the Jews and especially the Priests would suffer the Apostles and their company to be so near the Temple I stand not to enquire 'T is certain that the Jews usually had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 private Oratories in the upper parts of their houses called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the more private exercises of their devotions Thus Daniel had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his upper-Chamber 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LXX render it whither he was wont to retire to pray to his God and Benjamin the Jew tells us that in his time Ann. Chr. 1172. the Jews at Babylon were wont to pray both in their Synagogues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in that ancient upper-room of Daniel which the Prophet himself built Such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-Chamber was that wherein S. Paul preached at Troas and such probably this where the Apostles were now met together and in all likelihood the same where our Lord had lately kept the Passeover where the Apostles and the Church were assembled on the day of Pentecost and which was then the usual place of their Religious Assemblies as we have elsewhere observed more at large Here the Church being met to the number of about CXX Peter as President of the Assembly put them in mind that Judas one of
of ancient and later Authors it is referred to the Reign of Nero. 5. SUCH was the end of this miserable and unhappy Man Which no sooner came to the ears of the Emperor to whom by wicked artifices he had indeared himself but it became an occasion of hastning Peter's ruine The Emperor probably had before been displeased with Peter not only upon the account of the general disagreement and inconformity of his Religion but because he had so strictly pressed temperance and chastity and reclaimed so many Women in Rome from a dissolute and vicious life thereby crossing that wanton and lascivious temper to which that Prince was so immoderate a slave and vassal And being now by his means robbed of his dear favorite and companion he resolved upon revenge commanded Peter as also S. Paul who was at this time at Rome to be apprehended and cast into the Mamertine Prison where they spent their time in the exercises of Religion and especially in Preaching to the Prisoners and those who resorted to them And here we may suppose it was if not a little before that Peter wrote his second 〈◊〉 to the dispersed Jews wherein he indeavours to confirm them in the belief and practice of Christianity and to fortifie them against those poysonous and pernicious principles and practices which even then began to break in upon the Christian Church 6. NERO returning from Achaia and entring Rome with a great deal of pomp and triumph resolved now the Apostles should fall as a Victim and Sacrifice to his cruelty and revenge While the fatal stroke was daily expected the Christians in Rome did by daily prayers and importunities solicite S. Peter to make an escape and to reserve himself to the uses and services of the Church This at first he rejected as what would ill reflect upon his courage and constancy and argue him to be afraid of those sufferings for Christ to which he himself had so often perswaded others But the prayers and the tears of the People overcame him and made him yield Accordingly the next Night having prayed with and taken his farewell of the Brethren he got over the Prison-wall and coming to the City-Gate he is there said to have met with our Lord who was just entring into the City Peter asked him Lord whither art thou going from whom he presently received this answer I am come to Rome to be crucified a second time By which answer Peter apprehended himself to be reproved and that our Lord meant it of his death that he was to be recrucified in his Servant Whereupon he went back to the Prison and delivered himself into the hands of his Keepers shewing himself most ready and chearful to acquiesce in the will of God And we are told that in the stone whereon our Lord stood while he talked with Peter he left the impression of his Feet which stone has been ever since preserved as a very sacred Relique and after several translations was at length fixed in the Church of S. Sebastian the Martyr where it is kept and visited with great expressions of reverence and devotion at this day Before his suffering he was no question scourged according to the manner of the Romans who were wont first to whip those Malefactors who were adjudged to the most severe and capital punishments Having saluted his Brethren and especially having taken his last farewell of S. Paul he was brought out of the Prison and led to the top of the Vatican Mount near to Tybur the place designed for his Execution The death he was adjudged to was crucifixion as of all others accounted the most shameful so the most severe and terrible But he intreated the favour of the Officers that he might not be crucified in the ordinary way but might suffer with his Head downwards and his Feet up to Heaven affirming that he was unworthy to suffer in the same posture wherein his Lord had suffered before him Happy man as Chrysostom glosses to be set in the readiest posture of travelling from Earth to Heaven His Body being taken from the Cross is said to have been imbalmed by Marcellinus the Presbyter after the Jewish manner and was then buried in the Vatican near the Triumphal way Over his Grave a small Church was soon after erected which being destroyed by Heliogabalus his Body was removed to the Coemetery in the Appian way two Miles from Rome where it remained till the time of Pope Cornelius who re-conveyed it to the Vatican where it rested somewhat obscurely until the Reign of Constantine who out of the mighty reverence which he had for the Christian Religion caused many Churches to be built at Rome but especially rebuilt and inlarged the Vatican to the honour of S. Peter In the doing whereof Himself is said to have been the first that began to dig the Foundation and to have carried thence twelve Baskets of Rubbish with his own hands in honour as it should seem of the twelve Apostles He infinitely inriched the Church with Gifts and Ornaments which in every Age increased in 〈◊〉 and Riches till it is become one of the wonders of the World at this day Of whose glories stateliness and beauty and those many venerable Monuments of antiquity that are in it they who desire to know more may be plentifully satisfied by Onuphrius Only one amongst the rest must not be forgotten there being kept that very wooden Chair wherein S. Peter sat when he was at Rome by the onely touching whereof many Miracles are said to be performed But surely Baronius his wisdome and gravity were from home when speaking of this Chair and fearing that Heretiques would imagine that it might be rotten in so long a time he tells us that it 's no wonder that this Chair should be preserved so long when Eusebius affirms that the wooden Chair of S. James Bishop of Jerusalem was extant in the time of Constantine But the Cardinal it seems forgot to consider that there is some difference between three and sixteen hundred Years But of this enough S. Peter was crucified according to the common computation in the Year of Christ sixty nine and the 13th or as Eusebius the 14th of Nero how truly may be inquired afterwards SECT X. The Character of his Person and Temper and an Account of his Writings The description of S. Peter's person An account of his Temper A natural fervor and eagerness predominant in him Fierceness and animosity peculiarly remarkable in the Galileans The abatements of his Zeal and courage His humility and lowliness of mind His great love to and zeal for Christ. His constancy and resolution in confessing Christ. His faithfulness and diligence in his Office His Writings genuine and supposititious His first Epistle what the design of it What meant by Babylon whence it was dated His second Epistle a long time questioned and why Difference in the style no considerable objection Grotius his conceit of its
being written by Symeon Bishop of Jerusalem exploded A concurrence of circumstances to entitle S. Peter to it 〈◊〉 things in it referred to which he had preached at Rome particularly the destruction of Jerusalem Written but a little before his death The spurious Writings attributed to him mentioned by the Ancients His Acts. Gospel Petri Praedicatio His Apocalypse Judicium Petri Peter's married relation His Wife the companion of his Travels Her Martyrdom His Daughter 〈◊〉 1. HAVING run through the current History of S. Peter's Life it may not be amiss in the next place to survey a little his Person and Temper His Body if we may believe the description given of him by Nicephorus was somewhat slender of a middle size but rather inclining to tallness his complexion very pale and almost white The hair of his Head and Beard curl'd and thick but withall short though S. Hierom tells us out of Clemens his Periods that he was Bald which probably might be in his declining age his Eyes black but speckt with red which Baronius will have to proceed from his frequent weeping his Eye-brows thin or none at all his Nose long but rather broad and flat than sharp such was the Case and out-side Let us next look inwards and view the Jewel that was within Take him as a Man and there seems to have been a natural eagerness predominant in his Temper which as a Whetstone sharpned his Soul for all bold and generous undertakings It was this in a great measure that made him so forward to speak and to return answers sometimes before he had well considered them It was this made him expose his person to the most eminent danger promise those great things in behalf of his Master and resolutely draw his Sword in his quarrel against a whole Band of Souldiers and wound the High-Priests Servant and possibly he had attempted greater matters had not our Lord restrained and taken him off by that seasonable check that he gave him 2. THIS Temper he owed in a great measure to the Genius and nature of his Country of which Josephus gives this true character That it naturally bred in men a certain fierceness and animosity whereby they were fearlesly carried out upon any action and in all things shew'd a great strength and courage both of mind and body The Galileans says he being 〈◊〉 from their childhood the men being as seldom overtaken with cowardize as their Country with want of men And yet notwithstanding this his fervor and fierceness had its intervals there being some times when the Paroxysms of his heat and courage did intermit and the man was surprised and betrayed by his own fears Witness his passionate crying out when he was upon the Sea in danger of his life and his fearful deserting his Master in the Garden but especially his carriage in the High-Priests Hall when the confident charge of a sorry Maid made him sink so far beneath himself and not withstanding his great and resolute promises so shamefully deny his Master and that with curses and imprecations But he was in danger and passion prevailed over his understanding and fear betrayed the succours which reason offered and being intent upon nothing but the present safety of his life he heeded not what he did when he 〈◊〉 his Master to save himself so dangerous is it to be left to our selves and to have our natural passions let loose upon us 3. CONSIDER him as a Disciple and a Christian and we shall find him exemplary in the great instances of Religion Singular his Humility and the lowliness of mind With what a passionate earnestness upon the conviction of a Miracle did he beg of our Saviour to depart from him accounting himself not worthy that the Son of God should come near so vile a sinner When our Lord by that wonderful condescension stoopt to wash his Apostles feet he could by no means be perswaded to admit it not thinking it sit that so great a person should submit himself to so servile an office towards so mean a person as himself nor could he be induced to accept it till our Lord was in a manner forced to threaten him into obedience When Cornelius heightned in his apprehensions of him by an immediate command from God concerning him would have entertained him with expressions of more than ordinary honour and veneration so far was he from complying with it that he plainly told him he was no other than such a man as himself With how much candor and modesty does he treat the inferiour Rulers and Ministers of the Church He upon whom Antiquity heaps so many honourable titles stiling himself no other than their fellow-Presbyter Admirable his love to and zeal for his Master which he thought he could never express at too high a rate for his sake venturing on the greatest dangers and exposing himself to the most imminent hazards of his life 'T was in his quarrel that he drew his Sword against a Band of Souldiers and an armed multitude and 't was love to his Master drew him into that imprudent advice that he should seek to save himself and avoid those sufferings that were coming upon him that made him promise and engage so deep to suffer and die with him Great was his forwardness in owning Christ to be the Messiah and Son of God which drew from our Lord that honourable Encomium Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah But greater his courage and constancy in confessing Christ before his most inveterate enemies especially after he had recovered himself of his fall With how much plainness did he tell the Jews at every turn to their very faces that they were the Murderers and Crucifiers of the Lord of Glory Nay with what an undaunted courage with what an Heroick greatness of mind did he tell that very Sanhedrim that had sentenced and condemned him that they were guilty of his murder and that they could never be saved any other way than by this very Jesus whom they had crucified and put to death 4. LASTLY let us reflect upon him as an Apostle as a Pastor and Guide of Souls And so we find him faithful and diligent in his office with an infinite zeal endeavouring to instruct the ignorant reduce the erroneous to strengthen the weak and confirm the strong to reclaim the vicious and turn Souls to righteousness We find him taking all opportunities of preaching to the people converting many thousands at once How many voiages and travels did he undergo with how unconquerable a patience did he endure all conflicts and trials and surmount all difficulties and oppositions that he might plant and propagate the Christian Faith Not thinking much to lay down his own life to promote and further it Nor did he only do his duty himself but as one of the prime Superintendents of the Church and as one that was sensible of the value and the worth of Souls he was careful to put others in mind of
him to kick against the pricks that he now appeared to him to make choice of him for a Minister and a 〈◊〉 of what he had now seen and should after hear that he would stand by him and preserve him and make him a great instrument in the conversion of the Gentile World This said He asked our Lord what he would have him to do who bad him go into the City where he should receive his Answer S. Paul's companions who had been present at this transaction heard the voice but saw not him that spoke to him though elsewhere the Apostle himself affirms that they saw the light but heard not the voice of him that spake that is they heard a confused sound but not a distinct and articulate voice or more probably being ignorant of the Hebrew Language wherein our Lord spake to S. Paul they heard the words but knew not the sence and the meaning of them 9. S. PAUL by this time was gotten up but though he found his feet yet he had lost his eyes being stricken blind with the Extraordinary brightness of the light and was accordingly led by his companions into Damascus In which condition he there remained fasting three days together At this time we may probably suppose it was that he had that vision and ecstasie wherein he was taken up into the third Heaven where he saw and heard things great and unutterable and was fully instructed in the mysteries of the Gospel and hence expresly affirms that he was not taught the Gospel which he preached by man but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ. There was at this time at Damascus one Ananias a very devout and religious man one of the seventy Disciples as the Ancients inform us and probably the first planter of the Christian Church in this City and though a Christian yet of great reputation amongst all the Jews To him our Lord appeared commanding him to go into such a street and to such an house and there enquire for one Saul of Tarsus who was now at Prayer and had seen him in a Vision coming to him to lay his hands upon him that 〈◊〉 might receive his sight Ananias startled at the name of the man having heard of his bloudy temper and practises and upon what errand he was now come down to the City But our Lord to take off his fears told him that he mistook the man that he had now taken him to be a chosen vessel to preach the Gospel both to Jews and Gentiles and before the greatest Potentates upon Earth acquainting him with what great things he should both do and suffer for his sake what chains and imprisonments what racks and scourges what hunger and thirst what shipwracks and death he should undergo Upon this Ananias went laid his hands upon him told him that our Lord had sent him to him that he might receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost which was no sooner done but thick films like scales fell from his eyes and his sight returned And the next thing he did was to be baptized and solemnly initiated into the Christian Faith After which he joyned himself to the Disciples of that place to the equal joy and wonder of the Church that the Wolf should so soon lay down its fierceness and put on the meek nature of a Lamb that he who had lately been so virulent a persecutor should now become not a professor only but a preacher of that Faith which before he had routed and destroyed SECT II. Of S. Paul from his Conversion till the Council at Jerusalem S. Paul's leaving Damascus and why His Three Years Ministry in Arabia His return to Damascus The greatness of that City The design of the Jews to surprize S. Paul and the manner of his escape His coming to Jerusalem and converse with Peter and James His departure thence The Disciples first stiled Christians 〈◊〉 Antioch This when done and by whom The solemnity of it The importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what S. Paul's Journey to Jerusalem with contributions His voyage to Cyprus and planting Christianity there The opposition made by Elymas and his severe punishment The Proconsuls conversion His preaching to the Jews at Antioch of Pisidia His curing a Cripple at Lystra and discourse to the people about their Idolatry The Apostles way of arguing noted and his discourse concerning the Being and Providence of God illustrated His confirming the Churches in the Faith The controversie at Antioch and S. Paul's account of it in the Synod at Jerusalem SAINT Paul staid not long at Damascus after his Conversion but having received an immediate intimation from Heaven probably in the Ecstasie wherein he was caught up thither he waited for no other counsel or direction in the case lest he should seem to derive his Mission and Authority from Men and being not disobedient to the Heavenly Vision he presently retired out of the City and the sooner probably to decline the Odium of the Jews and the effects of that rage and malice which he was sure would pursue and follow him He withdrew into the parts of Arabia where he spent the first fruits of his Ministery Preaching up and down for three Years together After which he returned back to Damascus Preached openly in the Synagogues and convinced the Jews of Christ's Messiah-ship and the truth of his Religion Angry and inraged hereat they resolved his Ruine which they knew no better way to effect than by exasperating and incensing the Civil powers against him Damascus was a place not more venerable for its Antiquity if not built by at least it gave title to Abraham's steward hence called Eliezer of Damascus than it was considerable for its strength stateliness and scituation it was the noblest City of all Syria as Justin of old and the Arabian Geographer has since informed us and the Prophet Isaiah before both calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the head of Syria seated in a most healthful Air in a most fruitful Soyl watered with most pleasant Fountains and Rivers rich in Merchandize adorned with stately Buildings goodly and magnificent Temples and fortified with strong Guards and Garrisons in all which respects Julian calls it the Holy and great Damascus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eye of the whole East Scituate it was between Libanus and Mount Hermon and though properly belonging to Syria yet Arabiae retro deputabatur as Tertullian tells us was in after times reckoned to Arabia Accordingly at this time it was under the Government of Aretas Father-in-law to Herod the Tetrarch King of Arabia Petraea a Prince tributary to the Roman Empire By him there was an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Governour who had Jurisdiction over the whole Syria Damascena placed over it who kept constant residence in the City as a place of very great importance To him the Jews made their address with crafty and cunning insinuations perswading him to
attain to though otherwise sunk into the deepest degeneracy and over-spread with the grossest darkness he every where affording such palpable evidences of his own being and providence that he seemed to stand near and touch us It being intirely from him that we derive our life motion and subsistence A thing acknowledged even by their own Poct that We also are his Off-spring If therefore God was our Creator it was highly unreasonable to think that we could make any Image or Representation of Him That it was too long already that the Divine patience had born with the manners of Men and suffered them to go on in their blind Idolatries that now he expected a general repentance and reformation from the World especially having by the publishing of his Gospel put out of all dispute the case of a future judgment and particularly appointed the Holy Jesus to be the Person that should sentence and judge the World By whose Resurrection he had given sufficient evidence and assurance of it No sooner had he mentioned the Resurrection but some of the Philosophers no doubt Epicureans who were wont to laugh at the notion of a future state mocked and derided him others more gravely answered that they would hear him again concerning this matter But his discourse however scorned and slighted did not wholly want its desired effect and that upon some of the greatest quality and rank among them In the number of whom was Dionysius one of the grave Senators and Judges of the Areopagus and Damaris whom the Ancients not improbably make his Wife 8. THIS Dionysius was bred at Athens in all the learned Arts and Sciences at sive and twenty Years of Age he is said to have travelled into Egypt to perfect himself in the study of Astrology for which that Nation had the credit and renown Here beholding the miraculous Eclipse that was at the time of our Saviour's Passion he concluded that some great accident must needs be coming upon the World Returning to Athens he became one of the Senators of the Arcopagus disputed with S. Paul and was by him converted from his Errours and Idolatry and being thoroughly instructed was by him as the Ancients inform us made the first Bishop of Athens As for those that tell us that he went afterwards into France by the direction of Clemens of Rome planted Christianity at and became Bishop of Paris of his suffering Martyrdom there under Domitian his carrying his Head for the space of two Miles in his Hand after it had been cut off and the rest of his Miracles done before and after his Death I have as little leisure to enquire into them as I have faith to believe them Indeed the foundation of all is justly denied viz. that ever he was there a thing never heard of till the times of Charles the Great though since that Volumes have been written of this controversie both heretofore and of later times among which J. Sirmondus the Jesuit and Monsieur Launoy one of the learned Doctors of the Sorbon have unanswerably proved the Athenian and Parisian Dionysius to be distinct Persons For the Books that go under his name M. Daillé has sufficiently evinced them to 〈◊〉 of a date many Hundred Years younger than S. Denys though I doubt not but they may claim a greater Antiquity than what he allows them But whoever was their Author I am sure Suidas has over-stretched the praise of them beyond all proportion when he gives them this character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that whoever considers the elegancy of his discourses and the profoundness of his notions and speculations must needs conclude that they are not the issue of any humane understanding but of some Divine and Immaterial Power But to return to our Apostle SECT IV. Of S. Paul's Acts at Corinth and Ephesus S. Paul's arrival at Corinth The opposition made by the Jews The success of his Preaching upon others His first Epistle to the Thessalonians when written His Arraignment before Gallio The second Epistle to the Thessalonians and the design of it S. Paul's voyage to Jerusalem His coming to Ephesus Disciples baptized into John's Baptism S. Paul's preaching at Ephesus and the Miracles wrought by him Ephesus noted for the study of Magick Jews eminently versed in Charms and Inchantments The Original of the Mystery whence pretended to have been derived The ill attempt of the Sons of Sceva to dipossess Daemons in the name of Christ. S. Paul's doctrine greatly successful upon this sort of men Books of Magick forbidden by the Roman Laws S. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians why and when written Diana's Temple at Ephesus and its great stateliness and magnificence The mutiny against S. Paul raised by Demetrius and his party S. Paul's first Fpistle to the Corinthians upon what occasion written His Epistle to Titus Apollonius Tyanaeus whether at Ephesus at the same time with S. Paul His Miracles pretended to be done in that City 1. AFTER his departure from Athens he went to Corinth the Metropolis of Greece and the residence of the Proconsul of Achaia where he found Aquila and Priscilla lately come from Italy banished out of Rome by the Decree of Claudius And they being of the same trade and profession wherein he had been educated in his youth he wrought together with them lest he should be unnecessarily burdensom unto any which for the same reason he did in some other places Hither after some time Silas and Timothy came to him In the Synagogue he frequently disputed with the Jews and Proselytes reasoning and proving that Jesus was the true Messiah They according to the nature of the men made head and opposed him and what they could not conquer by argument and sorce of reason they endeavoured to carry by noise and clamour mixed with blasphemies and revilings the last refuges of an impotent and baffled cause Whereat to testifie his resentment he shook his Garments and told them since he saw them resolved to pull down vengeance and destruction upon their own heads he for his part was guiltless and innocent and would henceforth address himself unto the Gentiles Accordingly he left them and went into the house of Justus a religious Proselyte where by his preaching and the many miracles which he wrought he converted great numbers to the Faith Amongst which were Crispus the chief Ruler of the Synagogue Gaius and Stephanus who together with their Families embraced the doctrine of the Gospel and were baptized into the Christian Faith But the constant returns of malice and ingratitude are enough to tire the largest charity and cool the most generous resolution therefore that the Apostle might not be discouraged by the restless attempts and machinations of his enemies our Lord appeared to him in a Vision told him that not withstanding the bad success he had hitherto met with there was a great harvest to be gathered in that place that he should not be afraid of his enemies but go
all measures and under the patronage of his name began to set up for a party he severely rebuked them told them that it was Christ not he that was crucified for them that they had not been baptized into his name which he was so far from that he did not remember that he had baptized 〈◊〉 three or four of them and was heartily glad he had baptized no more 〈◊〉 a foundation might have been laid for that suspicion that this Paul whom they so much extolled was no more than a minister of Christ whom our Lord had appointed to plant and build up his Church 4. GREAT was his temperance and sobriety so far from going beyond the bounds of regularity that he abridged himself of the conveniencies of lawful and necessary accommodations frequent his hungrings and thirstings not constrained only but voluntary it 's probably thought that he very rarely drank any Wine certain that by abstinence and mortification he kept under and subdued his body reducing the extravagancy of the sensual appetites to a perfect subjection to the laws of Reason By this means he easily got above the World and its charms and frowns had his mind continually conversant in Heaven his thoughts were fixed there his desires always ascending thither what he taught others he practised himself his conversation was in Heaven and his desires were to depart and to be with Christ this World did neither arrest his affections nor disturb his fears he was not taken with its applause nor frighted with its threatnings he studied not to please men nor valued the censures and judgments which they passed upon him he was not greedy of a great estate or titles of honour or rich presents from men not seeking theirs but them food and raiment was his bill of fare and more than this he never cared for accounting that the less he was clogged with these things the lighter he should march to Heaven especially travelling through a World over-run with troubles and persecutions Upon this account it 's probable he kept himself always within a single life though there want not some of the Ancients who expresly reckon him in the number of the married Apostles as Clemens Alexandrinus Ignatius and some others 'T is true that passage is not to be found in the genuine Epistle of Ignatius but yet is extant in all those that are owned and published by the Church of Rome though they have not been wanting to banish it out of the World having expunged S. Paul's name out of some ancient Manuscripts as the learned Bishop Usher has to their shame sufficiently discovered to the World But for the main of the question we can readily grant it the Scripture seeming most to favour it that though he asserted his power and liberty to marry as well as the rest yet that he lived always a single life 5. HIS kindness and charity was truly admirable he had a compassionate tenderness for the poor and a quick sense of the wants of others To what Church soever he came it was one of his first cares to make provision for the poor and to stir up the bounty of the rich and the wealthy nay himself worked often with his own hands not only to maintain himself but to help and relieve them But infinitely greater was his charity to the Souls of men fearing no dangers refusing no labours going through good and evil report that he might gain men over to the knowledge of the truth reduce them out of the crooked paths of vice and idolatry and set them in the right way to eternal life Nay so insatiable his thirst after the good of Souls that he affirms that rather than his Country-men the Jews should miscarry by not believing and entertaining the Gospel he could be content nay wished that himself might be accursed from Christ for their sake i. e. that he might be anathematized and cut off from the Church of Christ and not only lose the honour of the Apostolate but be reckoned in the number of the abject and execrable persons such as those are who are separated from the communion of the Church An instance of so large and passionate a charity that lest it might not find room in mens belief he ushered it in with this solemn appeal and attestation that he said the truth in Christ and lied not his conscience bearing him witness in the Holy Ghost And as he was infinitely solicitous to gain men over to the best Religion in the World so was he not less careful to keep them from being seduced from it ready to suspect every thing that might corrupt their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ. I am jealous over you with a godly jealousie as he told the Church of Corinth An affection of all others the most active and vigilant and which is wont to inspire men with the most passionate care and concernment for the good of those for whom we have the highest measures of love and kindness Nor was his charity to men greater than his zeal for God endeavouring with all his might to promote the honour of his Master Indeed zeal seems to have had a deep foundation in the natural forwardness of his temper How exceedingly zealous was he while in the Jews Religion of the Traditions of his Fathers how earnest to vindicate and assert the Divinity of the Mosaick dispensation and to persecute all of a contrary way even to rage and madness And when afterwards turned into a right 〈◊〉 it ran with as swift a current carrying him out against all opposition to ruine the kingdom and the powers of darkness to beat down idolatry and to plant the World with right apprehensions of God and the true notions of Religion When at Athens he saw them so much overgrown with the grossest superstition and idolatry giving the honour that was alone due to God to Statues and Images his zeal began to ferment and to boil up into 〈◊〉 of indignation and he could not but let them know the resentments of his mind and how much herein they dishonoured God the great Parent and Maker of the World 6. THIS zeal must needs put him upon a mighty diligence and industry in the execution of his office warning reproving intreating perswading preaching in season and out of season by night and by day by Sea and Land no pains too much to be taken no dangers too great to be overcome For five and thirty years after his Conversion he 〈◊〉 staid long in one place from Jerusalem through Arabia 〈◊〉 Greece round about to Illyricum to Rome and even to the utmost bounds of the Western-world fully preaching the Gospel of Christ Running says S. Hierom from Ocean to Ocean like the Sun in the Heavens of which 't is said His going forth is from the end of the Heaven and his circuit unto the ends of it sooner wanting ground to tread on than a desire to propagate the Faith of Christ.
34. Behold I send unto you prophets and wisemen and scribes some of them ye shall kill and crucifie some of them shall ye scurge in your synagogues and persecute them from Cyty to City The Sacred History sparing in the Acts of the succeeding Apostles and why S. Andrew's Birth-place Kindred and way of Life John the Baptist's Ministry and Discipline S. Andrew educated under his Institution His coming to Christ and 〈◊〉 to be a Disciple His Election to the Apostolate The Province assigned for his Ministry In what places he chiesly preached His barbarous usage at Sinope His planting Christianity at Byzantium and ordaining Stachys Bishop there His travails in Greece and preaching at Patrae in Achaia His arraignment before the Proconsul and resolute defence of the Christian Religion The Proconsul's displeasure against him whence An account of his Martyrdom His preparatory sufferings and crucifixion On what kind of Cross he suffered The Miracles reported to be done by his Body It s translation to Constantinople The great Encomium given of him by one of the Ancients 1. THE Sacred Story which has hitherto been very large and copious in describing the Acts of the two first Apostles is henceforward very sparing in its accounts giving us only now and then a few oblique and accidental remarques concerning the rest and some of them no further mentioned than the meer recording of their Names For what reasons it pleased the Divine wisdom and providence that no more of their Acts should be consigned to Writing by the Pen-men of the Holy story is to us unknown Probably it might be thought convenient that no more account should be given of the first plantations of Christianity in the World than what concerned Judaea and the Neighbour-countries at least the most eminent places of the Roman Empire that so the truth of the Prophetical Predictions might appear which had foretold that the Law of the Messiah should come forth from Sion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Besides that a particular relation of the Acts of so many 〈◊〉 done in so many several Countries might have swell'd the Holy Volumes into too great a bulk and rendred them less serviceable and accommodate to the ordinary use of Christians Among the Apostles that succeed we first take notice of S. Andrew He was born at Bethsaida a City of Galilee standing upon the banks of the Lake of Gennesareth Son to John or Jonas a Fisherman of that Town Brother he was to Simon Peter but whether Elder or Younger the Ancients do not clearly decide though the major part intimate him to have been the younger Brother there being only the single authorlty of Epiphanius on the other side as we have formerly noted He was brought up to his Father's Trade whereat he laboured till our Lord called him from catching Fish to be a Fisher of men for which he was fitted by some preparatory Institutions even before his coming unto Christ. 2. JOHN the Baptist was lately risen in the Jewish Church a Person whom for the efficacy and impartiality of his Doctrine and the extraordinary strictness and austerities of his Life the Jews generally had in great veneration He trained up his Proselytes under the Discipline of Repentance and by urging upon them a severe change and reformation of life prepared them to entertain the Doctrine of the Messiah whose approach he told them was now near at hand representing to them the greatness of his Person and the importance of the design that he was come upon Besides the multitudes that promiscuously flock'd to the Baptists discourses he had according to the manner of the Jewish Masters some peculiar and select Disciples who more constantly attended upon his Lectures and for the most part waited upon his Person In the number of these was our Apostle who was then with him about Jordan when our Saviour who some time since had been baptized came that way upon whose approach the Baptist told them that this was the 〈◊〉 the great Person whom he had so 〈◊〉 spoken of to usher in whose appearing his whole Ministry was but subservient that this was the Lamb of God the true Sacrifice that was to expiate the sins of Mankind Upon this testimony Andrew and another Disciple probably S. John follow our Saviour to the place of his abode Upon which account he is generally by the Fathers and ancient Writers stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the first called Disciple though in a strict sence he was not so for though he was the first of the Disciples that came to Christ yet was he not called till afterwards After some converse with him Andrew goes to acquaint his Brother Simon and both together came to Christ. Long they stayed not with him but returned to their own home and to the exercise of their calling wherein they were imployed when somewhat more than a Year after our Lord passing through Galilee found them 〈◊〉 upon the Sea of Tiberias where he fully satisfied them of the Greatness and Divinity of his Person by the convictive evidence of that miraculous draught of Fishes which they took at his command And now he told them he had other work for them to do that they should no longer deal in Fish but with Men whom they should catch with the efficacy and influence of that Doctrine that he was come to deliver to the World commanding them to follow him as his immediate Disciples and Attendants who accordingly left all and followed him Shortly after S. Andrew together with the rest was called to the Office and Honour of the Apostolate made choice of to be one of those that were to be Christ's immediate Vice-gerents for planting and propagating the Christian Church Little else is particularly recorded of him in the Sacred story being comprehended in the general account of the rest of the Apostles 3. AFTER our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and that the Holy 〈◊〉 had in its miraculous powers been plentifully shed upon the Apostles to fit them for the great errand they were to go upon to root out prophaneness and idolatry and to subdue the World to the Doctrine of the Gospel it is generally affirmed by the Ancients that the Apostles agreed among themselves by lot say some probably not without the special guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost what parts of the World they should severally take In this division S. Andrew had Scythia and the Neighbouring Countries primarily allotted him for his Province First then he travelled through Cappadocia Galatia and Bithynia and instructed them in the Faith of Christ pasling all along the Euxin Sea formerly called Axenus from the barbarous and inhospitable temper of the People thereabouts who were wont to sacrifice strangers and of their skulls to make Cups to drink in in their Feasts and Banquets and so into the solitudes of Scythia An ancient Author though whence deriving his intelligence I know not gives us a more particular
destroy himself but live and enjoy with him the pleasures of this life The Apostle told him that he should have with him eternal joys if renouncing his execrable idolatries he would heartily entertain Christianity which he had hitherto so successfully preached amongst them That answered the Proconsul is the very reason why I am so earnest with you to sacrifice to the Gods that those whom you have every where seduced may by your example be brought to return back to that ancient Religion which they have forsaken Otherwise I 'le cause you with exquisites tortures to be crucified The Apostle replied That now he saw it was in vain any longer to deal with him a person incapable of sober counsels and hardned in his own blindness and folly that as for himself he might do his worst and if he had one torment greater than another he might heap that upon him The greater constancy he shewed in his sufferings for Christ the more acceptable he should be to his Lord and Master AEgeas could now hold no longer but passed the sentence of death upon him and Nicephorus gives us some more particular account of the Proconsul's displeasure and rage against him which was that amongst others he had converted his wife Maximilla and his brother Stratocles to the Christian Faith having cured them of desperate distempers that had seised upon them 7. THE Proconsul first commanded him to be scourged seven Lictors successively whipping his naked body and seeing his invincible patience and constancy commanded him to be crucified but not to be fastned to the Cross with Nails but Cords that so his death might be more lingring and tedious As he was led to execution to which he went with a chearful and composed mind the people cried out that he was an innocent and good man and unjustly condemned to die Being come within sight of the Cross he saluted it with this kind of address That he had long desired and expected this happy hour that the Cross had been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it and adorned with his members as with so many inestimable Jewels that he came joyfull and triumphing to it that it might receive him as a disciple and follower of him who once hung upon it and be the means to carry him safe unto his Master having been the instrument upon which his Master had redeemed him Having prayed and exhorted the people to constancy and perseverance in that Religion which he had delivered to them he was fastned to the Cross whereon he hung two days teaching and instructing the people all the time and when great importunities in the mean while were used to the Proconsul to spare his life he earnestly begged of our Lord that he might at this time depart and seal the truth of his Religion with his bloud God heard his prayer and he immediately expired on the last of November though in what year no certain account can be recovered 8. THERE seems to have been something peculiar in that Cross that was the instrument of his martyrdom commonly affirmed to have been a Cross decussate two pieces of Timber crossing each other in the middle in the form of the letter X hence usually known by the name of S. Andrew's Cross though there want not those who affirm him to have been crucified upon an Olive Tree His body being taken down and embalmed was decently and honourably interred by Maximilla a Lady of great quality and estate and whom Nicephorus I know not upon what ground makes wise to the Proconsul As for that report of Gregory Bishop of Tours that on the Anniversary day of his Martyrdom there was wont to flow from S. Andrew's Tomb a most fragrant and precious oyl which according to its quantity denoted the scarceness or plenty of the following year and that the sick being anointed with this oyl were restored to their former health I leave to the Readers discretion to believe what he please of it For my part if any ground of truth in the story I believe it no more than that it was an exhalation and sweating sorth at some times of those rich costly perfumes and ointments wherewith his Body was embalmed after his crucisixion Though I must confess this conjecture to be impossible if it be true what my Author adds that some years the oyl burst out in such plenty that the stream arose to the middle of the Church His Body was afterwards by Constantine the Great solemnly removed to Constantinople and buried in the great Church which he had built to the honour of the Apostles Which being taken down some hundred years after by Justinian the Emperor in order to its reparation the Body was found in a wooden-Coffin and again reposed in its proper place 9. I SHALL conclude the History of this Apostle with that Encomiastick Character which one of the Ancients gives of him S. Andrew was the first-born of the Apostolick Quire the main and prime pillar of the Church a rock before the rock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of that foundation the first-fruits of the beginning a caller of others before he was called himself he preached that Gospel that was not yet believed or entertained revealed and made known that life to his brother which he had not yet perfectly learn'd himself So great treasures did that one question bring him Master where dwellest thou which he soon perceived by the answer given him and which he deeply pondered in his mind come and see How art thou become a Prophet whence thus Divinely skilful what is it that thou thus soundest in Peter's ears We have found him c. why dost thou attempt to compass him whom thou canst not comprehend how can he be found who is Omnipresent But he knew well what he said We have found him whom Adam lost whom Eve injured whom the clouds of sin have hidden from us and whom our transgressions had hitherto made a stranger to us c. So that of all our Lord's Apostles S. Andrew had thus far the honour to be the first Preacher of the Gospel The End of S. Andrew's Life THE LIFE OF S. JAMES the Great St. Iames Major He being the Son of Zebedee was at the Command of Herod beheaded at Hierusalem Ad. 122 St. James the Great his Martyrdom Act. 12. 1 2. About that time Herod the King streched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church And he killed James the brother of John with y e sword S. James why surnamed the Great His Country and kindred His alliance to Christ. His Trade and way of Life Our Lord brought up to a Manual Trade The quick reparteé of a Christian Schoolmaster to Libanius His being called to be a Disciple and great readiness to follow Christ. His election to the Apostolick Office and peculiar favours from Christ. Why our Lord chose some few of the Apostles to be witnesses of the more private passages of his
he was to undergo to drink of that bitter Cup which he was to drink of and to go through that Baptism wherein he was shortly to be baptized in his own blood Our Apostles were not yet cured of their ambitious humour but either not understanding the force of our Saviour's reasonings or too confidently presuming upon their own strength answered that they could do all this But he the goodness of whose nature ever made him put the best and most candid interpretation upon mens words and actions yea even those of his greatest enemies did not take the advantage of their hasty and inconsiderate reply to treat them with sharp and quick reproofs but mildly owning their forwardness to suffer told them that as for sufferings they should indeed suffer as well as he and so we accordingly find they did S. James after all dying a violent death S. John enduring great miseries and torments and might we believe Chrysostom and Theophylact Martyrdom it self though others nearer to those times assure us he died a natural death but for any peculiar honour or dignity he would not by an absolute and peremptory favour of his own dispose it any otherwise than according to those rules and instructions which he had received of his Father The rest of the Apostles were offended with this ambitious request of the Sons of Zebedee but our Lord to calm their passions discoursed to them of the nature of the Evangelick state that it was not here as in the Kingdoms and seignteuries of this World where the great ones receive homage and fealty from those that are under them but that in his service humility was the way to honour that who ever took most pains and did most good would be the greatest Person pre-eminence being here to be measured by industry and diligence and a ready condescension to the meanest offices that might be subservient to the Souls of Men and that this was no more than what he sufficiently taught them by his own Example being come into the World not to be served himself with any pompous circumstances of state and splendor but to serve others and to lay down his life for the redemption of Mankind With which discourse the storm blew over and their exorbitant passions began on all hands to be allayed and pacified 7. WHAT became of S. James after our Saviour's Ascension we have no certain account either from Sacred or Ecclesiastick stories Sophronius tells us that he preached to the dispersed Jews which surely he means of that dispersion that was made of the Jewish Converts after the death of Stephen The Spanish writers generally contend that having preached the Gospel up and down 〈◊〉 and Samaria after the death of Stephen he came to these Western parts and particularly into Spain some add Britain and Ircland where he planted Christianity and appointed some select Disciples to perfect what he had begun and then returned back to Jerusalem Of this are no footsteps in any Ancient writers earlier than the middle Ages of the Church when 't is mentioned by Isidore the Breviary of Toledo an Arabick Book of Anastasius Patriarch of Antioch concerning the Passions of the 〈◊〉 and some others after them Nay Baronius himself though endeavouring to render the account as smooth and plausible as he could and to remove what objections lay against it yet after all confesses he did it only to shew that the thing was not impossible nor to be accounted such a monstrous and extravagant Fable as some men made it to be as indeed elsewhere he plainly and peremptorily both denies and disproves it He could not but see that the shortness of this Apostle's Life the Apostles continuing all in one intire body at Jerusalem even after the dispersing of the other Christians probably not going out of the bounds of 〈◊〉 for many years after our Lord's Ascension could not comport with so tedious and difficult a voyage and the time which he must necessarily spend in those parts And therefore 't is 〈◊〉 to confine his ministry to Judaea and the parts thereabouts and to seek for him at Jerusalem where we are sure to find him 8. HEROD Agrippa son of Aristobulus and Grandchild of Herod the Great under whom Christ was born had been in great favour with the late Emperor Caligula but much more with his successor Claudius who confirmed his predecessors grant with the addition of Judaea Samaria and Abylene the remaining portions of his Grandfathers dominions Claudius being setled in the Empire over comes Herod from Rome to take possession and to manage the affairs of his new acquired Kingdom A Prince noble and generous prudent and politick throughly versed in all the arts of Courtship able to oblige enemies and to 〈◊〉 or decline the displeasure of the Emperor witness his subtil and cunning insinuations to Caligula when he commanded the Jews to account him a God he was one that knew let the wind blow which way it would how to gain the point he aimed at of a courteous and affable demeanour but withall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mighty zealot for the Jewish Religion and a most accurate observer of the Mosaick Law keeping himself free from all legal impurities and suffering no day to pass over his head in which he himself was not present at sacrifice Being desirous in the entrance upon his sovereignty to insinuate himself into the favour of the populacy and led no less by his own zealous inclination he saw no better way than to fall heavy upon the Christians a sort of men whom he knew the Jews infinitely hated as a novel and an upstart Sect whose Religion proclaimed open desiance to the Mosaick Institutions Hereupon he began to raise a persecution but alas the commonalty were too mean a sacrifice to fall as the only victim to his zeal and popular designs he must have a fatter and more honourable sacrifice It was not long before S. James his stirring and active temper his bold reproving of the Jews and vigorous contending for the truth and excellency of the Christian Religion rendred him a sit object for his turn Him he commands to be apprehended cast into prison and sentence of death to be passed upon him As he was led forth to the place of Martyrdom the Souldier or Officer that had guarded him to the Tribunal or rather his Accuser and so Suidas expresly tells us it was having been convinced by that mighty courage and constancy which S. James shewed at the time of his trial repented of what he done came and fell down at the Apostle's feet and heartily begged pardon for what he said against him The holy man after a little surprise at the thing raised him up embraced and kissed him Peace said he my son peace be to thee and the pardon of thy faults Whereupon before them all he publickly professed himself to be a Christian and so both were
beheaded at the same time Thus fell S. James the Apostolick Proto-Martyr the first of that number that gained the Crown chearfully taking that cup which he had long since told his Lord he was most ready to drink of 9. BUT the Divine vengeance that never sleeps suffered not the death of this innocent and righteous man to pass long unrevenged of which though S. Luke gives us but a short account yet Josephus who might himself remember it being a youth at that time of seven or eight years of age sets down the story with its particular circumstances agreeing almost exactly with the Sacred Historian Shortly after S. James his Martyrdom Herod removed to Caesarea being resolved to make war upon the neighbouring Tyrians and Sidonians While he was here he proclaimed solemn sights and Festival entertainments to be held in honour of Caesar to which there flocked a great confluence of all the Nobility thereabouts Early in the morning on the second day he came with great state into the Theatre to make an Oration to the people being clothed in a Robe all over curiously wrought with silver which encountring with the beams of the rising Sun reflected such a lustre upon the eyes of the people who make sensible appearances the only true measures of greatness as begot an equal wonder and veneration in them crying out prompted no doubt by flatterers who began the cry that it was some Deity which they beheld and that he who spake to them must be something above the ordinary standard of humanity This impious applause Herod received without any token of dislike or sense of that injury that was hereby done to the supreme Being of the World But a sudden accident changed the scene and turned the Gomick part into a black fatal Tragedy Looking up he espied an Owle sitting upon a rope over his head as probably also he did an Angel for so S. Luke mentions it which he presently beheld as the fatal messenger of his death as heretofore it had been of his prosperity and success An incurable melancholy immediately seised upon his mind as exquisite torments did upon his bowels caused without question by those 〈◊〉 S. Luke speaks of which immediately fed and preyed upon him Behold said he turning to those about him the Deity you admired and your selves evidently convinced of flattery and falshood see me here by the Laws of Fate condemned to die whom just now you stiled immortal Being removed into the Palace his pains still encreased upon him and though the people mourned and wept fasted and prayed for his life and health yet his acute torments got the upper hand and after five days put a period to his life But to return to S. James 10. BEING put to death his Body is said to have taken a second voyage into Spain where we are with confidence enough told it rests at this day Indeed I meet with a very formal account of its translation thither written says the Publisher above DC years since by a Monk of the Abby of La-Fleury in France The summ whereof is this The Apostles at Jerusalem designing Ctesiphon for Spain ordained him Bishop and others being joyned to his assistance they took the Body of S. James and went on board a Ship without Oars without a Pilot or any to steer and conduct their voyage trusting only to the merits of that Apostle whose remains they carried along with them In seven days they arrived at a Port in Spain where landing the Corps was suddenly taken from them and with great appearances of an extraordinary light from Heaven conveyed they knew not whither to the place of its interment The men you may imagine were exceedingly troubled that so great a treasure should be ravished from them but upon their prayers and tears they were conducted by an Angel to the place where the Apostle was buried twelve miles from the Sea Here they addressed themselves to a rich Noble Matron called Luparia who had a great Estate in those parts but a severe Idolatress begging of her that they might have leave to intomb the bones of the holy Apostle within her jurisdiction She entertained them with contempt and scorn with curses and execrations bidding them go and ask leave of the King of the Country They did so but were by him treated with all the instances of rage and fury and pursued by him till himself perished in the attempt They returned back to their Gallaecian Matron whom by many miracles and especially the destroying a Dragon that miserably infested those parts they at last made Convert to the Faith who thereupon commanded her Images to be broken the Altars to be demolished and her own Idol-Temple being cleansed and purged to be dedicated to the honour of S. James by which means Christianity mightily prevailed and triumphed over Idolatry in all those Countries This is the summ of the Account call it Romance or History which I do not desire to impose any further upon the Readers faith than he shall find himself disposed to believe it I add no more than that his Body was afterwards translated from Iria Flavia the place of its first repose to Compostella Though a Learned person will have it to have been but one and the same place and that after the story of S. James had gotten some footing in the belief of men it began to be called ad Jacobum Apostolum thence in after-times Giacomo 〈◊〉 which was at last jumbled into Compostella where it were to tire both the Reader and my self to tell him with what solemn veneration and incredible miracles reported to be done here this Apostle's reliques are worshipped at this day Whence Baronius calls it the great store-house of Miracles lying open to the whole World and wisely confesses it one of the best arguments to prove that his Body was translated thither And I should not scruple to be of his mind could I be assured that such Miracles were truly done there The End of the Life of S. James the Great THE LIFE OF S. JOHN S. IOHN Evangelist Having lived to a great age he died at Ephesus 68 years after our Lords Passion and was Buried neere that City Baron S t John put into a Cauldron of boyling oyl Joh. 21. 21 32. Peter sait Lord what shall this man do Jesus saith unto hun if I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee 1 Pet. 4. 12. Think it not strange concerning I fiery trial that is to try you as though some strange thing hapned to you His kindred and relations whether eminent for Nobility The peculiar favours conferred upon him by our Saviour His lying in our Lord's Bosom His attending at the crucifixion Our Lord 's committing the Blessed Virgin to his care The great intimacy between him and Peter How long he resided at Jerusalem Asia his Apostolical Province His planting Christianity there and in other parts of the East His being sent prisoner to
Rome and being put into a Caldron of boiling Oil by the command of Domitian His banishment into Patmos Transportation what kind of punishment Capitis Diminutio what His writing the Apocalypse there The tradition of his hand wherewith he wrote it being still kept there His return to Ephesus and governing the affairs of that Province His great Age and Death The fancy of his being still alive whence derived by the Ancients The Tradition of his going alive into his Grave and sleeping there Several counterfeits pretending themselves to be S. John His Celibacy whether he was ever married His humility His admirable love and charity and hearty recommending it to the last His charity to mens Souls His endangering himself to reclaim 〈◊〉 debauched young man His singular vigilancy against Hereticks and Seducers His publick disowning Cerinthus his company Cerinthus who and what his principles The Heresie of Ebion what Nicolaitans who whence their Original An account of Nicolas the Deacon's separating from his Wife The vile principles and practises of his pretended followers S. John's writings His Revelation Dionysius Alexandrinus his judgment concerning it and its Author Asserted and proved to be S. John's The ground of doubting what His Gospel when and where written The solemn 〈◊〉 and causes moving him to undertake it The subject of it sublime and mysterious Admired and cited by Heathen Philosophers It s Translation into Hebrew His first Epistle and the design of it His two other Epistles to whom written and why not admitted of old His 〈◊〉 and way of writing considered The great Encomium given of his writings by the ancient Fathers 1. SAINT John was a Galilean the Son of Zebedee and Salome younger Brother to S. James together with whom he was brought up in the Trade of Fishing S. 〈◊〉 makes him remarkable upon the account of his Nobility whereby he became acquainted with the High-Priest and resolutely ventured himself amongst the Jews at our Saviour's Trial prevailed to introduce Peter into the Hall was the only Apostle that attended our Lord at his Crucifixion and afterwards durst own his Mother and keep her at his own house But the nobility of his Family and especially that it should be such as to procure him so much respect from persons of the highest rank and quality seems not reconcileable with the meanness of his Father's Trade and the privacy of his fortunes And for his acquaintance with the High-Priest I should rather put it upon some other account especially if it be true what Nicephorus relates That he had lately sold his Estate left him by his Father in Galilee to Annas the High-Priest and had therewith purchased a fair house at Jerusalem about Mount Sion whence he became acquainted with him Before his coming to Christ he seems for some time to have been Disciple to John the Baptist being probably that other disciple that was with Andrew when they left the Baptist to follow our Saviour so particularly does he relate all circumstances of that transaction though modestly as in other parts of his Gospel concealing his own name He was at the same time with his Brother called by our Lord both to the Discipleship and Apostolate by far the youngest of all the Apostles as the Ancients generally affirm and his great Age seems to evince living near LXX years after our Saviour's suffering 2. THERE is not much said concerning him in the 〈◊〉 story more than what is recorded of him in conjunction with his Brother James which we have already remarked in his life He was peculiarly dear to his Lord and Master being the Disciple whom Jesus loved that is treated with more freedom and familiarity than the rest And indeed he was not only one of the Three whom our Saviour made partakers of the private passages of his life but had some instances of a more particular kindness and favour conferred upon him Witness his lying in our Saviour's bosom at the Paschal Supper it being the custom of those times to lie along at meals upon Couches so that the second lay with his head in the bosom of him that was before him this honourable place was not given to any of the Aged but reserved for our Apostle Nay when Peter was desirous to know which of them our Saviour meant when he told them that one of them should betray him and durst not himself propound the question he made use of S. John whose familiarity with him might best warrant such an enquiry to ask our Lord who thereupon made them understand 't was Judas whom he designed by the Traitor This favour our Apostle endeavoured in some measure to answer by returns of particular kindness and constancy to our Saviour staying with him when the rest deserted him Indeed upon our Lord's first apprehension he fled after the other Apostles it not being without some probabilities of reason that the Ancients conceive him to have been that young man that followed after Christ having a linen cloath cast about his naked body whom when the Officers laid hold upon he left the linen cloath and fled naked from them This in all likelihood was that garment that he had cast about him at Supper for they had peculiar Vestments for that purpose and being extremely affected with the Treason and our Lord 's approaching Passion had forgot to put on his other garments but followed him into the Garden in the same habit wherewith he arose from the Table it being then night and so less liable to be taken notice of either by himself or others But though he 〈◊〉 at present to avoid that sudden violence that was offered to him yet he soon recovered himself and returned back to seek his Master confidently entred into the High-Priests Hall and followed our Lord through the several passages of his Trial and at last waited upon him and for any thing we know was the only Apostle that did so at his Execution owning him as well as being own'd by him in the midst of arms and guards and in the thickest crowds of his most inveterate enemies Here it was that our Lord by his last Will and Testament made upon the Cross appointed him Guardian of his own Mother the Blessed Virgin When he saw his Mother and the Disciple standing by whom he loved he said unto his Mother Woman behold thy Son see here is one that shall supply my place and be to thee instead of a Son to love and honour thee to provide and take care for thee and to the Disciple he said Behold thy Mother Her whom thou shalt henceforth deal with treat and observe with that duty and honourable regard which the relation of an indulgent Mother challenges from a pious and obedient Son whereupon he took her into his own House her Husband Joseph being some time since dead and made her a principal part of his charge and care And certainly the Holy Jesus could not have given a more honourable testimony of his
there but the Grave clothes which he had left behind him To all which let me add while my hand is in these things what Ephrem relates that from this Grave wherein he rested so short a time a kind of Sacred Oil or Unguent was wont to be gathered Gregory of Tours says 't was Manna which even in his time like flour was cast up from the Sepulohre and was carried up and down the World for the curing of diseases This report of our Apostles being yet alive some men made use of to wild and phantastick purposes Beza tells us of an Impostor in his time whom Postellus who vainly boasted that he had the Soul of Adam was wont to call his Brother who publickly prosessed himself to be our S. John and was afterwards burnt at Tholose in France Nor was this any more than what was done in the more early Ages of Christianity For Sulpitius Severus giving us an account of a young Spaniard that first professed himself to be Elias and then Christ himself adds That there was one at the same time in the East who gave out himself to be S. John So fast will Error like circles in the water multiply it self and one mistaken place of Scripture give countenance to an hundred stories that shall be built upon it I have no more to add but what we meet with in the Arabick writer of his life though it little agrees with the preceding passages who reports that there were none present at his burial but his disciple Phogsir probably Proghor or Prochorus one of the seven Deacons and generally said to have been S. John's companion and assistent whom he strictly charged never to discover his Sepulchre to any it may be for the same reason for which it is thought God concealed the body of Moses to prevent the Idolatrous worshipping of his Reliques And accordingly the Turks who conceit him to be buried in the confines of Lydia pay great honour and veneration to his Tomb. 10. S. JO H N seems always to have led a single life and so the Ancients tell us nay S. Ambrose positively affirms that all the Apostles were married except S. John and S. Paul There want not indeed some and especially the middle Writers of the Church who will have our Apostle to have been married and that it was his marriage which our Lord was at in Cana of Galilee invited thither upon the account of his consanguinity and alliance But that being convinced by the Miracle of the Water turned into Wine he immediately quitted his conjugal relation and became one of our Lord's Disciples But this as 〈◊〉 himself confesses is trifling and the issue of fabulous invention a thing wholly unknown to the Fathers and best Writers of the Church and which not only has no just authority to support it but arguments enough to beat it down As for his natural temper he seems as we have observed in his Brother's Life to have been of a more eager and resolute disposition easily apt to be inflamed and provoked which his reduced Age brought to a more staid and a calmer temper He was polished by no study or arts of Learning but what was wanting in that was abundantly made up in the excellent temper and constitution of his mind and that furniture of Divine graces which he was adorned withall His humility was admirable studiously concealing his own worth and honour in all his Epistles as Eusebius long since observed he never puts down the honourable Titles of Apostle or Evangelist but only stiles himself and that too but sometimes Presbyter or Elder alluding probably to his Age as much as Office in his Gospel when he speaks of the Disciple whom Jesus loved he constantly conceals his own name leaving the Reader to conjecture who was meant Love and Charity he practised himself and affectionately pressed upon others our Lord 's great love to him seems to have inspired his Soul with a bigger and more generous charity than the rest 'T is the great vein that runs through his writings and especially his Epistles where he urges it as the great and peculiar Law of Christianity and without which all other pretences to Christian Religion are vain and frivolous useless and insignificant And this was his constant practice to his dying day When Age and weakness grew upon him at Ephesus that he was no longer able to preach to them he used at every publick meeting to be led to the Church and say no more to them than Little children love one another And when his Auditors wearied with the constant repetition of the same thing asked him why he always spoke the same he answered Because it was the command of our Lord and that if they did nothing else this alone was enough 11. BUT the largest measures of his Charity he expressed in the mighty care that he shewed to the Souls of men unweariedly spending himself in the service of the Gospel travelling from East to West to leaven the World with the principles of that holy Religion which he was sent to propagate patiently enduring all torments breaking through all difficulties and discouragements shunning no dangers that he might do good to Souls redeem mens minds from error and idolatry and reduce them from the snares of a debauched and a vicious life Witness one famous instance In his visitation of the Churches near to Ephesus he made choice of a young man whom with a special charge for his instruction and education he committed to the Bishop of that place The 〈◊〉 man undertook the charge instructed his Pupil and baptized him And then thinking he might a little remit the reins of discipline the youth made an ill use of his liberty and was quickly debauched by bad companions making himself Captain to a company of High-way men the most loose cruel and profligate wretches of the Country S. John at his return understanding this and sharply reproving the negligence and unfaithfulness of his Tutor resolved to find him out And without any consideration of what danger he entred upon in venturing himself upon persons of desperate fortunes and forfeited consciences he went to the mountains where their usual haunt was and being here taken by the Sentinel he desired to be brought before their Commander who no sooner espied him coming towards him but immediately fled The aged Apostle followed after but not able to overtake him passionately intreated him to stay promising him to undertake with God for his peace and pardon He did so and both melted into tears and the Apostle having prayed with and for him returned him a true Penitent and Convert to the Church This story we have elsewhere related more at large out of 〈◊〉 as he does from Clemens Alexandrinus since which that Tract it self of Clemens is made publick to the World 12. NOR was it the least instance of his care of the Church and charity to the Souls of men
elegant there being an accuracy in the contexture both of words and matter that runs through all the reasonings of his discourses but that in the Apocalypse the stile is nothing so pure and clear being frequently mixed with more barbarous and improper phrases Indeed his Greek generally abounds with Syriasms his discourses many times abrupt set off with frequent antitheses connected with copulatives passages often repeated things at first more obscurely propounded and which he is forced to enlighten with subsequent explications words peculiar to himself and phrases used in an uncommon sence All which concur to render his way of writing less grateful possibly to the Masters of eloquence and an elaborate curiosity S. Hierom observes that in citing places out of the Old Testament he more immediately translates from the Hebrew Original studying to render things word for word for being an Hebrew of the Hebrews admirably skill'd in the Language of his Country it probably made him less exact in his Greek composures wherein he had very little advantage besides what was immediately communicated from above But whatever was wanting in the politeness of his stile was abundantly made up in the zeal of his temper and the excellency and sublimity of his matter he truly answered his Name Boanerges spake and writ like a Son of Thunder Whence it is that his Writings but especially his Gospel have such great and honourable things spoken of them by the Ancients The Evangelical writings says S. Basil transcend the other parts of the Holy Volumes in other parts God speaks to us by Servants the Prophets but in the Gospels our Lord himself speaks to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but among all the Evangelical Preachers none like S. John the Son of Thunder for the sublimeness of his speech and the heighth of his discourses beyond any Man's capacity duly to reach and comprehend S. John as a true Son of Thunder says Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a certain greatness of speech peculiar to himself does as it were out of the Clouds and the dark recesses of wisdome acquaint us with Divine Doctrines concerning the Son of God To which let me add what S. Cyril of Alexandria among other things says concerning him that whoever looks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the sublimity of his incomprehensible notions the acumen and sharpness of his reason and the quick inferences of his discourses constantly succeeding and following upon one another must needs confess that his Gospel perfectly exceeds all admiration The End of S. John's Life THE LIFE OF S. PHILIP S t Philip After he had converted all Scythia he was at Hierapolis a City of Asia first crucified and then stoned to death Baron May. 1o. St. Philip's Martyrdom Act. 5. 30. Whom ye slew hanged on a tree Matth. 10. 24 25. The disciple is not above his master nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. Galilee generally despised by the Jews and why The honour which our Lord put upon it S. Andrew's birth-place His being first called to be a Disciple and the manner of it An account of his ready obedience to Christ's call What the 〈◊〉 relate concerning him considered The discourse between our Lord and him concerning the knowledge of the Father His preaching the Gospel in the upper Asia and the happy effects of his Ministry His coming to Hierapolis in Phrygia and successful confutation of their Idolatries The rage and fury of the Magistrates against him His Martyrdom Crucifixion and Burial His married condition The confounding him with Philip the Deacon The Gospel forged by the Gnosticks under his name 1. OF all parts of Palestine Galilee seem to have passed under the greatest character of ignominy and reproach The Country it self because bordering upon the Idolatrous 〈◊〉 Nations called Galilee of the Gentiles the people generally beheld as more rude and boisterous more unpolished and barbarous than the rest not remarkable either for Civility or Religion The Galileans received him having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the Feast for they also went up unto the Feast as if it had been a wonder and a matter of very strange remark to 〈◊〉 so much devotion in them as to attend the solemnity of the Passeover Indeed both Jew and Gentile conspired in this that they thought they could not fix a greater title of reproach upon our Saviour and his followers than that of Galilean Can any good thing come out of Nazareth a City in this Province said Nathanael concerning Christ. Search and look say the Pharisees for out of Galilee ariseth no Prophet as if nothing but briers and thorns could grow in that soil But there needs no more to confute this ill-natured opinion than that our Lord not only made choice of it as the seat of his ordinary 〈◊〉 and retreat but that hencehe chose those excellent persons whom he made his Apostles the great instruments to convert the World Some of these we have already given an account of and more are yet behind 2. OF this number was S. Philip born at Bethsaida a Town near the Sea of Tiberias the City of Andrew and Peter Of his Parents and way of life the History of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no notice though 〈◊〉 he was a Fisherman the Trade general of that 〈◊〉 He had the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honour of being first called to the Discipleship 〈◊〉 thus came to pass Our Lord soon after his return from the wilderness having met with Andrew and his brother Peter after some short discourse parted from them And the very next day as he was passing through Galilee he found Philip whom he presently commanded to follow him the constant form which he used in making choice of his Disciples and those that did inseparably attend upon him So that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or prerogative of being first called evidently belongs to Philip he being the first-fruits of our Lord's Disciples For though Andrew and Peter were the first that came to and conversed with Christ yet did they immediately return to their Trade again and were not called to the Discipleship till above a whole year after when John was cast into prison Clemens 〈◊〉 tells us that it was Philip to whom our Lord said when he would have excused himself at present that he must go bury his Father Let the dead bury their dead but follow 〈◊〉 me But besides that he gives no account whence he derived this intelligence it is plainly inconsistent with the time of our Apostle's call who was called to be a Disciple a long time before that speech and passage of our Saviour It may seem justly strange that Philip should at first sight so readily comply with our Lord's command and turn himself over into his service having not yet seen any miracle that might evince his 〈◊〉 ship and
Divine Commission nor probably so much as heard any tidings of his appearance and especially being a Galilean and so of a more rustick and unyielding temper But it cannot be doubted but that he was admirably versed in the writings of Moses and the Prophets Metaphrastes assures us though how he came to know it otherwise than by conjecture I cannot imagine that from his childhood he had excellent education that he frequently read over Moses his Books and considered the Prophecies that related to our Saviour And was no question awakened with the general expectations that were then on foot among the Jews the date of the Prophetick Scriptures concerning the time of Christ's coming being now run out that the 〈◊〉 would immediately appear Add to this that the Divine grace did more immediately accompany the command of Christ to incline and dispose him to believe that this person was that very 〈◊〉 that was to come 3. NO sooner had Religion taken possession of his mind but like an active principle it began to 〈◊〉 and diffuse it self A way he goes and 〈◊〉 Nathanael a person of note and eminency acquaints him with the tidings of the new-found Messiah and conducts him to him So forward is a good man to draw and direct others in the same way to happiness with himself After his call to the Apostleship much is not recorded of him in the Holy story 'T was to him that our Saviour propounded the question What they should do for so much bread in the wilderness as would feed so vast a multitude to which he answered That so much was not easily to be had not considering that to feed two or twenty thousand are equally 〈◊〉 to Almighty Power when pleased to exert it self 'T was to him that the Gentile Proselytes that came up to the Passeover addressed themselves when desirous to see our Saviour a person of whom they had heard so loud a fame 'T was with him that our Lord had that discourse concerning himself a little before the last Paschal Supper The holy and compassionate Jesus had been fortifying their minds with fit considerations against his departure from them had told them that he was going to prepare room for them in the Mansions of the Blessed that he himself was the way the truth and the life and that no man could come to the Father but by him and that knowing him they both knew and had seen the Father Philip not duly understanding the force of our Saviour's reasonings begged of him that he would shew them the Father and then this would abundantly convince and satisfie them We can hardly suppose he should have such gross conceptions of the Deity as to imagine the Father vested with a corporeal and visible nature but Christ having told them that they had seen him and he knowing that God of old was wont frequently to appear in a visible shape he only desired that he would 〈◊〉 himself to them by some such appearance Our Lord gently reproved his ignorance that aster so long attendance upon his instructions he should not know that he was the Image of his Father the express characters of his infinite wisdom power and goodness appearing in him that he said and did nothing but by his Father's appointment which if they did not believe his miracles were a sufficient evidence That therefore such demands were unnecessary and impertinent and that it argued great weakness after more than three years education under his discipline and Institution to be so unskilful in those matters God expects improvement according to mens opportunities to be old 〈◊〉 ignorant in the School of Christ deserves both reproach and punishment 't is the character of very bad persons that they are ever learning but never come to the knowledge of the truth 4. IN the distribution of the several Regions of the World made by the Apostles though no mention be made by Origen or 〈◊〉 what part fell to our Apostle yet we are told by others that the Upper Asia was his Province the reason doubtless why he is said by many to have preached and planted Christianity in 〈◊〉 where he applied himself with an indefatigable diligence and industry to recover men out of the snare of the Devil to the embracing and acknowledgment of the truth By the constancy of his preaching and the efficacy of his Miracles he gained numerous Converts whom he baptized into the Christian Faith at once curing both Souls and Bodies their Souls of Error and Idolatry their Bodies of infirmities and distempers healing diseases dispossessing Daemons setling Churches and appointing them Guides and Ministers of Religion 5. HAVING for many years successfully managed his Apostolical Office in all those parts he came in the last periods of his life to Hierapolis in Phrygia a City rich and populous but answering its name in its Idolatrous Devotions Amongst the many vain and trifling Deities to whom they payed religious adoration was a Serpent or Dragon in memory no doubt of that infamous Act of Jupiter who in the shape of a Dragon insinuated himself into the embraces of Proserpina his own Daughter begot of Ceres and whom these phrygians chiefly worshipped as Clemens Alexandrinus tells us so little reason had Baronius to say that they worshipped no such God of a more prodigious bigness than the rest which they worshipped with great and solemn veneration S. Philip was troubled to see the people so wretchedly enslaved to error and therefore continually solicited Heaven till by prayer and calling upon the name of Christ he had procured the death or at least vanishing of this famed and beloved Serpent Which done he told them how unbecoming it was to give Divine honours to such odious creatures that God alone was to be worshipped as the great Parent of the World who had made man at first after his own glorious Image and when fallen from that innocent and happy state had sent his own Son into the World to redeem him who died and rose from the dead and shall come again at the last day to raise men out of their Graves and to sentence and reward them according to their works The success was that the people were ashamed of their fond Idolatry and many broke loose from their chains of darkness and ran over to Christianity Whereupon the great enemy of mankind betook himself to his old methods cruelty and persecution The Magistrates of the City seise the Apostle and having put him into prison caused him to be severely whip'd and scourg'd This preparatory cruelty passed he was led to execution and being bound was hanged up by the neck against a pillar though others tell us that he was crucified We are further told that at his execution the Earth began suddenly to quake and the ground whereon the people stood to sink under them which when they apprehended and bewailed as an evident act of Divine vengeance pursuing them for their sins it as
to have consisted in gathering the Customs of Commodities that came by the Sea of Galilee and the Tribute which Passengers were to pay that went by Water a thing frequently mentioned in the Jewish writings where we are also told of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ticket consisting of two greater Letters written in Paper or some such matter called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ticket or signature of the Publicans which the Passenger had with him to certifie them on the other side the Water that he had already paid the Toll or Custom upon which account the Hebrew Gospel of S. Matthew published by Munster renders Publican by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord of the Passage For this purpose they kept their Office or Custom-house by the Sea-side that they might be always near at hand and here it was as S. Mark intimates that Matthew had his Toll-booth where He sate at the Receipt of Custome 3. OUR Lord having lately cured a famous Paralytick retired out of Capernaum to walk by the Sea-side where he taught the People that flocked after him Here he espied Matthew sitting in his Custom-office whom he called to come and follow Him The Man was rich had a wealthy and a gainful Trade a wise and prudent Person no fools being put into that Office and understood no doubt what it would cost him to comply with this new imployment that he must exchange Wealth for Poverty a Custom-house for a Prison gainful Masters for a naked and despised Saviour But he overlooked all these considerations left all his Interests and Relations to become our Lord's Disciple and to embrace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom observes a more spiritual way of commerce and traffique We cannot suppose that he was before wholly unacquainted with our Saviour's Person or Doctrine especially living at Capernaum the place of Christ's usual residence where his Sermons and Miracles were so frequent by which he could not but in some measure be prepared to receive the impressions which our Saviour's call now made upon him And to shew that he was not discontented at his change nor apprehended himself a loser by this bargain he entertained our Lord and his Disciples at a great Dinner in his House whither he invited his Friends especially those of his own Profession piously hoping that they also might be caught by our Saviour's converse and company The Pharisees whose Eye was constantly evil where another Man 's was good and who would 〈◊〉 find or make occasions to snarle at him began to suggest to his Disciples that it was unbecoming so pure and holy a Person as their Master pretended himself to be thus familiarly to converse with the worst of men Publicans and sinners Persons infamous to a Proverb But he presently replied upon them that they were the sick that needed the Physician not the sound and healthy that his company was most suitable where the necessities of Souls did most require it that God himself preferred acts of Mercy and Charity especially in reclaiming sinners and doing good to Souls infinitely before all ritual observances and the nice rules of Persons conversing with one another and that the main design of his coming into the World was not to bring the righteous or those who like themselves proudly conceited themselves to be so and in a vain Opinion of their own strictness loftily scorned all Mankind besides but sinners modest humble self-convinced offenders to repentance and to reduce them to a better state and course of life 4. AFTER his election to the Apostolate he continued with the rest till our Lord's Ascension and then for the first eight Years at least Preached up and down 〈◊〉 After which being to betake himself to the Conversion of the Gentile-world he was intreated by the Convert Jewes to commit to Writing the History of our Saviour's Life and Actions and to leave it among them as the standing Record of what he had Preached to them which he did accordingly and so composed his Gospel whereof more in due place Little certainty can be had what Travails he underwent for the advancement of the Christian Faith so irrecoverably is truth lost in a crowd of Legendary stories AEthiopia is generally assigned as the Province of his Apostolical Ministry Metaphrastes tells us that he 〈◊〉 first into Parthia and having successfully planted Christianity in those Parts thence travailed into AEthiopia that is the Asiatick AEthiopia lying near to India here by Preaching and Miracles he mightily triumphed over error and Idolatry convinced and converted Multitudes ordained spiritual Guides and Pastors to confirm and build them up and bring over others to the Faith and then finished his own course As for what is related by Nicephorus of his going into the Country of the Cannibals constituting Plato one of his followers Bishop of Myrmena of Christ's appearing to him in the form of a beautiful Youth and giving him a Wand which he pitching into the ground immediately it grew up into a Tree of his strange converting the Prince of that Country of his numerous Miracles peaceable Death and sumptuous Funerals with abundance more of the same stamp and coin they are justly to be reckoned amongst those fabulous reports that have no Pillar nor ground either of truth or probability to support them Most probable it is what an Ancient Writer affirms that he suffered Martyrdom at Naddaber a City in AEthiopia but by what kind of Death is altogether uncertain Whether this Naddaber be the same with Beschberi where the Arabick Writer of his Life affirms him to have suffered Martyrdom let others enquire he also adds that he was buried Arthaganetu 〈◊〉 but where that is is to me unknown Dorotheus makes him honourably buried at Hierapolis in Parthia one of the first places to which he Preached the Gospel 5. HE was a great instance of the power of Religion how much a Man may be brought off to a better temper If we reflect upon his circumstances while yet a stranger to Christ we shall find that the World had very great advantages upon him He was become Master of a plentiful Estate engaged in a rich and a gainful Trade supported by the power and favour of the Romans prompted by covetous inclinations and these confirmed by long habits and customs And yet notwithstanding all this no sooner did Christ call but without the least scruple or dissatisfaction he flung up all at once and not only renounced as S. Basil observes his gainful incomes but ran an immediate hazard of the displeasure of his Masters that imployed him for quitting their service and leaving his accounts intangled and confused behind him Had our Saviour been a mighty Prince it had been no wonder that he should run over to his service but when he appeared under all the circumstances of meanness and disgrace when he seemed to promise his followers nothing but misery and suffering in this life
lances Baron Martyrolog Dec. 21 St. Thomas his Martyrdom Joh. 11. 16. Thomas which is called Didunus said unto his fellow-desciples Let us also goe that we may die with him The custom of the Jews to have both an Hebrew and a Roman name S. Thomas his name the same in Syriack and Greek His Country and Trade His call to the Apostleship His great affection to our Saviour Christ's discourse with him concerning the way to Eternal life His obstinate refusal to believe our Lord's Resurrection and the unreasonableness of his Infidelity Our Lord's convincing him by sensible demonstrations S. Thomas his deputing Thaddaeus to Abgarus of Edessa His Travels into Parthia Media Persia c. AEthiopia what and where situate His coming into India and the success of his Preaching there An account of his Acts in India from the relation of the Portugals at their first coming thither His converting the King of Malipur The manner of his Martyrdom by the Brachmans The Miracles said to be done at his Tomb. His Bones dug up by the Portugals A Cross and several Brass Tables with Inscriptions found there An account of the Indian or S. Thomas Christians their Number State Rites and way of life 1. IT was customary with the Jews when travelling into foreign Countries or familiarly conversing with the Greeks and Romans to assume to themselves a Greek or a Latin name of great affinity and sometimes of the very same signification with that of their own Country Thus our Lord was called Christ answering to his Hebrew title Mashiach or the 〈◊〉 Simon stiled Peter according to that of Cephas which our Lord put upon him Tabitha called 〈◊〉 both signifying a Goat Thus our S. Thomas according to the Syriack importance of his name had the title of Didymus which signifies a Twin Thomas which is called Didymus Accordingly the Syriack Version renders it 〈◊〉 which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thama that is a Twin The not understanding whereof imposed upon Nonnus the Greek Paraphrast who makes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have had two distinct names 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it being but the same name expressed in different Languages The History of the Gospel takes no particular notice either of the Country or Kindred of this Apostle That he was a Jew is certain and in all probability a Galilean He was born if we may believe Symeon Metaphrastes of very mean Parents who brought him up to the trade of Fishing but withall took care to give him a more useful education instructing him in the knowledge of the Scriptures whereby he learnt wisely to govern his life and manners He was together with the rest called to the Apostleship and not long after gave an eminent instance of his hearty willingness to undergo the saddest fate that might attend them For when the rest of the Apostles disswaded our Saviour from going into Judaea whither he was now resolved for the raising his dear Lazarus lately dead left the Jews should stone him as but a little before they had attempted it S. Thomas desires them not to hinder Christ's journey thither though it might cost their lives Let us also go that we may die with him probably concluding that instead of raising Lazarus from the dead they themselves should be sent with him to their own Graves So that he made up in pious affections what he seemed to want in the quickness and acumen of his understanding not readily apprehending some of our Lord's discourses nor over-forward to believe more than himself had seen When the holy Jesus a little before his fatal sufferings had been speaking to them of the joys of Heaven and had told them that he was going to prepare that they might follow him that they knew both the place whither he was going and the way thither Our Apostle replied that they knew not whither he went and much less the way that led to it To which our Lord returns this short but satisfactory answer That he was the true living way the person whom the Father had sent into the World to shew men the paths of Eternal life and that they could not miss of Heaven if they did but keep to that way which he had prescribed and chalked out before them 2. OUR Lord being dead 't is evident how much the Apostles were distracted between hopes and fears concerning his Resurrection not yet fully satisfied about it Which engaged him the sooner to hasten his appearance that by the sensible manifestations of himself he might put the case beyond all possibilities of dispute The very day whereon he arose he came into the house where they were while for fear of the Jews the doors were yet fast shut about them and gave them sufficient assurance that he was really risen from the dead At this meeting S. Thomas was absent having probably never recovered their company since their last dispersion in the Garden when every ones fears prompted him to consult his own safety At his return they told him that their Lord had appeared to them but he obstinately refused to give credit to what they said or to believe that it was he presuming it rather a phantasm or mere apparition unless he might see the very prints of the Nails and feel the wounds in his hands and sides A strange piece of infidelity Was this any more than what Moses and the Prophets had long since foretold had not our Lord frequently told them in plain terms that he must rise again the third day could he question the possibility of it who had so often seen him do the greatest miracles was it reasonable to reject the testimony of so many eye-witnesses ten to one against himself and of whose fidelity he was assured or could he think that either themselves should be deceived or that they would jest and trifle with him in so solemn and serious a matter A stubbornness that might have betrayed him into an eternal infidelity But our compassionate Saviour would not take the advantage of the mans refractory unbelief but on that day seven-night again came to them as they were solemnly met at their devotions and calling to Thomas bad him look upon his hands put his fingers into the prints of the Nails and thrust his hand into the hole of his side and satisfie his faith by a demonstration from sense The man was quickly convinced of his error and obstinacy confessing that he now acknowledged him to be his very Lord and Master a God omnipotent that was thus able to rescue himself from the powers of death Our Lord replied no more than that it was well he believed his own senses but that it was a more noble and commendable act of Faith to acquiesce in a rational evidence and to entertain the doctrines and relations of the Gospel upon such testimonies and assurances of the truth of things as will satisfie a wise and sober man though he did not
to John the Baptist. Hence reputed our Lord's Brother in the same sence that he was reputed the Son of Joseph Indeed we find several spoken of in the History of the Gospel who were Christ's Brethren but in what sence was controverted of old S. Hierom Chrysostom and some others will have them so called because the Sons of Mary Cousin-german or according to the custome of the Hebrew Language Sister to the Virgin Mary But Eusebius Epiphanius and the far greater part of the Ancients from whom especially in matters of fact we are not rashly to depart make them the Children of Joseph by a former Wife And this seems most genuine and natural the Evangelists seeming very express and accurate in the account which they give of them Is not this the Carpenter's Son Is not his Mother called Mary and his Brethren James and Joses and Simon and Jude and his Sisters whose Names says the foresaid Hippolytus were Esther and Thamar are they not all with us whence then hath this man these things By which it is plain that the Jews understood these Persons not to be Christ's Kinsmen only but his Brothers the same Carpenter's Sons having the same relation to him that Christ himself had though indeed they had more Christ being but his reputed they his natural Sons Upon this account the Blessed Virgin is sometimes called the Mother of James and Joses for so amongst the Women that attended at our Lord's Crucifixion we find three eminently taken notice of Mary Magdalen Mary the Mother of James and Joses and the Mother of Zebedees Children Where by Mary the Mother of James and Joses no other can be meant than the Virgin Mary it not being reasonable to suppose that the Evangelists should omit the Blessed Virgin who was certainly there and therefore S. John reckoning up the same Persons expresly stiles her the Mother of Jesus And though it is true she was but S. James his Mother-in-law yet the Evangelists might chuse so to stile her because commonly so called after Joseph's death and probably as Gregory of Nyssa thinks known by that Name all along chusing that Title that the Son of God whom as a Virgin she had brought forth might be better concealed and less exposed to the malice of the envious Jews nor is it any more wonder that she should be esteemed and called the Mother of James than that Joseph should be stiled and accounted the Father of Jesus To which add that Josephus eminently skilful in matters of Genealogy and descent expresly says that our S. James was the Brother of Jesus Christ. One thing there is that may seem to lye against it that he is called the Son of Alphaeus But this may probably mean no more than either that Joseph was so called by another Name it being frequent yea almost constant among the Jews for the same Person to have two Names Quis unquam prohibuerit duobus vel tribus nominibus hominem 〈◊〉 vocari as S. Augustin speaks in a parallel case or as a learned Man conjectures it may relate to his being a Disciple of some particular Sect or Synagogue among the Jews called Alphaeans from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting a Family or Society of devout and learned Men of somewhat more eminency than the rest there being as he tells us many such at this time among the Jews and in this probably S. James had entred himself the great reputation of his Piety and strictness his Wisdom Parts and Learning rendring the conjecture above the censure of being trifling and contemptible 3. OF the place of his Birth the Sacred story makes no mention The Jewes in their Talmud for doubtless they intend the same Person stile him more than once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of the Town of Sechania though where that was I am not able to conjecture What was his particular way and course of life before his being called to the Discipleship and Apostolate we find no intimations of in the History of the Gospel nor any distinct account concerning him during our Saviour's life After the Resurrection he was honoured with a particular Appearance of our Lord to him which though silently passed over by the Evangelists is recorded by S. Paul next to the manifesting himself to the Five Hundred Brethren at once he was seen of James which is by all understood of our Apostle S. Hierom out of the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarens wherein many passages are set down omitted by the Evangelical Historians gives us a fuller relation of it viz. that S. James had solemnly sworn that from the time that he had drank of the Cup at the Institution of the Supper he would eat Bread no more till he saw the Lord risen from the dead Our Lord therefore being returned from the Grave came and appeared to him commanded Bread to be set before him which he took blessed and brake and gave to S. James saying Eat thy Bread my Brother for the Son of Man is truly risen from among them that sleep After Christ's Ascension though I will not venture to determine the precise time he was chosen Bishop of Jerusalem preferred before all the rest for his near relation unto Christ for this we find to have been the reason why they chose Symeon to be his immediate Successor in that See because he was after him our Lord's next Kinsman A consideration that made Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee though they had been peculiarly honoured by our Saviour not to contend for this high and honourable Place but freely chuse James the Just to be Bishop of it This dignity is by some of the Ancients said to have been conferred on him by Christ himself constituting him Bishop at the time of his appearing to him But it 's safest with others to understand it of its being done by the Apostles or possibly by some particular intimation concerning it which our Lord might leave behind him 4. TO him we find S. Paul making his Address after his Conversion by whom he was honoured with the right hand of fellowship to him Peter sent the news of his miraculous deliverance out of Prison Go shew these things unto James and to the Brethren that is to the whole Church and especially S. James the Bishop and Pastor of it But he was principally active in the Synod at Jerusalem in the great controversie about the Mosaick Rites for the case being opened by Peter and further debated by Paul and Barnabas at last stood up S. James to pass the final and decretory sentence that the Gentile-Converts were not to be troubled with the bondage of the Jewish Yoke only that for a present accommodation some few indifferent Rites should be observed ushering in the expedient with this positive conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thus judge or decide the matter this is my sentence and determination
S. Thomas dispatched Thaddaeus the Apostle to Abgarus Governour of Edessa where he healed diseases wrought miracles expounded the doctrines of Christianity and converted Abgarus and his people to the Faith For all which pains when the Toparch offered him vast gifts and presents he refused them with a noble scorn telling him they had little reason to receive from others what they had freely relinquished and left themselves A large account of this whole affair is extant in Eusebius translated by him out of Syriack from the Records of the City of Edessa This Thaddaeus S. Hierom expresly makes to be our S. Jude though his bare authority is not in this case sufficient evidence especially since 〈◊〉 makes him no more than one of the seventy Disciples which he would scarce have done had he been one of the Twelve He calls him indeed an Apostle but that may imply no more than according to the large acception of the word that he was a Disciple a Companion and an Assistent to them as we know the Seventy eminently were Nor is any thing more common in ancient Ecclesiastick Writers than for the first planters and propagaters of Christian Religion in any Country to be honoured with the name and title of Apostles But however this be at his first setting out to preach the Gospel he went up and down Judaea and 〈◊〉 then through Samaria into Idumea and to the Cities of Arabia and the neighbour Countries yea to Syria and Mesopotamia Nicephorus adds that he came at last to Edessa where Abgarus was Governour and where the other Thaddeus one of the Seventy had been before him Here he perfected what the other had begun and having by his Sermons and Miracles established the Religion of our Saviour died a peaceable and a quiet death though Dorotheus makes him slain at Berytus and honourably buried there By the almost general consent of the Writers of the Latin Church he is said to have travelled into Persia where after great success in his Apostolical Ministry for many years he was at last for his free and open reproving the superstitious rites and usages of the Magi cruelly put to death 4. THAT he was one of the married Apostles sufficiently appears from his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Grandsons mentioned by 〈◊〉 of whom Hegesippus gives this account Domitian the Emperor whose enormous wickednesses had awakened in him the quickest jealousies and made him suspect every one that might look like a corrival in the Empire had heard that there were some of the line of David and Christ's kindred that did yet remain Two Grandchildren of S. Jude the Brother of our Lord were brought before him Having confessed that they were of the Race and posterity of David he asked what possessions and estate they had they told him that they had but a very few acres of land out of the improvement whereof they both paid him Tribute and maintained themselves with their own hard labour as by the hardness and callousness of their hands which they then shewed him did appear He then enquired of them concerning Christ and the state of his Kingdom what kind of Empire it was and when and where it would commence To which they replied That his Kingdom was not of this World nor of the Seigniories and Dominions of it but Heavenly and Angelical and would finally take place in the end of the World when coming with great glory he would judge the quick and the dead and award all men recompences according to their works The issue was that looking upon the meanness and simplicity of the men as below his jealousies and fears he dismissed them without any severity used against them who being now beheld not only as kinsmen but as Martyrs of our Lord were honoured by all preferred to places of authority and government in the Church and lived till the times of Trajan 5. S. Jude left only one Epistle of Catholick and universal concernment inscribed at large to all Christians It was some time before it met with general reception in the Church or was taken notice of The Author indeed stiles not himself an Apostle but no more does S. James S. John nor in some Epistles S. Paul himself And why should he fare the worse for his humility only for calling himself the servant of Christ when he might have added not only Apostle but the Brother of our Lord The best is he has added what was equivalent Jude the Brother of James a character that can belong to none but our Apostle beside that the Title of the Epistle which is of great antiquity runs thus The general Epistle of Jude the Apostle One great argument as S. 〈◊〉 informs us against the authority of this Epistle of old was its quoting a passage out of an Apocryphal Book of Enoch This Book called the Apocalypse of Enoch was very early extant in the Church frequently mentioned and passages cited out of it by 〈◊〉 Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origen and others some of whom accounted it little less than Canonical But what if our Apostle had it not out of this Apocryphal Book but from some prophecy currant from age to age handed to him by common tradition or immediately revealed to him by the Spirit of God But suppose it taken out of that Book going under Enoch's name this makes nothing against the authority of the Epistle every thing I hope is not presently false that 's contained in an Apocryphal and Uncanonical writing nor does the taking a single testimony out of it any more infer the Apostles approbation of all the rest than S. Paul's quoting a good sentence or two out of Menander Aratus and Epimenides imply that he approved all the rest of the writings of those Heathen Poets And indeed nothing could be more fit and proper than this way if we consider that the Apostle in this Epistle chiesly argues against the Gnosticks who mainly traded in such Traditionary and Apocryphal writings and probably in this very Book of Enoch The same account may be given of that other passage in this Epistle concerning the contention between Michael the Archangel and the Devil about the burial of Moses his Body no where extant in the holy Records supposed to have been taken out of a Jewish writing called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Dismission of Moses mentioned by some of the Greek Fathers under the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Ascension of Moses in which this passage was upon record Nor is it any more a wonder that S. Jude should do this than that S. Paul should put down Jannes and Jambres for the two Magicians of Pharaoh that opposed Moses which he must either derive from Tradition or fetch out of some Uncanonical Author of those times there being no mention of their names in Moses his relation of that matter But be these passages whence they will 't is enough to us that the Spirit of
God has made them Authentick and consecrated them part of the holy Canon 6. BEING thus satisfied in the Canonicalness of this Epistle none but S. Jude could be the Author of it for who but he was the Brother of S. James a character by which he is described in the Evangelical story more than once Grotius indeed will needs have it written by a younger Jude the fifteenth Bishop of Jerusalem in the reign of Adrian and because he saw that that passage the Brother of James stood full in his way he concludes without any shadow of reason that it was added by some Transcriber But is not this to make too bold with Sacred things is not this to indulge too great a liberty this once allowed 't will soon open a door to the wildest and most extravagant conjectures and no man shall know where to find sure-sooting for his Faith But the Reader may remember what we have elsewhere observed concerning the Posthume Annotations of that learned man Not to say that there are many things in this Epistle that evidently refer to the time of this Apostle and imply it to have been written upon the same occasion and about the same time with the second Epistle of Peter between which and this there is a very great affinity both in words and matter nay there want not some that endeavour to prove this Epistle to have been written no less than twenty seven years before that of Peter and that hence it was that Peter borrowed those passages that are so near a-kin to those in this Epistle The design of the Epistle is to preserve Christians from the infection of Gnosticism the loose and debauched principles vented by Simon Magus and his followers whose wretched doctrines and practises he briefly and elegantly represents perswading Christians heartily to contend for the Faith that had been delivered to them and to avoid these pernicious Seducers as pests and fire-brands not to communicate with them in their sins lest they perished with them in that terrible vengeance that was ready to overtake them The End of S. Jude's Life THE LIFE OF S. MATTHIAS S. MATHIAS He preached the Gospell in Ethiopia suffered Martyrdome and was buried there S. Hierom. St. Matthias his Martyrdom Hebr. 11 37. They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were tempted were slain with the sword S. Matthias one of the Seventy Judas Iscariot whence A bad Minister nulls not the ends of his ministration His worldly and covetous temper His monstrous ingratitude His betraying his Master and the aggravations of the sin The distraction and horror of his mind The miserable state of an evil and guilty Conscience His violent death The election of a new Apostle The Candidates who The Lot cast upon Matthias His preaching the Gospel and in what parts of the World His Martyrdom when where and how His Body whither translated The Gospel and Traditions vented under his name 1. SAINT Matthias not being an Apostle of the first Election immediately called and chosen by our Saviour particular remarks concerning him are not to be expected in the History of the Gospel He was one of our Lord's Disciples and probably one of the Seventy that had attended on him the whole time of his publick Ministry and after his death was elected into the Apostleship upon this occasion Judas Iscariot so called probably from the place of his nativity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of Kerioth a City anciently situate in the Tribe of Judah had been one of the Twelve immediately called by Christ to be one of his intimate Disciples equally impowered and commissioned with the rest to Preach and work Miracles was numbred with them and had obtained part of their Ministry And yet all this while was a man of vile and corrupt designs branded with no meaner a character than Thief and Murderer To let us see that there may be bad servants in Christ's own family and that the wickedness of a Minister does not evacuate his Commission nor render his Office useless and ineffectual The unworthiness of the instrument hinders not the ends of the ministration Seeing the efficacy of an ordinance depends not upon the quality of the person but the Divine institution and the blessing which God has entailed upon it Judas preached Christ no doubt with zeal and fervency and for any thing we know with as much success as the rest of the Apostles and yet he was a bad man a man acted by 〈◊〉 and mean designs one that had prostituted Religion and the honour of his place to covetousness and evil arts The love of money had so intirely possessed his thoughts that his resolutions were bound for nothing but interest and advantage But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare This covetous temper betrayed him as in the issue to the most fatal end so to the most desperate attempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen calls the putting Christ to death the most prodigious impiety that the Sun ever shone on the betraying his innocent Lord into the hands of those who he knew would treat him with all the circumstances of insolent scorn and cruelty How little does kindness work upon a disingenuous mind It was not the honour of the place to which when thousands of others were passed by our Lord had called him the admitting him into a free and intimate fellowship with his person the taking him to be one of his peculiar domesticks and attendants that could divert the wretch from his wicked purpose He knew how desirous the great men of the Nation were to get Christ into their hands especially at the time of the Passeover that he might with the more publick disgrace 〈◊〉 sacrificed before all the people and therefore bargains with them and for no greater a summ than under four pounds to betray the Lamb of God into the paws of these Wolves and Lions In short he heads the party conducts the Officers and sees him delivered into their hands 2. BUT there 's an active principle in man's breast that seldom suffers daring sinners to pass in quiet to their Graves Awakened with the horror of the fact conscience began to rouze and follow close and the man was unable to bear up under the furious revenges of his own mind As indeed all wilful and deliberate sins and especially the guilt of bloud are wont more sensibly to alarm the natural notions of our minds and to excite in us the fears of some present vengeance that will seise upon us And how intolerable are those scourges that lash us in this vital and tender part The spirit of the man sinks under him and all supports snap asunder As what case or comfort can he enjoy that carries a Vultur in his bosom always gnawing and preying upon his heart Which made Plutarch compare an evil Conscience to a Cancer in the breast that perpetually gripes and stings the Soul with the pains of an intolerable