his unreasonableness will give him a new degree of torment when he shall find himself in flames for being a stupid an Atheistical an irreligious fool This only I desire should be observed that our Blessed Master forbids not only swearing by God but by any Creature for every Oath by a creature does involve and tacitely relate to God And therefore saith Christ Swear not by Heaven for it is the throne of God and he that sweareth by the throne of God sweareth by it and by him that sitteth thereon So that it is not a less matter to swear by a Creature than to swear by God for a Creature cannot be the instrument of testimony but as it is a relative to God and it by implication calls the God of that Creature to witness So that although in such cases in which it is permitted to swear by God we may in those cases express our Oath in the form of advocating and calling the Creature as did the primitive Christians swearing by the health of their Emperour and as Joseph swearing by the life of Pharaoh and as Elisha swearing by the life of Elias and as did S. Paul protesting by the rejoycing he had in Jesus Christ and as we in our forms of swearing in Courts of Judicature touch the Gospels saying So help me God and the Contents of this Book and in a few Ages lately past Bishops and Priests sometimes swore upon the Cross sometimes upon the Altar sometimes by their holy Order yet we must remember that this in other words and ceremonies is but a calling God for witness and he that swears by the Cross swears by the holy Crucifix that is Jesus crucified thereon And therefore these and the like forms are therefore not to be used in ordinary communication because they relate to God they are as obligatory as the immediate invocation of his Holiness and Majesty and it was a Judaical vanity to think swearing by Creatures was less obliging they are just with the same restraints made to be religious as the most solemn invocation of the holy and reverend Name of God lawful or unlawful as the other unless the swearing by a Creature come to be spoiled by some other intervening circumstance that is with a denying it to relate to God for then it becomes Superstition as well as Profanation and it gives to a Creature what is proper to God or when the Creature is contemptible or less than the gravity of the matter as if a man should swear by a Fly or the shadow of a Tree or when there is an indecorum in the thing or something that does at too great distance relate to God for that which with greatest vicinity refers to God in several Religions is the best instrument of an Oath and nearest to God's honour as in Christianity are the Holy Sacrament the Cross the Altar and the Gospels and therefore too great a distance may be an indecency next to a disparagement This only may be added to this consideration That although an Oath which is properly calling God or God's relative into testimony is to be understood according to the former Discourse yet there may be great affirmations or negations respectively and confirmed by forms of vehement asseveration such as the customes of a Nation or consent shall agree upon and those do in some cases promote our belief or confirm our pretensions better than a plain Yea or No because by such consent the person renders himself infamous if he breaks his word or trust And although this will not come under the restraint of Christ's words because they are not properly Oaths but circumstances of earnest affirmation or negation yet these are humane Attestations introduced by custome or consent and as they come not under the notion of Swearing so they are forms of testimony and collateral engagement of a more strict truth 24. The Holy Jesus having specified the great Commandment of loving God with all our heart in this one instance of hallowing and keeping his Name sacred that is from profane and common talk and less prudent and unnecessary entercourses instanced in no other commandment of Moses but having frequent occasion to speak of the Sabbath for ever expresses his own dominion over the Day and that he had dissolved the bands of Moses in this instance that now we were no more obliged to that Rest which the 〈◊〉 religiously observed by prescript of the Law and by divers acts against securities of the then-received practices did desecrate the day making it a broken yoke and the first great instance of Christian Liberty And when the Apostle gave instructions that no man should judge his 〈◊〉 in a Holy-day or New-moons or the Sabbath-days he declared all the Judaical Feasts to be obliterated by the spunge which Jesus tasted on the Cross it was within the Manuscript of Ordinances and there it was cancelled And there was nothing moral in it but that we do honour to God for the Creation and to that and all other purposes of Religion separate and hallow some portion of our time The Primitive Church kept both the Sabbath and the Lord's day till the time of the 〈◊〉 Council about 300 years after Christ's nativity and almost in every thing made them equal and therefore did not esteem the Lord's day to be substituted in the place of the obliterated Sabbath but a Feast celebrated by great reason and perpetual consent without precept or necessary Divine injunction But the liberty of the Church was great they found themselves disobliged from that strict and necessary Rest which was one great part of the Sabbatick rites only they were glad of the occasion to meet often for offices of Religion and the day served well for the gaining and facilitating the Conversion of the Jews and for the honourable sepulture of the Synagogue it being kept so long 〈◊〉 the forty days mourning of Israel for the death of their Father Jacob but their liberty they improved not to licence but as an occasion of more frequent assemblies And there is something in it for us to imitate even to sanctifie the Name of God in the great work of the Creation reading his praises in the book of his Creatures and taking all occasions of religious acts and offices though in none of the Jewish circumstances 25. Concerning the observation of the Lord's Day which now the Church observes and ever did in remembrance of the Resurrection because it is a day of positive and Ecclesiastical institution it is fit that the Church who instituted the day should determine the manner of its observation It was set apart in honour of the Resurrection and it were not ill if all Churches would into the weekly Offices put some memorial of that mystery that the reason of the Festival might be remembred with the day God thanked with the renewing of the Offices But because Religion was the design of the Feast and 〈◊〉
Praef. n. 40. Recidivation or Relapse into a state of sin unpardonable and how 156. Reproachful Language prohibited 247. Reprehension of evil Persons may be in Language properly expressive of the Crime ibid. Resisting evil in what sence lawful 225. Reverence of posture to be used in Prayer 271. 23. Remedies against Anger 248. 35. Repetition of Prayers 270. Relations secular must be quitted for Religion in what sence 320. They must not hinder Religious Duties 236. Reformation begins ill if it begins with Sacrilege 171. 5. Reward propounded in the beginning and end of Christian Duties 222. It makes the labour easie 295. 1. Restitution to the state of Grace is divisible and by parts 314. Restitution made by Zacchaeus 346. 4. Resurrection proved and described by Jesus 348. 11. All Relations of Kindred or 〈◊〉 cease then ibid. Resurrection of Jesus 393. Given for a sign 160. 279. It is the support of Christianity 428. Resignation of himself to be made by a dying or sick person 405. 17. Rich men less disposed for reception of Christianity 29. Riches are surest and to best purposes obtained by Christianity 301. 10. Rites of Burial among the Jewes lasted Fourty days 419. S. SArabaitae great Mortifiers but not obedient 49. 24. Sacrilege a robbing of God 52. Saints to inherit the Earth in what sence 224. 9. Sacraments ineffectual without the conjunction of something moral 97. They operate by way of Prayers ibid. Sacrament of the Lord's Supper instituted 349. 17. It s manner ibid. To be received Fasting 272. Of the Presence of Christ's Body in it 370. 3. Sabbath of the Jewes abolished 327. 28. 243. 25. Primitive Christians kept both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day 243. 24. Second Sabbath after the first what it means 290. 2. Sabbatick pool streamed onely upon the Sabbath 327. 28. Salome presented John Baptist's Head to her Mother 169. She was killed with Ice ibid. Samaritans were Schismaticks 182. 3. They hated the Jewes ibid. They were cast in their Appeal to Ptolemy ibid. Samaritan 〈◊〉 a Concubine after the death of her fifth Husband 187. 1. Scandal cannot be given by any thing that is our Duty 328. 334. 13. Sin of Scandal and the indiscretion of Scandal 330. 6. Scandalous persons who 328. 334. 13. No Man can say that himself is scandalized 333. 10. The Rules Measure and Judgement of Scandal 328. Between a Friend and an Enemy how we are to doe in the question of Scandal 334. 12. Scandal how to be avoided in making and executing Laws 334. 14. State of Separation 423. 429. 15. The Pool of Siloam 325. 21. Scorn must not be cast upon our calamitous Brother 339. Secular Persons tied to a frequent Communion 379. 19. Secular and Spiritual Objects their difference 380. 21. Serapion's Reproof of a young proud Monk 366. 7. Sepulchre of Jesus sealed 501. 39. Sermon of Christ upon the Mount 183. 11. His Farewell-Sermon 350. 19. Severity to our selves and Gentleness to others a Duty 324. 17. Sensuality Vide Temptations Simon' s name changed 151. 2. His Wifes Mother cured 184. 12. Simeon Stylites commended for Obedience 49. 24. Simon Magus brought a new Sin into the world 104. 6. Sins of Infirmity Vide 〈◊〉 Sins small in themselves are made great when they come by design 44. 12. When they are acted by deliberation ibid. When they are often repeated and not interrupted by Repentance ibid. 13. When they are 〈◊〉 45. 14. Sin pleasant at the first bitter in the end 159. It carries a whip with it 170. They are forgiven when the Punishment is remitted 184. After Pardon they may return in guilt 211. It is more troublesome than Vertue is 297. 4. Not cared for unless it be difficult 299. 6. It shortens our lives naturally 305. 19. It made Jesus weep 359. To be accounted as great Blemishes to our selves as we account them to others 365. 6. Sinners Prayers not heard in what sence 266. 13. Sinners in need are to be relieved 258. Sinners are Fools 310. 28. State of Sin totally opposed to the Mercies of the Covenant 200. Sin against the Holy Ghost what it is 201. 10. Simplicity of Spirit a Christian Duty 157. Shame of Lust more violent to Nature than the Severities of Continence 295. The good Shepherd 325. Shepherds by Night watchful had a Revclation of Christ 29. Spiritual Shepherds must be watchful ibid. Spiritual Sadness is often a Mercy and a Grace 236. When otherwise 160. Spiritual persons apt to be tempted to Pride 86 100. Spiritual Mourning 224. Spiritual Pleasures distinguished from Temporal 191. Spiritual good things how to be prayed for 266. 262. Spiritual 〈◊〉 360. 8. Spirit makes Religion 〈◊〉 295. It is the earnest of Salvation 316. Spirit of Adoption ibid. It is quenched by some ibid. Spirit is 〈◊〉 to be offered to God 176. Solemnities of Christ's Kingdom 392. Souldiers plunged Jesus into the Brook Cedron 388. 11. They pierced his Side 355. They mock and beat Him 351. 353. They cover his Face at his Attachment 351. They fell to the ground at the glory of his Person ibid. Sun's Eclipse at the Passion miraculous 354. Stones of the Temple of what bigness 348. 12. Star at Christ's Birth moved irregularly 27. 9. That the Star appearing to the Wise Men was an Angel the Opinion of the Greeks 27. 8. Swine kept by the Jews and why 194 Statue of Brass erected by the Woman cured of her Bloudy issue 185. 20. Success of our endeavours depends on God 196. 5. Sudden Joys are dangerous 196. 7. Schism to be avoided in the Occasions 194. Swearing in common Talk a great Crime 304. By Creatures forbidden ibid. Suits at Law with what Cautions permitted 264. Syrophoenician importunate with Jesus for her Daughter 321. 6. Solomon's Porch a fragment of the first Temple 327. 29. Sweat of Christ in the Agony as great as drops of Bloud 350. 20. 385. 6. T. TAble with Nails fastned to Christ's Garment when he bore the Cross 413. 2. Teachers of others should be exemplary 33. 79. They should learn first of their Superiours 75. Not to make too much haste into the Imployment 79. Teresa à Jesu her Vow 235. 22. Temporal Priviledges inferiour to Spiritual 292. Temporal good things how to be prayed for 261. Temptation not alwayes a sign of immortification 91. Not to be voluntarily entred into 91. 110. Not alwayes an argument of GOD's Disfavour 97. 361. It is every Man's Lot 105. Not alwayes to be removed by Prayer 102. The several manners of Temptation ibid. Remedies against it 112. 29. seq 1. Consideration 1. Of the Presence of God 112. 29. 1. Consideration 2. Of Death 114. 34. 2. Prayer 115. 37. Temple of Jerusalem how many High-Priests it had in Succession 303. 14. Transmigration of Souls maintained by the Pharisees 321. 8. Tribute to be paid 347. Traitor discovered by a Sop 350. Trinity meeting at the 〈◊〉 of our Blessed Lord by some manners of exteriour
a perpetual storm within and daily hissings from without 13. Fourthly Holiness and Obedience is an excellent preservative of Life and makes it long and healthful In order to which discourse because it is new material and argumentative apt to perswade men who prefer life before all their other interests I consider many things First In the Old Testament a long and a prosperous life were the great promises of the Covenant their hopes were built upon it and that was made the support of all their duty If thou wilt diligently hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God I will put none of the diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyptians for I am the LORD that healeth thee And more particularly yet that we may not think Piety to be security only against the plagues of Egypt God makes his promise more indefinite and unconfined Ye shall serve the LORD your God and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee and will fulfill the number of thy days that is the period of nature shall be the period of thy person thou shalt live long and die in a seasonable and ripe age And this promise was so verified by a long experience that by David's time it grew up to a rule What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips that they speak no guile And the same argument was pressed by Solomon who was an excellent Philosopher and well skilled in the natural and accidental means of preservation of our lives Fear the LORD and depart from evil and it shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones Length of days is in the right hand of wisdome For she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her Meaning that the Tree of Life and immortality which God had planted in Paradise and which if Man had stood he should have tasted and have lived for ever the fruit of that Tree is offered upon the same conditions if we will keep the Commandments of God our Obedience like the Tree of life shall consign us to Immortality hereafter by a long and a healthful life here And therefore although in Moses's time the days of Man had been shortned till they came to threescore years and ten or fourscore years and then their strength is but labour and sorrow for Moses was Author of that Psalm yet to shew the great privilege of those persons whose Piety was great Moses himself attained to one hundred and twenty years which was almost double to the ordinary and determined period But Enoch and Elias never died and became great examples to us that a spotless and holy life might possibly have been immortal 14. I shall add no more examples but one great conjugation of precedent observed by the Jewish Writers who tell us that in the second Temple there were 300 high Priests I suppose they set down a certain number for an uncertain and by 300 they mean very many and yet that Temple lasted but 420 years the reason of this so rapid and violent abscission of their Priests being their great and scandalous impieties and yet in the first Temple whose abode was within ten years as long as the second there was a succession but of 18 high Priests for they being generally very pious and the preservers of their Rites and Religion against the Schism of 〈◊〉 and the Defection of 〈◊〉 and the Idolatry and Irreligion of many of the Kings of Judah God took delight to reward it with a long and honourable old age And 〈◊〉 knew well enough what he said when in his 〈◊〉 and prophetick rapture he made his prayer to God Let my Soul die the death of the righteous It was not a Prayer that his Soul might be saved or that he might repent at last for Repentance and Immortality were revelations of a later date but he in his prophetick 〈◊〉 seeing what God had purposed to the Moabites and what blessings he had reserved for Israel prays that he might not die as the Moabites were like to die with an untimely death by the sword of their enemies dispossessed of their Countrey spoiled of their goods in the period and last hour of their Nation but let my soul die the death of the just the death designed for the faithful Israelites such a death which God promised to Abraham that he should return to his Fathers in peace and in a good old age For the death of the righteous is like the descending of ripe and wholsome fruits from a pleasant and florid Tree our senses intire our lims unbroken without horrid tortures after provision made for our children with a blessing entailed upon posterity in the presence of our Friends our dearest relative closing up our eyes and binding our feet leaving a good name behind us O let my soul die such a death for this in whole or in part according as God sees it good is the manner that the righteous die And this was Balaam's prayer And this was the state and condition in the Old Testament 15. In the Gospel the case is nothing altered For besides that those austerities rigours and mortifications which are in the Gospel advised or commanded respectively are more salutary or of less corporal inconvenience than a vicious life of Intemperance or Lust or Carefulness or tyrant Covetousness there is no accident or change to the sufferance of which the Gospel hath engaged us but in the very thing our life is carefully provided for either in kind or by a gainful exchange He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it and he that will save his life shall lose it And although God who promised long life to them that obey did not promise that himself would never call for our life borrowing it of us and repaying it in a glorious and advantagious exchange yet this very promise of giving us a better life in exchange for this when we exposed it in Martyrdome does confirm our title to this this being the instrument of permutation with the other for God obliging himself to give us another in exchange for this when in cases extraordinary he calls for this says plainly that this is our present right by grace and the title of the Divine Promises But the Promises are clear For S. Paul calls children to the observation of the fifth Commandment by the same argument which God used in the first promulgation of it Honour thy Father and thy Mother which is the first Commandment with Promise That it may be well with thee and that thou mayst live long upon the earth For although the Gospel be built upon better Promises than the Law yet it hath the same too not as its foundation but as appendences and adjuncts of grace and supplies of need Godliness hath the promise of this life as well as of the life
his Disciples to verifie his Promise to make demonstration of his Divinity to lay some superstructures of his Church upon the foundation of his former Sermons to instruct them in the mysteries of his Kingdom to prepare them for the reception of the Holy Ghost and as he had in his state of Separation triumphed over Hell so in his Resurrection he set his foot upon Death and brought it under his dominion so that although it was not yet destroyed yet it is made his subject it hath as yet the condition of the Gibeonites who were not banished out of the land but they were made drawers of water and bewers of wood so is Death made instrumental to Christ's Kingdom but it abides still and shall till the day of Judgment but shall serve the ends of our Lord and promote the interests of Eternity and do benefit to the Church 8. And it is considerable that our Blessed Lord having told them that after three days he would rise again yet he shortened the time as much as was possible that he might verifie his own prediction and yet make his absence the less troublesome he rises early in the morning the first day of the week for so our dearest Lord abbreviates the days of our sorrow and lengthens the years of our consolation for he knows that a day of sorrow seems a year and a year of joy passes like a day and therefore God lessens the one and 〈◊〉 the other to make this perceived and that supportable Now the Temple which the Jews destroyed God raised up in six and thirty hours but this second Temple was more glorious than the first for now it was clothed with robes of glory with clarity agility and immortality and though like Moses descending from the mount he wore a veil that the greatness of his splendor might not render him unapt for conversation with his servants yet the holy Scripture affirms that he was now no more to see corruption meaning that now he was separate from the passibility and affections of humane bodies and could suffer S. Thomas to thrust his hand into the wound of his side and his singer into the holes of his hands without any grief or smart 9. But although the graciousness and care of the Lord had prevented all diligence and satisfied all desires returning to life before the most forward faith could expect him yet there were three Maries went to the grave so early that they prevented the rising of the Sun and though with great obedience they stayed till the end of the Sabbath yet as soon as that was done they had other parts of duty and affection which called with greatest importunity to be speedily satisfied And if Obedience had not bound the feet of Love they had gone the day before but they became to us admirable patterns of Obedience to the Divine Commandments For though Love were stronger than death yet Obedience was stronger than Love and made a rare dispute in the spirits of those holy Women in which the flesh and the spirit were not the litigants but the spirit and the spirit and they resisted each other as the Angel-guardian of the Jews resisted the tutelar Angel of Persia each striving who should with most love and zeal perform their charge and God determined And so he did here too For the Law of the Sabbath was then a Divine Commandment and although piety to the dead and to such a dead was ready to force their choice to do violence to their will bearing them up on wings of desire to the grave of the LORD yet at last they reconciled Love with Obedience For they had been taught that Love is best expressed in keeping of the Divine Commandments But now they were at liberty and sure enough they made use of its first minute and going so early to seek Christ they were sure they should find him 10. The Angels descended Guardians of the Sepulchre for God sent his guards too and they affrighted the Watch appointed by Pilate and the Priests but when the women came they spake like comforters full of sweetness and consolation laying aside their affrighting glories as knowing it is the will of their Lord that they should minister good to them that love him But a conversation with Angels could not satisfie them who came to look for the Lord of the Angels and found him not and when the Lord was pleased to appear to Mary Magdalen she was so swallowed up with love and sorrow that she entred into her joy and perceived it not she saw the Lord and knew him not For so from the closets of darkness they that immediately stare upon the Sun perceive not the beauties of the light and feel nothing but amazement But the voice of the Lord opened her eyes and she knew him and worshipped him but was denied to touch him and commanded to tell the Apostles for therefore God ministers to us comforts and revelations not that we may dwell in the sensible fruition of them our selves alone but that we communicate the grace to others But when the other women were returned and saw the Lord then they were all together admitted to the embracement and to kiss the feet of Jesus For God hath his opportunities and periods which at another time he denies and we must then rejoyce in it when he vouchsafes it and submit to his Divine will when he denies it 11. These good women had the first fruits of the apparition for their forward love and the passion of their Religion made greater haste to entertain a Grace and was a greater endearment of their persons to our Lord than a more sober reserved and less active spirit This is more safe but that is religious this goes to God by the way of understanding that by the will this is supported by discourse that by passions this is the sobriety of the Apostles the other was the zeal of the holy women and because a strong fancy and an earnest passion sixed upon holy objects are the most active and forward instruments of Devotion as Devotion is of Love therefore we find God hath made great expressions of his acceptance of such dispositions And women and less knowing persons and tender dispositions and pliant natures will make up a greater number in Heaven than the severe and wary and enquiring people who sometimes love because they believe and believe because they can demonstrate but never believe because they love When a great Understanding and a great Affection meet together it makes a Saint great like an Apostle but they do not well who make abatement of their religious passions by the severity of their Understanding It is no matter by which we are brought to Christ so we love him and obey him but if the production admit of 〈◊〉 that instrument is the most excellent which produces the greatest love and 〈◊〉 discourse and a sober spirit be in it self the best yet we do not always suffer that to be a
helped by none comforted by none and he makes himself a companion of Devils to everlasting ages but in the judgment of Repentance and Tribunal of the Church the penitent sinner is prayed for by a whole army of militant Saints and causes joy to all the Church triumphant And to establish this Tribunal in the Church and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime and to appoint Physicians and Guardians of the Soul was one of the designs and mercies of the Resurrection of Jesus And let not any Christian man either by false opinion or an unbelieving spirit or an incurious apprehension undervalue or neglect this ministery which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the Church is built that the Church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck and the shivers of the broken heart may re-unite them pouring Oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin and restoring with meekness gentleness care counsel and authority persons overtaken in a fault For that act of Ministery is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in Heaven and that Authority is not contemptible which the Holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his Church the Holy Ghost But Christ intended that those whom he had made Guides of our Souls and Judges of our Consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon should also be used by us in all cases of our Souls and that we go to Heaven the way he hath appointed that is by offices and ministeries Ecclesiastical 17. When our Blessed Lord had so confirmed the Faith of the Church and appointed an Ecclesiastical Ministery he had but one work more to do upon earth and that was the Institution of the holy Sacrament of Baptism which he ordained as a solemn Initiation and mysterious Profession of the Faith upon which the Church is built making it a solemn Publication of our Profession the rite of Stipulation or entring Covenant with our Lord the solemnity of the Paction Evangelical in which we undertake to be Disciples to the Holy Jesus that is to believe his Doctrine to fear his Threatnings to rely upon his Promises and to obey his Commandments all the days of our life and he for his part actually performs much and promises more he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days purging our Souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence promising withall that if we perform our undertaking and remain in the state in which he now puts us he will continually assist us with his Spirit prevent and attend us with his Grace he will deliver us from the power of the Devil he will keep our Souls in merciful joyful and safe custody till the great Day of the Lord he will then raise our Bodies from the Grave he will make them to be spiritual and immortal he will re-unite them to our Souls and beatifie both Bodies and Souls in his own Kingdom admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories All which that he might verifie and prepare respectively in the presence of his Disciples he ascended into the bosome of God and the eternal comprehensions of celestial Glory The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast overcome Death and triumphed over all the powers of Hell Darkness Sin and the Grave manifesting the truth of thy Promises the power of thy Divinity the majesty of thy Person the rewards of thy Glory and the mercies and excellent designs of thy Evangelical Kingdom by thy glorious and powerful Resurrection preserve my Soul from eternal death and make me to rise from the death of Sin and to live the life of Grace loving thy Perfections adoring thy Mercy pursuing the interest of thy Kingdom being united to the Church under thee our Head conforming to thy holy Laws established in Faith entertained and confirmed with a modest humble and certain Hope and sanctified by Charity that I engraving thee in my heart and submitting to thee in my spirit and imitating thee in thy glorious example may be partaker of thy Resurrection which is my hope and my desire the support of my Faith the object of my Joy and the strength of my Confidence In thee Holy Jesus do I trust I confess thy Faith I believe all that thou hast taught I desire to perform all thy injunctions and my own undertaking my Soul is in thy hand do thou support and guide it and pity my infirmities and when thou shalt reveal thy great Day shew to me the mercies and effects of thy Advocation and Intercession and Redemption Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God for in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Thou art just thou 〈◊〉 merciful thou art gracious and compassionate thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective but make me capable and receptive of thy Mercies and then I am certain to receive them I am thine O save me thou art mine O Holy Jesus O dwell with me for ever and let me dwell with thee adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THE END 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE TABLE OF The Life of CHRIST Where are more Numbers than one the first Number denotes the Page the latter the Number of the Section A. ABsolution of dying Persons of what benefit 407. 23. Whether to be given to all that desire it 408. 24. Acceptable Year of the Lord what it means 186. 22. Actions of Jesus confuted his Accusers 390. 2. Acts of Vertue to be done by sick and dying Persons 405 406. 19 20. Accusation of Criminals not to be aggravated odiously 393. 8. It ought to be onely for purposes of Charity ibid. Accusation of innocent persons ought to be born patiently by the innocent 393. 9. Accusation of Jesus 352. 24. Adam buried in Golgotha 354. 31. Adoption of Sons 316. 7. Advent of our Lord must be entertained with joy 156. 3. Adultery made more criminal under the Gospel than under the Law 249. 37 c. Adultery of the eyes 250. 36. Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in the place of Christ's Birth 14. 6. Agony of Jesus in the Garden 350. 20. Agesilaus was more commended for his modesty and obedience than for his prosperous good Conduct 50. 25. Albes or white garments wore by the Church and why 393. 9 10. Alms intended for a defensative against Covetousness 258. 1. Ordinarily to be according to our ability ibid. Sometimes beyond in what cases ibid. Necessities of all indigent people are the object of our Alms 259. 3. Manner of Alms an office of Christian prudence ibid. The two Altars in Solomon's Temple what they did represent 83. 4. Ambitious seeking Ecclesiastical Dignities very criminal 96. 2. Ambition is
was given him in Heaven and in Earth by vertue whereof they should go teach and baptize all Nations and preach the Gospel to every Creature That they should feed God's slock Rule well inspect and watch ever those over whom they had the Authority and the Rule Words of as large and more express signification than those which were here spoken to S. Peter 5. OUR Lord having thus engaged Peter to a chearful compliance with the dangers that might attend the discharge and execution of his Office now particularly intimates to him what that fate was that should attend him telling him that though when he was young he girt himself lived at his own pleasure and went whither he pleased yet when he was old he should stretch forth his hands and another should gird and bind him and lead him whither he had no mind to go intimating as the Evangelist tells us by what death he should glorifie God that is by Crucifixion the Martyrdom which he afterward underwent And then rising up commanded him to follow him by this bodily attendance mystically implying his conformity to the death of Christ that he should follow him in dying for the truth and testimony of the Gospel It was not long after that our Lord appeared to them to take his last farewell of them when leading them out unto Bethany a little Village upon the Mount of Olives he briefly told them That they were the persons whom he had chosen to be the witnesses both of his Death and Resurrection a testimony which they should bear to him in all parts of the World In order to which he would after his Ascension pour out his Spirit upon them in larger measures than they had hitherto received that they might be the better fortified to grapple with that violent rage and sury wherewith both Men and Devils would endeavour to oppose them and that in the mean time they should return to Jerusalem and stay till these miraculous powers were from on high conferred upon them His discourse being ended laying his hands upon them he gave them his solemn blessing which done he was immediately taken from them and being attended with a glorious guard and train of Angels was received up into Heaven Antiquity tells us that in the place where he last trod upon the rock the impression of his feet did remain which could never afterwards be fill'd up or impaired over which Helena mother of the Great Constantine afterwards built a little Chappel called the Chappel of the Ascension in the floor whereof upon a whitish kind of stone modern Travellers tell us that the impression of his Foot is shewed at this day but 't is that of his right foot only the other being taken away by the Turks and as 't is said kept in the Temple at Jerusalem Our Lord being thus taken from them the Apostles were filled with a greater sense of his glory and majesty than while he was wont familiarly to converse with them and having performed their solemn adorations to him returned back to Jerusalem waiting for the promise of the Holy Ghost which was shortly after conferred upon them They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy They who lately were overwhelmed with sorrow at the very mention of their Lord's departure from them entertained it now with joy and triumph being fully satisfied of his glorious advancement at God's right hand and of that particular care and providence which they were sure he would exercise towards them in pursuance of those great trusts he had committed to them SECT VII S. Peter's Acts from our Lord's Ascension till the Dispersion of the Church The Apostles return to Jerusalem The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-room where they assembled what Peter declares the necessity of a new Apostles being chosen in the room of Judas The promise of the Holy Ghost made good upon the day of Pentecost The Spirit descended in the likeness of siery cloven tongues and why The greatness of the Miracle Peter's vindication of the Apostles from the standers of the Jews and proving Christ to be the promised Messiah Great numbers converted by his Sermon His going up to the Temple What their stated hours of Prayer His curing the impotent Cripple there and discourse to the Jews upon it What numbers converted by him Peter and John seised and cast into Prison Brought before the Sanhedrim and their resolute carriage there Their refusing to obey when commanded not to preach Christ. The great security the Christian Religion provides sor subjection to Magistrates in all lawful instances of Obedience The great severity used by Peter towards Ananias and Saphira The great Miracles wrought by him Again cast into Prison and delivered by an Angel Their appearing before the Sanhedrim and deliverance by the prudent counsels of Gamaliel 1. THE Holy Jesus being gone to Heaven the Apostles began to act according to the Power and Commission he had left with them In order whereunto the first thing they did after his Ascension was to fill up the vacancy in their Colledge lately made by the unhappy fall and Apostasie of Judas To which end no sooner were they returned to Jerusalem but they went 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into an upper-room Where this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was whether in the house of S. John or of Mary John-Mark's mother or in some of the out-rooms belonging to the Temple for the Temple had over the Cloisters several Chambers for the service of the Priests and Levites and as Repositories where the consecrated Vessels and Utensils of the Temple were laid up though it be not probable that the Jews and especially the Priests would suffer the Apostles and their company to be so near the Temple I stand not to enquire 'T is certain that the Jews usually had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 private Oratories in the upper parts of their houses called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the more private exercises of their devotions Thus Daniel had his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his upper-Chamber 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LXX render it whither he was wont to retire to pray to his God and Benjamin the Jew tells us that in his time Ann. Chr. 1172. the Jews at Babylon were wont to pray both in their Synagogues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in that ancient upper-room of Daniel which the Prophet himself built Such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper-Chamber was that wherein S. Paul preached at Troas and such probably this where the Apostles were now met together and in all likelihood the same where our Lord had lately kept the Passeover where the Apostles and the Church were assembled on the day of Pentecost and which was then the usual place of their Religious Assemblies as we have elsewhere observed more at large Here the Church being met to the number of about CXX Peter as President of the Assembly put them in mind that Judas one of
Birth His austere Education and way of Life His Preaching what His initiating proselytes by Baptism Baptism in use in the Jewish Church It s Original whence His resolution and impartiality His Martyrdom The character given him by Josephus and the Jews The Evangelical Dispensation wherein it exceeds that of Moses It s 〈◊〉 and perfection It s agreeableness to humane nature The Evangelical promises better than those of the Law and in what respects The aids of the Spirit plentifully assorded under the Gospel The admirable confirmation of this Occonomy The great extent and latitude of it Judaism not capable of being communicated to all mankind The comprehensiveness of the Gospel The Duration of the Evangelical Covenant The Mosaical Statutes in what sence said to be for ever The Typical and transient nature of that State The great happiness of Christians under the Occonomy of the Gospel 1. GOD having from the very infancy of the World promised the Messiah as the great Redeemer of Mankind was accordingly pleased in all Ages to make gradual discoveries and manifestations of him the revelations concerning him in every Dispensation of the Church still shining with a bigger and more particular light the nearer this Sun of Righteousness was to his rising The first Gospel and glad tidings of him commenced with the fall of Adam God out of infinite tenderness and commiseration promising to send a person who should triumphantly vindicate and rescue mankind from the power and tyranny of their Enemies and that he should do this by taking the humane nature upon him and being born of the seed of the Woman No further account is given of him till the times of Abraham to whom it was revealed that he should proceed out of his loins and arise out of the Jewish Nation though both Jew and Gentile should be made happy by him To his Grandchild Jacob God made known out of what Tribe of that Nation he should rise the Tribe of Judah and what would be the time of his appearing viz. the departure of the Scepter from Judah the abrogation of the Civil and Legislative power of that Tribe and People accomplished in Herod the Idumaean set over them by the Roman power And this is all we find concerning him under that Oeconomy Under the Legal Dispensation we find Moses foretelling one main 〈◊〉 of his coming which was to be the great Prophet of the Church to whom all were to hearken as an extraordinary person sent from God to acquaint the World with the Councils and the Laws of Heaven The next news we hear of him is from David who was told that he should spring out of his house and family and who frequently speaks of his sufferings and the particular manner of his death by piercing his hands and his feet of his powerful Resurrection that God would not leave his Soul in Hell nor suffer his holy one to see corruption of his triumphant Ascension into Heaven and glorious session at God's right hand From the Prophet Isaiah we have an account of the extraordinary and miraculous manner of his Birth that he should be born of a Virgin and his name be Immanuel of his incomparable furniture of gifts and graces for the execution of his office of the entertainment he was to meet with in the World and of the nature and design of those sufferings which he was to undergo The place of his Birth was foretold by Micah which was to be 〈◊〉 the least of the Cities of Judah but honoured above all the rest with the nativity of a Prince who was to be Ruler in Israel whose goings forth had been from everlasting Lastly the Prophet Daniel 〈◊〉 the particular period of his coming expresly affirming that the Messiah should appear in the World and be cut off as a Victim and Expiation for the sins of the people at the expiration of LXX prophetical weeks or CCCCXC years which accordingly punctually came to pass 2. FOR the date of the prophetick Scriptures concerning the time of the 〈◊〉 's coming being now run out In the fulness of time God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to 〈◊〉 them that were under the Law This being the truth of which God spake by the mouth of all his holy Prophets which have been since the World began But because it was not sit that so great a Person should come into the World without an eminent Harbinger to introduce and usher in his Arrival God had promised that he would send his Messenger who should prepare his way before him even 〈◊〉 the Prophet whom he would send before the coming of that great day of the Lord who should turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children c. This was particularly accomplished in John the Baptist who came in the power and spirit of Elias He was the Morning-star to the Son of Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Cyril says of him the great and eminent Fore-runner a Person remarkable upon several accounts First for the extraordinary circumstances of his Nativity his Birth foretold by an Angel sent on purpose to deliver this joyful Message a sign God intended him for great undertakings this being never done but where God designed the Person for some uncommon services his Parents aged and though both righteous before God yet hitherto Childless Heaven does not dispence all its bounty to the same Person Children though great and desirable blessings are yet often denied to those for whom God has otherwise very dear regards Elizabeth was barren and they were both well stricken in years But is any thing too hard for the Lord said God to Abraham in the same case God has the Key of the Womb in his own keeping it is one of the Divine Prerogatives that he makes the barren Woman to keep house and to be a joyful Mother of Children A Son is promised and mighty things said of him a promise which old Zachary had scarce faith enough to digest and therefore had the assurance of it sealed to him by a miraculous dumbness imposed upon him till it was made good the same Miracle at once confirming his faith and punishing his infidelity Accordingly his Mother conceived with Child and as if he would do part of his errand before he was born he leaped in her Womb at her salutation of the Virgin Mary then newly conceived with Child of our Blessed Saviour a piece of homage paid by one to one yet unborn 3. THESE presages were not vain and fallible but produced a Person no less memorable for the admirable strictness and austerity of his 〈◊〉 For having escaped Herod's butcherly and merciless Executioners the Divine providence being a shelter and a covert to him and been educated among the rudenesses and solitudes of the Wilderness his manners and way of life were very 〈◊〉 to his Education His Garments borrowed from no other Wardrobe than the backs
with the thing it self which they supposed would be a federal Rite under the dispensation of the Messiah but only quarrelled with him for taking upon him to administer it when yet he denied himself to be one of the prime Ministers of this new state They said unto him why baptizest thou then if thou be not that Christ nor 〈◊〉 neither that 〈◊〉 Either of which had he owned himself they had not questioned his right to enter Proselytes by this way of Baptism It is called the Baptism of Repentance this being the main qualification that he required of those who took it upon them as the fittest means to dispose them to receive the Doctrine and Discipline of the Messiah and to intitle them to that pardon of sin which the Gospel brought along with it whence he is said to baptize in the Wilderness and to preach the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And the success was answerable infinite Multitudes flocking to it and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins Nor is it the least part of his happiness that he had the honour to baptize his Saviour which though modestly declined our Lord put upon him and was accompanied with the most signal and miraculous attestations which Heaven could bestow upon it 5. AFTER his Preparatory Preachings in the Wilderness he was called to Court by Herod at least he was his frequent Auditor was much delighted with his plain and impartial Sermons and had a mighty reverence for him the gravity of his Person the strictness of his Manners the freedom of his Preaching commanding an awe and veneration from his Conscience and making him willing in many things to reform But the bluntness of the holy Man came nearer and touched the King in the tenderest part smartly reproving his adultery and incestuous embraces for that Prince kept Herodias his Brother Philip's Wife And now all corrupt interests were awakened to conspire his ruine Extravagant Lusts love not to be controll'd and check'd Herodias resents the asfront cannot brook disturbance in the pleasures of her Bed or the open challenging of her honour and therefore by all the arts of Feminine subtlety meditates revenge The issue was the Baptist is cast into Prison as the praeludium to a sadder fate For among other pleasures and scenes of mirth performed upon the King's Birth-day Herod being infinitely pleased with the Dancing of a young Lady Daughter of this Herodias promised to give her Her request and solemnly ratified his promise with an Oath She prompted by her Mother asks the Head of John the Baptist which the King partly out of a pretended reverence to his Oath partly out of a desire not to be interrupted in his unlawful pleasures presently granted and it was as quickly accomplished Thus died the Holy man a man strict in his conversation beyond the ordinary measures of an Anchoret bold and resolute faithful and impartial in his Office indued with the power and spirit of Elias a burning and a shining light under whose light the Jews rejoyced to sit exceedingly taken with his temper and principles He was the happy Messenger of the Evangelical tidings and in that respect more than a Prophet a greater not arising among them that were born of Women In short he was a Man loved of his Friends revered and honoured by his Enemies Josephus gives this character of him that he was a good man and pressed the Jews to the study of vertue to the practice of picty towards God and justice and righteousness towards men and to joyn themselves to his Baptism which he told them would then become effectual and acceptable to God when they did not only cleanse the body but purifie the mind by goodness and vertue And though he gives somewhat a different account of Herod's condemning him to dic from what is assigned in the Sacred History yet he confesses that the Jews universally looked upon the putting him to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod's Army and an evident effect of the Divine vengeance and displeasure The Jews in their Writings make honourable mention of his being put to death by Herod because reproving him for the company of his Brother Philip's Wife stiling him Rabbi Johanan the High-Priest and reckoning him one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the wise men of Israel Where he is called High-Priest probably with respect to his being the Son of Zachariah Head or Chief of one of the XXIV Families or courses of the Priests who are many times called Chief or High-Priests in Scripture 6. THE Evangelical state being thus proclaimed and ushered in by the Preaching and Ministry of the Baptist our Lord himself appeared next more fully to publish and confirm it concerning whose Birth Life Death and Resurrection the Doctrine he delivered the Persons he deputed to Preach and convey it to the World and its success by the Ministry of the Apostles large particular accounts are given in the following work That which may be proper and material to observe in this place is what the Scripture so frequently takes notice of the excellency of this above the preceding dispensations especially that brought in by Moses so much magnified in the Old Testament and so passionately admired and adhered to by the Jews at this day Jesus is the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls it of a better Covenant And better it is in several regards besides the infinite difference between the Persons who were imployed to introduce and settle them Moses and our Lord. The preheminence eminently appears in many instances whereof we shall remark the most considerable And first the Mosaick dispensation was almost wholly made up of types and shadows the Evangelical has brought in the truth and substance The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Their Ordinances were but shadows of good things to come sensible representations of what was to follow after the Body is Christ the perfection and accomplishment of their whole ritual Ministration Their Ceremonies were Figures of those things that are true the Land of Canaan typified Heaven Moses and Joshua were types of the Blessed Jesus and the Israelites after the flesh of the true Israel which is after the Spirit and all their Expiatory Sacrifices did but represent that Great Sacrifice whereby Christ offered up himself and by his own bloud purged away the sins of mankind indeed the most minute and inconsiderable circumstances of the Legal Oeconomy were intended as little lights that might gradually usher in the state of the Gospel A curious Artist that designs a famous and excellent piece is not wont to complete and finish it all at once but first with his Pencil draws some rude lines and rough draughts before he puts his last hand to it By such a method the wise God seems to have delivered the first draughts and Images of those things by Moses to the Church the substance
the same reasonable Propositions into other Nations and he therefore multiplied them to a great necessity of a dispersion that they might serve the ends of God and of the natural Law by their ambulatory life and their numerous disseminations And this was it which S. Paul 〈◊〉 The Law was added because of transgression meaning that because men did transgress the natural God brought Moses's Law into the world to be as a strand to the inundation of Impiety And thus the world stood till the fulness of time was come for so we are taught by the Apostle The Law was added because of transgression but the date of this was to expire at a certain period it was added to serve but till the seed should come to whom the Promise was made 23. For because Moses's Law was but an imperfect explication of the natural there being divers parts of the three Laws of Nature not at all explicated by that Covenant not the religion of Prayers not the reasonableness of Temperance and Sobriety in Opinion and Diet and in the more noble instances of Humanity and doing benefit it was so short that as S. Paul says The Law could not make the comers thereunto perfect and which was most of all considerable it was confined to a Nation and the other parts of mankind had made so little use of the Records of that Nation that all the world was placed in darkness and sate in the 〈◊〉 of death Therefore it was that in great mercy God sent his Son a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of the people Israel to instruct those and consummate these that the imperfection of the one and the mere darkness of the other might be illustrated by the Sun of Righteousness And this was by restoring the Light of Nature which they by evil Customs and 〈◊〉 Principles and evil Laws had obscured by restoring Man to the liberty of his spirit by freeing him from the slavery of Sin under which they were so lost and oppressed that all their discourses and conclusions some of their moral Philosophy and all their habitual practices were but servants of sin and made to cooperate to that end not which God intended as perfective of humane nature but which the Devil and vicious persons superinduced to serve little ends and irregular and to destroy the greater 24. For certain it is Christianity is nothing else but the most perfect design that ever was to make a man be happy in his whole capacity and as the Law was to the Jews so was Philosophy to the Gentiles a Schoolmaster to bring them to Christ to teach them the rudiments of Happiness and the first and lowest things of Reason that when Christ was come all mankind might become perfect that is be made regular in their Appetites wise in their Understandings assisted in their Duties directed to and instructed in their great Ends. And this is that which the Apostle calls being perfect men in Christ Jesus perfect in all the intendments of nature and in all the designs of God And this was brought to pass by discovering and restoring and improving the Law of Nature and by turning it all into Religion 25. For the natural Law being a sufficient and a proportionate instrument and means to bring a man to the End designed in his creation and this Law being eternal and unalterable for it ought to be as lasting and as unchangeable as the nature it self so long as it was capable of a Law it was not imaginable that the body of any Law should make a new Morality new rules and general proportions either of Justice or Religion or Temperance or Felicity the essential parts of all these consisting in natural proportions and means toward the consummation of man's last End which was first intended and is always the same It is as if there were a new truth in an essential and a necessary Proposition For although the instances may vary there can be no new Justice no new Temperance no new relations proper and natural relations and intercourses between God and us but what always were in Praises and Prayers in adoration and honour and in the symbolical expressions of God's glory and our needs 26. Hence it comes that that which is the most obvious and notorious appellative of the Law of Nature that it is a Law written in our hearts was also recounted as one of the glories and excellencies of Christianity Plutarch saying that Kings ought to be governed by Laws explains himself that this Law must be a word not written in Books and Tables but dwelling in the Mind a living rule the 〈◊〉 guide of their manners and monitors of their life And this was the same which S. Paul expresses to be the guide of the Gentiles that is of all men naturally The Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law which shews the work of the Law written in their hearts And that we may see it was the Law of Nature that returned in the Sanctions of Christianity God declares that in the constitution of this Law he would take no other course than at first that is he would write them in the hearts of men indeed with a new style with a quill taken from the wings of the holy Dove the Spirit of God was to be the great Engraver and the Scribe of the New Covenant but the Hearts of men should be the Tables For this is the Covenant that I will make with them after those days saith the Lord I will put my laws into their hearts and into their minds will I write them And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more That is I will provide a means to expiate all the iniquities of man and restore him to the condition of his first creation putting him into the same order towards Felicity which I first designed to him and that also by the same instruments Now I consider that the Spirit of God took very great care that all the Records of the Law of Jesus should be carefully kept and transmitted to posterity in Books and Sermons which being an act of providence and mercy was a provision lest they should be lost or mistaken as they were formerly when God writ some of them in Tables of stone for the use of the sons of Israel and all of them in the first Tables of Nature with the 〈◊〉 of Creation as now he did in the new creature by the singer of the Spirit But then writing them in the Tables of our minds besides the other can mean nothing but placing them there where they were before and from whence we blotted them by the mixtures of impure principles and discourses But I descend to particular and more minute considerations 27. The Laws of Nature either are bands of Religion Justice or Sobriety Now I consider concerning Religion that when-ever God hath made any particular Precepts to a Family as to Abraham's or
hast superadded Reason making those first propensities of Nature to be reasonable in order to Society and a conversation in Communities and Bodies politick and hast by several laws and revelations directed our Reasons to nearer applications to thee and performance of thy great End the glory of our Lord and Father teach me strictly to observe the order of Creation and the designs of the Creatures that in my order I may do that service which every creature does in its proper capacity Lord let me be as constant in the ways of Religion as the Sun in his course as ready to follow the intimations of thy Spirit as little Birds are to obey the directions of thy Providence and the conduct of thy hand and let me never by evil customs or vain company or false persuasions extinguish those principles of Morality and right Reason which thou hast imprinted in my understanding in my creation and education and which thou hast ennobled by the superadditions of Christian institution that I may live according to the rules of Nature in such things which she teaches modestly temperately and affectionately in all the parts of my natural and political relations and that I proceeding from Nature to Grace may henceforth go on from Grace to Glory the crown of all Obedience prudent and holy walking through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT IV. Of the great and glorious Accidents happening about the Birth of JESVS The Angels appearing to the Shepherds S. LUKE 2. 14. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men The Epiphanie S. MAT 2. 11. When they had opened their treasures they presented unto him gifts Gold and Frank incense and Myrrhe 1. ALthough the Birth of Christ was destitute of the usual excrescences and less necessary Pomps which used to signifie and illustrate the birth of Princes yet his first Humility was made glorious with Presages Miracles and Significations from Heaven which did not only like the furniture of a Princely Bed-chamber speak the riches of the Parent or greatness of the Son within its own walls but did declare to all the world that their Prince was born publishing it with figures and representments almost as great as its Empire 2. For when all the world did expect that in Judaea should be born their Prince and that the incredulous world had in their observation slipt by their true Prince because he came not in pompous and secular illustrations upon that very stock Vespasian was nurs'd up in hope of the Roman Empire and that hope made him great in designs and they being prosperous made his fortunes correspond to his hopes and he was indeared and engaged upon that fortune by the Prophecy which was never intended him by the Prophet But the fortune of the Roman Monarchy was not great enough for this Prince design'd by the old Prophets And therefore it was not without the influence of a Divinity that his Decessor Augustus about the time of Christ's Nativity refused to be called LORD possibly it was to entertain the people with some hopes of restitution of their Liberties till he had grip'd the Monarchy with a stricter and faster hold but the Christians were apt to believe that it was upon the 〈◊〉 of a Sibyll foretelling the birth of a greater Prince to whom all the world should pay adoration and that the Prince was about that time born in Judaea the Oracle which was dumb to Augustus's question told him unask'd the Devil having no tongue permitted him but one to proclaim that an Hebrew child was his Lord and Enemy 3. At the Birth of which Child there was an universal Peace through all the World For then it was that Augustus Caesar having composed all the Wars of the World did the third time cause the gates of Janus's Temple to be shut and this Peace continued for twelve years even till the extreme old age of the Prince until rust had sealed the Temple doors which opened not till the Sedition of the 〈◊〉 and the Rebellion of the Dacians caused Augustus to arm For he that was born was the Prince of Peace and came to reconcile God with man and man with his brother and to make by the sweetness of his Example and the influence of a holy Doctrine such happy atonements between disagreeing natures such confederations and 〈◊〉 between Enemies that the Wolf and the Lamb should lie down together and a little child boldly and without danger put his finger in the nest and cavern of an Asp and it could be no less than miraculous that so great a Body as the Roman Empire consisting of so many parts whose Constitutions were differing their Humours contrary their Interests contradicting each others greatness and all these violently oppressed by an usurping power should have no limb out of joynt not so much as an aking tooth or a rebelling humour in that huge collection of parts but so it seemed good in the eye of Heaven by so great and good a symbol to declare not only the Greatness but the Goodness of the Prince that was then born in Judaea the Lord of all the World 4. But because the Heavens as well as the Earth are his Creatures and do serve him at his Birth he received a sign in Heaven above as well as in the Earth beneath as an homage paid to their common Lord. For as certain Shepherds were keeping watch over their slocks by night near that part where Jacob did use to feed his cattel when he was in the land of Canaan the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them Needs must the Shepherds be afraid when an Angel came arrayed in glory and clothed their persons in a robe of light great enough to confound their senses and scatter their understandings But the Angel said unto them Fear not for I bring unto you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. The Shepherds needed not be invited to go see this glorious sight but lest their fancy should rise up to an expectation of a Prince as externally glorious as might be hoped for upon the consequence of so glorious an Apparition the Angel to prevent the mistake told them of a Sign which indeed was no other than the thing 〈◊〉 but yet was therefore a Sign because it was so remote from the common probability and exspectation of such a birth that by being a Miracle so great a Prince should be born so poorly it became an instrument to signifie it self and all the other parts of mysterious consequence For the Angel said This shall be a sign unto you Ye shall find the Babe wrapt in swadling-cloaths lying in a manger 5. But as Light when it first begins to gild the East scatters indeed the darknesses from the earth but ceases not to increase its 〈◊〉
sweetnesses which represent the glory of the reward by the Antepasts and refreshments dispensed even in the ruggedness of the way and incommodities of the journey All other delights are the pleasures of Beasts or the sports of Children these are the Antepasts and preventions of the full Feasts and overflowings of Eternity 10. When they came to Bethlehem and the Star pointed them to a Stable they entred in and being enlightned with a Divine Ray proceeding from the face of the Holy Child and seeing through the cloud and passing through the scandal of his mean Lodging and poor condition they bowed themselves to the earth first giving themselves an Oblation to this great King then they made offering of their Gifts for a man's person is first accepted then his Gift God first regarded Abel and then accepted his Offering which we are best taught to understand by the present instance for it means no more but that all outward Services and Oblations are made acceptable by the prior presentation of an inward Sacrifice If we have first presented our selves then our Gift is pleasant as coming but to express the truth of the first Sacrifice but if our Persons be not first made a Holocaust to God the lesser Oblations of outward Presents are like Sacrifices without Salt and Fire nothing to make them pleasant or religious For all other sences of this Proposition charge upon God the distinguishing and acceptation of Persons against which he solemnly protests God regards no man's Person but according to the doing of his Duty but then God is said first to accept the Person and then the Gist when the Person is first sanctified and given to God by the vows and habits of a holy life and then all the actions of his Religion are homogeneal to their principle and accepted by the acceptation of the man 11. These Magi presented to the Holy Babe Gold Frankincense and Myrrh protesting their Faith of three Articles by the symbolical Oblation By Gold that he was a King by Incense that he was a God by Myrrh that he was a Man And the Presents also were representative of interiour Vertues the Myrrh signifying Faith Mortification Chastity Compunction and all the actions of the Purgative way of Spiritual life the Incense signifying Hope Prayer Obedience good Intention and all the actions and Devotions of the Illuminative the giving the Gold representing Love to God and our Neighbours the Contempt of riches Poverty of spirit and all the eminencies and spiritual riches of the Unitive life And these Oblations if we present to the Holy Jesus both our Persons and our Gifts shall be accepted our Sins shall be purged our Understandings enlightned and our Wills united to this Holy Child and entitled to a communion of all his Glories 12. And thus in one view and two Instances God hath drawn all the world to himself by his Son Jesus in the Instance of the Shepherds and the Arabian Magi Jews and Gentiles Learned and Unlearned Rich and Poor Noble and Ignoble that in him all Nations and all Conditions and all Families and all persons might be blessed having called all by one Star or other by natural Reason or by the secrets of Philosophy by the Revelations of the Gospel or by the ministery of Angels by the Illuminations of the Spirit or by the Sermons and Dictates of spiritual Fathers and hath consigned this Lesson to us That we must never appear before the Lord empty offering Gifts to him by the expences or by the affections of Charity either the worshipping or the oblations of Religion either the riches of the World or the love of the Soul for if we cannot bring Gold with the rich Arabians we may with the poor Shepherds come and kiss the Son lest he be angry and in all cases come and serve him with fear and reverence and spiritual rejoycings The PRAYER MOst Holy Jesu Thou art the Glory of thy people Israel and a light to the Gentiles and wert pleased to call the Gentiles to the adoration and knowledge of thy sacred Person and Laws communicating the inestimable riches of thy holy Discipline to all with an universal undistinguishing Love give unto us spirits docible pious prudent and ductile that no motion or invitation of Grace be ineffectual but may produce excellent effects upon us and the secret whispers of thy Spirit may prevail upon our Affections in order to Piety and Obedience as certainly as the loudest and most clamorous Sermons of the Gospel Create in us such Excellencies as are fit to be presented to thy glorious Majesty accept of the Oblation of my self and my entire services but be thou pleased to verifie my Offering and secure the possession to thy self that the enemy may not pollute the Sacrifice or divide the Gift or question the Title but that I may be wholly thine and for ever clarifie my Understanding sanctifie my Will replenish my Memory with arguments of Piety then shall I present to thee an Oblation rich and precious as the treble gift of the Levantine Princes Lord I am thine reject me not from thy favour exclude me not from thy presence then shall I serve thee all the days of my life and partake of the glories of thy Kingdom in which thou reignest gloriously and eternally Amen SECT V. Of the Circumcision of JESUS and his Presentation in the Temple The Circumcision of Iesus S. LUKE 2. 21. And when eight daies were accomphshed for the circumcising of the Child his name was called Iesus which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the Wombe The Purification and Presentation S. LUKE 2. 22. And when the dayes of her purification were accomplished they brought him to Ierusalem to present him to the Lord. 1. AND now the Blessed Saviour of the World began to do the work of his Mission and our Redemption and because Man had prevaricated all the Divine Commandments to which all humane nature respectively to the persons of several capacities was obliged and therefore the whole Nature was obnoxious to the just rewards of its demerits first Christ was to put that Nature he had assumed into a saveable condition by fulfilling his Father's preceptive will and then to reconcile it actually by suffering the just deservings of its Prevarications He therefore addresses himself to all the parts of an active Obedience and when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the Child he exposed his tender body to the sharpness of the circumcising stone and shed his bloud in drops giving an earnest of those rivers which he did afterwards pour out for the cleansing all Humane nature and extinguishing the wrath of God 2. He that had no sin nor was conceived by natural generation could have no adherences to his Soul or Body which needed to be pared away by a Rite and cleansed by a Mystery neither indeed do we find it expressed that Circumcision was ordained for abolition or pardon of original sin it
is indeed presumed so but it was instituted to be a Seal of a Covenant between God and Abraham and Abraham's posterity a seal of the righteousness of Faith and therefore was not improper for him to suffer who was the child of Abraham and who was the Prince of the Covenant and the author and finisher of that Faith which was consigned to 〈◊〉 in Circumcision But so mysterious were all the actions of Jesus that this one served many ends For 1. It gave demonstration of the verity of Humane nature 2. So he began to fulfil the Law 3. And took from himself the scandal of Uncircumcision which would eternally have prejudiced the Jews against his entertainment and communion 4. And then he took upon him that Name which declared him to be the Saviour of the World which as it was consummate in the bloud of the Cross so was it inaugurated in the bloud of Circumcision For when the eight days were accomplished for circumcising of the Child his name was called JESUS 3. But this holy Family who had laid up their joys in the eyes and heart of God longed till they might be permitted an address to the Temple that there they might present the Holy Babe unto his Father and indeed that he who had no other might be brought to his own house For although while he was a child he did differ nothing from a servant yet he was the Lord of the place It was his Father's house and he was the Lord of all and therefore when the days of the Purification were accomplished they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord to whom he was holy as being the first-born the first-born of his Mother the only-begotten son of his Father and the first-born of every creature And they did with him according to the Law of Moses offering a pair of Turtle-doves for his redemption 4. But there was no publick act about this Holy Child but it was attended by something miraculous and extraordinary And at this instant the Spirit of God directed a holy person into the Temple that he might feel the fulfilling of a Prophecy made to himself that he might before his death behold the Lord 's CHRIST and imbrace the glory and consolation of Israel and the light of the Gentiles in his arms for old Simeon came by the Spirit into the Temple and when the Parents brought in the Child Jesus then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and prophesied and spake glorious things of that Child and things sad and glorious concerning his Mother that the Child was set for the rising and falling of many in Israel for a sign that should be spoken against and the bitterness of that contradiction should pierce the heart of the holy Virgin-Mother like a Sword that her joy at the present accidents might be attempered with present revelation of her future trouble and the excellent favour of being the Mother of God might be crowned with the reward of Martyrdom and a Mother's love be raised up to an excellency great enough to make her suffer the bitterness of being transfixed with his love and sorrow as with a Sword 5. But old Anna the Prophetess came also in full of years and joy and found the reward of her long prayers and fasting in the Temple the long-looked-for redemption of Israel was now in the Temple and she saw with her eyes the Light of the World the Heir of Heaven the long-looked-for Messias whom the Nations had desired and expected till their hearts were faint and their eyes dim with looking farther and apprehending greater distances She also prophesied and gave thanks unto the Lord. But Joseph and his Mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him Ad SECT V. Considerations upon the Circumcision of the Holy Child JESVS 1. WHen eight days were come the Holy Jesus was circumcised and shed the first-fruits of his Bloud offering them to God like the prelibation of a Sacrifice and earnest of the great seas of effusion designed for his Passion not for the expiation of any stain himself had contracted for he was spotless as the face of the Sun and had contracted no wrinkle from the aged and polluted brow of Adam but it was an act of Obedience and yet of Choice and voluntary susception to which no obligation had passed upon him in the condition of his own person For as he was included in the vierge of Abraham's posterity and had put on the common outside of his Nation his Parents had intimation enough to pass upon him the Sacrament of the National Covenant and it became an act of excellent Obedience but because he was a person extraordinary and exempt from the reasons of Circumcision and himself in person was to give period to the Rite therefore it was an act of Choice in him and in both the capacities becomes a precedent of Duty to us in the first of Obedience in the second of Humility 2. But it is considerable that the Holy Jesus who might have pleaded his exemption especially in a matter of pain and dishonour yet chose that way which was more severe and regular so teaching us to be strict in our duties and sparing in the rights of priviledge and dispensation We pretend every indisposition of body to excuse us from penal duties from Fasting From going to Church and instantly we satisfie our selves with saying God will have mercy and not sacrifice so making our selves Judges of our own privileges in which commonly we are parties against God and therefore likely to pass unequal sentence It is not an easie argument that will bring us to the severities and rigours of Duty but we snatch at occasions of dispensation and therefore possibly may mistake the justice of the opportunities by the importunities of our desires However if this too much easiness be in any case excusable from sin yet in all cases it is an argument of infirmity and the regular observation of the Commandment is the surer way to Perfection For not every inconvenience of body is fit to be pleaded against the inconvenience of losing spiritual advantages but only such which upon prudent account does intrench upon the Laws of Charity or such whose consequent is likely to be impediment of a duty in a greater degree of loss than the present omission For the Spirit being in many perfections more eminent than the Body all spiritual improvements have the same proportions so that if we were just estimators of things it ought not to be less than a great incommodity to the Body which we mean to prevent by the loss of a spiritual benefit or the omission of a Duty he were very improvident who would lose a Finger for the good husbandry of saving a Ducat and it would be an unhandsome excuse from the duties of Repentance to pretend care of the Body The proportions and degrees of this are so nice and of so difficult determination that men are more apt to
all publick Societies of men one word or an intimation from Christ would have sounded an alarm and put us into postures of defence when all Christ's excellent Sermons and rare exemplar actions cannot tie our hands But it is strange now that of all men in the World Christians should be such fighting people or that Christian Subjects should lift up a thought against a Christian Prince when they had no intimation of encouragement from their Master but many from him to endear Obedience and Humility and Patience and Charity and these four make up the whole analogy and represent the chief design and meaning of Christianity in its moral constitution 11. But Jesus when himself was safe could also have secured the poor Babes of Bethlehem with thousands of diversions and avocations of Herod's purposes or by discovering his own Escape in some safe manner not unknown to the Divine wisedom but yet it did not so please God He is Lord of his Creatures and hath absolute dominion over our lives and he had an end of Glory to serve upon these Babes and an end of Justice upon Herod and to the Children he made such compensation that they had no reason to complain that they were so soon made Stars when they shined in their little Orbs and participations of Eternity for so the sense of the Church hath been that they having dyed the death of Martyrs though incapable of making the choice God supplied the defects of their will by his own entertainment of the thing that as the misery and their death so also their glorification might have the same Author in the same manner of causality even by a peremptory and unconditioned determination in these particulars This sense is pious and nothing unreasonable considering that all circumstances of the thing make the case particular but the immature death of other Infants is a sadder story for though I have no warrant or thought that it is ill with them after death and in what manner or degree of well-being it is there is no revelation yet I am not of opinion that the securing of so low a condition as theirs in all reason is like to be will make recompence or is an equal blessing with the possibilities of such an Eternity as is proposed to them who in the use of Reason and a holy life glorifie God with a free Obedience and if it were otherwise it were no blessing to live till the use of Reason and Fools and Babes were in the best because in the securest condition and certain expectation of equal glories 12. As soon as Herod was dead for the Divine Vengeance waited his own time for his arrest the Angel presently brought Joseph word The holy Family was full of content and indifferency not solicitous for return not distrustful of the Divine Providence full of poverty and sanctity and content waiting God's time at the return of which God delayed not to recall them from Exile out of Egypt he called his Son and directed Joseph's fear and course that he should divert to a place in the jurisdiction of Philip where the Heir of Herod's Cruelty Archelaus had nothing to do And this very series of Providence and care God expresses to all his sons by adoption and will determine the time and set bounds to every Persecution and punish the instruments and ease our pains and refresh our sorrows and give quietness to our fears and deliverance from our troubles and sanctifie it all and give a Crown at last and all in his good time if we wait the coming of the Angel and in the mean time do our duty with care and sustain our temporals with indifferency and in all our troubles and displeasing accidents we may call to mind that God by his holy and most reasonable Providence hath so ordered it that the spiritual advantages we may receive from the holy use of such incommodities are of great recompence and interest and that in such accidents the Holy Jesus having gone before us in precedent does go along with us by love and fair assistences and that makes the present condition infinitely more eligible than the greatest splendour of secular fortune The PRAYER O Blessed and Eternal God who didst suffer thy Holy Son to fly from the violence of an enraged Prince and didst chuse to defend him in the ways of his infirmity by hiding himself and a voluntary exile be thou a defence to all thy faithful people when-ever Persecution arises against them send them the ministery of Angels to direct them into ways of security and let thy holy Spirit guide them in the paths of Sanctity and let thy Providence continue in custody over their persons till the times of refreshment and the day of Redemption shall return Give O Lord to thy whole Church Sanctity and Zeal and the confidences of a holy Faith boldness of confession Humility content and resignation of spirit generous contempt of the World and unmingled desires of thy glory and the edification of thy Elect that no secular interests disturb her duty or discompose her charity or depress her hopes or in any unequal degree possess her affections and pollute her spirit but preserve her from the snares of the World and the Devil from the rapine and greedy desires of Sacrilegious persons and in all conditions whether of affluence or want may she still promote the interests of Religion that when plenteousness is within her palaces and peace in her walls that condition may then be best for her and when she is made as naked as Jesus to his Passion then Poverty may be best for her that in all estates she may glorifie thee and in all accidents and changes thou mayest sanctifie and bless her and at last bring her to the eternal riches and abundances of glory where no Persecution shall disturb her rest Grant this for sweet Jesus sake who suffered exile and hard journeys and all the inconveniences of a friendless person in a strange Province to whom with thee and the eternal Spirit be glory for ever and blessing in all generations of the World and for ever and ever Amen SECT VII Of the younger years of JESVS and his Disputation with the Doctors in the Temple The House of Prayer It is written My house shall be called of all Nations the house of prayer Mark 11. 17. If they return confess thy name and pray and make supplication before thee in this House Then hear thou in heaven and forgive 2. Chron 6. 24. 26. IESUS disputing with the Doctors S. LUKE 2. 46. 47. They found him in the Temple sitting in the midst of the Doctors both hearing them and asking them questions And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding answers 1. FRom the return of this holy Family to Judaea and their habitation in Nazareth till the blessed Child Jesus was twelve years of age we have nothing transmitted to us out of any authentick Record but that they went to
confession and undertaking a holy life and therefore in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are conjoyned in the significations as they are in the mystery it is a giving up our names to Christ and it is part of the foundation or the first Principles of the Religion as appears in S. Paul's Catechism it is so the first thing that it is for babes and Neophytes in which they are matriculated and adopted into the house of their Father and taken into the hands of their Mother Upon this account Baptism is called in antiquity 〈◊〉 janua porta Gratiae primus introitus Sanctorum adaeternam Dei Ecclesiae consuetudinem The gate of the Church the door of Grace the first entrance of the Saints to an eternal conversation with God and the Church Sacramentum initiationis intrantium Christianismum investituram S. Bernard calls it The Sacrament of initiation and the investiture of them that enter into the Religion And the person so entring is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the Religion or a Proselyte and Convert and one added to the number of the Church in imitation of that of S. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God added to the Church those that should be saved just as the Church does to this day and for ever baptizing Infants and Catechuments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are added to the Church that they may be added to the Lord and the number of the Inhabitants of Heaven 15. Secondly The next step beyond this is Adoption into the Convenant which is an immediate consequent of the first Presentation this being the first act of man that the first act of God And this is called by S. Paul a being baptized in one spirit into one body that is we are made capable of the Communion of Saints the blessings of the faithful the priviledges of the Church by this we are as S. Luke calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained or disposed put into the order of Eternal Life being made members of the mystical Body under Christ our Head 16. Thirdly And therefore Baptism is a new birth by which we enter into the new world the new Creation the blessings and spiritualities of the Kingdom and this is the expression which our Saviour himself used Nicodemus Unless a man be born of Water and the Spirit and it is by S. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laver of Regeneration for now we begin to be reckoned in new Census or account God is become our Father Christ our elder Brother the Spirit the earnest of our Inheritance the Church our Mother our food is the body and bloud of our Lord Faith is our learning Religion our employment and our whole life is spiritual and Heaven the object of our Hopes and the mighty price of our high Calling And from this time forward we have a new principle put into us the Spirit of Grace which besides our Soul and body is a principle of action of one nature and shall with them enter into the portion of our Inheritance And therefore the Primitive Christians who consigned all their affairs and goods and writings with some marks of their Lord usually writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour made it an abbreviature by writing only the Capitals thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Heathens in mockery and derision made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Fish and they used it for Christ as a name of reproach but the Christians owned the name and turned it into a pious Metaphor and were content that they should enjoy their pleasure in the Acrostich but upon that occasion Tertullian speaks pertinently to this Article Nos pisciculi sccundùm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur Christ whom you call a Fish we knowledge to be our Lord and Saviour and we if you please are the little fishes for we are born in water thence we derive our spiritual life And because from henceforward we are a new Creation the Church uses to assign new relations to the Catechumens Spiritual Fathers and Susceptors and at their entrance into Baptism the Christians and Jewish Proselytes did use to cancel all secular affections to their temporal relatives Nec quicquam priùs 〈◊〉 quà m contemnere Deos exuere patriam parentes liberos fratres vilia habere said Tacitus of the Christians which was true in the sence only that Christ said He that doth not hate father or mother for my sake is not worthy of me that is he that doth not hate them praeme rather than forsake me forsake them is unworthy of me 17. Fourthly In Baptism all our sins are pardoned according to the words of a Prophet I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness The Catechumen descends into the Font a Sinner he arises purified he goes down the son of Death he comes up the son of the Resurrection he enters in the son of Folly and prevarication he returns the son of Reconciliation he stoops down the child of Wrath and ascends the heir of Mercy he was the child of the Devil and now he is the servant and the son of God They are the words of Venerable Bede concerning this Mystery And this was ingeniously signified by that Greek inscription upon a Font which is so prettily contriv'd that the words may be read after the Greek or after the Hebrew manner and be exactly the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord wash my sin and not my face only And so it is intended and promised Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins and call on the Name of the Lord said Ananias to Saul for Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the washing of water in the word that is Baptism in the Christian Religion and therefore Tertullian calls Baptism lavacrum compendiatum a compendious Laver that is an intire cleansing the Soul in that one action justly and rightly performed In the rehearsal of which Doctrine it was not an unpleasant Etymology that 〈◊〉 Sinaita gave of Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which our sins are thrown off and they fall like leeches when they are full of bloud and water or like the chains from S. Peter's hands at the presence of the Angel Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an intire full forgiveness of sins so that they shall never be called again to scrutiny Omnia Daemonis armae His merguntur aquis quibus ille renascitur Infans Qui captivus erat The captivity of the Soul is taken away by the bloud of Redemption and the fiery darts of the Devil are quenched by these salutary waters and what the flames of Hell are expiating or punishing to eternal
may soon be washed but to be healed is a work of a long cure 3. Thirdly The Dispositions which are required to the ordinary susception of Baptism are not necessary to the efficacy or required to the nature of the Sacrament but accidentally and because of the superinduced necessities of some men and therefore the Conditions are not regularly to be required But in those accidents it was necessary for a Gentile Proselyte to repent of his sins and to believe in Moses's Law before he could be circumcised but Abraham was not tied to the same Conditions but only to Faith in God but Isaac was not tied to so much and Circumcision was not of Moses but of the Fathers and yet after the sanction of Moses's Law men were tied to conditions which were then made necessary to them that entred into the Covenant but not necessary to the nature of the Covenant it self And so it is in the susception of Baptism If a sinner enters into the Font it is necessary he be stripped of those appendages which himself sewed upon his Nature and then Repentance is a necessary disposition if his Understanding hath been a stranger to Religion polluted with evil Principles and a false Religion it is necessary he have an actual Faith that he be given in his Understanding up to the obedience of Christ. And the reason of this is plain Because in these persons there is a disposition contrary to the state and effects of Baptism and therefore they must be taken off by their contraries Faith and Repentance that they may be reduced to the state of pure Receptives And this is the sence of those words of our Blessed Saviour Unless ye become like one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that is Ye cannot be admitted into the Gospel-Covenant unless all your contrarieties and impediments be taken from you and you be as apt as children to receive the new immissions from Heaven And this Proposition relies upon a great Example and a certain Reason The Example is our Blessed Saviour who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debitor he had committed no sin and needed no Repentance he needed not to be saved by Faith for of Faith he was the Author and Finisher and the great object and its perfection and reward and yet he was baptized by the Baptism of John the Baptism of Repentance And therefore it is certain that Repentance and Faith are not necessary to the susception of Baptism but necessary to some persons that are baptized For it is necessary we should much consider the difference If the Sacrament by any person may be justly received in whom such Dispositions are not to be sound then the Dispositions are not necessary or intrinsecal to the susception of the Sacrament and yet some persons coming to this Sacrament may have such necessities of their own as will make the Sacrament ineffectual without such Dispositions These I call necessary to the person but not to the Sacrament that is necessary to all such but not necessary to all absolutely And Faith is necessary sometimes where Repentance is not sometimes Repentance and Faith together and sometimes otherwise When Philip baptized the Eunuch he only required of him to believe not to repent But S. Peter when he preached to the Jews and converted them only required Repentance which although it in their case implied Faith yet there was explicit stipulation for it they had crucified the Lord of life and if they would come to God by Baptism they must renounce their sin that was all was then stood upon It is as the case is or as the persons have superinduced necessities upon themselves In Children the case is evident as to the one part which is equally required I mean Repentance the not doing of which cannot prejudice them as to the susception of Baptism because they having done no evil are not bound to repent and to repent is as necessary to the susception of Baptism as Faith is But this shews that they are accidentally necessary that is not absolutely not to all not to Insants and if they may be excused from one duty which is indispensably necessary to Baptism why they may not from the other is a secret which will not be found out by these whom it concerns to believe it 4. And therefore when our Blessed Lord made a stipulation and express Commandment for Faith with the greatest annexed penalty to them that had it not He that believeth not shall be damned the proposition is not to be verified or understood as relative to every period of time for then no man could be converted from Insidelity to the Christian Faith and from the power of the Devil to the Kingdom of Christ but his present Infidelity shall be his final ruine It is not therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a Sentence but a 〈◊〉 a Prediction and Intermination It is not like that saying God is true and every man a lier and Every good and every perfect gift is from above for these are true in every instant without reference to circumstances but He that believeth not shall be damned is a Prediction or that which in Rhetorick is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Use because this is the affirmation of that which usually or frequently comes to pass such as this He that strikes with the sword shall perish by the sword He that robs a Church shall be like a wheel of a vertiginous and unstable estate He that loves wine and oyl shall not be rich and therefore it is a declaration of that which is universally or commonly true but not so that in what instant soever a man is not a believer in that instant it is true to say he is damned for some are called the third some the sixth some the ninth hour and they that come in being first called at the eleventh hour shall have their reward so that this sentence stands true at the day and the judgment of the Lord not at the judgment or day of man And in the same necessity as Faith stands to Salvation in the same it stands to Baptism that is to be measured by the whole latitude of its extent Our Baptism shall no more do all its intention unless Faith supervene than a man is in possibility of being saved without Faith it must come in its due time but is not indispensably necessary in all instances and periods Baptism is the seal of our Election and adoption and as Election is brought to effect by Faith and its consequents so is Baptism but to neither is Faith necessary as to its beginning and first entrance To which also I add this Consideration That actual Faith is necessary not to the susception but to the consequent effects of Baptism appears because the Church and particularly the Apostles did baptize some persons who had not Faith but were Hypocrites such as were Simon Magus Alexander the
allowances of Repentance requiring Obedience in rigour and strictest estimate But the Gospel requires the Holiness of a Christian and yet after the manner of a man for always provided that we do not allow to our selves a liberty but endeavour with all our strength and love with all our Soul that which if it were upon our allowance would be required at our hands now that it is against our will and highly contested against is put upon the stock of Christ and allowed to us by God in the accounts of Pardon by the merits of Jesus by the Covenant of the Gospel And this is the Repentance and Remission of sins which John first preached upon the approximation of the Kingdom and Christ at the first manifestation of it and the Apostles afterward in the name of Jesus 4. Jesus now having begun his Preaching began also to gather his Family and first called Simon and Andrew then James and John at whose vocation he wrought a Miracle which was a signification of their Office and the success of it a draught of fishes so great and prodigious that it convinc'd them that he was a person very extraordinary whose voice the Fishes heard and came at his call and since he designed them to become fishers of men although themselves were as unlikely instruments to persuade men as the voice of the Son of man to command fishes yet they should prevail in so great numbers that the whole world should run after them and upon their Summons come into the Net of the Gospel becoming Disciples of the glorious Nazarene S. Peter the first time that he threw his net at the descent of the Holy Ghost in Pentecost catched three thousand men and at one Sermon sometimes the Princes of a Nation have been converted and the whole Land presently baptized and the multitudes so great that the Apostles were forced to design some men to the ministration of Baptism by way of peculiar office and it grew to be work enough the easiness of the ministery being made busie and full of imployment where a whole Nation became Disciple And indeed the Doctrine is so holy the Principle so Divine the Instruments so supernatural the Promises so glorious the Revelations so admirable the Rites so mysterious the whole fabrick of the Discipline so full of wisdome perswasion and energy that the infinite number of the first Conversions were not so great a wonder as that there are so few now every man calling himself Christian but few having that power of godliness which distinguishes Christian from a word and 〈◊〉 empty name And the Word is now the same and the arguments greater for some have been growing ever since as the Prophecies have been fulfilled and the Sermons more and the Spirit the same and yet such diversity of operations that we hear and read the Sermons and Dictates Evangelical as we do a Romance but that it is with less passion but altogether as much unconcerned as with a story of Salmanasar or Ibrahim Bassa For we do not leave one Vice nor reject one Lust nor deny one impetuous Temptation the more for the four Gospels sake and all S. Paul's Epistles mingled in the argument And yet all think themselves fishes within Christ's Net and the prey of the Gospel and it is true they are so for the Kingdom is like unto a Net which inclosed fishes good and bad but this shall be of small advantage when the Net shall be drawn to the shore and the separation made 5. When Jesus called those Disciples they had been fishing all night and caught nothing but when Christ bad them let down the Net they took multitudes to shew to us that the success of our endeavours is not in proportion to our labours but the divine assistence and benediction It is not the excellency of the Instrument but the capacity of the Subject nor yet this alone but the aptness of the application nor that without an influence from Heaven can produce the fruits of a holy Perswasion and Conversion Paul may plant and Apollo may water but God gives the increase Indeed when we let down the Nets at the Divine appointment the success is the more probable and certainly God will bring benefit to the place or Honour to himself or Salvation to them that will obey or Conviction to them that will not But what-ever the fruit be in respect of others the reward shall be great to themselves And therefore S. Paul did not say he had profited but he had laboured more than they all as knowing the Divine acceptance would take its account in proportion to our endeavours and intendments not by commensuration to the effect which being without us depending upon God's blessing and the cooperation of the recipients can be no ingredients into our account But this also may help to support the weariness of our hopes and the protraction and deferring of our expectation if a laborious Prelate and an assiduous Preacher have but few returns to his many cares and greater labours A whole night a man may labour the longest life is no other and yet catch nothing and then the Lord may visit us with his special presence and more forward assistences and the harvest may grow up with the swiftness of a Gourd and the fruitfulness of Olives and the plaisance of the Vine and the strength of Wheat and whole troups of Penitents may arise from the darkness of their graves at the call of one Sermon even when he pleases and till then we must be content that we do our duty and lay the consideration of the effect at the feet of Jesus 6. In the days of the Patriarchs the Governours of the Lord's people were called Shepherds so was Moses and so was David In the days of the Gospel they are Shepherds still but with the addition of a new appellative for now they are called Fishers Both the callings were honest humble and laborious watchful and full of trouble but now that both the titles are conjunct we may observe the symbol of an implicit and folded duty There is much simplicity and care in the Shepherd's Trade there is much craft and labour in the Fisher's and a Prelate is to be both full of Piety to his Flock careful of their welfare and because in the political and spiritual sense too feeding and governing are the same duty it concerns them that have cure of Souls to be discrect and wary observant of advantages laying such baits for the people as may entice them into the nets of Jesus's Discipline But being crafty I caught you saith S. Paul for he was a Fisher too And so must Spiritual persons be Fishers to all spiritual senses of watchfulness and care and prudence only they must not fish for preferment and ambitious purposes but must say with the King of Sodom Date nobis animas caetera vobis tollite which S. Paul renders We seek not yours but you And in order to such acquist the purchace of
For there is an unpardonable estate by reason of its malice and opposition to the Covenant of Grace and there is a state unpardonable because the time of Repentance is past There are days and periods of Grace If thou hadst known at least in this thy day said the weeping Saviour of the world to foreknown and determined Jerusalem When God's decrees are gone out they are not always revocable and therefore it was a great caution of the Apostle that we should follow peace and holiness and look diligently that we fall not from the grace of God lest any of us become like 〈◊〉 to whose Repentance there was no place left though he sought it carefully with tears meaning that we also may put our selves into a condition when it shall be impossible we should be renewed unto Repentance and those are they who sin a sin unto death for whom we have from the Apostle no encouragement to pray And these are in so general and conclusive terms described in Scripture that every persevering sinner hath great reason to suspect himself to be in the number If he endeavours as soon as he thinks of it to recover it is the best sign he was not arrived so far but he that liveth long in a violent and habitual course of sin is at the margin and brim of that state of final reprobation and some men are in it before they be aware and to some God reckons their days swifter and their periods shorter The use I make of this consideration is that if any man hath reason to suspect or to be certain that his time of Repentance is past it is most likely to be a death-bed Penitent after a vicious life a life contrary to the mercies and grace of the Evangelical Covenant for he hath provoked God as long as he could and rejected the offers of Grace as long as he lived and refused Vertue till he could not entertain her and hath done all those things which a person rejected from hopes of Repentance can easily be imagined to have done And if there be any time of rejection although it may be earlier yet it is also certainly the last 31. Concerning the second I shall add this to the former discourse of it that perfect Pardon of sins is not in this world at all after the first emission and great efflux of it in our first Regeneration During this life we are in imperfection minority and under conditions which we have prevaricated and our recovery is in perpetual flux in heightnings and declensions and we are highly uncertain of our acceptation because we are not certain of our restitution and innocence we know not whether we have done all that is sufficient to repair the breach made in the first state of favour and Baptismal grace But he that is dead saith S. Paul is justified from sin not till then And therefore in the doctrine of the most learned Jews it is affirmed He that is guilty of the profanation of the Name of God he shall not interrupt the apparent malignity of it by his present Repentance nor make attonement in the day of Expiation nor wath the stains away by chastising of himself but during his life it remains wholly in suspence and before death is not extinguished according to the saying of the Prophet Esay This iniquity shall not be blotted out till ye die saith the LORD of Hosts And some wise persons have affirmed that Jacob related to this in his expression and appellatives of God whom he called the God of Abraham and the fear of his father Isaac because as the Doctors of the Jews tell us Abraham being dead was ascribed into the final condition of God's family but Isaac being living had apprehensions of God not only of a pious but also of a tremulous fear he was not sure of his own condition much less of the degrees of his reconciliation how far God had forgiven his sins and how far he had retained them And it is certain that if every degree of the Divine favour be not assured by a holy life those sins of whose pardon we were most hopeful return in as full vigour and clamorous importunity as ever and are made more vocal by the appendent ingratitude and other accidental degrees And this Christ taught us by a Parable For as the lord made his uncharitable servant pay all that debt which he had formerly forgiven him even so will God do to us if we from our hearts forgive not one another their trespasses Behold the goodness and severity of God saith S. Paul on them which fell severity but on thee goodness if thou continue in that goodness otherwise thou shalt be cut off For this is my Covenant which I shall make with them when I shall take away their sins And if this be true in those sins which God certainly hath forgotten such as were all those which were committed before our illumination much rather is it true in those which we committed after concerning whose actual and full pardon we cannot be certain without a revelation So that our pardon of sins when it is granted after the breach of our Covenant is just so secure as our perseverance is concerning which because we must ascertain it as well as we can but ever with fear and trembling so also is the estate of our Pardon hazardous conditional revocable and uncertain and therefore the best of men do all their lives ask pardon even of those sins for which they have wept bitterly and done the sharpest and severest penance And if it be necessary we pray that we may not enter into temptation because temptation is full of danger and the danger may bring a sin and the sin may ruine us it is also necessary that we understand the condition of our pardon to be as is the condition of our person variable as will sudden as affections alterable as our purposes revocable as our own good intentions and then made as ineffective as our inclinations to good actions And there is no way to secure our confidence and our hope but by being perfect and holy and pure as our heavenly Father is that is in the sence of humane capacity free from the habits of all sin and active and industrious and continuing in the ways of godliness For upon this only the Promise is built and by our proportion to this state we must proportion our confidence we have no other revelation Christ reconciled us to his Father upon no other conditions and made the Covenant upon no other articles but of a holy life in obedience universal and perpetual and the abatements of the rigorous sence of the words as they are such as may infinitely testifie and prove his mercy so they are such as must secure our duty and habitual graces an industry manly constant and Christian and because these have so great latitude and to what degrees God will accept our returns he hath
as all our happiness consists so God takes greatest complacency and delights in it above all his other Works He punishes to the third and fourth Generation but shews mercy unto thousands Therefore the Jews say that Michael 〈◊〉 with one wing and Gabriel with two meaning that the pacifying Angel the Minister of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the exterminating Angel the Messenger of wrath is slow And we are called to our approximation to God by the practice of this Grace we are made partakers of the Divine nature by being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful This mercy consists in the affections and in the effects and actions In both which the excellency of this Christian Precept is eminent above the goodness of the moral precept of the old Philosophers and the piety and charity of the Jews by virtue of the Mosaic Law The Stoick Philosophers affirm it to be the duty of a wise man to succour and help the necessities of indigent and miserable persons but at no hand to pity them or suffer any trouble or compassion in our affections for they intended that a wise person should be dispassionate unmoved and without disturbance in every accident and object and concernment But the Blessed Jesus who came to reconcile us to his Father and purchase us an intire possession did intend to redeem us from sin and make our passions obedient and apt to be commanded even and moderate in temporal affairs but high and active in some instances of spiritual concernment and in all instances that the affection go along with the Grace that we must be as merciful in our compassion as compassionate in our exteriour expressions and actions The Jews by the prescript of their Law were to be merciful to all their Nation and confederates in Religion and this their Mercy was called Justice He hath dispersed abroad and given to the poor his righteousness or Justice 〈◊〉 for ever But the mercies of a Christian are to extend to all Do good to all men especially to the houshold of Faith And this diffusion of a Mercy not only to Brethren but to Aliens and Enemies is that which S. Paul calls goodness still retaining the old appellative for Judaical mercy 〈◊〉 For scarcely for a 〈◊〉 man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some will even dare to die So that the Christian Mercy must be a mercy of the whole man the heart must be merciful and the hand operating in the labour of love and it must be extended to all persons of all capacities according as their necessity requires and our ability permits and our endearments and other obligations dispose of and determine the order 14. The acts of this Grace are 1. To pity the miseries of all persons and all calamities spiritual or temporal having a fellow-feeling in their afflictions 2. To be afflicted and sad in the publick Judgments imminent or incumbent upon a Church or State or Family 3. To pray to God for remedy for all afflicted persons 4. To do all acts of bodily assistence to all miserable and distressed people to relieve the Poor to redeem Captives to forgive Debts to disabled persons to pay Debts for them to lend them mony to feed the hungry and clothe the naked to rescue persons from dangers to defend and relieve the oppressed to comfort widows and fatherless children to help them to right that suffer wrong and in brief to do any thing of relief support succour and comfort 5. To do all acts of spiritual 〈◊〉 to counsel the doubtful to admonish the erring to strengthen the weak to resolve the scrupulous to teach the ignorant and any thing else which may be instrumental to his Conversion Perseverance Restitution and Salvation or may rescue him from spiritual dangers or supply him in any ghostly necessity The reward of this Vertue is symbolical to the Vertue it self the grace and glory differing in nothing but degrees and every vertue being a reward to it self The merciful shall receive mercy mercy to help them in time of need mercy from God who will not only give them the great mercies of Pardon and Eternity but also dispose the hearts of others to pity and supply their needs as they have done to others For the present there is nothing more noble than to be beneficial to others and to lift up the poor 〈◊〉 of the mire and rescue them from misery it is to do the work of God and for the future nothing is a greater title to a mercy at the Day of Judgment than to have shewed mercy to our necessitous Brother it being expressed to be the only rule and instance in which Christ means to judge the world in their Mercy and Charity or their Unmercifulness respectively I was hungry and ye fed me or ye fed me not and so we stand or fall in the great and eternal scrutiny And it was the prayer of Saint Paul Onesiphorus shewed kindness to the great Apostle The Lord shew him a mercy in that day For a cup of charity though but full of cold water shall not lose its reward 15. Sixthly Blessed are the Pure 〈◊〉 heart for they shall see God This purity of heart includes purity of hands Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle even he that is of clean hands and a pure heart that is he that hath not given his mind unto vanity nor sworn to deceive his Neighbour It signifies justice of action and candour of spirit innocence of manners and sincerity of purpose it is one of those great circumstances that consummates Charity For the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned that is a heart free from all carnal affections not only in the matter of natural impurity but also spiritual and immaterial such as are Heresies which are theresore impurities because they mingle secular interest or prejudice with perswasions in Religion Seditions hurtful and impious Stratagems and all those which S. Paul enumerates to be works or fruits of the flesh A good Conscience that 's a Conscience either innocent or penitent a state of Grace 〈◊〉 a not having prevaricated or a being restored to our Baptismal purity Faith unfeigned that also is the purity of Sincerity and excludes Hypocrisie timorous and half perswasions neutrality and indifferency in matters of Salvation And all these do integrate the whole duty of Charity But Purity as it is a special Grace signifies only honesty and uprightness of Soul without hypocrisie to God and dissimulation towards men and then a freedom from all carnal desires so as not to be governed or led by them Chastity is the purity of the body Simplicity is the purity of the spirit both are the Sanctification of the whole Man for the entertainment of the Spirit of Purity and the Spirit of Truth 16. The acts of this Vertue are 1. To quit all Lustful thoughts not to take delight in
her in the midst of her journey Against this David prayed O my God cut me 〈◊〉 off in the midst of my days But in this there is some variety For God does it sometimes in mercy sometimes in judgment The righteous die and no man regardeth not considering that they are taken away from the evil to come God takes the righteous man hastily to his Crown lest temptation snatch it from him by interrupting his hopes and sanctity And this was the case of the old World For from Adam to the Floud by the Patriarchs were eleven generations but by Cain's line there were but eight so that Cain's posterity were longer liv'd because God intending to bring the Floud upon the World took delight to rescue his elect from the dangers of the present impurity and the future Deluge Abraham lived five years less than his son Isaac it being say the Doctors of the Jews intended for mercy to him that he might not see the iniquity of his Grandchild 〈◊〉 And this the Church for many Ages hath believed in the case of baptized Infants dying before the use of Reason For besides other causes in the order of Divine Providence one kind of mercy is done to them too for although their condition be of a lower form yet it is secured by that timely shall I call it or untimely death But these are cases extraregular ordinarily and by rule God hath revealed his purposes of interruption of the lives of sinners to be in anger and judgment for when men commit any signal and grand impiety God suffers not Nature to take her course but strikes a stroke with his own hand To which purpose I think it a remarkable instance which is reported by 〈◊〉 that for 3332 years even to the twentieth Age there was not one example of a Son that died before his Father but the course of Nature was kept that he who was first born in the descending line did die first I speak of natural death and therefore Abel cannot be opposed to this observation till that Terah the father of Abraham taught the People to make Images of clay and worship them and concerning him it was first remarked that Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity God by an unheard-of Judgment and a rare accident punishing his newly-invented crime And when-ever such 〈◊〉 of a life happens to a vicious person let all the world acknowledge it for a Judgment and when any man is guilty of evil habits or unrepented sins he may therefore expect it because it is threatned and designed for the lot and curse of such persons This is threatned to Covetousness Injustice and Oppression As a Partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days and at his end shall be a Fool. The same is threatned to Voluptuous persons in the highest caresses of delight and Christ told a parable with the same design The rich man said Soul take thy ease but God answered O fool this night shall thy Soul be required of thee Zimri and Cozbi were slain in the trophies of their Lust and it was a sad story which was told by Thomas Cantipratanus Two Religious persons tempted by each other in the vigour of their youth in their very first pleasures and opportunities of sin were both struck dead in their embraces and posture of entertainment God smote Jeroboam for his Usurpation and Tyranny and he died Saul died for Disobedience against God and asking counsel of a Pythonisse God smote 〈◊〉 with a Leprosie for his profaneness and distressed 〈◊〉 sorely for his Sacrilege and sent a horrid disease upon Jehoram for his Idolatry These instances represent Voluptuousness and Covetousness Rapine and Injustice Idolatry and Lust Profaneness and Sacrilege as remarked by the signature of exemplary Judgments to be the means of shortening the days of man God himself proving the Executioner of his own fierce wrath I instance no more but in the singular case of Hananiah the false Prophet Thus saith the LORD Behold I will cut thee from off the face of the earth this year thou shalt die because thou hast taught Rebellion against the LORD That is the curse and portion of a false Prophet a short life and a suddén death of God's own particular and more immediate 〈◊〉 23. And thus also the sentence of the Divine anger went forth upon criminal persons in the New Testament Witness the Disease of Herod Judas's Hanging himself the Blindness of 〈◊〉 the Sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira the Buffetings with which Satan 〈◊〉 the bodies of persons excommunicate Yea the blessed Sacrament of CHRIST's Body and Bloud which is intended for our spiritual life if it be unworthily received proves the cause of a natural death For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many are fallen asleep saith S. Paul to the 〈◊〉 Church 24. Thirdly But there is yet another manner of ending man's life by way of Chance or Contingency meaning thereby the manner of God's Providence and event of things which is not produced by the disposition of natural causes nor yet by any particular and special act of God but the event which depends upon accidental causes not so certain and regular as Nature not so conclusive and determined as the acts of decretory Providence but comes by disposition of causes irregular to events rare and accidental This David expresses by entring into battel and in this as in the other we must separate cases extraordinary and rare from the ordinary and common Extraregularly and upon extraordinary reasons and permissions we find that holy persons have miscarried in battel So the 〈◊〉 fell before Benjamin and Jonathan and 〈◊〉 and many of the Lord's champions fighting against the Philistines but in these deaths as God served other ends of Providence so he kept to the good men that fell all the mercies of the Promise by giving them a greater blessing of event and compensation In the more ordinary course of Divine dispensation they that prevaricate the Laws of God are put out of protection God withdraws his special Providence or their tutelar Angel and leaves them exposed to the influences of Heaven to the power of a Constellation to the accidents of humanity to the chances of a Battel which are so many and various that it is ten thousand to one a man in that case never escapes and in such variety of contingencies there is no probable way to assure our safety but by a holy life to endear the Providence of God to be our Guardian It was a remarkable saying of Deborah The Stars sought in their courses 〈◊〉 in their orbs against Sisera Sisera fought when there was an evil Aspect or malignant influence of Heaven upon him For even the smallest thing that is in opposition to us is enough to turn the
the griefs of a Christian whether they be instances of Repentance or parts of Persecution or exercises of Patience end in joy and endless comfort Thus Jesus like a Rainbow half made of the glories of light and half of the moisture of a cloud half triumph and half sorrow entred into that Town where he had done much good to others and to himself received nothing but affronts yet his tenderness encreased upon him and that very journey which was Christ's last solemn visit for their recovery he doubled all the instruments of his Mercy and their Conversion He rode in triumph the 〈◊〉 sang Hosannah to him he cured many diseased persons he wept for them and pitied them and sighed out the intimations of a Prayer and did penance for their ingratitude and stayed all day there looking about him towards evening and no man would invite him home but he was forced to go to Bethany where he was sure of an hospitable entertainment I think no Christian that reads this but will be full of indignation at the whole City who for malice or for fear would not or durst not receive their Saviour into their houses and yet we do worse for now that he is become our Lord with mightier demonstrations of his eternal power we suffer him to look round about upon us for months and years together and possibly never entertain him till our house is ready to rush upon our heads and we are going to unusual and stranger habitations And yet in the midst of a populous and mutinous City this great King had some good subjects persons that threw away their own garments and laid them at the feet of our Lord that being devested of their own they might be re-invested with a robe of his Righteousness wearing that till it were changed into a stole of glory the very ceremony of their reception of the Lord became symbolical to them and expressive of all our duties 7. But I consider that the Blessed Jesus had affections not less than infinite towards all mankind and he who wept upon Jerusalem who had done so great despight to him and within five days were to fill up the measure of their iniquities and do an act which all Ages of the world could never repeat in the same instance did also in the number of his tears reckon our sins as sad considerations and incentives of his sorrow And it would well become us to consider what great evil we do when our actions are such as for which our Blessed Lord did weep He who was seated in the bosom of Felicity yet he moistened his 〈◊〉 Lawrels upon the day of his Triumph with tears of love and bitter allay His day of Triumph was a day of Sorrow and if we would weep for our sins that instance of sorrow would be a day of triumph and 〈◊〉 8. From hence the Holy Jesus went to Pethany where he had another manner of reception than at the Holy City There he supped for his goodly day of Triumph had been with him a fasting-fasting-day And Mary Magdalen who had spent one box of Nard pistick upon our Lord's feet as a sacrifice of Eucharist for her Conversion now bestowed another in thankfulness for the restitution of her Brother Lazarus to life and consigned her Lord unto his Burial And here she met with an evil interpreter 〈◊〉 an Apostle one of the Lord 's own Family pretended it had been a better Religion to have given it to the poor but it was Malice and the spirit either of Envy or Avarice in him that passed that sentence for he that sees a pious action well done and seeks to undervalue it by telling how it might have been better reproves nothing but his own spirit For a man may do very well and God would accept it though to say he might have done better is to say only that action was not the most perfect and absolute in its kind but to be angry at a religious person and without any other pretence but that he might have done better is spiritual Envy for a pious person would have nourished up that infant action by love and praise till it had grown to the most perfect and intelligent Piety But the event of that man gave the interpretation of his present purpose and at the best it could be no other than a rash judgment of the action and intention of a religious thankful and holy person But she found her Lord who was her 〈◊〉 in this become her Patron and her Advocate And hereafter when we shall find the Devil the great Accuser of God's Saints object against the Piety and Religion of holy persons a cup of cold water shall be accepted unto reward and a good intention heightned to the value of an exteriour expression and a piece of gum to the equality of a 〈◊〉 and an action done with great zeal and an intense love be acquitted from all its adherent imperfections Christ receiving them into himself and being like the Altar of incense hallowing the very smoak and raising it into a flame and entertaining it into the embraces of the firmament and the bosom of Heaven Christ himself who is the Judge of our actions is also the entertainer and object of our Charity and Duty and the Advocate of our persons 9. Judas who declaimed against the woman made tacite reflexions upon his Lord for suffering it and indeed every obloquy against any of Christ's servants is looked on as an arrow shot into the heart of Christ himself And now a Persecution being begun against the Lord within his own Family another was raised against him from without For the chief Priests took crafty counsel against Jesus and called a Consistory to contrive how they might destroy him and here was the greatest representment of the goodness of God and the ingratitude of man that could be practised or understood How often had Jesus poured forth tears for them how many sleepless nights had he awaked to do them advantage how many days had he spent in Homilies and admirable visitations of Mercy and Charity in casting out Devils in curing their sick in correcting their delinquencies in reducing them to the ways of security and peace and that we may use the greatest expression in the world that is his own in gathering them as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings to give them strength and warmth and life and ghostly nourishment And the chief Priests together with their faction use all arts and watch all opportunities to get Christ not that they might possess him but to destroy him little considering that they extinguish their own eyes and destroy that spring of life which was intended to them for a blissful immortality 10. And here it was that the Devil shewed his promptness to furnish every evil-intended person with apt instruments to act the very worst of his intentions the Devil knew their purposes and the aptness and proclivity of Judas and by bringing these together he
thee at an estimate beyond all the wealth of nature to buy wisdome and not to sell it to part with all that we may enjoy thee and let no temptation abuse our understandings no loss vex us into impatience no frustration of hope fill us with indignation no pressure of calamitous accidents make us angry at thee the fountain of love and blessing no Covetousness transport us into the suburbs of Hell and the regions of sin but make us to love thee as well as ever any creature loved thee that we may never burn in any fires but of a holy love nor sink in any inundation but what proceeds from penitential showrs and suffer no violence but of implacable desires to live with thee and when thou callest us to suffer with thee and for thee 3. LOrd let me never be betrayed by my self or any violent accident and 〈◊〉 temptation let me never be sold for the vile price of temporal gain or transient pleasure or a pleasant dream but since thou hast bought me with a price even then when thou wert sold thy self let me never be separated from thy possession I am thine bought with a price Lord save me and in the day when thou bindest up thy Jewels remember Lord that I cost thee as dear as any and therefore cast me not into the portion of Judas but let me walk and dwell and bathe in the field of thy bloud and pass from hence pure and sanctified into the society of the elect Apostles receiving my part with them and my lot in the communications of thy inheritance O gracious Lord and dearest Saviour Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples Feet by JESUS and his Sermon of Humility He washeth his Disciples feet Iohn 13. 5. After that he powreth water into a baso◠and began to wash the Disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded 6. Then cometh he to Simon Peter Peter saith unto him Lord doest thou wash my feet The Institution of his last Supper Mark 14. 22. And as they did eat Lesus took bread blessed brake it gaue to them said Take eat this is my body And he took y e Cup when he had given thanks he gave it to them they all dranke of it In the 〈◊〉 of the Communion 1. THE Holy JESUS went now to eat his last Paschal Supper and to finish the work of his Legation and to fulfill that part of the Law of Moses in every of its smallest and most minute particularities in which also the actions were significant of spiritual duties which we may transfer from the letter to the spirit in our own instances That as JESUS ate the Paschal Lamb with a staff in his Hand with his Loins girt with sandals on his Feet in great haste with unlevened Bread and with bitter Herbs so we also should do all our services according to the signification of these symbols leaning upon the Cross of JESUS for a staff and bearing the rod of his Government with Loins girt with Angelical Chastity with shoes on our Feet that so we may guard and have custody over our affections and be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace eating in haste as becomes persons hungring and thirsting after Righteousness doing the work of the Lord zealously and fervently without the leven of Malice and secular interest with bitter herbs of Self-denial and Mortification of our sensual and inordinate desires The sence and mystery of the whole act with all its circumstances is That we obey all the Sanctions of the Divine Law and that every part of our Religion be pure and peaceable chaste and obedient confident in God and diffident in our selves frequent and zealous humble and resigned just and charitable and there will not easily be wanting any just circumstance to hallow and consecrate the action 2. When the Holy Jesus had finished his last Mosaic Rite he descends to give example of the first fruit of Evangelical Graces he rises from Supper lays aside his garment like a servant and with all the circumstances of an humble ministery washes the feet of his Disciples beginning at the first S. Peter until he came to Judas the Traitor that we might in one scheme see a rare conjunction of Charity and Humility of Self-denial and indifferency represented by a person glorious and great their Lord and Master sad and troubled And he chose to wash their feet rather than their head that he might have the opportunity of a more humble posture and a more apt signification of his Charity Thus God lays every thing aside that he may serve his servants Heaven stoops to earth and one abyss calls upon another and the Miseries of man which were next to infinite are excelled by a Mercy equal to the immensity of God And this washing of their feet which was an accustomed civility and entertainment of honoured strangers at the beginning of their meal Christ deferred to the end of the Paschal Supper that it might be the preparatory to the second which he intended should be festival to all the world S. Peter was troubled that the hands of his Lord should wash his servants feet those hands which had opened the eyes of the blind and cured lepers and healed all diseases and when lift up to Heaven were omnipotent and could restore life to dead and buried persons he counted it a great indecency for him to suffer it but it was no more than was necessary for they had but lately been earnest in dispute for Precedency and it was of it self so apt to swell into tumour and inconvenience that it was not to be cured but by some Prodigy of Example and Miracle of Humility which the Holy Jesus offered to them in this express calling them to learn some great Lesson a Lesson which God descended from Heaven to earth from riches to poverty from essential innocence to the disreputation of a sinner from a Master to a Servant to learn us that is that we should esteem our selves but just as we are low sinful miserable needy and unworthy It seems it is a great thing that man should come to have just and equal thoughts of himself that God used such powerful arts to transmit this Lesson and engrave it in the spirits of men and if the Receipt fails we are eternally lost in the mists of vanity and enter into the condition of those Angels whom Pride transformed and spoiled into the condition of Devils and upon consideration of this great example Guericus a good man cried out Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome my Pride this Example hath mastered me I deliver my self up into thy hands never to receive liberty or exaltation but in the condition of thy humblest servant 3. And to this purpose S. Bernard hath an affectionate and devout consideration saying That some of the Angels as soon as they were created had an ambition to
man to be cried up for a Saint to walk upon the spire of glory and to have no adherence or impure mixtures of Vanity grow upon the outside of his heart All men have not such heads as to walk in great heights without giddiness and unsettled eyes Lucifer and many Angels walking upon the battlements of Heaven grew top-heavy and fell into the state of Devils and the Father of the Christian Eremites S. Antony was frequently attempted by the Devil and solicited to vanity the Devil usually making phantastick noises to be heard before him Make room for the Saint and Servant of God But the good man knew Christ's voice to be a low Base of Humility and that it was the noise of Hell that invited to complacencies and vanity and therefore took the example of the Apostles who in the midst of the greatest reputation and spiritual advancements were dead unto the world and seemed to live in the state of separation For the true stating our own Question and knowing our selves must needs represent us set in the midst of infinite imperfections loaden with sins choaked with the noises of a polluted Conscience persons fond of trifles neglecting objects fit for wise men full of ingratitude and all such things which in every man else we look upon as scars and deformities and which we use to single out and take one alone as sufficient to disgrace and disrepute all the excellencies of our Neighbour But if we would esteem them with the same severity in our selves and remember with how many such objections our little felicities are covered it would make us charitable in our censures compassionate and gentle to others apt to excuse and as ready to support their weaknesses and in all accidents and chances to our selves to be content and thankful as knowing the worst of poverty and inconvenience to be a mercy and a splendid fortune in respect of our demerits I have read that when the Duke of Candia had voluntarily entred into the incommodities of a Religious Poverty and retirement he was one day spied and pitied by a Lord of Italy who out of tenderness wished him to be more careful and nutritive of his person The good Duke answered Sir be not troubled and think not that I am ill provided of conveniences for I send a Harbinger before who makes my lodgings ready and takes care that I be royally entertained The Lord asked him who was his Harbinger He answered The knowledge of my self the consideration of what I deserve for my sins which is eternal torments and when with this knowledge I arrive at my lodging how unprovided soever I find it methinks it is ever better than I deserve The summe of this Meditation consists in believing and considering and reducing to practice those thoughts that we are nothing of our selves that we have nothing of our own that we have received more than ever we can discharge that we have added innumerable sins that we can call nothing our own but such things which we are ashamed to own and such things which are apt to ruine us If we do nothing contrary to the purpose and hearty perswasion of such thoughts then we think meanly of our selves And in order to it we may make use of this advice To let no day pass without some sad recollection and memory of somewhat which may put us to confusion and mean opinion of our selves either call to mind the worst of our sins or the undiscreetest of our actions or the greatest of our shame or the uncivilest of our affronts any thing to make us descend lower and kiss the foot of the mountain And this consideration applied also to every tumour of spirit as soon as it rises may possibly allay it 7. Secondly Christ's Humble man bears contumelies evenly and sweetly and desires not to be honoured by others He chuses to do those things that deserve honour and a fair name but then eats not of those fruits himself but transmits them to the use of others and the glories of God This is a certain consequence of the other for he that truly disesteems himself is content that others should do so too and he who with some regret and impatience hears himself scorned or undervalued hath not acquired the grace of Humility Which Serapion in Cassian noted to a young person who perpetually accused himself with the greatest semblances of Humility but was impatient when Serapion reproved him Did you hope that I would have praised your Humility and have reputed you for a Saint It is a strange perversness to desire others to esteem highly of you for that in which to your self you seem most unworthy He that inquires into the faults of his own actions requiring them that saw them to tell him in what he did amiss not to learn the fault but to engage them to praise it cozens himself into Pride and makes Humility the instrument And a man would be ashamed if he were told that he used stratagems for praise but so glorious a thing is Humility that Pride to hide her own shame puts on the others vizor it being more to a proud man's purposes to seem humble than to be so And such was the Cynick whom Lucian derided because that one searching his scrip in expectation to have found in it mouldy bread or old rags he discovered a bale of dice a box of perfumes and the picture of his fair Mistress Carisianus walked in his Gown in the Feast of Saturn and when all Rome was let loose in wantonness he put on the long Robe of a Senator and a severe person and yet nothing was more lascivious than he But the Devil Pride prevails sometimes upon the spirit of Lust. Humility neither directly nor by consequence seeks for praise and suffers it not to rest upon its own pavement but reflects it all upon God and receives all lessenings and instruments of affront and disgrace that mingle not with sin or undecencies more willingly than Panegyricks When others have their desires thou not thine the sayings of another are esteemed thine slighted others ask and obtain thou beggest and art refused they are cried up thou disgraced and hissed at and while they are imployed thou art laid by as fit for nothing or an unworthy person commands thee and rules thee like a tyrant he reproves thee suspects thee reviles thee canst thou bear this sweetly and entertain the usage as thy just portion and as an accident most fit and proper to thy person and condition Dost thou not raise Theatres to thy self and take delight in the suppletories of thy own good opinion and the flatteries of such whom thou endearest to thee that their praising thee should heal the wounds of thine honour by an imaginary and phantastick restitution He that is not content and patient in affronts hath not yet learned Humility of the Holy Jesus 8. Thirdly As Christ's Humble man is content in affronts and not greedy of
Purity the meek persons of Content and Humility yet vicious and corrupted palats find also the gust of death and Coloquintida The Sybarites invited their women to their solemn sacrifices a full year before the solemnity that they might by previous dispositions and a long foresight 〈◊〉 with gravity and fairer order the celebration of the rites And it was a reasonable answer of Pericles to one that ask'd him why he being a Philosophical and severe person came to a wedding trimmed and adorned like a Paranymph I come adorned to an adorned person trimmed to a Bridegroom And we also if we come to the marriage of the Son with the Soul which marriage is celebrated in this sacred Mystery and have not on a wedding garment shall be cast into outer darkness the portion of undressed and unprepared souls 12. For from this Sacrament are excluded all unbaptized persons and such who lie in a known sin of which they have not purged themselves by the apt and proper instruments of Repentance For if the Paschal Lamb was not to be eaten but by persons pure and clean according to the sanctifications of the Law the Son of God can less endure the impurities of the Spirit than God could 〈◊〉 the uncleannesses of the Law S. Paul hath given us instruction in this First let a man examine himself and so let him eat For he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's body That is although in the Church of Corinth by reason of the present Schism the publick Discipline of the Church was neglected and every man permitted to himself yet even then no man was disobliged from his duty of private Repentance and holy preparations to the perception of so great a mystery that the Lord's body may be discerned from common nutriment Now nothing can so unhallow and desecrate the rite as the remanent affection to a sin or a crime unrepented of And Self-examination is prescribed not for it self but in order to abolition of sin and death for it self is a relative term and an imperfect duty whose very nature is in order to something beyond it And this was in the Primitive Church understood to so much severity that if a man had relapsed after one publick Repentance into a 〈◊〉 crime he was never again readmitted to the holy Communion and the Fathers of the Council of 〈◊〉 call it a mocking and jesting at the Communion of our Lord to give it once again after a Repentance and a relapse and a second or third postulation And indeed we use to make a sport of the greatest instruments of Religion when we come to them after an habitual vice whose face we have it may be wetted with a tear and breathed upon it with a sigh and abstained from the worst of crimes for two or three days and come to the Sacrament to be purged and to take our rise by going a little back from our sin that afterwards we may leap into it with more violence and enter into its utmost angle This is dishonouring the body of our Lord and deceiving our selves Christ and Belial cannot cohabit unless we have left all our sins and have no fondness of affection towards them unless we hate them which then we shall best know when we leave them and with complacency entertain their contraries then Christ hath washed our feet and then he invites us to his holy Supper Hands dipt in bloud or polluted with unlawful gains or stained with the spots of flesh are most unfit to handle the holy body of our Lord and minister nourishment to the Soul Christ loves not to enter into the mouth full of cursings oathes blasphemies revilings or evil speakings and a heart full of vain and vicious thoughts stinks like the lake of Sodom he finds no rest there and when he enters he is vexed with the unclean conversation of the impure inhabitants and flies from thence with the wings of a Dove that he may retire to pure and whiter habitations S. Justin Martyr reckoning the predispositions required of every faithful soul for the entertainment of his Lord says that it is not lawful for any to eat the Eucharist but to him that is washed in the laver of regeneration sor the remission of sins that believes Christ's Doctrine to be true and that lives according to the Discipline of the Holy Jesus And therefore S. Ambrose refused to minister the holy Communion to the Emperor Theodostus till by publick Repentance he had reconciled himself to God and the society of faithsul people after the furious and cholerick rage and slaughter committed at Thessalonica And as this act was like to cancellating and a circumvallation of the holy mysteries and in that sence and so far was a proper duty sor a Prelate to whose dispensation the rites are committed so it was an act of duty to the Emperor of paternal and tender care not of proper authority or jurisdiction which he could not have over his Prince but yet had a care and the supravision of a Teacher over him whose Soul S. Ambrose had betrayed unless he had represented his indisposition to communicate in expressions of Magisterial or Doctoral authority and truth For this holy Sacrament is a nourishment of spiritual life and therefore cannot with effect be ministred to them who are in the state of spiritual death it is giving a Cordial to a dead man and although the outward rite be ministred yet the Grace of the Sacrament is not communicated and therefore it were well that they also abstained from the rite it self For a fly can boast of as much priviledge as a wicked person can receive from this holy Feast and oftentimes pays his life sor his access to sorbidden delicacies as certainly as they 13. It is more generally thought by the Doctors of the Church that our Blessed Lord administred the Sacrament to Judas although he knew he sold him to the Jews Some others deny it and suppose Judas departed presently after the sop given him before he communicated However it was Christ who was Lord of the Sacraments might dispense it as he pleased but we must minister and receive it according to the rules he hath since described but it becomes a precedent to the Church in all succeeding Ages although it might also have in it something extraordinary and apter to the first institution for because the fact of Judas was secret not yet made notorious Christ chose rather to admit him into the rites of external Communion than to separate him with an open shame for a fault not yet made open For our Blessed Lord did not reveal the man and his crime till the very time of ministration if Judas did communicate But if Judas did not communicate and that our Blessed Lord gave him the sop at the Paschal Supper 〈◊〉 at the interval between it and the institution of his own it is certain that
dead Husband was dissolved into ashes and disappeared in the form of a body And it were well that so long as the consecrated Symbols remain within us according to common estimate we should keep the flame bright and the perfume of an actual Devotion burning that our Communion be not a transient act but a permanent and lasting intercourse with our Lord. But in this every man best knows his own opportunities and necessities of diversion I only commend earnestly to practice that every Receiver should make a recollection of himself and the actions of the day that he improve it to the best advantage that he shew unto our Lord all the defects of his house all his poverty and weaknesses and this let every man do by such actions and Devotions which he can best attend and himself by the advice of a Spiritual man finds of best advantage I would not make the practice of Religion especially in such irregular instances to be an art or a burthen or a snare to scrupulous persons What S. Paul said in the 〈◊〉 of Charity I say also in this He that sows plentifully shall reap plentifully and he that 〈◊〉 sparingly shall gather at the same rate let every man do as himself purposeth in his heart Only it were well in this Sacrament of Love we had some correspondency and proportionable returns of Charity and religious affections 18. Some religious persons have moved a Question Whether it were better to communicate often or seldom some thinking it more reverence to those holy Mysteries to come but seldom while others say it is greater Religion or Charity to come frequently But I suppose this Question does not differ much from a dispute Whether is better to pray often or to pray seldom For whatsoever is commonly pretended against a frequent Communion may in its proportion object against a solemn Prayer 〈◊〉 affection to a sin enmity with neighbours secular avocations to the height of care and trouble for these either are great undecencies in order to a holy Prayer or else are direct irregularities and unhallow the Prayer And the celebration of the holy Sacrament is in it self and its own formality a sacred solemn and ritual Prayer in which we invocate God by the Merits of Christ expressing that adjuration not only in words but in actual representment and commemoration of his Passion And if the necessities of the Church were well considered we should find that a daily Sacrifice of Prayer and a daily Prayer of Sacrifice were no more but what her condition requires and I would to God the Governours of Churches would take care that the necessities of Kings and Kingdoms of Churches and States were represented to God by the most solemn and 〈◊〉 intercessions and Christ hath taught us none greater than the praying in the virtue and 〈◊〉 of his Sacrifice And this is the counsel that the Church received from Ignatius Haslen frequently to approach the 〈◊〉 the glory of God For when this is daily celebrated we break the powers of Satan who turns all his actions into 〈◊〉 and darts of fire But this concerns the Ministers of Religion who living in Communities and Colledges must make Religion the business of their lives and support Kingdoms and serve the interest of Kings by the prayer of a daily sacrifice And yet in this ministery the Clergy may serve their own necessary affairs if the ministration be divided into courses as it was by the oeconomy and wisdom of Solomon for the Temple 19. But concerning the Communion of Secular and lay persons the consideration is something different S. Austin gave this answer to it To receive the Sacrament every day I neither praise nor reprove at least let them receive it every Lord's day And this he spake to Husbandmen and Merchants At the first commencement of Christianity while the fervors Apostolical and the calentures of infant Christendom did last the whole assembly of faithsul people communicated every day and this lasted in Rome and Spain until the time of S. Jerome concerning which diligence he gives the same 〈◊〉 which I now recited from S. Austin for it suffered inconvenience by reason of a declining Piety and the intervening of secular interests But then it came to once a week and yet that was not every-where strictly observed But that it be received once every fortnight S. 〈◊〉 counsels very strongly to Eustochium a holy Virgin Let the 〈◊〉 confess their sins twice every month or 〈◊〉 and being fortified with the communion of the Lord's Body let them manfully fight against the Devil's forces and attempts A while 〈◊〉 it came to once a month then once a year then it fell from that too till all the Christians in the West were commanded to communicate every Easter by the Decree of a great Council above 500 years since But the Church of England finding that too little hath commanded all her Children to receive thrice every year at least intending that they should come oftner but of this she demands an account For it hath fared with this Sacrament as with other actions of Religion which have descended 〈◊〉 flames to still fires from fires to sparks from sparks to embers from embers to smoke from smoke to nothing And although the publick 〈◊〉 of Piety is such that in this present conjuncture of things it is impossible men should be reduced to a daily Communion yet that they are to communicate frequently is so a Duty that as no excuse but impossibility can make the omission innocent so the loss and consequent want is infinite and invaluable 20. For the holy Communion being a remembrance and sacramental repetition of Christ's Passion and the application of his Sacrifice to us and the whole Catholick Church as they who seldom communicate delight not to remember the Passion of our Lord and sin against his very purpose and one of the designs of institution so he cares not to receive the benefits of the Sacrifice who so neglects their application and reducing them to actual profit and 〈◊〉 Whence came the sanctimony of the primitive Christians whence came their strict observation of the Divine Commandments whence was it that they persevered in holy actions with hope and an unweary diligence from whence did their despising worldly things come and living with common possession and the distributions of an universal Charity Whence came these and many other excellencies but from a constant Prayer and a daily Eucharist They who every day represented the death of Christ every day were ready to die for Christ. It was the discourse of an ancient and excellent person And if we consider this Sacrament is intended to unite the spirits and affections of the world and that it is diffusive and powerful to this purpose for we are one body saith S. Paul because we partake of one bread possibly we may have reason to say that the wars of Kingdoms the animosity of Families the infinite
multitude of Law-suits the personal hatreds and the 〈◊〉 want of Charity which hath made the world miserable and wicked may in a great degree be attributed to the neglect of this great symbol and instrument of Charity The Chalice of the Sacrament is called by S. Paul The cup of blessing and if children need every day to beg blessing of their Parents if we also thirst not after this Cup of blessing blessing may be far from us It is called The communication of the bloud of Christ and it is not imaginable that man should love Heaven or felicity or his Lord that desires not perpetually to bathe in that salutary stream the Bloud of the Holy Jesus the immaculate Lamb of God 21. But I find that the religious fears of men are pretended a colour to excuse this Irreligion Men are wicked and not prepared and busie and full of cares and affairs of the world and cannot come with due Preparation and therefore better not come at all Nay men are not ashamed to say they are at 〈◊〉 with certain persons and therefore cannot come Concerning those persons who are unprepared because they are in a state of sin or uncharitableness it is true they must not come but this is so far from excusing their not coming that they increase their sin and secure misery to themselves because they do not lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset them that they may come to the Marriage-supper It is as if we should excuse our selves from the duties of Charity by saying we are uncharitable from giving Alms by saying we are covetous from Chastity by saying we are lascivious To such men it is just that they graze with the Goats because they refuse to wash their hands that they may come to the Supper of the Lamb. 2. Concerning those that pretend cares and incumbrances of the world If their affairs make sin and impure affections to stick upon them they are in the first consideration but if their office be necessary just or charitable they imitate Martha and chuse the less perfect part when they neglect the offices of Religion for duties oeconomical 3. But the other sort have more pretence and fairer vertue in their outside They suppose like the Persian Princes the seldomer such mysterious rites are seen the more reverence we shall have and they the more majesty and they are fearful lest the frequent attrectation of them should make us less to value the great earnests of our Redemption and Immortality It is a pious consideration but not becoming them For it cannot be that the Sacrament be under-valued by frequent reception without the great unworthiness of the persons so turning God's grace into lightness and loathing Manna nay it cannot be without an unworthy communication for he that receives worthily increases in the love of God and Religion and the fires of the Altar are apt to kindle our sparks into a slame and when Christ our Lord enters into us and we grow weary of him or less fond of his frequent entrance and perpetual cohabitation it is an infallible sign we have let his enemy in or are preparing for it For this is the difference between secular and spiritual objects Nothing in this world hath any pleasure in it long beyond the hope of it for the possession and enjoyment is found so empty that we grow weary of it but whatsoever is spiritual and in order to God is less before we have it but in the fruition it swells our desires and enlarges the appetite and makes us more receptive and forward in the entertainment and therefore those acts of Religion that set us forward in time and backward in affection do declare that we have not well done our duty but have communicated unworthily So that the mending of our fault will answer the objection Communicate with more devotion and repent with greater contrition and walk with more caution and pray more earnestly and meditate diligently and receive with reverence and godly fear and we shall find our affections increase together with the spiritual emolument ever remembring that pious and wise advice of S. Ambrose Receive every day that which may profit thee every day But he that is not disposed to receive it every day is not fit to receive it every year 22. And if after all diligence it be still feared that a man is not well prepared I must say that it is a scruple that is a trouble beyond a doubt and without reason next to Superstition and the dreams of Religion and it is nourished by imagining that no duty is accepted if it be less than perfection and that God is busied in Heaven not only to destroy the wicked and to dash in pieces vessels of dishonour but to break a bruised reed in pieces and to cast the smoaking flax into the flames of hell In opposition to which we must know that nothing makes us unprepared but an evil Conscience a state of sin or a deadly act but the lesser infirmities of our life against which we daily strive and for which we never have any kindness or affections are not spots in these Feasts of Charity but instruments of Humility and stronger invitations to come to those Rites which are ordained for 〈◊〉 against infirmities of the Soul and for the growth of the spirit in the strengths of God For those other acts of Preparation which precede and accompany the duty the better and more religiously they are done they are indeed of more advantage and honourary to the Sacrament yet he that comes in the state of Grace though he takes the opportunity upon a sudden offer sins not and in such indefinite duties whose degrees are not described it is good counsel to do our best but it is ill to make them instruments of scruple as if it were essentially necessary to do that in the greatest height which is only intended for advantage and the fairer accommodation of the mystery But these very acts if they be esteemed necessary preparations to the Sacrament are the greatest arguments in the world that it is best to communicate often because the doing of that which must suppose the exercise of so many Graces must needs promote the interest of Religion and dispose strongly to habitual Graces by our frequent and solemn repetition of the acts It is necessary that every Communicant be first examined concerning the state of his Soul by himself or his Superiour and that very Scrutiny is in admirable order towards the reformation of such irregularities which time and temptation negligence and incuriousness infirmity or malice have brought into the secret regions of our Will and Understanding Now although this Examination be therefore enjoyned that no man should approach to the holy Table in the state of ruine and reprobation and that therefore it is an act not of direct Preparation but an enquiry whether we be prepared or no yet this very Examination will find so many
this instance there was a rare mixture of effects as there was in Christ of Natures the voice of a Man and the power of God For it is observed by the Doctors of the Primitive Ages that from the Nativity of our Lord to the day of his Death the Divinity and Humanity did so communicate in effects that no great action passed but it was like the Sun shining through a cloud or a beauty with a thin veil drawn over it they gave illustration and testimony to each other The Holy Jesus was born a tender and a crying Infant but is adored by the Magi as a King by the Angels as their GOD. He is circumcised as a Man but a name is given him to signifie him to be the SAVIOUR of the World He flies into Egypt like a distressed Child under the conduct of his helpless Parents but as soon as he enters the Country the Idols fall down and confess his true Divinity He is presented in the Temple as the Son of man but by Simeon and Anna he is celebrated with divine praises for the MESSIAS the SON OF GOD. He is baptized in Jordan as a Sinner but the Holy Ghost descending upon him proclaimed him to be the well-beloved of God He is hungry in the Desart as a Man but sustained his body without meat and drink for forty days together by the power of his Divinity There he is tempted of Satan as a weak Man and the Angels of light minister unto him as their supreme Lord. And now a little before his death when he was to take upon him all the affronts miseries and exinanitions of the most miserable he receives testimonies from above which are most wonderful For he was tranfigured upon Mount Tabor entred triumphantly into Jerusalem had the acclamations of the people when he was dying he darkned the Sun when he was dead he opened the sepulchres when he was fast nailed to the Cross he made the earth to tremble now when he suffers himself to be apprehended by a guard of Souldiers he strikes them all to the ground only by replying to their answer that the words of the Prophet might be verified Therefore my people shall know my Name therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak behold it is I. 10. The Souldiers and servants of the Jews having recovered from their fall and risen by the permission of Jesus still persisted in their enquiry after him who was present ready and desirous to be sacrificed He therefore permitted himself to be taken but not his Disciples for he it was that set them their bounds and he secured his Apostles to be witnesses of his suffering and his glories and this work was the Redemption of the world in which no man could have an active share he alone was to tread the wine-press and time enough they should be called to a fellowship of sufferings But Jesus went to them and they bound him with cords and so began our liberty and redemption from slavery and sin and cursings and death But he was bound faster by bands of his own his Father's Will and Mercy Pity of the world Prophecies and Mysteries and Love held him fast and these cords were as strong as death and the cords which the Souldiers malice put upon his holy hands were but symbols and figures his own compassion and affection were the morals But yet he undertook this short restraint and condition of a prisoner that all sorts of persecution and exteriour calamities might be hallowed by his susception and these pungent sorrows should like bees sting him and leave their sting behind that all the sweetness should remain for us Some melancholick Devotions have from uncertain stories added sad circumstances of the first violence done to our Lord That they bound him with three cords and that with so much violence that they caused bloud to start from his tender hands That they 〈◊〉 then also upon him with a violence and incivility like that which their Fathers had used towards Hur the brother of Aaron whom they choaked with impure spittings into his throat because he refused to consent to the making a golden Calf These particulars are not transmitted by certain Records Certain it is they wanted no malice and now no power for the Lord had given himself into their hands 11. S. Peter seeing his Master thus ill used asked Master shall we strike with the sword and before he had his answer cut off the ear of Malchus Two swords there were in Christ's family and S. Peter bore one either because he was to kill the Paschal Lamb or according to the custom of the Country to secure them against beasts of prey which in that region were frequent and dangerous in the night But now he used it in an unlawful war he had no competent authority it was against the Ministers of his lawful Prince and against our Prince we must not draw a sword for Christ himself himself having forbidden us as his kingdom is not of this world so neither were his defences secular he could have called for many legions of Angels for his guard if he had so pleased and we read that one Angel slew 185000 armed men in one night and therefore it was a vast power which was at the command of our Lord and he needs not such low auxiliaries as an army of Rebels or a navy of Pirates to 〈◊〉 his cause he first lays the foundation of our happiness in his sufferings and hath ever since supported Religion by patience and suffering and in poverty and all the circumstances and conjunctures of improbable causes Fighting for Religion is certain to destroy Charity but not certain to support Faith S. Peter therefore may use his keys but he is commanded to put up his sword and he did so and presently he and all his fellows fairly ran away and yet that course was much the more Christian for though it had in it much infirmity yet it had no malice In the mean time the Lord was pleased to touch the ear of Malchus and he cured it adding to the first instance of power in throwing them to the ground an act of miraculous mercy curing the wounds of an enemy made by a friend But neither did this pierce their callous and obdurate spirits but they led him in uncouth ways and through the brook Cedron in which it is said the ruder souldiers plunged him and passed upon him all the affronts and rudenesses which an insolent and cruel multitude could think of to signifie their contempt and their rage And such is the nature of evil men who when they are not softned by the instruments and arguments of Grace are much hardned by them such being the purpose of God that either Grace shall cure sin or accidentally increase it that it shall either pardon it or bring it to greater punishment for so I have seen healthful medicines abused by the incapacities of a
though less perfectly it ought not to be denied and they less ought to neglect it 25. But as every man must put himself so also he must put his house in order make his Will if he have an Estate to dispose of and in that he must be careful to do Justice to every man and Charity to the poor according as God hath enabled him and though Charity is then very late if it begins not earlier yet if this be but an act of an ancient habit it is still more perfect as it succeeds in time and superadds to the former stock And among other acts of Duty let it be remembred that it is excellent Charity to leave our Will and desires clear plain and determinate that contention and Law-suits may be prevented by the explicate declaration of the Legacies At last and in all instances and periods of our following days let the former good acts be renewed let God be praised for all his Graces and Blessings of our life let him be intreated for Pardon of our sins let acts of Love and Contrition of Hope of Joy of Humility be the work of every day which God still permits us always remembring to ask remission for those sins we remember not And if the condition of our sickness permits it let our last breath expire with an act of Love that it may begin the Charities of Eternity and like a Taper burnt to its lowest base it may go out with a great emission of light leaving a sweet smell behind us to perfume our Coffin and that these lights newly made brighter or trimmed up in our sickness may shine about our Herse that they may become arguments of a pious sadness to our friends as the charitable Coats which Dorcas made were to the widows and exemplar to all those who observed or shall hear of our holy life and religious death But if it shall happen that the disease be productive of evil accidents as a disturbed phancy a weakned understanding wild discoursings or any deprivation of the use of Reason it concerns the sick persons in the happy intervalls of a quiet untroubled spirit to pray earnestly to God that nothing may pass from him in the rages of a Fever or worse distemper which may less become his duty or give scandal or cause trouble to the persons in attendance and if he shall also renounce and disclaim all such evil words which his disease may speak not himself he shall do the duty of a Christian and a prudent person And after these 〈◊〉 he may with Piety and confidence resign his Soul into the hands of God to be deposited in holy receptacles till the day of restitution of all things and in the mean time with a quiet spirit descend into that state which is the lot of Caesars and where all Kings and Conquerours have laid aside their glories The PRAYER O Eternal and Holy Jesus who by Death hast overcome Death and by thy Passion hast taken out its sting and made it to become one of the gates of Heaven and an entrance to Felicity have mercy upon me now and at the hour of my death let thy Grace accompany me all the days of my life that I may by a holy Conversation and an habitual performance of my Duty wait for the coming of our Lord and be ready to enter with thee at whatsoever hour thou shalt come Lord let not my death be in any sence unprovided nor untimely nor hasty but after the common manner of men having in it nothing extraordinary but an extraordinary Piety and the manifestation of a great and miraculous Mercy Let my Senses and Understanding be preserved intire till the last of my days and grant that I may die the death of the righteous having first discharged all my obligations of justice leaving none miserable and unprovided in my departure but be thou the portion of all my friends and relatives and let thy blessing descend upon their heads and abide there till they shall meet me in the bosom of our Lord. Preserve me ever in the communion and peace of the Church and bless my Death bed with the opportunity of a holy and a spiritual Guide with the assistence and guard of Angels with the perception of the holy Sacrament with Patience and dereliction of my own 〈◊〉 with a strong Faith and a firm and humble Hope with just measures of Repentance and great treasures of Charity to thee my God and to all the world that my Soul in the arms of the Holy Jesus may be deposited with safety and joy there to expect the revelation of thy Day and then to partake the glories of thy Kingdom O Eternal and Holy Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy JESUS He beareth his Cross Ioh 19. 16. 17. And they took Iesus and lead him away 17. And he bearing his Cross went forth into a place called the place of a Scult which is called in y e Hebrew Golgotha They Erect the Crucifixe Ioh 3. 14. 15. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in y e wilderness even so must y e Son of man be lifted up 15. That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but haue eternall life 1. WHen the Sentence of Death pronounced against the Lord was to be put in execution the Souldiers pulled off the Robe of mockery the scarlet Mantle which in jest they put upon him and put on his own garments But as Origen observes the Evangelist mentioned not that they took off the Crown of thorns what might serve their interest they pursue but nothing of remission or mercy to the afflicted Son of man but so it became the King of Sufferings not to lay aside his Imperial thorns till they were changed into Diadems of Glory But now Abel is led forth by his brother to be slain A gay spectacle to satisfie impious eyes who would not stay behind but attended and waited upon the hangman to see the Catastrophe of this bloudy Tragedy But when Piety looks on she beholds a glorious mystery Sin laughed to see the King of Heaven and Earth and the great lover of Souls in stead of the Scepter of his Kingdom to bear a Tree of 〈◊〉 and shame But Plety wept tears of pity and knew they would melt into joy when she should behold that Cross which loaded the shoulders of her Lord afterward sit upon the Scepters and be engraved and signed upon the Foreheads of Kings 2. It cannot be thought but the Ministers of Jewish malice used all the circumstances of affliction which in any case were accustomed towards malefactors and persons to be crucified and therefore it was that in some old Figures we see our Blessed Lord described with a Table appendent to the fringe of his garment set full of nails and pointed iron for so sometimes they afflicted persons condemned to that kind of Death and S. Cyprian affirms that Christ did stick to the wood that he carried being
Saul's seven sons were hanged for breaking the League of Gibeon and Ahab's sin was punished in his posterity he escaping and the evil was brought upon his house in his son's days In all these cases the evil descended upon persons in near relation to the sinner and was a punishment to him and a misery to these and were either chastisements also of their own sins or if they were not they served other ends of Providence and led the afflicted innocent to a condition of recompence accidentally procured by that infliction But if for such relation's sake and oeconomical and political conjunction as between Prince and People the evil may be transmitted from one to another much rather is it just when by contract a competent and conjunct person undertakes to quit his relative Thus when the Hand steals the Back is whipt and an evil Eye is punished with a hungry Belly Treason causes the whole Family to be miserable and a Sacrilegious Grandfather hath sent a Locust to devour the increase of the Nephews 8. But in our case it is a voluntary contract and therefore no Injustice all parties are voluntary God is the supreme Lord and his actions are the measure of Justice we who had deserved the punishment had great reason to desire a Redeemer and yet Christ who was to pay the ransome was more desirous of it than we were for we asked it not before it was promised and undertaken But thus we see that Sureties pay the obligation of the principal Debtor and the Pledges of Contracts have been by the best and wisest Nations slain when the Articles have been broken The Thessalians slew 250 Pledges the Romans 300 of the Volsci and threw the Tarentines from the Tarpeian rock And that it may appear Christ was a person in all sences competent to do this for us himself testifies that he had power over his own life to take it up or lay it down And therefore as there can be nothing against the most exact justice and reason of Laws and punishments so it magnifies the Divine Mercy who removes the punishment from us who of necessity must have sunk under it and yet makes us to adore his Severity who would not forgive us without punishing his Son for us to consign unto us his perfect hatred against Sin to conserve the sacredness of his Laws and to imprint upon us great characters of fear and love The famous Locrian Zaleucus made a Law that all Adulterers should lose both their eyes his son was first unhappily surprised in the crime and his Father to keep a temper between the piety and soft spirit of a Parent and the justice and severity of a Judge put out one of his own eyes and one of his Sons So God did with us he made some abatement that is as to the person with whom he was angry but inflicted his anger upon our Redeemer whom he essentially loved to secure the dignity of his Sanctions and the sacredness of Obedience so marrying Justice and Mercy by the intervening of a commutation Thus David escaped by the death of his Son God chusing that penalty for the expiation and Cimon offered himself to prison to purchase the liberty of his Father Miltiades It was a filial duty in Cimon and yet the Law was satisfied And both these concurred in our great Redeemer For God who was the sole Arbitrator so disposed it and the eternal Son of God submitted to this way of expiating our crimes and became an argument of faith and belief of the great Article of Remission of sins and other its appendent causes and effects and adjuncts it being wrought by a visible and notorious Passion It was made an encouragement of Hope for he that spared not his own Son to reconcile us will with him give all things else to us so reconciled and a great endearment of our Duty and Love as it was a demonstration of his And in all the changes and traverses of our life he is made to us a great example of all excellent actions and all patient sufferings 9. In the midst of two Thieves three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain agony and dishonour all of them so eminent and vast that he who could not but hope whose Soul was enchased with Divinity and dwelt in the bosom of God and in the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity yet had a cloud of misery so thick and black drawn before him that he complained as if God had forsaken him but this was the pillar of cloud which conducted Israel into Canaan And as God behind the Cloud supported the Holy Jesus and stood ready to receive him into the union of his Glories so his Soul in that great desertion had internal comforts proceeding from consideration of all those excellent persons which should be adopted into the fellowship of his Sufferings which should imitate his Graces which should communicate his Glories And we follow this Cloud to our Country having Christ for our Guide and though he trode the way leaning upon the Cross which like the staffe of Egypt pierced his hands yet it is to us a comfort and support pleasant to our spirits as the sweetest Canes strong as the pillars of the earth and made apt for our use by having been born and made smooth by the hands of our Elder Brother 10. In the midst of all his torments Jesus only made one Prayer of sorrow to represent his sad condition to his Father but no accent of murmur no syllable of anger against his enemies In stead of that he sent up a holy charitable and effective Prayer for their forgiveness and by that Prayer obtained of God that within 55 days 8000 of his enemies were converted So potent is the prayer of Charity that it prevails above the malice of men turning the arts of Satan into the designs of God and when malice occasions the Prayer the Prayer becomes an antidote to malice And by this instance our Blessed Lord consigned that Duty to us which in his Sermons he had preached That we should forgive our enemies and pray for them and by so doing our selves are freed from the stings of anger and the storms of a revengeful spirit and we oftentimes procure servants to God friends to our selves and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven 11. Of the two Thieves that were crucified together with our Lord the one blasphemed the other had at that time the greatest Piety in the world except that of the Blessed Virgin and particularly had such a Faith that all the Ages of the Church could never shew the like For when he saw Christ in the same condemnation with himself crucisied by the Romans accused and scorned by the Jews forsaken by his own Apostles a dying distressed Man doing at that time no Miracles to attest his Divinity or Innocence yet then he confesses him to be a Lord and a King and his Saviour He confessed his own
of prepared torments he died a natural death in a good old age 5. After this Jesus having appointed a solemn meeting for all the Brethren that could be collected from the dispersion and named a certain mountain in 〈◊〉 appeared to five hundred Brethren at once and this was his most publick and solemn manifestation and while some doubted Jesus came according to the designation and spake to the eleven sent them to preach to all the world Repentance and Remission of sins in his Name promising to be with them to the end of the world He appeared also unto James but at what time is uncertain save that there is something concerning it in the Gospel of S. Matthew which the Nazarens of 〈◊〉 used and which it is likely themselves added out of report for there is nothing of it in our Greek Copies The words are these When the Lord had given the linen in which he was wrapped to the servant of the High Priest he went and appeared unto James For James had vowed after he received the Lord's Supper that he would eat no bread till he saw the Lord risen from the grave Then the Lord called for bread he blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said My Brother eat bread for the Son of man is risen from the sleep of death So that by this it should seem to be done upon the day of the Resurrection But the relation of it by S. Paul puts it between the appearance which he made to the five hundred and that last to the Apostles when he was to ascend into Heaven Last of all when the Apostles were at dinner he appeared to them upbraiding their incredulity and then he opened their understanding that they might discern the sence of Scripture and again commanded them to preach the Gospel to all the world giving them power to do Miracles to cast out Devils to cure 〈◊〉 and instituted the Sacrament of Baptism which he commanded should together with the Sermons of the Gospel be administred to all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Then he led them into Judaea and they came to Bethany and from thence to the mount Olivet and he commanded them to stay in Jerusalem till the Holy Ghost the promise of the Father should descend upon them which should be accomplished in few days and then they should know the times and the seasons and all things necessary for their ministration and service and propagation of the Gospel And while he discoursed many things concerning the Kingdom behold a Cloud came and parted Jesus from them and carried him in their sight up into Heaven where he sits at the right hand of God blessed for ever Amen 6. While his Apostles stood gazing up to Heaven two Angels appeared to them and told them that Jesus should come in like manner as he was taken away viz. with glory and majesty and in the clouds and with the ministry of Angels Amen Come Lord JESUS come quickly Ad SECT XVI Considerations upon the Accidents happening in the intervall after the Death of the Holy JESUS untill his Resurrection Jesus and Mary in the Garden Joh. 20. 14. 15. 16. Mary turning about saw Jesus standing knew not y t it was Jesus Jesus saith woman whom seekest thou Shee supposing him to be the garidner saith sir if thou have born him hence tell me etc. Jesus saith unto her Mary she turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is Master Jesus saith unto her touch me not for etc. Mary Magdalen came and told the desciples that she had seen the Lord. Our Lords Ascension Acts. 1. 9. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up a Cloud received him out of their sight 10. And while they stedfastly looked toward heaven behold two men stood by them in white apparell 11. Which also said this same Iesus shall so come as you have seen him go into heaven 1. THE Holy Jesus promised to the blessed Thief that he should that day be with him in Paradise which therefore was certainly a place or state of Blessedness because it was a promise and in the society of Jesus whose penal and afflictive part of his work of Redemption was finished upon the Cross. Our Blessed Lord did not promise he should that day be with him in his Kingdom for that day it was not opened and the everlasting doors of those interiour recesses were to be shut till after the Resurrection that himself was to ascend thither and make way for all his servants to enter in the same method in which he went before us Our Blessed Lord descended into Hell saith the Creed of the Apostles from the Sermon of Saint Peter as he from the words of David that is into the state of Separation and common receptacle of Spirits according to the style of Scripture But the name of Hell is no-where in Scripture an appellative of the Kingdom of Christ of the place of final and supreme Glory But concerning the verification of our Lord's promise to the beatified Thief and his own state of Separation we must take what light we can from Scripture and what we can from the Doctrine of the Primitive Church S. Paul had two great Revelations he was rapt up into Paradise and he was rapt up into the third Heaven and these he calls visions revelations not one but divers for Paradise is distinguished from the Heaven of the blessed being it self a receptacle of holy Souls made illustrious with visitation of Angels and happy by being a repository for such spirits who at the day of Judgment shall go forth into eternal glory In the interim Christ hath trod all the paths before us and this also we must pass through to arrive at the Courts of Heaven Justin Martyr said it was the doctrine of heretical persons to say that the Souls of the Blessed instantly upon the separation from their Bodies enter into the highest Heaven And Irenaeus makes Heaven and the intermediate receptacle of Souls to be distinct places both blessed but hugely differing in degrees Tertullian is dogmatical in the assertion that till the voice of the great Archangel be heard and as long as Christ sits at the right hand of his Father making intercession for the Church so long blessed Souls must expect the assembling of their brethren the great Congregation of the Church that they may all pass from their outer courts into the inward tabernacle the Holy of Holies to the Throne of God And as it is certain that no Soul could enter into glory before our Lord 〈◊〉 by whom we hope to have access so it is most agreeable to the proportion 〈◊〉 the mysteries of our Redemption that we believe the entrance into Glory to have been made by our Lord at his glorious Ascension and that his Soul went not thither before 〈◊〉 to come back again
to be contracted into the span of Humanity and dwell forty days in his body upon earth But that he should return from Paradise that is from the common receptacle of departed Spirits who died in the love of God to earth again had in it no lessening of his condition since himself in mercy called back Lazarus from thence and some others also returned to live a life of grace which in all senses is less than the least of glories Sufficient it is to us that all holy Souls departing go into the hands that is into the custody of our Lord that they rest from their labours that their works shall follow them and overtake them too at the day of Judgment that they are happy presently that they are visited by Angels that God sends as he pleases excellent irradiations and types of glory to entertain them in their mansions that their condition is secured but the crown of 〈◊〉 is laid up against the great day of Judgment and then to be produced and given to S. Paul and to all that love the coming of our Lord that is to all who either here in duty or in their receptacles with joy and certain hope long for the revelation of that day At the day of Judgment Christ will send the Angels and they shall gather together the elect from the four winds and all the refuse of men evil persons they shall throw into everlasting burning Then our Blessed Lord shall call to the elect to enter into the Kingdom and reject the cursed into the portion of Devils for whom the fire is but now prepared in the intervall For we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ saith S. Paul that every man may receive in his body according as he hath done whether it be good or evil Out of the body the reception of the reward is not And therefore S. Peter affirms that God hath delivered the evil Angels into chains of darkness to be reserved unto Judgment And S. Jude saith that the Angels which kept not their first faith but left their first habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the Judgment of the great day And therefore the Devils expostulated with our Blessed Saviour Art thou come to torment us before the time And the same also he does to evil men reserving the unjust unto the day of Judgment to be punished For since the actions which are to be judg'd are the actions of the whole man so also must be the Judicature And our Blessed Saviour intimated this to his Apostles In my Father's house are many mansions but I go to prepare a place for you And if I go away I will come again and take you unto me that where I am there ye may be also At Christ's Second coming this is to be performed Many Outer courts many different places or different states there may be and yet there is a place whither holy Souls shall arrive at last which was not then ready for us and was not to be entred into until the entrance of our Lord had made the preparation and that is certainly the highest Heaven called by S. Paul the third Heaven because the other receptacles were ready and full of holy Souls Patriarchs and Prophets and holy men of God concerning whom S. Paul affirms expresly that the Fathers received not the Promises God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect Therefore certain it is that their condition was a state of imperfection and yet they were placed in Paradise in Abraham's bosom and thither Christ went and the blessed Thief attended him And then it was that Christ made their condition better for though still it be a place of relation in order to something beyond it yet the term and object of their hope is changed they sate in the regions of darkness expecting that great Promise made to Adam and the Patriarchs the Promise of the Messias but when he that was promised came he preached to the spirits in Prison he communicated to them the Mysteries of the Gospel the Secrets of the Kingdom the things hidden from eternal Ages and taught them to look up to the glories purchased by his Passion and made the term of their expectation be his Second coming and the objects of their hope the glories of the beatifick vision And although the state of Separation is sometimes in Scripture called 〈◊〉 and sometimes 〈◊〉 for these words in Scripture are of large significations yet it is never called the third 〈◊〉 nor the Hell of the damned for although concerning it nothing is clearly revealed or what is their portion till the day of Judgment yet it is intimated in a Parable that between good and evil spirits even in the state of Separation there is distance of place certain it is there is great distance of condition and as the holy Souls in their regions of light are full of love joy hope and longing for the coming of the great Day so the accursed do expect it with an insupportable amazement and are presently tormented with apprehensions of the future Happy are they that through Paradise pass into the Kingdom who from their highest hope pass to the 〈◊〉 Charity from the state of a blessed Separation to the Mercies and gentle Sentence of the day of Judgment which S. Paul prayed to God to grant 〈◊〉 and more explicitely for the Thessalonians that their whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus And I pray God to grant the same to me and all faithful people whatsoever 2. As soon as the Lord had given up his spirit into the hands of God the veil of the Temple was rent the Angels Guardians of the place deserted it the Rites of Moses were laid open and the inclosures of the Tabernacle were dispark'd the earth trembled the graves were opened and all the old world and the old Religion were so shaken towards their first Chaos that if God had not supported the one and reserved the other for an honourable burial the earth had left to support her children and the Synagogue had been thrown out to an inglorious exposition and contempt But yet in these symbols these were changed from their first condition and passed into a new dominion all old things passed away and all things became new the Earth and the Heavens were reckoned as a new creation they passed into another kingdom under Christ their Lord and as before the creatures were servants of humane necessities they now become servants of election and in order to the ends of Grace as before of Nature Christ having now the power to dispose of them in order to his Kingdom and by the administration of his own Wisdom And at the instant of these accidents God so determined the perswasions of men that they referred these Prodigies of the honour to
Christ and took them as testimonies of that truth for the affirmation of which the High Priest had condemned our dearest Lord and although the heart of the Priest rent not even then when rocks did tear in pieces yet the people who saw the Passion 〈◊〉 their breasts and returned and confessed Christ. 3. The graves of the dead were opened at the Death but the dead boies of the Saints that slept arose not till the Resurrection of our Lord for he was the first fruits and they followed him as instant witnesses to publish the Resurrection of their Head which it is possible they declared to those to whom they appeared in the Holy City And amongst these the curiosity or pious credulity of some have supposed Adam and Eve Abraham Isaac and Jacob who therefore were 〈◊〉 to be buried in the Land of Promise as having some intimation or hope that they might be partakers of the earliest glories of the Messias in whose 〈◊〉 and distant expectation they lived and died And this calling up of company from their graves did publish to all the world not only that the Lord himself was risen according to his so 〈◊〉 and repeated predictions but that he meant to raise up all his servants and that all who believe in him should be partakers of the Resurrection 4. When the souldiers observed that Jesus was dead out of spite and impotent ineffective malice one of them pierced his holy side with a spear and the rock being smitten it gushed out with water and 〈◊〉 streaming forth two Sacraments to refresh the Church and opening a gate that all his brethren might enter in and dwell in the heart of God And so great a love had our Lord that he suffered his heart to be opened to shew as Eve was formed from the side of Adam so was the Church to be from the side of her Lord receiving from thence life and spiritual nutriment which he ministred in so great abundance and suffered himself to be pierced that all his bloud did stream over us until he made the fountain dry and reserved nothing of that by which he knew his Church was to live and move and have her being Thus the stream of Bloud issued out to become a fountain for the Sacrament of the Chalice and Water gushed out to fill the Fonts of Baptism and Repentance The Bloud being the testimony of the Divine Love calls upon us to die for his love when he requires it and the noise of the Water calls upon us to 〈◊〉 our spirits and present our Conscience to Christ holy and pure without spot or wrinkle The Bloud running upon us makes us to be of the cognation and family of God and the Water quenches the flames of Hell and the fires of Concupiscence 5. The friends and Disciples of the Holy Jesus having devoutly composed his Body to Burial anointed it washed it and condited it with spices and perfumes laid it in a Sepulchre hewen from a rock in a Garden which saith 〈◊〉 was therefore done to represent that we were by this death returned to Paradise and the Gardens of pleasures and Divine favours from whence by the prevarication of Adam man was expelled Here he finished the work of his Passion as he had begun it in a Garden and the place of sepulchre being a Rock serves the ends of pious succeeding Ages for the place remains in all Changes of government of Wars of Earthquakes and ruder accidents to this day as a 〈◊〉 of the Sepulchre of our dearest Lord as a sensible and proper confirmation of the perswasions of some persons and as an entertainment of their pious phancy and religious affections 6. But now it was that in the dark and undiscerned mansions there was a scene of the greatest joy and the 〈◊〉 horrour represented which yet was known since the first falling of the morning stars Those holy souls whom the Prophet Zechary calls prisoners of hope 〈◊〉 in the lake where there is no water that is no constant stream of joy to refresh their present condition yet supported with certain showers and gracious visitations from God and illuminations of their hope now that they saw their Redeemer come to change their condition and to improve it into the neighbourhoods of glory and clearer revelations must needs have the joy of intelligent and beatified understandings of redeemed captives of men forgiven after the sentence of death of men satisfied after a tedious expectation enjoying and seeing their Lord whom for so many Ages they had expected But the accursed spirits seeing the darkness of their prison shine with a new light and their Empire invaded and their retirements of horrour discovered wondered how a man durst venture thither or if he were a GOD how he should come to die But the Holy Jesus was like that body of light receiving into himself the reflexion of all the lesser rays of joy which the Patriarchs felt and being united to his 〈◊〉 of felicity apprehended it yet more glorious He now felt the effects of his bitter Passion to return upon him in Comforts every hour of which was abundant recompence for three hours Passion upon the Cross and became to us a great precedent to invite us to a toleration of the acts of Repentance Mortification and Martyrdom and that in times of suffering we live upon the stock and expence of Faith as remembring that 〈◊〉 few moments of infelicity are infinitely paid with every minute of glory and yet that the glory which is certainly consequent is so lasting and perpetual that it were enough in a lower joy to make amends by its continuation of eternity And let us but call to mind what thoughts we shall have when we die or are dead how we shall then without prejudice consider that if we had done our duty the trouble and the affliction would now be past and nothing remain but pleasures and felicities eternal and how infinitely happy we shall then be if we have done our duty and how miserable if not all the pleasures of sin disappearing and nothing surviving but a certain and everlasting torment Let us carry alway the same thoughts with us which must certainly then intervene and we shall meet the Holy Jesus and partake of his joys which over-flowed his holy Soul when he first entred into the possession of those excellent fruits and effects of his Passion 7. When the third day was come the Soul of Jesus returned from Paradise and the visitation of separate spirits and re-entred into his holy Body which he by his Divine power did redintegrate filling his veins with bloud healing all the wounds excepting those five of his hands feet and side which he reserved as Trophies of his victory and argument of his Passion And as he had comforted the Souls of the Fathers with the presence of his Spirit so now he saw it to be time to bring comfort to his Holy Mother to re-establish the tottering Faith of
Iron and that for three years and an half together as in the case of 〈◊〉 's prayer if he say to the Sea Divide 't will run upon heaps and become on both sides as firm as a wall of Marble Nothing can be more natural than for the fire to burn and yet at God's command it will forget its nature and become a screen and a fence to the three Children in the Babylonian Furnace What heavier than Iron or more natural than for gravity to tend downwards and yet when God will have it Iron shall float like Cork on the top of the water The proud and raging Sea that naturally refuses to bear the bodies of men while alive became here as firm as Brass when commanded to wait upon and do homage to the God of Nature Our Lord walking towards the Ship as if he had an intention to pass by it he was espied by them who presently thought it to be the Apparition of a Spirit Hereupon they were seiz'd with great terror and consternation and their fears in all likelihood heightned by the vulgar opinion that they are evil Spirits that chuse rather to appear in the night than by day While they were in this agony our Lord taking compassion on them calls to them and bids them not be afraid for that it was no other than he himself Peter the eagerness of whose temper carried him forward to all bold and resolute undertakings intreated our Lord that if it was he he might have leave to come upon the water to him Having received his orders he went out of the Ship and walked upon the Sea to meet his Master But when he found the wind to bear hard against him and the waves to rise round about him whereby probably the sight of Christ was intercepted he began to be afraid and the higher his fears arose the lower his Faith began to sink and together with that his body to sink under water whereupon in a passionate fright he cried out to our Lord to help him who reaching out his arm took him by the hand and set him again upon the top of the water with this gentle reproof O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt It being the weakness of our Faith that makes the influences of the Divine power and goodness to have no better effect upon us Being come to the Ship they took them in where our Lord no sooner arrived but the winds and waves observing their duty to their Sovereign Lord and having done the errand which they came upon mannerly departed and vanished away and the Ship in an instant was at the shore All that were in the Ship being strangely astonished at this Miracle and fully convinced of the Divinity of his person came and did homage to him with this confession Of a truth thou art the Son of God After which they went ashore and landed in the Country of Genezareth and there more fully acknowledged him before all the people 6. THE next day great multitudes flocking after him he entred into a Synagogue at Capernaum and taking occasion from the late Miracle of the loaves which he had wrought amongst them he began to discourse concerning himself as the true Manna and the Bread that came down from Heaven largely opening to them many of the more sublime and Spiritual mysteries and the necessary and important duties of the Gospel Hereupon a great part of his Auditory who had hitherto followed him finding their understandings gravelled with these difficult and uncommon Notions and that the duties he required were likely to grate hard upon them and perceiving now that he was not the Messiah they took him for whose Kingdom should consist in an external Grandeur and plenty but was to be managed and transacted in a more inward and Spiritual way hereupon fairly left him in open field and henceforth quite turned their backs upon him Whereupon our Lord turning about to his Apostles asked them whether they also would go away from him Peter spokes-man generally for all the rest answered whither should they go to mend and better their condition should they return back to Moses Alas he laid a yoke upon them which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Should they go to the Scribes and Pharisees they would feed them with Stones instead of Bread obtrude humane Traditions upon them for Divine dictates and Commands Should they betake themselves to the Philosophers amongst the Gentiles they were miserably blind and short-sighted in their Notions of things and their sentiments and opinions not only different from but contrary to one another No 't was he only had the words of Eternal life whose doctrine could instruct them in the plain way to Heaven that they had fully assented to what both John and he had said concerning himself that they were fully perswaded both from the efficacy of his Sermons which they heard and the powerful conviction of his Miracles which they had seen that he was the Son of the living God the true Messiah and Saviour of the World But notwithstanding this fair and plausible testimony he tells them that they were not all of this mind that there was a Satan amongst them one that was moved by the spirit and impulse and that acted according to the rules and interest of the Devil intimating Judas who should betray him So hard is it to meet with a body of so just and pure a constitution wherein some rotten member or distempered part is not to be found SECT IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passover Our Saviour's Journy with his Apostles to Caesarea The Opinions of the People concerning Him Peter's eminent Confession of Christ and our Lord 's great commendation of it Thou art Peter and upon this Rock c. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven how given The advantage the Church of Rome makes of these passages This confession made by Peter in the name of the rest and by others before him No personal priviledge intended to S. Peter the same things elsewhere promised to the other Apostles Our 〈◊〉 discourse concerning his 〈◊〉 Peter's unseasonable zeal in disswading him from it and our Lord 's severe rebuking him Christ's Transfiguration and the glory of it Peter how affected with it Peter's paying Tribute for Christ and himself This Tribute what Our Saviour's discourse upon it Offending brethren how oft to be forgiven The young man commanded to sell all What compensation made to the followers of Christ. Our Lord 's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem Preparation made to keep the Passover 1. IT was some time since our Saviour had kept his third Passover at Jerusalem when he directed his Journy towards Caesarea Philippi where by the way having like a lawful Master of his Family first prayed with his Aposlles he began to ask them having been more than two Years publickly conversant amongst them what the world thought concerning him They answered that
Servant-maid that let him in and earnestly looking upon him she charged him with being one of Christ's Disciples which Peter publickly denied before all the Company positively affirming that he knew him not And presently withdrew himself into the Porch where he heard the Cock crow An intimation which one would have thought should have awakened his Conscience into a quick sense of his duty and the promise he had made unto his Master In the Porch another of the Maids set upon him charging him that he also was one of them that had been with Jesus of Nazareth which Peter stoutly denyed saying that he knew not Christ and the better to gain their belief to what he said ratified it with an Oath So natural is it for one sin to draw on another 7. ABOUT an Hour after he was a third time set upon by a Servant of the High Priest Malchus his Kinsman whose Ear Peter had lately cut off By him he was charged to be one of Christ's Disciples Yea that his very speech betrayed him to be a Galilean For the Galileans though they did not speak a different language had yet a different Dialect using a more confused and barbarous a broader and more unpolished way of pronunciation than the rest of the Jews whereby they were easily distinguishable in their speaking from other men abundant instances whereof there are extant in the Talmud at this day Nay not only gave this evidence but added that he himself had seen him with Jesus in the Garden Peter still resolutely denied the matter and to add the highest accomplishment to his sin ratified it not only with an Oath but a solemn Curse and execration that he was not the person that he knew not the man 'T is but a very weak excuse which S. Ambrose and some others make for this Act of Peter's in saying I knew not the Man He did well says he to deny him to be Man whom he knew to be God S. Hierom takes notice of this pious and well-meant excuse made for Peter though out of modesty he conceals the name of its Authors but yet justly censures it as trifling and frivolous and which to excuse Man from folly would charge God with falshood for if he did not deny him then our Lord was out when he said that that Night he should thrice deny him that is his Person and not only his humanity Certainly the best Apology that can be made for Peter is that he quickly repented of this great sin for no sooner had he done it but the Cock crew again at which intimation our Saviour turn'd about and earnestly looked upon him a glance that quickly pierced him to the Heart and brought to his remembrance what our Lord had once and again foretold him of how foully and shamefully he should deny him whereupon not being able to contain his sorrow he ran out of Doors to give it vent and wept bitterly passionately bewailing his folly and the aggravations of his sin thereby indeavouring to make some reparation for his fault and recover himself into the favour of Heaven and to prevent the execution of Divine Justice by taking a severe revenge upon himself by these penitential tears he endeavoured to wash off his guilt as indeed Repentance is the next step to Innocence SECT VI. Of S. Peter from Christ ' s Resurrection till his Ascension Our Lord's care to acquaint Peter with his Resurrection His going to the Sepulchre Christ's appearance to Peter when and the Reasons of it The Apostles Journey into Galilee Christ's appearing to them at the Sea of Tiberias His being discovered by the great draught of Fishes Christ's questioning Peter's love and why Feed my Sheep commended to Peter imports no peculiar supereminent power and soveraignty Peter's death and sufferings foretold Our Lord takes his last leave of the Apostles at Bethany His Ascension into Heaven The Chappel of the Ascension The Apostles joy at their Lord's Exaltation 1. WHAT became of Peter after his late Prevarication whether he followed our Saviour through the several stages of his Trial and personally attended as a Mourner at the Funerals of his Master we have no account left upon Record No doubt he stayed at Jerusalem and probably with S. John together with whom we first find him mentioned when both setting forwards to the Sepulchre which was in this manner Early on that Morning whereon our Lord was to return from the Grave Mary Magdalen and some other devout and pious Women brought Spices and Ointments with a design to Imbalm the Body of our crucified Lord. Coming to the Sepulchre at Sun-rising and finding the Door open they entred in where they were suddainly 〈◊〉 by an Angel who told them that Jesus was risen and bad them go and 〈◊〉 his Apostles and particularly Peter that he was returned from the dead and that he would go before them into Galilee where they should meet with him Hereupon they returned back and acquainted the Apostles with what had passed who beheld the story as the product of a weak frighted fancy But Peter and John presently hastned towards the Garden John being the younger and nimbler out-ran his Companion and came first thither where he only looked but entred not in either out of fear in himself or a great Reverence to our Saviour Peter though behind in space was before in zeal and being elder and more considerate came and resolutely entred in where they found nothing but the Linnen Clothes lying together in one place and the Napkin that was about his Head wrapped together in another which being disposed with so much care and order shewed what was falsly suggested by the Jewes that our Saviour's Body was not taken away by Thieves who are wont more to consult their escape than how to leave things orderly disposed behind them 2. THE same Day about Noon we may suppose it was that our Lord himself appeared alone to Peter being assured of the thing though not so precisely of the time That he did so S. Paul expresly tells us and so did the Apostles the two Disciples that came from Emmaus The Lord is risen and had appeared unto Simon which probably intimates that it was before his appearing to those two Disciples And indeed we cannot but think that our Lord would hasten the manifestation of himself to him as compassionating his case being overwhelmed with sorrow for the late shameful denial of his Master and was therefore willing in the first place to honour him with his presence at once to confirm him in the Article of his Resurrection and to let him see that he was restored to the place which before he had in his grace and favour S. Paul mentioning his several appearances after his Resurrection seems to make this the first of them That he was seen of Cephas Not that it was simply the first for he first appeared to the Women But as 〈◊〉 observes it was the first that
S. Jude speaking of the Scoffers who should come in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts cites this as that which had been before spoken by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ wherein he plainly quotes the words of this Second Epistle of Peter affirming That there should come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts And that this does agree to Peter will further appear by this that he tells us of these Scoffers that should come in the last days that is before the destruction of Jerusalem as that phrase is often used in the New Testament that they should say Where is the promise of his coming Which clearly respects their making light of those threatnings of our Lord whereby he had foretold that he would shortly come in Judgment for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation This he now puts them in mind of as what probably he had before told them of 〈◊〉 vocc when he was amongst them For so we find he did elsewhere Lactantius assuring us That amongst many strange and wonderful things which Peter and Paul preached at Rome and lest upon Record this was one That within a short time God would send a Prince who should destroy the Jews and lay their Cities level with the ground straitly besiege them destroy them with Famine so that they should feed upon one another That their Wives and Daughters should be ravished and their Childrens brains dasht out before their faces that all things should be laid waste by Fire and Sword and themselves perpetually banished from their own Countrey and this for their insolent and merciless usage of the innocent and dear Son of God All which as he observes came to pass soon after their death when 〈◊〉 came upon the Jews and extinguished both their Name and Nation And what Peter here foretold at Rome we need not question but he had done before to those Jews to whom he wrote this Epistle Wherein he especially antidotes them against those corrupt and poisonous principles wherewith many and especially the followers of Simon Magus began to insect the Church of Christ. And this but a little time before his death as appears from that passage in it where he tells them That he knew he must shortly put off his earthly Tabernacle 7. BESIDES these Divine Epistles there were other supposititious writings which in the first Ages were fathered upon S. Peter Such was the Book called his Acts mentioned by Origen Eusebius and others but rejected by them Such was his Gospel which probably at first was nothing else but the Gospel written by S. Mark dictated to him as is generally thought by S. Peter and therefore as S. 〈◊〉 tells us said to be his Though in the next Age there appeared a Book under that Title mentioned by Serapion Bishop of Antioch and by him at 〈◊〉 suffered to be read in the Church but afterwards upon a more careful perusal of it he rejected it as Apocryphal as it was by others after him Another was the Book stiled His Preaching mentioned and quoted both by Clemens Alexandrinus and by Origen but not acknowledged by them to be Genuine Nay expresly said to have been forged by Hereticks by an ancient Author contemporary with S. Cyprian The next was his Apocalypse or Revelation rejected as Sozomen tells us by the 〈◊〉 as Spurious but yet read in some Churches in Palestine in his time The last was the Book called His Judgment which probably was the same with that called Hermes or Pastor a Book of good use and esteem in the first times of Christianity and which as Eusebius tells us was not only frequently cited by the Ancients but also publickly read in Churches 8. WE shall conclude this Section by considering Peter with respect to his several Relations That he was married is unquestionable the Sacred History mentioning his Wives Mother his Wife might we believe Metaphrastes being the Daughter of Aristobulus Brother to Barnabas the Apostle And though S. Hierom would perswade us that he left her behind him together with his Nets when he forsook all to follow Christ yet we know that Father too well to be over-confident upon his word in a case of Marriage or Single life wherein he is not over-scrupulous sometimes to strain a point to make his opinion more fair and plausible The best is we have an infallible Authority which plainly intimates the contrary the testimony of S. Paul who tells us of Cephas that he led about a Wife a Sister along with him who for the most part mutually cohabited lived together for ought that can be proved to the contrary Clemens Alexandrinus gives us this account though he tells us not the time or place That Peter seeing his Wife going towards Martyrdom exceedingly rejoyced that she was called to so great an honour and that she was now returning home encouraging and earnestly exhorting her and calling her by her Name bad her to be mindful of our Lord. Such says he was the Wedlock of that blessed couple and the perfect disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them By her he is said to have had a Daughter called Petronilla Metaphrastes adds a Son how truly I know not This only is certain that S. Clemens of Alexandria reckons Peter for one of the Apostles that was Married and had Children And surely he who was so good a man and so good an Apostle was as good in the relation both of an Husband and a Father SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome Peter's being at Rome granted in general The account of it given by Baronius and the Writers of that Church rejected and disproved No foundation for it in the History of the Apostolick Acts. No mention of it in S. Paul's Epistle to the Romans No news of his being there at S. Paul's coming to Rome nor intimation of any such thing in the several Epistles which S. Paul wrote from thence S. Peter's first being at Rome inconsistent with the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem And with an Ancient Tradition that the Apostles were commanded to stay Twelve years in Judaea after Christ's death Apassage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the 〈◊〉 of the Romish Church in their Accounts Peter's being XXV years Bishop of Rome no solid foundation for it in Antiquity The Planting and Governing that Church equally attributed to Peter and Paul S. Peter when probably came to Rome Different dates of his Martyrdom assigned by the Ancients A probable account given of it 1. THOUGH it be not my purpose to swim against the Stream and Current of Antiquity in denying S. Peter to have been at Rome an Assertion easilier perplexed and intangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there
alone it was that Men if ever must be justified and acquitted from that Guilt and Condemnation which all the pompous Ceremonies and Ministeries of the Mosaic Law could never do away That therefore they should do well to take heed lest by their opposing this way of Salvation they should bring upon themselves that prophetical curse which God had threatned to the Jews of old for their great contumacy and neglect This Sermon wanted not its due effects The 〈◊〉 Jewes desired the Apostles to discourse again to them of this matter the next Sabbath Day the Apostles also perswading them to continue firm in the belief of these things The Day was no sooner come but the whole City almost flocked to be their Auditors which when the Jewes saw acted by a spirit of envy they began to blaspheme and to contradict the Apostles who nothing daunted told them that our Lord had charged them first to preach the Gospel to the Jews which since they so obstinately rejected they were now to address themselves to the Gentiles who hearing this exceedingly rejoyced at the good news and magnified the Word of God and as many of them as were thus prepared and disposed towards eternal life heartily closed with it and embraced it the Apostles preaching not there only but through the whole Country round about The Jews more exasperated than before resolved to be rid of their company and to that end perswaded some of the more devout and honourable Women to deal with their Husbands Persons of prime rank and quality in the City by whose means they were driven out of those parts Whereat Paul and Barnabas shaking off the dust of their Feet as a Testimony against their ingratitude and infidelity departed from them 5. THE next place they went to was Iconium where at first they found kind entertainment and good success God setting a Seal to their Doctrine by the Testimony of his Miracles But here the Jewish malice began again to ferment exciting the People to sedition and a mutiny against them Insomuch that hearing of a 〈◊〉 to stone them they seasonably withdrew to Lystra where they first made their way by a miraculous cure For S. Paul seeing an impotent Cripple that had been lame from his Mothers Womb cured him with the speaking of a word The People who beheld the Miracle had so much natural Logick as to infer that there was a Divinity in the thing though mistaking the Author they applied it to the Instruments crying out That the Gods in humane shape were come down from Heaven Paul as being chief Speaker they termed Mercury the God of speech and eloquence Barnabas by reason of his Age and gravity they called Jupiter the Father of their Gods accordingly the Syriac Interpreter here renders Jupiter by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord or Soveraign of the Gods The fame of this being spread over the City the Priest of Jupiter brought Oxen dressed up with Garlands after the Gentile Rites to the House where the Apostles were to do Sacrifice to them Which they no sooner understood but in detestation of those undue honours offered to them they rent their clothes and told them that they were Men of the same make and temper of the same passions and infirmities with themselves that the design of their Preaching was to convert them from these vain Idolatries and superstitions to the worship of the true God the great Parent of the World who though heretofore he had left Men to themselves to go on in their own ways of Idolatrous worship yet had he given sufficient evidence of himself in the constant returns of a gracious and benign providence in crowning the Year with fruitful Seasons and other acts of common kindness and bounty to Mankind 6. A SHORT discourse but very rational and convictive which it may not be amiss a little more particularly to consider and the method which the Apostle uses to convince these blind Idolaters He proves Divine honours to be due to God alone as the Sovereign Being of the World and that there is such a Supreme infinite Being he argues from his Works both of Creation and Providence Creation He is the living God that made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all things that are therein Providence He left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness Than which no argument can be more apt and proper to work upon the minds of men That which may be known of God is manifest to the Gentiles for God hath shewed it unto them For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the world even his eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen and understood by the things that are made It being impossible impartially to survey the several parts of the Creation and not see in every place evident footsteps of an infinite wisdom power and goodness Who can look up unto the Heavens and not there discern and Almighty wisdom beautifully garnishing those upper Regions distinguishing the circuits and perpetuating the motions of the Heavenly lights placing the Sun in the middle of the Heavens that he might equally dispence and communicate his light and heat to all parts of the World and not burn the Earth with the too near approach of his seorching beams by which means the Creatures are refreshed and cheared the Earth impregnated with fruits and flowers by the benign influence of a vital heat and the vicissitudes and seasons of the year regularly distinguished by their constant and orderly revolutions Whence are the great Orbs of Heaven kept in continual motion always going in the same tract but because there 's a Superiour power that keeps these great wheels a going Who is it that poises the ballancings of the Clouds that divides a water-course for the overflowing of waters and a way for the lightning of the Thunder Who can bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion Or who can bring forth Mazaroth in his season or guide Arcturus with his sons Do these come by chance or by the secret appointment of infinite wisdom Who can consider the admirable thinness and purity of the Air its immediate subserviency to the great ends of the Creation its being the treasury of vital breath to all living Creatures without which the next moment must put a period to our days and not reflect upon that Divine wisdom that contrivedit If we come down upon the Earth there we discover a Divine providence supporting it with the pillars of an invisible power stretching the North over the empty space and hanging the Earth upon nothing filling it with great variety of admirable and useful Creatures and maintaining them all according to their kinds at his own cost and charges 'T is he that clothes the Grass with a delightful verdure that crowns the Year with his loving kindness and makes the Valleys stand thick with corn that
on to preach confidently and securely for that he himself would stand by him and preserve him 2. ABOUT this time as is most probable he wrote his first Epistle to the Thessalonians Silas and Timothy being lately returned from thence and having done the message for which he had sent them thither The main design of the Epistle is to confirm them in the belief of the Christian Religion and that they would persevere in it notwithstanding all the afflictions and persecutions which he had told them would ensue upon their profession of the Gospel and to instruct them in the main duties of a Christian and Religious life While the Apostle was thus imployed the malice of the Jews was no less at work against him and universally combining together they brought him before Gallio the Proconsul of the Province elder Brother to the famous Seneca Before him they accused the Apostle as an Innovator in Religion that sought to introduce a new way of worship contrary to what was established by the Jewish Law and permitted by the Roman Powers The Apostle was ready to have pleaded his own cause but the Proconsul told them that had it been a matter of right or wrong that had faln under the cognizance of the Civil Judicature it had been very fit and reasonable that he should have heard and determined the case but since the controversie was only concerning the punctilio's and niceties of their Religion it was very improper for him to be a Judge in such matters And when they still clamoured about it he threw out their Indictment and commanded his officers to drive them out of Court Whereupon some of the Towns men seised upon Sosthenes one of the Rulers of the Jewish Consistory a man active and busie in this Insurrection and beat him even before the Court of Judicature the Proconsul not at all concerning himself about it A year and an half S. Paul continued in this place and before his departure thence wrote his second Epistle to the Thessalonians to supply the want of his coming to them which in his former he had resolved on and for which in a manner he had engaged his promise In this therefore he endeavours again to confirm their minds in the truth of the Gospel and that they would not be shaken with those troubles which the wicked unbelieving Jews would not cease to create them a lost and undone race of men and whom the Divine vengeance was ready finally to overtake And because some passages in his 〈◊〉 Letter relating to this destruction had been mis-understood as if this day of the Lord were just then at hand he rectifies those mistakes and shews what must precede our Lord's coming unto Judgment 3. S. 〈◊〉 having thus fully planted and cultivated the Church at Corinth resolved now for Syria And taking along with him Aquila and Priscilla at Cenchrea the Port and Harbour of Corinth Aquila for of him it is certainly to be understood shaved his head in performance of a Nazarite-Vow he had formerly made the time whereof was now run out In his passage into Syria he came to Ephesus where he preached a while in the Synagogue of the Jews And though desired to stay with them yet having resolved to be at Jerusalem at the Passeover probably that he might have the fitter opportunity to meet his friends and preach the Gospel to those vast numbers that usually 〈◊〉 to that great solemnity he promised that in his return he would come again to them Sailing thence he landed at Caesarca and thence went up to Jerusalem where having visited the Church and kept the Feast he went down to Antioch Here having staid some time he traversed the Countries of Galatia and Phrygia confirming as he went the new-converted Christians and so came to 〈◊〉 where finding certain Christian Disciples he enquired of them whether since their conversion they had received the miraculous gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost They told him that the Doctrine which they had received had nothing in it of that nature nor had they ever heard that any such extraordinary Spirit had of late been bestowed upon the Church Hereupon he further enquired unto what they had been baptized the Christian Baptism being administred in the name of the Holy Ghost They answered they had received no more than John's Baptism which though it 〈◊〉 them to repentance yet did explicitly speak nothing of the Holy Ghost or its gists and powers To this the Apostle replied That though John's Baptism did openly oblige to nothing but Repentance yet that it did implicitly acknowledge the whole Doctrine concerning Christ and the Holy Ghost Whereto they assenting were solemnly initiated by Christian Baptism and the Apostle laying his hands upon them they immediately received the Holy Ghost in the gift of Tongues Prophecy and other miraculous powers conferred upon them 4. AFTER this he 〈◊〉 into the Jewish Synagogues where for the first three months he contended and disputed with the Jews endeavouring with great earnestness and resolution to convince them of the truth of those things that concerned the Christian Religion But when instead of success he met with nothing but refractoriness and infidelity he left the Synagogue and taking those with him whom he had converted instructed them and others that resorted to him in the School of one Tyrannus a place where Scholars were wont to be educated and instructed In this manner he continued for two years together In which time the Jews and Proselytes of the whole 〈◊〉 Asia had opportunity of having the Gospel preached to them And because Miracles are the clearest evidence of a Divine commission and the most immediate Credentials of Heaven those which do nearliest affect our senses and consequently have the strongest influence upon our minds therefore God was pleased to ratifie the doctrine which S. Paul delivered by great and miraculous operations and those of somewhat a more peculiar and extraordinary nature Insomuch that he did not only heal those that came to him but if Napkins or Handkerchiefs were but touched by him and applied unto the sick their diseases immediately vanished and the Daemons and evil Spirits departed out of those that were possessed by them 5. EPHESUS above all other places in the World was noted of old for the study of Magick and all secret and hidden Arts whence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so often spoken of by the Ancients which were certain obscure and mystical Spells and Charms by which they endeavoured to heal Diseases and drive away evil Spirits and do things beyond the reach and apprehensions of common people Besides other professors of this black Art there were at this time at Ephesus certain Jews who dealt in the arts of 〈◊〉 and Incantation a craft and mystery which Josephus affirms to have been derived from Solomon who he tells us did not only find it out but composed forms of Exorcism and Inchantment whereby to cure diseases and expel
destroy himself but live and enjoy with him the pleasures of this life The Apostle told him that he should have with him eternal joys if renouncing his execrable idolatries he would heartily entertain Christianity which he had hitherto so successfully preached amongst them That answered the Proconsul is the very reason why I am so earnest with you to sacrifice to the Gods that those whom you have every where seduced may by your example be brought to return back to that ancient Religion which they have forsaken Otherwise I 'le cause you with exquisites tortures to be crucified The Apostle replied That now he saw it was in vain any longer to deal with him a person incapable of sober counsels and hardned in his own blindness and folly that as for himself he might do his worst and if he had one torment greater than another he might heap that upon him The greater constancy he shewed in his sufferings for Christ the more acceptable he should be to his Lord and Master AEgeas could now hold no longer but passed the sentence of death upon him and Nicephorus gives us some more particular account of the Proconsul's displeasure and rage against him which was that amongst others he had converted his wife Maximilla and his brother Stratocles to the Christian Faith having cured them of desperate distempers that had seised upon them 7. THE Proconsul first commanded him to be scourged seven Lictors successively whipping his naked body and seeing his invincible patience and constancy commanded him to be crucified but not to be fastned to the Cross with Nails but Cords that so his death might be more lingring and tedious As he was led to execution to which he went with a chearful and composed mind the people cried out that he was an innocent and good man and unjustly condemned to die Being come within sight of the Cross he saluted it with this kind of address That he had long desired and expected this happy hour that the Cross had been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it and adorned with his members as with so many inestimable Jewels that he came joyfull and triumphing to it that it might receive him as a disciple and follower of him who once hung upon it and be the means to carry him safe unto his Master having been the instrument upon which his Master had redeemed him Having prayed and exhorted the people to constancy and perseverance in that Religion which he had delivered to them he was fastned to the Cross whereon he hung two days teaching and instructing the people all the time and when great importunities in the mean while were used to the Proconsul to spare his life he earnestly begged of our Lord that he might at this time depart and seal the truth of his Religion with his bloud God heard his prayer and he immediately expired on the last of November though in what year no certain account can be recovered 8. THERE seems to have been something peculiar in that Cross that was the instrument of his martyrdom commonly affirmed to have been a Cross decussate two pieces of Timber crossing each other in the middle in the form of the letter X hence usually known by the name of S. Andrew's Cross though there want not those who affirm him to have been crucified upon an Olive Tree His body being taken down and embalmed was decently and honourably interred by Maximilla a Lady of great quality and estate and whom Nicephorus I know not upon what ground makes wise to the Proconsul As for that report of Gregory Bishop of Tours that on the Anniversary day of his Martyrdom there was wont to flow from S. Andrew's Tomb a most fragrant and precious oyl which according to its quantity denoted the scarceness or plenty of the following year and that the sick being anointed with this oyl were restored to their former health I leave to the Readers discretion to believe what he please of it For my part if any ground of truth in the story I believe it no more than that it was an exhalation and sweating sorth at some times of those rich costly perfumes and ointments wherewith his Body was embalmed after his crucisixion Though I must confess this conjecture to be impossible if it be true what my Author adds that some years the oyl burst out in such plenty that the stream arose to the middle of the Church His Body was afterwards by Constantine the Great solemnly removed to Constantinople and buried in the great Church which he had built to the honour of the Apostles Which being taken down some hundred years after by Justinian the Emperor in order to its reparation the Body was found in a wooden-Coffin and again reposed in its proper place 9. I SHALL conclude the History of this Apostle with that Encomiastick Character which one of the Ancients gives of him S. Andrew was the first-born of the Apostolick Quire the main and prime pillar of the Church a rock before the rock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of that foundation the first-fruits of the beginning a caller of others before he was called himself he preached that Gospel that was not yet believed or entertained revealed and made known that life to his brother which he had not yet perfectly learn'd himself So great treasures did that one question bring him Master where dwellest thou which he soon perceived by the answer given him and which he deeply pondered in his mind come and see How art thou become a Prophet whence thus Divinely skilful what is it that thou thus soundest in Peter's ears We have found him c. why dost thou attempt to compass him whom thou canst not comprehend how can he be found who is Omnipresent But he knew well what he said We have found him whom Adam lost whom Eve injured whom the clouds of sin have hidden from us and whom our transgressions had hitherto made a stranger to us c. So that of all our Lord's Apostles S. Andrew had thus far the honour to be the first Preacher of the Gospel The End of S. Andrew's Life THE LIFE OF S. JAMES the Great St. Iames Major He being the Son of Zebedee was at the Command of Herod beheaded at Hierusalem Ad. 122 St. James the Great his Martyrdom Act. 12. 1 2. About that time Herod the King streched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church And he killed James the brother of John with y e sword S. James why surnamed the Great His Country and kindred His alliance to Christ. His Trade and way of Life Our Lord brought up to a Manual Trade The quick reparteé of a Christian Schoolmaster to Libanius His being called to be a Disciple and great readiness to follow Christ. His election to the Apostolick Office and peculiar favours from Christ. Why our Lord chose some few of the Apostles to be witnesses of the more private passages of his
that he was so infinitely vigilant against Hereticks and Seducers countermining their artifices antidoting against the poison of their errors and shunning all communion and conversation with their persons Going along with some of his friends at Ephesus to the Bath whither he used frequently to resort and the ruines whereof of Porphyry not far from the place where stood the famous Temple of Diana as a late eye-witness informs us are still shewed at this day he enquired of the servant that waited there who was within the servant told him Cerinthus Epiphanius says it was Ebion and 't is not improbable that they might be both there which the Apostle no sooner understood but in great abhorrency he turned back Let 's be gon my brethren said he and make haste from this place lest the Bath wherein there is such an Heretick as Cerinthus the great enemy of the truth fall upon our heads This account Irenaeus delivers from Polycarp S. John's own Scholar and Disciple This Cerinthus was a man of loose and pernicious principles endeavouring to corrupt Christianity with many damnable Errors To make himself more considerable he struck in with the Jewish Converts and made a bustle in that great controversie at Jerusalem about Circumcision and the observation of the Law of Moses But his usual haunt was Asia where amongst other things he openly denied Christ's Resurrection affirmed the World to have been made by Angels broaching unheard of Dogmata and pretending them to have been communicated to him by Angels venting Revelations composed by himself as a great Apostle affirming that after the Resurrection the reign of Christ would commence here upon Earth and that men living again at Jerusalem should for the space of a thousand years enjoy all manner of sensual pleasures and delights hoping by this fools Paradise that he should tempt men of loose and brutish minds over to his party Much of the same stamp was Ebion though in some principles differing from him as error agrees with it self as little as with truth who held that the holy Jesus was a mere and a mean man begotten by Joseph of Mary his Wife and that the observance of the Mosaick Rites and Laws was necessary to Salvation And because they saw S. Paul stand so full in their way they reproached him as an Apostate from his Religion and rejected his Epistles owning none but S. Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew having little or no value for the rest the Sabbath and Jewish Rites they observed with the Jews and on the Lord's day celebrated the memory of our Lord's Resurrection 〈◊〉 cording to the custom and practice of the Christians 13. BESIDES these there was another sort of Hereticks that infested the Church in S. John's time the Nicolaitans mentioned by him in his Revelation and whose doctrine our Lord is with a particular Emphasis there said to hate indeed a most wretched and brutish Sect generally supposed to derive their original from Nicolas one of the seven Deacons whom we read of 〈◊〉 the Acts whereof Glemens of Alexandria gives this probable account This Nicolas having a beautiful Wife and being reproved by the Apostles for being jealous of her to shew how far he was from it brought her forth and gave any that would leave to marry her affirming this to be suitable to that saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That we ought to abuse the flesh This speech he tell us was ascribed to S. Matthias who taught That we must fight with the flesh and abuse it and not allowing it any thing for pleasure encrease the Soul by faith and knowledge These words and actions of his his disciples and followers misunderstanding and perverting things to the worst sence imaginable began to let loose the reins and henceforwards to give themselves over to the greatest filthiness the most shameless and impudent uncleanness throwing down all inclosures making the most promiscuous mixtures lawful and pleasure the ultimate end and happiness of Man Such were their principles such their practices whereas Nicolas their pretended Patron and Founder was says Clemens a sober and a temperate Man never making use of any but his own Wife by whom he had one Son and several Daughters who all liv'd in perpetual Virginity 14. THE last instance that we shall remark of our Apostles care for the good of the Church is the Writings which he left to Posterity Whereof the first in time though plac'd last is his Apocalypse or Book of Revelations written while consined in Patmos It was of old not only rejected by Hereticks but controverted by many of the Fathers themselves 〈◊〉 Bishop of Alexandria has a very large discourse concerning it he tells us that many plainly disowned this Book not only for the matter but the Author of it as being neither Apostle no nor any Holy or Ecclesiastical Person that Cerinthus prefixed S. John's name to it to give the more plausible title to his Dream of Christ's Reign upon Earth and that sensual and carnal state that should attend it that for his part he durst not reject it looking upon it as containing wise and admirable mysteries though he could not fathom and 〈◊〉 them that he did not measure them by his own line nor condemn but rather admire what he could not understand that he owned the Author to have been an holy and divinely-inspired Person but could not believe it to be S. John the Apostle and Evangelist neither stile matter nor method agreeing with his other Writings that in this he frequently names himself which he never does in any other that there were several Johns at that time and two buried at Fphesus the Apostle and another one of the Disciples that dwelt in Asia but which the Author of his Book he leaves uncertain But though doubted of by some it was entertained by the far greater part of the Ancients as the genuine work of our S. John Nor could the setting down his Name be any reasonable exception for whatever he might do in his other Writings especially his Gospel where it was less necessary Historical matters depending not so much upon his authority yet it was otherwise in Prophetick Revelations where the Person of the Revealer adds great weight and moment the reason why some of the Prophets under the Old Testament did so frequently set down their own Names The diversity of the stile is of no considerable value in this case it being no wonder if in arguments so vastly different the same Person do not always observe the same tenor and way of writing whereof there want not instances in some others of the Apostolick Order The truth is all circumstances concur to intitle our Apostle to be the Author of it his name frequently expressed its being written in the Island Patmos a circumstance not competible to any but S. John his stiling himself their Brother and Companion in Tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ his writing particular
and that that Cross stained with his bloud had been left as a memorial of these matters An interpretation that was afterwards confirmed by another grave and learned Bramin who expounded the Inscription to the very same effect The judicious Reader will measure his belief of these things by the credit of the Reporters and the rational probability of the things themselves which for my part as I cannot certainly affirm to be true so I will not utterly conclude them to be false 6. FROM these first plantations of Christianity in the Eastern India's by our Apostle there is said to have been a continued series and succession of Christians hence called S. Thomas-Christians in those parts unto this day The Portugals at their first arrival here found them in great numbers in several places no less as some tell us than fifteen or sixteen thousand Families They are very poor and their Churches generally mean and sordid wherein they had no Images of Saints nor any representations but that of the Cross they are governed in Spirituals by an High-Priest whom some make an Armenian Patriarch of the Sect of Nestorius but in truth is no other than the Patriarch of Muzal the remainder as is probable of the ancient 〈◊〉 and by some though erroneously stiled Babylon residing Northward in the Mountains who together with twelve Cardinals two Patriarchs and several Bishops disposes of all affairs referring to Religion and to him all the Christians of the East yield subjection They promiscuously admit all to the Holy Communion which they receive under both kinds of Bread and Wine though instead of Wine which their Country affords not making use of the juice of Raisons steep'd one night in water and then pressed forth Children unless in case of sickness are not baptized till the fortieth day At the death of Friends their kindred and relations keep an eight days feast in memory of the departed Every Lord's-day they have their publick Assemblies for prayer and preaching their devotions being managed with great reverence and solemnity Their Bible at least the New Testament is in the Syriack Language to the study whereof the Preachers earnestly exhort the people They observe the times of Advent and Lent the Festivals of our Lord and many of the Saints those especially that relate to S. Thomas the Dominica in Albis or Sunday after Easter in memory of the famous confession which S. Thomas on that day made of Christ after he had been sensibly cured of his unbelief another on the first of July celebrated not only by Christians but by Moors and Pagans the people who come to his Sepulchre on Pilgrimage carrying away a little of the red Earth of the place where he was interred which they keep as an inestimable treasure and 〈◊〉 it sovereign against diseases They have a kind of Monasteries of the Religious who live in great abstinence and chastity Their Priests are shaven in fashion of a Cross have leave to marry once but denied a second time No marriages to be dissolved but by death These rites and customs they solemnly pretend to have derived from the very time of S. Thomas and with the greatest care and diligence do observe them at this day The End of S. Thomas's Life THE LIFE OF S. JAMES the Less S. IAMES Minor This Apostle being a Kinsman of our Lord and having Sale first Bishop of Hierusalem was cast down from the top of the Temple and after killed with a Fuâ—â—ers club Baron â—â—â— 1 o The Martyrdom of St. James y e lesse Mauh 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets stonest them which are sent unto thee S. James the Less proved to be the same with him that was Bishop of Jerusalem His Kindred and Relations The Son of Joseph by a former Wife The Brethren of our Lord who His Country what Our Lord's appearance to him after his Resurrection Invested in the See of Jerusalem by whom and why His authority in the Synod at Jerusalem His great diligence and fidelity in his Ministry The conspiracy of his Enemies to take away his Life His Discourse with the Scribes and Pharisees about the Messiah His Martyrdom and the manner of it His Burial where His Death resented by the Jews His strictness in Religion His Priesthood whence His singular delight in Prayer and efficacy in it His great love and charity to Men. His admirable Humility His Temperance according to the rules of the Nazarite Order The Love and respect of the People towards him His Death an inlet to the destruction of the Jewish Nation His Epistle when written What the design and purpose of it The Proto-evangelium ascribed to him 1. BEFORE we can enter upon the Life of this Apostle some difficulty must be cleared relating to his Person Doubted it has been by some whether this was the same with that S. James that was Bishop of Jerusalem three of this Name being presented to us S. James the Great this S. James the Less both Apostles and a third sirnamed the Just distinct say they from the former and Bishop of Jerusalem But this however pretending to some little countenance from antiquity is a very great mistake and built upon a sandy bottom For besides that the Scripture mentions no more than two of this Name and both Apostles nothing can be plainer than that that S. James the Apostle whom S. Paul calls our Lord's Brother and reckons with Peter and John one of the Pillars of the Church was the same that presided among the Apostles no doubt by vertue of his place it being his Episcopal Chair and determined in the Synod at Jerusalem Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus or 〈◊〉 out of him mention any more than two S. James put to death by Herod and S. James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem whom they expresly affirm to be the same with him whom S. Paul calls the Brother of our Lord. Once indeed 〈◊〉 makes our S. James one of the Seventy though elsewere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria he numbers him with the Chief of the Apostles and expresly distinguishes him from the Seventy Disciples Nay S. Hierom though when representing the Opinion of others he stiles him the Thirteenth Apostle yet elsewhere when speaking his own sence sufficiently proves that there were but two James the Son of 〈◊〉 and the other the Son of Alphaeus the one sirnamed the Greater the other the Less Besides that the main support of the other Opinion is built upon the authority of Clemens his Recognitions a Book in doubtful cases of no esteem and value 2. This doubt being removed we proceed to the History of his Life He was the Son as we may probably conjecture of Joseph afterwards Husband to the Blessed Virgin and his first Wife whom S. Hierom from Tradition stiles Escha Hippolytus Bishop of Porto calls Salome and further adds that she was the Daughter of Aggi Brother to Zacharias Father
our Lord's Apostles being betrayed by his own covetous and insatiable mind had lately fallen from the honour of his place and ministery that this was no more than what the Prophet had long since foretold should come to pass and that the rule and oversight in the Church which had been committed unto him should be devolved upon another that therefore it was highly necessary that one should be substituted in his room and especially such a one as had been familiarly conversant with our Saviour from first to last that so he might be a competent witness both of his doctrine and miracles his life and death but especially of his Resurrection from the dead For seeing no evidence is so valid and satisfactory as the testimony of an eye-witness the Apostles all along mainly insisted upon this that they delivered no other things concerning our Saviour to the World than what they themselves had seen and heard And seeing his rising from the dead was a principle likely to meet with a great deal of opposition and which would hardliest gain belief and entertainment with the minds of men therefore they principally urg'd this at every turn that they were eye-witnesses of his Resurrection that they had seen felt eaten and familiarly conversed with him after his return from the Grave That therefore such an Apostle might be chosen two Candidates were proposed Joseph called Barsabas and Matthias And having prayed that the Divine Providence would immediately guide and direct the choice they cast lots and the lot fell upon Matthias who was accordingly admitted into the number of the twelve Apostles 2. FIFTY days since the last Passeover being now run out made way for the Feast of Pentecost At what time the great promise of the Holy Ghost was fully made good unto them The Christian Assembly being met together for the publick services of their Worship on a sudden a sound like that of a mighty wind rush'd in upon them representing the powerful efficacy of that Divine Spirit that was now to be communicated to them After which there appeared little flames of fire which in the fashion of Cloven Tongues not only descended but sate upon each of them probably to note their perpetual enjoyment of this gift upon all occasions that when necessary they should never be without it not like the Prophetick gifts of old which were conferred but sparingly and only at some particular times and seasons As the seventy Elders prophesied and ceased not but it was only at such times as the Spirit came down and rested upon them Hereupon they were all immediately filled with the Holy Ghost which enabled them in an instant to speak several Languages which they had never learn't and probably never heard of together with other miraculous gifts and powers Thus as the confounding of Languages became a curse to the old World separating men from all mutual offices of kindness and commerce rendring one part of mankind Barbarians to another so here the multiplying several Languages became a blessing being intended as the means to bring men of all Nations into the unity of the saith and of the knowledge of the Son of God into the fellowship of that Religion that would banish discords cement differences and unite mens hearts in the bond of peace The report of so sudden and strange an action presently spread it self into all corners of the City and there being at that time at Jerusalem multitudes of Jewish Proselytes Devout men out of every Nation under Heaven Parthians Medes Elamites or Persians the dwellers in Mesopotamia and Judaea Gappadocia Pontus and Asia minor from Phrygia and Pamphylia from Egypt and the parts of Libya and Cyrene from Rome from Crete from Arabia Jews and Proselytes probably drawn thither by the general report and expectation which had spread it self over all the Eastern parts and in a manner over all places of the Roman Empire of the Jewish Messiah that about this time should be born at Jerusalem they no sooner heard of it but universally flocked to this Christian Assembly where they were amazed to hear these Galileans speaking to them in their own native Languages so various so vastly different from one another And it could not but exceedingly encrease the wonder to reflect upon the meanness and inconsiderableness of the persons neither assisted by natural parts nor polished by education nor improved by use and custom which three things Philosophers require to render a man accurate and extraordinary in any art or discipline 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Plutarch Natural disposition without institution is blind instruction without a genius and disposition is defective and exercise without both is lame and imperfect Whereas these Disciples had not one of these to set them off their parts were mean below the rate of the common people the Galileans being generally accounted the rudest and most stupid of the whole Jewish Nation their education had been no higher than to catch Fish and to mend Nets nor had they been used to plead causes or to deliver themselves before great Assemblies but spoke on a sudden not premeditated discourses not idle stories or wild roving fancies but the great and admirable works of God and the mysteries of the Gospel beyond humane apprehensions to find out and this delivered in almost all the Languages of the then known World Men were severally affected with it according to their different tempers and apprehensions Some admiring and not knowing what to think on 't others deriding it said that it was nothing else but the wild raving effect of drunkenness and 〈◊〉 At so wild a rate are men of prophane minds wont to talk when they take upon them to pass their censure in the things of God 3. HEREUPON the Apostles rose up and Peter in the name of the rest took this occasion of discoursing to them He told them that this scandalous slander proceeded from the spirit of 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 that their censure was as uncharitable as it was unreasonable that they that are drunken are drunk in the night that it was against nature and custom for men to be in drink so soon too early for such a suspicion to take place it being now but about nine of the clock the hour for Morning Prayer till when men even of ordinary sobriety and devotion on Festival days were wont to fast That these extraordinary and miraculous passages were but the accomplishment of an ancient prophecy the fulfilling of what God had expresly foretold should come to pass in the times of the Messiah that Jesus of Nazareth had evidently approv'd himself to be the Messiah sent from God by many unquestionable miracles of which they themselves had been eye-witnesses And though by God's permission who had determined by this means to bring about the Salvation of mankind they had wickedly crucified and slain him yet that God had raised him from the dead That it was not possible he should be holden always under