Thomas for saying so with the same presumption that Origen held the very good Angels might offend Then is our Grace consummate till then our best abilities are full of Imperfection Therefore that conceit of Merit is not more arrogant then absurd We cannot merit of him whom we gratifie not we cannot gratifie a man with his own All our good is God's already his gift his propriety What have we that we have not received Not our talent onely but the improvement also is his mere bounty There can be therefore no place for Merit In all just Merit there must needs be a due proportion betwixt the act and the recompence It is our favour if the gift exceed the worth of the service Now what proportion can be betwixt a finite weak imperfect Obedience such is ours at the best and an infinite full and most perfect Glory The old Schools dare say that the natural and entitative value of the Works of Christ himself was finite though the moral value was infinite What then shall be said of our works which are like our selves mere imperfection We are not so proud that we should scorn with Ruard Tapperus to exspect Heaven as a poor man doth an Alms rather according to S. Austin's charge Non sit caput turgidum c. Let not the head be proud that it may receive a Crown We do with all humility and self-dejection look up to the bountiful hands of that God who crowneth us in mercy and compassion This Doctrine then of Merit being both New and Erroneous hath justly merited our reproof and detestation and we are unjustly censured for our censure thereof CHAP. VII The Newness of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation THE Point of Transubstantiation is justly ranked amongst our highest differences Upon this quarrel in the very last Age how many Souls were sent up to Heaven in the midst of their flames as if the Sacrament of the Altar had been sufficient ground of the bloody Sacrifices The definition of the Tridentine Council is herein beyond the wont clear and express If any man shall say that in the Sacrament of the Sacred Eucharist there remains still the substance of Bread and Wine together with the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and shall deny that marvellous and singular conversion of the whole substance of Bread into the Body and the whole substance of Wine into Blood the Species semblances or shews onely of Bread and Wine remaining which said Conversion the Catholick Church doth most fitly call Transubstantiation let him be accursed Thus they Now let us inquire how old this piece of Faith is In Synaxi sero c. It was late ere the Church defined Transubstantiation saith Erasmus For of so long it was saith he held sufficient to believe that the true Body of Christ was there whether under the consecrated Bread or howsoever And how late was this Scotus shall tell us Ante Concil Lateranense Before the Council of Lateran Transubstantiation was no point of Faith as Cardinal Bellarmine himself confesses his Opinion with a minimè probandum And this Council was in the year of our Lord 1215. Let who list believe that this Subtil Doctour had never heard of the Romane Council under Gregory the Seventh which was in the year one thousand seventy nine or that other under Nicolas the Second which was in the year one thousand and threescore or that he had not read those Fathers which the Cardinal had good hap to meet with Certainly his acuteness easily found out other senses of those Conversions which Antiquity mentions and therefore dares confidently say wherein Gabriel Biel seconds him Non admodum antiquam that this Doctrine of Transubstantiation is not very ancient Surely if we yield the utmost time wherein Bellarmine can plead the determination of this point we shall arise but to saltem ab annis quingentis c. five hundred years agoe so long saith he at least was this opinion of Transubstantiation upon pain of a curse established in the Church The Church but what Church The Romane I wis not the Greek That word of Peter Martyr is true That the Greeks ever abhorred from this Opinion of Transubstantiation Insomuch as at the shutting up of the Florentine Council which was but in the year 1539. when there was a kinde of agreement betwixt the Greeks and Latines about the Procession of the Holy Ghost the Pope earnestly moved the Grecians that amongst other differences they would also accord de Divina panis Transmutatione concerning the Divine Transmutation of the Bread wherein notwithstanding they departed as formerly dissenting How palpably doth the Cardinal shuffle in this business whiles he would perswade us that the Greeks did not at all differ from the Romans in the main head of Transubstantiation but onely concerning the particularity of those words whereby that unspeakable change is wrought whenas it is most clear by the Acts of that Council related even by their Binius himself that after the Greeks had given in their answer That they do firmly believe that in those words of Christ the Sacrament is made up which had been sufficient satisfaction if that onely had been the question the Pope urges them earnestly still ut de Divina panis Transmutatione c. that in the Synod there might be treaty had of the Divine Transmutation of the Bread and when they yet stifly denied he could have been content to have had the other three questions of Unleavened bread Purgatory and the Popes Power discussed waving that other of Transubstantiation which he found would not abide agitation Since which time their Patriarch Jeremias of Constantinople hath expressed the judgement of the Greek Church Etenim verè For the Body and Blood of Christ are truely Mysteries not that these are turned into mans body but that the better prevailing we are turned into them yielding a change but Mystical not Substantial As for the Ancients of either the Greek or Latine Church they are so far from countenancing this Opinion that our learned Whitaker durst challenge his Duraeus Si vel unum c. If you can bring me but one testimony of sincere Antiquity whereby it may appear that the Bread is transubstantiate into the Flesh of Christ I will yield my cause It is true that there are fair flourishes made of a large Jury of Fathers giving their verdict this way whose very names can hardly finde room in a margin Scarce any of that sacred rank are missing But it is as true that their witnesses are grossly abused to a sense that was never intended they onely desiring in an holy excess of speech to express the Sacramental change that is made of the elements in respect of use not in respect of substance and passionately to describe unto us the benefit of that Sacrament in our blessed Communion with Christ and our lively incorporation into
with Christians Let us speak truth every man to his neighbour Farre farre be it from any of you to have a mercenary tongue either sold or let out to speak for injury for oppression Where the justice of the cause seems to hang in an even poise there exercise the power of your wit and eloquence in pleadings but where the case is foul abhor the Patrocination discourage an unjust though wealthy Client and say rather Thy gold and thy silver perish with thee resolving that the richest fee is a good conscience and therefore with the Apostle that ye can doe nothing against the truth but for the truth Thus fashion not your Tongue to the falshood of the world 2. The world hath a tongue as Malicious as false he carries poisons arrows swords razors in his mouth whether in reviling the present or backbiting the absent What have our tongues to walk in but this round of detraction Barre this practice there would be silence at our bords silence at our fires-side silence in the Tavern silence in the way silence in the Barbers-shop in the Mill in the Market every where yea very Gossips would have nothing to whisper Lord what a wilde licentiousnesse are we grown to in this kinde Every mans mouth is open to the censures to the curses of their betters neither is it cared how true the word be but how sharp Every Fidler sings Libels openly and each man is ready to challenge the freedome of David's Ruffians Our tongues are our own who shall controll us This is not a fashion for Christians whose tongues must be ranged within the compasse as of Truth so of Charity and silent Obedience we know our charge Diis non detrahes Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor curse the ruler of thy people Exod. 22. 28. No not in thy bed-chamber no not in thy thoughts Eccles 10. 20. And for our equalls God hath said it Whoso privily slandereth his Neighbour him will I cut off Psal 101. 5. The spightfull tongue as it is a fire and is kindled by the fire of hell Jam. 3. 6. so shall it be sure once to torment the Soul that moves it with flames unquenchable Thus fashion not your Tongue to the maliciousnesse of the world 3. As the world hath a spightfull tongue in his anger so a Beastly tongue in his mirth No word sounds well that is not unsavoury The onely minstrell to the world is ribaldry Modesty and sober Merriment is dulnesse There is no life but in those cantiones cinaedicae which are too bad even for the worst of red Lattices yea even those mouths which would hate to be palpably foul stick not to affect the witty jests of ambiguous obscenity Fye upon these impure brothelries Oh that ever those tongues which dare call God Father should suffer themselves thus to be possessed by that unclean spirit that ever those mouths which have received the Sacred body and blood of the Lord of Life should indure these dainty morsels of the Devil For us Let no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouth but that which is edifying and gracious Ephes 4. 29. and such as may become those tongues which shall once sing Allelujahs in the Heavens Fashion not your Tongues to the obscenity of the world From the Tongue we passe to the Palate which together with the gulf whereto it serves the throat and the paunch is taken up with the beastly fashion of Gluttony and excesse whether wet or dry of meats or liquors surfeits in the one drunkennesse in the other insomuch as that the vice hath taken the name of the part Gula as if this piece were for no other service The Psalmist describes some wicked ones in his time by Sepulcrum patens guttur eorum Their throat is an open Sepulchre Psal 5. 9. How many have buried all their Grace in this tomb how many their Reputation how many their Wit how many their Humanity how many their Houses Lands Livings Wives Children Posterity Health Life Body and Soul Saint Paul tels his Philippians that their false teachers made their belly their God Oh God what a Deity is here what a nasty Idol and yet how adored every where The Kitchins and Taverns are his Temples the Tables his Altars What fat Sacrifices are here of all the beasts fouls fishes of all three Elements what pouring out yea what pouring in of drink-offerings what incense of Indian smoak what curiously-perfumed cates wherewith the nose is first feasted then the maw More then one of the Ancients as they have made Nebuzaradan principem Coquorum Jer. 52. 12. the chief Cook of Nebuchadnezzar so they have found a mysticall allusion in the story that the chief Cook should burn the Temple and Palace both Gods house and the Kings and should destroy the walls of Jerusalem Surely gluttonous excesse destroies that which should be the Temple of the Holy Ghost and is enough to bring a fearfull vastation both upon Church and State I could even sink down with shame to see Christianity every where so discountenanced with beastly Epicurisme what street shall a man walk in and not meet with a Drunkard what rode shall he passe and not meet some or other hanging upon the stirrup waving over the pummel Saint Peter's argument from the third hour of the day and Saint Paul's from the night would be now a non sequitur Day is night night is day no hour is priviledged I cannot speak a more fearfull word then that of Saint Paul Whose belly is their God whose end is damnation Oh wofull wofull condition of that damned glutton in the Gospel Oh the flames of that delicious tongue which beg'd for a drop but should in vain have been quenched with rivers with Oceans As ye desire to be freed from those everlasting burnings Awake ye drunkards and howl ye drinkers of wine Joel 1. 5. Return your superfluous liquors into tears of repentance which onely can quench that fire and for the sequel put your knife to your throats Take heed lest at any time your hearts be overtaken with surfeiting and drunkennesse Luk. 21. 34. Thus fashion not your selves to the Excesse of the world From the pampered Belly we passe to the proud Back of the world whereon he is blind that sees not a world of fashions in all which the price of the stuffe strives with the vanity of the form There is a Luxury in very Cloaths which it is hard to look besides O God how is the world changed with us since our Breeches of fig-leaves and Coats of skin The Earth yields Gold Silver rich Stones the Sea Pearls the Aire feathers the Field his stalks the Sheep her Fleece the Worm her web and all too little for one back After necessity Cloaths were once for distinction as of Sexes so of Degrees How curious was God in these differences the violation whereof was no lesse then deadly Deut. 22. 5. What shall we say to the Dames yea to the Hermaphrodites of
are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Lo as impossible as it is for a dead man to come down from his gibbet or up from his coffin and to doe the works of his former life so impossible it is that a renewed man should doe the old works of his unregeneration If therefore you find your Hearts unclean your Hands idle and unprofitable your Ways crooked and unholy your Corruptions alive and lively never pretend any renewing you are the old men still and however ye may go for Christains yet ye have denied the power of Christianity in your lives and if ye so continue the fire of Hell shall have so much more power over you for that it finds the Baptismal water upon your faces Our last head is the subject of this Renewing The Minde There are that would have this Renovation proper to the inferiour which is the affective part of the Soul as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they call it the supreme powers of that Divine part needed it no◠These are met with here by out-Apostle who placeth this renewing upon the Mind There are contrarily that so appropriate this renewing to the Mind which is the highest lost of the Soul as that they diffuse it not to the lower rooms nor to the our houses of the body as if onely the Soul were capable as of Sin so of Regeneration Both these shoot too short and must know that as the Mind so not the Mind only must be renewed That part is mentioned not by way of exclusion but of principality It is the man that must be renewed not one piece of him Except ye please to say according to that old Philosophical Adage The Mind is the man and the Body as the wisest Ethnick had wont to say nothing but the Case of that rich Jewel To say as it is the most Saint-like Philosophy was somewhat injurious in disparaging the outward man Whatever they thought this Body is not the hung-by but the partner of the Soul no less interessed in the man then that Spirit that animates it no less open to the inhabitation of God's Spirit no less free of Heaven Man therefore that is made of two parts must be renewed in both but as in the first birth whole man is born onely the Body is seen so in the second whole man is renewed onely the Soul is instanced in Our Apostle puts both together 1 Thes 5. 23. The God of peace sanctifie you wholly that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Why then is the Mind thus specified Because it is the best part because as it enlivens and moves so it leads the rest If the Mind therefore be renewed it boots not to urge the renovation of the body For as in Nature we are wont to say that the Soul follows the temperature of the Body so in Spiritual things we say rather more truly that the Body follows the temper and guidance of the Soul These two companions as they shall be once inseparable in their final condition so they are now in their present dispositions Be renewed therefore in your Minds and if you can hold off your earthly parts No more can the Body live without the Soul then the Soul can be renewed without the Body First then the Mind then the Body All defilement is by an extramission as our Saviour tels us That which goeth into the body defileth not the man so as the spring of corruption is within That must be first cleansed else in vain do we scour the channels Ye shall have some Hypocrites that pretend to begin their renewing from without On foul hands they will wear white Gloves on foul hearts clean hands and then all is well Away with these Pharisaical dishes filthy within clean without fit onely for the service of unclean Devils To what purpose is it to lick over the skin with precious oyle if the Liver be corrupted the Lungs rotten To what purpose is it to crop the top of the weeds when the root and stalk remains in the earth Pretend what you will all is old all is naught till the Mind be renewed Neither is the Body more renewed without the Mind then the renewing of the Mind can keep it self from appearing in the renewing of the Body The Soul lies close and takes advantage of the secrecy of that Cabinet whereof none but God keeps the Key and therefore may pretend anything we see the man the Soul we cannot see but by that we see we can judge of that we see not He is no Christian that is not renewed and he is worse then a beast that is no Christian Every man therefore lays claim to that renovation whereof he cannot be convinced yea there want not those who though they have a ribaldish tongue and a bloody hand yet will challenge as good a Soul as the best Hypocrite when the Conduit-head is walled in how shall we judge of the spring but by the water that comes out of the pipes Corrupt nature hath taught us so much craft as to set the best side outward If therefore thou have obscene lips if bribing and oppressing hands if a gluttonous tooth a drunken gullet a lewd conversation certainly the Soul can be no other then abominably filthy It may be worse then it appears better it cannot lightly be The Mind then leads the Body the Body descries the Mind both of them at once are old or both at once new For us as we bear the face of Christians and profess to have received both Souls and Bodies from the same hand and look that both Bodies and Souls shall once meet in the same Glory let it be the top of all our care that we may be transformed in the renewing of our minds and let the renewing of our Minds bewray it self in the renewing of our Bodies Wherefore have we had the powerful Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ so long amongst us if we be still our selves What hath it wrought upon us if we be not changed Never tell me of a Popish Transubstantiation of men of an invisible insensible unfeisible change of the person whiles the species of his outward life and carriage are still the same These are but false Hypocritical juglings to mock fools withall If we be transformed and renewed let it be so done that not onely our own eyes and hands may see and feel it but others too that the by-standers may say How is this man changed from himself He was a blasphemous Swearer a profane Scoffer at goodness now he speaks with an awful reverence of God and holy things He was a Luxurious wanton now he possesseth his vessel in Holiness and honour He was an unconscionable Briber and abettor of unjust causes now the world cannot see him to speak for wrong He was a wild roaring Swaggerer now he is a sober Student He was a Devil now he is
is but either private or unnecessary and uncertain Oh that whiles we sweat and bleed for the maintenance of these oracular Truths we could be perswaded to remit of our Heat in the pursuit of Opinions These these are they that distract the Church violate our peace scandalize the weak advantage our enemies Fire upon the Hearth warms the Body but if it be misplaced burns the House My brethren let us be Zealous for our God every hearty Christian will pour Oyle and not Water upon this holy flame But let us take heed lest a blind self-love stiffe prejudice and factious partiality impose upon us in stead of the causes of God Let us be suspicious of all New Verities and careless of all unprofitable and let us hate to think our selves either wiser then the Church or better then our Superiours And if any man think that he sees further then his fellows in these Theological prospects let his tongue keep the counsel of his eyes left whiles he affects the fame of deeper learning he embroile the Church and raise his glory upon the publick ruines And ye worthy Christans whose Souls God hath entrusted with our spiritual Guardianship be ye alike minded with your Teachers The motion of their tongues lies much in your eares your modest desires of receiving needful and wholesome Truths shall avoid their labour after frivolous and quarrelsome Curiosities God hath blessed you with the reputation of a wise and knowing people In these Divine matters let a meek Sobriety set bounds to your inquiries Take up your time and hearts with Christ and Him crucified with those essential Truths which are necessary to Salvation leave all curious disquisitions to the Schools and say of those Problems as the Philosopher did of the Athenian shops How many things are here that we have no need of Take the nearest cut you can ye shall find it a side-way to Heaven ye need not lengthen it with undue circuitions I am deceived if as the times are ye shall not find work enough to bear up against the oppositions of professed hostility It is not for us to squander our thoughts and hours upon useless janglings wherewith if we suffer our selves to be still taken up Satan shall deal with us like some crafty Cheater who whiles he holds us at gaze with tricks of jugling picks our pockets Dear Brethren whatever become of these worthless driblets be sure to look well to the free-hold of your Salvation Errour is not more busie then subtile Superstition never wanted sweet insinuations make sure work against these plausible dangers Suffer not your selves to be drawn into the net by the common stale of the Church Know that outward Visibility may too well stand with an utter exclusion from Salvation Salvation consists not in a formalitie of Profession but in a Soundness of Belief A true body may be full of mortall diseases So is the Roman Church of this day whom we have long pitied and labored to cure in vain If she will not be healed by us let us not be infected by her Let us be no less jealous of her contagion then she is of our remedies Hold fast that precious Truth which hath been long taught you by faithful Pastors confirmed by clear evidences of Scriptures evinced by sound Reasons sealed up by the blood of our blessed Martyrs So whiles no man takes away the crown of your constancie ye shall be our Crown and rejoycing in the day of our Lord Jesus to whose all-sufficient Grace I commend you all and vow my self Your common Servant in him whom we all rejoice to serve JOS. EXON The Contents CHAP. I. THE extent of the Differences betwixt the Churches Pag. 375 CHAP. II. The Original of the Differences 376 CHAP. III. The Reformed unjustly charged with Noveltie Heresie Schisme 378 CHAP. IV. The Romane Church guilty of this Schisme 380 CHAP. V. The Newness of the Article of Justification by inherent Righteousness 381 Sect. 2. This Doctrine proved to be against Scripture 383 Sect. 3. Against Reason 384 CHAP. VI. The Newness of the Doctrine of Merit 385 Sect. 2. Against Scripture 386 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. VII The Newness of the Doctine of Transubstantiation 387 Sect. 2. Against Scripture 389 Sect. 3. Against Reason 390 CHAP. VIII The Newness of the Half-Communion 391 Sect. 2. Against Scripture 392 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. IX The Newness of Missal Sacrifice 393 Sect. 2. Against Scripture ibid. Sect. 3. Against Reason 394 CHAP. X. The Newness of Image-Worship ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 396 Sect. 3. Against Reason 397 CHAP. XI The Newness of Indulgences and Purgatory ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 399 Sect. 3. Against Reason 400 CHAP. XII The Newness of Divine Service in an unknown tongue ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 402 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. XIII The Newness of a full forced Sacramental Confession 403 Sect. 2. Not warranted by Scripture 404 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. Sect. 4. The Novelty of Absolution before Satisfaction 405 CHAP. XIV The Newness of the Romish Invocation of Saints ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 406 Sect. 3. Against Reason 407 CHAP. XV. The Newness of Seven Sacraments 408 Sect. 2. Besides Scripture 409 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. XVI The Newness of the Romish Doctrine of Traditions ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 411 Sect. 3. Against Reason 412 CHAP. XVII The Newness of the universal Headship of the Bishop of Rome ibid. Sect. 2. The Newness of challenged Infallibility 414 Sect. 3. The Newness of the Popes Superiorities to Councils 415 Sect. 4. The new presumption of Papal Dispensation ibid. Sect. 5. The new challenge of popes domineering over Kings and Emperours 416 CHAP. XVIII The Epilogue both of Exhortation and Apologie 417 THE OLD RELIGION CHAP. I. The extent of the Differences betwixt the Churches THE first blessing that I daily beg of my God for his Church is our Saviours Legacy Peace that sweet Peace which in the very name of it comprehends all happiness both of estate and disposition As that Mountain whereon Christ ascended though it abounded with Palms and Pines and Myrtles yet it carried onely the name of Olives which have been an ancient Embleme of Peace Other Graces are for the Beauty of the Church this for the Health and Life of it For howsoever even Wasps have their Combes and Hereticks their Assemblies as Tertullian so as all are not of the Church that have Peace yet so essential is it to the Church in S. Chrysostome's opinion that the very name of the Church implies a consent and concord No marvel then if the Church labouring here below make it her daily suit to her glorious Bridegroom in Heaven Da pacem Give Peace in our time O Lord. The means of which happiness are soon seen not so soon attained even that which Hierome hath to his Ruffinus Una fides Let our Belief-be but one and our hearts will be but
for the Angel even after his Resurrection says He is not here for he is risen Sect. 3. Transubstantiation against Reason NEver did or can Reason triumph so much over any prodigious Paradox as it doth over this Insomuch as the Patrons of it are fain to disclaim the Sophistry of Reason and to stand upon the suffrages of Faith and the plea of Miracles We are not they who with the Manichees refuse to believe Christ unless he bring Reason we are not they who think to lade the Sea with an egge-shell to fadome the deep Mysteries of Religion with the short reach of natural apprehension We know there are wonders in Divinity fit for our adoration not fit for our comprehending But withall we know that if some Theological Truths be above right Reason yet never any against it for all Verity complies with it self as springing from one and the same Fountain This Opinion therefore we receive not not because it transcends our conceit but because we know it crosseth both true Reason and Faith It implies manifest contradiction in that it referres the same thing to it self in opposite relations so as it may be at once present and absent near and far off below and above It destroies the truth of Christ's humane body in that it ascribes Quantity to it without extension without locality turning the flesh into spirit and bereaving it of all the properties of a true body those properties which as Nicetas truely cannot so much as in thought be separated from the essence of the body insomuch as Cyril can say If the Deitie it self were capable of partition it must be a body and if it were a body it must needs be in a place and have quantity and magnitude and thereupon should not avoid circumscription It gives a false body to the Son of God making that every day of Bread by the power of words which was made once of the substance of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost It so separates Accidents from their Subjects that they not onely can subsist without them but can produce the full effects of Substances so as bare Accidents are capable of Accidents so as of them Substances may be either made or nourished It utterly overthrows which learned Cameron makes the strongest of all reasons the nature of a Sacrament in that it takes away at once the Signe and the Analogie betwixt the Signe and the thing signified The Signe in that it is no more Bread but accidents the Analogie in that it makes the Signe to be the thing signified Lastly it puts into the hands of every Priest power to doe every day a greater Miracle then God did in the Creation of the World for in that the Creator made the Creature but in this the creature daily makes the Creator Since then this Opinion is both New and convinced to be grossly Erroneous by Scripture and Reason justly have we professed our deterstation of it and for that are unjustly ejected CHAP. VIII The Newness of the Half-Communion THE Novelty of the Half-Sacrament or dry Communion delivered to the Laity is so palpable as that the Patrons of it in the presumptuous Council of Constance profess no less Licet Christus c. Although Christ say they after his Supper instituted and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds of Bread and Wine c. Licet in primitiva c. Although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament were received by the faithful under both kinds Non obstance c. Yet this custome for the avoiding of some dangers and scandals was upon just reason brought in that Laicks should receive onely under one kinde and those that stubbornly oppose themselves against it shall be ejected and punished as Hereticks Now this Council was but in the year of our Lord God 1453. Yea but these Fathers of Constance however they are bold to controll Christ's Law by Custome yet they say it was consuetudo diutissimè observata a custome very long observed True but the full age of this Diutissimè is openly and freely calculated by Cassander Satis constat It is apparent enough that the Western or Romane Church for a thousand years after Christ in the solemn and ordinary Dispensation of this Sacrament gave both kinds of Bread and Wine to all the members of the Church A point which is manifest by innumerable ancient Testimonies both of Greeks and Latines And this they were induced to doe by the example of Christs institution Quare non temerè c. It is not therefore saith he without cause that most of the best Catholicks and most conversant in the reading of Ecclesiastical Writers are inflamed with an earnest desire of obtaining the Cup of the Lord that the Sacrament may be reduced to that ancient custome and use which hath been for many Ages perpetuated in the universal Church Thus he We need no other Advocate Yea their Vasquez draws it yet lower Negare non c. We cannot deny that in the Latin Church there was the use of both kinds and that it so continued until the dayes of Saint Thomas which was about the year of God 1260. Thus it was in the Romane Church but as for the Greek the World knows it did never but communicate under both kinds These open Confessions spare us the labour of quoting the several testimonies of all Ages else it had been easie to shew how in the Liturgie of Saint Basil and Chrysostome the Priest was wont to pray Vouchsafe O Lord to give us thy Body and thy Blood and by us to thy people how in the order of Rome the Archdeacon taking the Chalice from the Bishops hand confirmeth all the receivers with the blood of our Lord and from Ignatius's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Cup distributed to all to have descended along through the clear records of S. Cyprian Hierome Ambrose Augustine Leo Gelafius Paschasius and others to the very time of Hugo and Lombard and our Halensis and to shew how S. Cyprian would not deny the blood of Christ to those that should shed their blood for Christ how Saint Austin with him makes a comparison betwixt the blood of the Legal Sacrifices which might not be eaten and this blood of our Saviours Sacrifice which all must drink But what need allegations to prove a yielded truth So as this halfing of the Sacrament is a mere novelty of Rome and such a one as their own Pope Gelasius sticks not to accuse of no less then Sacriledge Sect. 2. Half-Communion against Scripture NEither shall we need to urge Scripture when it is plainly confessed by the last Councils of Lateran and Trent that this practice varies from Christs institution Yet the Tridentine Fathers have left themselves this evasion that however our Saviour ordained it in both kinds and so delivered it to his Apostles notwithstanding he hath not by any command enjoyned it to
a Woman nor so look upon him as a Son that she should not regard him as a God He was so obedient to her as a Mother that withall she must obey him as her God That part which he took from her shall observe her she must observe that nature which came from above and made her both a Woman and a Mother Matter of miracle concerned the Godhead only Supernatural things were above the sphere of fleshly relation If now the Blessed Virgin will be prescribing either time or form unto Divine acts O woman what have I to doe with thee my hour is not come In all bodily actions his style was O Mother in spirituall and heavenly O Woman Neither is it for us in the holy affairs of God to know any faces yea if we have known Christ heretofore according to the flesh henceforth know we him so no more O Blessed Virgin if in that heavenly glory wherein thou art thou canst take notice of these earthly things with what indignation dost thou look upon the presumptuous superstition of vain men whose suits make thee more then a solicitor of Divine favours Thy Humanity is not lost in thy Motherhood nor in thy Glory The respects of Nature reach not so high as Heaven It is far from thee to abide that honour which is stolne from thy Redeemer There is a Marriage whereto we are invited yea wherein we are already interessed not as the Guests onely but as the Bride in which there shall be no want of the wine of gladnesse It is marvel if in these earthly banquets there be not some lack In thy presence O Saviour there is fulnesse of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb. Even in that rough answer doth the Blessed Virgin descry cause of hope If his hour were not yet come it was therefore coming when the exspectation of the guests and the necessity of the occasion had made fit room for the Miracle it shall come forth and challenge their wonder Faithfully therefore and observantly doth she turn her speech from her Son to the Waiters Whatsoever he saith unto you doe it How well doth it beseem the Mother of Christ to agree with his Father in Heaven whose voice from Heaven said This is my well-beloved Son hear him She that said of her self Be it unto me according to thy word saies unto others Whatsoever he saith to you doe it This is the way to have Miracles wrought in us obedience to his Word The power of Christ did not stand upon their officiousnesse he could have wrought wonders in spite of them but their perverse refusall of his commands might have made them uncapable of the favour of a miraculous action He that can when he will convince the obstinate will not grace the disobedient He that could work without us or against us will not work for us but by us This very poor house was furnished with many and large vessels for outward purification as if sin had dwelt upon the skin that superstitious people sought Holiness in frequent washings Even this rinsing fouled them with the uncleannesse of a traditional will-worship It is the Soul which needs scowring and nothing can wash that but the blood which they desperately wished upon themselves and their children for guilt not for expiation Purge thou us O Lord with hyssop and we shall be clean wash us and we shall be whiter then snow The Waiters could not but think strange of so unseasonable a command Fill the water pots It is wine that we want what do we goe to fetch water Doth this Holy man mean thus to quench our Feast and cool our stomacks If there be no remedy we could have sought this supply unbidden Yet so far hath the charge of Christs Mother prevailed that in stead of carrying flagons of wine to the table they goe to fetch pails-full of water from the Cisterns It is no pleading of unlikelihoods against the command of an Almighty power He that could have created wine immediately in those vessels will rather turn water into wine In all the course of his Miracles I do never finde him making ought of nothing all his great works are grounded upon former existences He multiplied the bread he changed the water he restored the withered limmes he raised the dead and still wrought upon that which was and did not make that which was not What doth he in the ordinary way of nature but turn the watery juice that arises up from the root into wine He will only do this now suddenly and at once which he doth usually by sensible degrees It is ever duly observed by the Son of God not to doe more miracle then he needs How liberal are the provisions of Christ If he had turned but one of those vessels it had been a just proof of his power and perhaps that quantity had served the present necessity now he furnisheth them with so much wine as would have served an hundred and fifty guests for an intire Feast Even the measure magnifies at once both his power and mercy The munificent hand of God regards not our need only but our honest affluence It is our sin and our shame if we turn his favour into wantonness There must be first a filling ere there be a drawing out Thus in our vessels the first care must be of our receit the next of our expence God would have us Cisterns not Channels Our Saviour would not be his own taster but he sends the first draught to the Governour of the Feast He knew his own power they did not Neither would he bear witness of himself but fetch it out of others mouths They that knew not the original of that wine yet praised the taste Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine and when men have well drunk then that which is worse but thou hast kept the good wine untill now The same bounty that expressed it self in the quantity of the Wine shews it self no lesse in the excellence Nothing can fall from that Divine hand not exquisite That liberality hated to provide crab-wine for his guests It was fit that the miraculous effects of Christ which came from his immediate hand should be more perfect then the natural O Blessed Saviour how delicate is that new Wine which we shall one day drink with thee in thy Fathers Kingdome Thou shalt turn this water of our earthly affliction into that Wine of gladnesse wherewith our Souls shall be satiate for ever Make haste O my Beloved and be thou like to a Roe or to a young Hart upon the Mountain of Spices The good Centurion Even the bloody trade of War yielded worthy Clients to Christ This Roman Captain had learned to believe in that Jesus whom many Jews despised No Nation no trade can shut out a good heart from God If he were a forreiner for birth yet he was a domestick in
Messiah if curing the blinde lame diseased deaf dumb ejecting Devils over-ruling the elements raising the dead could have been sufficient yet still they must have a signe from Heaven and shut up in the stile of the Tempter If thou be the Christ The gracious heart is credulous Even where it sees not it believes and where it sees but a little it believes a great deal Neither doth it presume to prescribe unto God what and how he shall work but takes what it finds and unmovably rests in what it takes Any miracle no miracle serves enough for their assent who have built their Faith upon the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Matthew called THE number of the Apostles was not yet full One room is left void for a future occupant Who can but expect that it is reserved for some eminent person and behold Matthew the Publican is the man Oh the strange election of Christ Those other Disciples whose calling is recorded were from the Fisher-boat this from the Toll-booth They were unlettered this infamous The condition was not in it self sinfull but as the Taxes which the Romans imposed on God's free people were odious so the Collectors the Farmers of them abominable Besides that it was hard to hold that seat without oppression without exaction One that best knew it branded it with poling and sycophancy And now behold a griping Publican called to the Family to the Apostleship to the Secretaryship of God Who can despair in the conscience of his unworthiness when he sees this pattern of the free bounty of him that calleth us Merits do not carry it in the gracious election of God but his mere favour There sate Matthew the Publican busie in his Counting-house reckoning up the sums of his Rentals taking up his arrerages and wrangling for denied duties and did so little think of a Saviour that he did not so much as look at his passage but Jesus as he passed by saw a man sitting at the receit of custome named Matthew As if this prospect had been sudden and casual Jesus saw him in passing by O Saviour before the world was thou sawest that man sitting there thou sawest thine own passage thou sawest his call in thy passage and now thou goest purposely that way that thou mightest see and call Nothing can be hid from that piercing eye one glance whereof hath discerned a Disciple in the cloaths of a Publican That habit that shop of extortion cannot conceal from thee a vessel of election In all forms thou knowest thine own and in thine own time shalt fetch them out of the disguises of their soul sins or unfit conditions What sawest thou O Saviour in that Publican that might either allure thine eye or not offend it What but an hateful trade an evil eye a gripple hand bloudy tables heaps of spoil Yet now thou saidest Follow me Thou that saidst once to Jerusalem Thy birth and nativity is of the land of Canaan Thy father was an Amorite thy mother an Hittite Thy navel was not cut neither wert thou washed in water to supple thee thou wast not salted at all thou wast not swadled at all None eye pitied thee but thou wast cast out in the open fields to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born And when I Passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood I said unto thee Live yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live Now also when thou passedst by and sawest Matthew sitting at the receit of custome saidst to him Follow me The life of this Publican was so much worse then the birth of that forlorn Amorite as Follow me was more then Live What canst thou see in us O God but ugly deformities horrible sins despicable miseries yet doth it please thy mercy to say unto us both Live and Follow me The just man is the first accuser of himself whom do we hear to blazon the shame of Matthew but his own mouth Matthew the Evangelist tels us of Matthew the Publican His fellows call him Levi as willing to lay their finger upon the spot of his unpleasing profession himself will not smother nor blanch it a whit but publishes it to all the world in a thankful recognition of the mercy that called him as liking well that his baseness should serve for a fit foile to set off the glorious lustre of his Grace by whom he was elected What matters it how vile we are O God so thy glory may arise in our abasement That word was enough Follow me spoken by the same tongue that said to the corps at Nain Young man I say to thee Arise He that said at first Let there be light sayes now Follow me That power sweetly inclines which could forcibly command the force is not more unresistible then the inclination When the Sun shines upon the Ice-icles can they chuse but melt and fall When it looks into a dungeon can the place chuse but be enlightned Do we see the Jet drawing up straws to it the Load-stone iron and do we marvel if the Omnipotent Saviour by the influence of his Grace attract the heart of a Publican He arose and followed him We are all naturally averse from thee O God do thou but bid us Follow thee draw us by thy powerful word and we shall run after thee Alas thou speakest and we sit still thou speakest by thine outward Word to our eare and we stir not Speak thou by the secret and effectual word of thy Spirit to our heart the world cannot hold us down Satan cannot stop our way we shall arise and follow thee It was not a more busie then gainful trade that Matthew abandoned to follow Christ into poverty and now he cast away his Counters and struck his Tallies and crossed his books and contemned his heaps of cash in comparison of that better treasure which he foresaw lye open in that happy attendance If any commodity be valued of us too dear to be parted with for Christ we are more fit to be Publicans then Disciples Our Saviour invites Matthew to a Discipleship Matthew invites him to a Feast The joy of his call makes him begin his abdication of the world in a banquet Here was not a more chearful thankfulness in the inviter then a gracious humility in the guest The new servant bids his Master the Publican his Saviour and is honoured with so blessed a presence I do not finde where Jesus was ever bidden to any table and refused If a Pharisee if a Publican invited him he made not dainty to goe Not for the pleasure of the dishes what was that to him who began his work in a whole Lent of dayes But as it was his meat and drink to doe the will of his Father for the benefit of so winning a conversation If he sate with sinners he converted them if with converts he confirmed and instructed them if with the poor he fed them if with the rich in
thy words never till now at thy silence A miserable suppliant cries and sues whiles the God of mercies is speechlesse He that comforts the afflicted addes affliction to the comfortlesse by a willing disrespect What shall we say then Is the fountain of Mercy dried up O Saviour couldst thou but hear she did not murmur not whisper but cry out couldst thou but pity but regard her that was as good as she was miserable If thy ears were open could thy bowels be shut Certainly it was thou that didst put it into the heart into the mouth of this woman to ask and to ask thus of thy self She could never have said O Lord thou son of David but from thee but by thee None calleth Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost Much more therefore didst thou hear the words of thine own making and well wert thou pleased to hear what thou thoughtest good to forbear to answer It was thine own grace that sealed up thy lips Whether for the triall of her patience and perseverance forâ— silence carried a semblance of neglect and a willing neglect laies strong siege to the best fort of the Soul Even calm tempers when they have been stirred have bewrayed impetuousness of Passion If there be any dregs in the bottom of the glasse when the water is shaken they will be soon seen Or whether for the more sharpning of her desires and raising of her zealous importunity Our holy longings are increased with delaies it whets our appetite to be held fasting Or whether for the more sweetning of the blessing by the difficulty or stay of obtaining The benefit that comes with ease is easily contemned Long and eager pursuit endears any favour Or whether for the ingaging of his Disciples in so charitable a suit Or whether for the wise avoidance of exception from the captious Jews or lastly for the drawing on of an holy and imitable pattern of faithfull perseverance and to teach us not to measure God's hearing of our suit by his present answer or his present answer by our own sense Whiles our weakness exspects thy words thy wisdome resolves upon thy silence Never wert thou better pleased to hear the acclamation of Angels then to hear this woman say O Lord thou son of David yet silence is thy answer When we have made our prayers it is an happy thing to hear the report of them back from Heaven but if we alwaies do not so it is not for us to be dejected and to accuse either our infidelity or thy neglect since we finde here a faithfull suitor met with a gracious Saviour and yet he answered her not a word If we be poor in spirit God is rich in mercy he cannot send us away empty yet he will not alwaies let us feel his condescent crossing us in our will that he may advance our benefit It was no small fruit of Christ's silence that the Disciples were hereupon moved to pray for her not for a mere dismission it had been no favour to have required this but a punishment for if to be held in suspense be miserable to be sent away with a repulse is more but for a mercifull grant They saw much passion in the woman much cause of passion they saw great discouragement on Christ's part great constancy on hers Upon all these they feel her misery and become suitors for her unrequested It is our duty in case of necessity to intercede for each other and by how much more familiar we are with Christ so much more to improve our interest for the relief of the distressed We are bidden to say Our Father not mine yea being members of one body we pray for our selves in others If the foot be prickt the back bends the head bows down the eyes look the hands stir the tongue calls for aide the whole man is in pain and labours for redresse He cannot pray or be heard for himself that is no mans friend but his own No prayer without faith no faith without charity no charity without mutual intercession That which urged them to speak for her is urged to Christ by them for her obtaining She cries after us Prayer is as an arrow if it be drawn up but a little it goes not far but if it be pull'd up to the head it flies strongly and pierces deep If it be but dribbled forth of carelesse lips it falls down at our foot the strength of our ejaculation sends it up into Heaven and fetches down a blessing The childe hath escaped many a stripe by his loud crying and the very unjust Judge cannot indure the widows clamour Heartless motions do but teach us to deny servent suits offer violence both to earth and Heaven Christ would not answer the woman but doth answer the Disciples Those that have a familiarity with God shall receive answers when strangers shall stand out Yea even of domesticks some are more intire He that lay in Jesus his bosome could receive that intelligence which was concealed from the rest But who can tell whether that silence or this answer be more grievous I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel What is this answer but a defence of that silence and seeming neglect Whiles he said nothing his forbearance might have been supposed to proceed from the necessity of some greater thoughts but now his answer professeth that silence to have proceeded from a willing resolution not to answer and therefore he doth not vouchsafe so much as to give to her the answer but to her solicitors that they might return his deniall from him to her who had undertaken to derive her suit to him I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Like a faithfull Embassadour Christ hath an eye to his commission That may not be violated though to an apparant advantage whither he is not sent he may not goe As he so all his have their fixed marks set at these they aime and think it not safe to shoot at rovers In matter of morality it is not for us to stand onely upon inhibitions avoiding what is forbidden but upon commands endeavouring only what is injoyned We need no other rule of our life then the intention of our several stations And if he that was God would take no further scope to himself then the limits of his commission how much doth it concern us frail men to keep within compass or what shall become of our lawlesness that live in a direct contrariety to the will of him that sent us Israel was Jacob's name from him derived to his posterity till the division of the Tribes under Jeroboam all that nation was Israel then the Father's name went to the most which were ten Tribes the name of the Son Juda to the best which were two Christ takes no notice of this unhappy division he remembers the antient name which he gave to that faithfull wrestler It was this Christ with whom Jacob strove it was he
are in the hand of a cunning workman that of the knottiest and crookedst timber can make rafters and seeling for his own house that can square the marble or flint as well as the freest stone Who can now plead the disadvantage of his place when he sees a Publican come to Christ No Calling can prejudice God's gracious election To excell in evil must needs be worse If to be a Publican be ill surely to be an Arch-publican is more What talk we of the chief of Publicans when he that professed himself the chief of Sinners is now among the chief of Saints Who can despair of mercy when he sees one Jericho send both an Harlot and a Publican to Heaven The trade of Zacheus was not a greater rub in his way then his wealth He that sent word to John for great news that the poor receive the Gospel said also How hard is it for a rich man to enter into Heaven This bunch of the Camel keeps him from passing the needles eye although not by any malignity that is in the creature it self Riches are the gift of God but by reason of those three pernicious hang-byes Cares Pleasures Pride which too commonly attend upon Wealth Separate these Riches are a blessing If we can so possess them that they possess not us there can be no danger much benefit in abundance All the good or ill of wealth or poverty is in the minde in the use He that hath a free and lowly heart in riches is poor he that hath a proud heart under rags is rich If the rich man doe good and distribute and the poor man steal the rich hath put off his woe to the poor Zacheus had never been so famous a Convert if he had been poor nor so liberal a Convert if he had not been rich If more difficulty yet more glory was in the conversion of rich Zacheus It is well that wealthy Zacheus was desirous to see Christ Little do too many rich men care to see that sight the face of Caesar in their coin is more pleasing This man leaves his bags to blesse his eyes with this prospect Yet can I not praise him for this too much it was not I fear out of Faith but Curiosity He that had heard great same of the man of his Miracles would gladly see his face Even an Herod longed for this and was never the better Onely this I finde that this Curiosity of the eye through the mercy of God gave occasion to the Belief of the heart He that desires to see Jesus is in the way to enjoy him there is not so much as a remote possibility in the man that cares not to behold him The eye were ill bestowed if it were onely to betray our Souls there are no lesse beneficial glances of it We are not worthy of this usefull casement of the heart if we do not thence send forth beams of holy desires and thereby re-conveigh profitable and saving Objects I cannot marvel if Zacheus were desirous to see Jesus All the world was not worth this sight Old Simeon thought it best to have his eyes closed up with this spectacle as if he held it pity and disparagement to see ought after it The Father of the faithfull rejoiced to see him though at nineteen hundred years distance and the great Doctor of the Gentiles stands upon this as his highest stair Have I not seen the Lord Jesus And yet O Saviour many a one saw thee here that shall never see thy face above yea that shall call to the hills to hide them from thy sight And if we had once known thee according to the flesh henceforth know we thee so no more What an happiness shall it be so to see thee glorious that in seeing thee we shall partake of thy glory Oh blessed vision to which all others are but penal and despicable Let me goe into the mint-house and see heaps of gold I am never the richer let me goe to the picturers I see goodly faces and am never the fairer let me goe to the Court I see state and magnificence and am never the greater but O Saviour I cannot see thee and not be blessed I can see thee here though in a glasse If the eye of my Faith be dim yet it is sure Oh let me be unquiet till I do now see thee through the vaile of Heaven ere I shall see thee as I am seen Fain would Zacheus see Jesus but he could not It were strange if a man should not finde some lett in good desires somewhat will be still in the way betwixt us and Christ Here are two hinderances met the one internal the other external the stature of the man the prease of the multitude the greatness of the prease the smalness of the stature There was great thronging in the streets of Jâ—richo to see Jesus the doors the windows the bulks were all full Here are many beholders few Disciples If gazing if profession were Godliness Christ could not want clients now amongst all these wonderers there is but one Zacheus In vain should we boast of our forwardness to see and hear Christ in our streets if we receive him not into our hearts This croud hides Christ from Zacheus Alas how common a thing it is by the interposition of the throng of the world to be kept from the sight of our Jesus Here a carnal Fashionist sayes Away with this austere scrupulousness let me doe as the most The throng keeps this man from Christ There a superstitious misbeliever sayes What tell you me of an handful of reformed the whole world is ours This man is kept from Christ by the throng The covetous Mammonist sayes Let them that have leasure be devout my imployments are many my affairs great This man cannot see Christ for the throng There is no perfect view of Christ but in an holy secession The Spouse found not her Beloved till she was past the company then she found him whom her Soul loved Whoso never seeks Christ but in the croud shall never finde comfort in finding him The benefit of our publick view must be enjoyed in retiredness If in a prease we see a mans face that is all when we have him alone every limme may be viewed O Saviour I would be loath not to see thee in thine Assemblies but I would be more loath not to see thee in my Closet Yet had Zacheus been but of the common pitch he might perhaps have seen Christs face over his fellows shoulders now his stature adds to the disadvantage his Body did not answer to his Minde his desires were high whiles his body was low The best is however smalness of stature was disadvantageous in a level yet it is not so at height A little man if his eye be clear may look as high though not as farre as the tallest The least Pygmee may from the lowest valley see the Sun or Stars as fully as a Giant upon the highest mountain O Saviour
contenting thy self in this that thou hast a Master to whom the land and water is alike Yet I hear not a check but a Call Come The suit of Ambition is suddainly quashed in the Mother of the Zebedees The suits of Revenge prove no better in the mouth of the two fiery Disciples But a suit of Faith though high and seemingly unfit for us he hath no power to deny How much lesse O Saviour wilt thou stick at those things which lie in the very road of our Christianity Never man said Bid me to come to thee in the way of thy commandements whom thou didst not both bid and inable to come True Faith rests not in great and good desires but acts and executes accordingly Peter doth not wish to goe and yet stand stillâ— but his foot answers his tongue and instantly chops down upon the waters To sit still and wish is for sluggish and cowardly spirits Formal volitions yea velleities of good whiles we will not so mucâ—â—â— step out of the ship of our Nature to walk unto Christ are but the faint motions of vain Hypocrisie It will be long enough ere the gale of good wishes can carry us to our Haven Ease slayeth the foolish O Saviour we have thy command to come to thee out of the ship of our natural corruption Let no Sea affray us let no tempest of Temptation withhold us No way can be but safe when thou art the End Lo Peter is walking upon the waves two hands uphold him the hand of Christ's Power the hand of his own Faith neither of them would doe it alone The hand of Christ's Power laid hold on him the hand of his Faith laid hold on the Power of Christ commanding Had not Christ's hand been powerfull that Faith had been in vain Had not that Faith of his strongly fixed upon Christ that Power had not been effectual to his preservation Whiles we are here in the world we walk upon the waters still the same hands bear us up If he let goe his hold of us we drown if we let goe our hold of him we sink and shreek as Peter did here who when he saw the winde boistrous was afraid and beginning to sink cried saying Lord save me When he wisht to be bidden to walk unto Christ he thought of the waters Bid me to come to thee on the waters he thought not of the windes which raged on those waters or if he thought of a stiffe gale yet that tempestuous and sudden gust was out of his account and exspectation Those evils that we are prepared for have not such power over us as those that surprise us A good water-man sees a dangerous billow coming towards him and cuts it and mounts over it with ease the unheedy is overwhelmed O Saviour let my haste to thee be zealous but not improvident ere I set my foot out of the ship let me foresee the Tempest when I have cast the worst I cannot either miscarry or complain So soon as he began to fear he began to sink whiles he believed the Sea was brass when once he began to distrust those waves were water He cannot sink whiles he trusts the power of his Master he cannot but sink when he misdoubts it Our Faith gives us as courage and boldness so success too our infidelity laies us open to all dangers to all mischiefs It was Peter's improvidence not to foresee it was his weakness to fear it was the effect of his fear to sink it was his Faith that recollects it self and breaks through his infidelity and in sinking could say Lord save me His foot could not be so swift in sinking as his heart in imploring he knew who could uphold him from sinking and being sunk deliver him and therefore he saies Lord save me It is a notable both sign and effect of true Faith in suddain extremities to ejaculate holy desires and with the wings of our first thoughts to flie up instantly to the throne of Grace for present succour Upon deliberation it is possible for a man that hath been carelesse and profane by good means to be drawn to holy dispositions but on the suddain a man will appear as he is whatever is most rife in the heart will come forth at the mouth It is good to observe how our surprisals finde us the rest is but forced this is natural Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh O Saviour no evil can be swifter then my thought my thought shall be upon thee ere I can be seized upon by the speediest mischief at least if I over-run not evils I shall overtake them It was Christ his Lord whom Peter had offended in distrusting it is Christ his Lord to whom he sues for deliverance His weakness doth not discourage him from his refuge O God when we have displeased thee when we have sunk in thy displeasure whither should we flie for aide but to thee whom we have provoked Against thee only is our sin in thee only is our help In vain shall all the powers of Heaven and earth conspire to relieve us if thou withhold from our succour As we offend thy Justice daily by our sins so let us continually relie upon thy Mercy by the strength of our Faith Lord save us The mercy of Christ is at once sought and found Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him He doth not say Hadst thou trusted me I would have safely preserved thee but since thou wilt needs wrong my power and care with a cowardly diffidence sink and drown but rather as pitying the infirmity of his fearful Disciple he puts out the hand for his relief That hand hath been stretch'd forth for the aide of many a one that hath never ask'd it never any ask'd it to whose succour it hath not been stretched With what speed with what confidence should we flie to that soveraign bounty from which never any suitor was sent away empty Jesus gave Peter his hand but withall he gave him a check O thou of little faith why doubtedst thou As Peter's Faith was not pure but mixed with some distrust so our Saviours help was not clear and absolute but mixed with some reproof A reproof wherein there was both a censure and an expostulation a censure of his Faith an expostulation for his Doubt both of them sore heavy By how much more excellent and usefull a grace Faith is by so much more shamefull is the defect of it and by how much more reason here was of confidence by so much more blame-worthy was the Doubt Now Peter had a double reason of his confidence the command of Christ the power of Christ the one in bidding him to come the other in sustaining him whiles he came To misdoubt him whose will he knew whose power he felt was well worth a reprehension When I saw Peter stepping forth upon the waters I could not but wonder at his great Faith yet behold ere he can have measured many paces
merry Ye delicatest Courtiers tell me if Pleasure it self have not an unpleasant tediousness hanging upon it and more sting then honey And whereas all happiness even here below is in the vision of God how is our spiritual eye hindered as the body is from his Object by darkness by false light by aversion Darkness he that doth sin is in darkness False light whilst we measure eternal things by temporary Aversion while as weak eyes hate the light we turn our eyes from the true and immutable good to the fickle and uncertain We are not on the hill but the valley where we have tabernacles not of our own making but of clay and such as wherein we are witnesses of Christ not transfigured in glory but blemished with dishonour dishonoured with oaths and blasphemies recrucified with our sins witnesses of God's Saints not shining in Tabor but mourning in darkness and in stead of that Heavenly brightness cloathed with sackcloth and ashes Then and there we shall have tabernacles not made with hands eternal in the heavens where we shall see how sweet the Lord is we shall see the triumphs of Christ we shall hear and sing the Hallelujahs of Saints Quae nunc nos angit vesania vitiorum sitire absinthium c. saith that devour Father Oh how hath our corruption bewitched us to thirst for this wormwood to affect the shipwracks of this world to dote upon the misery of this fading life and not rather to fly up to the felicity of Saints to the society of Angels to that blessed contemplation wherein we shall see God in himself God in us our selves in him There shall be no sorrow no pain no complaint no fear no death There is no malice to rise against us no misery to afflict us no hunger thirst weariness tentation to disquiet us There O there one day is better then a thousand There is rest from our labours peace from our enemies freedome from our sins How many clouds of discontentment darken the Sunshine of our joy while we are here below Vae nobis qui vivimus plangere quae pertulimus dolere quae sentimus timere quae exspectamus Complaint of evils past sense of present fear of future have shared our lives amongst them Then shall we be semper laeti semper satiati alwaies joyfull alwaies satisfied with the vision of that God in whose presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore Shall we see that heathen Cleombrotus abandoning his life and casting himself down from the rock upon an uncertain noise of immortality and shall not we Christians abandon the wicked superfluities of life the pleasures of sin for that life which we know more certainly then this What stick we at my beloved Is there a Heaven or is there none have we a Saviour there or have we none We know there is a Heaven as sure as that there is an earth below us we know we have a Saviour there as sure as there are men that we converse with upon earth we know there is happiness as sure as we know there is misery and mutability upon earth Oh our miserable sottishness and infidelity if we do not contemn the best offers of the world and lifting up our eyes and hearts to Heaven say Bonum est esse hîc Even so Lord Jesus come quickly To him that hath purchased and prepared this Glory for us together with the Father and Blessed Spirit one Incomprehensible God be all praise for ever Amen The Prosecution of the Transfiguration BEfore the Disciples eyes were dazled with Glory now the brightness of that glory is shaded with a Cloud Frail and feeble eyes of mortality cannot look upon an Heavenly lustre That Cloud imports both Majesty and Obscuration Majesty for it was the testimony of God's presence of old the Cloud covered the Mountain the Tabernacle the Oracle He that makes the clouds his Chariot was in a cloud carried up into Heaven Where have we mention of any Divine representation but a Cloud is one part of it What comes nearer to Heaven either in place or resemblance Obscuration for as it shew'd there was a Majesty and that Divine so it shew'd them that the view of that Majesty was not for bodily eyes Like as when some great Prince walks under a Canopy that veile shews there is a Great person under it but withall restrains the eye from a free sight of his person And if the cloud were clear yet it shaded them Why then was this cloud interposed betwixt that glorious Vision and them but for a check of their bold eyes Had they too long gazed upon this resplendent spectacle as their eyes had been blinded so their hearts had perhaps grown to an over-bold familiarity with that Heavenly Object How seasonably doth the cloud intercept it The wise God knows our need of these vicissitudes and allayes If we have a light we must have a cloud if a light to chear us we must have a cloud to humble us It was so in Sinai it was so in Sion it was so in Olivet it shall never be but so The natural day and night do not more duely interchange then this light and cloud Above we shall have the light without the cloud a clear vision and fruition of God without all dim and sad interpositions below we cannot be free from these mists and clouds of sorrow and misapprehension But this was a bright cloud There is difference betwixt the cloud in Tabor and that in Sinai This was clear that darksome There is darkness in the Law there is light in the Grace of the Gospel Moses was there spoken to in darkness here he was spoken with in light In that dark cloud there was terrour in this there was comfort Though it were a Cloud then yet it was bright and though it were bright yet it was a Cloud With much light there was some shade God would not speak to them concerning Christ out of darkness neither yet would he manifest himself to them in an absolute brightness All his appearances have this mixture What need I other instance then in these two Saints Moses spake oft to God mouth to mouth yet not so immediately but that there was ever somewhat drawn as a curtain betwixt God and him either fire in Horeb or smoak in Sinai so as his face was not more veiled from the people then God's from him Elias shall be spoken to by God but in the Rock and under a Mantle In vain shall we hope for any revelation from God but in a cloud Worldly hearts are in utter darkness they see not so much as the least glimpse of these Divine beams not a beam of that inaccessible light The best of his Saints see him here but in a cloud or in a glass Happy are we if God have honoured us with these Divine representations of himself Once in his light we shall see light I can easily think with what amazedness these three
I am baptized O Saviour even thou who wert one with thy Father hast a Cup of thine own never Potion was so bitter as that which was mixed for thee Yea even thy draught is stinted it is not enough for thee to sip of this Cup thou must drink it up to the very dregs When the vinegar and gall were tendred to thee by men thou didst but kiss the cup but when thy Father gave into thine hands a potion infinitely more distastful thou for our health didst drink deep of it even to the bottome and saidst It is finished And can we repine at those unpleasing draughts of Affliction that are tempered for us sinful men when we see thee the Son of thy Fathers love thus dieted We pledge thee O Blessed Saviour we pledge thee according to our weakness who hast begun to us in thy powerful suffereings Onely do thou enable us after some four faces made in our reluctation yet at last willingly to pledge thee in our constant Sufferings for thee As thou must be drenched within so must thou be baptized without Thy Baptisme is not of water but of blood both these came from thee in thy Passion we cannot be thine if we partake not of both If thou hast not grudged thy precious blood to us well maiest thou challenge some worthless drops from us When they talk of thy Kingdome thou speakest of thy bitter Cup of thy bloody Baptisme Suffering is the way to reigning Through many tribulations must we enter into the Kingdome of Heaven There was never wedge of gold that did not first pass the fire there was never pure grain that did not undergoe the flail In vain shall we dream of our immediate passage from the pleasures and jollity of earth to the glory of Heaven Let who will hope to walk upon Roses and Violets to the throne of Heaven O Saviour let me trace thee by the track of thy Blood and by thy red steps follow thee to thine eternal rest and Happiness I know this is no easie task else thou hadst never said Are ye able Who should be able if not they that had been so long blessed with thy presence informed by thy doctrine and as it were beforehand possessed of their Heaven in thee Thou hadst never made them judges of their power if thou couldst not have convinced them of their weakness Alas how full of feebleness is our body and our minde of impatience If but a Bee sting our flesh it swels and if but a tooth ake the head and heart complain How small trifles make us weary of our selves What can we doe without thee without thee what can we suffer If thou be not O Lord strong in my weakness I cannot be so much as weak I cannot so much as be Oh do thou prepare me for my day and enable me to my trials I can doe all things through thee that strengthenest me The motion of the two Disciples was not more full of infirmity then their answer We are able Out of an eager desire of the Honour they are apt to undertake the condition The best men may be mistaken in their own powers Alas poor men when it came to the issue they ran away and I know not whether one without his coat It is one thing to suffer in speculation another in practice There cannot be a worse signe then for a man in a carnal presumption to vaunt of his own abilities How justly doth God suffer that man to be foiled purposely that he may be ashamed of his own vain self-confidence O God let me ever be humbly dejected in the sense of mine own insufficiency let me give all the Glory to thee and take nothing to my self but my infirmities Oh the wonderful mildness of the Son of God! He doth not rate the two Disciples either for their ambition in suing or presumption in undertaking but leaving the worst he takes the best of their answer and omitting their errors incourages their good intentions Ye shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptized with my baptisme but to sit on my right hand and my left is not mine to give but to them for whom it is prepared of my Father I know not whether there be more mercy in the concession or satisfaction in the denial Were it not an high Honour to drink of thy Cup O Saviour thou hadst not fore-promised it as a favour I am deceived if what thou grantest were much less then that which thou deniest To pledge thee in thine own Cup is not much less dignity and familiarity then to sit by thee If we suffer with thee we shall also reign together with thee What greater promotion can flesh and blood be capable of then a conformity to the Lord of Glory Enable thou me to drink of thy Cup and then set me where thou wilt But O Saviour whiles thou dignifiest them in thy grant dost thou disparage thy self in thy denial Not mine to give Whose is it if not thine If it be thy Fathers it is thine Thou who art Truth hast said I and my Father are one Yea because thou art one with the Father it is not thine to give to any save those for whom it is prepared of the Father The Father's preparation was thine his gift is thine the Decree of both is one That eternal counsel is not alterable upon our vain desires The Father gives these Heavenly honours to none but by thee thou givest them to none but according to the Decree of thy Father Many degrees there are of celestial Happiness Those supernal Mansions are not all of an height That Providence which hath varied our stations upon earth hath pre-ordered our seats above O God admit me within the wals of thy new Jerusalem and place me wheresoever thou pleasest The Tribute money pai'd ALL these other Histories report the Power of Christ this shews both his Power and Obedience his Power over the creature his Obedience to civil Powers Capernaum was one of his own Cities there he made his chief abode in Peter's house to that Host of his therefore do the Toll-gatherers repair for the Tribute When that great Disciple said We have left all he did not say We have abandoned all or sold or given away all but we have left in respect of managing not of possession not in respect of right but of use and present fruition so left that upon just occasion we may resume so left that it is our due though not our business Doubtless he was too wise to give away his own that he might borrow of a stranger His own roof gave him shelter for the time and his Master with him Of him as the Housholder is the Tribute required and by and for him is it also paid I inquire not either into the occasion or the summe What need we make this exaction sacrilegious as if that half-shekel which was appointed by God to be paid by every Israelite to the use of the Tabernacle and
the same power slackned those swathing-bands of death that the feet might have some little scope to move though not with that freedome that followed after Thou didst not onely O Saviour raise the body of Lazarus but the Faith of the beholders They cannot deny him dead whom they saw rising they see the signes of death with the proofs of life Those very swathes convinced him to be the man that was raised Thy less Miracle confirms the greater both confirm the Faith of the beholders O clear and irrefragable example of our resuscitation Say now ye shameless Sadducees with what face can ye deny the Resurrection of the body when ye see Lazarus after four-days death rising up out of his grave And if Lazarus did thus start up at the bleating of this Lamb of God that was now every day preparing for the slaughter-house how shall the dead be rouzed up out of their graves by the roaring of that glorious and immortal Lion whose voice shall shake the powers of Heaven and move the very foundations of the earth With what strange amazedness do we think that Martha and Mary the Jews and the Disciples lookt to see Lazarus come forth in his winding-sheet shackled with his linen fetters and walk towards them Doubtless fear and horrour strove in them whether should be for the time more predominant We love our friends dearly but to see them again after their known death and that in the very robes of the grave must needs set up the hair in a kinde of uncouth rigour And now though it had been most easie for him that brake the adamantine fetters of death to have broke in pieces those linen ligaments wherewith his raised Lazarus was encumbred yet he will not doe it but by their hands He that said Remove the stone said Loose Lazarus He will not have us exspect his immediate help in that we can doe for our selves It is both a laziness and a presumptuous tempting of God to look for and extraordinary and supernatural help from God where he hath inabled us with common aid What strange salutations do we think there were betwixt Lazarus and Christ that had raised him betwixt Lazarus and his Sisters and neighbors and friends what amazed looks what unusual complements For Lazarus was himself at once here was no leisure of degrees to reduce him to his wonted perfection neither did he stay to rub his eyes and stretch his benummed lims nor take time to put off that dead sleep wherewith he had been seized but instantly he is both alive and fresh and vigorous if they do but let him goe he walks so as if he had ailed nothing and receives and gives mutual gratulations I leave them entertaining each other with glad embraces with discourses of reciprocal admiration with praises and adorations of that God and Saviour that had fetched him into life Christ's Procession to the Temple NEver did our Saviour take so much state upon him as now that he was going towards his Passion other journies he measured on foot without noise or train this with a Princely equipage and loud acclamation Wherein yet O Saviour whether shall I more wonder at thy Majesty or thine Humility that Divine Majesty which lay hid under so humble appearance or that sincere Humility which veiled so great a glory Thou O Lord whose chariots are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels wouldst make choice of the silliest of beasts to carry thee in thy last and Royal Progress How well is thy birth suited with thy triumph Even that very Ass whereon thou rodest was prophesied of neither couldst thou have made up those vaticall Predictions without this conveyance O glorious and yet homely pomp Thou wouldst not lose ought of thy right thou that wast a King wouldst be proclaimed so but that it might appear thy Kingdome was not of this world thou that couldst have commanded all worldly magnificence thoughtest fit to abandon it In stead of the Kings of the earth who reigning by thee might have been imployed in thine attendance the people are thine heralds their homely garments are thy foot-cloth and carpets their green boughs the strewings of thy way those Palms which were wont to be born in the hands of them that triumph are strewed under the feet of thy beast It was thy greatness and honour to contemn those glories which worldly hearts were wont to admire Justly did thy Followers hold the best ornaments of the earth worthy of no better then thy treading upon neither could they ever account their garments so rich as when they had been trampled upon by thy carriage How happily did they think their backs disrobed for thy way How gladly did they spend their breath in acclaming thee Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Where now are the great Masters of the Synagogue that had enacted the ejection of whosoever should confess Jesus to be the Christ Lo here bold and undaunted clients of the Messiah that dare proclaim him in the publick road in the open streets In vain shall the impotent enemies of Christ hope to suppress his glory as soon shall they with their hand hide the face of the Sun from shining to the world as withhold the beams of his Divine truth from the eyes of men by their envious opposition In spight of all Jewish malignity his Kingdome is confessed applauded blessed O thou fairer then the children of men in thy Majesty ride on prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things In this Princely and yet poor and despicable pomp doth our Saviour enter into the famous City of Jerusalem Jerusalem noted of old for the seat of Kings Priests Prophets of Kings for there was the throne of David of Priests for there was the Temple of Prophets for there they delivered their errands and left their blood Neither know I whether it were more wonder for a Prophet to perish out of Jerusalem or to be safe there Thither would Jesus come as a King as a Priest as a Prophet acclamed as a King teaching the people and foretelling the wofull vastation of it as a Prophet and as a Priest taking possession of his Temple and vindicating it from the foul profanations of Jewish Sacriledge Oft before had he come to Jerusalem without any remarkable change because without any semblance of State now that he gives some little glimpse of his Royalty the whole City was moved When the Sages of the East brought the first news of the King of the Jewes Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him and now that the King of the Jews comes himself though in so mean a port there is a new commotion The silence and obscurity of Christ never troubles the world he may be an underling without any stir but if he do but put forth himself never so little to bear the least sway amongst men now their blood
suffered till now now thy bloody Passion begins a cruell expoliation begins that violence Again do these grim and mercilesse Souldiers lay their rude hands upon thee and strip thee naked again are those bleeding wales laid open to all eyes again must thy Sacred body undergoe the shame of an abhorred nakednesse Lo thou that clothest man with raiment beasts with hides fishes with scales and shells earth with flowers Heaven with Stars art despoiled of cloaths and standest exposed to the scorn of all beholders As the First Adam entred into his Paradise so dost thou the Second Adam into thine naked and as the First Adam was clothed with Innocence when he had no cloaths so wert thou the Second too and more then so thy nakednesse O Saviour cloaths our Souls not with Innocence only but with Beauty Hadst not thou been naked we had been cloathed with confusion O happy nakednesse whereby we are covered from shame O happy shame whereby we are invested with glory All the beholders stand wrapped with warm garments thou only art stripped to tread the wine-presse alone How did thy Blessed Mother now wish her veile upon thy shoulders and that Disciple who lately ran from thee naked wish'd in vain that his loving pity might doe that for thee which fear forced him to for himself Shame is succeeded with Pain Oh the torment of the Crosse Methinks I see and feel how having fastned the transverse to the body of that fatal Tree and lai'd it upon the ground they racked and strained thy tender and sacred Lims to fit the extent of their fore-appointed measure and having tentered out thine arms beyond their natural reach how they fastned them with cords till those strong iron nails which were driven up to the head through the palms of thy Blessed hands had not more firmly then painfully fixed thee to the Gibbet The tree is raised up and now not without a vehement concussion setled in the mortise Woe is me how are thy joynts and sinews torn and stretched till they crack again by this torturing distension how doth thine own weight torment thee whiles thy whole body rests upon this forced and dolorous hold till thy nailed feet bear their part in a no lesse afflictive supportation How did the rough iron pierce thy Soul whiles passing through those tender and sensible parts it carried thy flesh before it and as it were rivetted it to that shamefull Tree There now O dear Jesu there thou hangest between Heaven and earth naked bleeding forlorn despicable the spectacle of miseries the scorn of men Be abashed O ye Heavens and earth and all ye creatures wrap up your selves in horrour and confusion to see the shame and pain and curse of your most pure and Omnipotent Creator How could ye subsist whiles he thus suffers in whom ye are O Saviour didst thou take flesh for our Redemption to be thus indignely used thus mangled thus tortured Was this measure fit to be offered to that Sacred body that was conceived by the Holy Ghost of the pure substance of an immaculate Virgin Woe is me that which was unspotted with sin is all blemished with humane crueltie and so wofully disfigured that the Blessed Mother that bore thee could not now have known thee so bloody were thy Temples so swolne and discoloured was thy Face so was the skin of thy whole body streaked with red and blew stripes so did thy thornie diadem shade thine Heavenly countenance so did the streams of thy blood cover and deform all thy parts The eye of Sense could not distinguish thee O dear Saviour in the nearest proximity to thy Crosse the eye of Faith sees thee in all this distance and by how much more ignominy deformity pain it finds in thee so much more it admires the glory of thy mercy Alas is this the Head that is decked by thine eternall Father with a Crown of pure gold of immortall and incomprehensible Majesty which is now bushed with thorns Is this the Eye that saw the Heavens opened and the Holy Ghost descending upon that head that saw such resplendence of Heavenly brightnesse on mount Tabor which now begins to be overclouded with death Are these the Eares that heard the voice of thy Father owning thee out of Heaven which now tingle with buffettings and glow with reproaches and bleed with thorns Are these the Lips that spake as never mans spake full of grace and power that called out dead Lazarus that ejected the stubbornest Devils that commanded the cure of all diseases which now are swoln with blows and discoloured with blewnesse and blood Is this the Face that should be fairer then the sons of men which the Angels of Heaven so desired to see and can never be satisfied with seeing that is thus foul with the nasty mixtures of sweat and blood and spittings on Are these the Hands that stretched out the Heavens as a curtain that by their touch healed the lame the deaf the blind which are now bleeding with the nailes Are these the Feet which walked lately upon the liquid pavement of the sea before whose footstool all the Nations of the earth are bidden to worship that are now so painfully fixed to the Crosse O cruell and unthankfull mankind that offered such measure to the Lord of Life O infinitely mercifull Saviour that wouldst suffer all this for unthankfull mankind That fiends should doe these things to guilty souls it is though terrible yet just but that men should doe thus to the Blessed Son of God it is beyond the capacity of our horrour Even the most hostile dispositions have been only content to kill Death hath sated the most eager malice thine enemies O Saviour held not themselves satisfied unlesse they might injoy thy torment Two Thieves are appointed to be thy companions in death thou art designed to the midst as the chief malefactor on whether hand soever thou lookest thine eye meets with an hatefull partner But O Blessed Jesu how shall I enough admire and celebrate thy infinite Mercy who madest so happy an use of this Jewish despight as to improve it to the occasion of the Salvation of one and the comfort of millions Is not this as the last so the greatest specialty of thy wonderfull compassion to convert that dying Thief with those nailed hands to snatch a Soul out of the mouth of Hell Lord how I blesse thee for this work how doe I stand amazed at this above all other the demonstrations of thy Goodnesse and Power The Offender came to die nothing was in his thoughts but his guilt and torment whiles he was yet in his blood thou saidst This Soul shall live Ere yet the intoxicating Potion could have time to work upon his brain thy Spirit infuses Faith into his heart He that before had nothing in his eye but present death and torture is now lifted up above his Crosse in a blessed ambition Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome Is this the voice of a Thief
Heaven and befool them in their own vain devices O Saviour how much evidence had thy Resurrection wanted if these enemies had not been thus maliciously provident how irrefragable is thy rising made by these bootless endeavours of their prevention All this while the devout Maries keep close and silently spend their Sabbath in a mixture of grief and hope How did they wear out those sad hours in bemoaning themselves each to other in mutual relations of the patient sufferings of the happy expiration of their Saviour of the wonderfull events both in the Heavens and earth that accompanied his Crucifixion of his frequent and clear Predictions of his Resurrection And now they have gladly agreed so soon as the time will give them leave in the dawning of the Sunday morning to visit that dear Sepulcher Neither will they goe empty-handed She that had bestowed that costly Alabaster-box of Ointment upon their Saviour alive hath prepared no less precious Odors for him dead Love is restless and fearless In the dark of night these good Women goe to buy their spices and ere the day-break are gone out of their houses towards the Tomb of Christ to bestow them This Sex is commonly fearful it was much for them to walk alone in that unsafe season yet as despising all fears and dangers they thus spend the night after their Sabbath Might they have been allowed to buy their Perfumes on the Sabbath or to have visited that holy Tomb sooner can we think they would have staid so long can we suppose they would have cared more for the Sabbath then for the Lord of the Sabbath who now kept his Sabbath in the Grave Sooner they might not come later they would not to present their last homage to their dead Saviour Had these holy women known their Jesus to be alive how had they hasted who made such speed to doe their last offices to his sacred Corps For us we know that our Redeemer liveth we know where he is O Saviour how cold and heartless is our love to thee if we do not hast to finde thee in thy Word and Sacraments if our Souls do not fly up to thee in all holy Affections into thy Heaven Of all the Women Mary Magdalen is first named and in some Evangelists alone She is noted above her fellows None of them were so much obliged none so zealously thankful Seven Devils were cast out of her by the command of Christ That Heart which was freed from Satan by that powerful dispossession was now possessed with a free and gracious bounty to her deliverer Twice at the least hath she powred out her fragrant and costly Odors upon him Where there is a true sense of favour and beneficence there cannot but be a fervent desire of retribution O Blessed Saviour could we feel the danger of every sin and the malignity of those spiritual possessions from which thou hast freed us how should we pour out our selves into thankfulness unto thee Every thing here had horrour The Place both solitary and a Sepulcher Nature abhors as the visage so the region of Death and Corruption The Time Night onely the Moon gave them some faint glimmering for this being the seventeenth day of her age afforded some light to the later part of the night The Business the visitation of a dead Corps Their zealous Love hath easily overcome all these They had followed him in his Sufferings when the Disciples-left him they attended him to his Cross weeping they followed him to his Grave and saw how Joseph laid him even there they leave him not but ere it be day-light return to pay him the last tribute of their duty How much stronger is Love then death O Blessed Jesu why should not we imitate thy love to us Those whom thou lovest thou lovest to the end yea in it yea after it even when we are dead not our Souls onely but our very dust is dearly respected of thee What condition of thine should remove our affections from thy person in Heaven from thy lims on earth Well did these worthy Women know what Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had done to thee they saw how curiously they had wrapped thee how preciously they had embalmed thee yet as not thinking others beneficence could be any just excuse of theirs they bring their own Odors to thy Sepulture to be perfumed by the touch of thy Sacred body What thank is it to us that others are obsequious to thee whiles we are slack or niggardly We may rejoyce in others forwardness but if we rest in it how small joy shall it be to us to see them goe to Heaven without us When on the Friday-evening they attended Joseph to the intombing of Jesus they mark'd the place they mark'd the passage they mark'd that inner grave-stone which the owner had fitted to the mouth of that tomb which all their care is now to remove Who shall roll away the stone That other more weighty load wherewith the vault was barred the seal the guard set upon both came not perhaps into their knowledge this was the private plot of Pilate and the Priests beyond the reach of their thoughts I do not hear them say How shall we recover the charges of our Odors or How shall we avoid the envy and censure of our angry Elders for honouring him whom the Governours of our Nation have thought worthy of condemnation The onely thought they now take is Who shall roll away the stone Neither do they stay at home and move this doubt but when they are well forward on their way resolving to try the issue Good hearts cannot be so solicitous for any thing under Heaven as for removing those impediments which lie between them and their Saviour O Blessed Jesu thou who art clearly revealed in Heaven art yet still both hid and sealed up from too many here on earth Neither is it some thin veil that is spred between thee and them but an huge stone even a true stone of offence lies rolled upon the mouth of their hearts Yea if a second weight were superadded to thy Grave here no less then three spiritual bars are interposed betwixt them and thee above Idleness Ignorance Unbelief Who shall roll away these stones but the same power that removed thine O Lord remove that our Ignorance that we may know thee our Idleness that we may seek thee our Unbelief that we may find and enjoy thee How well it succeeds when we go faithfully and conscionably about our work and leave the issue to God Lo now God hath removed the cares of these holy Women together with the grave-stone To the wicked that falls out which they feared to the Godly that which they wished and cared for yea more Holy cares ever prove well the worldly dry the bones and disappoint the hopes Could these good Visitants have known of a greater stone sealed of a strong watch set their doubts had been doubled now God goes beyond their thoughts and
thou seest to be real and sensible is now impassible and qualified with Immortality and therefore worthy of a more awful veneration then heretofore Or was it a gentle reproof of her dwelling too long in this dear hold of thee and fixing her thoughts upon thy Bodily presence together with an implied direction of reserving the height of her affection for thy perfect glorification in Heaven Or lastly was it a light touch of her too much hast and eagerness in touching thee as if she must use this speed in preventing thine Ascension or else be indangered to be disappointed of her hopes as if thou hadst said Be not so passionately forward and suddain in laying hold on me as if I were instantly ascending but know that I shall stay some time with you upon earth before my going up to my Father O Saviour even our well-meant zeal in seeking and injoying thee may be faulty if we seek thee where we should not on earth how we should not unwarrantably There may be a kind of carnality in Spiritual actions If we have heretofore known thee after the flesh henceforth know we thee so no more That thou livedst here in this shape that colour this stature that habit I should be glad to know nothing that concerns thee can be unuseful Could I say here thou satest here thou layest here and thus thou wert crucified here buried here settest thy last foot I should with much contentment see and recount these memorials of thy presence But if I shall so fasten my thoughts upon these as not to look higher to the spiritual part of thine atchievements to the power and issue of thy Resurrection I am never the better No sooner art thou risen then thou speakest of ascending as thou didst lie down to rise so didst thou rise to ascend that is the consummation of thy Glory and ours in thee Thou that forbadst her touch injoynedst her errand Goe to my brethren and say I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God The annunciation of thy Resurrection and Ascension is more then a private fruition this is for the comfort of one that for the benefit of many To sit still and injoy is more sweet for the present but to goe and tell is more gainful in the sequel That great Angel thought himself as he well might highly honoured in that he was appointed to carry the happy news unto the Blessed Virgin thy Holy Mother of her conception of thee her Saviour how honourable must it needs be to Mary Magdalen that she must be the messenger of thy second birth thy Resurrection and instant Ascension How beautiful do the fâ—et of those deserve to be who bring the glad tidings of peace and Salvation What matter is it O Lord if men despise where thou wilt honour To whom then dost thou send her Goe tell my Brethren Blessed Jesu who are those were they not thy Followers yea were they not thy forsakers yet still thou stilest them thy Brethren O admirable Humility O infinite Mercy How dost thou raise their titles with thy self At first they were thy Servants then Disciples a little before thy death they were thy Friends now after thy Resurrection they were thy Brethren Thou that wert exalted infinitely higher from mortal to immortal descendest so much lower to call them Brethren who were before Friends Disciples Servants What do we stand upon terms of our poor inequality when the Son of God stoops so low as to call us Brethren But oh Mercy without measure Why wilt thou how canst thou O Saviour call them Brethren whom in their last parting thou foundst fugitives Did they not run from thee Did not one of them rather leave his inmost coat behind him then not be quit of thee Did not another of them deny thee yea abjure thee and yet thou saist Goe tell my Brethren It is not in the power of the sins of our infirmity to unbrother us when we look at the acts themselves they are hainous when at the persons they are so much more faulty as more obliged but when we look at the mercy of thee who hast called us now who shall separate us When we have sinned thy dearness hath reason to aggravate our sorrows but when we have sorrowed our Faith hath no less reason to uphold us from despairing even yet we are Brethren Brethren in thee O Saviour who art ascending for us in thee who hast made thy Father ours thy God our God He is thy Father by eternal Generation our Father by his gracious Adoption thy God by unity of Essence our God by his Grace and Election It is this propriety wherein our life and happiness consisteth They are weak comforts that can be raised from the apprehension of thy general Mecies What were I the better O Saviour that God were thy Father if he be not mine Oh do thou give me a particular sense of my interest in thee and thy goodness to me Bring thou thy self home to me and let me finde that I have a God and Saviour of my own It is fit I should mark thy order First my Father then yours Even so Lord He is first thine and in thine onely right ours It is in thee that we are adopted it is in thee that we are elected without thee God is not onely a stranger but an enemie to us Thou onely canst make us free thou onely canst make us Sons Let me be found in thee and I cannot fail of a Father in Heaven With what joy did Mary receive this errand with what joy did the Disciples welcome it from her Here was good news from a far Country even as far as the utmost regions of Death Those Disciples whose flight scattered them upon their Masters apprehension are now at night like a dispersed Covie met together by their mutual call their assembly is secret when the light was shut in when the doors were shut up Still were they fearful still were the Jews malicious The assured tidings of their Masters Resurrection and Life hath filled their hearts with joy and wonder Whiles their thoughts and speech are taken up with so happy a subject his miraculous and suddain presence bids their senses be witnesses of his reviving and their happiness When the doors were shut where the Disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews came Jesus and stood in the midst and said Peace be unto you O Saviour how thou camest in thither I wonder I inquire not I know not what a Glorified body can doe I know there is nothing that thou canst not doe Had not thine entrance been recorded for strange and supernatural why was thy standing in the midst noted before thy passage into the room why were the doors said to be shut whiles thou camest in why were thy Disciples amazed to see thee ere they heard thee Doubtless they that once before took thee for a Spirit when thou didst walk upon the waters could not but be astonished to
and felicity if his absence could be grievous his return shall be happy and glorious Even so Lord Jesus come quickly In the mean while it is not Heaven that can keep thee from me it is not earth that can keep me from thee Raise thou up my Soul to a life of Faith with thee let me ever injoy thy conversation whiles I exspect thy return A SERMON OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING For the wonderful Mitigation of the late Mortalitie Preached before His Majestie upon His gracious Command at His Court of Whitehall Jan. 29. 1625. and upon the same Command published by JOS. HALL Dean of Worcester Psal 68. vers 19 20. Blessed be the Lord who loadeth us daily with benefits even the God of our Salvation Selah He that is our God is the God of Salvation and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death YEa blessed be the Lord who hath added this unto the load of his other Mercies to his unworthy servant that the same Tongue which was called not long since to chatter out our Publick Mournings in the Solemn Fast of this place is now imployed in a Song of Praise and the same Hand which was here lifted up for Supplication is now lift up in Thanksgiving Ye that then accompanied me with your tears and sighs accompany me now I beseech you in this happy change of note and time with your joyful Smiles and Acclamations to the GOD that hath wrought it It is not more natural for the Sun when it looks upon a moist and wellfermented earth to cause Vapors to ascend thence then it is for Greatness and Goodness when they both meet together upon an honest heart to draw up holy desires of gratulation The worth of the Agent doth it not alone without a â—it disposition in the Subject Let the Sun cast his strongest beams upon a flint a pumice he fetches out no stream Even so the Greatness and Goodness of the Almighty beating upon a dry and hard heart prevailes nothing Here all three are happily met In God infinite Greatness infinite Goodness such Greatness that he is attended with thousand thousands of Angels a Guard fit for the King of Heaven such Goodness that he receives Gifts even for the rebellious In David a Gracious heart that in a sweet sense of the great Goodness of his God breaths out this Divine Epiphonema Blessed be the Lord who loadeth us daily with benefits even the God of our Salvation c. Wherein methinks the sweet Singer of Israel seems to raise his note to the emulation of the Quire of Heaven in the melody of their Allelujahs yea let me say now that he sings above in that Blessed Consort of glorious Spirits his Ditty cannot be better then this that he sung here upon earth and wherein we are about to bear our parts at this time Prepare I beseech you both your eares for David's Song and your hearts and tongues for your own And first in this Angelical strain your thoughts cannot but observe without me the Descant and the Ground The Descant of Gratulation Blessed be the Lord wherein is both Applause and Excitation an Applause given to God's Goodness and an Excitation of others to give that Applause The Ground is a threefold respect Of what God is in himself God and Lord Of what God is and doth to us which loadeth us daily with benefits Of what he is both in himself and to us The God of our Salvation which last like to some rich Stone is set off with a dark foyl To God the Lord belong the issues from death So in the first for his own sake in the second for our sakes in the third for his own and ours as God as Lord as a Benefactor as a Saviour and Deliverer Blessed be the Lord. It is not hard to observe that David's Allelujahs are more then his Hosannas his thanks more then his suits Oft-times doth he praise God when be begs nothing seldome ever doth he beg that favour for which he doth not raise up his Soul to an anticipation of Thanks neither is this any other then the universal under-song of all his Heavenly Ditties Blessed be the Lord. Praised as our former Translation hath it is too low Honour is more then Praise Blessing is more then Honour Neither is it for nothing that from this word Barac to bless is derived Berec the knee which is bowed in blessing and the cryer before Joseph proclaimed Abrech calling for the honour of the knee from all beholders Gen. 41. 43. Every slight trivial acknowledgement of worth is a Praise Blessing is in a higher strain of gratitude that carries the whole sway of the heart with it in a kinde of Divine rapture Praise is in matter of complement Blessing of Devotion The Apostle's Rule is that the less is blessed of the greater Abraham of the King of Salem The Prophets charge is that the greater should be blessed of the less yea the greatest of the least God of man This agrees well Blessing is an act that will bear reciprocation God blesseth man and man blesseth God God blesseth man imperatively man blesseth God optatively God blesseth man in the acts of Mercy man blesseth God in the notions in the expressions of thanks God blesses man when he makes him good and happy man blesseth God when he confesseth how good how gracious how glorious he is so as the blessing is wholly taken up in agnition in celebration in the one we acknowledge the Bounty of God to us in the other we magnifie him vocally really for that Bounty Oh see then what high account God makes of the affections and actions of his poor silly earth-creeping creatures that he gives us in them power to bless himself and takes it as an honour to be blessed of us David wonders that God should so vouchsafe to bless man how much more must we needs wonder at the mercy of God that will vouchsafe to be blessed by man a worm an atome a nothing Yet both S. James tels us that with the tongue we bless God and the Psalmist calls for it here as a service of dear acceptation Blessed be the Lord. Even we men live not Cameleon-like with the aire of thanks nor feed ere the fatter with praises how much less our Maker O God we know well that whatsoever men or Angels doe or doe not thou canst not but be infinitely Blessed in thy self before ever any creature was thou didst equally injoy thy blessed Self from all Eternity what can this worthless loose filme of flesh either adde to or detract from thine Infiniteness Yet thou that humblest thy self to behold the things that are done in Heaven and earth humblest thy self also to accept the weak breath of our Praises that are sent up to thee from earth to Heaven How should this incourage the vows the endeavours of our hearty thankfulness to see them graciously taken Would men take up with good words with good desires and quit our bonds
the advantages of Greatness what unequal levies of Legal payments what spightfull Sutes what Depopulations what Usuries what Violences abound every where The sighs the tears the blood of the poor pierce the Heavens and call for a fearfull retribution This is a sour Grape indeed and that makes God to wring his face in an angry detestation Drunkennesse is the next not so odious in the weaknesse of it as in the strength Oh wofull glory strong to drink Woe is me how is the World turned Beast What bouzing and quaffing and whiffing and healthing is there on every bench and what reeling and staggering in our streets What drinking by the Yard the Die the Douzen what forcing of pledges what quarrels for measure and form How is that become an excuse of villany which any villany might rather excuse I was drunk How hath this torrent yea this deluge of excesse in meats and drinks drowned the face of the Earth and risen many cubits above the highest Mountains of Religion and good Laws Yea would God I might not say that which I fear and shame and grieve to say that even some of them which square the Ark for others have been inwardly drowned and discovered their nakednesse That other inundation scoured the World this impures it and what but a Deluge of Fire can wash it from so abominable silthinesse Let no Popish Eaves-dropper now smile to think what advantage I give by so deep a censure of our own Profession Alas these sins know no difference of Religions Would God they themselves were not rather more deep in these foul enormities We extenuate not our guilt whatever we sin we condemn it as mortal they palliate wickednesse with the fair pretence of Veniality Shortly They accuse us we them God both But where am I How easie is it for a man to lose himself in the sins of the time It is not for me to have my habitation in these black Tents let me passe through them running Where can a man cast his eye not to see that which may vex his Soul Here Bribery and Corruption in the seats of Judicature there Perjuries at the Bar here Partiality and unjust Connivency in Magistrates there disorder in those that should be Teachers here Sacriledge in Patrons there Simoniacal contracts in unconscionable Levites here bloody Oaths and Execrations there scurril Prophanenesse here Cozening in bargains there breaking of Promises here perfidious Underminings there flattering Supparasitations here Pride in both Sexes but especially the weaker there Luxury and Wantonnesse here contempt of Gods Messengers there neglect of his Ordinances and violation of his Daies The time and my breath would sooner fail me then this wofull Bed-roll of wickednesse Yet alas were these the sins of Ignorance of Infirmity they might be more worthy of pity then hatred But oh the high hand of our presumptuous offences We draw iniquity with the strings of vanity up to the head up to the eare and shoot up these hatefull shafts against Heaven Did we sit in darknesse and the shadow of death as too many Pagan and Popish Regions do these works of darknesse would be lesse intolerable but now that the beams of the glorious Gospel have shined thus long thus bright in our faces Oh me what can we plead against our own confusion O Lord where shall we appear when thy very Mercies aggravate our Sins and thy Judgments How shouldst thou expect fruit from a Vineyard so chosen so husbanded and woe worth our wretchednesse that have thus repai'd thee Be confounded in thy self O my Soul be confounded to see these deplored retributions Are these grapes for a God Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unjust Hath he for this made us the mirrour of his Mercies to all the World that we should so shamefully turn his graces into wantonnesse Are these the fruits of his Choice his Fencing his Reforming his Planting his Watch-tower his Winepresse O Lord the great and dreadfull God keeping the covenants and mercies to them that love thee we have sinned and committed iniquity and have rebelled by departing from thy precepts and from thy Judgments O Lord righteousnesse belongeth to thee but unto us confusion of faces as at this day We know we acknowledge how just it may be with thee to pull up our Hedges to break down our Wall to root up our Vine to destroy and depopulate our Nation to make us the scorn and Proverb of all Generations But O our God Let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy Jerusalem thy holy mountain O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and doe Defer not for thine own sake O our God for thy City and thy people are called by thy Name But alas what speak I of not deferring to a God of mercy who is more forward to give then we to crave and more loath to strike then we to smart and when he must strike complains Why will ye die O house of Israel Let me rather turn this speech to our selves the delay is ours Yet it is not too late either for our return or his mercies The Decree is not to us gone forth till it be executed As yet our Hedge stands our Wall is firm our Vine grows These sharp monitions these touches of Judgment have been for our warning not for our ruine Who knows if he will not return and yet leave a Blessing behinde him Oh that we could turn unto him with all our heart with Fasting and with weeping and with mourning Oh that we could truly and effectually abandon all those abominable Sins that have stirred up the Anger of our God against us and in this our day this day of our solemn Humiliation renew the Vows of our holy and conscionable obedience Lord God it must be thou onely that must doe it Oh strike thou our flinty hearts with a sound remorse and melt them into tears of penitence for all our sins Convert us unto thee and we shall be converted Lord hear our Prayers and regard our tears and reform our Lives and remove thy Plagues and renew thy loving countenance and continue and adde to thine old mercies Lord affect us with thy favours humble us for our sins terrifie us with thy Judgments that so thou maist hold on thy favours and forgive our sins and remove thy Judgments even for the Son of thy Love Jesus Christ the righteous To whom c. Postscript SInce it seemed good to that Great Court to call this poor Sermon amongst others of greater worth into the publick light I have thus submitted to their pleasure And now for that they pleased to bid so high a rate as their Command for that mean piece I do willingly give this my other Statue into the bargain This work preceded some little in time that which it now follows in place not without good reason Authority sends forth that this Will and my Will hath learned ever to give place to Authoritie Besides my
subduction thus Save thy self from a froward generation The last and utmost of all dangers is Confusion That charge of God by Moses is but just Numb 16. 26. Depart I pray you from the tents of these men and touch nothing of theirs lest ye perish in all their sins Lo the very station the very touch is mortal Indeed what reason is there to hope or to plead for an immunity if we share in the work why should we not take part of the wages The wages of sin is death If the Stork be taken damage faisant with the Cranes she is enwrapped in the same net and cannot complain to be surprized Qui cum lupis est cum lupis ululet as he said He that is with wolves let him howl with wolves If we be fratres in malo brethren in evil we must look to be involved in the same curse Be not deceived Honourable and beloved here is no exemption of Greatness nay contrarily Eminence of place aggravates both the sin and the judgement When Ezra heard that the hand of the Princes and Rulers had been chief in that great offence then he rent his cloaths and tore his hair Ezra 9. 3. Certainly this case is dangerous and fearful wheresoever it lights Hardly are those sins redressed that are taken up by the Great Easily are those sins diffused that are warranted by great Examples The great Lights of Heaven the most conspicuous Planets if they be eclipsed all the Almanacks of all Nations write of it whereas the small Stars of the Galaxy are not heeded All the Country runs to a Beacon on fire no body regards to see a Shrub flaming in a valley Know then that your sins are so much greater as your selves are and all the comfort that I can give you without your true repentance is That mighty men shall be mightily tormented Of all other men therefore be ye most careful to keep your selves untainted with the common sins and to renew your covenant with God No man cares for a spot upon a plain russet riding-suit but we are curious of a rich robe every mote there is an eye-sore Oh be ye careful to preserve your Honour from all the foul blemishes of corruption as those that know Vertue hath a greater share in Nobility then Blood Imitate in this the great frame of the Creation which still the more it is removed from the dregs of this earth the purer it is Oh save ye your selves from this untoward Generation so shall ye help to save your Nation from the imminent Judgements of our just God so shall ye save your Souls in the day of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one infinite God be all Honour and Glory ascribed now and for ever Amen THE HYPOCRITE Set forth in A SERMON at the Court February 28. 1629. Being the third Sunday in LENT By Jos. Exon. To my ever most worthily Honour'd Lord the Earl of NORWICH My most Honoured Lord I Might not but tell the world that this Sermon which was mine in the Pulpit is Yours in the Press Your Lordship's will which shall never be other then a command to me fetches it forth into the Light before the fellows Let me be branded with the Title of it if I can think it worthy of the publick view in comparison of many accurate pieces of others which I see content themselves daily to die in the ear Howsoever if it may doe good I shall bless your Lordship for helping to advance my gain Your Noble and sincere true-heartedness to your God your King your Countrey your Friend is so well known that it can be no disparagement to your Lordship to patronize this Hypocrite whose very inscription might cast a blur upon some guilty reputation Goe on still most noble Lord to be a great Example of Vertue and Fidelity to an hollow and untrusty Age. You shall not want either the Acclamations or Prayers of Your Lordships ever devoted in all true Duty and Observance Jos. Exon. THE HYPOCRITE 2 Tim. 3. 5. Having a Form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof IT is an unperfect Clause you see but a perfect Description of an Hypocrite and that an Hypocrite of our own times the last which are so much the worse by how much they partake more of the craft and diseases of age The Prophets were the Seers of the Old Testament the Apostles were the Seers of the New those saw Christ's day and rejoyced these foresaw the reign of Antichrist and complained These very times were as present to S. Paul as to us our Sense doth not see them so clearly as his Revelation I am with you in the Spirit saith he to his absent Colossians rejoycing and beholding your order he doth as good as say to them I am with you in the Spirit lamenting and beholding your misdemeanours By these Divine Opticks he sees our formal Piety real Wickedness both which make up the complete Hypocrisie in my Text Having a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof I doubt not but some will be ready to set this sacred Prognostication to another Meridian And indeed we know a Generation that loves themselves too well much more then Peace and Truth so covetous that they would catch all the world in S. Peter's net proud boasters of their own merits perfections supererogations it would be long though easie to follow all We know where too many Treasons are hatched we know who in the height of minde exalts himself above all that is called God we know where pleasure hath the most delicate and debauch'd Clients we know where Devotion is professedly formal and lives impure and surely were we clearly innocent of these crimes I should be the first that would cast this stone at Rome But now that we share with them in these sins there is no reason we should be sejoyned in the Censure Take it among ye therefore ye Hypocrites of all professions for it is your own Ye have a form of Godliness denying the power thereof What is an Hypocrite but a Player the Zani of Religion as ye heard lately A Player acts that he is not so do ye act good and are wicked Here is a semblance of good a form of Godliness here is a real evil a denial of the power of Godliness There is nothing so good as Godliness yea there is nothing good but it nothing makes Godliness to be good or to be Godliness but the power of it for it is not if it work not and it works not if not powerfully Now the denial of good must needs be evil and so much more evil as the good which is denied is more good and therefore the denial of the power of Godliness must needs be as ill as the form or shew of Godliness would seem good and as the power of Godliness is good This is therefore the perfect Hypocrisie of fashionable Christians they have the form they deny the
one in the Heart One Baptism so it is one in the Face Where these are truly professed to be though there may be differences of administrations and ceremonies though there may be differences in opinions yet there is Columba una all those are but diversly-coloured feathers of the same Dove What Church therefore hath one Lord Jesus Christ the righteous one Faith in that Lord one Baptism into that Faith it is the One Dove of Christ To speak more short one Faith abridges all But what is that one Faith what but the main fundamental Doctrine of Religion necessary to be known to be believed unto Salvation It is a golden and usefull distinction that we must take with us betwixt Christian Articles and Theological Conclusions Christian Articles are the Principles of Religion necessary to a Believer Theological Conclusions are School-points fit for the discourse of a Divine Those Articles are few and essential these Conclusions are many and unimporting upon necessity to Salvation either way That Church then which holds those Christian Articles both in terms and necessary consequences as every visible Church of Christ doth however it vary in these Theological Conclusions is Columba una Were there not much latitude in this Faith how should we fetch in the antient Jewish Church to the unity of the Christian Theirs and ours is but one Dove though the feathers according to the colour of that fowl be changeable It is a fearfull account then that shall once be given before the dreadfull Tribunal of the Son of God the only Husband of this one Church by those men who not like the children of faithfull Abraham divide the Dove multiplying Articles of Faith according to their own fancies and casting out of the bosome of the Church those Christians that differ from their either false or unnecessary conclusions Thus have our great Lords of the Seven hills dared to doe whose faction hath both devoured their Charity and scorned ours to the great prejudice of the Christian world to the irreparable damage of the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus The God of Heaven judge in this great case betwixt them and us us who firmly holding the foundation of Christian Religion in all things according to the antient Catholick Apostolick Faith are rejected censured condemned accursed killed for refusing their gainfull Novelties In the mean time we can but lament their fury no lesse then their errours and send out our hopelesse wishes that the seamlesse coat might be darn'd up by their hands that tore it From them to speak to our selves who have happily reformed those errours of theirs which either their ambition or profit would not suffer them to part with since we are one why are we sundred One saies I am Luther's for Consubstantiation another I am Calvin's for Discipline another I am Arminius's for Predestination another I am Barrow's or Brown's for Separation What frenzy possesses the brains of Christians thus to squander themselves into Factions It is indeed an envious cavil of our common adversaries to make these so many Religions No every branch of different Opinion doth not constitute a several Religion were this true I durst boldly say old Rome had not more Deities then the modern Rome hath Religions These things though they do not vary Religions and Churches yet they trouble the quiet unity of the Church Brethren since our Religion is one why are not our tongues one why do we not bite in our singular conceits and binde our tongues to the common Peace But if from particular visible Churches which perhaps you may construe to be the threescore Queens here spoken of you shall turn your eyes to the true inward universal company of Gods Elect and secret ones there shall you more perfectly finde Columbam unam one Dove for what the other is in profession this is in truth that one Baptism is here the true Laver of Regeneration that one Faith is a saving reposal upon Christ that one Lord is the Saviour of his Body No natural body is more one then this mystical one Head rules it one Spirit animates it one set of joynts moves it one Food nourishes it one Robe covers it So it is one in it self so one with Christ as Christ is one with the Father That they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me John 17. 22. Oh blessed Unity of the Saints of God which none of the makebates of Hell can ever be able to dissolve And now since we are thus and every other way one why are we not united in Love why do we in our ordinary conversation suffer slight weaknesses to set off our Charity Mephibosheth was a cripple yet the perfect love of Jonathan either cures or covers his impotency We can no more want infirmities then not be men we cannot stick at infirmities if we be Christians It is but a poor love that cannot passe over small faults even quotidianae incursionis as that Father speaks It is an injurious niceness to condemn a good Face in each other for a little mole Brethren let us not aggravate but pity each others weaknesses and since we are but one Body let us have but one Heart one Way And if we be the Dove of Christ and his Dove is one oh let us be so one with each other as he is one with us And as the Church and Commonwealth are twins so should this be no lesse one with it self and with her temporal head Divisum est cor eorum Their heart is divided was the judgment upon Israel ose 10. 2. Oh how is every good heart divided in sunder with the grief for the late divisions of our Reuben We do not mourn we bleed inwardly for this distraction But I do willingly smother these thoughts yea my just sorrow choaks them in my bosome that they cannot come forth but in sighs and groans O thou that art the God of peace unite all hearts in Love to each other in loyal Subjection to their Soveraign Head Amen As the Church is one in not being divided so she is but one in not being multiplied Here is unus uni unam as the old word is He the true Husband of the Church who made and gave but one Eve to the first Adam will take but one wife to himself the second Adam There are many particular Churches all these make up but one universal as many distinct lims make up but one intire body many grains one bach many drops and streams one Ocean So many Regions as there are under Heaven that do truly professe the Christian name so many National Churches there are in all those Nations there are many Provincial in all those Provinces many Diocesan in all those Dioceses many Parochial Churches in all those Parishes many Christian Families in all those Families many Christian Souls now all those Souls Families Parishes Dioceses Provinces Nations make up but one Catholick Church of Christ upon earth The God of the
make us to appear in the sight of God The Toad or the Serpent are lovely objects to us in comparison of these disguises to the pure eyes of the Almighty yea so perfectly doth God hate them that he professes those hate him that like them Whosoever will be a friend to the world is an enemy to God Jam. 4. 4. Oh then if we love our Souls let us hate those fashions that may draw us into the detestation of the Almighty for our God is a consuming fire Besides misbeseeming it is a just plea against any Fashion that it is painfull For though there be some Pain allowed in all Pride yet too much we indure not and behold these Fashions shall pinch and torture us to death to an everlasting death of body and Soul The ill guest in the Parable was thus clad Mat. 22. 12. the King abhorres his suit and after expostulation gives the sentence Binde him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into utter darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Oh fear and tremble at the exspectation of this dreadfull doom all ye that will needs be in the fashion of the world If ye be so foolish as to flatter your selves here in the conceit of your Liberty there shall be binding in the conceit of a lightsome and resplendent Magnificence there shall be darknesse in the conceit of Pleasure and Contentment there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Lastly commonnesse and age are the usuall disparagements of Fashions The best may not goe like every body where a Fashion is taken up of the basest it is disdained of the eminent Behold these are the fashions if not of all I am sure of the worst the very scum of the world is thus habited Let us that are Christians in an holy pride scorn to be suited like them As common so old fashions are in disgrace That man would be shouted at that should come forth in his great-grandfires suit though not rent not discoloured Behold these are the overworn and misshapen rags of the old man Away with them to the frippery of darknesse yea to the brokery of Hell Let us be for a change Old things are passed all things are become new As we look to have these bodies once changed from vile to glorious so let us now change the fashions of our bodies and Souls from corrupt and worldly to spirituall and heavenly and loathing all these misbelieving painfull common old fashions of the world let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ that being clad with the robes of his Righteousnesse here we may be cloathed upon with the robes of his Glory in the highest Heavens Amen THE ESTATE OF A CHRISTIAN Laid forth In a SERMON preached at Grayes-Inne on Candlemas day By Jos. HALL Rom. 12. 2. But be ye changed or transformed by the renewing of your minds c. THE true method of Christian practice is first destructive then astructive according to the Prophet Cease to doe evil learn to doe good This our Apostle observes who first unteacheth us ill fashions and then teacheth good We have done with the negative duty of a Christian what he must not doe hear now the affirmative what he must doe wherein our speech treading in the steps of the blessed Apostle shall passe through these four heads First that here must be a change secondly that this change must be by transformation thirdly that this transformation must be by renewing fourthly that this renewing must be of the minde But be ye changed or transformed by the renewing of your minds All of them points of high and singular importance and such as do therefore call for your best and carefullest attention Nothing is more changing then the fashion of the world Mundus transit The world passeth away saith S. John Yet here that we may not fashion our selves to the world we must be changed we must be changed from these changeable fashions of the world to a constant estate of Regeneration As there must be once a perfect change of this mortall to immortality so must there be onwards of this sinfull to gracious and as holy Job resolves to wait all the daies of his appointed time for that changing so this change contrarily waits for us and may not be put off one day What creature is there wherein God will not have a change They needed not as he made them nothing could fall from him but good we marr'd them and therefore they both are changed and must be Even of the very Heavens themselves it is said As a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed how much more these sublunary bodies that are never themselves We know the Elements are in a perpetual transmutation so are those bodies that are compounded of them as he said of the River we cannot step down twice into the same stream And every seven years as Philosophy hath observed our bodies are quite changed from what they were And as there is a natural change in our favours colour complexion temper so there is no lesse voluntary change in our diets in our dispositions in our delights With what scorn do we now look upon the Top which our Childhood was fond on how do we either smile or blush in our mature age to think of the humours and actions of our youth How much more must the depravedness of our spiritual condition call for a change It is a rule in Policy Not to alter a well-setled evil I am sure it holds not in the Oeconomy of the Soul wherein length of prescription pleads rather for a speedy removal no time can prejudice the King of Heaven In some cases indeed change is a sign of a weak unsetledness It is not for a wise man like Shel-fish to rise or fall with the Moon rather like unto the Heaven he must learn to move and be constant It was a good word of Basil to the Governour Utinam sempiterna sit hoec mea desipientia Let me dote thus alw aies It was not for nothing that Socrates had the reputation of Wisdome that famous Shrew of his Xantippe could say she never but saw him return with the countenance that he went out with Give me a man that in the changes of all conditions can frame himself to be like an Auditors counter and can stand either for a thousand or an hundred or if need be for one this man comes nearest to him in whom there is no shadow of turning But in case of present ill there can be no safety but in change I cannot blame the Angels and Saints in Heaven that they would not change I blesse them that they cannot because they are not capable of better and every motion is out of a kind of need I cannot wonder at the damned spirits that they would be any thing but what they are We that are naturally in the way to that damnation have reason to desire a change worse we cannot be upon
a Saint Oh let this day if we have so long deferr'd it be the day of the renovation of the purification of our Souls And let us begin with a sound humiliation and true sorrow for our former and present wickednesses It hath been an old I say not how true note that hath been went to be set on this day that if it be clear and sun-shinie it portends an bard weather to come if cloudy and louring a milde and gentle season insuing Let me apply this to a spiritual use and assure every hearer that if we overcast this day with the clouds of our sorrow and the rain of our penitent tears we shall find a sweet and hopeful season all our life after Oh let us renew our Covenants with God that we will now be renewed in our Minds The comfort and gain of this change shall be our own whiles the honour of it is Gods and the Gospels for this gracious change shall be followed with a glorious Onwards this onely shall give us true peace of Conscience onely upon this shall the Prince of this world find nothing in us How should he when we are changed from our selves And when we shall come to the last change of all things even when the Heavens and Elements shall be on a flame and shall melt about our ears the Conscience of this change shall lift up our heads with joy and shall give our renewed Souls an happy entry into that new Heaven Or when we shall come to our own last change in the dissolution of these earthly Tabernacles it shall bless our Souls with the assurance of unchangeable happiness and shall bid our renewed bodies lie down in peace and in a sweet exspectation of being changed to the likeness of the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ and of an eternal participation of his infinite glory Whereto he who ordained us graciously bring us even for the merits of his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ the Just To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Praise Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen THE FALL of PRIDE Out of PROVERBS 29. vers 23. By Jos. HALL PROV 29. vers 23. A mans Pride shall bring him low but Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit THat which was the ordinary Apophthegm of a greater then Solomon He that exalteth himself shall be brought low but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted which our Saviour used thrice in terminis oft in sense is here the Aphorism of wise Solomon Neither is it ill guessed by learned Mercerus that our Saviour in that speech of his alludes hither I need not tell you how great how wise Solomon was The Great are wont to be most haunted with pride the Wise can best see the danger of that Pride which haunts the great Great and wise Solomon therefore makes it one of his chief common-places the crying down of Pride a Vice not more general then dangerous as that which his witty Imitator can tell us is initium omnis peccati the beginning of all sin Now Pride can never be so much spighted as by honouring her contemned rival Humility Nothing could so much vex that insolent Agagite as to be made a Lacky to a despised Jew Besides her own portion therefore which is Ruine Solomon torments her with the advancement of her abased Opposite My Text then is like unto Shushan in the streets whereof Honour is proclaimed to an humble Mordecai in the Palace whereof is erected an engine of death to a proud Haman A mans Pride shall bring him low but Honour shall uphold the humble The Propositions are Antithetical wherein Pride is opposed to Humility Honour to Ruine Hear I beseech you how wise Solomon hath learn'd of his Father David to sing of Mercy and Judgement Judgement to the Proud Mercy to the Humble both together with one breath The Judgement to the Proud is their humbling the Mercy to the Humble is their raising to Honour It is the noted course of God to work still by contraries as indeed this is the just praise of Omnipotence to fetch light out of darkness life out of death order out of confusion Heaven out of Hell honour out of humility humiliation out of pride according to that of the sacred Way-maker of Christ Every hill shall be cast down every valley raised But in this particular above all other he delights to cross and abase the Proud to advance the Humble as blessed Mary in her Magnificat to pull down the mighty from their seat and to exalt the humble and meek For God hath a special quarrel to the Proud as those that do more nearly contest with his Majesty and scramble with him for his Glory He knows the Proud afarre off and hath a special favour in store for the Humble as those that are vessels most capable of his Mercy because they are empty This in common we descend to the several parts The Judgement begins first as that which is fit to make way for Mercy Therein there are two strains one is the Sin the other is the Punishment The Sin is a mans Pride A mans not for the distinction of one Sex from another but First for the comprehension of both Sexes under one The Woman was first proud and it sticks by her ever since She is none of the daughters of Eve that inherits not her childs-part in this sin Neither is this Feminine Pride less odious less dangerous Rather the weakness of the Sex gives power and advantage to the vice as the fagot-stick will sooner take fire then the log Secondly for the intimation of the reflex action of Pride A mans Pride therefore is the Pride of himself Indeed the whole endeavour study care of the proud man is the hoising of himself yea this Himself is the adequate subject of all sinful desires What doth the Covetous labour but to inrich himself the Voluptuous but to delight himself the Proud but to exalt himself whether in contempt of others or in competition with God himself For Pride hath a double cast of her eye downwards to other men in scorn upwards to God in a rivalty To men first as the proud Pharisee I am not as others nor as this Publican He thinks he is made of better clay then the common lump it is others happiness to serve him He magnifies every act that fals from him as that proud Nebuchadnezzar Is not this great Babel that I have built yea his own very excretions are sweet and fragrant whiles the perfumes of others are ranck and ill-sented To God secondly For whereas Piety makes God our Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end the beginning to which we ascribe all the end whereto we referre all the Proud man makes himself his own Alpha thanks himself for all makes himself his own Omega seeks himself in all begins at himself ends at himself Which must needs be so much more odious to God as it conforms us
these self-humiliations are thankless and faulty It will be long enough ere the Superstitious Servile Hypocritical Brutish Humility shall advance us other then to the scaffold of our execution The True Humility is when a man is modestly lowly in his own eyes and sincerely abased in his heart and carriage before God And this self-humiliation is either in respect of Temporal or Spiritual things Of Temporal when a man thinks any condition good enough for him and therefore doth not unduly intrude himself into the preferments of the world whether in Church or Commonwealth When he thinks meanly of his own parts and actions highly and reverently of others and therefore in giving honour goes before others in taking it behind them Of Spiritual when he is vile in himself especially in respect of his sins and therefore abhors himself in sackcloth and ashes when the Grace that he hath he can acknowledge but not over-rate yea he takes it so low as he may do without wrong to the giver when for all Blessings he can awfully look up to his Creator and Redeemer ascribing all to him referring all to him depending for all upon him so much more magnifying the Mercy of God as he is more sensible of his own Unworthiness This is the true though short character of Humility A plain Grace ye see but lovely From which let it please you to turn your eyes to the Blessing allotted to it which is so expressed in the Original that it may either run The humble in spirit shall enjoy honour as in the former Translation or Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit as in the latter In both Honour is the portion of the humble for the raising of him in the one for the preserving of him in the other Honour from whom From God from men Even the good man of the house will say Friend sit up higher For though with vain men he is most set by that can most set our himself yet with the wiser the more a man dejects himself the more he is honoured It cannot stand with the justice of the truly-vertuous to suffer a man to be a loser by his Humility Much less will God abide it A broken heart O God thou wilt not despise saith the Psalmist and Pullati extolluntur salute The mourners are exalted with safety saith Eliphaz in Job 5. 11. The Lord lifteth up the meek saith David out of good proof and needs must he rise whom God lifteth What should we need any other precedent of this Vertue or other example of this Reward then our Blessed Saviour himself all other are worthy of forgetfulness in comparison Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equall with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant c. and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross O God what an incomprehensible dejection was here that the living God should descend from the highest Glory of Heaven and put upon him the rags of our Humanity and take on him not the man onely but the servant yea the malefactor abasing himself to our infirmities to our indignities to be reviled spat upon scourged wounded crucified yea all these are easie tasks to that which follows to be made a mark of his Fathers wrath in our stead so as in the bitterness of his Soul he is forced to cry out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me What heart of man yea what apprehension of Angels can be capable of fadoming the depth of this Humiliation Answerable to thy dejection O Saviour was thine exaltation as the conduit-water rises at least as high as it falls Now is thy name above every name that at the name of JESUS every knee should how of things in Heaven in earth under the earth Neither meanest thou to be our Saviour onely but our pattern too I do not hear thee say Learn of me for I am Almighty I am Omniscient but Learn of me that I am meek If we can go down the steps of thine Humiliation we shall rise up the stairs of thy Glory Why do we not then say I will be yet more vile for the Lord Oh cast down your crowns with the twenty four Elders Apoc. 4. 10. before the Throne of God Humble your seves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up Jam. 4. 10. Indeed there is none of us but hath just cause to be humbled whether we consider the wretchedness of our Nature or of our Estate What is the best flesh and blood but a pack of dust made up together into a stirring heap which in the dissolution molders to dust again When I consider the Heavens and see the Sun the Moon and the Stars as they stand in their order Lord what is man that thou regardest him what a Worm what an Ant what a nothing who besides his homeliness is still falling asunder for even of the greatest and best-composed is that of the Psalm verified Universa vanitas omnis homo Every man is all vanity Alas then what is it we should be proud of Is it Wealth What is the richest metal but red and white earth And that whereof too we may say as the Sons of the Prophets of their hatchet Alas Master it was but lent What speak I of this when our very breath is not our own The best praise of Coin is that it is current it runs from us yea it is volatile as wise Solomon Riches have wings and if they leave not us we must them We brought nothing hither and according to the proclamation of that great King we must carry nothing with us but our winding-sheet yea rather that must carry us Is it our Land How long is that ours That shall be fixed when we are gone and shall change as it hath done many Masters But withall where is it I remember what is reported of Socrates and Alcibiades Aelian tells the story Socrates saw Alcibiades proud of his spacious fields and wide inheritance he calls for a Map looks for Greece and finding it asks Alcibiades where his lands lay When he answered they were not laid forth in the Map Why said Socrates art thou proud of that which is no part of the earth What a poor spot is the dominion of the greatest King but what a nothing is the possession of a Subject A small parcel of a Shire not worthy the name of a Chorographer And had we with Licinius as much as a Kite could fly over yea if all the whole Globe were ours six or seven foot will serve us at the last Is it our Honour Alas that is none of ours for Honour is in him that gives it not in him that receives it And if the Plebeians will be stubborn or uncivil and respectless where is Honour and when we have it what a poor puffe is this how windy how unsatisfying Insomuch
as the great Emperour could say I have been all things and am never the better Have ye Great ones all the incurvations of the knee the kisses of the hand the styles of Honour yea the flatteries of Heralds let Gods hand touch you but a little with a spotted Fever or girds of the Colick or belking pains of the Gout or stoppings of the bladder alas what ease is it to you that you are laid in a Silken bed that a potion is brought you on the knee in a Golden cup that the Chirurgion can say he hath taken from you Noble blood As Esau said of his birth-right ye shall say mutat is mutandis of all these ceremonies of Honour What are these to me when I am ready to dye for pain Is it Beauty What is that or wherein consists it Wherein but in mere opinion The Aethiopians think it consists in perfect Blackness we Europeans in white and red and the wisest say That is fair that pleaseth And what Face is it that pleaseth all Even in the worst some eyes see features that please in the best some others see lines they like not And if any Beauty could have all voices what were this but a wast and worthless approbation Grant it to be in the greatest exquisiteness what is it but a Blossome in May or a Flower in August or an Apple in Autumn soon faln soon withered Should any of you glorious Dames be seized upon with the nasty pustles of the small Pox alas what pits do those leave behind them to bury your Beauties in Or if but some languishing Quartan should arrest you how is the delicate skin turn'd tawnie How doth an unwelcome Dropsie wherein that disease too often ends bag up the eyes and mis-shape the face and body with unpleasing and unkindly tumors In short when all is done after all our cost and care what is the best hide but saccus stercorum as Bernard speaks which if we do not finde noisome others shall Well may I therefore ask with Ecclesiasticus Quid superbit terra cinis Why is this earth and ashes proud though it were as free from sin as it is from perfection But now when wickedness is added to vanity and we are more abominable by sin then weak by nature how should we be utterly ashamed to look up to Heaven to look upon our own faces Surely therefore whensoever you see a Proud man say there is a Fool 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the heathen Menander could say so for if he were not a mere stranger in himself he could be no other then confounded in himself We see our own outward filthiness in those loathsome excretions which the purest nature puts forth but if we could as well see our inward Spiritual beastliness we could not but be swallowed up of our confusion It falls out with men in this case as with some old foul and wrinkled dames that are soothed up by their Parasites in an admiration of their Beauty to whom no glass is allowed but the picturers that flatters them with a smooth fair and young image Let such a one come casually to the view of a Glass she falls out first with that mirrour and cries out of the false representation but after when upon stricter examination she finds the fault in her self she becomes as much out of love with her self as ever her flatterers seemed to be enamour'd of her It is no otherwise with us We easily run away with the conceit of our Spiritual Beauty of our innocent Integrity every thing feeds us in our over-weening opinion Let the Glass of the Law be brought once and set before us we shall then see the shameful wrinkles and foul morphews of our Souls and shall say with the Prophet We lye down in our shame and our confusion covereth us for we have sinned against the Lord our God Jer. 3. 25. Thus if we be humbled in spirit◠we shall be raised unto true Honour even such Honour as have all his Saints To the participation whereof that God who hath ordained graciously bring us for the sake of Jesus Christ the Righteous to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one infinite God be all Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen CHRIST AND CAESAR A SERMON preached at Hampton-Court By Jos. HALL Joh. 19. 15. The chief Priests answered We have no King but Caesar THere cannot be a more loyal speech as it may be used One Sun is enough for Heaven one King for earth But as it is used there cannot be a worse For in so few words these Jews flatter Caesar reject Christ oppose Christ to Caesar First pretending they were Caesar's subjects secondly professing they were not Christs subjects thirdly arguing that they could not be Christ's subjects because they were Caesar's The first by way of affirmation Caesar is our King the second by way of negation No King but Caesar the third by way of implication Christ is not our King because Caesar is The first was a truth Caesar was indeed now their King but against their wils Conquest had made his name unwelcome They say true then and yet they flatter Wonder not at this a man may flatter yea lye in speaking truth when his heart believes not the title that his tongue gives So it was with these Jews they call'd him King whom they malign'd as an Usurper For they feeding themselves with the conceit of being God's free people wherein Judas Gaulonites and Sadducus the Pharisee had soothed them hated him as an enemy whom they were forced to fear as their King holding it no better then a sinful vassalage to stoop unto an Heathen scepter Ye know the question moved upon the Tribute-money Matth. 22. 17. Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar Lo they say not Is it needful but Is it lawful The Herodians were a Faction that had never moved this question unless the Pharisees and their scrupulous clients had denied it They make it a difficulty not of purse but of conscience Licetne Is it lawful Yet here Regem habemus Caesarem Caesar is our King They liked well enough to have a King yea hereupon they were so ready to swagger with God and his Samuel They had learn'd of Nature and experience the best form of Government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but they would have had him of their own As God said of the great Prophet so they are glad to hear him say of their King De numero fratrum tuorum From among thy brethren Propriety is in nothing more pleasing then in matter of Government It is a joy to think we have a King of our own our own blood our own Religion according to the motto of our Princes Ich Dicn Otherwise next to Anarchy is Heterarchy neither do we find much difference betwixt having no head at all and having another mans head on our shoulders The Bees love to have a King but one that is of their own hive If an Hornet
was but a sport in respect of the torments in dying Lo here a Beast yea not Bestia but Fera a Savage beast yea worse then either Did ever man doe thus to beast If a Baptista Porta have devised a way to roast a Foul quick or some Italian executioner of gluttony have beaten a Swine dead with gentle blows to make a Cardinals morsel every ingenuous man is ready to cry out of this barbarous Tyranny yea the very Turks would punish it with no less then death yea if a Syracusan boy shall but pick out a Crows eyes those Pagans could mulct him with banishment Nay what beast did ever thus to man nay did ever one beast doe thus to another If they gore and grasp one another in their fury or feed on each other in the rage of their hunger that is all they do not take pleasure in saucing each others death with varieties or delaies of pain None but man doth thus to man and in none lightly but the quarrel of Religion False Zeal takes pleasure in surfeits of blood and can injoy others torment Hence are bloody Massacres treacherous Assassinations hellish Powder-plots and whatever stratagem of mischief can be devised by that ancient man-slayer from whose malicious and secret machinations good Lord deliver us As the enemies of the Church are Fera a Beast so they are coetus a Compaany yea a multitude Well may they say with the Devil in the possessed man My name is Legion for we are many a Legion of many thousands yea Gad for an hoast cometh an Hoast of many Legions yea a combination of many Hoasts Gebal and Ammon and Amalek the Philistins with them that dwell at Tyre Ashur also is joyned to them Here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Church of the malignant a Church yea a world mundus in maligne Divide the world with our Learned Breerwood into thirty parts nineteen of them are Pagans and they are enemies Of those eleven that remain six are Mahumetans and they are enemies Of those other five that remain there is an Antichristian Faction that challenges universality and they are enemies Stand now with me upon the hill and take a survay of the enemies see them lye scattered like grashoppers in the valley and tell me whether the Church have not reason to say Lord how many are they that rise up against me Yet when all is done that no man may be discouraged if we have but our eyes opened with Elisha's servant to see the hoast of Heaven glittering about us we shall boldly say There are more with us then against us Yet if these that are against us were many and not united it were nothing A large showr loseth it self whiles the drops are scattered in the sands but many drops met make a torrent yea an Ocean Here is coetus their heads their hearts their hands are laid together And why do not we learn wit and will of those that hate us why are we several whiles they are conjoyned why should partial Factions and private fancies distract us when the main Cause of God is on foot Beleague your selves ye Christian Princes and Potentates combine your selves ye true-hearted Christians and be gathered by the voice of Gods Angel to a blessed and victorious Armageddon But why fera arundinis the beast of the reeds I do not tell you of S. Jerome's descant upon bestia calami the beast of the quill that is writers for falshood though these these are the great Incendiaries of the world and well worthy of the deepest increpation Here doubtless either the beasts of the reeds are the beasts that lye among the reeds as Cassiodorus hath given us an hint Leones domestica canneta reliquerunt The Lions have lest the reedy thickets or else the reed is here the spear or dart We know some regions yield groves of reeds ye would think them so many saplings or samplars at the least arborescere solent calami as Calvin These were of use in warre for darts or spears The vant-gard therefore of David's enemies are Spear-men or Darters for they were wont to dart their spears as you see in Saul 1 Sam. 20. 33. And why this In a sword-fight we come to close hand-blows such as a quick eye and nimble hand may perhaps avoid but the spear and dart strikes afarre off pierces where it strikes smites unseen unevitably For the remoteness violence irresistableness of the blow are the enemies of the Church described by the spear and dart where they cannot come they send dangerous emissaries headed on purpose to wound the best State to death felt ere they can be seen and so soon as they are felt killing What doe these but follow their General whose spiritual weapons are fiery darts Ephes 6. 16. Much and lamentable experience hath this State if ever any had of these mischievous engines of commotion that have been hurled hither from beyond the Alpes and Pyrenees What is the remedy but the same which is against the Devil the shield of prevention Stir up your vigilant care O ye great Leaders of Israel by the strict execution of wholesome laws to avoid the dint of these murderous subornations And when ye have done your best it must be the Lord of hoasts the great protectour of Israel that must break the bow and knap the spear in sunder Psal 46. 9. Their second title is Bulls for their ferocity for their strength The Lion is a more Lordly beast but the Bull is stronger and when he is enraged more impetuous Such are the Enemies of the Church How furiously do they bellow out threats and scrape up the earth and advance their crest and brandish their horns and send out sparkles from their eyes and snuffe out flames from their nostrils and think to bear down all before them What should I tell you of the fierce assalts of the braving enemies of the Church whose Pride hath scorned all opposition and thinks to push down all contrary powers not of men only but of God himself Let us break their bonds and cast their cords from us Who is the Lord that I should let Israel goe Where is the God of Hamath and of Arpad where are the Gods of Sepharvaim Hena and Ivah have they delivered Samaria out of my hand who are they among the Gods of the Countries that have delivered their country out of my hand that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand saith proud Rabshakeh 2 Kings 18. 34. Heark how this Assyrian Bull roars out Blasphemie against the Lord of Hoasts and all the rest of that wild herd have no less grass on their hornes stay but a while and ye shall see him with'd and halter'd and stak'd and baited to death Here only is the comfort of the poor menaced Church that the mighty God of Israel who sayes to the raging Sea Here shalt thou stay thy proud waves can tame at pleasure these violent beasts or break their necks with their own fury So
thou suffer the world to be deluded with these foul and pernicious impostures how long shall thy Church groan under the heavie yoke of their sinful impositions O thou that art the great Shepherd look down and visit thy wandring flock and at last let loose those silly sheep of thine that are fast intangled in the briars of Antichristian exaction And we why do not we as heartily labour to reclaim them as they to withdraw us why should they burn with zeal whiles we freeze with indifferency Oh let us spend our selves in prayers in tears in perswasions in unweariable endevours for the happy conversion of those ignorant mis-guided souls who having not our knowledge yet shame our affections Of Indignation lastly as on the one side at those practical revolters that having begun in the spirit will needs end in the flesh that having made a shew of godliness deny the power of it in their lives returning with that impure beast to their own vomit so on the other at those speculative relapsers that have out of policy or guiltiness abandoned a known and received truth Pity is for those silly creatures that could never be blessed with Divine Reason and upright formes but for a Gryllus that was once a man to quit his humanity and to be in love with four feet what stomack can but rise at so affected a transformation The Cameleon is for a time beautiful with all pleasing varieties of colours in the end no skin is more nasty Wo is me the swept house is repossessed with seven Devils This recidivation is desperate although indeed there would not be a revolt without an inward unsoundness Do ye see an apple fall untimely from the tree view it ye shall finde it worm-eaten else it had held Avolent quantum volent paleoe istae levis fidei as that Father said Let this light chaffe flie whither it will it shews it to be but chaffe God's heap shall be so much the purer and in the mean time what do they make themselves fit for but the fire What shall we say to these absurd changes Our fore-fathers thought themselves in Heaven when first the bright beams of the Gospel brake forth in their eyes and shall we like those fond subterraneous people that Rubruquis speaks of curse those glorious beams of the Sun now risen up to us and lay our eares close to the ground that we may not hear the harmony of that motion Our Fathers blessed themselves in this Angelical Manna and shall our mouths hang towards the onions and garlick of Aegypt Revertimini filii aversantes Return ye backsliding children return to the fountains of living waters which ye have exchanged for your broken cisternes Recordamini priorum as Esay speaks 46. 9. But if their will do lie still in their way it were happy for them if authority would deal with them as confident riders do with a startling horse spur them up and bring them back to the block they leap'd from But if still their obstinacy will needs in spight of contrary endeavours feoffe them in the style of filii desertores it is a fearfull word that God speaks to them Vae eis quoniam vagantur à me Wo to them for they have wandered from me Ose 7. 13. Now the God of Heaven reclaim them confirm us save both them and us in the day of the Lord Jesus to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one infinite God be given all Praise Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen St. PAUL'S COMBAT THE SECOND PART 1 Cor. 15. 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I Have carried you into S. Paul's Theatre at Ephesus I have shew'd you his Beasts you must now see his Fight It was his charge to Timothy that he should be an example know then that what he bids he practises It is an exemplary combat which S. Paul fought and that wherein we must follow him as Teachers as Christians Here he saies I have fought afterwards in imitation of him that saw his own works and approved them he saies I have fought a good fight doubtless as with principalities and powers elsewhere so even with these beasts at Ephesus Let it please you to see first the person of the combatant then secondly the manner of the fight In the former ye may not look at S. Paul as a common souldier but as a selected Champion of God not merely as Paul but as an Apostle as a publick person as the spiritual Leader of God's people so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have fought with beasts There is no trained man in the whole troup of God but must have his bout with the beasts of the Time Vita hominis militia super terram we are here in a militant Church As we have all received our press-money in Baptisme so we must every one according to our ingagement maintain this fight against the world But if a man be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul singled out to a publick calling now he must think himself made for combats because for victories for Bellum durius contra victores as Gregory speaketh It was the charge of the Apostle that a Bishop should be no striker and Clericus percussor is an old brand of irregularity But if in this kind he strike not I must say of him as S. Paul to Ananias God shall smite thee thou whited wall All his whole life must be spent in these blows he must be as Jeremy speaks of himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of strife and contention there is no beast comes in his way but he must have a fling at him When Gregory Nazianzen speaks of Basil designed to the Bishoprick of Caesarea If any man saith he pretend his weakness non athletem sed doctorem creabitis But in this spiritual sense if he be a Doctor in the Chair he must be a Champion in the Theatre No S. Martin may plead here I am Christs Souldier I may not fight yea therefore must he fight because he is Christs Souldier Whosoever then would be a fit combatant for God to enter into these lists against the beasts of the world must be a S. Paul in proportion so must he be a follower of him as he is of Christ Will it please you to see him first qualified then armed Qualified first with Holiness Skill Courage Holiness For he must be a man of God and as the Apostle charges 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irreprehensible otherwise he is a beast himself and had need of some body to bait him Wo be to those Champions of God that take upon them to wield the sword of the Spirit with unclean hands That divine weapon is not so fit to wound any as their own Souls Ex ore tuo serve nequam Let me say truly It were an happy and hopeful thing that even our external and secular Wars should be managed with pure and innocent hands I shall tell you that which perhaps few of you have either
known or considered that of old a souldier was a sacred thing and it is worth your notice what in former times was the manner of our Ancestors in consecrating a Souldier or a Knight to the wars Some six hundred years agoe and upward as I find in the history of Ingulphus the manner was this Anglorum erat consuetudo quod qui militiae legitimae consecrandus esset c. He that should be devoted to the trade of war the evening before his consecration came to the Bishop or Priest of the place and in much contrition and compunction of heart made a confession of all his sins and after his absolution spent that night in the Church in watching in prayers in afflictive devotions on the morrow being to hear Divine Service he was to offer up his Sword upon the Altar and after the Gospel the Priest was with a solemn benediction to put it about his neck and then after his communicating of those sacred mysteries he was to remain miles legitimus Thus he who tels us how that valiant and successful Knight Heward came thus to his uncle one Brandus the devout Abbot of Peterborough for his consecration and that this Custome continued here in England till the irreligious Normans by their scorns put it out of countenance accounting such a one non legitimum militem sed equitem socordem Quiritem degenerem This was their ancient and laudable manner some shadow whereof we retain whiles we hold some Orders of Knighthood Religious And can we wonder to hear of noble victories atchieved by them of Giants and Monsters slain by those hands that had so pious an initiation These men professed to come to their combats as David did to Goliah in the name of the Lord no marvel if they prospered Alas now Nulla fides pietásque c. ye know the rest the name of a souldier is misconstrued by our Gallants as a sufficient warrant of debauchedness as if a Buff-Jerkin were a lawful cover for a profane heart Wo is me for this sinful degeneration How can we hope that bloody hands of lawless Ruffians should be blessed with palms of triumph that adulterous eyes should be shaded with garlands of victory that profane and atheous instruments if any such be imployed in our wars should return home loaded with success and honour How should they prosper whose sins fight against them more then all the swords of enemies whose main adversary is in their own bosome and in Heaven If the God of Heaven be the Lord of hosts do we think him so lavish that he will grace impiety Can we think him so in love with our persons that he will overlook or digest our crimes Be innocent O ye warriours if ye would be speedful be devout if ye would be victorious Even upon the Bridles of the horses in Zachary must be written Holiness to the Lord how much more upon the fore-heads of his Priests the Leaders of his spiritual war With what face with what heart can he fight against beasts that is a beast himself It is not Holiness yet that can secure us from blows Job's Behemoth as he is construed durst set upon the holy Son of God himself To our Holiness therefore must be added Skill skill to guard and skill to hit skill in choice of weapons places times ways of assault or defence else we cannot but be wounded and tossed at pleasure Hence the Psalmist Thou teachest my hands to war and my fingers to fight The title that is given to David's Champions was not dispositi ad clypeum as Montanus hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but disponentes such as could handle the shield and the buckler 1 Chron. 12. 8. Alas what is to be look'd for of raw untaught untrained men if such should be called forth of their shops on the sudden that know not so much as their files or motions or postures but either slight or filling of ditches He that will be a Petus in Jovius his history or a Servilius in Plutarch to come off an untouch'd victor from frequent challenges had need to pass many a guard and Veny in the fence-school So skilful must the man of God be that he must know as S. Paul even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very plots and devices of that great challenger of hell We live in a knowing age and yet how many teachers are very novices in the practick part of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore are either born down or tossed up with the vices of the Time whose miscarriages would God it were as easie to remedy as to lament Lastly what is Skill in our weapon without an heart and hand to use it Rabshakeh could say Counsel and strength are for the warre 2 Kings 18. 20. Strength without Counsel is like a blind Giant and Counsel without Strength is like a quick-sighted Criple If heart and eyes and lims meet not there can be no fight but tu pulsas ego vapulo What are men in this case but lepores galeati or as Sword-fishes that have a weapon but no heart Hear the spirit of a right Champion of Heaven I am ready not to be bound onely but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus Here was a man fit to grapple with beasts It is the word of the sluggish Coward There is a Lion or a Bear in the way What if there be If thou wilt be a Sampson a David incounter them There is no great glory to be look'd for but with hazard and difficulty When the Souldier said The enemy is strong it was bravely answered of the Captain The victory shall be so much more glorious I have shew'd you the man Qualified I should stay to shew you him Armed armed with Authority without with Resolution within but I long to shew you the Fight A Fight it must be which I beseech you observe in the first place Neither doth he say I plai'd with beasts except you would have it in Joab's phrase as neither did the beasts play with him except as Erasmus speaks Ludus exiit in rabiem He saies not I humor'd their bestiality I struck up a league or a truce with the vices of men No S. Paul was far from this he was at a perpetual defiance with the wickedness of the times and as that valiant Commander said would die fighting The world wanted not of old plausible spirits that if an Ahab had a mind to go up against Ramoth would say Go up and prosper and would have horns of iron to push him forward S. Paul was none of them neither may we He hath indeed bidden us if it be possible to have peace with all men not with beasts If wickedness shall go about to glaver with us Is it peace Jehu we must return a short answer and speak blows Far far be it from us to fawn upon vicious Greatness to favour even Court-sins If here we meet with bloody Oaths with scornful Profaneness with Pride with
it be possible it may rise up no more Why do not we spend the whole quiver of Gods threatned vengeance upon wilful sinners And thus must we bait the beast Is it a Drunken beast we are committed with Wo to them that rise up early to follow strong drink Esa 5. 11. Wo to him that giveth his neighbour drink to make him drunk Abac. 2. 15. The cup of the Lords right hand shall be turned to that man vomitus ignominiosus ad gloriam verse 16. Oh it is a bitter cup this of the Lords right hand whereof he shall wring out the dregs unto that soul so as in stead of quaffing the excessive healths of others he shall drink up his own death and eternal confusion Is it a Gluttonous beast Wo to him his God is his belly his glory shall be in his shame and his end damnation Phil. 3. 19. Whiles the flesh is yet between his teeth ere it be chewed the wrath of the Lord is kindled against him Numb 11. 33. Yea but it goes down sweetly Oh fool the meat in thy belly shall be turned into the gall of Asps within thee Job 20. 14. Vae saturis Wo be to the full for they shall hunger they shall famish to death and dye famishing and live dying and have enough of nothing but fire and brimstone Is it a Ravenous beast a Covetous oppressour His tooth like a mad dogs envenomes and emphrensies so saith Solomon that knew the nature of all beasts Oppression makes a wise man mad Eccles. 7. 7. Tabifici sunt Ps 79. 7. Wo be to you that joyn house to house Es 5. 8. Wo be to the mighty sins of them whose treadings are upon the poor that afflict the just that take bribes and turn away the poor in the gates Amos 5. 11 12. Therefore the Lord the God of Hoasts saith thus Wailing shall be in all their streets and they shall say in all high-waies Alas alas verse 16. They have robbed their poor Tenants and oppressed the afflicted in the gate therefore the Lord will plead their cause and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them Is it an Unclean beast Whoso committeth adultery with a woman destroyeth his own soul Prov. 6. 32. A fornicator in the body of his flesh will never cease till he have kindled a fire Ecclus. 23. 16. His fire of lust flames up into a fire of disease and burns down into the fire of Hell Is it a Foul-mouth'd beast that bellows out Blasphemies and bloody Oaths There is a word that is cloathed about with death God grant it be not found in the heritage of Jacob Ecclus. 23. 12. A man that useth much swearing shall be filled with iniquity and the plague shall never depart from his house verse 11. Thus must we lay about us spiritu or is yea gladio spiritûs and let drive at the Beast of what kind soever But if we shall still find that which blind Homer saw 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the worse hath the better and that this spiritual edge shall either turn again or through our weak wieldance not enter the stubborn and thick hide of obdured hearts give me leave most Gracious Soveraign and ye honorable Peers to whom is committed the sword of either supreme or subordinate Justice to say that both God and the world expects that this Beast of sin should be baited by you in another fashion It is not for nothing that God hath set you so conspicuously in this great Amphitheatre where the eyes of Angels and men are bent upon you and that he hath given into your hands the powerful instruments of death If this pernicious beast dare contest with our weakness and oft-times leave us gasping and bleeding on this pavement yet we know that it cannot but fall under the power of your mercy yea your vengeance Oh let it please you to rouze up your brave and Princely spirits and to give the fatal blow to presumptuous wickedness If that monster of impious Sacriledge of atheous Profaneness of outragious Inordinateness dares lift up his hated head in the sight of this Sun let him be straight crushed with the weight of that Royal Scepter let him be hewn in pieces with the sharp sword of your Sacred Authority As we abound with wholesome Laws for the repressing of vice so let it please you in an holy zeal to revive their hearty and effectual execution that the precious Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we profess may not be either shamed or braved by insolent wickedness that Justice and Peace may flourish in our Land and that your Crown may long and happily flourish upon that Royal head until it shall receive a late and blessed exchange for a Crown of Glory and Immortality in the highest Heavens Amen THE OLD RELIGION A TREATISE Wherein Is laid down the true State of the difference betwixt the REFORMED and ROMANE CHURCH and the blame of this Schism is cast upon the true Authors Serving for the Vindication of our Innocence for the setling of wavering mindes for a Preservative against Popish Insinuations With an ADVERTISEMENT for such Readers as formerly stumbled at some passages in the Book By JOS. HALL B. of Exon. LONDON Printed by James Flesher in the year M DC LXI TO My new and dearly-affected CHARGE the Diocese of EXCESTER All Grace and Benediction THE truth of my heart gives me boldness to profess before him who onely knows it that the same God who hath called me to the over-sight of your Souls hath wrought in me a zealous desire of your Salvation This desire cannot but incite me to a careful prevention of those dangers which might threaten the disappointment of so happy an end Those Dangers are either Sins of Practice or Errours of Doctrine Against both these I have faithfully vowed my utmost endeavours I shall labour against the first by Preaching Example Censures wherein it shall be your choice to expect either the Rod or the Spirit of meekness Against the latter my Pen hath risen up in this early assault It hath been assured me that in this time of late Vacancie false Teachers catching the fore-lock of Occasion have been busie in scattering the tares of Errours amongst you I easily believe it since I know it is not in the power of the greatest vigilancie to hinder their attempts of evil Even a full See is no sufficient barre to crafty Seducers their Suggestions we cannot prevent their Success we may This I have here assay'd to doe bending my style against Popish Doctrine with such Christian moderation as may argue zeal without malice desire to win Souls no will to gall them And since the commonest of all the grounds of Romish deceit is the pretence of their Age and our Novelty and nothing doth more dazle the eyes of the simple then the name of our Fore-fathers and the challenge of a particular recital of our Professours before Luther's revolt I have I hope fully cleared this coast so
Provincial Council of Colen shall serve for all Bellarmine himself grants them herein ours and they are worth our entertaining That Book is commended by Cassander as marvellously approved by all the learned Divines of Italy and France as that which notably sets forth the sum of the judgment of the Ancients concerning this and other Points of Christian Religion Nos dicimus c. We say that a man doth then receive the gift of Justification by Faith when being terrified and humbled by repentance he is again raised up by Faith believing that his sins are forgiven him for the Merits of Christ who hath promised Remision of sins to those that believe in him and when he feels in himself new desires so as detesting evil and resisting the infirmity of his flesh he is inwardly inkindled to an endeavour of good although this desire of his be not yet perfect Thus they in the voice of all Antiquity and the then present Church Onely the late Council of Trent hath created this Opinion of Justification a Point of Faith Sect. 2. The Errour hereof against Scripture YET if age were all the quarrel it were but light For though Newness in Divine Truths is a just cause of suspicion yet we do not so shut the hand of our munificent God that he cannot bestow upon his Church new Illuminations in some parcels of formerly-hidden Verities It is the charge both of their Canus and Cajetan that no man should detest a new sense of Scripture for this that it differs from the ancient Doctors for God hath not say they tied exposition of Scripture to their senses Yea if we may believe Salmeron the latter Divines are so much more quick-sighted they like the Dwarf sitting on the Giants shoulder overlook him that is far taller then themselves This Position of the Romane Church is not more new then faulty Not so much Novelty as Truth convinceth Heresies as Tertullian We had been silent if we had not found this Point besides the lateness erroneous erroneous both against Scripture and Reason Against Scripture which every where teacheth as on the one side the imperfection of our Inherent Righteousness so on the other our perfect Justification by the Imputed Righteousness of our Saviour brought home to us by Faith The former Job saw from his dunghil How should a man be justified before God If he will contend with him he cannot answer one of a thousand Whence it is that wise Solomon asks Who can say My heart is clean I am pure from sin And himself answers There is not a just man upon earth which doth good and sinneth not A Truth which besides his experience he had learned of his Father David who could say Enter not into Judgement with thy Servant though a man after God's own Heart for in thy sight shall no man living be justified and If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand For we are all as an unclean thing we saith the Prophet Esay including even himself and all our Righteousness are as filthy rags And was it any better with the best Saints under the Gospel I see saith the chosen Vessel in my members another law warring against the law of my minde and leading me captive to the law of sin which is in my members So as In many things we sin all And If we say that we have no sin we do but deceive our selves and there is no truth in us The latter is the summe of Saint Paul's Sermon at Antioch Be it known unto you men and brethren that through this Man is preached to you forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified They are justified but how Freely by his Grace What Grace Inherent in us and working by us No By Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast Works are ours but this is Righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ to all them that believe And how doth this become ours By his gracious imputation Not to him that worketh but believeth in him who justifieth the wicked is his faith imputed for righteousness Lo it is not the Act not the Habit of Faith that justifieth it is he that justifies the wicked whom our Faith makes ours and our sin his He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Lo so were we made his Righteousness as he was made our sin Imputation doth both it is that which enfeoffes our sins upon Christ and us in his Righteousness which both covers and redresses the imperfection of ours That distinction is clear and full That I may be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith S. Paul was a great Saint he had a Righteousness of his own not as a Pharisee onely but as an Apostle but that which he dares not trust to but forsakes and cleaves to God not that essential Righteousness which is in God without all relation to us nor that habit of Justice which was remaining in him but that Righteousness which is of God by faith made ours Thus being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ For what can break that peace but our sins and those are remitted For God's elect it is God that justifies And in that Remission is grounded our Reconciliation For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their sins unto them but contrarily imputing to them his own righteousness and their Faith for righteousness We conclude then that a man is justified by faith And Blessed is he to whom the Lord imputes righteousness without works Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins covered Let the vain Sophistry of carnal mindes deceive it self with idle subtilties and seek to elude the plain Truth of God with shifts of wit we bless God for so clear a light and dare cast our Souls upon this sure evidence of God attended with the perpetual attestation of his ancient Church Sect. 3. Against Reason LAstly Reason it self fights against them Nothing can formally make us Just but that which is perfect in it self How should it give what it hath not Now our Inherent Righteousness at the best is in this life defective Nostra siqua est humilis c. Our poor Justice saith Bernard if we have any it is true but it is not pure For how should it be pure where we cannot but be faulty Thus he The challenge is unanswerable To those that say they can keep God's Law let me give S. Hierome's answer to his Ctesiphon Profer quis impleverit Shew me the man that hath done
the two other Books and seconds that so I might return my payment cum foenore In that your Lordships Tractate I could not but observe the lively Image of your self that is according to the generall interpretation of all sound Professours of the Gospel of christ of a most Orthodox Divine And now remembring the Accordance your Lordship hath with others touching the Argument of your Book I must needs reflect upon my self who have long since defended the same Point in the defence of many others I do therefore much blame the Petulcity of whatsoever Author that should dare to impute a Popish affection to him whom besides his excellent Writings and Sermons God's visible eminent and resplendent Graces of Illumination Zeal Piety and Eloquence have made truely Honourable and glorious in the Church of Christ Let me say no more I suffer in your suffering not more in consonancy of Judgement then in the sympathy of my Affection Goe on dear Brother with your deserved Honour in God's Church with holy courage knowing that the dirty feet of an adversary the more they tread and rub the more lustre they give the figure graven in Gold Our Lord Jesus preserve us to the glory of his saving Grace Your Lordships unanimous friend and Brother THO. Covent and Litchfield TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN LORD Bishop of SALISBURY MY Lord I send you this little Pamphlet for your censure It is not credible how strangely I have been traduced every where for that which I conceive to be the common Opinion of Reformed Divines yea of reasonable men that is for affirming the true Being and Visibility of the Roman Church You see how clearly I have endeavoured to explicate this harmless Position yet I perceive some tough misunderstandings will not be satisfied Your Lordship hath with great reputation spent many years in the Divinity-Chair of the famous University of Cambridge Let me therefore beseech you whose Learning and Sincerity is so throughly approved in God's Church that you would freely how shortly soever express your self in this Point and if you finde that I have deviated but one hairs breadth from the Truth correct me if not free me by your just Sentence What need I to intreat you to pity those whose desires of faithful offices to the Church of God are unthankfully repaied with Suspicion and Slander whose may not this case be I had thought I had sufficiently in all my Writings and in this very last Book of mine whence this quarrell is picked shewed my fervent zeal for God's Truth against that Antichristian Faction of Rome and yet I doubt not but your own ears can witness what I have suffered Yea as if this calumny were not enough there want not those whose secret whisperings cast upon me the foul aspersions of another Sect whose name is as much hated as little understood My Lord you know I had a place with you though unworthy in that famous Synod of Dort where howsoever sickness bereaved me of the houres of a conclusive Subscription yet your Lordship heard me with equall vehemency to the rest crying down the unreasonableness of that way God so love me as I do the tranquillity and happiness of his Church yet can I not so overaffect it that I would sacrifice one dram of Truth to it To that good God do I appeal as the witness of my sincere heart to his whole Truth and no-less-then-ever-zealous detestation of all Popery and Pelagianisme Your Lordship will be pleased to pardon this importunity and to vouchsafe your speedy Answer to Your much devoted and faithfull Brother JOS. EXON TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JOSEPH Lord Bishop of EXON these My LORD YOU desire my Opinion concerning an Assertion of yours whereat some have taken offence The Proposition was this That the Roman Church remains yet a True Visible Church The occasion which makes this an ill-sounding Proposition in the ears of Protestants especially such as are not throughly acquainted with School Distinctions is the usuall acception of the word True in our English Tongue For though men skilled in Metaphysicks hold it for a Maxime Ens Verum Bonum convertuntur yet with us he which shall affirm such a one is a true Christian a true Gentleman a true Scholar or the like he is conceived not onely to adscribe Trueness of Being unto all these but those due Qualities or requisite Actions whereby they are made commendable or praise-worthy in their severall kinds In this sense the Roman Church is no more a True Church in respect of Christ or those due Qualities and proper Actions which Christ requires then an arrant Whore is a true and loyall Wife unto her Husband I durst upon mine oath be one of your Compurgators that you never intended to adorn that Strumpet with the title of a true Church in this meaning But your own Writings have so fully cleared you herein that suspicion it self cannot reasonably suspect you in this Point I therefore can say no more concerning your mistaken Proposition then this If in that Treatise wherein it was delivered the Antecedents or Consequents were such as served fitly to lead the Reader into that Sense which under the word True comprehendeth onely Truth of Being or Existencie and not the due Qualities of the thing or Subject you have been causelesly traduced But on the other side if that Proposition comes in ex abrupto or stands solitarie in your Discourse you cannot marvell though by taking the word True according to the more ordinarie acception your true meaning was mistaken In brief your Proposition admits a true sense and in that sense is by the best Learned in our Reformed Church not disallowed For the Being of a Church does principally stand upon the gracious action of God calling men out of Darkness and Death unto the Participation of Light and Life in Christ Jesus So long as God continues this Calling unto any people though they as much as in them lies darken this Light and corrupt the means which should bring them to Life and Salvation in Christ yet where God calls men unto the Participation of Life in Christ by the Word and by the Sacraments there is the true Being of a Christian Church let men be never so false in their Expositions of God's Word or never so untrustie in mingling their own Traditions with God's Ordinances Thus the Church of the Jews lost not her Being of a Church when she became an Idolatrous Church And thus under the government of the Scribes and Pharisees who voided the Commandements of God by their own Traditions there was yet standing a true Church in which Zacharias Elizabeth the Virgin Mary and our Saviour himself was born who were members of that Church and yet participated not in the Corruptions thereof Thus to grant that the Romane was and is a True Visible Christian Church though in Doctrine a False and in Practice an Idolatrous Church is a true Assertion and of greater
of the forein Divines with whom I have so long conversed beyond the Seas concerning that Point I might answer in two lines that I have read your Reconciler and judge your Opinion concerning that Point to be learned sound and true Though that if I durst favour an officious lie I would willingly give my Suffrage to those Divines which out of a most fervent Zeal to God and perfect hatred to Idolatry hold that the Roman Church is in all things BAâ—EL in nothing BETHEL And as they which seek to set right a crooked Tree bow it the clean contrary way to make it straight so to recover and pull out of the fire of eternal Damnation the Romane Christians I would gladly pourtray them with sable colours and make their Religion more black in their own eyes then they are in ours the hellish-coloured faces of the flat-nosed Ethiopians or to the Spaniard the monstrous Sambenit of the Inquisition But fearing the true reproach cast by Job in his friends teeth Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him and knowing that we must not speak a lie no not against the Devil which is the Father of lies I say that the Roman Church is both BABEL and BETHEL and as God's Temple was in Christs daies at once the house of Prayer and a den of thieves so she is in our daies God's Temple and the habitation of Devils the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird Which I prove thus The Church is to be considered three manner of waies First according to Gods right which he keepeth over her and maintaineth in her by the common and external Calling of his Word and Sacraments Secondly according to the pure Preaching of the Word and external Obedience in hearing receiving and keeping the Word sincerely preached Thirdly according to the election of Grace and the personal Calling which hath perpetually the inward working of the Holy Ghost joyned with the outward Preaching of the Word as in Lydia Thence cometh the answer of a good conscience toward God by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ To begin with the last Consideration These onely are Gods Church which are Jews inwardly in the spirit as well as outwardly in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God who are Nathanaels and true Israelites in whom there is no guile invisible to all men visible to God alone who knoweth them that are his and each of them to themselves because they have received the Spirit which is of God that they might know the things which are freely given them of God and the white stone and new name which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it Of this Church called by the Apostle the people which God foreknew Rom. 11. 2. there is no controversie amongst our Divines In the second Consideration these onely are the true visible Church of God amongst whom the Word of God is truly preached without the mixture of humane Traditions the holy Sacraments are celebrated according to their first institution and the people consenteth to be led and ruled by the word of God As when Moses laid before the faces of the people all the words which the Lord commanded him And all the people answered together All that the Lord hath spoken we will doe The Lord said unto Moses Write thou these words for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel And Moses said to the people Thou hast avouched this day the Lord to be thy God and to walk in his waies and to keep his Statures and his Commandments and his Judgements and to hearken unto his voice And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee and that thou shouldest keep all his Commandements This condition of the Commandement God did often inculcate into their ears by his Prophets As when he said to them by Jeremiah This thing commanded I them saying Obey my voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people and walk ye in all the waies that I have commanded you that it may be well unto you So in the Gospel Christ saith My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me But a stranger will they not follow but will flie from him for they know not the voice of strangers where he giveth the first mark of the Visible true and pure Church to wit the pure Preaching and Hearing of Christs voice As likewise St. John saith He that knoweth God heareth us Hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of Errour Again the Lord saith By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another pointing out the Concord and holy agreement which is among the Brethren as another mark of the Orthodox Church As likewise when he saith Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven he sheweth that good Works are the visible mark of the true Orthodox Church The true Preaching and reverend Hearing of the Gospel is a visible mark of our Faith and Hope our Concord in the Lord is a mark of our Charitie our good Works are real and sensible testimonies of our inward Faith Hope and Charitie Where we finde these three Signes we know certainly that there is Christs true Church and judge charitably that is probably that every one in whom we see these outward tokens of Christs true and Orthodox Church is a true member of the mystical body of the Lord Jesus I say charitably because outward marks may be outwardly counterfeited by Hypocrites as it is said of Israel They did flatter with their mouth and they lyed unto him with their tongues For their heart was not right with him neither were they stedfast in his Covenant and of many of those that followed our Saviour Many believed in his Name when they saw the Miracles which he did But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men Therefore when the people of Israel departed from the Covenant and by their Idolatry brake as much as in them lay the contract of Marriage between them and God they ceased in that behalf to be Gods true Spouse and people though still they called him their Husband and their God When they made a molten Calf in the wilderness and worshipped the works of their own fingers God said to Moses Thy people which thou broughtest out of the Land of Egypt have corrupted themselves and not my people And Moses to shew that on their part they had broken the Covenant broke the Tables of the Covenant When under Achaz they did worse Isaiah called them children that are corrupted their Prince and Governours Rulers of Sodome themselves people of Gomorrah their holy
are wont to describe Impossibilities by the meeting of Mountains and behold here two Mountains and met to swallow up a Valley What a good God it is whose Providence over-rules and disposes of all these events Towns or Cities might as well have been thus buried as a solitary Dale or a shrubby Wood. Certainly the God that did this would have the use of it reach further then the noise this he did to shew us what he could what he might doe If our hearts do not quake and rend at the acknowledgment of his infinite Power and fear of his terrible Judgments as well as that Earth did we must exspect to be made warnings that would take none LXI Upon the sight of a Dormouse AT how easie a rate do these Creatures live that are fed with rest So the Bear the Hedge-hog they say spend their whole winter in Sleep and rise up fatter then they lay down How oft have I envied the thriving drowsiness of these Beasts when the toil of thoughts hath bereaved me of but one hours sleep and left me languishing to a new task And yet when I have well digested the comparison of both these conditions I must needs say I had rather wast with work then batten with ease and would rather chuse a life profitably painfull then uselesly dull and delicate I cannot tell whether I should say those Creatures live which doe nothing since we are wont ever to notifie life by motion Sure I am their life is not vitall For me let me rather complain of a Minde that will not let me be idle then of a Body that will not let me work LXII Upon Bees fighting WHat a pity it is to see these profitable industrious Creatures fall so furiously upon each other and thus â—â—ing and kill each other in the very mouth of the Hive I could like well to see the Bees doe this execution upon Wasps and Droans enemies to their common stock this savours but of Justice But to see them fall foul upon those of their own wing it cannot but trouble their owner who must needs be an equall loser by the victory of either There is no more perfect resemblance of a Commonwealth whether Civil or Sacred then in an Hive The Bees are painfull and honest Compatriots labouring to bring Wax Honey to the maintenance of the publick State the Wasps and Droans are unprofitable and harmfull Hangbyes which live upon the spoil of others labours whether as common Barretors or strong Thieves or bold Parasites they doe nothing but rob their Neighbours It is an happy sight when these feel the dint of Justice and are cut off from doing further mischief But to see well-affected and beneficial Subjects undoe themselves with duels whether of Law or Sword to see good Christians of the same Profession shedding each others blood upon quarrels of Religion is no other then a sad and hatefull spectacle and so much the more by how much we have more means of Reason and Grace to compose our differences and correct our offensive contentiousness O God who art at once the Lord of Hosts and Prince of Peace give us War with Spiritual wickedness and Peace with our Brethren LXIII Upon Wasps falling into a Glasse SEE you that narrow-mouthed Glass which is set near to the Hive mark how busily the Wasps resort to it being drawn thither by the smell of that sweet liquor wherewith it is baited see how eagerly they creep into the mouth of it and fall down suddenly from that slippery steepness into that watery trap from which they can never rise there after some vain labour and wearinesse they drown and die You do not see any of the Bees look that way they passe directly to their Hive without any notice taken of such a pleasing Bait. Idle and ill-disposed persons are drawn away with every Temptation they have both leisure and will to entertain every sweet allurement to sin and wantonly prosecute their own wicked Lusts till they fall into irrecoverable damnation Whereas the diligent and laborious Christian that follows hard and conscionably the works of an honest Calling is free from the danger of these deadly inticements and laies up hony of comfort against the Winter of evil Happy is that man who can see and enjoy the successe of his labour but however this we are sure of if our Labour cannot purchase the good we would have it shall prevent the evil we would avoid LXIV Upon a Spring in the wilde Forrest LOE here the true pattern of Bounty What clear crystall streams are here and how liberally do they gush forth and hasten down with a pleasing murmur into the Valley Yet you see neither Man nor Beast that takes part of that wholesome and pure water It is enough that those may dip who will the refusall of others doth no whit abate of this profered plenty Thus bountifull House-keepers hold on their set ordinary provision whether they have Guests or no Thus conscionable Preachers powre out the living Waters of wholsome Doctrine whether their Hearers partake of those blessed means of Salvation or neglect their holy Endeavours Let it be our comfort that we have been no niggards of these celestial streams let the world give an account of the improvement LXV Upon the sight of an Owle in the twilight WHat a strange Melancholick life doth this creature lead to hide her head all the day long in an Ivy-bush and at night when all other Birds are at rest to flie abroad and vent her harsh notes I know not why the Ancients have sacred this Bird to Wisdome except it be for her safe closenesse and singular perspicacity that when other domesticall and airy creatures are blinde she only hath inward light to discern the least objects for her own advantage Surely thus much wit they have taught us in her That he is the wisest man that would have least to doe with the multitude That no life is so safe as the obscure That retirednesse if it have lesse comfort yet lesse danger and vexation lastly That he is truly wise who sees by a light of his own when the rest of the world sit in an ignorant and confused darknesse unable to apprehend any Truth save by the helps of an outward illumination Had this Fowl come forth in the day-time how had all the little Birds flock'd wondring about her to see her uncouth visage to hear her untuned notes She likes her estate never the worse but pleaseth her self in her own quiet reservednesse It is not for a wise man to be much affected with the censures of the rude and unskilfull Vulgar but to hold fast unto his own well-chosen and well-fixed resolutions Every fool knows what is wont to be done but what is best to be done is known only to the wise LXVI Upon an Arm benummed HOW benummed and for the time senslesse is this Arm of mine become only with too long leaning upon it Whiles I used it to
me thus imperfectly happy before my time that when my time shall be no more I may be perfectly happy with thee in all Eternity XCII Upon the sight of an Harlot carted WIth what noise and tumult and zeal of solemn Justice is this sin punished The Streets are not more full of beholders then clamors Every one strives to expresse his detestation of the fact by some token of revenge one casts Mire another Water another rotten Egges upon the miserable offender neither indeed is she worthy of lesse but in the mean time no man looks home to himself It is no uncharity to say that too many insult in this just Punishment who have deserved more Alas we men value sins by the outward Scandall but the Wise and Holy God against whom onely our sins are done esteems them according to the intrinsecal Iniquity of them and according to the secret violation of his Will and Justice thus those Sins which are slight to us are to him hainous We ignorants would have rung David's Adultery with Basons but as for his numbring of the people we should have past it over as venial the wise Justice of the Almighty found more wickedness in this which we should scarce have accused Doubtlesse there is more mischief in a secret Infidelity which the World either cannot know or cares not to censure then in the foulest Adultery Publick sins have more Shame private may have more Guilt If the world cannot charge me of those it is enough that I can charge my Soul of worse Let others rejoice in these publick Executions let me pity the sins of others and be humbled under the sense of my own XCIII Upon the smell of a Rose SMelling is one of the meanest and least usefull of the Senses yet there is none of the Five that receives or gives so exquisite a contentment as it Methinks there is no earthly thing that yields so perfect a pleasure to any Sense as the odour of the first Rose doth to the Sent. It is the Wisdome and Bounty of the Creator so to order it that those Senses which have more affinity with the body and with that earth whereof it is made should receive their delight and contentation by those things which are bred of the earth but those which are more sprightfull and have more affinity with the Soul should be reserved for the perfection of their pleasure to another world There and then only shall my Sight make my Soul eternally blessed XCIV Upon a cancelled Bond. WHiles this Obligation was in force I was in servitude to my parchment my Bond was double to a Payment to a Penalty now that is discharged what is it better then a wast scroll regarded for nothing but the witness of its own voidance and nullity No otherwise is it with the severe Law of my Creator Out of Christ it stands in full force and bindes me over either to perfect Obedience which I cannot possibly perform or to exquisite torment and eternall Death which I am never able to indure but now that my Saviour hath fastened it cancelled to his Cross in respect of the rigour and malediction of it I look upon it as the monument of my past danger and bondage I know by it how much was owed by me how much was payed for me The direction of it is everlasting the obligation by it unto death is frustrate I am free from Curse who never can be free from Obedience O Saviour take thou Glory and give me Peace XCV Upon the report of a great losse by Sea THe Earth and the Water are both of them great givers and both great takers As they give matter and sustentation to all Sublunary creatures so they take all back again insatiably devouring at last the fruits of their own wombs Yet of the two the Earth is both more beneficial and lesse cruell for as that yields us the most generall maintenance and wealth and supportation so it doth not lightly take ought from us but that which we resign over to it and which naturally falls back unto it Whereas the Water as it affords but a small part of our livelihood and some few knacks of ornament so it is apt violently to snatch away both us and ours and to bereave that which it never gave it yields us no precious Metalls and yet in an instant fetches away millions And yet notwithstanding all the hard measure we receive from it how many do we daily see that might have firm ground under them who yet will be trusting to the mercy of the Sea Yea how many that have hardly crawled out from a desperate shipwrack will yet be trying the fidelity of that unsure and untrusty Element O God how venturous we are where we have reason to distrust how incredulously fearfull where we have cause to be confident Who ever relied upon thy gracious Providence and sure Promises O Lord and hath miscarried Yet here we pull in our Faith and make excuses for our Diffidence And if Peter have tried those waves to be no other then solid pavement under his feet whiles his Soul trod confidently yet when a billow and a winde agree to threaten him his Faith flags and he begins to sink O Lord teach me to doubt where I am sure to finde nothing but uncertainty and to be assuredly confident where there can be no possibility of any cause of doubting XCVI Upon sight of a bright Skie full of Stars I Cannot blame Empedocles if he professed a desire to live upon earth only that he might behold the face of the Heavens surely if there were no other this were a sufficient errand for a mans being here below to see and observe these goodly Spangles of Light above our heads their places their quantities their motions But the employment of a Christian is far more noble and excellent Heaven is open to him and he can look beyond the veil and see further above those Stars then it is thither and there discern those Glories that may answer so rich a pavement Upon the clear sight whereof I cannot but wonder if the chosen Vessel desired to leave the earth in so happy an exchange O God I blesse thine Infiniteness for what I see with these bodily eyes but if thou shalt but draw the curtain and let me by the eye of Faith see the inside of that thy Glorious frame I shall need no other Happiness here My Soul cannot be capable of more favour then Sight here and Fruition hereafter XCVII Upon the rumours of Wars GOod Lord what a shambles is Christendome become of late How are men killed like flies and blood poured out like water Surely the cruelty and ambition of the Great have an heavy reckoning to make for so many thousand Souls I condemn not just Arms those are as necessary as the unjust are hatefull even Michael and his Angels fight and the style of God is the Lord of Hoasts But wo be to the man by whom the offence
of joy when I see men upon an unreasonable suggestion of that evil Spirit cast away their lives for nothing and so hastening their temporall death that they hazard an eternall CXVIII Upon the coming in of the Judge THE construction of men and their actions is altogether according to the disposition of the lookers on The same face of the Judge without any inward alteration is seen with terror by the guilty with joy and confidence by the oppressed innocent like as the same lips of the Bride-groom drop both myrrhe and hony at once hony to the well-disposed heart myrrhe to the rebellious and the same Cup relishes well to the healthfull and distasts the feverous the same word is though a sweet yet a contrary favour to the different receivers and the same Sun comforts the strong sight dazles the weak For a man to affect either to doe or speak that which may be pleasing to all men is but a weak and idle ambition when we see him that is infinitely Good appear terrible to more then he appears lovely Goodnesse is it self with whatever eyes it is look'd upon There can be no safety for that man that regards more the censure of men then the truth of being He that seeks to win all hearts hath lost his owne CXIX Upon the sight of an Heap of stones UNder such a pile it was that the first Martyr was buried none of all the antient Kings had so glorious a Tomb here were many stones and every one pretious Jacob leaned his head upon a stone and saw that Heavenly vision of Angels ascending and descending Many stones light upon Steven's head in the instant of his seeing the Heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God Lo Jacob resting upon that one stone saw but the Angels Steven being to rest for once under those many stones saw the Lord of the Angels Jacob saw the Angels moving Steven saw Jesus standing As Jacob therefore afterwards according to his Vow made there an altar to God so Steven now in the present gathers these stones together of which he erected an holy altar whereon he offered up himself a blessed Sacrifice unto God And if there be a time of gathering stones and a time of casting them away this was the time wherein the Jews cast and Steven gathered up these stones for a monument of eternall Glory O blessed Saint thou didst not so clearly see Heaven opened as Heaven saw thee covered thou didst not so perfectly see thy Jesus standing as he saw thee lying patiently courageously under that fatall heap Do I mistake it or are those stones not Flints and Pebbles but Diamonds Rubies and Carbuncles to set upon thy Crown of Glory CXX Upon sight of a Bat and Owle THese Night-birds are glad to hide their heads all and if by some violence they be unseasonably forced our of their secrecy how are they followed and beaten by the birds of the day With us men it is contrary the Sons of Darknesse do with all eagernesse of maâ—ice pursue the children of the Light and drive them into corners and make a prey of them the opposition is alike but the advantage lies on the worse side Is it for that the Spirituall Light is no lesse hatefull to those Children of Darknesse then the naturall night is to those chearfull Birds of the day Or is it for that the Sons of Darknesse challenging no lesse propriety in the world then the Foul do in the lightsome aire abhorre and wonder at the conscionanable as strange and uncouth Howsoever as these Bats and Owls were made for the night being accordingly shaped foul and ill-favoured so we know these vicious men however they may please themselves have in them a true deformity fit to be shrowded in Darknesse and as they delight in the works of Darknesse so they are justly reserved to a state of Darknesse CXXI Upon the sight of a Well-fleeced Sheep WHat a warm Winter-coat hath God provided for this quiet innocent creature as indeed how wonderfull is his Wisdome and Goodness in all his purveiances Those creatures which are apter for motion and withall most fearfull by nature hath he clad somewhat thinner and hath allotted them safe and warm boroughs within the earth those that are fit for labour and use hath he furnished with a strong hide and for Man whom he hath thought good to bring forth naked tender helplesse he hath indued his Parents and himself with that noble faculty of Reason whereby he may provide all manner of helps for himself Yet again so bountifull is God in his provisions that he is not lavish so distributing his gifts that there is no more superfluity then want Those creatures that have beaks have no teeth and those that have shells without have no bones within All have enough nothing hath all Neither is it otherwise in that one kinde of Man whom he meant for the Lord of all Variety of gifts is here mixed with a frugall dispensation None hath cause to boast none to complain Every man is as free from an absolute defect as from perfection I desire not to comprehend O Lord teach me to doe nothing but wonder CXXII Upon the hearing of Thunder THere is no Grace whereof I finde so generall a want in my self and others as an awfull fear of the infinite Majesty of God Men are ready to affect and professe a kinde of Familiarity with God out of a pretence of love whereas if they knew him aright they could not think of him without dread nor name him without trembling their narrow hearts strive to conceive of him according to the scantling of their own streight and ignorant apprehension whereas they should only desire to have their thoughts swallowed up with an adoring wonder of his Divine incomprehensiblenesse Though he thunder not alwaies he is alwayes equally dreadfull there is none of his works which doth not bewray Omnipotency I blush at the sawcinesse of vain men that will be circumscribing the powerfull acts of the Almighty within the compasse of Naturall Causes forbearing to wonder at what they professe to know Nothing but Ignorance can be guilty of this Boldnesse There is no Divinity but in an humble fear no Philosophy but a silent admiration CXXIII Upon the sight of an Hedge-hog I Marvelled at the first reading what the Greeks meant by that Proverb of theirs The Fox knows many pretty wiles but the Hedg-hog knows one great one But when I considered the Nature and practice of this creature I easily found the reason of that speech grounded upon the care and shift that it makes for its own preservation Whiles it is under covert it knows how to bar the fore-dore against the cold Northern and Eastern blasts and to open the back-dore for quieter and calmer aire When it is pursued it knows how to roll up it self round within those thorns with which Nature hath environed it so as the Dog in stead of a beast findes