I have read unto you I am proceeded in this subject and by so much as I have read in these two Verses St. Luke hath more than the other two Evangelists to wit that Moses and Elias talked about Christs sufferings in Jerusalem and that Peter James and John were asleep and waking of a sudden were startled at the transmutation I have spoke severally the last day in what bodies Moses and Elias did appear now I proceed to these persons that appear And because I must not break the joynts of an History I take the parts whole thus First With what fitness these two were presented rather than any other for celestial witnesses Moses and Elias Secondly What they meant by this communication to speak of his Passion and Sufferings They spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem Thirdly That the earthly Witnesses Peter James and John were asleep at the beginning of this Miracle But Peter and they that were with him were heavie with sleep Fourthly The mists of drowziness were dispelled they did awake and then they saw the Vision and as the next Verse will prove it they heard the conference To these do you give Attention and I my Exposition The Lord did not pick twain out of so great an host of blessed Spirits to stand upon Mount Thabor but that there was some hability and fitness in their persons rather than in any other And the first mark eminently stampt upon them for this work is this The Law and Prophets do equally and concordiously bear witness to Christ Moses the first handler and publisher of the Law Elias the greatest by far of all the Prophets O Elias how wast thou honoured in thy wondrous deeds And who may glory like unto thee Ecclus. xlviii 4. As the Kings Coin is stampt on both sides so the Gospel like a piece of currant Metal is engraven on the one side with the ancient testimony of the Law on the other side with the strong Predictions of the Prophets Says Philip to Nathanael We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Joseph Joh. i. 45. But Peter might go further and say We have seen him attended and waited on by Moses and the Prophets The Law and the Prophets and the Gospel make good Musick when they are three parts of one song but if you make several Airs or several Ditties of them you mar all good harmony We see Moses and the Son of God together says St. Ambrose so often as we read that portion of St. Matthew Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy might We see Elias and the Son of God together so often as we read that desire inflamed to maintain Gods honour I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts 1 Kings xix 8. That zeal made Elias fast forty days and eat nothing And Christ doth answer it again The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up O how amiable it is to unite Moses and the Prophets and the grace of Christ all together to look upon them in one prospect to enterline the Old Testament with the New But if you part Moses from the Prophets or the Prophets from Moses or both from Christ you shall not find any glory in them The Samaritans received no Scripture but the Books of Moses The Jews receive none but Moses and the Prophets The Christian puts them all together and so Moses and Elias appear with Christ in glory And although many things are very difficult to be understood in the Old Testament in some places we do see Moses plainly in some places he is hard to be understood yet this Miracle gives us comfort that in the holy Hill of God in the glorification of heaven there we shall see Moses and Elias all that is wrote in the Law and the Prophets very clearly and that one jot or tittle is not perished which the Penmen of holy Writ did foretell should come to pass For example in Exod. xx 19. the Children of Israel cry out to Moses Speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us least we die To this demand God makes a full and explicite answer Deut. xviii 18. They have well spoken I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee they shall hear him Here is a middle way difficult to be understood neither would God speak unto them in thunder to terrifie them and Moses could not abide always to be their Speaker as they would have it but a Prophet should come like unto Moses like unto him in humane nature but far more admirable in grace and power Why behold this dark mystery is expounded at this Transfiguration for Moses is brought to confess of Christ this is the Prophet spoken of like unto me whom you are bound to hear For the glory which was seen now the affrightment which took the Disciples the bright cloud which overshadowed the place all these hapned now even as it was at Mount Sinah call to mind what Covenant was then made and how this is the time to fulfil it Thus you see how Christs glory makes the Law and the Prophets intelligible which is the first reason why Moses and Elias did appear in glory Secondly These are they that had undergone many sorrows upon earth for the defence of their God and after much tribulation did win the crown of life in whose faces the Disciples might behold that through fire and water through cross and calamity through ignominy and dishonour we must enter into glory None so famous for exposing their lives to all dangers as Moses and Elias There was but a Bulrush between Moses and death when he was set afloat to be drowned in his tender infancy And if Jezebel and all her Gods could cut Elias throat she swore he should not have a day to live 1 Kings xix 2. What sharp encounters had the one with Pharaoh What dismal threatnings did the other denounce against Ahab The one was driven out rudely and violently from the presence of Pharaoh The other banished himself into the Wilderness and could not be found for three years Here were a fit couple that could shew their long Pedigrees of afflictions to be called the Sons of God These were fit indeed to preach of Christs Cross and of his sufferings at Jerusalem They that suffered much might aptly and confidently commend the sufferings of the body to the Disciples Si vis me flere dolendum est primùm ipsi tibi And here John and James the two ambitious brethren might see of what condition it behoved those men to be who in our Saviours Kingdom should sit the one at his right hand the other at his left What had they done for their Lords sake as yet when they askt that bold demand but to walk with him in Judea to travel from place
like an Angel of light One most perspicuous instance is Mar. i. 24. The unclean spirit exclaims against Christ Jesus of Nazareth what have we to do with thee No Not with God that created them that was a lie of malice Art thou come to torment us There was a touch of Prophesie I know thou art the holy one of God that was as true as Gospel You shall have just these three parts now in Pilates Apology Mendacium de seipso verum testimonium de Christo Prophetiam de populo 1. I am innocent of this bloud that was false 2. He confesseth Christ to be a just person that was true 3. He threatens the people that if that just person died the vengeance should light upon their head vos videbitis that was a Prophesie Every man is his own flatterer else Pilate had not thought himself an innocent God will be cleared by every mans conscience else Pilate had not preached for our Saviours righteousness But how easie a thing it is to discern and protest against other mens faults Else Pilate had not Prophesied We take account of our own imperfections as it were at midnight when there is no light to discover us then we run into error and plead that we are innocent We see God in his works as by a dim candle and confession of truth will be extorted from us that He is a just person But we behold the crimes of those men that walk about us as at noon day and in the clear Sun-shine and then we Prophesie vos videbitis you that are sinners shall be punished Here is as very a Riddle as the old Sphinx made of three divers forms ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the fore-part a Lyar in the next a true one in the third a Prophet and all these three in my Text I am innocent of the bloud c. I begin with Pilate in the first member of his speech the untruth which he tells in his own behalf I am innocent A vice which had been fitter for the meanest of the people than for the Ruler of Jury the supreme Deputy for the Roman Empire For truth as Synesius doth define it it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as who should say that a word truly spoken is a Gentleman born falshood and lying are but beggarly begotten But this is the wisdom of the World whatsoever we can coin for our own reputation it is not falshood but the strein of an Orator And as the Optiques do determine that in the composition of all colours there is lucidum and opacum one part which shines and makes a lustre to the eye another part dark and gross which casts a shadow so there is such an ingredient of two qualities in the actions of men lucidum and opacum some black deformity which is concealed somewhat that glisters and shews fair to the outward appearance Alas that is it which puts us into a good opinion of our selves that is it which prompted Pilates tongue to say before the people I am innocent Every disease says Hippocrates is the more dangerous ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when our face is so much changed that our friends cannot know us But who is in so bad a case as that man who is so desperately diseased that he doth not know himself St. Austin hath mark'd out two examples especially for this purpose First the young man in the Gospel that talk'd of keeping all the Commandments was bad to follow Christ and did not Matthaeus peccator sequutus est vocantem Matthew the Publican that sold and bought sin and could not deny that it was a trade of iniquity he left all to attend our Saviour when he was called Secondly He doth compare St. Peter with himself there was a Peter that thought his fellows might be faint hearted and run away but for his own part he knew his courage was stronger than all tentation but there is another Peter or the same Peter of another mind who was ashamed to shew his face and went out and wept bitterly and of the twain he was the true Apostle Salubrius sibi displicuit Petrus quando flevit quà m sibi placuit quando praesumsit Wretched was that Peter who did presume upon himself happy was that Peter who did dislike and bewail his own infirmities Are you well advised upon how many nice Points innocency doth stand that dare advouch your own integrity First I am guilty of all the sins which I do not hate in another The Church of Pergamos did not deny the faith but God took up this quarrel against them That they did not hate the Doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans Again I am guilty of all those sins which I do not rebuke in another Qui tacet consentire videtur the judgment hereof fell upon Eli and his house for ever Again I am guilty of every sin wherein I gave way to the lewdness of another and did not restrain it The Kings of Judah when they did not cut down the Groves and demolish the Images which they themselves did not worship yet their memory is Taxed that their heart was not perfect before the Lord because they were not zealous to cut off iniquity Now put all these together these nice observations of an upright heart and then let Pilate tell me who was innocent Leucatius a Roman well reputed of would needs stand in defence against the City that all his actions had been unblameable in every circumstance But I will never sit Judge in this cause says Fimbria whom he chose for the Umpire Quia justitia innumerabilibus officiis continetur For justice contains so many duties that it is hard to number them but to observe them all impossible Indeed the Heathen were so modest in this Point that in all the Language of Greece that rich and copious Tongue there is not one word which is proper for Innocency To say truth says Tertullian what should they do with the word in their mouth and want the matter in their heart which it signifies Quid si nos solum innocentes sumus Innocency such as the world can afford it is among Christians or no where Who is the man then that would put on the white Robe of a Saint and cast it over his crimson sins Let him first as it useth to be draw out his life with o Pencil in black colours and confess his iniquities What soul is that which like a chaste Virgin would become the Spouse of Christ Nec magis alba velit quà m det natura videri as the Poet speaks Let her lay no complement to that beauty or deformity which God hath afforded her And he that thinks himself less than the greatest sinner shall not be so great as the least Saint in the Kingdom of heaven But let no man deceive himself as if a confession of course would serve the turn such as we say by rote perchance at the beginning of our Morning and Evening Service There is not such an
hand justice and vengeance and above head he that walked on the tops of the Mulberry trees ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God a mechanick and workman of our salvation The first part of the Text the Beast is like a place profaned but excussit he shook it off is like a Sanctuary And as the Rooms of the Temple were one within another and the inmost was the best so I may proceed in the degrees of this preservation Bare deliverance is but Atrium misericordiae the outward Porch of Solomon the Prince of peace but then we go on to the confusion of our enemies to excussit as unto the Altar whereon the beasts were slain but the holy of holies and the very Oracle of mercy is to escape the breaking of a bone with our Saviour not to lose the lap of our Garment with Saul or with our Apostle to feel no harm Upon these three let us divide St. Ambrose his Hymn Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabbath and meditate with St. Austin Quid non misericorditer à Deo hominibus praestatur a quo etiam tribulatio est beneficium Wherein is not our God a merciful Father if our chastisement be our glory if with St. Paul we shake beasts into the fire and feel no harm I must not separate the bark from the tree the bark is the danger of the Apostle and the first part of my Text and there want not causes to wonder at the strangeness of the enemy For though Adam gave names unto the Creatures and Noah lent them a place of rest to be saved from the waters yet the beasts are at enmity with Paul Alas our Warfare is not honourable but bellum servile Zimri riseth up against his Master We no longer Gods Servants the Creatures no longer ours And what Creature is it but a Serpent Hast thou found me out O mine enemy Yes from the Garden of trees wherin Eve was tempted to a handful of sticks which St. Paul gathered here and every where upon an old quarrel we are sure to find the Serpent an adversary While we live Wisdom is our glory and so the Serpent is wise When we die Resurrection is our glory and you know the Serpent renews his youth When we are buried our Tomb is our glory and even there say Philosophers Serpents are begotten of the marrow of our bones But if any venom be more hateful than other it is the Vipers it was company fit for none in the Roman Laws but murderers of Fathers and Mothers because says Aristotle when the brood is great and the Viper every day brings forth but one at once the latter of the brood eat through the womb of the Dam to be born the sooner Well to suffer these things it was no news to Paul and why should it seem strange to us All his Pilgrimage in this world was either fighting with men at Ephesus after the manner of beasts or with beasts in my Text after the manner of men As Cato being vanquished by Caesar and flying into Africa was troubled with noisom Vermine Pro Caesare pugnant dipsades peragunt civilia bella Cerastae That the Snakes fought out the Civil Wars on Caesars side So the Vipers take part with the Pharisees against St. Paul those Pharisees whom our Saviour called in his Gospel Generations of Vipers Pythagoras compared our life to the combats of the Olympick Games and so did our Apostle both met in the Comparison but not in the Application to the Olympick Games says Pythagoras some men come to wrestle some to make merry with their friends but for his part he was among those who did but gaze upon the Wrestlers O no says St. Paul only God and Angels are the lookers on that do not sweat and fight to win the mastery ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says Plato in Phaedon which is all one with that of St. Paul Nos spectaculum facti sumus we are all combatants and made a spectacle for the eyes of heaven As Pelopidas said in Plutarch Tantum duces in bello laudantur qui sunt sinc cicatrice non milites A scar was a comly sight in an ordinary Souldier but not in a General So it agrees well with the blessed souls to be in peace but for us to be in warfare And happy are they thrice happy who make the bitterness of this life but a gaine of Wrestling and though a severe sport yet but a sport and recreation A most reverend Bishop of our own Church the first who saw some reformation of Religion altered the ancient Arms of his Family from three Cranes to three Pelicans his righteous soul divining before his Martyrdom that he should feed the Church with his bloud as a loving Pelican and so contentedly he died making his Coat of honour an Emblem of persecution If we will be any thing if we will be born at all it must be in tears and to be honestly born is to be a Son and not a bastard that is to be chastened and not neglected And to be nobly born is to give Arms such as Constantine and Theodosius did in their Military Ensigns the mourning Cross of Christ Quis enarrabit generationem Will you know how a Christian is begotten St. Matthew makes a Pedigree and fourteen Generations reach to King David David is zeal and devotion The next fourteen Generations reach to Captivity and the waters of Babilon and after Captivity the next fourteen Generations reach to Christ our Lord. It was a dastard mind not befitting Augustus of all things else to desire ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that he might steal out of the world and not feel the least gripe of a disease it did rather become the beastly Epicurus who when he felt his sickness desperate drowned his stomach with immoderate Wine and so knew not what it was to dye but went drunk to Hell If we Christians were only anointed with oyl Oleo laetitiae supra socios with the oyl of gladness above our fellows Satan might speak home to our shame Doth Job serve God for nought But we are first anointed with the Baptism of water unto the death of Christ ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says Nazianzen We are dipt like Iron into the water that our edge may be setled against all injuries And we are ready to be anointed with bloud every day is the eighth day with us to be wounded and circumcised Nay if it be our destiny to be anointed with Pitch and Tar In morem nocturni luminis to waste away like a Taper welcom glory Or if it be our danger to be lick'd with the poysonous tongue of the Viper Son of man says Ezekiel be not afraid though thorns and briers be with thee nay though thou live among Scorpions For who would not venture with such a Charm as this is against any Serpent Excussit ho shook off the beast into the fire it is the second part of my Text and St. Pauls deliverance The Apostle indeed did shake his
England One Month in the long Vacation retiring with his Pupil afterwards Lord Byron into Nottingham-shire for fresh air there in absence from all Books and having no other more serious studies he made Loyola which needs no other Commendation than to remember that it was twice acted before King James and what an ingenious Pen says in a Prologue You must not here expect to day Leander Labyrinth or Loyola After his return to the Colledge from this Diversion he began to set himself wholly to the study of Divinity being egregiously skilled in the preparatory learning of Logick Physick Metaphysicks and Ethicks with which he had most largely informed his mind and adorned his soul and then as Diers having dipt their Silks in colours of less value do afterwards give them the last Tincture of Crimson in grain So our young Scholar having given his mind a large dip of Secular Arts and Sciences became more fit for Divine Speculations therefore though but a very young man his first Sermons at St. Maries and at the Vicarage of Trumpington which he held with his Fellowship were so singular and like himself that as the learned Bishop Creighton told me the eyes of the whole Vniversity were cast upon him as a Star that would be as bright as any in the Constellation beside He received his holy Orders by the hands of John King Bishop of London in December Anno 1618. This good Bishop had a singular affection and kindness for him which he expressed upon all occasions once by accident his Lordship passed through St. Pauls Cathedral where old Mr. Hacket was walking as the custom then was his Gentleman who attended him whispered to his Lordship that the goodly old man who was walking there was young Mr. Hackets Father of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge The Bishop thereupon beckoned him to come to him and gave him joy of his hopeful Son at Trinity Colledge and bid him when he wrote commend him likewise to him and let him know in due time he would be a means to bring them two together again So the matchless Andrews that great Rewarder of all learning and worth would oftentimes send him Commendations and Counsel and Money to buy Books sometimes ten Pieces at a time But above all others he was taken notice of by that Renowned Prelate John Williams Dean of Westminster and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Anno 1621. a Prelate of incomparable learning and knowledge not only in Divinity and the Tongues but in all Laws Civil Canon and Common who presently upon his receiving the Seal sent for Mr. Hacket of Trinity Colledge and admitted him to be his Chaplain whom of all his Chaplains he ever most loved and esteemed And on the other side our Bishop would to his last breath acknowledg the Bishop of Lincoln to be the most happy Instrument of Divine Providence that made him known to the world and to his death bore a most grateful memory to his great deserts and dignity notwithstanding all his eclipses and slanders cast upon him When Mr. Hacket was now a great Tutor and the very Darling of the Colledge generally beloved and so contented as like to have long there continued my Lord Keeper would have him to his Service saying withal As his Majesty King James had been blamed by many for making so young a Keeper so he expected to be Censured for chusing so young a Chaplain but his Lordship knew his abilities very well and would trust no body with the choice of his Servants but himself Two years he spent in the Keepers Service before his time was come to Commence Batchelor in Divinity but then begg'd leave to go down to Cambridge to keep the Publick Act Anno 1623. upon the two following questions Judicio Romanae Ecclesiae in Sanctis canonizandis non est standum Vota Monasticae perfectionis quae dicuntur sunt illicita The former question was given very seasonably for the year before Anno 1622. Pope Gregory XV. had Canonized Ignatius Loyola the Father of the Jesuits Franciscus Xavier the Indian Apostle Philip Nereus the General of the Jesuits and Madam Teresia a Spanish Virtuosa who had built twenty five Monasteries for men and seventeen for women He cast his Position into three parts 1. Because the holy Scripture saith The memory of the Just shall be blessed that all Canonization of Saints is not to be accounted superstitious but by Canonization he meant only a publick testimony of the Christian Church of any eximious Members sanctity and glory after death 2. That this testimony ought to be given by General or Provincial Councils at least of their own Members 3. By no means to be left to the breast of the Roman Pontiff and Colledge of Cardinals 1. Because they especially attended to false qualifications which they made undoubted signs of Saintship which were not such 2. Consequently had already Canonized unworthy persons not beatified in Heaven but rather damned in Hell 3. For perverse and impious ends which they ever thought to establish by their Canonization In all these respects the Pope of Rome who is their Virtual Church was apparently a most partial and unmeet Judg very apt to be imposed upon himself and likewise to impose upon others After his return to the Keepers service he preferr'd him to the Court to be Chaplain to King James before whom he preached several times to the great good liking of that most learned King and once upon the Gowries Conspiracy for which a Thanksgiving was continued all that Kings Reign upon August 5. and though some people have denied the Treason yet our good Bishop was assured that the most Religious Bishop Andrews once fell down upon his knees before King James and besought his Majesty to spare his customary pains upon that day that he might not mock God unless the thing were true the King replied Those people were much too blame who would never believe a Treason unless their Prince were actually murdered but did assure him in the Faith of a Christian and upon the Word of a King their Treasonable attempt against him was too true Anno 24. he was prefer'd by the Lord Keeper to be Parson of St. Andrews Holbourn About 12 at night the Keeper sent to speak with him when he came his Lordship told him he was not then watching for his own study but for his The Living of St. Andrews Holbourn was fallen and in the Kings disposal by reason of the minority of Thomas Earl of Southampton to which upon the mediation of the Bishop he was presented the next morning by King James The same year his Lordship procured for him the Parsonage of Cheam in Surrey fallen likewise into the Kings gift by the promotion of Dr. Senhouse to the Bishoprick of Carlisle the Keeper telling him that he intended him Holbourn for wealth and Cheam for health these two Livings being within a small distance of ten miles he held till the Troubles came and though he
in the beauty of holiness few or none would break the publick Order and decent Customs of his Church but the whole Congregation generally rose and sate fell down or kneel'd and were uncovered together He liked Ceremony no where so well as in Gods House as little as you would in your own was his phrase but could by no means endure to see in this Complemental Age men ruder with God than with Men bow lowly and often to one another but never kneel to God He thought Superstition a less sin than Irreverence and Profaneness and held the want of Reverence in Religious Assemblies amongst the greatest sins of England and would prove it from many Histories that a careless and profane discharge of Gods Worship was a most sure Prognostick of Gods anger and that Peoples ruin When a Stranger Preached for him upon a Sunday he would often read the Prayers himself and with that reverence and devotion that was very moving to all his Auditors And upon Wednesdays and Fridays he would frequently do the like and thereby engaged many to resort better to them always assuring them God would soonest hear our Prayers in the Communion of Saints Sometimes when he had occasion to go into the City and saw slender Congregations at Prayer he would much wonder at his Countrymen that had so little love to holy Prayer but when he heard of any that would not go to Church to Prayer unless it were accompanied with a Sermon he would nor scruple to say he scarce thought them Christians and never deemed any Divine to be really famous and successful in his Preaching who could not prevail with his People to come frequently to Sacraments and Prayers He was a great lover of Psalmody and above all a great admirer of Davids Psalms so full of Divine Praises and of all Religious Mysteries great helps to Contemplation apt to beget a Divine Charity being a perfect supply for all our wants joyful to Angels grievous to Devils filling the heart with spiritual delights and a kind of representation of the Celestial felicity That he constantly call'd upon his People to be present at them and at all parts of the Churches Prayers remembring them that after our Blessed Saviour had cast our the Sheep and Oxen yet he still called His House the House of Prayer to shew that though those Sacrifices were at an end yet this should never end and therefore the Apostles themselves after his death resorted to the Temple at the Hours of Prayer He ever took great care to procure a grave and able Curate a Master of Arts at least for the instruction of the younger sort in the Church Catechism Visiting of the Sick Burial of the Dead Preaching of Funeral Sermons Christnings and Marriages These he generally left to the Curate for his Perquisits and better encouragement and would often complain that in great Parishes there was not competent maintenance to keep many Curats under the Parish Priest that might be able to live at the Altar and better discharge all private and domestick duties of piety sorrowing that herein Popish Countries were better provided for who had ten for one that wait at the Altar there more than we have among us and therefore though he would much recommend daily visiting of the Flock from house to house yet found it was impossible for one Minister to perform the Publick and Private Duties both Private Baptisms he would never countenance unless in Cases of necessity or some great convenience as being expresly contrary to the Constitutions of our Church and greatly derogatory to the dignity of the Sacrament to be dispensed in a Parlour or a Chamber and not with that Solemnity that our initiation into Gods Church required and therefore greatly commended the Lutherans who baptized none at home but the sick and the spurious Funeral Sermons though he rarely preached himself yet he defended them to be no Novelty brought in with the Reformation for John Fisher Bishop of Rochester hath one in Print for Henry the Seventh and in Edward the Sixth his time an Herse was set up in St. Pauls Church for King Francis the First of France and a Funeral Sermon likewise preached for him by Dr. Ridly Bishop of Rochester While he lived in this Parish he would give God thanks he got a good Temporal Estate Parishioners of all sorts were very kind and free to him divers Lords and Gentlemen several Judges and Lawyers of eminent quality were his constant Auditors whom he found like Zenas honest Lawyers conscientious to God and lovers of the Church of England and very friendly and bountiful to their Minister Sir Julius Caesar never heard him preach but he would send him a broad Piece and he did the like to others and he would often send a Dean or a Bishop a pair of Gloves because he would not hear Gods Word gratis Judge Jones never went to the Bench at the beginning of a Term but he fasted and prayed the day before and oftentimes got Dr. Hacket to come and pray with him This strict Judge condemned one for stealing a Common-Prayer Book out of his Church whom he could not save the Judge would by no means forgive him because of the sacredness of the place but accepted well of his Intercession and said he should prevail in another matter and when the Doctor saw he could not succeed he thanked the Judge for his severity Anno 1631 the Bishop of Lincoln made him Archdeacon of Bedford whither he ever after went once a year commonly the Week after Easter and made the Clergy a Speech upon some Controversial Head seasonable to those Times exhorting them to keep strictly to the Orders of the Church to all regular conformity to the Doctrine and Discipline by Law established without under or over doing asserting in his opinion that Puritanism lay on both sides whosoever did more than the Church commanded as well as less were guilty of it And that he only was a true Son of the Church that broke not the boundals of it either way About this time of King Charles the First 's Reign it was justly said Stupor mundi Clerus Anglicanus and whereas in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reformation Siquis's had been set up in St. Pauls If any man could understand Greek there was a Deanry for him if Latine a good Living but in the long Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James the Clergy of the Reformed Church of England grew the most learned of the World for by the restlessnes of the Roman Priests they were trained up to Arms from their youth and by the Wisdom and Example of King James had wrote so many learned Tractates as had almost quite driven their Adversaries out of the Pit and forced them to yield the Field So that now we were only unhappy in our own differences at home But above all the Bishop admired that People should complain in those days for want of Preaching wherein lived
so dear for our sleep when God if you please hath given you that for nothing the slenderest place served our Saviour to cover his head Reclinavit in praesepi She laid him in a Manger Fourthly and lastly God provided the Virgins wombe for our Saviour before he was born man provided a Manger after he was born that you may see that God is ever worse provided for by man than he provides for himself Let him provide for himself the manner of an Ark or inspire the heart of Solomon what Temple should be built unto him and the world had never such a piece of work for beauty and magnificence Let him trust to the benevolence of men I praise God I am not in the place now where I need to complain but more eyes have seen such Churches especially such Chancels which our Zealous Lay Parsons of the Kingdom have sacrilegiously unroof'd and uncas'd the Lead and left them thatch and straw for a covering and scarce that too O God I shame to speak it surely by all description of antient Writers our Saviour was better provided when He was laid in a Manger Their unworthiness deserves to be parallel'd with those men of strange condition in the last part of my Text that kept possession against Christ himself and shut him out of doors for there was no room for him in the Inn nor for his Mother Mary Was there no Obadiah that would receive a Prophet No Obededom that would take the Ark of God into his house Some say that because the whole City of David was so ungrateful to their new-born King therefore the Angel of purpose shunned all the Inhabitants and went into the field to find out Shepherds and sent them first to behold their Saviour which is Christ the Lord. Others say because Bethlem was so pittiless to this Babe therefore God raised up the fury of Herod which had no pity of their Babes but slew all their Children from two years old and under Surely we all see how the Roman Conquerours carried them away captive from their own Country neither man nor child hath room to inhabite Bethlem this day neither is there such a Town as Bethlem standing because there was no room for Christ You know the Parable of the good Samaritan that took the wounded man and carried him to his Inn and left him safe there and paid his charges The sence of the Parable is reduced by many of the Fathers unto Christ himself He is the good Samaritan that would not let our wounds bleed abroad but hous'd us and lodg'd us in his own Inn that is the Church to upbraid the incivility of men by the Letter of the Parable that we gave no hospitality to the Son of God The reasons given why Joseph and Mary were thus excluded are three The first is false nay indeed calumnious that they came tardy and after all other company to pay their Tribute money No Beloved such an hasty Couple so forward to give unto God that which is Gods would never be slack to give unto Caesar that which is Caesars Besides if she brought forth her first-born Son upon the first day of the week upon Sunday as some cast it out then the whole day before she was in Bethlem for upon the Saturday or Sabbath she must not travel perchance they had been longer in the City and as we say danced attendance being poor persons before the Officers of the Tribute would dispatch them and yet all this while no room was made in the Inn nor in any charitable house for the Nativity of Christ The indignation against this were able to make us like Jacob live under the dew and frost of Heaven as the Prophet protested never to climbe up to our bed because Christ was so disappointed Or as Vriah said unto David The Ark abides in Tents my Lord Joab is encampt in the open field and shall I go up into mine own house The glory of Israel was laid in a Cratch the Salvation of the world was turned into a Stable and dost thou permit us to live in sieled houses But the second and true reason why the Inn afforded them no room was this Augustus Caesars Tax had drawn multitudes unto Bethlem that filled every corner the true use of it was that there might be more attendance about the King of Glory to do him reverence and homage but the greater multitude the fouler was the neglect the more inexcusable the disobedience They that glory in multitudes as a great testimony to prove the verity of their Church are as wise as them that should prove their Harvest to be plentiful because it hath abundance of Thistles A multitude flockt after Christ in the Wilderness verily it is to eat of the Loaves and Fishes not for the Doctrines sake A multitude followed him into the High Priests Hall and the whole Rabble cried out Let him be crucified A troupe of Souldiers watcht his Sepulchre and belied his Resurrection a multitude was in Bethlem at his Nativity and there was no room for him in the Inn. But thirdly We may suppose the multitudes had not so pestered the Town but that one Lodging might be spar'd if there were horse-room in the Stable as it appears there was because Christ lay in the Manger then it cannot sound in my ear but there might be room made for men in the Inn. Yes but Lazarus is poor and therefore he must not come over the Threshold but lie at the rich Gluttons door and though the fish of the Sea were so liberal to pay our Saviours Tribute the beasts of the Stable so obedient to leave space for his birth yet reasonable men stood upon it that they would not entertain him for nothing Booz was a rare example that took Ruth into his house when she went a begging Booz was a Bethlemite but it seems he had left none behind him for Mary and Joseph were poor and there was no room for them in the Inn. I know not how it came to pass but for the credit of Poverty which was thus despised not many rich but many poor in the days of our Saviour did receive the Gospel As dry wood says Bernard sooner taketh fire than that which is green and flourishing So the poor did embrace the glad tidings of Salvation without resistance when the Nobles of the world that flourisht in their wealth refused it O but let Bethlem be ten times more populous for multitude were Mary of the poorest of the people which could not be admitting that she and Joseph paid Subsidies to Caesar nay were she a Samaritan with whom the Jew hated to commerce yet Barbarians would take her in and cherish her in the time of Childbirth Beloved it is a kind of churlishness that can admit no Apology This is all that I can say since men had left their civility to be men to wipe away that foul ignominy God took our nature upon him and was made man even He
that heavenly Host who were the first that preacht the Gospel to the Shepherds I take my self off from this discourse in which I might amply proceed lest you say unto me as one said of Hortensius that he advanc'd Eloquence to the skies craftily meaning that himself might be advanc'd as an Eloquent Orator in the commendation If we glory we will glory in our infirmities and in the Cross of Christ not presuming upon that amplification of analogy with Angels I will lay the scene of my reproof beyond the Seas but I would we were quit of the fault at home How many exalted Prelates refuse to do that office to teach Christ especially to poor Shepherds although a Cherubim of Heaven in my Text did willingly submit himself to do the work It troubled the Historiographers among our Adversaries to find out one Pope in almost 100 years that was a pulpit man when he became a Pope that was Pius V and he but rarely I may say of such men as Pliny did of those Emperours who made great suit to be Consuls and then disdain'd to discharge the Function O inscitia verae majestatis concupiscere honorem quem dedigneris dedignari quem concupieris O ignorance of duty to affect that honour which they scorn'd to execute to scorn to execute that honour which they earnestly affected Is an Angel no more than fit to preach Christ and is proud man too good for it 6. The fancies of men have assaye'd to add this for a sixth reason to the former that the noble Hierarchies of Heaven do merit some increase and addition of glory by their care and obsequiousness toward the universal body of the Church of Christ but the matter was better scann'd by Biel who therefore refutes that sentence of Lombard Tum sequitur si homo non fuisset creandus Angelus non habuisset summam suam beatitudinem Then it would follow that the Eternal Felicity of the Thrones of Heaven did depend upon the creation of man for except there had been a Church here below to which they might administer they had wanted occasion to demerit some increase of their glory Indeed it is an opinion that savours of servility and baseness as if they that stand always before the face of God would do nothing but upon gain and advantage Alas they have no other end of their labour but that which every man should have in charity the increase and enlargement of the Triumphant Church in Heaven and therefore our Saviour Luke 12.9 threatens Apostates from the Faith thus He that denieth me before men him will I deny before the Angels of God that is before the greatest friends and well-wishers of our beatitude Lastly It is an observation not to be omitted how St. Austin compares three several ways wherein Christ was manifested to the Shepherds by an Angel to the Wise men by a Star to Simeon and Anna devout people that spent their age in the Temple by the Holy Ghost Simeon and Anna were exceeding faithful such as waited and expected every day the salvation of Israel and therefore the Holy Ghost told them secretly in their hearts as soon as the Babe was brought into the Temple that this was the Lamb of God which should take away the sins of the world The Shepherds I presume were just men but had not so much perfection in the knowledge of the Law to look for and expect a Saviour therefore an extraordinary Nuntio an Angel was sent unto them but the Gentiles utter aliens from the Faith were directed to the Manger by signs and wonders from heaven So says St. Paul 1 Cor. 14.22 Signs are for them that believe not and Prophesies for them that believe And as the axiom is in Philosophy every thing is best collated when it is fitted ad modum recipientis Now the Shepherds were Jews and were taught in the Synagogues concerning the Apparition of Angels the Magi were Astronomers and better knew the course of Stars The book of the Creature was sit to teach the Gentiles but a Divine Spirit was better accommodate to teach a Jew that they might receive the Gospel even as they had received the Law and the Law was delivered says St. Paul by the ministration of Angels And so much for the first general part all the five questions being satisfied which of the Angels this was when he came in what figure and apparition how he did apply himself to the Shepherds and lastly why men were not accepted to do this office but loe an Angel of the Lord. The order which I propounded requires now that I speak of the pomp and solemnity which the Angel brought with him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the glory of the Lord shone round about them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the glory of the Lord fitly rendred in this place by the vulgar Latin Claritas Domini a lightsome brightness or splendor which God caus'd to shine in that place making the night unto the Shepherds as clear as if it had been day So when a lightsome pure cloud did appear in the Dedication of Solomons Temple the Text says 1 Kings 8.11 The glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord therefore it was not properly that essential glory of God unto which no man in this life can approach but lux ante gloriam the consolation of a beautiful light which was the shadow and the fore-runner of Glory But it were a great trespass in Art to run into obscurity and confusion when we are to speak of light 1. Therefore I will endeavour to shew how many ways such brightsome apparitions are observable in holy Scripture 2. Why this illustrious Glory did shine round about the Shepherds When God would beautifie and adorn a thing in some excellent manner I find that in a four-fold fashion he scatters and transfuses the beams of light and splendor either upon it or about it 1. Let us reflect our remembrance upon our Saviours Transfiguration his face did shine as the Sun and his rayment was white as the light as white as snow says St. Mark so that no Fuller on earth could make a thing so white Now we know that Christ was not as yet glorified his body had not yet put on incorruption therefore Eluxit splendor à Divinitate it was the pleasure of his Divinity at this instant to alter his countenance and his garment and from the union of his Divine nature this glory did redound upon the outward parts 2. In the Resurrection when our flesh shall become an inhabitant of the heavens not only the face but all the body of man shall look in a triumphant manner like a pillar of light which unspeakable beauty shall result from the soul to the blessing and ornament of the body So I read Dan. 12.3 They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever 3. This claritude and heavenly
desiderium expletur All misery shall be excluded from our happy estate and all our desires fulfill'd And both these two are most remarkable in this Angelical Congratulation First the depulsion or sending of all manner of evil and misery from our blessed estate in these words The Angel said unto them fear not Secondly The inclusion of all those joys and solaces that can be askt that 's laid open in Evangelizo Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people Privatively the messenger cashier'd all discomfort nay positively he brought great comfort which twain put together make up the complement of our final beatitude and are both deduced from the blessing of the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Christ The first general branch wherein the Angel promis'd a deliverance or award from all manner of evil that might make the Shepherds sorrowful I have done with that and there I leave it I come now to the second general branch which abounds much above the former where not only evil is dispell'd but a chearful benediction succeeds in the place Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people Wherein that no title may be lost of such heavenly comfort first note the Angels Trumpet with which he proclaims his errand Ecce behold Secondly the errand consisting in no less than seven branches of benediction 1. Ecce ego says the Angel Behold I bring unto you the tearms were much amended between Heaven and us that the Angel came unto us upon a peaceable message 2. Ecce Evangelizo he was no Lawgiver that was terrible but an Evangelist 3. The sweet air of the Gospel hath some harsh tidings to take up the cross and endure unto blood and death but these were tidings of joy 4. Joys are of several sizes this is a great one nay none so great 5. Joys and great ones are quickly done this is gaudium quod erit joy that shall be and continue 6. A man may be a conduit-pipe to transmit joy to others and have no benefit himself this is gaudium vobis joy to you to every ear that hears it 7. A good nature would not engross a blessing but desires to have it diffused and so was this Gaudium omni populo joy to all people And of these severally as I have put them in a rank Before the Law was delivered at Mount Sinai the voice of a Trumpet was heard in the Camp of Israel which sounded long and waxed lowder and lowder Exod. xix 19. A Trumpet was a sign of hostility and of warlike preparation The Law indeed came like an enemy to condemn us for we were not able to stand before it but Christ who was the end of the Law made way to his own manifestation by the articulate voice of an Angel as if it had been the voice of a man to intimate that the Prince of Peace was approacht near unto us ecce behold Out of which word standing in this place I note three things admiration demonstration and attention 1. Ecce see and admire this is the greatest wonder that ever was Name any thing unto me that ever was made and I am confident to say this is stranger to mans apprehension than any thing that ever was made the Incarnation of the Son of God If you love to cast your eyes upon that which is miraculous look this way and see the greatest miracle that ever was brought to light In the beginning was the word and no word can utter how it was made flesh in time The eternal Creator was made man of the substance of a woman and yet his hands did make and fashion the substance of his Mother The word by which the world was made became an Infant in the cradle and could not speak He that bears up the pillars of the earth was born in the arms of Joseph and carried into Egypt The Infinite Majesty that hath made the bounds of heaven and earth being himself without limits or circumscription was bound with swadling clouts and laid in a manger It is not safe to proceed into many of these inquisitions lest astonishment overwhelm us St. Paul was wary and came off thus from the wonderment thereof Without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh as who should say the Temple of Solomon had things of much secresie within the Veil the Ark the Cherubims the Propitiatory the most Holy of Holies the Church of the New Testament hath things as wonderful and mysterious as those arcana fidei recluse and admirable secrets of Faith the manifestation of Christ in the form of man Ipsi quoque Angelorum primati incognita says Dionysius the Primate of Angels in the triumphant Church is not able to sound the depth of it So then you see this word is a preface to an extraordinary miracle ecce behold Secondly To cry out unto the Shepherds behold is an Adverb of Demonstration things hard by make us look towards them more than those that are further off we sit still and muse upon that which we hope will come to pass but when we hear the bridegroom coming then we busle and look out The Prophet would not say barely Thy King cometh O Sion but Ecce Rex tuus behold thy King cometh O what an alteration this was when the invisible God came to an ocular demonstration and though he be now ascended up to Heaven yet he hath left his Spirit in our hearts that we may say with the Apostle Dominus prope est the Lord is at hand And though the senses of our body do not fix themselves upon him yet Faith will perceive him strongly and certainly that he is truly present Faith will assure it self how he stands at the door and knocks and how it hears his voice Furthermore let this demonstrative direction put you in mind to live so justly and inoffensively as if you did always behold God in the flesh Elias made the right use of this doctrine when he took an oath Vivit Dominus in cujus conspectuâsto as the Lord liveth in whose presence I stand Well says Rubanus upon it the just Prophet demeans himself as one that stands in Gods presence in this life and he shall surely keep his rank in the same place in the life to come Ecce natus says the Angel Behold the tidings of a Saviour as if nothing else had been worth our consideration and how many be there that demean themselves as if they car'd not whether they heed it or no. But thirdly Ecce behold it doth not beg but command attention when the Lord sends a messenger is it not fit to note him diligently and to ponder his sayings in your mind Philo says that those two words of Moses Deut. xxvii 9. Take heed and hearken O Israel are the sum of all the precepts in the Law Hearken O daughter and consider incline thine ear says
two observations 1. It appears in St. Matthew that the Angel called him Jesus before he was born yea before he was conceived Luke i. 31. it was Gabriels message to Mary Thou shalt conceive in thy Womb and bring forth a Son and shalt call his name Jesus Men called him so after he was born and circumcised Idem quippe Angeli salvator hominis hominis ab incarnatione Angeli ab initio creaturae for the same Lord is the Saviour both of Angels and Men of Angels before he was born from the beginning of the world of Men in the fulness of time after he was born That is the second person in Trinity being the eternal Son of the Father did confirm the good Angels in grace that they should never fall and the same person incarnate being the Mediator of God and Man did redeem the Elect that they should rise again from their sins and reign with him in glory 2. The complete imposition of the name was at his circumcision when he first shed his Blood as if his Death had been foretold as soon as he was born it would cost him blood not a few drops of the foreskin but the very blood of the heart to be called Jesus In Circumcision he was called a Saviour at his Passion the word Jesus was wrote upon the Cross then his enemies confest he was a Saviour In circumcisione non fuit actu perfecto sed destinatione salvator in Circumcision it was told by destination what he should be and incompleatly and by inchoation what he was It was a sign of servitude and of taking the guilt of sin to be Circumcised it was a sign of ignominy and reproach to be Crucified but this name exalted him and defended him against the bad opinion of the world when he was called at the one time in the Temple and entitled on the Cross at the other Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews To drive this point no longer about the honour of the imposition of the name this is the sum Angels and Men had their several shares in the dignity to give this attribute to our Lord but the name was grounded in his own nature of exceeding mercy and in his office of reconciliation therefore God alone could give him this name Innatum est ei nomen hoc non inditum ab humana aut Angelica natura says Bernard the name was bred with him and not imposed by men or Angels A name so royally impos'd must include a great deal of excellency that 's the next point Gallio the Deputy of Achaia was a great scorner of Religion and because Paul magnified Christ and the Jews blasphemed him Gallio said it was a controversie of words and names and he would not meddle with it it was not worth the while The name of Christ was beyond Gallio's reach to judge upon it David makes a great account of that which he did villifie Thou hast magnified thy name and thy word above all things Psal cxxxvii The names of God Jehovah are his names as a Creator and yet to be magnified above all things but the name of Jesus adds above his power of creation his goodness of saving and redemption Nihil nasci profuit nisi redimi profuisset it had been unbeneficial to be created unless we had been happily redeemed His Words his Actions his Miracles his Prayers his Sacraments his Sufferings all did smell of the Saviour Take him from his Infancy to his Death among his Disciples and among the Publicans among the Jews or among the Gentiles he was all Saviour The Jews were under the condition of thraldom at this time when Christ was born under the thraldom of their enemies and the tidings of a Saviour was sweet news at such a season yet the Shepherds could not so mistake that an Infant born but that day could go out with their hosts to subdue their enemies No person upon earth hath such need of a Saviour as a sinner whether it be peace or war Pandora's box of mischiefs all the miseries that can be named are the just reward of a sinner therefore the Angel doth not specifie to the Shepherds from what calamities he should redeem them and be called a Saviour indefinitely and absolutely from all A few particulars would but derogate from the honour of his salvation he sweeps away all evil at once like a Spiders web ab omni malo he saves us from the whole mass of evil a Saviour which is Christ the Lord Jer. xxiii 7. It shall no more be said the Lord Liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt but the Lord liveth which brought the house of Israel from the North Country the land of Chaldaea Alas both these are easie redemptions to that which calls him Jesus in the New Testament the Lord liveth who saveth his people from their sins there begins his mercy at that point to break the heavy yoke of sin from our necks to repress the dominion of the flesh rebelling against the spirit to take away earthly desires from our will and affections in a word to clear us in Gods Court that our iniquities may no more be imputed to us Who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood Revel i. 5. 2. He is a Saviour that delivers us from the sting and punishment of sin which is death He destroyed our death by dying on the Cross and repaired our life again by his own Resurrection 3. He is a Saviour that delivereth us from the power of Satan that although the enemy tempt and oppose vehemently yet he should not overcome his Saints Now is the judgment of this world now shall the Prince of this world be cast forth John xii 32. and so cast forth that he shall never renew his tyranny again For through death Chrst did destroy him that had the power of death the Devil Heb. ii 14. 4. He is a Saviour that frees us from the wrath of God and when we were enemies we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son Rom. v. From sin from death from Satan from the wrath of God These are the four heads of our Redemption and these are the excellencies included in the name of Saviour After these things thus declared methinks the third point should fall in directly without any contradiction Methinks of our selves without bidding men should strive to do abundant reverence at the hearing of this word a Jesus a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. We have not that feeling of our sins which we ought to have nor of the wrath of God for if we had we would hear this name with greater joyfulness but the destruction is not near enough to affect us Hell and damnation are not represented before our face if those things were so nigh that we did feel their horror we would not captiously gainsay that Ceremony of the Church to vail the head and bend the knee and to
Army which Pharaoh knew not how to withstand or which way to drive them back unless Moses prayed for him But more eminently than all other creatures the constellations of Stars are very frequently in holy Scriptures called the host of heaven as Deut. xvii 3. If there be any found among you which hath worshipped the Sun or Moon or any of the host of heaven bring forth that man or woman and thou shalt stone them with stones that they dye 2 Kings xvii 16. The reason is given why Salmanasar the King of Assyria took away Hoshea the King of Israel and the ten Tribes into captivity because they made them two Calves even molten Images and worshipped all the host of heaven and served Baal There is admirable order indeed in the Stars of the Firmament as in a well-marshall'd Camp the Planets one above another the Sun running his course in the midst as in the main battel nay there is virtue and influence in them to overthrow Gods enemies but the knowledge after what manner they fight against sinners is too excellent for us to attain unto it but Deborah the Prophetess said it that the Stars in their courses fought against Sisera Judg. v. 20. Josephus says upon that story that hail and thunder and winds were raised up by some planetary aspect which did great annoyance against Sisera and the Midianites Like as Livy says that the brightness of the Sun and clouds of dust blown about by the winds fell both together into the eyes of the Romans when they lost their whole Army at Cannae and the heavens above caused those incommodities almost to their utter destruction So Claudian sings of Theodosius the Emperor's Victory that the heavens above did fight of his side against his enemies O nimium dilecte Deo cui militat aether therefore the Stars whether you regard their order or their efficacy are rightly called an heavenly host And if these visible lights which the Lord hath set in the firmament to distinguish day and night are a celestial battel how much more the Angels whom God hath made invisible by nature and as fierce as fire in activity Who maketh his Angels spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire So Elisha presented a muster of them to his servant not simply as an host but as a fiery host the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha 2 Kings vi 17. Scarce any Prophet but touches upon it though darkly and mystically that the Angels are a militia ready to war and fight David Psalm xxxiv 7. The Angel of the Lord castrametatur encampeth round about them that fear him Is there any number of his armies meaning there is a multitude of heavenly Spirits assisting before the throne of God continually Job xxv 2. Who hath created these things that bringeth out their host by number Isa xl 26. I saw in my vision and behold the four winds of heaven strove upon the great Sea Dan. vii 2. And these says St. Hierom were the four Angelical powers to whom the four principal Monarchies of the world were committed But before any other Prophet of God mention'd that warlikeness which is in Angels Jacob did Gen. xxxii 2. when he was returning with his wife and children into Canaan the Angels of God met him and when Jacob saw them he said This is Gods host and he called the name of the place Mahanaim Mahanain is of the dual number and signifies two several Camps whether he meant the troop of Angels that came to guard him for one and the servants of his own family for another or rather as a learned Author says he saw a band of Angels before him and another behind him The Angels that particularly protect Palestina receiv'd him into that Country and they that were Guardians of Mesopotamia delivered him up and brought him thither You see that the phrase of our Evangelist is confirm'd by all the Prophets in the Old Testament but if it appear that Christ himself hath said as much you will believe the more that the sense is very useful and mystical Why Josh v. 14. when Joshua was about to besiege Jericho he lift up his eyes and saw a man over against him with his Sword drawn in his hand says he Art thou for us or for our adversaries and he said nay but a Captain of the host of the Lord am I now come Many Pontificians had the rather say this was an Angel because Joshua worshipped to help out their bad cause of the Worship of Angels but Andreas Masius proves it learnedly that this was Christ himself who conducted the people of the promise into the Land of Canaan even as he shall bring all his Elect into the Kingdom of Heaven and many times shew'd himself in a visible form as a man unto the Patriarchs to learn them the Faith of his Incarnation in the fulness of time The same Masius cites some words out of one Moses Gerundensis a Jewish Cabalist which I cannot omit says the Jew There is one principal Angel the Prince of all the rest who is the face of God for it is said Exod. xxxiii 14. Behold I will send my presence or my face before thee You know how this agrees with Christ the second Person in Trinity who is called the express image of his Fathers presence Heb. i. 3. The Cabalist goes on The Jews did much desire to see that principal Angel who he was they could not know him by any prophetical vision nor by their Law whereas the face of God can be nothing else but God himself and God promised of him to the people He shall be kind and gentle to thee neither shall he hold thee to the strict and rigid Law but shall deal favourably and mercifully with thee A most manifest description of Christ and his Kingdom but that his Jewish obstinacy would not let him see it This we gain out of it Christ is General of the Angels and they his Army Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth that is of Hosts as we say it and sing it often in our morning Hymn These being under the banner of Christ are the Chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof These did once turn the point of their Sword against us now Christ hath reconciled all things in heaven and in earth and they made this armilustrium this training in warlike ostentation at the birth of Christ to give us knowledge and comfort that they will turn their arms against our enemies That the Kingdom of Satan should be thenceforth brought under and supprest that the strong man should be cast out of his house and spoiled of all his munition Therefore this Canticle of theirs is an Epinicium or Song of triumph for a victory assured or obtained Like the joy of them that divide the spoil says the Prophet Isaiah upon the occasion of the Birth of
gestemus he doth bear us up always in his hands let us bear him and enclasp him in our Faith and say as Israel did I will not let thee go till thou hast blessed me says Origen Was it so beneficial to a poor woman to touch the hem of Christs garment in the Gospel then how profitable will it be to hold him close in our embraces as this Father did And as Maldonat says very truly Non credentis est modo sed amantis complectimur quos amamus This doth not only betoken Faith but exceeding love we hug them in our arms whom we have in dear estimation we catch them in our arms as if we would grow together so if we love the Lord sincerely we are one with him and he with us we dwell in him and he in us This amplexus arctissimus and he that loves not our Lord Jesus let him be accursed Chiefly at this time in the holy Sacrament we see him upon the Lords Table we take him in our hands we incorporate him in our souls by a lively faith and at his mystical presence in these Elements let us say as it is reported of a Religious Votary called Maria Aegyptiaca when Zozimus the Abbat gave her the Bread of Life upon her sick bed she beheld the Sacrament wishly which is the seal of all Christs mercies towards us and brake out into this song of Simeon Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Amen THE ELEVENTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE i. 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people AMong all portions of Scripture that afford matter for Christmass day I have for the most part hitherto chosen those Texts to speak of before you which are extracted out of the Songs of the New Testament Our Proverb goes It is good to be merry and wise Every Section of the Gospel disposeth us to be wise unto eternal life but the Canticles which sing the birth of Christ they teach us to be merry and wise unto Salvation Nothing doth better agree with this day than a godly Song Sing we merrily unto God our strength make a chearful noise unto the God of Jacob. You have heard me divers times preach unto you out of the Angels Carol Luke ii The last year I made my Sermon out of the Song of Simeon Nunc dimittis and I am sure I could not furnish my self better this year than out of the Song of Zachary so appositely doth it serve our turn both for our spiritual benefit procured in our Saviours Nativity and for our temporal benefit God having repossessed us after a lingring and destructive contagion in health and safety to break out into this Thanksgiving Blessed be the Lord c. The Lord turn us unto him and bring us out of our evil ways for therefore he visited us The Lord make us his own peculiar people zealous of good works for therefore he hath redeemed us When you hear of a Visitation and Redemption I know your thoughts will carry you presently to your late sufferance under a bitter scourge and to Gods merciful deliverance This is not amiss and I wish it may be long in your mind to bring forth the fruit of righteousness But this Visitation whereof my Text speaks it invites you to look above you not about you it invites you to think of that heavenly Infant that was born unto us not of those Sucklings and Infants that were swept away with the late mortality and by all means let us prefer the rejoycing that we have in Christ at this time before that other gladness for our bodily prosperity intend that chiefly and the condition of our own particular welfare let that come behind in a latter regard so did Zachary the Priest from whose mouth my Text proceeded God did give him a Son for the comfort of his own Family and such a Son as a greater than he was not born of a woman John the Baptist God also gave him to understand by Prophetical illumination that the Messias the Redeemer of the World was in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mark now the Piety of this good old man first he praiseth God for the Incarnation of Jesus that he raised up an horn of salvation for them out of the house of David and in the last close of the Song he magnifies that blessing that such a Son should be born to him in his old age and thou Child shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest This is a fair direction for our use that this should be the first thing in our thoughts and in our thankfulness to say Blessed be the Lord that the Word was made Flesh and hath dwelt among us Having told you how well this Song doth become the day and that the chief note of the Song is in the word Visitavit the Son of God did visit his people in an humane body I will yet give you more content out of the Text by informing you that it is a most remarkable Prophesie from Malachy for the space of four hundred years there had been no Prophet in all the Land of Judaea and therefore we count all that Apocryphal Scripture which is thrust upon us from the days of Malachi to Christ because there was no Prophetical inspiration among the Jews Behold now when a Prophet was grown such a rare thing among them the Lord opens the mouth of Zachary the Priest and he begins to Prophesie It is well noted of Origen that after the blessed Virgin conceived our Saviour men and women wheresoever she came were all inspired with Prophesie Elizabeth the wife of Zachary breaks out into admiration and how is it that the Mother of my Lord doth come unto me And she Prophesies the Child sprang in the mothers womb for exultation that the Messias was under that Roofe that was a mighty Prophesie not in word but in deed When Mary came to the Temple and brought Jesus with her to be purified after the Law Simeon and Anna in their several turns gave thanks unto the Lord and Prophesied but Zachary though last named he is the first and most memorable of the rest that spake mighty things in the Spirit the reviver of Prophesie after a long time it had lain asleep and to set an Emphasis upon my Text the words of it are the first that came from him after he had been dumb and the first that he uttered after he became a Prophet In a word mark it that he is the first-born of the Sons of the Prophets in the New Testament and this Text is the first fruits of his Prophesie Christ was yet but an Embrio his mother but three months gone since she conceived and yet Zachary speaks with a most Prophetical confidence of things to come as if they were past already as if the sweet Babe were born who had not yet opened the womb He hath visited and he
shall be our only work when we have attained to blessedness for God doth bless man by pouring his benefits upon him and man doth bless God by confessing the good which he hath received Fifthly and lastly Whereas our Saviour did abase himself to become man and emptied himself of his glory for our sakes we set upon it to do him all possible honour that we may weigh up again the Scale of his glory which himself depressed for our advancement as Peter said unto him when he went about to do that work of a servant to his Disciples Dost thou wash my feet no thou shalt never wash my feet he contended with his Lord that he would not cast himself down so far So Zachary sings a triumphal ditty to bless his poor Nativity we do all bow at the name of Jesus who bowed the heavens and came down to visit us we advance his Cross in our forehead we erect our goodliest Churches in his name we make Christmas day the high Feast of the year the great holy day of Praise and thanksgiving as if the Saints of God had conspired not to let Christ be humbled though he would be humbled So when he came to Jerusalem with the meanest pomp that could be imagined riding upon an Ass they that had loyal and zealous hearts to him combined to conduct him into the great City in as Princely a manner as they could devise laying their garments under his feet and in a manner proclaiming my very Text before him Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. The sum of this first Point is thus much O sing unto the Lord for it is a good thing to sing praises unto our God yea a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful So I have discharged the first Point that there is a comprehension of all praise in this word Blessed beside here is a comprehension of the chief divine titles the Lord God of Israel The names of the Lord do not consist in compound Epithets and magniloquous appellations The heathen did affect that bravery to set out the lustre of their Idols ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. as the Poet Callimachus expresseth it in his Hymn of Diana she desired an hundred brave names to be given her by her Priests as many attributes as Apollo had in his Temple Some will have these to be those vain repetitions of the Heathen which our Saviour reproves Mat. vi 7. taxing them that they thought they should be heard for their much speaking Sacred titles consist not in number but in weight and no words could be more ponderous and significative and yet contracted into fewer Syllables than these the Lord God of Israel A Law-giver will prefix his most ample attributes before the Pandect of his Laws and this is the Inscription over the two Tables Deut. xx I am the Lord thy God which is all one as to say I am the Lord God of Israel And the very words of my Text seem to be a current Eulogy in Davids time as it is Psal cvi 48. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting and let all the people say Amen Which names must needs contain an infinite excellency when they march in a rank together since if you take them one by one they are most dreadful and venerable He is called the Lord because he is the supreme and highest above all things so every King in his Sphere is a Lord in chief as Joab said to David Why doth my Lord the King delight in this thing He is called Elohim or God because he is set over all his Creatures to judge and revenge their iniquities therefore the Princes of the people are nuncupative Gods in Scripture because they sit upon the Throne of Judgment on earth to judge between man and man Or rather he is called God from his infinite and incomprehensible Essence Lord from his power and dominion but Lord God of Israel by application of his mercy to his Church above all the Kingdoms of the World Therefore he is to be worshipped as God eternal to be obeyed in all his Commandments as the Lord Omnipotent and be magnified and blessed for Israels sake because he loved that people above all things whom he hath chosen to be his inheritance for ever St. Austin cast out the difference on this wise that the Creator of all things is stiled God and when he gave a Law unto mankind Gen. ii 15. then he was stiled a Lord. But the observation hath an oversight in it for he is called the Lord God four times in the same Chapter before he commanded Adam to dress the garden of Eden and to keep it The Annotation would run better thus that while all things were in making in the Creation the Creator is termed God and God said let there be Light and God said let there be a Firmament so in every work throughout all the first Chapter of Genesis When the Creation was quite finished and the whole Universe of Creatures set in order then in the second of Genesis he is called Lord. From whence a question is started much agitated in the School Whether the great Jehovah may be called Dominus ab aeterno The Lord from all eternity Thou art God from everlasting that is an Article of faith never doubted of Nebuchadonosor could see that by the wonders and tokens which were wrought for Daniels sake therefore he makes a Decree that men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel for he is the living God and stedfast for ever But the scruple is since he did not exercise his dominion before the works which he made were extant whether the title of Lord did not accrue unto him in the beginning of time and not from all Eternity St. Austin moved the Controversie but out of his wonted modesty passed it by undefined Tertullian against Hermogenes says It is none of the eternal Appellations of the Divine Nature for it belongs not to the Divine Essence but to the Power and the Power could not exercise it self before there was an Object created Many of the School-men are convicted in their judgment by this reason of Tertullian and hold to his opinion I think if St. Austin would have determined it he would have gone the other way and for my part I take it to be most probable that we may say God was the Lord from all eternity before the Creatures were existent and produced It is true that if we measure things by our own power or rather by our own infirmity we can command nothing but that which is and hath a being but God is the Lord of all things even before they are and when they yet are not he can command them to have a being he spake the word and all things were made he commanded and they were created Non possunt per mandatum fieri quae non erant nisi dominium praecederet things that have no being could not be
commanded to be made unless he had dominion over them that is unless he were Lord over them before they were made Rom. iv he calleth things that are not as things that are therefore he hath authority as a Lord over things that are not as much as over things that are The fair conclusion of it is the actual relation of the Creatures to his dominion began in time but their subjection to his will and power is for ever therefore God is the Lord from all eternity Whatsoever distinction may be put between these names yet when we praise God let us do as Zachary doth joyn them both together when we confess him let us do so likewise as Jonas did I am an Hebrew who worship the Lord God that made heaven and earth When we say our Belief let us do the same even as the Nicene Fathers did before us I believe in one God and in one Lord Jesus Christ And if you please your selves to distinguish accurately upon such Titles because St. Paul hath said that there be Gods many and Lords many let us distinguish between them and this supreme one the Lord God of Israel who is blessed for ever more Christ says the Scripture calleth them Gods to whom the word of God came Joh. x. 34. That Scripture is Psal lxxxii 6. I have said ye are Gods and ye are all the children of the most high From thence and from my Text you may state a profitable difference 1. Dixi I have said ye are Gods he hath said it and that made them so unless he had Godded them they had had no such pre-eminence What they have it is by entitling and nuncupation 2. Dixi Dii estis there are many of those Gods not only every Prince and Ruler chalengeth it by his Crown but every Christian hath his interest in it by adoption of filiation So I cited it from the mouth of our Saviour before the Scripture hath said they are Gods to whom the Word of God came 3. Estis ye are for a while ye are and after a while ye shall go from hence and be no more seen ye shall die like men but the true God abideth for ever 4. These heathen Semi-gods these that carry that badge upon earth shall not only die like men but like sinful men for it follows in the Psalm that when they fall God shall arise to judge the earth after they have judged they shall be judged upon it hereafter how they have judged But O man thou must not reply against the God of heaven his judgments are indisputable 5. The ever blessed God is praised in every thing that pertains unto him he is praised in all places of his dominion he is praised in all his works He hath done all things well say the people of Christ but among the actions of the best men Sunt bona sunt quaedam mediocria sunt mala plura Among some good there is much evil among some flourishing sprigs of praise there are divers dead boughs of frailty 6. These Nuncupative Gods preside over Civil Governments each of them is a golden head over his own Political body but Christ only is head of the whole Church from whence the whole body increaseth with the increase of God he alone is the Lord. And it is likewise upon some remarkable appropriation that the Psalmist says the Lord is his name he bears it certainly with many notorious marks of difference from all the Lordlings in the world First The dominion of man is joyned with some servitude in the Master for he that stands in need is a servant to his own necessities and the Master stands in need of the drudgery of the labouring man as much or more perhaps than that drudge stands in need of the wages of the Master But all our service is of no use or benefit to the King of heaven I said unto the Lord thou art my God my goods are nothing unto thee Psal xvi and therefore says St. Austin God did not make the world from all eternity to shew that he did not want the help of his Creature Secondly All things serve the Lord above nothing is hidden from the Scepter of his dominion but man in the highest Office upon earth is confined to a small scantling of authority he can command the body of his Vassal but not his soul He cannot command his Grass to grow or his Trees to bear or his Cattel to encrease or the weather to be seasonable But as the people said in admiration of the Miracles of the Son of God Who is this that commandeth the Winds and Seas and they obey him Thirdly All the Lordship upon earth is subalternate and dependant from a greater command Masters do that which is just unto your Servants knowing that you also have a Master in heaven Col. iv There is but one Lord and none but he that is responsive to no other the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Our Saviour though an unscrutable Abyssus of humility assumed that unto himself Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am Joh. xiii 13. Such a Lord to whom all the Sons of men do bow and obey Such a Lord that though he were Davids Son yet David in spirit calleth him Lord The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstoole Lord of all things by the Essence of his Godhead Lord of all things in his Manhood by the Hypostatical Union but by special interest Lord of all those whom he redeemed with his most precious bloud Lord God of Israel in which numbers as soon as ever he believed Thomas concluded himself saying My Lord and my God As we have the Humanity of Christ expressed in the two subsequent actions so we have as surely his Divinity set forth in these Titles the Lord God of Israel But that God that filleth the heaven of heavens and that Lord who hath stretcht out the line of his power over the whole earth he is Canton'd in this Text to a little Region of the earth but a Molehill in respect of the extent of his Majestie the Lord God of Israel It was not with Zachary the Priest in this elegant Canto as it useth to be with other Poets who out of affectation do strain their Poetry to make honourable mention of their own Country where there was neither cause nor merit But this holy Prophet had sufficient warrant from the Spirit which cannot err to nominate him the Patron of this people rather than of any other the God of Israel and that for two reasons Propter notitiam verbi propter promissiones seminis benedicti First The Oracles of the Scriptures were committed to them and God was not truly worshipped any where but in the Synagogues of the Hebrews and therefore says the Psalmist Notus Deus in Israele God is well known in Israel there they knew him that he was to be adored that he
it renders thus I will make the kingdom of Davids glory to sprout forth Euthymius pleaseth me who gives the analogy thus the oil was poured out of an horn with which Kings were anointed you can instruct your selves that it was so both in David and Solomon and from thence an horn though an evacuation of nature and a mean thing became an ensign of Kingly Majesty Neither was this known only to the Jews but to the Heathen also so that their Kings did wear it among the honours and ornaments of their head as ours are painted with a mund and a Scepter in their hand Pyrrhus in Plutarch was known in the battail from all his subjects by wearing a Goats horn in his Helm and Villalpandus reports of an ancient piece of coin which had the image of Tryphon the Egyptian Monarch on the face and on the reverse it had his Crest with a Goats horn rising up before it Nay the same Author says that it was the fashion of David to wear the like thing in his head-piece And all this I have alledged because I would not want proofs that an horn was the representation of Kingly Sovereignty The meaning then of Zachary is this that Christ hath abased himself to be incarnate and to become our salvation yet he hath reserved this glory to himself in his humiliation that he will be a Saviour unto none but unto them that accept of him for their King and obey him in all things In almost all books of Scripture he is called a King I will not take so wide a scope to expatiate in but strictly I will touch at a little In Genesis he is resembled in Melchisedech the High Priest but he was also King of Salem In the Psalms yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion In one of the Lessons for the day he shall sit upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdom Isa ix 7 At his Birth the wise men did inaugurate him in that honour Where is he that is born King of the Jews At his triumph when he rode into Jerusalem Blessed is the Kingdom that cometh in the name of the Lord of our Father David Mark xi 10. At his arraignment when Pilate askt him if he were a King he left him in suspence with this answer thou sayest it Finally upon his Cross he would not let the title be altered but there it stood Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews The right of this Kingdom was given him in his Incarnation promulged by the preaching of the Apostles perfected after his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven and shall be consummated in the end of the world He is so fully constituted a King by being called the Christ that ever since it is the Dignity of all Kings to be called the Lords Christs Him hath the Lord anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Acts x. 38. in which words St. Peter hath exprest both his Sacred and his Kingly Sovereignty and to match him for the Texts sake with David in this point you must call to mind that David was thrice anointed first at his Fathers house by Samuel the next time at Hebron after the death of Saul and finally anointed at Jerusalem a King over all Israel So Christ was anointed by shedding of blood in Circumcision by blood again at his Agony in the Garden and thirdly by the great effusion of his dearest blood upon the Cross Or will you lay it thus He was anointed by his Father from heaven anointed by Mary with her box of Spikenard upon earth and lastly his dead body was anointed by the women when it was laid in the Sepulchre So in proportion there is a three-fold Unction to make us Kings and Priests for ever the first of Regeneration in Baptism the second with the blood of Jesus in the participation of the holy Communion and the third of glorification in the Kingdom of heaven but nihil dat quod non habet he that crowns us in glory had title to a crown himself he that makes us Kings was the horn or prince of our Salvation This is the stone of offence against which the Jews stumble that the Kingdom promised so expresly and literally to the Messias was not verified in the person of Christ our Saviour had he sate upon the throne of David with Power and Majesty reason would that they should believe but this is it as they plead which enervates their faith that he who is set forth so often in the name of a King should be born so meanly die so ignominiously and be acquainted in all his life with nothing but weakness and poverty 1. Remember this for the ground of my answer that Jesus Christ was God's only Son and our Lord that is our King is an Article of our Belief and therefore his Kingdom appears only to the eye of Faith and is not to be discerned after an earthly manner in outward pomp and visible glory for then it were no Article of the Creed 2. No humane Kingdom came to him by descent for ought we know he was of the house and lineage of David but it appears not that he was the true and lawful successor in the right line to the Crown of David Armacanus makes much ado to no purpose to derive his pedigree so that the Kingdom of David might truly be hereditary in him I say to no purpose for since the right should come to him by his Mother and she out-lived him that temporal Kingdom had been in her and never descended upon him unless he had survived her 3. Note it that the Prophets who prophesied of the Kingdom of the Messias must not be understood literally that 's not the fashion of Prophesies How then why with Evangelical qualifications and they are clear that his Kingdom is not of this world that he was no King to the prejudice of Caesar his laws pertained to the spirit and conscience he rules over his Church and yet was obedient to Rulers but he had not the temporal seat of David even as David had not the spiritual seat of Christ In a regal Throne he did not sit for he came not to be ministred unto but to minister although he was made heir of all things by virtue of the Hypostatical Vnion Just as David after he was anointed by Samuel was debased a while as the meanest servant But Christ being of the line of David and having an heavenly Dominion given him which had influence into the soul and conscience commanding things in heaven and earth making all things in the world stoop to the word of his truth converting sinners to salvation drawing all the Gentiles to take up his Cross ruling thus for ever and to the worlds end I hope you will say O that the Jews would heed it that this is a more excellent Sovereignty than ever David had therefore God hath made good his promise and transcended it that God had given him the Kingdom of his
up in the house of his servant David This the Pharisees had learnt by rote and very truly when our Saviour askt them what think you of Christ whose Son is he and they say unto him Davids Till those days the Pedigrees of the Tribe of Judah were kept unconfused especially the pedigrees that descended directly from David and those things which the providence of man would never have kept from darkness and intricacy through long tract of time the wisdom of God kept them clear and uncontroverted so that Joseph and Mary were taxed as belonging to the house of David 'T is much that St. Matthew would not give Abraham the precedency in the generation of Christ he deserved it for antiquity but sets David in the front The Book of the generation of Jesus Christ the Son of David the Son of Abraham The cause is not to be disputed but the thing to be granted that the promises made to David were so comfortable and notorious that they exceeded the promises which were made to Abraham Or thus God did first engage himself to Abraham in these words In thy seed shall all the Nations of the world be blessed and the last man to whom he confirm'd that promise was David Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy seat To amplifie it further our blessed Lord and Redeemer is not only saluted by the Prophets in the name of the Son of David but by an interchangeable nature or supposition of identity is called David They shall serve the Lord their God and David their King whom I will raise up unto them Jer. xxx 9. and I the Lord will be their God and my servant David a Prince among them Ezech. xxxiv 4. I conjecture that the Jews did rather please themselves to call him the Son of David then the Son of Abraham because they did rather expect a temporal victorious Monarch out of the line of David The one was the root of the people the other the root of the Kingdom therefore when God says he will not destroy the people he says he will not do it for Abrahams sake When he says he will not destroy the Kingdom he says he will not do it for Davids sake And the gross minds of the Jews were set upon the reflourishing of their visible and outward Kingdom therefore from the High-Priest in his chair to the poor blind man that sate by the high-way side all of them had one name for the Messias the Son of David Yet David was a more perfect type of Christ in those words where he is said to be a man after Gods own heart than by possessing the Monarchy of all Canaan for Christ and he only is a man after Gods own heart and in whom he is well pleased David was obnoxious to great Rebellions for which the Lord was much offended But I mark it further that in all the New Testament Christ never calls himself the Son of David but the Son of Man as Moses c. and that for two reasons First Referring to the primitive promise of all wherein Christ is first mention'd The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head he points as it were with his finger to that Scripture that he is the seed of the woman when he reiterates that periphrasis so often that he is the Son of man Secondly To let us know that not only the house of Israel but all the Gentiles that came out of the loins of Adam even all the sons of men that make not themselves unworthy of the promise do belong to the City of God all that believe have interest in his Merits and Passion But because it is impossible that one man should be of the Progeny of all Families therefore he is sever'd out to a most noble kindred the house of his servant David Will you not be a weary with nice points of Genealogies if I give an answer to an objection which Julian the Apostate made against the kindred of Christ from the house of David no it shall not be wearisom because I will be very brief That renegado from the Faith did thus argue that Joseph was but the reputed Father of our Saviour but his pedigree drawn up to Abraham in St. Matthew drawn up to Adam in St. Luke concur both in Joseph but since the parentage of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not exprest whose very Son the Lord Jesus was according to the flesh how doth it appear that he was the Son of David Take these grounds in order to satisfie you First That the Pharisees in the Gospel labouring by all means not to acknowledge him for the Messias yet never made any doubt but that he came out of the house of David Secondly The Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke were publisht while the Pharisees domineered and had great authority yet they never quarrelled at the Evangelists as if their Genealogies had not sufficiently demonstrated Christ to be the Son of David Thirdly Although you find Joseph to be as it were the ground of both Genealogies marvail not at it for St. Hierom says it is not the custom of the Scripture to context a Pedigree by the Mother if he means that Pedigrees of long descent such as these be not deduced from the female stem it is very true But fourthly I answer That in all likelihood the pedigree of Christ in the third of St. Luke rises up from the holy Virgin his Mother Thus I make it evident in the first of Matthew Joseph the Carpenter is called the Son of Jacob now certainly he was the Son of Jacob for there it is said Jacob begat Joseph In St. Luke after our reading he is called the Son of Heli how can it be that Heli was his Father if Jacob begat him not by Nature but by Law three ways 1. By Adoption so Esther was Mordecai his adopted Daughter and St. Austin did once opine that Joseph was the natural Son of Jacob and the adopted Son of Heli This may reconcile the seeming contradiction of the two Evangelists yet it is no answer to Julians objection 2. There was a legal way peculiar to the Jews you shall find it Deut. xxv if a man died without issue his Brother was tied to marry his Relict and to raise up seed unto him and the child that should be born was the legal Son of the Brother that died without issue the natural Son of him that begat him So Booz married Ruth the Wife of his Brother Mahlon to raise up the name of the dead upon his Inheritance Affricanus a very ancient Author as Eusebius reports him affirmed that he had it by tradition from the Jews the kinsmen of our Saviour that Heli and Jacob were brethren Heli dying childless Jacob married his Wife by whom he had Joseph so Joseph was the legal Son of Heli the natural Son of Jacob. And St. Austin meeting with this report of Affricanus retracted his former opinion and subscribed to Affricanus
chief counsellors of Persia and with greatest trust that can be had to conjectures we may say they made a Voyage from Persia to Jerusalem to see our Saviour Now the nearest confines of Persia are but 200 leagues from Jerusalem and the Camels of those Countries as good Authors testifie upon their own experience will travel forty leagues a day by which proportion it may be collected how possible it is to come in twelve days from the most Eastern parts of Persia to Jerusalem In Divine matters even the smallest things should be diligently sifted therefore I would not let this circumstance go till I had vindicated it from obsâârity and now these Travellers deserve their commendation and we their imitation They liv'd in honour and safety in their own Country but Patria est ubicunquè est Christus that 's a man's Country and his home where Christ is reverently worshipped and where the fear of God is in the place Hearken O daughter and consider incline thine ear forget also thine own people and thy fathers house What is honour and safety to a man at home if true Religion be abroad God be thanked we have both therefore these honourable persons leave their own Country as Abraham did I will not extol their faith more than his or his more than theirs comparisons are odious they could not come from the East to Judea but by Arabia Petrea a most rocky cumbersom Country and by Arabia deserta a most thievish murdering Country and from the heavens above they could have no better comfort at this time of the year but either bitter frosts to travel in or foul winter weather and to continue thus for twelve days together it was a great proof of zeal and patience that would run through all difficulties to be satisfied in this one question Where is he that is born the King of the Jews twelve days journey do I speak of nay twelve furlongs are a great matter for persons of quality to come to Church if it mizzle with a little rain or the air be sharp or the place throng'd or any slight inconvenience to keep them away and yet I must tell you these were Wise men that came to Christ through thick and thin through dread and danger strid over all molestations therefore unless you will have me leave my Text I cannot call them wise that will spare themselves from Gods service for every trifle of inconveniency The cape from whence they came affords one short note more that they were Easterlings for in that capacity they were not only Gentiles but of such Gentiles as had provok'd God to anger more ab antiquo dierum from many ages before than any other Nation They were not only Gentiles but sinners of the Gentiles as St. Paul says Gal. ii 15. The tower of Babel was built in the East that tower whose builders erected it as it were in defiance of heaven from thence came tyranny with Nimrod that opprest his people and as Histories tell us the first invention of Images sprung from those parts in that Tomb which Belus made for the untimely departure of his Son and from the Mountains of the East came Balaam and the false Prophets that loved the wages of iniquity I cannot say it confidently as St. Chrysostom doth that these wise men were the best of all those sinners in the East ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that these were better composed to believe than any other It is manifest this Eastern part of the world was as full of sins as any and the Scripture placeth nothing in their person that they had better morality than their fellows it was the Lords free mercy and compassion that the Star of his Grace should shine upon them and that they were selected above many thousands where all of them some in greater measure some in less deserved to sit in the shadow of death and to die in eternal condemnation and when Christ was scarce born we see the largeness of his grace that it was diffused to the furthest parts of the world and the freeness of his grace that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance A blessed Birth by which many were made alive unto God who were dead in sins and trespasses A blessed apparition by which the day-spring from on high hath visited us A blessed Incarnation by which the wicked mass of our nature is sanctified A blessed calling of the Gentiles by which all Tongues and Languages do praise the Lord from the East unto the West from the North unto the South O praise the Lord all ye kindreds of the earth for he hath done marvellous things for us in giving us his Child Jesus to be our sanctification and redemption Amen THE FOURTEENTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION MAT. ii 1 2. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem Saying where is he that is born King of the Jews For we have seen his Star in the East and are come to worship him SInce the Lords day and the Feast of the Epiphany do light together this holy day is sure to be observed with frequent Assemblies in all Christian Churches as it is at this time in this place But in former Ages and in the most devout times when religious men studied for the fittest occasions to praise the Lord this Epiphany which we call Twelfth-day though it fell upon any day of the week was kept with the presence of the noblest persons with as much outward honour with as solemn service with as many testifications of zeal and joy as any day in the year For to crown it with more blessings than one the memory of three illustrious manifestations of Christ were celebrated upon this feast First that which is rememorated in our Church and no more the bringing of the Gentiles to Bethlem to see the Lord by the assistance of a Star ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that 's the most renowned apparition Secondly The Baptism of our Saviour was computed to this day when the Holy Ghost gave testimony who he was descending upon his head in the shape of a Dove ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã For the honour of these two memorable accidents Nazianzen calls it festum sanctorum luminum the feast of sacred lights or illuminations for Baptism is called our illumination Thirdly The miracle of turning water into wine was remembred together for the third manifestation of Christ ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã St. John says this beginning of miracles did Jesus in Canae of Galilee and manifested forth his glory Leo and Chrysologus speak of these three glorious works to be solemnized at this one time and Bernard a much later man than they goes no further Tres apparitiones Domini legimus unâ quidem die sed non uno tempore factas We celebrate three mighty apparitions of our Lord all in one day though they fell not out all in one
Heir to the house of Austria but the dominion is still Spanish So the power was devolved upon the Levites but the dominion was still Judah's until Shiloh came So I have done with the occasion of these Wise mens coming because Christ was born which birth I have examined from the place and the time from the place Bethlehem and the time in the days of Herod the King I do not profess to deal with the sayings of the Wise men at this time the consideration of that verse will be an hours work at the least but I will borrow a little with your patience for the use of the day out of their question which is most natural to be spoken of on this high Feast of Christmas where is he that is born the King of the Jews God that told them by a Star that his Son was born could have told them where he was born and have saved them that labour to ask it but the Lord thought it more expedient to let them be ignorant for a while to prove their diligence how they would search it out When they came to Judea they found not out Christ straight no more shall we be perfect men in Christ upon the first gust and illumination of heavenly things Yet we think commonly when we have gone a little way we are at our journeys end we have found out all that can be found and for the rest let nature work and grace too if it will It is not good laying hold of that place of the Prophet Isa lxv 1. I was found of them that sought me not Some are so happy but all have not that favour from God Seek and ye shall find is the Text we must trust to Those are the righteous indeed of whom David speaks This is the generation of them that seek thee even of them that seek thy face O Jacob. I proceed they sought and askt for this blessed Infant but at the wrong place for they took in at Jerusalem and sought him there It seems the position of the Star guided them to the Land of Judea and then their own apprehension made choice of Jerusalem before any other City A King was born Jerusalem the imperial habitation they concluded like men certainly he is housheld there This was the mistake a humane error but as St. Austin speaks to it Ratione duce non invenitur qui de Caelo revelatus est Reason was no good Harbinger to appoint him his lodging whose birth was revealed from heaven My ways are not your ways nor my thoughts your thoughts says the Lord Isa lv His birth was private but his passion publick At Bethlehem you shall hear of his Nativity and at Jerusalem of his Passion All the while they were lodg'd in Jerusalem the Star which guided them obscur'd it self because they were out of the way While they followed humane conjectures they were disappointed of their heavenly direction Yet it cannot be withstood but that God had some secret hand in it that they askt this question in Jerusalem before they fell upon the right place The Fathers meditation is more plausible than solid that it was an expostulation with the Princes of Judah why they had not lodg'd their King that was born in the chief City and in their chief Palace Cur in praesepi jacet non decumbit in templo cur non fulget in purpura sed squalet in pannis why should he lie in a manger and not in the most holy place of the Temple why is he wrapt in poor habiliments and not in Purple and Gold but this expostulation need not for he came not to challenge the world that they did not attend him with pomp and honour but because they would not believe in him that was sent to save them These following are more substantial answers First to Jerusalem they came and so to the Priests because howsoever God may call some by revelations and visions yet he sends them afterwards to be confirmed by the Doctrine of his Priests and Prophets So Paul saw a light from heaven at first as these men saw a Star but Paul was sent to the Ministry of the word to Annanias to preach unto him So Cornelius began with the vision of an Angel but he was made a complete Christian and Baptized by the Ministry of Peter Beloved though God give extraordinary helps to call us to salvation yet wise men will go to the Scribes to ask of them where Christ is The Priests lips shall preserve knowledge But as one says now every artisan thinks he is a whole convocation of Scribes in his brain and can tell as well as they Secondly By going to Jerusalem the Scribes did tell them where Christ should be born but went not to see him or seek him themselves Divinas literas portabant non adjutorium salutis suae sed ad testimonium nostrae they cited Scripture to save the Gentiles but not to save themselves they direct others and themselves are cast-awayes like way-stones that shew others their journey but themselves are immovable and stir not Thirdly They were not sent to the Shepherds that could tell them but they came to others that their question might stir up others to search him that were yet in ignorance And the questions of the ignorant are profitable oftentimes not only to the ignorant but also to their teachers The question about the inheritance of the Daughters of Zelophahad made Moses study to resolve it and gave him more understanding in the Law Fourthly The Magi askt very boldly at Jerusalem Where is he that is born King of the Jews They speak as of a thing supposed to be known thinking the Jews must know all Prophesies about their own King better than the Gentiles for unto them were committed the Oracles of God But quite otherwise God sent the Gentiles to be Preachers of these things unto the Jews and so they are unto this day and that of David is verified on our part Thou hast made us wiser than our teachers To end for this time Ubi est where is Christ then avant ubiquitie he is not every where and it is against the simplicity of the Gospel to put plain capacities to find out an ubiquity by the Lutheran subtilties of their communion of properties that the divine nature gives the humane nature all that it hath But for a plain use to you if it be askt where is Christ I will answer it four ways First The heavens have received his bodily presence send up your Prayers unto him there Secondly Where two or three are gathered together in his name he is in the midst of them So that if you be a sound orthodox part united to the body of the Church he will give you of his Spirit that you shall find him there Thirdly He gives us to know that every poor afflicted member stands for his own person Ecce illic Christus If you will distribute plentiful alms to your poor neighbours against
is in the new Temple of Jerusalem above the Stars that doth secretly teach the heart As the times go the efficacy of grace had need be stiffly maintained against bare outward means Mark the consent of antiquity upon this Point Non satis fuisset stella nisi adfuisset fides illustratio sancti spiritus says St. Ambrose they had never moved so far for the Star alone without the illumination of faith and the holy Spirit Fulgentior veritatis radius eorum corda perdocuit says Leo certain impulsions and illustrations of the holy Spirit gave them understanding and will to come to Christ Deus direxit eos tam in viâ morum quà m in viâ pedum says Chrysologus God did direct them both in their inward and in their outward ways The natural man is not able to discern the things that belong to God let these alone to themselves and shew them a bright Lamp from heaven and they would have thought of any thing as soon as of this question Where is he that is born the King of the Jews Suppose they had certain Traditions in their Schools that when such a Star was seen the Messias was come into the world yet no man could apply himself to seek out Christ and worship him but by the Spirit of God Every man is full of his conjectures who should deliver the expectation of the Messias to those remote Gentiles whether Daniel or some other Prophet that was in the Chaldean Captivity Or whether Balaam who lived in the Mountains of the East a thousand years before Daniel Nay another Author puts it upon Seth that he left a Prophesie concerning such an occasion which should fall out against the birth of Christ and that the Wise-men of the East appointed twelve men of their Colledge to watch that Star every year from the beginning of Autumn to the Winter and when one of those twelve died they supplied the number that their Watchmen might never fail Some Predictions they had I will not contend about it preacht to the outward ear yet this had been but sounding brass and empty words if the Lord had not secretly moved their heart What you will say and was the Spirit diffused even among the disperced of the Nations that lived without the Law Yes Beloved that was more than seldom seen as the spirit of grace was in Cornelius to send up Prayers and Alms to heaven before he knew what it was to be baptized unto remission of sins in the bloud of Christ The spirit of direction was upon Cyrus an heathen 2 Chron. c. ult 22. he was admonisht from God to build the Temple The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus the King of Persia And the spirit of Divination or Prophesie was upon the wicked Soothsayers of the Philistins 1 Sam. vi 9. they divined if the Cart in which they put the Ark of the Lord went up straight to Bethshemesh to its own Coast then the Lord had laid evil upon them for detaining it and so it came to pass ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Chrysostom God did make the Event answer to the Prediction of those wicked Soothsayers No opposition therefore in this but the Spirit bloweth where it listeth even among the dispersed of the heathen even among these Wise-men of the East Dedit aspicientibus intellectum qui prestitit signum The grace of God was in their understanding and his signs and wonders in their outward eye And so much of their first Assertion what God had wrought for them We have seen c. Said I even now that the benediction of the Spirit was upon them So it is evident by the last part of my Text their second Assersion what God had wrought in them and are come to worship him Many might come a journey to see him as well as they for that Herod that cut off John Baptist his head desired of a long time to see him Many might see the Star as well as they and be never the better for sundry saw as great signs and miracles that never believed Many of the Scribes knew where he was to be born and were able to tell the Wise-men when they knew not the matter lies not therefore in venimus or in vidimus but in adoramus this is their praise and this is their piety that they came to worship him and that they profess they will worship him though they knew him to be but an Infant new born and never scan the case in what condition they may find him The Queen of the South came as far as these men did but she found a King in all Royalty and such a glorious Court as never was the like these men found a Child in a Cratch the poorest and most unlikely birth that ever was to prove a King no sight to comfort them not a word that came from him for which they were the wiser and yet they were as good as their word they did fall down and worship him and more than worship him present him with their gifts Why should not they humble themselves to the earth when they saw the Stars above did obey him and wait his attendance You will say If we could see such a Star as they did the obstinate would be more convinced to do him worship but it will be more acceptable to worship him though we have not seen Beside They adored him when he was so little in his humiliation who will be slack to perform that homage now he is so great in his glorification I will rather regard the time than dispatch all that remains But one thing is to be spoken of that some take the very foundation of this Point from us namely that the worship of the Wise-men was no religious worship they came not to exhibit a pious veneration to Christ as to the Eternal Son of God but they saluted him with their bended knee as the Persian manner was to behave themselves before their Kings But why should Persians tender such civil worship to one that was none of their own Kings but the King of the Jews One would answer it thus to ingratiate themselves into him betimes if happily he should become the Oriental Monarch in his elder years A conjecture too slight for his great judgment that uttered it Is it possible that wise men should conceive in him no more than a man and yet do him all Princely honour lying in the Cratch of a Stable Are they such men as were admonisht in a dream by the divine Oracles which way to return home and yet shall we interpret their actions politically and not after a divine manner St. Chrysostom says They did both adore him in Bethlehem and preach of his heavenly Kingdom when they came home into Persia ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã St. Ambrose is for the same they worshipped him being a little babe in swadling clouts Vtique parvulum non adorassent si parvulum tantum credidissent But
Prophet by prostrating himself did bring life again into that which was dead so Jesus by making himself an ignominious reproach to the world did justifie and acquit those who were appointed to everlasting death Thus you see why our Saviours answer strikes upon the circumstance of that present time Suffer it to be so now He came in the form of a Servant and as long as he emptied himself in that shape he would do the duties of a Servant Sine modo now I will be baptized of thee in water hereafter I will baptize my Church with the Holy Ghost and with fire As yet I stand for one of the multitude as yet the Holy Spirit hath not descended upon me to make me manifest to the world that I am the Son of God therefore suffer it to be so now Mark I beseech you how in the lowest depression of a servant he keeps the Majesty of a Lord For he makes himself a servant by his own command Sic volo sic jubeo it is my own pleasure to make my self a worm and no man yea a very scorn and derision of them that are round about me As Cesar did not lessen his own dignity because he would both command as General and yet work in the trenches like the meanest Pioneer Dux consilio miles exemplo and as Helen the Mother of Constantine was not under the honour of a Princess because she would dress the Blains and Ulcers of poor Cripples in the Hospital So the mighty Son of God was not diminished in his glory because he put himself into the rank of abject ones by his own yielding and accord not by compulsive necessity His obedience did not spring from any legal servitude as one whose Parents did beget him in bondage nor from any penal servitude as one that was enthralled by trespasses or violent captivity But he did put his neck into the yoke and did appoint himself certain years of misery and abasement therefore he lays his authority upon the Prophet that it should be so Suffer it to be so now And is not this example worth the learning That God is better served by him that hath a yielding spirit and will stoop in humility than by him that is stiff to maintain the honour of his person and will not condescend for the advantage of much good from his place and dignity You shall have them that will defend Augustine the Monk that would neither veile his head nor bend his knee to the Brittish Monks of this Island that were met to receive him Forsooth such courtesie did not become him because he was the Nuncio of the Apostolical See There was a great Clerk that bolstered up the fiery humour of Pope Paul the Fifth in the Venetian quarrel and bad him keep his dignity inviolable whatsoever became of peace with this Text to enflame him Arise Peter kill and eate O if there be any such evil Monitor that provokes you to stiffness and stubborness by the consideration of your Greatness and Principality answer him with our Saviour Sine modò frater whatsoever I be in pre-eminence of honour let me forget it now many things unworthy our person must be swallowed up for the glory of God When Shimei reviled David Abishai would have had his head for it suffer it to be so now says David though he were the King of Israel I must pass it over without revenge it is the Lord that will afflict me There are such as will blow coals especially to incense great men if their inferiours chance to trespass Are you not noble Of ample fortunes Of great power and reputation And will you not crush an underling that affronts you But such injuries as your bloud could not put up your office which you sustain must remit that you are members of Christ linkt together in love which is the bond of perfection Christs Office of Mediatorship made him be contented with those abasements which where far unworthy of his Majestical person But suffer it to be so now c. This Point which I have latest handled was the strict command of Christ over John Baptist as his Lord in that which follows as a Preceptor he teacheth his Disciple and gives him reason that he might know upon what ground he must obey Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness in which reason so many words so many notations six in all which will require discussion 1. What signification the word righteousness hath 2. What is required to fulfil it 3. How it was fulfilled in this Baptism for our Saviour hath put an Emphasis upon the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Thus I must fulfil it 4. How it can be said that the coming to Johns Baptism was the fulfilling of all righteousness 5. Why the Proposition speaks of more than one of us in the Plural 6. That Christ did fulfil all righteousness at this time not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in a strict necessary rigour but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for decency sake because it did become him So you see every word is ponderous and observable Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness Of these as the scantling of the time will permit The significations of the word righteousness or justice are four First It is the name of all vertue taken in the lump where none is wanting So did the Philosopher state it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Justice is not a part or a fragment of Vertue but the whole continent of it And so it is to be found in God only and in no other Creature And thus our Saviour did fulfil all righteousness because we had fulfilled all manner of wickedness And so St. Chrysostom understands this place that to make our peace with God Christ was tied to the exact performance of all the Commandments Secondly Justice is one particular branch of Vertue which is thus defined Constans perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuendi A constant and perpetual resolution to give every man his own And St. Paul puts it in one Precept Rom. xiii 7. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Render therefore to all men their dues And Christ was most respectful to see that every one had their own both in heaven and earth according to that most admirable principle Give unto Cesar that which is Cesars and to God that which is Gods Thirdly Justice is taken for faithfulness in our word and being exactly true in our promises and certainly lying is a fraudulency most opposite to Justice Thus did our Saviour shine in righteousnes full of grace were his lips neither was any guile found in his mouth Yea let God be true says the Apostle and every man a liar that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and overcome when thou art judged Rom. iii. 4. Fourthly Righteousness doth many times very properly signifie that integrity which is found in a man according to that special Office which he sustains There is a particular Justice belonging to every state and condition of
corruption that is in us and to be the Sons of God Because there is mention of a good Spirit immediately before my Text that descended from heaven upon him in the shape of a Dove and all the business after my Text concerns an evil Spirit that assaulted him with many tentations therefore the quaere ariseth which of these did lead him into the Wilderness The Syriack determines it plainly Ductus â spiritu sancto he was led by the Holy Ghost And it is of more moment that certainly the Syriack Paraphrase took it from St. Luke Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they that understand Grammer and the original Text do easily discern that the same word in the same sentence implies one and the same thing the latter being an effect of the former for being full of the Holy Spirit he was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness And I will parallel it plainly anon with that of St. Paul Acts xx 22 Behold I go bound in spirit to Jerusalem Moreover the Devil approached not unto him till after he had fasted forty days he began to be an hungry for he had no motive to begin his tentations till he perceiv'd he was in the distress of hunger like a weak man Therfore it was not Satan that carried him into this place where he fasted for then the tentation had begun before he had set foot in the Wilderness The case is clear to say no more of the first Point that the Spirit which led him was the influence and impulsion of the Holy Ghost The second thing to be askt is how the Spirit did lead him This can be conceived but two ways Either by inward instigation or removing him suddenly from one place to another which is called outward translocation Each way may be admitted for both are according to Analogy of Faith and both are favoured out of the Greek Text of sundry Evangelists You shall read in St. Luke Chap. iv 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he was led by the Spirit which doth imply that the Holy Ghost did inwardly inspire that resolution into him and did assist continually while he abode in the Wilderness You shall read in St. Mark Chap. i. 12. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness as if he had been transported thither in some wonderful rapture And my Text is read thus in St. Mathew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He was led up of the Spirit The Proposition ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sursum to lead up hath either regard to the situation of the Desart which was by far the higher ground in respect of Jordan where our Saviour was before Or else that he was exalted from the earth and carried away by the Spirit through the air untill he came unto that place where he spent forty days in Prayer Fasting and Meditation I dare not contend out of the Scriptures but that the Spirit wrought both ways upon Christ both carrying his body into the Wilderness and instigating his mind No unusual thing in the first sense for the Spirit to transport a body suddenly through the air without the motion of the feet to a place of far distance And although the whole Trinity God the Father the Son and Holy Ghost concur to that action and produce it or perhaps appoint an Angel to be the instrument yet it goes under the name of the Spirit because that Miracle impresseth a strange vertue into a material body as if it were spiritual How Enoch and Elias were translated on high in their bodies I have declared my mind not long since And surely before Elias his last translation into heaven this did befall him often times Obadiah was jealous of it 1 King xviii 13. It shall come to pass when I am gone from thee the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not What Ezekiel reports of himself I cannot say but it was rather an imaginary than a real rapture but thus he Ezek. viii 3. The hand of God took me by a lock of mine head and the Spirit lift me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem This could not be imprinted in his imagination but that it was possible to be done really And Gregory meditates well upon it Every regenerate person during the time of this mortal flesh is so lifted up between heaven and earth Adhuc ad superna plene non pervenit sed tamen ima dereliquit His conversation and his heart are not altogether in heaven but they are higher than the earth What a direct instance is that of the Prophet Habakkuk He was carrying food to the Reapers in the Land of Jury and the Angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head and through the vehemency of the Spirit set him in Babylon Neither need this be rejected for Apocryphal since there is an example to match it Acts viii 39. The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip who was then at Gaza and he was found at Azotus which two are forty miles distance after the best descriptions of the Holy Land A Faith that is but linum fumigans a dusky faith and shines not clearly may easily admit this for if the birds can cut the air with their gross wings naturally who will not be perswaded that God can make the body of man more nimble and fit for such a motion by his supernatural power But I marvel at those Expositors who are squemishly conceited against that opinion that they did not frame this objection God doth not use to work Miracles only to shew tricks as one would say no necessity requiring Then cui bono Why might not Christ have gone into the Wilderness step by step What occasion of moment should urge the Spirit to transport him Beloved it was thus far expedient that Christ should vanish and no man know which way he was departed that he might avoid the honour which the multitude would have done him upon that voice which came from heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased So in the sixth of St. John after the miracle of feeding some thousands with a little bread and a few fishes Christ perceived that they would take him by force and make him a King therefore he made a sudden departure none knew whither till his Disciples met him walking upon the Sea in a dark night and a great storm Mat. xiv 23. This is reason then sufficient to decline the people who were astonished at the testimony which was given him from heaven that the Spirit snatcht him away in a rapture into the Wilderness Why this interpretation of the word should not take with you I know not but I am sure the next must take ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He was led by the Spirit that is the Holy Ghost did inspire this heroical
resolution into his humane nature to fight with and to overthrow the tentations of the Devil I shall reach this doctrine unto you the better upon certain questions And first what needed this Preface of all other before this mighty work that he was guided by the Spirit What action throughout all his life did not deserve the same commendation A young Rhetorician dedicated an Oration to one Antalcidas What is the subject of your Oration quoth he Says the young Orator the praise of Hercules Fie man says Antalcidas what needless pains have you taken Who did ever dispraise Hercules So it may seem as redundant an expression to say that Christ was led by the Spirit at this time for through the grace of Union and the grace of Unction he was always conducted by the Spirit It is sufficient for answer to this that this was the first exploit of those that Christ did act to shew he was the Christ and the Mediator of God and man therefore this clause being prefixt to the formost of his actions is a title to all the rest he was led of the Spirit 2. It is not to be taken per modum inhaerentiae that he was now full of the Holy Ghost as if he had received a larger measure than he had before but by way of manifestation for the Spirit even now had visibly descended upon him in the shape of a Dove Semper fuit actus à spiritu sed jam maximè ejus vis apparuit the common gloss of the best Writers The Spirit did always lead him and dwel in him but now it did appear and put forth its strength I move another question be not offended that I move these hard things as it were by way of Catechism are the leadings of the Spirit of more sorts than one Yea these two are degrees one above another The first is general to all the Sons of God for they are all stirred up to faith and hope and good works by a divine illumination If ye be led by the Spirit then are ye not under the Law of the flesh Gal. v. 18. The second is special to the chiefest and principal Ministers of God as Kings Prophets and Apostles when Saul was anointed King over Israel the Lord gave him another heart his Spirit came upon him and he Prophesied So Christ our anointed Prophet prepared himself for a famous enterprize and he had the badge of Gods good liking The Spirit came upon him or he was led by the Spirit Suffer but one interrogatory more and it is this Did the Spirit thrust on Christ and as it were hale him with compulsion at this time So a man might hap to fall into that error by St. Marks words The Spirit driveth him into the Wilderness And the Vulgar Latine gives the same offence Luk. iv 1. Agebatur a spiritu he was pusht on by the Spirit For answer hard words are soon mollified by good construction The very Heathen could say Generosus est animus hominis magisque ducitur quà m trahitur Mans will is a free generous thing and had rather be led fairly than drawn forcibly Therefore the other Evangelists must be expounded by St. Matthew that the Spirit led him by illumination and propounding the will of his Father unto him not by violence and coaction So Cajetan Non vis significatur sed efficientia impulsus spiritus All was done by the efficacy and motion of the Spirit nothing by compulsion Some there are who care not what old Pillars of Divinity they pull down to set up their new devises that hold that Christ did obey his Father and the Divine Law with so much liberty and freedom that it were no offence to say Christ could not have obeyed his Father not have kept the Law and so by consequent have sinned and whereas it is certain he did not sin they will neither allow that the Hypostatical Union was the cause of it O strange Theologie nor yet the grace of Unction wherewith he was anointed above his fellows O strange impudency Neither of these was fundamentum impeccabilitatis And all this to maintain that because he did merit by his obedience his will was not determined to do good but left indifferent to good or evil Away with this over audatious disputing Christ could not but fulfil all righteousness I must do the works of him that sent me Joh. iv 9. All good things conducible to the work of a Mediator were necessary to be done And it was necessary Gods will being declared that it should be fulfilled of Christ although he was not necessitated by a violent determination but moved willingly and obediently unto it by a certain perswasion Non necessitatus erat sed propter illud quod necessarium erat sponte motus says Abulensis The object propounded was necessary to be done of him though he accepted it with much alacrity and desire and no way driven by constrainment Therefore this was not like Peters case Another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not Joh. xxi 18. But the hand of the Lord was with him and carried him whither he liked himself Non invitus aut captus sed sponte liberè venit says St. Hierom He was not drawn on as if his own will drew back but rejoyced as a Giant to run his course To say no more but this Oblatus est quia voluit It was his own good will that he was slain for the sins of the world it was his own pleasure not to dread death and it was as much his own pleasure to grapple with tentations And so much for that question how the Spirit did lead him into the Wilderness You shall now be partakers of the third thing why this passage is inserted into the story that he was led up of the Spirit Good reasons are rather to be esteemed by their weight than their multitude take these few to content you 1. The Spirit is said to lead him because de did not run on blindfold but knew the task which he undertook he foresaw the difficulties that he would meet and weighed them in the balance of judgment and discretion Non ignarus sed consilio ducebatur says St. Ambrose The counsel of the Spirit did enlighten him to see what he had in hand Saul thought that David was but a fool-hardy Stripling and knew not what a perilous thing it was to fight with such a Giant as Goliah Thou art but a youth and he a man of War from his youth thou art not able to go against this Philistine But David shewed the reason of his confidence the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the Lion and out of the paw of the Bear he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine He had considered Gods mercies and protection therefore he was led by the Spirit into that noble action Beware to plod on like Balaam with our eyes shut never discerning what is
before us Try all things and prove your own heart if you understand which way you walk unto the Lord. Ephraim feedeth on the wind and followeth after the East wind wherein the Prophet deciphers them that know not what they seek after or at least how they would comprehend it Some eat and drink their own damnation because they discern not the Lords body they come by custom to the Table of the Lord not with solemn and faithful preparation these are not led by the Spirit Some lay their hand to this Plow to preach the Kingdom of Christ but never bethought them seriously what it was to bear the Ark of God upon their shoulders they took the Priests Office upon them only for the hire and wages but never examined whether they were inwardly called these were not led by the Spirit The Widows in St. Pauls days who were to continue in supplications night and day these were not to be taken into that Society which attended the Church under threescore years of age and such as had been diligent in every good work In after Ages out of more presumption than due care some were accepted to take the vow of continency upon them at the age of forty Others more dangerously admitted Virgin Votaries at the age of twenty five And now every youngling at the age of fourteen is solemnly received to be incloystered in an unmaried estate for ever before they know the hazard of their own frailty the iron bondage of such a Vow or how to avoid the continual tentations of most discontenting melancholy these took their snare upon them by fond enticements and ignorant devotion they were not led by the Spirit This was St. Ambrose his reason of this phrase 2. The next owes it self to St. Hilary Non aliter tentatus est quà m spiritûs permissu auxilio He was led by the Spirit that is he maintained this quarrel against the Devil by the permission and assistance of the Holy Spirit The Holy Ghost is not an idle Spectator but a party that leads us by the hand and holds up our hands to conquer these Amalekites as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses The Apostles were like things shut up that durst not come abroad till they were filled with the Spirit that had no heart to offer themselves to the trial of any affliction but kept out of the way But in Gods help as David says they leapt over the wall and ventured forth out of that narrow imprisonment and to make some satisfaction for that privacy when they lived as recluses they travelled boldly through all places of the world baptizing all Nations in the name of the Lord Jesus What durst they not do for the honour of God when they were led by the Spirit The Children of Israel made no scruple to pitch their Tents within the borders of their enemies if the Pillar of cloud did remove before them so wheresoever the grace of God doth carry a man Gods glory being his undoubted end without all vain delusions and carnal reservations he may be bold to venture As we read of Sampson that before he did those great and heroical exploits against the Philistines he was possessed with the Spirit of the Lord and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him when he slew a thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an Ass Judg. xv 14. So it holds in the works of Regeneration Patience Obedience denying of our selves taking up the Cross of Christ mortifying the body of Sin these cannot be done unless the Spirit of the Lord do move upon us But according to the method of the Psalm first we must trust in God to pluck our feet out of the snare before he lead us in the right way and set us upon a rock of stone where we shall not be moved First lead us not into tentation that is leave us not to our selves and then bear us on Eagles wings and bring us to himself Exod. xix 4. We do not so much deprecate in the Lords Prayer that we should not come near the assault of any tentations as that we may not be drawn into the midst of them and there left unto our selves Most excellently the Apostle Heb. xiii 20. The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus through the bloud of the everlasting Covenant he will bring us out of the Pit-falls of the Devil that is implied for it follows he will make us perfect in every good work to do his will Aristotle hath a rule in his Rhetoriques how that must needs be an excellent thing which the worst men desire they may seem to have though they want it As liberality must needs be a graceful vertue for few are so sordidly covetous but that they love to be accounted liberal So the guidance of the divine Spirit necessarily must be the most laudable principle of all humane actions for there is not so palpable an hypocrite that will confess he was led by his own Concupiscence or seduced by his Passions no he will pretend it is the fear of God and his Conscience that doth lead him in all things What wonder if Christian Hypocrites have such conceits For the King of Assyria a Most prophane Blasphemer thought it was the best way to make the same pretension when he came to pluck down the living God Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it The Lord said to me go up against this Land to destroy it And I would it were not the disgrace of these times that many such live among us who have their secret stratagems and desires to make havock of the small revenue of the Church and to pluck down the glory and dignity of it but with the same ungodly flourish that the King of Assyria made We are led by the Spirit the Lord said unto us go and destroy this as they most impudently and ignorantly call it Superstition I will give them the Prophet Ezekiels woe for their reward Ezek. xiii 3. Thus saith the Lord God woe unto the foolish Prophets that follow their own Spirit and have seen nothing These are led on by their fury to bring to pass the works of the evil one not led by the Spirit as our ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã our Arch-leader was to overcome the tentations of the Devil The third reason is out of St. Chrysostoms Quiver and I cannot exceed beyond that at this time Non simpliciter profectus sed abductus God did inspire the Evangelists to write in this manner how Christ was led when he went into temptation rather than that he went of himself simply without more addition because no man should offer himself rashly and voluntarily to be tempted unless God did put some constraint and impulsion upon him It is a most cautilous note if you observe it for take the matter right and consider Christ in himself alone without respect of leaving an example
answers it better fight single against Satan one to one in the Wilderness than fight against Satan and wicked men who will entice you to sin as fast as Satan Therefore let them take out my Lesson and eschew the frequent Societies of populous places who find the Contagion of pestilent multitudes rub some rust upon them and infect their integrity It is not the place but the corruptions of the place which the meditations of the Fathers gathered out of my Text do lead you to abandon therefore the words of our Saviour shall stand in the last place to shut up this Point Joh. xvii 15. I pray not that thou shouldst take them that is the Disciples out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil So much for the circumstance of the place My Sermon thus far hath been upon the Wilderness against the handling of the next Point it is fit to ask What went we forth into the Wilderness to see Why to behold Christ fasting before he fought with the Devil Though that is not all he did there for there is much more behind yet this is enough to make it worth our labour Esurivit panis sicut defecit via sicut vulnerata est sanitas sicut mortua est vita says St. Austin By the same wonderful dispensation that the way of life was weary health it self was wounded life it self died by the same dispensation the bread of life fasted and was afterwards an hungry A sanctified fast hath two religious ends in it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as St. Paul says 1. To chastise our own body and to take revenge upon it 2. To put it into a good temperature for the minds sake Neither of these causes could be set before Christ in this long fast for his Flesh had never rebelled against the Spirit neither was there any inordinateness in his natural constitution which could be corrected by temperance Some therefore hold an opinion that Christ went not into the Wilderness to fast that fell out so indeed and was a necessary accessory because there was no food to be had You know the people ran after Christ into these spacious fields to hear Christ preach and not to fast with him yet there they continued three days fasting and had nothing to eat until four thousands were fed miraculously with five loaves and two fishes In like manner Moses went not up into the Mount to fast but to receive the Tables and truly this opinion is not to be contemned for St. Mark remembers that he was in the Wilderness tempted of Satan and quite omits his fasting This is prest the more zealously by some and with sufficient probability to shew upon what weak foundation they build who fetch it from hence that Christ observed the fast of forty days on purpose to constitute a yearly Lent in the Church for ever or a Quadragesimal fast for if it were by accident that Christ fasted here that can be no constitution of his intendment Nor indeed did he appoint any such thing as I will shew in just time Yet I concur not in the main sentence with those Authors for it seems to me this was purposed by Christ to go into the Desart and spend his time in Prayer and Fasting Now was the conflict at hand now was the first institution and undertaking of the greatest matter in the world the salvation of mankind and could not begin with a better Praeludium than an extraordinary Fast In this I will be directed by the interlineal gloss Jejunat ut tentetur tentatur quia jejunat He did fast that he might provoke tentations against himself and he did provoke tentations because he fasted For the better explication of the causes why he was pleased to fast I will lay down the distinction of Christs will as I find it considered in the School three ways Sicut ratio est unibilis corpori sicut est omnino conformis Deitati ratione membrorum 1. The soul is united to the body and for that union sake the will desireth the good of the whole man 2. God and man were united in Christ into one person therefore his will was subject in all things to the divine Law and pleasure 3. He was the head of the body which is the Church and therefore his will did graciously affect the prosperity of his members In these three respects there are so many causes of moment why Jesus fasted 1. Because it is profitable to conserve the whole man against tentations 2. It was the divine pleasure to provoke the Devil to give the onset by macerating and enfeebling his body and Satans foil was the greater because he was the challenger 3. He had regard unto his members to avenge himself on the Tempter by the victory of temperance who brought sin into the world through our first Parents by the sin of Gluttony Other causes I leave behind for refutation First I say it gives us a lesson to fast and withdraw the ordinary sustenance from the body when we perceive our selves in likelihood to encounter some temptation King Jehosaphat had a great battle to fight with the Ammonites and before the conflict he set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a Fast throughout all Judah 2 Chron. xx 3. So did Esther when she undertook the great danger to go in to Ahasuerus against the Law to intercede for the deliverance of the whole Nation of the Jews she would not venture upon so great a peril unless all the Jews would fast three whole days before the Lord and neither eat nor drink Est iv 16. What should I say more out of many examples Ezra suspecting what great opposition he should find to re-edifie the Temple of the Lord he proclaimed a Fast that all the People might afflict themselves before God Ezra viii 21. And St. Basil a great Practiser of this doctrine as any was in the world which is better than a Teacher bid all his Scholars take it upon his word that Sobriety was the best Antidote in the world to expel the venom of the Devil This holy Father was so good a spiritual Physician that the Church had not a better since his time I think to prescribe a good diet for the soul Adam went out of Paradise with a full stomack poor Lazarus went fasting to heaven scarce fraught with the crums of the rich mans Table Moses did fast upon Sinah for forty days when he talked with God But the People who in the mean time did commit Idolatry sate down to eat and to drink and rose up to play Daniel refused the meat and drink allowed him from the Kings Table ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to honour his temperance and fasting the very Lions into whose Den he was cast were taught to fast and hunger and not to eat up Daniel who was thrown before them to be a prey unto their teeth Thus far he If you ask me wherein we honour God in what part it
with his Granaries Christ was made poor that we might be made rich and for the good use of our riches he hath made many poor I did read you even now what Exposition might be made upon those words of David I never saw the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread some not unfitly do bend it to this sense The Psalmist commends liberality in the preceding verses and those that are prone to relieve the helpless Now lest any man might object yet I may cloath others so far that I may leave my self naked I may supply others till I be drawn dry No says he in that verse no misfortune shall come to such liberality I never saw the righteous forsaken meaning such righteous as he spake of before that are liberal and lend I never saw his seed beg their bread The charitable shall have his loan again sometimes corporally sometimes spiritually always certainly And thus you have heard my reasons to controul Satans rule that there are and have been divers opprest with necessity and want of bread and yet God doth not cease to be their Father and they must retain the comfort that they are his Sons Only take in this to the advantage of the Point As Satan is vigilant to espy who are in want and to suggest doubts and infidelity into their heart so there is no man shall think he is not in want if he will be ruled by his perswasion I told you before out of Theophylact what he propounded to our Saviour Cum panis unus sufficeret jubet lapides in panes converti When one loaf of bread might satisfie a mans hunger he required all the stones in the Wilderness which were near at hand to be turned into bread It is he that makes our prodigal Feasters wish their chear were better when they have already too much To have bare enough in his construction is to want and nothing is sufficient but an Epicures superfluity Perhaps the plenty which is present will evict the greatest murmurer and make him confess here is well and enough for the present occasion O but says the Tempter are you sure of large suppeditation for the time hereafter If you are not aforehand with the world you are in a bad case and want bread If your condition be not more comfortable than your Prayer Give us this day our dayly bread you may pray and perish Howsoever Beloved do you rely upon this that Gods providence will be the best interpreter of his own Prayer he that bids you pray for the sustenance of one day best knows how he will cherish and relieve you tomorrow Whereas in the former petitions we are taught to ask that the Kingdom of heaven might come it were unwise having so good a thing in our wish to ask much for the bread of this life One days dimensum is enough to ask for at once for who knows whether after a day he shall go from hence for ever and be no more seen If happily a worldly man be satisfied to say I have enough for one and enough for my time Soul thou hast much goods laid up in store for many years yet Satan will object that you want bread for you have not enough laid up for your Posterity and for many generations and because men know not how their stock may increase and fructifie therefore they dilate their appetite in infinitum and say after the words of that Disciple Whence shall I have bread for so many that come out of my Loyns that every one may have a little Gehazi did not say his Master had need of Naamans Rayments or his money but there were two children of the Prophets lately come to him and he would have two change of Rayments and a Talent of Silver for them So many will confess they have wherewithal to serve their own turn they cannot complain but their own necessities are liberally provided but they would have change of Rayments and Talent upon Talent for their children And if it were possible like Noah and those that came out of the Ark with him they would have the whole world to be distributed among their Sons and Daughters All these ways our Adversary the Devil doth shape discontent in our hearts to make us say we lack and have not enough then he objects Who is then your Father that should provide for you What Son is he that wanteth bread if he have a merciful Father And so far upon the first general part of the Text. And as this Satanical rule upon which I have spoken depraves our judgment in the most capital conclusion of true Religion the next rule which I now come to open bars and corrupts our practise in all manner of justice and righteousness it is thus whosoever wants bread let him get it by any stratagem or device by any unlawful slight which Proposition though it be not exprest in such plain terms in my Text yet the wit of Satan neither would nor could insinuate that bad meaning in any other Language to Christ than as we read it Command that these stones be made bread I know Christ hath extended his miracles to supply worldly blessings to his people especially at a push as Peter found ready pay for his Masters Tribute and for his own out of the head of a Fish and lest the people should faint that had continued fasting three days to hear Christ preach in the Wilderness a wonderful increase of food was multiplied to satisfie many thousands out of five loaves and two fishes God did get himself glory by these works in the sight of all Jury But the case is quite altered in this which Satan demands Christ was private by himself in the Desart when he had fasted forty days and forty nights and was afterwards an hungry the Devil had no colour in that place to bid him filch or cheat or do any base office to feed his belly The worst therefore he could say was altogether to omit he should call upon God nay rather since the Lord had destituted him of all provision without expectation of help from the Divine Providence do the best you can for your self Command that these stones c. This is that Maxim which those Heathens that had no Equity nor Philosophy in them did maintain Quocunque modo rem stand not upon the niceties of Truth and Law and Justice but get your living as you can Victum tibi confice quem Deus non suppeditat as our most literal Expositors do Paraphrase my Text God cares not for you but shift for your self as well as you can you must have bread Such are those irreligious and discontented words 2 Kings vi 33. The evil is of the Lord what should I wait for the Lord any longer There is no Commandment of the two Tables can be unviolated if you remove the bounds of justice and give your wit and conscience scope to make a fortune upon all jugling and devices Blasphemy Idolatry
make us his instruments to defile the holy Temple Gods glory is put to the greatest scandal and reproach And this is brought to pass so many ways that it is plain to see there hath been a most witty complotter in the treachery 1. When any Prelate is so puft up that he thinks himself too great to be a door-keeper in Gods house but will be higher than all the Church and seâ on the top of the Pinacle who sitting in the Temple of God exalts himself above all that is called God 2. The Temple is defiled by setting up Idols in the Courts of our heavenly King even in the midst of thee O thou Sanctuary of the Lord. 3. By offering up unclean Sacrifice either false Doctrine or impious Prayers or superstitious Worship or corrupted Sacraments 4. When men set their foot within the sacred Tabernacle with carnal thoughts with worldly imaginations with no zeal or attention 5. To bring any prophane work any secular business within those walls which are consecrated to the name of the Lord. This is that Camel which the Jewish Priests did swallow when they strained at a Gnat. For they told our Saviour that he brake the Sabbath he did not keep the Law but they themselves did licence and allow the prophanation of the Temple by bringing Merchandize into it selling of Sheep and Oxen and changing money and you know how Christ revenged it even with anger and indignation I must borrow time to tell you how Christ did bestir himself in the reformation of that abuse more than in any thing else throughout all the Gospel For first he corrected that fault twice over in the second of St. Johns Gospel in the beginning of his Ministry and Mat. xxi toward the end of his life anon before he suffered You see what an obstinate evil it was which would not be redressed for one admonition 2. When he came to Jerusalem there were many other faults flagrant crimes wherewith the place abounded yet the first thing he reformed was the abuse of the Temple 3. He would not tolerate the least prophanation wink at no fault for he would not permit that any should carry so much as a Vessel through the Temple Mar. xi 16. 4. He reformed this trespass not only by preaching and quoating Scripture against it but by a scourge and by violence by word and deed And surely if words will not serve God will bring blows to maintain the reverence of his house that it be not contemned What a dissolute carriage it is to see a man step into a Church and neither veil his head nor bend his knee nor lift up his hands or eyes to heaven Who dwels there I pray you that you are so familiar in the house Could you be more saucy in a Tavern or in a Theater This is no other but the very gate of heaven says Jacob when he had but a vision of God and his Angels Brethren renounce the Devil let him not alienate your reverence from that place which God hath specially appointed for the saving of your soul Holiness becometh thine house for ever O holy blessed and glorious Trinity AMEN THE ELEVENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 6. And saith unto him If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down For it is written He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone IT is altogether unknown to man when a sin comes merely from the suggestion of his own heart and when it comes from the tentation of the Devil But in one case eminently above many others it is most likely that there is some hellish provocation when out of good principles and religious grounds our heart is quite turned out of the way to rebell against the Lord. Ely the High Priest had a tender fatherly affection Who could turn this wholsom water into poyson to make him wink at the vices and dissoluteness of his Sons but Satan David was a thankful Prince and loved to remember how God had multiplied his favours upon him yet upon this stock grew that evil fruit to number the people Why the Text says Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel King Josias was an enemy to the Heathen that knew not God and he that deludes good motions made him so irreconcilable that he would fight against Pharaoh Necho to his own destruction and harkened not to the word which came from the mouth of God Certainly the hand of Joab was in this and in all such fallacies where a good fountain is made to send forth sweet waters and bitter as to sin because grace abounds to neglect publick Prayer because faith comes by hearing to cark and care too much for the world because a man would provide for his Posterity And this master-wit of Hell laid this bait to make our Saviour swallow it in this present tentation For Christ being demanded to make bread of stones he replies that he was confident in his Fathers Promises Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Are you so confident Thinks the Tempter and upon this confidence I will thrust you on Have you appeal'd to Cesar And to Cesaer you shall go It is true that you say God is very gracious and will not destitute you in any want or danger you have answered very well therefore cast your self down from this Pinacle and be confident still God will look to it that you shall be supported This is the very train discovered and made as clear unto you as the light of the Sun In the former tentation he would drive Christ to unlawful means if that take not because he trusts in God then trust in him still and refrain from the use of things lawful so St. Austin distinguisheth that his first fallacy was Deum defuturum ubi promisit that God would not help where he had promised to assist and the second fallacy which now I am to handle is Deum adfuturum ubi non promisit that God would help where he had not promised to assist Where many things are to be found out in one verse they must be divided severally and in this order I take it to be expedient 1. Here is Satans demand Cast thy self down 2. Upon what supposition he demands it Why if thou be the Son of God 3. Upon what authority authority enough for it is written 4. Upon what assistance why the best in the world whether it is the supreme or the instrumental The supremeis God He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and the instrumental are the most glorious powerful and excellent creatures in all the world the whole Host of Angels in their hands they shall bear thee lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone These are such particulars as the wisdom of the Spirit hath left us
as they were bidden and that bidding made it no intrusion upon their Fathers Providence The Lord also bad Gideon bring his Souldiers down unto the water and he would try them by a sign which of them should go against the Madianites the Lord did say it and therefore it was fit for him to obey that miraculous direction And Divines agree that it was not a fair answer in King Ahaz when God bid him ask a sign either in the depth beneath or in the height above he answered I will not ask neither will I tempt the Lord for the favour was propounded unto him both for his own part to increase his faith and much more for the instruction of all the people therefore he should have ask'd it But sometimes though upon no express command yet holy Prophets upon some divine instinct have tempted God to grant them a sign above the common and ordinary way of nature and yet their asking was laudable as Gen. xv God is very gracious to Abraham in all the passages I and commends him for his faith yet Abraham says Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this Land of Canaan And a miracle was wrought to establish the Promise unto him Thus you must interpret wheresoever in holy Scripture you find such eminent men ask a sign to whom God talkt familiarly or poured Revelations into them or spake unto them in Visions that they had a Prophetical instinct for it which maks their case different from us that walk by ordinary faith Now I pray you mark that many times wicked people undertake things of a strange condition by instinct and bring them to pass but it is not Prophetical for it is an instinct of which themselves are not aware as the Mariners were prompted by instinct no doubt to cast lots and the Lot fell right upon Jonas yet they had no feeling that the hand of the Lord was in it But it is a Prophetical instinct which makes the act warrantable when the party imployed in it by God knows it and understands it to be such and concurreth with God as well in will as in the work Eliezer Abrahams Servant was sent to provide a Wife for Isaac and coming to Mesopotamia to the City of Nahor he makes this Prayer O Lord God of my Master Abraham send me good speed this day Loe I stand by the Well of water grant that the Maid to whom I say bow down thy Pitcher I pray thee that I may drink if she say drink and I will give thy Camels drink also may be she that thou hast ordained for thy Servant Isaac And it was so in the event The Scripture makes no description of this Eliezer for a Prophet yet if he felt a motion from God to try the Marriage this way good and lawful if not howsoever God let it come to pass for Abraham and Isaacs sake the course was not excusable but superstitious The like judgment I pass upon Jonathan for God only knows by what inspiring or revelation he did this he went up against the Philistines with his Armour-bearer and he resolves if they say come up unto us we will go up For the Lord hath delivered them into our hand and this shall be a sign unto us Though some say this was not to doubt of Gods excellency but of their own act yet that distinction avails not to explore the success of your own act by means unordained for that use unless divine instinct do help it is a vicious tentation Yet this I will add Jonathans act may be rescued from being tax'd for a tempting of God and exposing themselves to most doubtful peril in that two of them fought with an whole Host for the place was narrow where they could grapple but one to one and Jonathan had the upper ground and the Promise was ratified in the Book of Moses That one of them should chase an hundred and two of them put a thousand to flight Therefore Gods Command or his Promise or a Prophetical instinct do qualifie those things to be vertuous actions which otherwise were tentations ill adventured to anger the Lord. Thirdly Weighty and extraordinary callings had need of a mighty faith to undergo them and such men of old had a liberty allowed unto them to try their Vocation by some sign or some powerful work of God both for themselves and principally for the people that were committed to their governance As Moses pleaded when he was destined to be the Captain that should bring Israel out of Egypt Loe they will not believe me nor hearken to my voice they will say the Lord hath not appeared unto thee presently he was satisfied God bad him cast forth his Rod and it became a Serpent This the Lord did bear withal and let him require an extraordinary Warrant for an extraordinary Function So Gideon being a poor Thresher was called upon by the Angel to sight for Israel against the Madianites he deprecates that the Angel would take it no offence if he desired the encouragement of a Miracle to raise his faith to an eminent pitch Be not angry with me let me prove thee once again with the Fleece let it now be dry only upon the Fleece and let dew be upon all the ground To a private man this demand had been sin but to Gideon to sustain that excellent person which the Angel imposed on him at least it was tollerable Fourthly and finally there is a speculative inquiry or Antecedent to prove Gods will and power by Signs and Tokens and that is unlawful and there is an experimental or consequent one to enquire after Gods goodness in a mans own self by descending into the effects and enumerations of his mercies and proving our own Spirit and that is lawful So Mal. iii. 10. Bring ye all the Tithes into the store-house and prove me therewith saith the Lord of Hosts if I will not open the windows of heaven unto you It were sinful to pay Tythes to that end as if you would tempt God by that conclusion whether he could open the windows of heaven and help you with store but consecutivè the trial is good do you that and God will do this put it to the success if the Lord do not treble his bounty unto those that pay him his Tythes and Offerings this is to taste and try how gracious he will be to our obedience not to put him to such effects as we imagine in the capreols of our own fancy for that is a culpable tentation So this Point being traversed as much as I intend and the time will give me leave I leave it behind me and proceed to the next What are the general heads of those presumptuous ways wherein the party sins that tempts the Lord And surely one principal and notorious offence is committed when a man exposeth his life to unnecessary dangers upon an ill-grounded confidence that God will bring him off with safety Upon this
instance our Saviour toucheth in my Text alone and upon no other The Rule is written in Moses and it is large and copious Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God Deut. vi 16 Not you of the house of Israel in no case I know not how the 72 Translators came to read the words in the Singular ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Thou shalt not tempt the Lord but our Saviour doth so quote the words and makes them serve for this case that it was most profane to urge a man to fall from a Pinacle of the Temple upon a fals assurance that the Angels would be at hand to prevent the danger for no man must wittingly throw himself into the jaws of destruction Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Life is a gift of Nature it is common to Beasts and Fowls of the air to the Plants of the Garden Now natural things must be kept and sustained on our part by natural means we must not depend upon supernatural and miraculous protection that happens so seldom that there is no Rule or certainty when it shall be done sometimes it is done not for our fleshly and natural benefit but for Gods glory Paul would not have had the Centurion put to Sea in stormy weather and when they would not hearken to him it cost them the loss of all they had but their lives so much was God displeased with such adventurous enterprises When man loseth his wit that he is not tender to save himself it is a sign that God gives him over to mischief and will not be his deliverer It was a desperate senseless speech of Ignatius Loiola that he would put forth to Sea without Sail or Oars or Tackling if his Superiour bad him for God hath made no Promise to conduct a man in safety that leaves himself to such tyrannous commands upon blind obedience Says Solomon A wise man feareth and departeth from evil but a fool rageth and is confident Prov. xiv 16. David ended the matter conscionably but began it presumptuously when he desired that some would give him of the waters of the Well of Bethlem by the Gate This was a desperate demand for his three Captains were fain to fetch it with the imminent peril of their life breaking through the whole Host of the Philistins But David rouling things in his second cogitations his heart smote him says he O Lord far be it from me to drink it is not this the bloud of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives God taught man this provident respect to decline his own peril and not to tempt him by wading into dangers farther than unavoidable necessity pusht him I say the Lord commended it in a certain Law Lev. xiii that he who had the uncleanness of Leprosie upon him should dwell alone without the Camp and that no clean person should come near him because of the Contagion The whole must not mix themselves with the unsound where diseases have a dispreading infection They that come necessarily to succour others either in a spiritual or a temporal way are not to be disswaded because it is to be yielded that the blessing of Gods mercy will go along with them that bring necessary reliefs of charity But promiscuous Visitants are to be admonish'd that they tempt the Lord whose presence is no way needful but are mere rash adventurers I have an example that may deter the refractory if they will mark it When the Plague was great in Israel David went up to the threshing flore of Araunah to offer Sacrifice You will say Why not to the Altar before the Tabernacle That was the true form of Religion Why the Tabernacle of the Lord which Moses had made in the Wilderness and the Altar of burnt Offerings was at that season in the high places of Gibeon and David could not go before it to ask counsel at God for he was afraid of the Sword of the Angel of the Lord That is the place was much infected with the Pestilence that is the Sword of the Angel therefore David durst not go up to Gibeon Qui amat periculum peribit in illo He that loves to walk dangerous ways shall perish in them Even King Josiah one of the most lovely Darlings of Gods favour among all the Kings of Judah fell under the Sword for pressing further against his enemies than the word of the Lord did permit him The ancient Eliberitan Council Enacted that all those who pluck'd down the Idols or Temples of the Heathen should not be accounted Martyrs though they died for the faith of Christ because they pluckt Persecution upon themselves and provoked their own Martyrdom Paul fled away from his enemies where his life was sought not that he said untruly he desired to lay down his Tabernacle and be with Christ Neque quasi non credendo in Deum says St. Austin sed ne Deum tentaret si fugere noluisset Nor as if he had no hope in Gods assistance but because no providence was to be omitted to preserve life lest he should tempt the Lord his God 2. In another way the Lord is tempted when we will not believe him unless we see Signs and Wonders and provoke him to let us see some print of his Omnipotent hand or we will fall off and trust in him no more When once our faith grows so dainty and queamish that it will be fed with miracles and wonders it will pine away to nothing When we have a little miracle we will ask a greater and a greater after that will not serve the turn Thus it was with the Pharisees for when Christ had been long among them and done such mighty works as the like were never heard of yet these Tempters urge him to do some new feat for their sake Master we would see a sign from heaven Why they had scarce wipt their eyes since they had seen one and now they call for a sign a fresh as if those were none which they had seen before God hath threatned such signs and tokens to shew them openly to the world that these who ask so boldly for signs would be out of their wits to see them There shall be signs and tokens in the heavens the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into bloud If God should terrifie them with these sights they would say Lord shew us no signs Yes if you will tempt the Lord and stint and prescribe him to work Miracles you shall have these or none Have you lost all your Humility that you should hope or desire that God would produce the most noble effects of his omnipotent hand for such a sinner as you are which he reserves only to magnifie his holy Name note that therefore for the second way to tempt the Lord. And thirdly there is another crooked branch much like unto the former growing out of the same root not simply by declining natural means but by declining all means having no calling
will The Tongue of man the Knee the Heart nay Body and Soul together are to be purchased As you bring with one hand you shall carry away Favour and Justice in the other The access of profit carries the main stroke in every thing The Heads judge for reward and the Prophets divine for money Mich. iii. 11. They that should be most clear from this fault you see are chiefly in the reprehension No man knows with what stint he would spend or how much he would lay up therefore unless where the conscience is much refined from greediness it is a pleasure to sacrifice to our net and above all things to catch at that which comes in with so much easiness as Dabo I will give thee Hazael King of Syria must have a present even all the hallowed things that were dedicated to the Lord that he might not come up against Jerusalem Felix the Governour without a feeling would not set Paul at liberty The corruption of the times was such in Israel that men thought the Prophets as greedy as themselves and would not ask them counsel of the Lord without a gift in their hand Benhadad sent a Present of all the good things in Damascus even forty Camels burdens to Elisha to enquire if he should recover of his sickness And Saul more apparently being counselled to go to Samuel to ask which way he should return home made a stand at it saying What shall we give to the man of God There is not a present left This polling Covetousness was very ordinary no doubt in that Land when the People knew nothing but the Prophets were devourers of gifts and would not open the Oracles of God unto them without Satans complement Dabo I will give thee The giver that would corrupt another such as the High Priests that delivered Judas thirty pieces of Silver to betray his Master such a one you see by the instance of my Text doth supply the place of the Devil I am sure God gave no man wealth to this end to buy another out of his honesty the eternal Law says that vertue only should be rewarded and he that keeps the Commandments therefore to give a Pension to man or woman to be vicious is to cross that supreme fundamental Law by which heaven and earth are governed Fie that so good a vertue as Liberality should be so scornfully imitated No vertue is more often commended by God than bounty and giving but above all moral qualities it is most plausible ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Aristotle hit the reason in a word it redounds to the common benefit of others more than any other vertue which begets it favour and affections Now to cast dirt in the face of this vertue Satan sets up a liberality which is of a most different condition and nothing of kin to it when the great Patrons of sin care not what they bestow upon them that serve their turn for flattery for injustice for lust for sensuality When poor Lazarus wants a draught of cold water a shower of Gold shall rain down into the Lap of Danae the wages of an Harlot are far greater for the most part than the recompence of most faithful and honest service The Egyptian Rhodope out of the gifts of her Lovers was able to dispend enough to build a Pyramis an expence so great that few Kings in Egypt could accomplish it If the Daughter of Herodias shew her self lascivious and immodest Herod will cast away half his Kingdom upon her or if that be too little he leaves her to be her own carver she may ask any thing Dabo quodcunque volueris I will give thee whatsoever thou wilt ask O that noble qualities were as sure of Patronage as Instruments of wickedness are sure of means and maintenance As Suetonius said of his Nero Pecuniae fructum non alium putabat quà m profusionem He thought there was no use of riches but waste and profusion So in the Line that Satan draws out there is no use of giving but to procure Idolatry to fall down and worship him Cursed be those hands that open themselves wide to any one man or woman to make them the child of perdition Judah gave his Ring to Thamar to hire her unto Fornication I believe he repented him with many tears of bitterness because old Jacob did so abundantly bless him but let me propound unto him that is prone to do the like will you abuse those blessings those temporary blessings which God hath given you to buy Souls for the Devil Christ hath given a ransom out of his bloud to redeem that soul from Hell and will you give Gold and Silver to buy it into Hell again Was there no poor Member of Christ whose body you might save with that money wherewith you destroy a soul He that giveth to the needy lendeth to the Lord but he that purchaseth any one to be sinful by his bounty he lendeth to the Devil This that I have spoken of was the sin of Balaac to barter and be at a price with Balaam to do an evil act to curse them whom the Lord had blessed and it is the Chapman that makes the Market woe be to the giver that tempts the weakness of man with such a forcible provocation Aureo pugillo ferreus murus frangitur says the Heathen A Hammer of Gold will beat down a Wall of Iron Yet is there nothing to be said to the receiver Shall his hand be clear that hath taken when he is called to answer Nay none more accused by the Spirit of God none more criminous They are companions of thieves every one loveth gifts and followeth after reward Isa i. 23. Neither is robbery their alone enditement but the worst of sins against the Second Table Bloud and Murder Shut not up my life with the bloud-thirsty in whose hands is wickedness and their right hand is full of gifts Psal xxvi 9. He that takes reward to do evil takes a fee to lose his own salvation Nay what toil and drudgery some will undergo to earn the wages of iniquity Minori labore margarita Christi emi poterat says St. Hierom You might accompass that invaluable Pearl in the Gospel whereof the Parable speaks that the Merchant sold all he had to buy it I say that Pearl might have been gained with less danger and industry the whole treasure of the Kingdom of heaven Espencaeus being a Romish Doctor and a most learned may be bold with his own friends who hath revealed more corruption and bribery in the Roman Court than a modest Protestant could almost believe As Pensions taken not only for the punishment of incontinence past but to lay down somewhat before-hand for the time to come What if the Visitors met with such as resolved to be chaste yet the common Levy was exacted of such a one Habeat si velit O shameless word he may use the sin if he will Then the Taxa Camerae as they call it
which thou puttest upon me I will bear But the Tempter says none of these defects should trouble Christ he would cull out for him all the choice and desirable things the power and the glory as the Poet said of his Stilicho the good things which were scattered and divided in many hands in te juncta fluent they should all meet in him as in their center Though the spiders web be made on the top of the house yet it is quickly swept away so all ambitious thoughts which scale up upon the Devils ladder are quickly dismounted if you will remember that no man can subsist on high who hath the plummet of iniquity to weigh him down though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung he shall fly away as a dream yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night Job xx 8. When Herod sat in his Majesty but was exalted against God in the pride of his heart an Owl presented it self before him on the top of his Throne ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as Homer calls it a bird of fatal prediction and Herod himself took it for a presage of some sudden and miserable death and so it came to pass Methinks every one that hath hoisted himself into advancement by impiety should often see some such dismal Owl before him an infallible presager of great misfortune for God will be glorified in their ruin that did not account his service before all things to be their glory and the glory of the world O what an happy thing it is when God shall call a dignified and an honorable person his friend as it is in the Parable friend set up higher but I will never clamber up by base and sinful arts that God shall say art thou ascended higher O mine enemy God hath taught us to pray My will be done and mine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory in the Devils Academy the lesson goes thus worship me and let my will be done and thine shall be the Kingdom the power and the glory Satan cares not to whom he passeth away that Doxologie that chain of praise and honor which belongeth to God Kingdom power and glory for he pointed to the Kingdoms of the world they were included in the gift and said All this power will I give thee and the glory of them as who should say if Christ would make a God of him he would make a God of Christ ka me and ka thee fall down and worship me as if I were a God upon earth and thou shalt have Kingdom power and glory as if thou wer 't God in heaven This Satan spake not of himself but like Caiaphas he prophefied he knew not what I must not forget where one good turn hath deserv'd another much after this example The Conclave of Cardinals that know the Pope to be justly no more than a Bishop of one Diocess in Italy enstile him above Caesar and all free Monarchs that are anointed Kings and the Pope to requite it knowing the Cardinals in their original to be but Parish-Priests of Rome hath given them precedency above all Princes mulus mulum scabit This is my Text directly borrowed to make that match if you will fall down and worship me ye shall have power and glory But to return Get thee hence Satan sayes our Saviour in the next verse or as He chides in St. Luke Get thee behind me Satan He is behind all the servants of God in many degrees worse than the meanest Christian it cannot be in the capacity of such an underling to be the Patron of honor Medice cura teipsum why doth he not recover the glory which himself hath lost if he be an advancer beside such an ambitious spirit if he had any thing to give would never part with his Royalty or if he had ends to communicate and impart for certain he would pass over David Hezekiah Josiah that brake down Groves and Images and used all hostility against his Idols Away with such a giver He that seeketh honor and a blessing with it let him seek it of the Lord and look upon himself with that comfort that David did when God had brought him from following the Ewes great with young to set him with the Princes of his People David sings it merrily Psal iii. 3. Thou art my worship and the lifter up of my head As for Simon Magus that grew great with Nero by Sorcery and Vrijah the Priest who wonn King Ahaz favour for prophaning the Altar of the Lord and Rhehoboams young Courtiers that swayed all by flattery and giving evil counsel every dignity that such men get shall be an evil destiny unto them for God is a jealous God and will deface that Coat of honor where the Devil was the Herald that sold it for iniquity And whereas the wickedly advanced takes it upon Satans word that power and glory shall be the supporters of his Escutcheon it shall be much otherwise in the proof Is it power they look for God wot it shall be thraldom Falsam spondet potentiam Qui facit peccatum servus est peccati sayes St. Austin There is no such servitude in the world as to be sold over to sin and his servants ye are to whom you obey Is it glory they hunt for but it will fall out to be their description which the Apostle makes to the Philippians whose glory is their shame Either their memorial shall perish with them or their infamy shall be depainted in some better history to after ages To conclude this point stop your ears at such promises as kingdom and power and glory and pay such sacrifices of praise to him that ows them I will magnifie thee O Lord my King said David Psal cxlv and at the 12 verse he speaks it open that thy power thy glorie and mightiness of thy Kingdom might be known unto men Thus far I have proceeded to shew that promotion especially to the noblest honors to power and glorie is a fiery dart so dangerous to speed that Satan seldom casts it in vain Then imagin how far he hoped to prevail when he drew his arrow to the head and sollicited Christ with the promise of all the Kingdoms of the world All this power will I give thee and all the glory of them A magnanimous lye and he that would study for such a thing could not tell a louder Though by prestigiation or some hidden art he could shew all the Kingdoms of the world in the twinkling of an eye yet it is not so easie a task with his leave to give all the Kingdoms of the world in the twinkling of an eye he must have a strong stomach and a most robustious belief that could concoct this opinion that all the Rulers of the earth even the mighty Roman Monarchs the greatest of all Princes in that age would submit their Crowns and take law
all intermeddle with the disposition of earthly Kingdoms either to restrain or depose Princes though tyrannical or heretical or blasphemous Their conversion is to be zealously prai'd for in the mean time their yoke is to be born with patience and we must kiss the scourge of God The Sorbon Divines of Paris do generally carry this badge and the Protestant Churches unanimously speak this Language The second Tenent is that the Temporal Soveraignty of the whole world is inherent in the Office of Christs Vicar as they call him to give change alter or confirm the Titles of particular Princes as his infallible judgment shall lead him Let every brain that is not distempered judge what a Doctrine this is Non sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes The third Tenent which Cardinal Bellarmine and the Jesuitical Pack maintain is a modification of the former The Pope hath no temporal Soveraignty at all annexed by vertue of the Papacy but Indirectè in ordine ad spiritualia indirectly and to remove the impediments of the common good especially of the Church he might send to the people by his Briefs that they owe no subjection to a wicked King that he could take off their Oath of Fealty and free them from Perjury that he hath power to excommunicate such Princes and translate their Kingdoms from them to such as he shall adjudge to be more Catholick Whether he will arm the Son against Father the Brother against the Brother a Rebel against his true King all these have been done why it lies In scrinio pectoris he may collate the Dominions of such Princes on whom it liketh him Pray you how much doth this opinion differ from the second You may easily find it is but white money turned into Gold and comes all to one payment For the Bishop of Rome is made the Judge himself when a Kingdom wants a fit Governour for the good of the Church for the wholsom administration of Justice since therefore all Regal Authority hangs upon Papal discretion it comes all to one pass with that most impudent second opinion which says the Power and glory of the Kingdoms in the world are absolutely in his donation It is no toying in so main a cause as this which concerns the Crowns and Scepters of all Sacred Princes therefore I will demonstrate that I plead against them according to the charge of their own Bill Thus Baronius to begin with him who speaks his mind in these words for his holy Father whom our Lord Jesus Christ the King of glory hath constituted a Prince over all the Kingdoms of the world Augustinus Triumphus All Power and Royalty is subdelegated from the Pope to other Princes No man can give him any Soveraignty which he had not by right before Nec Constantinus dedit quicquam Sylvestro quod non prius erat suum says he The Canonists talk of Constantines donation to Sylvester giving him the temporal Principality of Romania he gave him nothing but that which was his own before that and all beside was St. Peters Patrimony And some of them stake Scripture to prove it but most untowardly as that all power is from God therefore all power Regal and Imperial from Christs Vicar Yet more sinistrously from those words If I be lifted up I will draw all men after me that is if I had an Army strong enough I would recover all the Seigniories of the earth into mine own hand Practice is a plainer Argument than Book-words I will satisfie you then in that Alexander the Sixth a giver that will do but small credit to the gift but such as he is take him with all his faults he bestowed the whole West-Indies upon Ferdinand King of Spain Ex merâ liberalitate motu proprio as the Patent ran Their own Histories say that Athabaliba King of Peru maintained his Royalty by fighting against that Grant till he was taken Prisoner in Battel and then cried out that Pope could have no vertue or reverence to the God of heaven that gave away another mans Dominions from him but I will bring the case home That Bull which Pius the Fifth signed with his own Seal wherein he excommunicated the most blessed Queen Elizabeth hath this Line in it touching his own authority to use that incomparable Lady so unchristianly Hunc unum super omnes gentes omnia regna principem constituit God had constituted him over all Nations and over all Kingdoms O what vaulting spirits are these which run in the Veins of wretched man This forgetful Prelate grant him his own asking from whence his original came and it is from a most humble Apostle whose actions being all of them recorded not any one do lean toward Soveraignty or Principality Yet his Successor in challenge exalted above all that is called God will be a parallel Line and side with him in my Text who makes nothing to dispose of all the Regal Dignities in the world All this power will I give thee c. Let this be enough which I have said to have been discoursed upon the immensity of that honour which Satan challenged to be in his Jurisdiction I proceed to shew upon whose shoulders he would be content to lay it upon our Lord and Saviour Tibi universam hanc potestatem As for the thing it self he wisht that Christ had it in good earnest I make no doubt of it namely that his fortune had been to be an earthly King to be a Caesar Caesarum the Conquerour of all the Dominions in the world rather than such a one he suspected him for that Messias that came to redeem his People and to invite the Nations far and wide over all the earth to the fear of the Lord. Let him be all in all in a temporal Kingdom rather than Saviour that came to erect the spiritual Kingdom of faith to the subversion of the powers of darkness Conceive now unto your selves as if he had spoken more largely on this wise to Christ I find you hungry and forlorn in this Wilderness neither train to attend you nor food to cherish you Alas that such a one as you should be thus negglected 't is pity you are not honoured enough according to the great gifts of sanctity that are in you Why you are worthy to be Lord of the whole world if promotions went by desert And will you live in Famine and Scorn and Humility and at last be crowned with thorns and crucified Nay follow my directions and you shall be crowned with Gold and sway the whole Universe with a Scepter All this power will I give thee and the glory of them It came to pass with our Saviour after this Proposition as it befell chaste Joseph in the house of Potiphar He would not be incontinent yet upon defamation of incontinency he was clapt up in Irons So Christ would no such Kingdom as Satan offered yet upon suspicion that he went about to make himself a King his
death was contrived and his accusation laid before Pilate he that maketh himself a King is not Cesars friend I have often both read it and seen it that Pride Vain-glory Faction and I know not what have been laid to the charge of the Innocent by some uncharitable mouths who have spread it so far that for all their innocency they could never wipe off the stain Many times the more they decline those crimes the more occasion is taken to accuse them Every thing that Paul could say or do to purge himself wrought him envy and misreport that he was turbulent and a mover of sedition He could never shake it off with all his meekness and modesty Well if mischief and defamation must have their course the remedy is easie though it be desperate commend your innocency to God The Lord of life himself was haunted with a wrong opinion from the time that Satan made this motion to his death that he had a purpose to be a Monarch and to display his Banner against Cesar in the quarrel of the Jews for their ancient liberty The people would have made him a King Joh. vi and he hid himself out of the way yet that would not acquit him his very Disciples not seldom but even till after his Resurrection till they saw him taken away to heaven lookt for honourable command and superiority under him It cost the sweet Babes of Bethlem their lives that the Wisemen of the East called him a King It lost him his own life as I toucht upon it before that the children of Jerusalem entertained him with that acclamation Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord Luk. xix 38. That question was and is scandalous to the Jews was and is a stumbling-block to some Gentiles what manner of Kingdom belonged to Christ as he was man Before ever the Magi of the East said Where is he that is born King of the Jews The Angel upon the first tidings of his Incarnation told the blessed Virgin his Mother The Lord shall give unto him the Throne of his Father David And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end Luk. i. 32. From hence some Papalins whom I formerly refuted stile him a Temporal King who bequeathed all his Dominions to his chief Apostle St. Peter and he to one that is his Successor if it please God in all but his Sanctity Then the perfidious Jews object since the Prophets say that the Messias shall be a King and sit upon the Throne of David the Messias is not yet come because Christ did not triumph and exercise Lordly authority upon the Throne of David To draw out truth against both these at once like a two edged Sword I lay down these three things 1. That neither the Prophets nor St. Luke do teach that Christ had a Temporal Kingdom 2. That he had Dominion given to him by his Father over all earthly things but not by way of ruling all things like a King in his Kingdom 3. In most proper and safe construction we must say his was a spiritual Kingdom I will be brief in all these especially in the former To make much ado that Christ had no temporal Kingdom were to light a Candle at Noon-day The case is clear for I hope we will believe him rather than his enemies These are his words Joh. xviii 36. My Kingdom is not of this world if it were my servants would fight for me that I should not be delivered to the Jews but my Kingdom is not from hence He meant say some Papalins that the world gave him no Kingdom neither chose him a King yet he doth not deny but he received an earthly Kingdom from God A most empty Objection For Pilate sate his Judge to examine if he made himself a King to injure Cesar The same Pilate liked his answer so well that he told the Jews he found no fault with him But would Pilate have put it up if he had answered no better That he claimed a Kingdom indeed by a right and title derived from heaven frivolous and the Cavil of the Jews comes to nothing that God would set the Messias upon the Seat of his Father David Stretch not the Phrase too far and the meaning is 1. The Messias should come out of Davids Loins 2. And be a King as David was 3. Not after that way an earthly Potentate but after a more noble glorious perfect way than ever David governed And I pray you how could it be that he should be a King over Judah and Israel as David was when that Kingdom was taken away from Davids house before Christ was born and a Prophesie denounced it should never return to that house again So it was foretold to Jeconiah Jer. xxii 30. Write this man barren there shall be no man of his Seed to sit upon the Throne of David and to have power any more in Judah In a word Scripture elsewhere shews that to sit upon Davids Seat was to have the Jews subject unto him not after a carnal way but to be worshipped of them in spirit and to enjoyn them to keep his Laws and Commandments for their salvation So it is Hos iii. 5. They shall seek the Lord their God and David their King and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days Secondly I said Christ had Dominion given to him by his Father over all earthly things but not by way of ruling all things like a King in his Kingdom for by uniting the Humane Nature to the Godhead through the admirable influence of that Hypostatical Union So the very Manhood was made Lord over all things according to those places Mat. xi All things are delivered unto me of my Father And in these last days he spake unto us by his Son whom he made Heir of all things Heb. i. 2. And that you doubt not how he had power over all things as being man united with God he whose name was called the Word of God had a name written on his thigh King of Kings and Lord of Lords Rev. xix 16. Super femur mark that Vpon his thigh that is upon his Humane Nature Now this in him was of a more eminent and sublimed condition than all Regal Authority on the earth It came to him the most glorious way that ever was by the Hypostatical Union not by Conquest Inheritance Election Donation or any earthly sort 2. His power reacheth not only to command the outward actions but the very thoughts and conscience 3. He is over things sensible and insensible Men and Angels quick and dead heaven and earth and the very Regions of darkness 4. When men die their glory perisheth with them but of this mans Kingdom it is often testified there is no end Yea after his death he rose again and then began his Dominion to be most absolute by many exteriour works It was his pleasure oftentimes to exercise
this power and priviledge even while he debased himself in all humility Did he not consent to the destruction of the Gadarens Swine and curse the barren Figtree Because his jurisdiction extended to any thing in the world Did he not send for the Ass and the Colt with absolute command saying no more but the Lord hath need of them Did he not charge the Souldiers to let his Disciples alone And no man toucht them All these are Arguments of indefinite authority But this Government which is most ample perfect eternal was not after a Regal way as David and Solomon were Kings in Israel It was not contrary to the Rulers of the earth usurping any power to thwart and controule theirs but a transcendent exaltation above them and above all things visible and invisible yet withal he was most obedient and subject unto them paying Tribute unto Cesar and medling with no Humane Laws to divide their Inheritance that were contentious If he had professed himself an earthly King it had hindred the work which he had in hand to perswade men to the contempt of honour and glory Yet having all power given him of his Father it argued the more humility that he made himself subject to most vile men therefore it is put into the Creed that he suffered under Pontius Pilate meaning that he took his death with patience under the authority of a most unjust Governour Therefore St. Austin endites these words as from our Saviours mouth Hear me Jews and Gentiles hear me Circumcision and Uncircumcision hear me all ye Judges of the world Non impedio dominationem vestram in hôc mundo Enjoy the Principalities of this world unto your selves I do not hinder them In the third Conclusion I determined how in most proper and safe construction we must say that Christs Kingdom was a spiritual Kingdom I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Psal ii 6. The Psalm speaks of a spiritual Sion as St. Austin notes because it is termed an holy Sion therefore it must be understood of a spiritual King His Unction was not that Coelestial and not Corporeal With my holy oyl have I anointed him with the grace of Unction Such as the Unction is such must be the Kingdom a spiritual Kingdom His Priesthood was not carnal such as Aarons was but spiritual such as Melchisedechs was Like as was his Priesthood so was his Kingdom Those whom God had given him What were they His Disciples that never forsook him those that were born again of the Spirit His Subjects were Spiritual therefore his Kingdom could not be Terrestrial The Law of Moses was carnal so it was esteemed imperfect and is disannulled the Law of Christ which is set up instead of it is the Gospel which prescribes a reasonable and an holy service Where the Law of Christ is spiritual his Kingdom must needs be within us it is a Ghostly Kingdom Finally all the good things thereof concern the Spirit grace peace of conscience remission of sins and eternal life Says Fulgentius the Gold which the wise men of the East offered him in his Cradle shewed him to be a King but not such a King as will have his Image and Superscription in the Coin but such a one as seeketh his Image in the hearts of the Sons of men After the Angel had said The Lord would give him the Throne of his Father David Mark how divinely the words are qualified in the next verse And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end He shall reign and did reign here not in regno sed in domo in no Monarchy but in a Family in the house of Jacob that is in the houshold of the Faithful for alas they are but a Family to the potent multitudes of Unbelievers One question before I shut up the Point Christ was promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob Principally to Abraham What means the Angel then to omit Abraham and Isaac and to speak of one and no more that he shall reign in the house of Jacob Why the house of Abraham had Ismael as well as Isaac but Ismael was the Seed of the bond-woman which figured those that pertained not to the freedom of the Spirit The house of Isaac had Esau as well as Jacob Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated He reigned not in all the house of Isaac But all the twelve Sons of Jacob were Circumcised all blessed all represented the Church all heirs of the Promise and because Christs Kingdom was totally spiritual in the Faithful and Elect the Angel very properly delivered his Errand that He should reign in the house of Jacob. This last part of my Sermon was very necessary to be insisted upon that our Lord Christ invested himself with no such honour as Satan tendred to him All this power will I give thee and the glory of them Yet he had a Kingly Office adjoyned both with Priestly and Prophetical Offices Those are holy Functions the Devil likes not them he never spoke of them Nay let us have the Priesthood to serve God or let us take nothing without it St. Peter tells us we shall be Regale Sacerdotium a Royal Priesthood We shall have a Kingdom and a Priesthood combined together far exceeding all the power and glory which mortal men do manage Run fervently to the end of the Race and you shall have the prize Deus vult omnes suos athletas coronari says St. Hierom God will have all that try Masteries for his sake receive the Laurel and the Crown of Victory Every Saint hath his Kingdom who is cloathed with immortality and honour to live with the Lamb of God for evermore But you will say What Abraham a King Moses a King Peter and Paul Kings Where are the Nations which they govern Where are their Subjects Regnum est ubi nulli inimico subjicimur non quia populus nobis subjicitur A full answer it is a Kingdom because all our enemies are trodden under our feet not because any of the Blessed are Liege-men and Vassals unto other In the fruition of that Kingdom a main part of the Soveraignty will be that he shall be trodden under our feet who is so impudent and audacious in my Text to offer all the Kingdoms in the world God replenish us with the Kingdom of his grace in this life and exalt us to his Kingdom of glory hereafter AMEN THE SEVENTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 9 10. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Then saith Jesus unto him get thee hence Satan OUR natural Philosophers say very truly that a Serpent lays not her eggs one by one but they come from her in a cluster like a rope of beads and hang one at another in a string Satan deserves no better comparison than a Serpent the sins which he suggests no better comparison than the eggs
the numbers of the Saints nay rather it speaks of them with the least many are called but few are chosen and fear not little flock it is your fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom But Satan thinks to have credit from his multitudes and pretends to the whole retinue of them that have power and glory in the world whereas divers carry the true virtue of nobility in their heart as well as the title of nobility in their name and owe no service to him God doth permit the wicked sometimes elsewhere to reign for the sins of the people his antecedent will is upon all men especially upon the most renowned that are next and immediately under him Be ye holy as I am holy but he permits Ahab and Manasses to take their turn in the Kingdom of Israel to scourge the people for their sins and therein the adversary prevails against Gods velleity and complacency now that inch which God gives Satan calls it an ell and boasts that all the Princes of the Earth do hold in fee of him What saies he to Christ do you think to sit upon the seat of your Father David by fasting and prayer and by retiring for the discipline of your soul into the Wilderness no if you will rise and be some great one you must come to it by me frame your self to the fashion of the world the disposing of all Royalties and Honours are delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give them Omne mendacium est in aliquo vero that 's the ground of this first point which I handle every falsehood leans upon some truth that it may appear not to halt lamely but to go upright To that end doth the Tempter cogg in this word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for that is delivered unto me fatetur tradentem he doth acknowledge by that word that there is one above him who gives the Letters Patents of all honor and glory he is only intrusted as a Minister to deliver it Well this will not serve his turn like those conjuring Oracles which abused the Heathen of old which had alwayes an ambiguous meaning so the Devil in every proposition he makes as in this particularly hath some concealed aequivocation This is delivered unto me but by whom let us discover his pol-foot which he would conceal not by God he durst not bely his Maker so much but by the custom and practice of the world and custom is the strength and soul of a Law we have corrupted the pure stream of honour with flattery with gratuities with slavish services with Simony they that bid for advancement by such crooked means trust the Devil to keep stakes and if you will have them you must ask him to deliver them We have put the conveyance of many promotions into his power by the sinful practice of ambition as if he were our great Feoffee in trust as King Darius in the story of Esdras yielded himself up and all the power of his Majesty to Apame his Concubine she might take his Crown from his head and put it upon her own and he waited her courtesie to receive it again In such a sense it is true Satan hath a great share of honours to bestow but he received no such authority in Gods name as his words darkly convey'd do seem to challenge it for that is delivered unto me and unto whomsoever I will give it Some there are that make this climax or gradation to cast another shadow of truth upon his meaning Man was created Lord of the whole world and God bestowed the dominion of all things upon him which this Globe of creatures contains afterward by transgression man became the captive of sin and Satan for his servants ye are to whom ye obey that 's Gospel so that the Devil having Lordship over him who was Lord of all the whole world and the pomp thereof became to be his fee in our title that were captivated to him But I list not to stretch so many conclusions to make him speak truth who was a lyar from the beginning This shall suffice for that deceitful likelihood of truth which is in this motion it will be more glory to God and more benefit to our selves to examine the unlikelyhood The Devils Ministers have dared to contest with those Powers that were ordeined of God the contentious Hebrew asked Moses Who made thee a Prince or a Judg The Pharisees maundred at Christ By what authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this authority and doth the Devil suppose it shall go unaskt when this imperial sway was put into his hands to deliver all Kingdoms to whomsoever he will give them Promotion says the Psalmist cometh not per spiritum ventorum it cometh neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South no nor per spiritus infernorum it ascends not up from the pit with the spirits of damnation for why God is Judg of the Earth he setteth up one and plucketh down another Psal lxxv 6. This excessive claim of Satan to impute unto himself that all Kings hold their Scepters of him calls his whole faith in question that Charter cannot stand with Solomons Verdict which he hath given upon that title for thus he speaks for the Lord Prov. viii 15. By me Kings reign and Princes decree justice by me Princes rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the earth In true and exact propriety rendred the learned in the original tongue render the word not by me Kings reign but in me Kings reign God reigns in them as his Deputies they reign in God as their Author and Authoriser wherefore it is elegantly noted by one of our own Writers that Melchisedech is the first King spoken of in Scripture and he is brought in without Father without Mother upon earth to shew that Kings are Gods generation who only his ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã none can declare his Generation St. Chrysostom says very well that this is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the especial dignity of Kingly estate that it comes from God and therefore Popes who now assume most unchristianly if not anti-christianly to depose anointed Princes and translate their Kingdoms to their enemies they were wont to write to Kings with all lowliness of stile wishing them health and long happiness in eo per quem Reges regnant in him by whom Kings reign that is in God under whom in their own Dominions they are next and immediately supreme Governors David sware by the Lord unto Bathsheba that Solomon his Son shâuld reign in his stead an Oath is the strongest proof of humane faith so that by an Oath God and man have put it out of all doubt that the Most High alone doth appoint who shall sit upon the Throne of David but huic injurato crederem we would sooner believe David though he had not sworn that the Power and Principality of Kings depends upon God than Satan with all his promises and protestations that he hath
the Monopoly of Scepters and Diadems at his command All these things will I give thee And before whom could he have told this tale to be taken in a lye so soon as by driving this bargain with Christ as if a thief should steal Plate and offer to sell it to the owner or a Plagiary filtch a great deal out of a book and rehearse it for his own before the Author so the Tempter had rob'd Christ of that Honor and Majesty which was most properly his own I mean he rob'd him of it by the blasphemy and falshood of his tongue and then brings it to Christ to barter it away for other merchandise Autori quae autoris sunt repromittit What theft more palpable than this the Father gives all things by the Son by him He made the worlds by him He hears the prayers and supplications of the Church by him He gives us health and salvation by him He gives Rulers and Princes to go in and out before his People and yet Satan intrudes as if he were our Mediator in part at least in setling Thrones and Monarchies he was the means for those things and it was his hap I say the more to discredit his impudency to tell this tale to our Saviour from whom truly and indeed the Kings of the Earth do hold their Royalty Vtrobique regnatur per Christum he sets the Crown on their heads that wear them both in this world and in the world to come Observe it that He rides upon the white horse with many Crowns upon his head Revel xix 12. This is a Vision and this is the interpretation of it that those that honor him He will honor he settles the Royalty on whom He pleaseth not one or two Kingdoms and bequeatheth the rest to the fortune of war to the free choice of popular elections much less is any such good thing deliver'd up to our adversary the Devil Christ had many Crowns on his head for the whole earth shall stand in aw of him he lifteth up whom he pleaseth and setteth him with the Princes of his people When Wisdom proclameth that of Solomon which I laid for my first ground in this point by me Kings reign indefinitely it is to be understood of God but restrictively of Christ the second person in Trinity he is appropriatively the wisdom of the Father he is meritoriously and by way of an Impetrator the conduit pipe of all benefits to high and low rich and poor therefore we endear all our prayers to God with this conclusion per Christum Dominum nostrum through Christ our Lord. But what dulness was in the Manichaeans to fall upon such Texts as this and to build upon them that the God of Heaven made all invisible blessings and that Satan had divisum imperium cum Jove he was Lord of all visible and material things What are any of these the sooner his because he said they were deliver'd to him and to whomsoever he would he gave them Why it was as cheap in his mouth and he could have said it with the same labour that he could help whom he pleased to the Kingdom of Heaven It is the Most High that ruleth in the Kingdom of men and he appointeth over it whom he will Dan. v. 21. The cause of preservation is the cause of constitution God rules the hearts of the Subjects to obey and gives them commandment for allegeance and fidelity if any commotion be like to rise the Lord stilleth the raging of the sea and the madness of the people from God is the power of soveraignty and through his good spirit the duty of obedience but Satan stirs up seditions jealousies and cross humors in people never to submit therefore he plucks down the Kingdoms of the world and obscures the glory of them he is not the founder of order but of confusion O but sayes the Manichaean if Satan have not the total managing of these Powers beneath yet a share cannot be denied him They that govern by tyranny and injustice they that lift up themselves in their pride against heaven shall we not yield that these are of his ordination No why the Prophet Hosea says chap. viii 5. Ipsi regnaverunt sed non ex me they have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not In my opinion the literal and textual answer to that place is that they chose unto themselves Heathen Idols Gods of silver and gold and forsook the Lord Howsoever this distinction giveth unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God that which is Gods Regnaverunt non ex me quoad viam sed quoad potestatem that evil way which they chose to follow that perverse manner by which they reigned and troubled all was not from God but he gave power to Manasses to Rehoboam to Ahab as well as unto David unto Josiah and to the best Kings that rul'd with righteousness Or as another limits it a Deo bono sunt potestates a malo Angelo potestatis ambitio the Power on earth is Gods the ambition to usurp that Power is the Devils Take that which is thine Satan and leave the rest to Christ When occasion is given to speak of a wicked Magistrate the Phrase is Hos xiii 11. I gave them a King in my anger angry I was when I gave him but I gave him though and that which He gives we must take it and keep it be it scourge be it blessing it is most foul rebellion to say the Lord shall not fasten evil upon us we will not keep that which the Lord hath given us And so much for the claim of the Giver in my Text whom we have found to have no right or title to deliver unto any one the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them Indefinitely all Kings reign by Christ good and bad but the justice of the good more peculiarly is from the grace of God the tyranny and ambition of the worst is from the suggestion of Satan and nothing about them is his but that which is worse than nothing the iniquity of Princes Now I proceed The gift was furtum theft in the highest degree that which he profer'd was not his to bestow the giver mendacium he falsified his evidencies and laid title to that which was only Gods to bestow The condition now follows to be handled which is fire and sulphur mixt together blasphemy and idolatry he requires that Christ should fall down and worship him Let me begin upon this point as Solomon said when Adonijah askt Abishag to wife Let him ask the Kingdom also Satan himself was not able to speak such another word I think for horror and impiety it exceeds that sin for ought we know by far which provokt the Lord at first to cast him out of Heaven into chains of eternal darkness For Isaiah tells us in the Parable of the King of Babylon chap. xiii the insolency of that sin consisted in these
that Christ scorn'd his homage and bad him come out of the man and he durst not but obey him you see then this Commandment stretcheth even to things beneath the earth Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God Secondly I put this to my answer that for the other clause to serve God only the Tempter's malice is irremediable he hath turn'd away from obedience so stubbornly that he is wholy possest to defie the Kingdom of Heaven yet God may call upon him to serve him only from time to time requiring that reasonable service which he might have discharg'd by those faculties wherewith he was created before he marr'd them A Servant that hath mony given him to buy necessaries for his Master's use may be urg'd to make good those things though he hath negligently lost or lavishingly consum'd the whole sum which was put into his hand and utterly disabled himself to take up the merchandise so there is no injustice in God to claim fidelity and service continually from those apostate evil spirits although they are incorrgible and can afford no better submission than murmuring and blasphemy Yet after both those full satisfactions I had rather say nothing was Satan's in these words but the Repulse and the Commandment is wholly ours and for our instruction for where the Law is given it is given to be a School-master to bring them unto Christ and none but we men whose nature he took have purchase in Christ and a lively hope in the redemption of his most precious blood No devotion or duty to God is expected from Satan though it may be commanded my Text requires but that which Christ calls an easie yoke and a light burden and all the Sons of the Free-woman are made to bear it Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve The Holy Ghost speaks to us men and to no other if we know these things happy are we if we do them First then let us beat upon the knowledge of the Commandment which requires you hear worship and service service that is to have a general care to be obsequious and pliant to all Gods holy will and worship which is all external veneration which becomes the creature towards such a Lord who is of an infinite Majesty or if you will observe these two titles in my Text Lord and God and divide these two parts of Religion between them O God we will bow and kneel and fall down before thee can a man be too reverent to his God and O Lord all that thou command'st us we will endeavour to do can a man be servant enough to such a Master who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords But Dominum Deum tuum adorabis Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God of that by it self in the first order which is that point of Religion that is principally opposed to the Devils temptation And upon this it is to be noted that Christ hath rather expounded the Law of Moses than kept the very word of it the words are thus extant Deuteron vi 13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him And is that rendred to the true sense will some object thou shalt worship the Lord are fear and worship so much the same that they may be called by the same name even so beloved for it is but an easie Metonymie to take the effect for the cause especially such a proper effect as flows naturally from the cause and cannot be parted for as St. Paul said Shew me thy faith by thy works so do I say shew me your fear by the fruits if it be not a dead fear you will fall down and worship The Servant that fear'd fell down and besought his Master Matth. xviii 16. they that fear the Lord will be humble they that are humble will worship often on their knees toward his Holy Place And I never knew any Sectaries busie the Church with objections why they would have licence not to prostrate themselves in lowly gesture at some offices of divine service but they drew their argument from this that then at such an occasion it was not meet to express fear but boldness and confidence They that speak against due reverence cannot choose but speak irreverently For thus some stand stoutly upon it that they would not kneel when they receive the consecrated elements of the holy Communion because kneeling is a gesture of inferiority and abasement now in that Sacrament we are to act the parts of Christs Guests in imitation to resemble our co-heirship with him in his Kingdom therefore they will not lose their right of fellowship with Christ by kneeling but take the benefit of their fortune and sit down I pitty weak ones that are so seduced in conscience but it is a most foul oversight in the seducers that have learning and knowledge to thrust out humility at that time when they know how that sacred Supper is the most absolute type of Christs wonderful humiliation This comes of it when they will imagin any part of Religion disjoyned from the fear of God for when they have blasted fear presently they say we will not worship That Woman Luke vii who was a sinner sometimes but had her sins forgiven and was now a co-heir with Christ yet still she stood behind him fearing to be too bold and kist his feet and bowed down to the ground in token of adoration The Text saies moreover she loved much to poize that other Text of St. John 1 Ep. iv 18. Perfect love casteth out fear but love is never perfect till we reign with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven I will yet be a little larger how the fear of God and the outward worship of God are knit together it must be so because our Saviour in my Text hath so interpreted Moses The common distinction rightly understood will be the best help to this doctrin There is a finer and a courser fear the courser is called a servile fear as when servants do their work lest they should be chastised and were it not for the rod that hangs over them perhaps they would let it alone yet this is it which David commends that you may not think it utterly disgraced by being called servile Stand in aw and sin not this was in the antient Israelites and it made their Prophets and their Prophets Children obedient and because it produced a good effect search and you shall find it came from God Rom. viii 15. You have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear therefore the fear which imports bondage comes from the spirit of God as Paul said which way soever Christ be preached it is well so which way soever God be served it doth well and it is a pleasant thing to pass to Heaven by much fear even by the gates of Hell Carni opus est timore spiritui fiduciâ the flesh must be dejected with fear and the spirit must be raised up with hope and confidence
bodie nor with our substance He shall have neither our goods nor our knee but likely we put it off He shall have our soul why this is only to give God his thirds as a reverend Father saies to compound like Bankrupts and give him two parts less than we owe him and yet we look for ten thousand times more than He owes us We have some that are to be suspected for a kind of Sadduces among us that believe no resurrection of the body else they would never palter with discipline but be more forward in the prostration and worship of the bodie than the Church could be to command them Some have given a great blow to this duty by harping upon the bare words of S. John and not digesting the true meaning of his Text Joh. iv 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Mark the occasion why this was spoken and the words precedent The woman of Samaria moved a doubt whether God was to be worshipped at Jerusalem as the Jews taught or at Mount Girizin as the Samaritans taught Now the Samaritans worshipt God falsely they worshipt they knew not what says Christ The Jews held strictly to Moses Law and observ'd figures and shadows of things to come which were all to give place and vanish upon the incarnation of our Lord. Now it is easie to discern the substance of our Saviours answer what it is to serve God in spirit and truth Truth is opposed to the false superstition of the Samaritans Spirit is opposed to the Jewish figures and sacrifices And Christ tells the woman God will neither be served any more after the Samaritan way or Jewish way but after the newness of the Gospel The hour cometh and now is when ye shall neither worship the Father in this Mountain nor at Jerusalem but they shall worship him in spirit and truth Do these words exempt the worship of the body nothing less The word spirit is not taken there for the soul divided from the body signifying only an internal act of the spirit but for all manner of virtuous actions as well external as internal which proceed from the grace of the Holy Spirit being acceptable to God because the Holy Spirit brings them forth not because they are figures of things to come I will sing with the spirit says St. Paul 1 Cor. xiv 15. and yet singing is a bodily action He did worship in spirit when he said For this cause bow I my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Ephes iii. to come to a point Remember therefore how we adore God in spirit when we adore him with those outward gestures of the body to which we are stirred up by the Spirit of truth And so much of the first member of my Text which I laid out to be handled by it self the Lord God is to be worshipped The next duty is the other Pillar of Religion which upholds the Church of the Elect the Lord God is to be served By worship you know already we understand all humble outward devotion and reverence Now by service you must conceive the inward conformity of the heart to all duty and obedience The will of the Lord is revealed to us two manner of ways Either as he doth promise us blessings and benefits and assures us great rewards in the Kingdom of heaven Or as he doth stipulate and covenant with us what we shall do to obtain his favour In the former respect as he hath given us the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth most liberally and as he doth promise greater fruits of his mercy most graciously we fall down and worship him for his benefits but as he doth condition with us to do somewhat for his sake that he may leave a blessing with us we serve him faithfully and bind our inward faculties our soul and our mind to be prompt and ready to execute all obedience That you may the better compose your hearts to attend Gods will in all things and to serve him I will supply your knowledge with these few motives following First There is no other Lord beside our God properly called 1 Cor. viii Though there be that are called Gods as there be Gods many and Lords many that is by opinion and nuncupation but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him And again Eph. v. 4. One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God who is above all and through all and in you all Super omnes dominio per omnes providentiâ in omnibus justificatione Above all by his Dominion through all by his Providence in all by sanctifying us with his grace and justifying us from sin He that is subject to none inferiour to none independent of himself in all his power He may well be called a Lord and such a Lord deserves to be served Petty Magistrates hold of Princes favours and Kings hold their tenure under God Therefore some of the Roman Emperours having the perceivance that they could command nothing absolutely if he that sate above the heavens did stop it they would not be called Domini because themselves were servants in relation to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords therefore their circumscribed power did not answer the title When the Scripture brings in the most High the saying is Haec dicit Dominus Thus saith the Lord. If we would examine this after the stile of man you would say Lord of what Why universal Lord without any particular designment Specifications to be Lords of this or that are earthly phrases are notes of minority Attalus the Martyr was askt what name that Lord had whom he served Says he Qui plures sunt nominibus discernuntur qui autem unus est non indiget nomine Where there are many Lords they must be distinguish'd by their properties but what need that Lord a name for distinction who is the only Ruler by himself without any equal or partner in his dominion now since we must serve for sin hath brought servitude into the world whom would a man choose to serve but that only Lord to whose sheave all other sheaves do bend and who only hath authority Secondly In all service you will consider in what state and place it puts you Do so in this and spare not But let St. Peter be the Judge 1 Epist ii 9. Ye are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people There is royalty in the very service Cui servire est regnare To do him service is a Kingly Ministry Nay there is more in one of our Church Collects in one Line of it than in the most Augustious title of a King God whose service is perfect freedom A King may be so much subject to naughty passions as he shall be in vile thraldom to his own sensualities and so
is the only Master that we have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã over our spirit and cânscience but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we must be diligent to attend our governours according to the flesh in Temporal and Civil Offices and Functions Col. iii. 22. There St. Paul gives a Livery to all Servants to wear not upon their back but upon their heart Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as men-pleasers but in singleness of heart as fearing God And whatsoever ye do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men knowing that of the Lord ye receive the reward of the Inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ Mark those last words we serve but one Master though we have one in earth and another in heaven for we serve him on earth for his sake and for his command that is in heaven When a petty Magistrate bids you do this or that in the Kings Name you obey not so much him that speaks unto you as the Kings Authority which he lays upon you So that service which is performed to man by the ordination of Christ is performed to Christ himself Servit Deo qui propter Deum servit homini as St. Hierom says upon that place of St. Paul The Lord hath set you on work to serve a Master upon earth it is his service and not mans do it diligently and faithfully and as your Masters on earth must justly give the hireling his or her Wages so over and above God will see it rewarded Vtilitas operis ad homines respicit animus operantis ad Deum The benefit of that outward work which a servant doth redounds materially to man The intention of his heart that works justly and truly is bent in conscience to God These Masters are not contrary one to another but subordinate and you shall be paid on both sides In as much as you did it to one of these you did it unto me See how God is willing to engage himself to owe us for all our Ministerial labour I know that Text was fitted by Christ to works of Charity that he who gave a cup of cold water to one of his little ones for his names sake gave it to himself but it is a general Axiom to be applied to all humane Uses and Offices which we do one to another under God In as much as you did it to one of these you did it unto me The Apostle goes so far in this Point that though a Christian were a bondman to an Infidel yet the Christian must do his task and submit himself unto him for temporal Authority and Dominion is not founded in grace And if Infidelity do not cast a man out of his Government in a private Family is there any shew or appearance that Heresie or Infidelity should make a Prince uncapable any longer to hold his Kingdom but lay him quite open to deposition from all his Dignity Neither Infidelity nor Tyranny can exempt Subjects or Servants from that homage which they owe their Superiours on earth because we are tied to subjection to these not for their own sakes but for Gods sake and he will not dispence with us Let St. Peter teach his Pro-Peter that would be 1 Ep. ii 18. Servants be subject to your Masters with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward It follows For this is thanksworthy towards God Let me dispatch You hear it not written no man can have two Masters he may have two that are subordinate Gods Service being ever preferred before mans You hear indeed no man can serve two Masters that would be equal not subordinate or Contraria praecipientes such as call you contrary ways at once or bid you do contrary things for in that case one must be served and the other neglected They that are set over you on earth must command the same thing that Christ commends and then with the same pains you content them both But if the lesser power on earth shall say hearken to me for this time and to God at some other turn Nay said the mouth of the Apostles Whether it be fitter to obey God or you judge ye Iniquum est ut illis pareatur contra Christum quibus paretur propter Christum Says the just man we serve our Masters on earth for Christs sake otherwise all underlings would rise up and cry out for Anarchy and licence which they wrongfully call liberty but we submit unto you for Christs sake and would you be obeyed against Christ when you should never be obeyed but for Christs sake No in all things lawful and honest I subject my self so I make my self a Minister to God and man conjoyntly but not divided And thus Servants obey their Masters on earth and yet observe my Text most religiously Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve AMEN THE NINETEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve AT the same time that our Saviour alleged these words out of holy Scripture against the Devil He bid him apage get thee hence as who should say this was true doctrin but no way for his turn Even as Elisha said to the Noble-man of Samaria there should be store of corn in the gates of Samaria tu tamen non gustabis but it shall do you no good you shall never taste of it Assuredly though Satan was sent away from this godly doctrine to his own place and this sentence of Holy Writ was thrown after him like a stone at a dog to make him be gone the faster yet it invites us to come about it as Wisdom says in Solomon Come near my children not get you hence hearken unto me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. For that proposition in Logick is a direct teacher which speaks positively as they say categorically what is to be done so doth this thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and then it is very satisfactory and leavs no question after it for it hath an express sign or note in it which every proposition should have which will be clear to the understanding and him Only shalt thou serve That particle of the Text is like the point of the Loadstone referring to whom all religious honour constantly and unchangeably is to be performed Do but imagin that word only were in another print from the rest or in capital letters as that which is the emphasis of the verse and whereupon all divine duty doth lean and there needs no more preface to prepare you for that which follows Upon this word I will speak now according to its own property that is of nothing else at this time That God is only to be worshipped and served shall be my only Treatise and I will go in hand with it two ways 1. Building up the true doctrine affirmatively 2. Beating down those
make supplications unto them When I commend my self to the Prayers of any man upon earth I attribute nothing unto him falsly as divine he hath ears to hear me he hath memory faith and chariry to commend his brethren to God But when I do the like to the Saints granting the distinction that they call upon them to intercede not to perform their request but when I do the like to them I make them stand in the place of God to hear all men every where at once perhaps lifting up their voice nay perchance no more than the thought of their heart unto them Solius Dei proprium est ubique omnes audire exandire It is the excellency of God alone to hear and attend to all men in all places at once Therefore he makes an Idol of that Saint in whom he supposeth as much vertue and excellency to hear him how much soever distant as is in God himself I omit burning Incense to their Shrines making Pilgrimages to their Sepulchres Building Churches wherein their memory may be worshipped and invoked And making Vows in their names which is one of the flowers of Gods eternal royalty They that are such earnest Devotees to Creatures and think there is not work enough for a Christian to worship God alone deserve that gross delusion which hath started from some of their own Confessions that many names are enrolled for glorified Saints and great Patrons of the Church whose souls are tormented in Hell Let God be worshipped for the holy Prophets Apostles and Martyrs departed so shall we our selves we trust one day have a place in that Coelestial Quire where the Lord our God is only worshipped and he only served day and night without ceasing AMEN THE TWENTIETH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve I Am come to this Text again in the zeal of Elias to let no kind of Idolater be unrebuked that doth not worship the Lord and serve him only according to these words which were Law at first and our Saviour by reciting them hath made them Gospel Take the Priests of Baal says that holy man and let not one of them escape 1 King xviii 40. I will trace his steps in this cause and will rather be a man of contention as Jeremy became by taking the Lords part then suffer Rags and Reliques Stocks and Stones to have an attractive virtue more than magnetical to draw religious honour and adoration unto them If men would hold their peace these things which I now proceed to arraign and condemn for having holy worship done unto them have no tongues to defend themselves They are not Angels or Saints departed they have neither life nor motion in them neither the Cedar that grows in Libanus nor the Hisop that grows on the top of the wall but the Trunck of the Cedar and such other things as Art hath made unfit for any further benefit of nature 'T is strange that sharp-witted men will take pains to extol such dull inanimate things as can never thank them And concerning inanimate liveless things how superstitiously such glory as belongeth to God alone hath been imparted unto them I shall spend my labours at this time for concerning rank Heathen Idol Gods imaginaries Deities and concerning the Host of Heaven above and the Spirits of darkness beneath how they are idolized by some I have maintained the judgment of our Church before But our quarrel against the Pontificians to vindicate all religious worship latrical and dulical to the Lord of Heaven alone is like a Suit in Law that holds many Terms as long a quarrel as upon any other common place in all Divinity I am in hand at this time with the same Controversie again to protest against four things namely 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Religious adoration of the Reliques of Saints 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Religious adoration of the Elements in the Lords Supper 3. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Religious adoration of the Sign of the Cross and that most stiffely and impudently maintained 4. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Worship of Pictures and Images whether resembling Christ or his Saints Wo is it for the Church of Christ that we must spend an hour in these dissentions but what peace can there be while these Idolatries are maintained under the name of great devotion and anathema denounced against them that cry out for the Lord and for his Christ to them glory and worship and to none but them And now I have sounded the trumpet to this battel I betake me to the particulars propounded First that Religious adoration of Reliques confronts the verity of my Text c. But in the Exordium if any one shall ask how do our Opposites worship or serve Reliques or any of the aforenamed I will satisfie him that for the intentions of their heart in their inward reverence towards these things we could not accuse them but that they profess and teach it is religious and holy honour for if it were no more than precious estimation to some of those things we would not disfavour their practice but consent unto it and for their outward behaviour which expresseth the affections within judg if this be not to worship to kneel unto to kiss those things to prostrate the body to hold up the hands and eyes and uncover the head before them judg also if this be not serving of them censing of perfumes in those places lighting candles to honour them adorning with the richest cost of jewels and gold Circumgestation Procession Supplication Festival days appointed for their service and as much as all these Guilds and Religious Orders appointed to attend them This is square and open dealing that I impute Idolatry and Will-worship unto them upon grounds of practice and confession Nay I have not said all no not by half touching that over respect which is done to the Reliques of Christ and his Saints They exalt them above the Altar St. Ambrose thought it a great honour for himself or any deceased Bishop to lye under the Altar they call that adoration which is given to them meritorious The Priests teach the people that there is a kind of grace communicated to those Reliques they take Pilgrimages to them swear by them carry parts about as Prophylacticks against bodily and ghostly evil and pronounce indulgence for venial sins to them that fall down and worship them Beside the main sin see the uncertainty of all this Of Saints they have mightily multiplied the number and of their Reliques far more than is possible to belong unto them Yet it is impossible to know by faith who are Saints deceased but those whose memorial is recorded in Scripture and for their Reliques it is not denied they are conjectur'd at by mere humane credulity The bones of a Varlet may be carried in procession for the bones of a Martyr decem millia talium rerum Romae fiunt says L.
great things for them Why because they obeyed not his word They knew it was not their Idol but the Lord who had deliver'd them yet they are said to have forgot the Lord because they worshipped him after their own inventions and did not obey him Next to this weigh but the actions of Micah of Mount Ephraim Jud. xvii he that can but spel words and put them together shall find his Mother dedicated her silver to the Lord for her Son to make a graven Image Micah had these Images for the honour of God and having those abominations still profest himself a Priest of the Lord therefore this must be his crime that he worshipped God in his Images Cajetan and Abulensis are of that judgment that where the Idol hath a peculiar name as Baal Ashteroth the people seduced served the very Idol but where the Idol had no peculiar name as in my instance of Micah's Images and the Calf that Aaron made there they served the true God in the Idol If this be not directly the Popish Doctrine the Sun hath no light in it To be even with their evasion every way the very Heathen as well as they could apprehend the eternal God by the light of nature worshipt him in their Idols and Penates few or none of them thought the matter of an Idol to be a God Seneca says says that by Jupiter standing in the Capitol with lightning in his hand they understood the Preserver and Governor of all things the Maker of the world Mark now nether the Jewish nor Heathenish Idolaters did any more than worship the true God in or before or with their Images Give them audience by the way how they profess both moral and natural Philosophy for their defence Moral first how he that honoureth the Image of the King honoreth the King himself this is called St. Athanasius and St. Basil's morality and so it is but Lord how little to the case The Arrians contended that glory was to be given to one eternal God but if one were the person of the Father another of the Son there were two Eternals to be glorified those Fathers answer the Son is the Image of the Father the express image of his person and the brightness of his glory and he that honour'd that Image of the King honour'd the King himself Is there not main difference between the carved Image which stands for Christ's manhood and between his personal filiation wherein He is the Image of his Father The outward Image stands for Christ by humane imagination it hath no eminent undeniable right to present him but Religious Adoration is founded upon that Union which is personal substantial relative by divine ordination And for the moral rule he that honours the King will honour his Image it holds only in negative honour a good Subject will not deface the Kings Picture in a despiteful spleen against the exemplar no more do we dishonour the Images of Christ and the Saints unless where flagrant Idolatry is committed to them then with good zeal they may be burnt or defaced to do God honour against the Creature Is their natural Philosophy any sounder 't is Aristotle's Idem est motus in imaginem exemplar his meaning is the abstractive understanding considers the abstracted notion of a material thing and the thing it self at once the verbum intellectus as it is called the intellective word and the real thing understood at once This is all he says but they have made a matter of it that when I see Christ's Image and rememorate Christ upon it and then worship him I must worship the Image together with him To deliver you quickly out of these thorny passages I say there cannot be the same motion of the mind towards this Image and the Exemplar for the mind is fixt upon the Image as upon a Sign and upon an Object much inferiour to the Exemplar The Image is a thing create Christ uncreate they confess a respective difference that Christ is adored simply and for himself the Image in regard of similitude and reference to the principal The Image is not the terminus of worship for it self but for Christs sake therefore the motion of mans heart toward Christ and the Image cannot be one but divers When I desire the means because of the end here are two distinct actions and motions of the will to wit election of means intention for the end But with them the worship of Christ and his Image is one and the same physical act of the body at once they talk that it is virtually twofold but if they hold there is the same motion of the mind too to both at once that will make it complete idolatry No marvail you see if you have quite lost the second Commandment out of some Portresses and Breviaries when they have found it again in their larger Missals they will not keep it When men have rampar'd witty shifts against truth it is in vain to tell them from S. John Babes beware of idols or from St. Paul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã What agreement hath the Temple of the Lord with idols they will tush at it and say they mean the Idols of Pagans St. Pet. 1. Ep. c. iv v. 3. speaks against lusts excess of wines revellings abominable Idolatries Speaks he not against the lust and drunkenness and riot of Christians verily and as manifesty against Christian Idolatries But if they toy with the Scripture that is against them let them point to that Scripture that doth license their religious honour done to Images for faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of God What not one Text to suit for them then belike it holds of Tradition nay Suarez says neither Scripture nor Tradition hath commended it but invaluit ex praxi consuetudine ecclesiae practise and custom hath allowed it How easily if time did not shorten me could I shew that for the first 500 years neither the Image of Christ or his Saints were set up in any Church so little was the practise of worshipping them on foot A little of antiquity will spend but a little time says Origen Who having his right wits after the Commandment of God will look upon Images to pray to them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Or by the sight thereof offer prayers thereby to him that is resembled St. Austin upon the 113. Psalm hath a full Sermon of it these few words are the pith quis adorat vel orat intuens simulacrum who is he that doth either pray or worship looking on an Image who is he marry an Idolater Procopius hath a memorable passage that from twenty Generations after Adam the Son did ever survive the Father which is most natural but Thare buried his Son Haran who was the first that made Images and God made him an example for doing a work so hateful to him I will confine my self to one instance more Serenus Bishop of Marseilles offended that some
off and abandon their Society and he shall find heavenly comforters in his soul as if Angels ministred unto him Qui expellit à se Satanam allicit ad se Angelos Bid Satan get him hence and the Angels take it for an invitation that they should pitch their Pavilions round about you Lot lived like a stranger in his own City and conversed not with the men of Sodom they called him a stranger he shut himself up and barr'd his doors against those filthy people What could he do more to keep the ungodly from his very sight as David said Thus estranging himself from the conversation of pernicious sinners he made himself sit to give hospitality to Angels A good Lesson for these times wherein ribbald roaring company is rather sought for than declined A strange thing that a Christian who feels some comfort in Christ and desires salvation in his bloud should with so much affection and longing thrust himself among them whose desperate behaviour is easily perceived if repentance help not to tend to utter damnation St. Paul was weary of his own body called it a body of death and groaned to be delivered from it because the Flesh rebelled against the Spirit Did he loath himself that he might love Christ the more And will you invite those into your friendship and fellowship that blaspheme Christ Shake off this dust from your feet all prophane intemperate lascivious persons from your familiarity if either you expect that God should give his Angels charge of you in this life or make you partakers of their fellowship of heavenly glory in the life to come The next thing towards which we turn our eyes at this word behold is the alteration of rest and quietness before there were assaults and troubles and molestations all this is changed in a moment into peace and tranquillity which shall be the certain issue of all those that fight a good fight with patience Semper asperiora laetiorum vicissitudine mitigantur Rough beginnings have joyful events by the temperature and vicissitude of Gods gracious mercy Such as were called prosperous among the heathen most usually the best share of their fortune was in the forepart of their life and their end was lamentable the seven first years in Pharaohs dream did betoken plenty but the seven last years famine and scarcity the head of Nebuchadonosors Image was of Gold and the toes of Clay the rich man had a great time of gathering more than he knew where to bestow it but in one night lost his soul and all This is an unkind and an unnatural method to taste the sweetest at the top of the Cup and after a little sipping to have our teeth set on edge with Aloes Doth it not taste better when the gracious providence turns the lot thus First a Deluge and then a Rainbow First a Captivity and then a joyful return First a Dioclesian and then a Constantine First the impugnation of the Devil and then the Congratulation of Angels Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour untill the evening says the Psalmist There is a time to give the body a cessation from toil and do you think the Lord doth not measure out when he will give the soul and spirit relaxation from misery As a stranger is received at night and bids God b'you in the morning so indignation and the severity of chastisement are stangers unto the Lords clemency he calls vengeance Peregrinum opus his strange work Isa xxviii Therefore it shall be dismissed from him like a stranger after it hath staid a while Heaviness may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Psal xxx 6. Tentations have their bout and the storms of hell their period but the good Angels know their qu when to enter and to turn the scene Behold the Angels came and ministred unto him And once more this note of admiration Behold bids us regard to what alteration of dignity the truly humble are called Recusavit dominatum in homines habet imperium in Angelos Our Saviour turn'd away from that ambitious suggestion All this power will I give thee and the glory of them He desired not to have a Kingdom in this world or to have the pre-eminence of men and loe the pre-eminence over Angels is given unto him And it is more dignity to have two Angels minister unto him than to have ten thousand Kingdoms Every part of Christs humility was inlaid with honour to recompence it To be laid in a Manger was not so vile as it was most magnificent to be adored of the Wisemen of the East to be visited by Shepherds was not so contemptible as it was most glorious to be proclaimed of Angels To ride upon an Ass was not of such debasement but the cry of the children made amends Hosanna blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord. It savoured not so much of infirmity to be tempted of the Devil but it is supplied as much with Majesty to be attended by the Cherubins No part of his humility went without a reward from the first to the last nay the last part had amends made for all He humbled himself unto the death even unto the death of the Cross propter quod wherefore God hath highly exalted him c. Humility was his direct way to glory but we think we are out of the way to promotion unless we shift and shuffle for the highest place and the chiefest room in the Synagogues The first shall be last and the last shall be first This is a riddle to them that love to set their feet upon a rising ground Yet David hath laid a curse upon preposterous ambition that it shall decline That which should have been for their wealth says he let it be unto them an occasion of falling The holy Father Basil lost no honour in this life by shunning the dignity which was intended him and flying away into obscurity when he was called to be a Bishop The Apostle Bartholomew is reported in some histories to have been of the bloud royal of the Kings of Egypt Was it any diminution to him to have left all to be a poor Disciple Is there any Christian King that doth not wish he had rather born his Office of Apostleship than have swayed a Scepter When Princes die their honour shall not follow after them but those twelve humble ones of our Saviours train shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel If spiritual thoughts will lift a man up to heaven an humble man is mounted above the earth all the while he seeks those things which are above Themislius an holy man put this Lesson in so pure a verse as it is beyond translation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his heart sunk down when ambition puft him up but he felt his feet upon the Angels Ladder going up when humility cast him down Our Saviour despised all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory
away one opinion of St. Austins as quite out of the cancels of truth and then proceed He doth not deny but the dead through Gods concession may upon such occasions as the Lord directs them to appear unto the living he cites Samuel brought up by the Witch of Endor to speak with Saul What if that were not Samuel but an evil Spirit or an Imposter he cites Ecclesiasticus He objects what if that Book be refused because it is not in the Canon of the Hebrews Then he cites our present instance of Moses and Elias yet he falls off again and thinks the Saints themselves appear'd not but seem'd to appear by the Ministry of Angels Many times in the Old Testament when the Angel is sent from God as a Legate He speaks in the person of his King I am the Lord thy God therefore he presumes that Angels in this place might be called by the names of Moses and Elias for whom they appeared The same most excellent Author is more orthodox in other places upon this point This cannot well consist Christs glory was true and not ficticious it betokened a true estate of blessedness to us miserable men hereafter therefore it cannot piece well together that all this should be confirmed by ficticious and imaginary Witnesses Now I venture forward and first I will speak of Elias how he came in his own body then of Moses I have a reason for it and St. Mark 's words ly so there appeared unto them Elias with Moses In what body should Elias be an assistant to Christs glory now but in the same body wherein He was taken up in a whirlwind to Heaven Henoch and Elias were ever parallelled to be of the same condition in Gods favour that their Body was never dissolved from the Soul but in their whole substance assumed up on high Some Jewish Rabbins have presum'd to teach more than Scripture that the Bodies of Henoch and Elias were dissolved into Elements in their rapture and nothing but their Soul was received into Abrahams bosom I smell the leaven of the Sadduces in those Rabbies for certainly the origen of it came from such as they who resisted the truth that a Body could not be exalted to heavenly places Is not St. Paul enough to silence all tongues of that language Heb. xi 5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death If Enoch did not see death in his translation and that 's the fair letter of the Scripture no more did Elias Says Epiphanius Henoch and Helias their Bodies and Souls were never parted but remain undivided for ever Henoch lived a married life Elias was a Virgin to shew that continency in Marriage and Virginity shall both be glorified in the great day of the Resurrection Thus Epiphanius and I could name a multitude of concurrents who are advowers of the same sentence They that list to be contentious gainsay this Doctrin touching Elias his Body that it never was corrupted from the common theme of mans mortality Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. v. 12. Death passed upon all men what 's that but a just Sentence and Decree and none can say Why am I born to dy But there is mercy and power in the Most High to spare and to execute his Decree upon whom he pleaseth Heb. ix 27. Statutum est that presseth home says the Antagonist it is appointed unto men once to dye that 's the Text indeed but not statutum est omnibus it is appointed unto all men once to die as some do read it The ordinary end of men is death but God hath his exemptions and priviledges to limit that Statute I tell you a mystery says St. Paul We shall not all die but we shall all be changed there 's one limitation They that are found upon the earth at the second coming of Christ shall not die but shall be snatcht up with Christ in glory non separatione formae sed immutatione qualitatum their Soul shall not be taken of the Body but corruptible qualities shall be taken from the Body So it was in Elias his Rapture the Body was not destroyed but only that corruption which was in his Body Again it is appointed unto men once to die semel once and no more Yet the Shunamites Son Jairus Daughter Lazarus and many others brought back from their Graves died twice there 's another limitation of the Statute Nothing concludes from thence but that Elias his Body was never dissolved in that Body wherein he talked with God at Mount Horeb in the same Body he heard God talk to his Son at Mount Tabor about the time of the Transfiguration But as for Moses after what manner he came to Christ in the shape of a Body I cannot speak with any certainty To hold that the elements were compacted into the figure of a Body that he might use it for that occasion and then disperse it into air when the mysterie was finished hath an ill relish in it because imaginary shapes like Pageants to be set up for a while and strait taken down again were not fit demonstrations of the truth of the Resurrection Damascen observes wittily that it is likely how the Promise which God did long before make to Moses was now fulfilled Exod. xxxiii 23. That thou shalt see my back parts but my face shall not be seen meaning says he that the eye of man could not see his Divinity but he should have the honour to see Christ incarnate That is not unfitly called posteriora or exteriora Dei the out parts or the Veil of the Godhead Now was that desire of Moses fulfilled and the Son of Man in excellent beauty stood before him but had he not seen him with his own eyes all had not been according to his first desire and affection And me-seems that this conjecture is not weak if Elias had appeared in his own flesh Moses but in a phantastical shape this had derogated from the dignity of Moses who was the Prophet than whom none was greater from the Law to John the Baptist The Jews oppress us again with their figments in a second opinion saying that Moses was so beloved of God that he never saw death but continued in his Body for ever as Elias doth Josephus tells us his mind herein so plainly that I perceive the most did follow him that when Joshuah and Eleazar had parted with Moses upon Mount Nebo he was taken away from them in a Cloud and advanced to Heaven but to make the people quiet that they might not talk too much of his exaltation and attribute too much honour unto him he left it written that he died in the Land of Moab But this doth peremptorily contradict the Holy Word in divers places He died and was buried in a Valley in the Land of Moab Deut. xxxiv 6. according to the word of the Lord. That word is in the same book Deutr. xxxii 50. Thou
is one entire Body one Tabernacle and no more Satan wisheth it were ten that there might be strifes among us I am of Christ and I for Moses and I for Elias even as among the Corinthians I am of Paul and I of Cephas and I of Christ This emulation and Schism comes of it to make more Tabernacles than one faciamus tria c. From the Builders and the Fabrick I proceed thirdly to the Possessors one for Thee one for Moses and one for Elias little Cottages yet Peter considered they would be somewhat for them that had nothing before Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head ipse faber domum non habuit he had not an house to lodg in though they call'd him the Carpenters Son Moses was thrust into an Ark of bulrushes Elias was turn'd out into the vast Wilderness Marmoreo tumulo Licinus jacet Cato parvo Pompeius nullo The mighty men of the World took up all the room from Christ and the Prophets all that the Apostle could make them were little Canopies of boughs and glad he had that for them that they might not want an Habitation What a narrow thing is mans wit though our will and desires are infinite he would confine him that is unconfined put all the light of the Sun into a Nutshel take up the vast waters of the Sea into a spoon that is comprize all the glory of Christ in a wicker Tabernacle How shall they praise his name from one end of the world unto the other How shall he ascend up on high with Majesty and honour Be thou exalted O God above the heavens let thy glory be above all the earth Psal lvii 11. Christs Kingdom is more communicable than to be thrust into a corner If they shall say unto you Behold he is in the desart go not forth behold he is in the secret Chambers believe it not Mat. xxiv 26. In like manner if they shall say unto you he is in Mount Tabor or in a Tabernacle do not regard them Numen ubique est he is in heaven and in earth and in all deep places Yet in this unadvised ejaculation it is true he that will make any fabrick for a sanctified end and out of a religious respect Faciamus tibi Let us make it for thee O God was very right if he had gone no further Churches are only consecrated and dedicated to the Almighty our English name is proof to go no further ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã say the Greeks the Lords house from thence we say Kyrk or Church by adding words of aspiration At the erection of the Tabernacle Exod. xl 31. At the consecration of the Temple 2 Kings viii 11. It pleased God to give a manifest sign from heaven that he possessed both And because the Lord did so solemnly shew his honor in those excellent places therefore it is fit they should be appropriated to him by us with a most solemn dedication both to make them publick for sacred offices and that the builders may surrender their right and make God the owner for ever and to make it awful to every man that they be not polluted with prophane abuse What says St. Paul have ye not houses to eat and to drink in Where you see even before Churches were erected he gave an admonition Prophetically that these two are things for several places to eat and to drink customarily and to pray and preach Christs Tabernacle indeed must be for our duty belonging to Christ and for no other service And though Peter thought not himself and his fellow Disciples worthy of a Tabernacle he thought perhaps they should be quartered with Christ to be his Ministers there yet he propounds as much for Moses and Elias as he did for our Lord one for Moses and one for Elias T is is the fond and offensive love of superstition to dishonour the Saints when they would heap immoderate honour upon them He spake far too much when he would exalt them to equal honour with their Maker and yet he spake it much to their injury when he would deprive them of the beatifical Vision and sweet Society of Christ For to confine them to their own Tabernacles was to make them want the joy of their eyes which the Angels desire to behold and to see his sweetness these two great Prophets came down from heaven I am glad Salmeron the Jesuite fell in with me in this Point says he they do all fall upon this rock on which Peter did who are so addicted to some peculiar Saint that they will equallize him with Christ himself This is to advance them to equality with God to make Tabernacles and Churches to them as unto God St. Austin liked not that and therefore that none might mistake he distinguisheth Nos Martyribus nostris non templa sicut Diis sed memorias sicut hominibus mortuis fabricamus We do not erect To the Martys as unto God but Tombs of remembrance as unto men whose spirits live with God for ever And in another place we allow them Monuments of honor but not Altars of divine Service ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Basil Divine Worship is due to God an honourable memory to the Martyrs Herod the Great was at great charge about the Temple of Jerusalem the work was good but his end was vain glorious and popular So men of liberal zeal but erroneous superstition built some Sacred Houses and did impatronize some Saints to be the Tutelary powers of those Churches and Oratories the work is good but the end is corrupt not that the sacred buildings are called by the names of Martyrs and Apostles as this is by St. Andrew we use those names by way of mere distinction to know one sacred place from another which perchance they imposed upon superstition Distinction of names is for variety sake and to take away confusion Sometimes by one Saint sometimes by all the Saints sometimes known only by the name of the Founder sometimes some famous work denominates them as Anastasia or the Resurrection and St. Sophia or Wisdom anciently the two most goodly Churches in the world and both in Constantinople Usually they are entituled by some renowned Martyr whose acts are worthy to be had in remembrance Nay sometime for mere distinction sake the buildings retain the names of fabulous Saints as Pope Gelasius himself condemned the Legend of St. George for Apocryphal they may add St. Christopher and divers more Yet the holy Oratories are no more dishonoured by those names than the Days of the Week by the Idol Planets Gods than the Ship which carried St. Paul by the sign of Castor and Pollux than Daniel who was called Bellishazzar from the Idol Belli Names of distinction are arbitrary and inoffensive to the judicious but Sacraries or Churches though they carry divers names are only to be built to God and consecrated to his
beat strong upon Elias his ear the whole Camp of the Aramites ran away when they did but think they heard a noise the figure of a mans hand dampt King Belshazzar a Whip of small cords shaken in our Saviours hand made the Mony-changers overturn their Tables for haste and run out of the Temple 2 Macch. iv the Author of that History says that the Lord made the Clouds in the air appear like a great Battail and like horse-men fighting to the terror of Jerusalem it is an easie thing therefore for him that dwells above to make a little Cloud seem a terrible spectacle And this which shook the Disciples had some extraordinary qualities in it to strike the outward senses with amazement it had not the conditions of a natural Meteor for it had much more brightness than any other part of the air it was a Cloud that rid close upon the earth and was not exalted as they use to be into the higher parts of the air it was framed like some beauteous Chamber to receive the Son of God in Majesty together with Moses and Elias it was dissolved at an instant as soon as ever this apparition was dispatcht This was enough then to cause astonishment that the finger of God was in this Cloud above the ordinary course of nature Now there is not the least empty Cloud which the wind blows about but the Lord appoints it for some end and service much more you will allow there were manifold causes for the sending of this Cloud and the judgments of the skilful conceit them to be these First the Lord did shew that He could frame a better piece of Architecture of a sudden than Peter could imagin to build he spake of three Tabernacles which would be long in piecing together God in a moment creates one Cloud to receive them all better than an hundred Tabernacles Such a one as Moses and the Israelites had in the Wilderness to shadow them against all offence Such things the Heathen did drive at in their Poetical Fictions but I am sure the Lord is able to pitch a Cloud between his chosen and their enemies that the hand of violence shall not touch them neither shall any evil come nigh their dwelling Trust in the Lord in the time of danger if ever our foes should rise up against us and say though we are not within the fence of strong Walls and Bulwarks yet if thou O God of Hosts will cast but a thin Cloud between us and our enemies we shall be safe under thy wings until their tyranny be over-past Secondly a Cloud did interpose it self to qualify the Object of the Transfiguration and to make it fit for the Disciples to behold it the Cloud indeed was very bright yet it was dark and opacous in respect of Christs body which did exceed the very light of the Sun Which St. Chysostom proves that I may add somewhat more than I have said before to this purpose in these words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his face was compared to shine as the Sun yet sayes he the Disciples bewray how it did exceed that example for they never fell down for fear to see the light of the Sun but they fell down to see the light of his body Therefore this Cloud did cast it self between as if Christ would put a Veil upon his face that their weak sight might the better behold him In this life we must look through a Cloud we must expect to see him as in a Glass darkly hereafter we shall see him face to face Mark the infirmity of mans nature in this sinful corruptible condition and let us learn humility it was not enough that Peter John and James were not transformed in the Mount as Christ was no nor as Moses and Elias were our vile flesh is not receptive of such celestial excellency but to abase them and us further a shady Cloud opposed it self before their eyes because we are not fit nor worthy to behold such pure happiness in these days of vanity Such knowledg is too excellent for me says David I cannot attain unto it Thirdly this Cloud was set up for a Land-mark to limit curiosity and to drive men off from approaching too near to pry into the Divine secrets where God sets up a Cloud it is a manifest sign that those are our bounds and we must not break them As when the Lord came down upon Mount Sinah it was full of smoak and vapour that his Majesty might be concealed in those thick mists and none of the people no not so much as a Beast durst come nearer under pain of death What a becoming thing it is to look no further into Gods secrets than he hath given us eyes to see and when there is a mystery which the wisest God hath given no charge to search into it to say I see a Cloud between me and this secret and I must go no further The Devil himself doth not envy us knowledg but he doth envy us obedience The ancient Apostolical Creed consists of twelve Articles to be believed as they are commonly divided Pope Pius the fourth made them twelve four and twenty such as they are and if we want more mysteries of faith and knowledg to work upon I doubt not but Satan would allow us a thousand But as the Romanists who have twelve Articles of Creed more than we yet have one Commandment less for the second is quite left out of their Portresses and Breviaries no nor the least mention of it made in the Expositions of the great Schoolman Aquinas so the restless wit of man runs presumptuously upon all uncouth paths of knowledg which he should not tread but he keeps off from the Law and Good Works as if there were a Cloud say I between them nay as if there were a Lion in the way and so there is but it is that Lion which goes about night and day seeking whom he may devour But as our Proverb is of speculative men that dare enquire into any thing though it be never so much above their capacity that they do ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sore aloft in the air and talk in the clouds so the Apostle intimates that they are not wise unto sobriety and being drunk with curious knowledg as the Jews very falsly said the Apostles were with new wine they must needs stumble and fall Fourthly and I am sure this reason searcheth the true cause of the Cloud as near as any God the Father in the Old Testament was wont to utter his voice out of the thick clouds of the air and so he continues his holy will in the Gospel and therefore prepared this Cloud to preach from thence the words which follow This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him It was thus when he spake unto Moses himself Exod. xxiv 16. the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai and the Cloud covered it six days and the seventh day
Pilate that when he found no cause of dislike among all the slanderous tongues in Jerusalem he alone would speak well of Christ It was a word better placed than that of Phocion who praised a lewd person with this excuse that good men did not need commendation The Devil was a murderer from the beginning for indeed in the beginning of time he was a Slanderer Non qui ferro sed qui verbo malefico interficit homicida est says St. Austin He that takes away a mans good name is a Man-slayer as he that takes away my life This same ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to bear true witness of all mens actions I wonder it is no more in request it is the thriftiest vertue that you can entertain In rewards of Gold and Silver what we give away we want our selves but in giving good words and in making good report of other mens deeds we do not diminish our own fame but increase it To come nearer to the cause in hand How did our Saviours righteousness appear unto Pilate that such good words came out of the mouth of a Roman who was a stranger to Christ There is scarce any talk of him in the Gospel before this Chapter Why surely you will say for a Prisoner to justifie himself the way is to clear his Enditement and accusations before the Magistrate Now the Adversary did cast in four Crimes against the life of Jesus One before Caiaphas Mar. xxvi that he would destroy the Temple 2. That they found him perverting the Nation 3. That he forbad to give tribute unto Caesar 4. That he said openly he was Christ a King These three Allegations are together Luk. xxiii 2. and none but those three brought before Pilate You know now the Bill of Enditement What satisfaction did the Prisoner give I pray you Did you ever read of his Answer No not a word came out of his lips Silentium habuit pro advocato Bare silence was his Advocate Fortè verebuntur filium says the King in the Gospel Fortè peradventure What doth any such word of doubting make in the mouth of God But the Lord would not seem to determine that any would be so malicious to kill filium complacentiae the innocent Son in whom he was well pleased His slanders were so notorious that he held his peace and was pronounced innocent Now you are not afraid I am sure that I should hold you too long with multiplying many words in our Saviours behalf Christ thought it needless to say oft and therefore I may spare much pains in that Point in so Christian an Auditory For method sake and the direction of your memory thus I will proceed first to lay down two reasons why our Saviour would stand dumb in the question of his integrity Secondly I will draw a short defence against the four calumniations of the Jews not that our Saviour needs it For I tell you he would not move his lips to make an Apology but for your use and instruction For the first of these The silence of Christ in a matter that concerned his life it was not well interpreted by any man for want of the illumination of the holy Spirit Is he beside himself thinks Peter standing in the High Priests Hall Can he say nothing to his Accusers And because he spoke so little Peter would speak too much thrice he denied him and forswore him And is this the great Prophet of Galilee Thinks Herod who preacheth in every Synagogue not like the Scribes and Pharisees but with power and authority Surely he may teach Fishermen but when he comes before Tetrachs and Princes he is quite daunted and out of countenance But as the Fathers do Comment ingeniously upon the place he dropt a word or two before Caiaphas and Pilate but he did utterly seal up his lips before Herod Quia vocem ejus abstulerat How should he speak before him who had taken away his voice For what was John Baptist but the voice of Christ Doth he despise my Authority thinks Pilate Doth he esteem me not fit to command in the Seat of Justice that he doth reply to no Interrogatory but such as like him Vbi respondet pastor est ubi tacet agnus When he did lift up his heavenly voice then he took upon him the person of a Shepherd that fed his flock when he held his peace then he carried himself as that Ecce agnus that remarkable Lamb of the Flock which stood dumb before the Shearers Thus Peter and Herod and Pilate all were scandalized therefore I come prepared to contest against the World by a double reason how expedient it was for this just Person to hold his peace The first is this Ambiunt defendi qui timent vinci Let them defend themselves who can be convicted his life could not be tainted with any suspicion his works were clear from all imperfection Then what need an Advocate Susanna tacuit vicit Susanna stood impeached between the two lascivious Elders that had tempted her she did not beat the Tribunal and call to heaven and earth for witness of her innocency this had not become her Virgin modesty but standing dumb in her righteousness God did plead her cause by the mouth of Daniel The very Romans gave that respect to an approved man Q. Metellus that the whole Bench forbad him to take his oath in a controversie to be debated lest they should seem to distrust so reverend a Citizen So for these crimes wherewith our Saviour was impleaded Non confirmat tacendo sed despicit non refellendo says the Gloss His silence was not a sign of consent but an argument of untainted integrity And Pilate himself did peep into this mystery For as it hapned to a Client of Rhodes in Plutarch that the Advocate of the contrary side spared not to defame him and cast out his Cause as unworthy of the Court but the Judge all the while sate still and said nothing Non refert quid ille loquatur sed quid ille taceat says the Rhodian It makes not against my Cause that the Advocate rails but it makes much for me that the Judge holds his peace So Pilate did not weigh objections by the malicious out-cries of the Jews but by the generous and inoffensive silence of the Son of God Sophocles in his elder years was accused by his Sons for doating and mispending his goods to the impoverishment of their Inheritance What defence doth the Father make Contest before the Areopagites with his own Children Nothing less he knew the awful authority of a Father and would not stoop so low as to prove and send a cause with those whom he had begotten but sends his Tragedy called Oedipus Colinaeus the work of his gray hairs to be read over before the Judges Hoc non est opus delirantis hominis that was not the work of a doating man there was but that one acclamation heard and so he was absolved In like manner our Lord
knew not what to say but in admiration of his mercy lift up his eyes to heaven as if these thoughts did rise up in Abrahams fancy Sarah the Mother of my Son did muse how a Child could be born unto her in her old age but she did ill to laugh because the Lord had spoke it then give me leave to ponder how this Child can live any more when the mouth of God hath spoken that he must be sacrificed for a burnt offering Nay O Lord Non unum redimis sed unitatem In this act thou dost not so much redeem this one from death as the unity of all the faithful in this one all those Nations that shall be blessed in my name wilt thou spare them all as thou sparest Isaac What are our merits What justice is in us What is man that thou wilt not visit him with indignation Thus the soul of Abraham was in an extasie to consider the mercy of God wonder had possessed him we see it in this cast of his eye that he looked up to heaven When the Lord turned the Captivity of Sion then we were like unto them that dream says the Prophet The deliverance was so fortunate so much it did out-strip their hope that they did receive it at first not as that which was done indeed but as a delightful dream As Livie relating how the Graecians were strangly strucken with sudden joy upon the day when the Romans sent them unexpected liberty says he Mirabundi velut somni speciem arbitrabantur they thought it was a pleasing vision in their sleep and not the happiness of them that were broad awake So when God did really make good that Promise which the Devil pretended that he would bring about Non moriemini You shall not die The faithful Patriarch knew not how to apprehend it at the first but his eye did testifie that his soul was ravished with the mercies of the Lord. The wicked shall not end half his days the seed of the ungodly shall be rooted out eternal fire is prepared hereafter for them that shall be turned over to the Devil and his Angels there shall be much wrath and vengeance every where among the dwelling places of the unrighteous but as for Isaac and they that are born according to the Spirit Noli tangere says the Angel the hand of violence shall not come near them as the Poet in his Eclogue brings in Melibaeus wondring at the clemency of Cesar to his fellow-shepherd when all the neighbour-Cottages were burnt and wasted Vndique totis usque adeò turbatur agris So when God shall work so much destruction in the world redemption is an admirable thing where it lights John Baptist as we read it in the vulgar Latine blazeth out with two notes of astonishment one upon another Ecce Agnus Dei ecce qui tollit peccata mundi Behold the Lamb of God I and again Behold him that taketh away the sins of the world In two respects it is to be wondred at without any prejudice to the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or fulness of our faith as I will shew by the examples of two memorable women in holy Scripture Whence is it that the mother of my Lord comes unto me says Elizabeth Why did she marvel at it Quia non sui meriti sed divini fatetur esse muneris says Beda because it was a favour of mere grace and not a recompence of merit And again the blessed mother of our Saviour astonished at the Angels message that she should conceive and bear a Son Quomodo says she How shall these things come to pass Tanquam certa de facto querit de modo fiendi as it is the common answer She was sure it should be so she marvelled how it should be so and that was a blameless admiration Both these passions did Abraham suffer he knew there was no worth in man that God should release him from condemnation he knew not the manner what should be paid for his ransom his eye did fix it self upon the throne of God to find the mystery out and so you see it was Gestus admirantis the expression of wonder and astonishment that Abraham lifted up his eyes Thirdly It is Gestus inquirentis besides that he lifted up his eyes he look'd about him from the tops of Moriah it is the demeanour of him that did seek out for a Sacrifice to be offered up unto the Lord. Reges Parthes non potest quisquam salutare sine munere says he No man was admitted to salute the Parthian Kings unless he brought some Present in his hands so because Abraham came to this Mountain to worship before the Angel of the Lord he look'd and enquired for some Oblation that he might not turn back until he had laid a gift upon the Altar Many will lift up their eyes but they list not to seek an Offering for the Lord. Such are best pleased with devotion when it comes off with as little cost as may be Nay says David when Araunah would have born his charges I will not sacrifice to God of that which shall cost me nothing An Objection is framed in the School that the Piety of the Jews was more acceptable to God than the piety of Christians because they in their daily Service were at great expense to provide beasts for the Altar we are at no such charge in our Spiritual Worship it is enough if we offer up a broken heart in mortification a thankful heart in Praise and a devout heart in Prayer But this puts not our Purse to any trial like the Oblations of the Jews To cancel and wipe out this opposition it is answered that we supply that charge of the Sacrifice of beasts In Sacrificio Eleemosynarum in the Sacrifice of Alms to the poor The hand must look about it where to give as well as the eye look upward where to be thankful A distribution to the wants of the needy it is Pro sacrificio and prae sacrificio in place of sacrifice and to be preferred before all sacrifices Mercy is a better Oblation than a Beast that is slain this day you know how much was paid for the price of your redemption but not the price of corruptible things as Silver and Gold Spare O spare some portion of that which you spend profusely in the consumption of vanity at this solemn time of redemption to redeem the distressed in Prisons that are fast bound in misery and iron Look about you as Abraham did and you shall find I assure you Arietes prehensos in Vepribus Rams shall I say Nay they have scarce any fleece upon their back but they are catch'd fast poor Souls by the horns in the Thicket thence they cannot stir unlâss Abraham will take them and offer them up for an Oblation to the Lord. Above all other casts of the eye this same Gestus inquirentis pleaseth me best to look about that we may present some gift upon the Altar
a tree Yet Christ avoided to be slain among the Infants of Bethlem he would not be cast down the steep Mountain in Galilee nor be stoned by the Pharisees but to expiate the first sin by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree he was exalted on a tree like the Serpent in the wilderness And there is somewhat of observation in it that he suffered in an elevation between heaven and earth to purge the Region of the Air from the infestation of the Devil Who was Damnatus ad acrem tanquam ad carcerem says St. Austin thrown out of heaven to remain in the air as in a prison and therefore called by St. Paul The Prince of the power of the air Eph. ii 2. Nay Hesiod the Heathen Poet came to this knowledge by what tradition I know not that wicked spirits enemies to mankind were diffused over that Element Therefore Jesus dying upon the Cross gave up the Ghost in the air that he might cleanse the air from those flying Serpents that is from Diabolical infestations says St. Athanasius Secondly He was mounted upon his Cross as a Conquerour over that which was trodden down and trampled under feet wherein he seemed to be condemned he condemned the world wherein he took infirmity upon him he shewed invincible fortitude wherein he suffered death he overcame the power of Death From that fatal Tree which the Jews prepared for an indelible ignominy Potentia redemptoris secit gradum ad gloriam says Leo The puissance of the Redeemer made it a degree unto glory The Devil stirred up all sorts of men against him his Disciples to deny him the Jews to accuse him the Souldiers to crucifie him the Passengers to blaspheme him The more opposition the greater was the triumph For the Psalmist makes it a Song of Jubilee They came about me like bees and are extinct as the fire among the thorns Let me give it a simile from another feast coincident this year upon the day of the Passion The Patron entitled to the noble Order of the Garter sits victoriously on horse-back and the Dragon is beaten under his feet and cast upon his back So our Champion rides in triumph upon the Cross and his enemy fell before him For Christ was visibly crucified but the Devil invisibly says Origen When our Saviour was transfigured and appeared in glory then Moses and Elias spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem Luk. ix 31. As if there were no fitter time to speak of his death than in that clarification because his death was the purchase of glory in that abasement he was exalted and did exalt us that believe in him in that machine and craned us up by his Cross to heaven And therefore he promised unto the penitent Thief when he was upon the Cross the joyes of Paradise because his Cross did open Paradise to all believers Two things are notorious marks that this kind of death so vile in appearance was a constructive exaltation First that the imperial Ensign of the Roman Army in the days of Constantine the Great was cast into the figure of a Cross known in ancient Authors by that obsolete word laborum it was a victorious auspice to have the flag of the Cross which was never overcome to fly before them Then it came to be extolled even to the top of the Crown of Kings A locis suppliciorum fecit transitum ad coronas Imperatorum says St. Austin Once it was infamous for a sign of a servile death now it is translated as it were from Golgotha unto the Crowns of Emperours Fructus arborem exaltat jam honor est non horror The fruit that hung upon the tree hath taken away all ignominy from the tree now the horror of it is changed into a Trophee of honour As the Serpent was lifted up so there was power and exaltation and victory in the sacrifice of our Saviour Thirdly As the Son of God was conquerant in death so he was glorified after death He humbled himself to death even to the death of the Cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him By his Cross and Passion he hath entred into heaven there to sit at the right hand of the Majesty for ever Now he is exalted in his Resurrection death hath no more dominion over him now his name is blessed and hallowed as the balm from which our salvation distilleth now his Kingdom is enlarged from Sea to Sea and the uttermost parts of the earth are his possession Now his people are gathered unto him to magnifie and praise him all Kings shall fall down before him all Nations shall do him service These are the success and the consequents of his humiliation Therefore as you would not envy his greatness in his Resurrection so do not despise the meanness of his Passion Non te pigeat videre serpentem in ligno pendentem si vis videre regem in solio regnantem says St. Austin be not troubled to see him lifted up upon a Pole like the brazen Serpent if you desire to see him sit upon his Throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords Ought not Christ to suffer these things and so to enter into his glory And let this confirm our faith and make us willing to be conformable to his sufferings The afflictive way nay the destructive way of persecution is the advancement of a Christian to be pluckt down is to be lifted up Through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God Acts xiv 22. As some did swim to shore upon planks in that shipwrack wherein St. Paul was a companion Acts xxvii so being all of us in the common naufrage of sin none are more safe than they that swim out upon the Cross which God hath laid upon them If we must bid farewel to temporal prosperity let us see what Pearls of patience and repentance we can find as Job did in the dunghil of sorrow and misery If Tempests blow stronger and stronger let us strive with Elias to go up to heaven in the whirlwind what we want in the Church Militant continue stedfast in the truth and it will be supplied in the Church Triumphant But in what estate soever you are be lifted up from the earth and let your affections be above Let not Satan get the upper ground and make advantage of it against us beneath Is he in the air Then shall my heart be in heaven Is he upon an exceeding high mountain in his tentations Then will I fly up to the Sanctuary of the Lord upon the wings of a Dove For the Mountain of the Lords house is established in the top of the mountains Isa ii 2. Would he have me look upon the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them No I will look upon him who despised glory and hath purchased honour by his opprobry upon him who was lifted up like the Serpent in the wilderness Draw near now and come unto that place where this
all the Elements at the last and great Resurrection There is a day to come when the earth shall disclose her bloud and shall no more cover her slain Isa xxvi 21. Then shall the whole earth shake and be dissolved as when one wipes a dish and turns the other side says the Prophet And therefore Diogenes the Cynick in a flout would be left above ground when he was dead for one day says he all will be turned topside turvy and then I shall lie right Haggai speaking of that great and dreadful day expresseth it by Earthquakes and Commotions Yet once is a little while and I will shake the Heavens and the Earth and the Sea and the dry Land and I will shake all Nations and the desire of all Nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory Such a clashing and perturbation shall precede our future happiness that the sudden change may the more affect us from extremity of amazement in the twinckling of an eye to extremity of glory Instead of many places this of Ezekiel will fit us for all Ecce commotio accesserunt ossa ad ossa Behold a shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone If it were nothing else but so many Monuments of stone cracking asunder so many Graves yawning so many Bones grating one against another this would make a strange sound in mens ears how much more when the dust shall be shaken from the very Center that the Dead since Adam may have all their limbs again When the Elements shall melt with heat and the Heavens pass away with a noise when the Impenitent shall howl the Unjust skreek out the righteous lift up their voice of thanksgiving and the Angels sing Haleluja all this together in a medley will make a strange commotion which is prefigured in the antecedent of our Saviours Resurrection Behold c. Thirdly It signifies that the Majesty of the Lord was upon the earth to defend his people that he came down and trod upon his footstool that he alone is terrible against all other terrors that may trouble us that he is present to protect all those that love the coming of our Lord Jesus When he came down to deliver the Law the earth shook even as Sinah also was moved at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob the Mountains owed that homage to tremble when the glory of the Lord was upon them And though it was dreadful yet so long as God was present in the midst of them the Host of Israel knew they were in safety So the Monuments did quiver and tremble when Christ did break forth of the Grave in triumph which did at once beget these seeming contrary passions in them that believe an awful reverence and a bold encouragement This the Fathers collect because Mary Magdalen and the other devout women were now upon their journey when the Earthquake began yet they went not back neither stopt in the way but advanced with chearfulness to the very mouth of the Sepulcher When a blazing Star appeared in the days of Vespasian says he It threatens not fatality to me but to the King of Persia who nourisheth long locks like the streaming flame of a Comet So those holy women did truly apprehend that the buzzling of the Earthquake was their protection and bad mens confusion And here a fourth reason offers it self the anger of the Lord did roar out of the earth against those Jews who thought to prevail that death should devour him against Pilate that allowed his Seal to this conspiracy and against the Souldiers that watcht the Sepulcher An unexpected judgment of which they did not dream that the earth which is a most dull and silent Element should burst into many pieces to chide their infidelity Pittacus the wise man had such confidence in the stability of the earth that it is delivered for his saying ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã you might trust the Earth it would do you no harm but the Sea was not to be trusted Foolish wise man that understood not how terrible a vengeance the shaking of the earth is when the Lord is angry In the fourth year of Nero which was the twenty seventh year after our Saviours Passion more than one quarter of the City of Rome was beaten flat with an Earthquake and all the Inhabitants slain And six years after that three the most famous Cities in all Asia were ruin'd by this judgment Heraclis Laodicaea and Colophe The same fatality hath swallowed up the Cities of Colossus and Nice it were endless to rehearse particulars And although Christ would not interject such sadness with the joyfulness of his Resurrection-day to procure death and ruine to his enemies by this Earthquake we read of no such mischief done by it in the Text of Scripture yet I believe it is unutterable how this accident did shake and apall the Souldiers Miseri quos tunc percutit pavor mortis quando securitas vitae redditur Unhappy wretches who at that time were most of all strucken with the fear of death when Christ did give us this demonstrance to be secure of eternal life I leave it to you to consider how an evil conscience diffused chilness and quaking into all their bones They must needs reel and totter and fall down desperately to the Earth who are weighed down with the Plummets of their own guiltiness And what a miserable folly was this to tremble because they were loth to die yet their office was at this time to be mortis satellites deaths guard appointed to be adversaries to life and to hinder the Resurrection Now because the Consciences of these evil men were only wounded and no other harm done by the Earthquake therefore fifthly some say that the place round about did rather dance for joy than quake for trembling As when Israel came out of Egypt the Psalmist says The Mountains skipped like Rams and the little Hills like young Sheep Surely under that Hyperbole is to be understood that the motion of the Earth did bewray some gladsome entertainment As the Disciples prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled Acts iv 31. It is expounded generally that the Earth did move with gladness and reverence because the Saints kneeled upon it Horum sub gressibus ergo laeta movetur humus says Arator And as the Child sprang within Elizabeth when the Blessed Virgin came unto her with our Saviour in her womb and says she How is it that the Mother of my Lord doth come unto me So the Earth did rejoyce and tripudiate when our Saviour came forth alive out of the belly of the Grave as who should say O dust thou shalt be ennobled and compacted into an incorruptible body And how is it that my Redeemer comes forth and lives for ever I will put no more Oyl into this Lamp than Beda's words distinguishing between the two Earthquakes the one at the Passion
the first day of the Week We are not those that esteem one day more than another as it is the mere flux of time but we are those that must remember how God hath glorified himself in one day more than another and never so much on any as on this day The first day of the Week As God the Father upon the first day did begin to make this visible World of Creatures so Christ rose the same day from the dead to shew the beginning of a new Age. Resurrectio est alterius mundi spiritualis creatio says Justin Martyr The Resurrection is well called a Creation of a new spiritual world On the first day of the Week God said Let there be light and he divided between the light and the darkness Verily in the same sort upon the same day God brought the light of the world out of the darkness of the Grave and the life says St. John was the light of men Now this infinite work to tread death under feet and to bring mankind out of corruption into the state of immortality being more eximious than to make Adam in a possibility to die and perish therefore all Christian Churches have desisted to meet together at holy exercises upon the Sabbath of the Jews and the first day of the Week hath been solemnly appointed from the Apostles even to this Age to sanctifie the name of the Lord in publick Congregations It is but a fretful question which is too much agitated now adays since the first day of the Week is designed to be sanctified to the praise of God from the Resurrection of our Saviour what time we may borrow for the use of domestical affairs and harmless recreations He that is perswaded in his conscience no part of the day must be spared from Gods Service let him so do according to the resolution of his conscience no man can be offended that he is earnest for his own part to keep the whole day unto the Lord. Again he that is perswaded that the Lord must have his due service on that day but that he is not tied to a strict Sabbatical servitude surely his knowledge is good and he may use his liberty but without scandal to his brother To the first I say be a zealous Christian in keeping the Lords day but be not a Jew in opinion To the other I say give thanks to God for the freedom to which he hath called you and that he hath eased your shoulders from the servil burden of the Jewish Sabbath but be not a Libertine in practise And this is the sum of that which I will say to the first Point that this marvellous work was done upon the first day of the Week Now the Holy Ghost hath not only satisfied us with the designation of the day but because the more particularity the more certainty therefore the Spirit hath condescended to name almost the hour of the day so that I am sure we may guess near upon the time for it was early on the first day of the Week which denotes two things that the Lord made haste to rise from the dead to comfort the Disciples and that Mary Magdalen made haste to comfort herself with coming to the Sepulcher Christ started up suddenly out of sleep like Samson before the powers of hell those Philistines were aware of him To this it may be David alluded in Exurgam diluculò Awake my glory awake Lute and Harp I my self will awake right early Nescit tarda molimina spiritus sancti gratia Be not you slow in paying your debts to God God is ever before-hand in fulfilling his promises to you The words in the Second Psalm which are applied Heb. i. to our Saviours eternal Generation are referred by the same Apostle Acts xiii 33. to his Resurrection Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee I cannot pass it over that the Vulgar Latine reads it Ante luciferum genui te Before the Morning star have I begotten thee Very fitly to this Doctrine which I teach that Christ rose early this day before the Morning Star appeared Now that one Scripture may not seem to fall foul upon another these two must be reconciled how he that rose so early ante luciferum how he can be said to be three days like Jonas in the belly of the Grave The answer is you must measure these three days by a Synechdoche He was buried towards Evening upon the Jews day of preparation and so lay interred some part of Afternoon and all that night Upon the Jews Sabbath he rested in the Sepulcher all day and all night Upon the first day of the Week he continued in the state of death some hours of the Morning and very early he came forth an eternal Victor he fulfilled the Scriptures therefore and withal he made haste to fulfil his Promise upon the third day Euthymius expresseth it more elegantly than I can Quòd citiùs quà m sit constitutum efficitur potentiae est quòd tardiùs imbecilitatis Christus non solùm promissum explevit sed etiam gratiam velocitatis addidit To be tardier than our promise is a sign of some let and infirmity to be before hand with a promise is a sign of power and efficacy The promise of the Son of God was that in three days he would build up the Temple of his body again he did so and more than so soon after the third day was begun Behold the performance of his word and the sudden dispatch of his favour joyn'd unto it So we have seen both his truth in the Promise and his love in the speediness of the act doing above his promise Moreover I would have it be mark'd that as he rose early so he was sought early by Mary Magdalen The desire of Christ held her eyes waking and I believe she had took but small rest since Christ was crucified as soon as it was possible to have access to his Monument she came unto it I know not whether you are to learn it but it was not the usual manner of the Jews to bury their dead within the Walls of their Cities to a Garden you know the Corps of our Saviour was carried into the Suburbs of Jerusalem therefore she was compelled to attend till the Gates of the City were opened and passage being made she came before the break of day to the Sepulcher And believe it she sped much the better that she was such an early visitor do not imagine but the eye of the Lord unto this day is upon those that make haste to come unto the threshold of his sacred House and they are greatly deceived that think they shall find God as soon if they come late to Church as if they come early I pray you tell me is there any part of the Service so mean and unuseful that you can be content to spare it Or do you think that God is asleep and by that time the Congregation hath rouzed him up then
have taken away the Body of my Lord. It savours therefore of justice that she is the first that after his resurrection profest her self his Servant and said Rabboni which is Master Now in the manner of this appearance three things are eminent among many that may be observ'd First Christ was known by the tone of his voice when this holy Saint mistook his person Therefore you see by this where you shall always have Christ seek him in his Word and there you shall find him He sends us unto them Joh. v. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye look to have eternal life and they do testifie of me In the works of nature we may understand that God is good by the crisis of reason we may beat it out that he is a rewarder of them that serve him by the tenour of the Law we may read what Ceremonies will please him but if you would meet with Christ look him out in the words of that sweet and blessed Covenant of our salvation the Gospel O how sweet is that word of God which is the only instrument and none but it to make us see Christ our Redeemer As we have heard so have we seen says David love to hear his word and then you shall see him see him here in his Sacraments of grace and hereafter face to face in his Kingdom of glory Secondly it lies in his own breast I may say and in the power of his own saving grace when his Word shall be effectual to bring us to the knowledg of him Mark it that Christ spake more largely and more distinctly one would think to this pious Matron when she mistook him than when she came to take notice of him He began thus with her Woman why weepest thou whom seekest thou Was not this Sermon enough to bring her into the right way yet the darkness of her mind continued and she had no stronger faith but that his sacred Body was transported out of the Sepulcher by some malicious injury and not revived by his omnipotent Divinity Yet after this he speaks unto her again speaks but a very little no more but Mary and her heart was opened Like that celebrated piece of Rhetorick which C. Caesar used to his Souldiers with no long oration but with one word Quirites he drew them to accord and appeased their mutiny So that there is hope as we pray and put our trust in God that although some have taken arms in this Island and will not lay them down notwithstanding much hath been said by way of treaty much hath been written by way of motive and perswasion yet God knows his own time and will bring it to pass we trust when some few lucky words to which the Lord will give his blessing shall distil down as a joyful rain to bring forth the sweet fruits of peace and obedience It is not line upon line word upon word but the assistance of the Divine Spirit with the Word that works knowledg and salvation With a short invitement follow me and I will make you Fishers of men Peter and Andrew left their Nets and followed their Master With a little call or beckning rather Matthew forsook the Custom-house and became an Apostle A little was said to Zacheus and it produced wonders in him Less was said to the Saint of my Text than to any of them all no more but Mary and she saw and believed Thirdly here the doctrin of St. John is verified chap. x. 14. I am the good Shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine Do you not spy an excellent order in the words the Sheep do not know him first but in the first place he knows the Sheep and then it follows that they know their Shepherd and his voice So he knew Mary Magdalen and called her aloud and then she was brought to confess the Lord. St. Paul corrected his own language to keep close to this method Gal. iv 9. Now after that ye have known God or rather are known of God our salvation begins at that end God hath chosen unto himself a people zealous of good works as who should say first he knows who are his but it is very preposterous to invert this as if first of all we did our endeavour to be known that is to be elected of God and to this is a witty allusion made Cant. ii 9. My beloved looketh forth at the window shewing himself through the lattess As if Christ did look through a Grate and saw us when we saw not him It is enough to have said thus much of the Apparition The remainder of my Doctrin must be raised out of the person of Mary Magdalen c. If this be the same Mary that was Sister to Lazarus of Bethany many learned Pens contend for it and let them for me but if it be the same woman Christ hath made good his promise to her and gone beyond it his promise was that wheresoever the Gospel was preached it should be told for a memorial of her how she had poured an Alabaster Box of Ointment upon his head to bury him but far more than so wheresoever the Resurrection is preached of she is enwrapt into the story and extol'd by a kind of singularity above all other persons he appear'd first to Mary Magdalen a thing which I dare say she did not request neither was that ambition in her to aspire to such a prayer that she might see the Lord before any of the faithful but it was a favour that was cast upon her Some immoderate zelots to the honor of the Blessed Virgin do little less than offer violence to the Evangelists for omitting that Christ declared himself immediately after he was risen to his Mother before Mary Magdalen saw him To prove it is impossible therefore to believe it is incredible None of the Ancients but Sedulius a Poet do adventure to affirm that Christ made any apparition to his Mother to shew he was no accepter of persons in way of carnal affinity He did appear to the Eleven and to those that were gathered together with them Luke xxiv 33. I suppose she was there at that time because she was St. Johns charge to take her with him He did appear to more than 500 Brethren at once it may conveniently be concluded she was one of that Assembly always preserving this priviledg to Mary Magdalen that he appeared first to her she was the first that saw Christ risen from the dead and the first that preached he was risen from the dead for she told it to the Apostles Yet that ye may know what soundness there is in Traditions Nicephorus pleads Tradition that after he rose to life first he made himself known to his Mother So Rupertus who allows to Mary Magdalen that she saw him first inter testes praeordinatos a Deo as a witness that should first preach him But the Blessed Virgin saw him before as one that did first rejoyce in him Bernard
place IN this Book of the Acts of the Apostles you have the Evidences and most antient Records of the Primitive Church Christ in the four Evangelists taught us what an absolute Church should be and St. Luke practically hath given us an exemplar what an absolute Church was and flourished in the time of the holy Apostles In the first Chapter of this Book you may note what a thin company and small Society was first intrusted with the Gospel of Christ How the number of the Twelve was made complete again after the loss of Judas by the election of Matthias and these together with some other Disciples made up 120 names ver 15. Pusillus Grex a very little flock indeed as many as conveniently met in one dining room or upper Chamber and these to deal with all the world not half so many as Gideon selected out of thirty thousand to save and deliver Israel from the Midianites Though it was a most stately Altitude in the Roof of Solomons Temple that the height of it was 120 Cubits yet it was but a narrow scantling for the Primitive Church of our Saviour to have but 120 Disciples Could these few would flesh and bloud say be heard over the face of the whole earth Well says King Ahaz it is all one unto the Lord to save with many or with few And as if the Lord had thought these too many to propagate the Christian faith Salmeron says I know not from whom he had it that fourteen of those 120 proved arch Hereticks and sowers of false Doctrine and then that little number of faithful ones was more than the tenth part diminished But put this second Chapter in the balance against the first and you will say there were labourers enough for Gods Harvest though half of them had been spared Consider what excellent unutterable and even God-like gifts they had given to them at this Feast of Pentecost so that all Nations and Languages that dwelt round about were astonish'd in this Chapter at the grace that came out of their lips One of them was able to deal with many thousands of natural men that were not illuminated and to confound them in their wisdom And now I purpose to adjoyn my self God willing to that Treatise what ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã what wonderful works these were which God poured upon those that expected the influence of his grace at this season how many and manifold gifts were given upon this day in one gift the gift of the Holy Ghost At this time I will go as far in that subject as my Text will lead me in these Points First Here is the time of the Holy Ghost's coming the day of Pentecost Secondly The company that received the Holy Ghost all of them a multitude with whom anon we shall be better acquainted Thirdly and principally it is to be noted how they were prepared to receive the Holy Spirit Which I draw to two Heads they were Vna and Vnanimes they were all in one place no strangeness or separation one from another and they were Vnanimes of one accord which is divided into two blessings though they were not divided for they were in vinculo pacis and in vinculo spei they were knit in the bond of peace by concord and all knit in the bond of hope by patience and expectation that the Holy Ghost would come upon them And when the day of Pentecost was fully come c. That Doctrine which our Saviour preached to his Apostles in the seventh verse of the former Chapter is fit to begin the first Point The Father keeps the times and seasons in his own power and all his good fruits he brings forth in such due seasons that the season is as fertile of observation as the fruit it self so it will fall out to ingender copious observations that the Holy Ghost was given now unto the Apostles just at this Feast and not untill this day the Feast of Pentecost Let us have recourse to the Law of Moses that we may make our selves perfect in this mystery God spake unto Pharaoh to let the Children of Israel go that they might hold a feast unto the Lord in the Wilderness Exod. v. 1. Therefore when they were brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm they did perform what the Lord intended they did hold a Feast not presently but after they were out of the dread of the Egyptians just fifty days after the Passeover that Pharaoh was content to send them away And from thence the Greek 72 Translators put it into one word and called it Pentecost The Hebrew Doctors all say that the first Pentecost was celebrated on the sixth day of the third month so reckoning after their Tradition from the second day of the feast of unleavened bread which was the sixteenth day of the first month it made a compleat number of a Pentecost or fifty days and was called therefore the Feast of Weeks because they were to number exactly by days and weeks and not to miss the day which the Lord had appointed God was very curious and exact in his Commandment Well this Feast was first solemnized at Mount Sinah after they had cast Egypt at their back fifty days what were the conditions and reasons for which it was instituted Let me resolve that and you will understand all First In remembrance how joyful and thankful they were that they came out of Captivity Oleaster notes very truly though one of the Jesuites carp at him for it that the remembrance of their long Captivity was one end of this Feast it is so expresly Deut. xvi 12. Thou shalt keep the Feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God and thou shalt remember thou wast a bondman in Egypt Secondly On the same fiftieth day that they came out of Egypt the Law was delivered upon Mount Sinah or Horeb for Horeb is but a part of Mount Sinah and the memorial thereof was ever after celebrated upon this yearly Feast So St. Hierom says in an Epistle to Fabiola Dedicatio legis est Pentecoste The Pentecost is the dedication of the Law Thirdly It had another respect to make it holy for it was called festum messis or primitiarum the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of First-fruits for as soon as they put in their Sickle into the Wheat harvest they baked two Loaves leavened made of fine flower of the first fruits and waved them before the Lord and offered them up with many bloudy Sacrifices Now this was not put in ure at the present but it was a festival Ceremony not to be omitted to celebrate Gods mercies for the fruitfulness of the earth when they came into the Land of Canaan It is true that the Feasts of the Passeover and of Tabernacles were observed in an holy wise seven days together at the feast of Weeks or Pentecost they kept but that one day sacred to the Lord because it was the beginning of Harvest and God put no decrees
Day of Salvation says Isaiah and that day reacheth from the time that Remission of sins is preached in the bloud of Christ unto the end of the world Now as the Text is common to all Evangelical Days so there is one Day that lifts up its head above them all the most memorable Day of our Saviour's Resurrection then it was verily fulfilled as Peter urg'd it that the Stone which the Builders refused became the head of the corner St. Chrysostom Nyssen and almost who not pitch upon Easter-day for the particular application of this Text that was the Day wherein God did bring forth a more eminent work than in other common days and upon every Sunday in the year for that Day 's sake the Church hath appointed sacred Assemblies that we may rejoyce and be glad Well then of Davids Day first and from thence how particular Holidays may be ordeined to magnifie Gods extraordinary benefits next of the blessed Age of the Gospel wherein we have great cause to rejoyce and be comforted for Christ hath wiped away all tears from our eyes And last of all I shall take the right opportunity to speak of the glorious Feast of the Resurrection and how the Church doth keep the weekly Feast of the Lords day to rejoyce and be glad in it And first the Holy Ghost hath left it written for the honor of the Lords Anointed This is the Day which the Lord hath made There is one thing in that form of speech which jarrs a little against the ear how can it be said that God did make one day more than another for he hath framed all Times and Seasons alike the Sun knoweth his going down and he maketh it return again every morning to give light unto the World In the Hymns of the Heathen he is called Diespiter the Father of all days indifferently it is he that sets the Heavens in perpetual motion and makes the hours run on and when he calls back his word the Plumbets shall go down and time shall be no more It is granted therefore that he giveth continuance and being to all days after one sort and for the Phrase of my Text a new Writer hath well exprest himself Non includitur mensura temporis sed conditiones tempori incidentes it is not meant of the Day which the Sun makes with his diurnal motion but of the great Work which was wrought in that Day that is not that God made that Day more than others but that He made more in that Day than in others It is vulgar to impute the condition of things which fall out in some certain dayes to the days themselves per metonymiam adjuncti although a day as it is meerly a space of time cannot possibly be capable of such Attributes We take liberty to call this a cold or a moist day not for its own sake but because coldness and moisture happen in the day so for the contingency of glorious things we call the day it self glorious and to renown the memorable acts of the Lord we have got a use to speak thus This is the day which the Lord hath made In 1 Sam. 12.6 according to the Original and that 's pointed at in our Margent it is said that the Lord made Moses and Aaron why are not all that are born of a woman the works of his hands as well as Moses and Aaron therefore our Translation hath rendred the sense rather than the word that the Lord advanced Moses and Aaron In like manner we may read my Text thus This is the Day which the Lord advanced for he made it remarkable with an extraordinary favour and thereby gave it a Dignity and Exaltation above its fellows The going out and the return of every year are from the Almighty with the store and abundance that it brings forth but when the clouds drop fatness with unusual plenty then the Prophet says that he crowns that year with his goodness Psal lxv 11. So some principal Days are crowned above the rest as this Day wherein through the sun shine of his mercy he set a Crown of pure Gold upon the head of David his Servant Piety forbid that we should not thankfully receive the most vulgar benefits I know that common things are commonly neglected but learn to see God in small things or you shall never see him in greater If I had learnt it of no other yet I find enough in Seneca for that use Communia negligenda non sunt c. neglect not to give thanks for common and quotidian favours for life and health and suppeditation of food that the Sun doth shine upon us that we have the air to breath in that the Sea doth ebb and flow for navigation There are days of small things as Zachary calls them chap. iv 10. but those small things are to be consider'd of us with a grateful heart who are less than the least of all his mercies but how much more requisite is it then to observe those days wherein some eminent blessings are confer'd upon us what a behooveful thing it is every man for his own part to keep a Calender of the famous Acts of the Lord for our Birth for our Baptism for great Preservations and to represent them before us at the return of every year with grateful acknowledgment from the bottom of our heart and when God doth see that we are so mindful of a prosperous Day he will grant us many prosperous Years and for the period of joy a most prosperous Eternity that shall never have a period This is made as plane then as you can wish upon what special Prerogative the Lord is said to make a particular day because he doth appoint some special favour to fall out upon it and the Wise-mans Question is answered Ecclus. xxxiii 7. Why doth one day excel another when as all the light of every day of the year is of the Sun It is not the material light which distinguisheth the nobleness of Dayes but he that made the Sun more excellent than the other Stars of the Firmament hath made Princes glorious as the Sun in the Orb of the Common-wealth and a Day of a Princes Exaltation is like a Prince among Days and in that capacity to be magnified Such a day is said to be made by God ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã because God himself and none else is the Author of the Power of Kings He and none but He took David from following the Ews great with young and set him over the Princes of his People In a word since the Day is taken for the Work of the Day the real meaning of the first words of my Text is this is the King which the Lord hath made Samuel anointed him the People shouted and cried God save him but the Lord did constitute him the Ruler of the Twelve Tribes and gave him his Sovereign Authority the Crowns of Glory in Heaven and the Crowns of Dignity upon Earth are both held by
Christ God reigns in Kings as in his Deputies and they reign in God as in their Author and Authorizer and this is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says S. Chrysostom the chief Dignity of their States that they hold not their Sovereignty from any mortal means but immediately from God Per me Reges regnant Prov. viii 15. Solomon acknowledgeth that he held his Tenure of one and but of one that was greater than himself Of him that is the Root of all Majesty according to the determination of the Prophet Daniel The Kingdoms are Gods and to whom be will he giveth them Dan. iv 14. And God is highly to be blessed that hath given such power unto men for better not be at all than not to be under Rule and Government For it is not as Core the Ringleader of the great Sedition thought that Moses took too much upon him because he guided the People with a faithful hand he took upon him that Authority which God had given to his Vicegerent and they that question'd it did not rise up against Man but against the Ordinance of God Omnia per illum all things are of him as St. Paul says Rom. xi 30. but all things are not of him as Kings do reign by him other Creatures have their dependance one of another in the connexion of natural causes but the Power of Sovereign Majesty is not mixed with Earthly Causes but hath an immediate copulation with the Power the Providence the Constitution yea and the Castigation of God if it do not decree righteousness For God is the Judg he patteth down one and setteth up another Psal lxxv 6. If there be any cavillation therefore with free Princes as there was with Moses Who made thee a Ruler we will answer it by remotion of false and pretended Causes 1. Satan hath arrogated the disposition of all earthly Magistracies to himself as Luke iv 6. when he had shewn unto Christ all the Kingdoms of the world and the Glory of them says he All this power will I give thee for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give it Execrable Spirit he dares assume that which is proper to the Almighty to speak the word and the whole world shall have a new face of Government and that he could remove Kings as our Saviour said that by faith his Disciples should remove Mountains he remembred how suddenly himself was deposed from glory that he fell like lightning And when God pleaseth all the Kingdoms of the World shall have as sudden a transmutation when he shall come in Glory to take all Power and Dominion into his own hand and to judg both the Quick and the Dead But in the mean time the Thrones of Kings are establisht in Heaven and Satan is a liar with an Hyperbole of impudency to say that it lies in him to manage or alter those Governments which God hath put in order O how many have gone to Witches and Necromancers and rak'd Hell to be informed how it should fare with the succession of some State or Empire so did Valens in the Ecclesiastical History so did Julian the Apostate and nothing did sway with him more to apostatize than because some Heathenish Priests foretold by Demoniacal Divinations that the Empire should descend upon him What can be more repugnant than this course to Honour and Religion it is God that makes the Day wherein Kings reign and not the Prince of Darkness that is condemned to eternal night it is God that is highly exalted above the Heavens and not Lucifer who is faln from glory and is debased beneath the Earth But secondly what say we to Intruders that make their own Day and exalt themselves in the Throne of Dominion as Adoniah exalted himself saying I will be King 1 Kings i. 5. and as Athaliah did take the Scepter into her own hand when God did never give it her why mark the lamentable end of them both and then you will perceive the irregularity of their action Let not the smoak glory that it riseth up of it self for so it vanisheth infelicity must be the event of that promotion where God doth not say friend sit up higher Thirdly lest Tyrants should snatch this honour to themselves there are such as have thought of a Remedy worse than the Disease namely that the Ratification of all Principality should depend upon the voice of the People and the continuation upon their good liking with a quamdiu se bene gesserit to have and to hold his Governance no longer than the popular opinion shall commend his good behaviour their reasons are first because when men and women multiplied and began to fill up the Body of a Common-wealth it was their own act and consent to put their necks under the yoke of a King Admit it were so yet you will not say but it was God and his inspiration that directed them to make a Supreme Head unto their Body for all order proceeds from that wisdom which comes from above Neither is it fit to be granted that it savours of the wisdom of God or of the well-order'd reason of man that in the first foundation of Kingdoms the Subjects set a Ruler over them to hold from thenceforth according to their windy and phantastical approbation The Bond which is made in Marriage is knit by the act and consent of man and woman yet being once made it doth not depend upon their consent but it holds of God In like sort at first were Kings espoused to their Kingdoms God did give the Bride as I may so say to the Husband and so the connexion is indissoluble Again howsoever it holds in other Republiques yet in that wherein God especially delighted I mean the Israelitish when the People thought it honourable for them to have a King like other Nations they did not call an Assembly and appoint themselves a King but they referred the matter to the Lord and he selected Saul out of all their Tribes to go in and out before them Secondly such as have meditated nothing but the confusion of an Anarchy have thus mutter'd if none but God doth make the Day of Annointed Princes then none but He can unmake them none but He can chastise them for injustice and violence Then how shall the cause of the poor be revenged when the Man of the Earth exalteth himself against him What an irreligious manner of arguing is this as if there were no hope of justice and redress if the cause be committed to God only When Samuel told the People that it would fall out that their Kings whom they desired would be very burdensom to them and inflict sore oppressions upon their State says he Clamabitis in illo die you will cry out in that day he doth not say you will reject your King and set up another but you have no other remedy but to cry out unto the Lord and forasmuch as your sins have deserved that oppression the Lord will
not hear you Hitherto I have made it good against Satan and all infernal Sorceries against Tyrants that attempt to exalt themselves and against all popular Factions that would seem to have an interest in the making and marring of Princes that God is the initial cause the conserving cause the sole Fountain and Author of all Supreme Sovereignty There is but one Adversary more to struggle with in this point that Hildibrandâ spirit in the Church of Rome who either directly or indirectly claims authority to himself to take account of the Government of Kings and when he pleaseth to break their Scepters with a Rod of Iron It is no toying in so main a Cause as this therefore I will demonstrate that I charge them right 1. The great number of the Canonists defend without any circumlocution that the Temporal Soveraignty of the whole world is inherent in the Office of Christs Vicar to give change alter or confirm the Titles of particular Princes as his infallible judgment shall lead him Thus Baronius who speaks his mind in these words for his Holy Father whom our Lord Jesus Christ the King of Glory hath constituted a Prince over all the Kingdoms of the World Says Augustinus Triumphus all Power and Royalty is subdelegated from the Pope to other Princes no man can give him any Soveraignty which he had not before nec Constantinus dedit quicquam Sylvestro quod non prius erat suum says he some talk of Constantines donation to Sylvester that he gave him the Temporal Principality of Romania he gave him nothing but that which was his own before that and all beside was St. Peters Patrimony But Practice is a plainer Argument than Book-words Alexander the Sixth a Giver that will do but small credit to his Gift but such as he is take him with all faults he bestowed the whole West-Indies to Ferdinand King of Spain ex merâ liberalitate motu proprio as it is in the words of the Bull. Their own Histories say that Athabaliba King of Peru maintained his Dominions by fighting against that Grant till he was taken prisoner in battel and then cried out That Pope could have no reverence to vertue or to the God of Heaven that took away another mans Kingdom from him You see now that this Successor of St. Peter as he would be stiled lays claim to that which St. Peter never dreamt of to belong to him for how could his imagination comprehend such things when he knew they were disclaimed by Christ Joh. xviii 36. My Kingdom is not of this world if it were my Servants would fight for me that I should not be delivered to the Jews but my Kingdom is not from hence God gave unto Christ the Heathen for his Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his Possession that is to dilate his Spiritual Kingdom over all the world but neither that himself or his Apostles should excel in any Temporal Dignity It remains therefore against all opposite Parties that the Kingdoms of the World are the Lords and he doth set his Annointed in their Thrones out of his holy Hill and therefore when Popes of old did write to Kings their usual stile was to wish them health in eo per quem reges regnant in him by whom Kings do reign that is in God above And all this is to declare that David held his Crown from none but God because upon the Solemn Feast of his Inauguration it is said This is the Day which the Lord hath made All Kings are made by God yet not all alike there is more of the Divine mercy and favour in the making of David a man after Gods own heart than in making of Saul one whom it repented God that ever he made him more of his sacred workmanship in the making of Melchisedech a King of Righteousness than in the making of Nimrod a King of Violence They that sow the fruits of righteousness in peace those are reges primae intentionis Kings in whom God and Man do especially delight and they that have been compassed about with most cruel Wars abroad and with most terrible Enemies and Treasons at home and yet have waded prosperous out of all these dangers those are reges primae providentiae Kings of miraculous providence above the trivial current and you that have read the two Books of Samuel and the first Book of Chronicles meet with a thousand passages what memorable marks the Lord had set upon the person of David which of you doth note the mean condition out of which he did rise and the Throne to which he was exalted but you will say digitus Dei you do mark the print of Gods finger in the work collect the imminent dangers which he escaped the fury of Saul the Hosts of the Philistins the Duel with Goliah the Plots of Ahitophel the overawings of the Sons of Zeruiah the almost inevitable Conspiracy of Absalon and finally the Usurpation of his other Son Adonijah even while he was upon his Death-bed and you will say there was never any Potentate begirt with so many assaults and brought off with such safety that there was not an hair of his head did perish As David's Day hath these characters in it so we are to glorifie the sweet Providence of God that our Royal Sovereign's Day hath none of them For first the mean Parentage of David did much prejudice him it was a word of contempt that he could not claw off to be called the Son of Jessai the Son of a poor Yeoman in Bethlem But his Majesty's Throne hath been the Throne of his glorious Ancestors for many Generations and a concurrence of the best blood in the world doth meet in himself and in his Royal Progeny For domestical Enemies God be praised for the terms of eleven years of his most Religious Reign never any durst shew their faces if they should I trust we should see their heads shewn for a direful spectacle to after Ages But whereas the blessed Princes that upheld our Reformed Religion have been hemmed about with Treasons upon Treasons every one of them God hath so confounded them in their malicious devices that His Sacred Majesty hath hitherto gone in and out before us without the least whisper of any infernal attempt against him no Prince in this Island that profest the same Reformed Faith being able to say as he can that neither popular commotion nor secret conspiracy hath hitherto reacht itself against his Royal Person and God grant such safety to himself and such true and loyal hearts to his People and that gracious protection will make us see that the Buckler of the Most High is on every side of him and that his name is written in the Book of Life Another thing is David was very much exercised in wars against the Philistins and his Sword did never come out of the Field without a Conquest but the best Victory is bought with the price of much bloud and therefore
be our Intercessor with his Father and to prepare a place for us Whitsunday or the Coming of the Holy Ghost is like a fair Land-mark to instruct the most unlearned that though our nature is most corrupt and averse from all good motions yet the spirit is poured into us whereby in some weak measure we become obedient Children and cry Abba Father These are the Days which the Lord hath made and when we devote our selves to magnifie him upon these occasions they prove the best means to teach us the Catechetical and fundamental points of faith And as Christ was great in himself and in those works of grace so He is great in the Angels of Heaven great in the Apostles in the Evangelists in all Saints and Martyrs and the choice is made by our Church of the Flower of all occasions in this kind publickly to praise the Lord and it is very fit I say that there should be a sensible difference between these and common days both for our thanksgiving and for the profitableness of our piety Gods works are all worthy of observation but not at all times alike to be remembred for as the Lord by being every where doth not give unto all places one and the same degree of holiness but the Church is more sacred than the High-ways of the Field though Gods Immensity and Omnipotency is alike in both so neither is one and the same dignity competent to all times although the Omnipotency of God doth work in all times but as his extraordinary presence hath hallowed and sanctified certain places so they are his extraordinary works which have worthily advanced certain times for which cause they ought with all men that honour God to be in more honour than other dayes I should add two things more that are very ponderous to confirm this truth one from the practice of some holy persons in the Old Testament whose constitutions God approved the other from the practice of our Fore-fathers in all Ages and 't is fit to tread in their steps in things that are laudable honest and indifferent but this shall not be hudled up I will dilate it hereafter To dispatch all beside our holy due of the Lords Day we are now to celebrate the Kings Day and for good reason in all equity we ought to do some Religious Service on His Day who is the Defendor of our Religion Next under the Providence of God who but the King doth maintain the Truth among us therefore on what day of the week soever this Day lights it becoms us to set open the Door of the Church and to praise the Lord because we have freedom to come to Church all the year by his grace and protection We have no Romish Superstition no Anabaptistical or Presbyterian Anarchy to make this holy place irksom unto us God be praised that has given his Anointed a faithful heart to serve him and to uphold his People in the right way that they may hold up clean hands to Heaven I do read that Constantine celebrated an yearly Feast for his Victory against Licinius I read that the Church of Alexandria celebrated a Day yearly wherein the waters asswaged after a great Inundation I read that Alexius Comnenus appointed a perpetual Holiday for the memory of the famous Emperor and Lawgiver Justinian nay St. Ambrose calls to mind that Felix Bishop of Cuma kept that day every year in a magnificent manner to God wherein he was consecrated Bishop Thus former Ages have given us light that we keep in the Circle of that which is lawful when we adorn the Anniversary Day of the Inauguration of our most noble King with joy and festivity in the sight of God and first let us confess the Lords benefit towards us and say as the People did of Solomon Because thy God loved Israel to stablish them for ever therefore made he thee King over them to do judgment and justice 1 Chron. ix viii Secondly let as put up Prayers and Intercessions to the Divine Majesty to give great prosperity to our Anointed Sovereign to his Royal Consort and to their Posterity for ever AMEN A SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it IF you have ever seen a piece of Coin stamp'd with one face upon the fore-side and with another upon the reverse then set that fancy before you to understand the double sense of this Text. First If you ask according to the Letter whose Image and Superscription is this I tell you and I have told it you once before it is Davids And this is the triumphant Hymn of the devout men of Israel exulting that God had given them such a King to go in and out before them If you ask according to the Spirit to whom this Verse belongs most certainly it aims at Christ and that two ways either calculating this Day for the whole Age of the Gospel that is the day which God hath made to put gladness into his chosen through the remission of our sins because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Or else in a more eminent sort it is the joyful acclamation of the Church upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus that being the most honourable and most welcome of days because the Resurrection hath ever been esteemed the most glorious of all the works of the Gospel I have spun out the first of these concerning David to the last thread now my Web which is upon the Loom is concerning Christ that is I have given unto Caesar that which is Caesars and it is very expedient as the more principal duty to give unto God that which is Gods Indeed I cannot say that I am come to the heart and to the vitals of the Text till now till now that I apply it not as formerly to the Lords Anointed but to Christ himself our Lord anointed And I have clear way made me for this interpretation as clear as I can wish for never any that have received the Book of the Psalms for spiritual and divine melody but do reckon this Psalm and especially this part of the Psalm to belong to Jesus the Author and finisher of our Salvation The Doctors of the Jews says St. Hierom did use to sing it in praise of the Messias And the Doctors of the Christians must be all of one Chorus to chant it merrily to the Son of God because four places of the New Testament that is witness enough have made a challenge unto it that this Psalm is an Allelujah or Hosannah to the Son of God And because the words of my Text are obvious to be recited upon any memorable and plausible occasion sometimes they have been drawn to congratulate humane affairs yet with this reservation that none under heaven hath a true interest in them I read that in the second Constant Council held under Justinian the Emperour Johannes Presbyter as he was
can we spend our time more profitably than to speak of time as it is to be referred and allotted to the glory of him that made all time But that I may leave no part of my Treatise naked but cover that which I shall run through with some portion of my Text I must put you to call to mind what I delivered in general in two Sermons that these words excel both in the Letter and in the Spirit In the Letter they are part of a Psalm which was sung for Davids sake and for that Festival which the People kept to God for his Inauguration when he was made King over Israel In the Spirit they reach to Christ as David in most of his Psalms had more regard to Christ than to himself and that with two interpretations By some the whole Age of the Gospel is entituled the day of Christ for through the Gospel the terrours of Sin and Death and Hell are broken and we are comforted on every side to rejoyce and be glad By others among all Evangelical days the Feast of the Resurrection is pickt out by way of eminency for never did the Sun shine upon any day wherein we had more cause to triumph and be joyful than when the Son of God having been crucified for our sins did rise from death the third day to conquer mortality and corruption that we might live forever These Points being dispatcht in their proper season what is left to be handled Two things of great moment Beloved First the Resurrection of Christ did not only sanctifie that one day wherein he rose but occasion was taken from thence to sanctifie the first day of every Week to the Lord because Christ rose on the first day Hence I am your debtor to shew how this and every Sunday is the day which the Lord hath made and we must rejoyce and be glad in it Secondly Forasmuch as an holy day was appointed that all Israel might worship Jehovah for that precious benefit that so good a King as David was reigned over them therefore the Ordination of Festival days to profess thanksgiving for the high and excellent works of God becometh the Church for so good a sanction and becometh the righteous to be joyful in them Then of the Lords day for our ordinary Assemblies in Gods House and of holy Festivals for our extraordinary Assemblies these are the matter of my ensuing Discourse which I will follow upon the touchstone of truth and for the benefit of your edification Concerning the day which we keep weekly in the name of the Lord I must speak of it two ways in reference to Gods making and our rejoycing in reference to the Divine Sanction and out Sanctification The Divine Sanction of the day must be traversed in four Points 1. What ground we have for keeping the Lords day in the fourth Commandment 2. What ground we have for it from the Resurrection of Christ 3. What ground we have for it in the Gospel from the Precept of Christ or his Apostles And 4. What ground we have for it from the practise of the Apostles and from the practise of the Church in all ages In this piece of a Sermon I will deliver you my mind upon this Controversie which now adays makes voluminous disputes First It is manifest that the Fourth Commandment hath another air and Constitution in it than the other Nine Those Nine being consonant to the light of natural reason so that they bind the Conscience without a Law-giver this is neither principle or necessary conclusion of natural reason in such a clear manner as that a judicious man shall be forced upon understanding the terms to yield assent unto it And I wonder that any one should stumble so grosly to say that it is natural Law to keep every seventh day that is the last day or the first day of the Week holy when the distribution of time into Weeks is arbitrary and not natural This Commandment therefore having a composition in it diverse from the rest it hath somewhat in it particular to the state of the Jewish Synagogue and somewhat that binds the Christian Church For it doth not stand for a Cypher in the two Tables at this time as if the force of it were expired but there is somewhat in it which is Moral and obligeth mankind unto the end of the world The enforcement of the seventh day in strict and Sabbatical rest is out of date as well as the rest of the Pedagogical Ordinances of Moses But there is this Kernel within the shell that holy Assemblies are for ever to be called together at fit and convenient times to praise the Lord nay further reason and gratitude cannot imagine a more fit and convenient time than the constant solemnizing of a Seventh day nay than the constant observation of this Seventh day the first day of the Week Therefore I determine that we ground the keeping of the Lords day upon the fourth Commandment not upon the Letter of it for that were Jewish but upon the natural equity or moral contents of it We recede from the Letter as much as can be for they rested and we work on their Sabbath but to rest on the seventh day and to work on the seventh day cannot flow out of the same Statute For the moral equity we give all diligence to obey it and he that rejects the Lords Day or violates it transgresseth the Fourth Commandment because though neither that day there mentioned nor the determination of a Seventh day is absolutely commanded yet it is deduced out of it by consequence It is enough to have general and common Rules for Ecclesiastical Orders of time and place under the liberty of the Gospel And God gives us the light of discretion to draw out special rules at what time in what place with what Decorum and Order to meet together and if the governance of this discretion be not observed the Spirit of the Lord is disobeyed The Lord hath not given over his interest in our time but that we must allot some days and hours to his Service as it were for the redemption of all our time which is due unto him Neither hath he given us a vagrant liberty to serve him when we will but the out-goings of the Morning and Evening must praise him and we must often throng together at solemn times to worship him To go further though the Commandment hath not prefixt us a day for it prefixt no definite day but the Sabbath to the Jews yet it hath given us light what ought to be done by way of prudent Constitution viz. that we of the Evangelical Kingdom should grievously sin if we did not voluntarily devote as much time to the honour of God as the Jews were bound to do And then since the Lord did enforce why that day was enjoyned to them it was the day wherein the Lord did rest from his work and it was most pious that they should remember the benefit
worship that which was base and despicable like Gods of Silver and Gold then cause might be shewn why flesh and bloud should disdain it O Beloved it is the King of Kings and the excellency of Jacob He sits upon a Throne that is circled about with a Rainbow Rev. 4. A Rainbow was his first Covenant which He made to spare the World and reason good that his Throne should be compassed about with Mercy Next unto the Rainbow sate Twenty four Elders that had Crowns of Gold upon their heads supposed to be Twelve Patriarchs and Twelve Apostles that propagated his glory unto all Nations both Jews and Gentiles as who should say All Kings shall fall down before him all Nations shall do him service To shut out all objections It is certain that Majesty and Dominion lose the hearts of men that should obey and purchase Envy and Hatred which cannot shift it self sometimes into Lowliness and Humility O see and be astonished at it if God have not submitted himself to the fashion of man For as the Ark of God when it was in the Wilderness had Pelles caprinas supra byssinum a Covering of Goats hair upon the silken Curtains which were costly and precious So the Lord Almighty who most properly is cloathed with light as with a garment hath also put on flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones that by all means He might allure us unto his Love sometime adoring him in Honour sometime admiring his Humility And I give them over as past all good that are as stubborn as Cato of whom it is said Dictatorem odit nec minùs Caesurem He neither lov'd the Dictator in his great Office nor Caesar in his private Calling that are not affected with the poor Nativity of the Son of man nor with the excellency of God in the highest heavens Love Jesus that was made man or where is thy thankfulness Honour and praise his name that ruleth over all or where is thy devotion I know it will be more profitable to my Hearers to instance in those particulars of Honour and Worship wherein God especially is delighted and I propound these four to your Christian practice 1. We must magnifie his Name 2. Obey his Word and Commandments and thus far the Angels go with Man and no farther but it is not enough for us Angelis dimidium mundi factum est sed nobis totum Heaven is but half the World which is made for Angels but Heaven and Earth the whole compass of the World is made for Man Therefore 3. in the third place we must give reverence to his Sacraments as to the Seals of his Love and Mercy And 4. obey his Magistrates Let us draw this division to some rule that you may be sure it is full and complete First you know God is to be considered in his own Essence bare and naked by it self next these three Attributes and properties are most inward unto it his Wisdom his Goodness and his Power Now the Essence of God is declared by his Names his Wisdom is revealed in his Word his Sacraments convey his goodness unto us and Kings and Princes bear the Image of his Power and Authority If any man can find out more ways to honour the Lord let him go on and prosper I had rather praise his name upon a ten-stringed Lute with David than with St. Peter set up three Tabernacles and no more and come short of one of those which I have propounded But first of the honour due unto his Name As the Sun is the cause of our knowledge to distinguish the hours of the day upon the Dial and yet we know not our time by the Sun it self immediately but by the shadow it casteth So the Essence of God is the cause of all things and yet we have not his Essence but his Name revealed unto us this is the Oracle of the inward Temple and the Star that leads unto holy Bethlem where Christ is laid Unto this Name we should lift up our hands in Prayer and for this Names sake stretch them out in Alms unto the poor And as David ask'd if there were any of the Race of Jonathan left to whom he might shew mercy and Mephibosheth was brought unto him an impotent Cripple but the Son of Jonathan So let us enquire if there be any thing of the Lord remaining among us if all be not lost by the Fall of Adam that we may do honour unto it alas it is but a small thing it is but the Name of our God but let us make much of it as he did of Mephibosheth let it be in great esteem and veneration When I speak of the honour due unto his Name I mean the honouring of God himself at the mention of his Name Our Mother-Church of England as careful that I may not enter into comparisons as any Church in the world to take away the yoke of superfluous Ceremonies and yet very provident to make the body of man submit it self to a decent outward worship of holiness hath prescribed unto us by a Canon that while we are in Gods House at the mention of the Name of Jesus we should do reverence with the Knee and uncover the Head I know not by what peevishness of some or by what presumption of others it is more neglected in many Congregations of this City than elsewhere throughout all the Realm Doth that Name which imports Salvation and Redemption from your sins no more affect you Or do you give no more obedience to the Church-Authority Are you not Fidelis in minimo faithful in a small matter How do you look that your heavenly Father should appoint you to be faithful over much I am not ignorant that some have made Sorcery rather than Religion and Blasphemy than Devotion of the holy Name of Jesus as among others that Frier that said when our Saviour did bend his head upon the Cross it was not as the Scripture says to give up the Ghost but he did bow it unto the Title Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews And Pope John the Twentieth gave an Indulgence to any body for the pardon of one enormous sin that should do reverence at the hearing of that Name yet on the other side me thinks they set light by their Salvation that neither will do reverence themselves nor love to see if in another at the mentioning of that holy name To make a difference between the names of God that one is more holy than another it is not my opinion and I think is scarce honesty in the Schoolmen to distinguish as they have done that when we call God the Just one Omnipotent Wise and the like they are Attributes belonging to the Divine Nature from everlasting and therefore to be respected with the highest Adoration but when we call him Lord Creator and Redeemer what 's that but Jesus they are Nomina in tempore à Deo sumpta relative names assumed since the beginning of the
world and therefore Dulia a petty Worship will serve for them to cross this absurdity I confess that God is honourable alike as in one Appellation so in another but our eternal happiness is granted unto us by this Appellation more than any other But when as Samuel came to anoint one of the Sons of Jessai for a King Eliab was beautiful in his eyes and so was Abinadab and so was Shammah but God would have the Horn of Oyl poured only upon the head of David So let every tongue confess that the names of Jehovah Elohim Immanuel and Christ are reverend and glorious and worthy that our knees should stoop unto them as low as Earth and our lips carry them as high as Heaven But Peter hath wrought Miracles by the Name of Jesus and Paul hath preach'd glorious things of the Name of Jesus therefore my Soul and Body shall be prostrate to that Name especially which is wonderful and holy The neglect of this is an undutiful omission yet I reckon it not in the place of the greatest sins But the greatest reproach and dishonour which the Name of God doth suffer is in the mouth of the Swearer and Blasphemer that is the Tongue whereof St. James speaks that is set on fire from Hell Yea and Nay the trial of all truth is accounted in this dissolute Age precise and simple communication What God is he that you swear by so often Is it not he that gave you breath and can stop your breath at a moment Whose Bloud is that you swear by Even that Bloud which should wash away your sins is unto you an occasion of more pollution Whose Wounds are these you swear by Even those Wounds wherein you should bury your sins make them live unto condemnation as St. Hierom said Ipse aer constupratur scelestis vocibus that ribald obscene talk did adulterate the air So I may say of Oaths that are vomited up from the superfluity of sin Ipse aer profanatur scelestis vocibus the Air is prophaned and unhallowed by abusing the Name of God Lord to what an excess this windy airy sin of Swearing is come to I think for one reason the Devil may be called the Prince of the Air because he is the Prince of such blasphemous language And so much for the Honour due to the Name of God But secondly to Honour his Name and to disobey his Word is to imitate those disloyal Subjects of the Emperour Maximilian they called Maximilian scornfully Regem Regum a King of Kings it was because the Nobles that were under him lived like Kings without subjection or obedience Or it is to make such a God to our selves as the Church of Rome makes Bishops in the East the one is called Bishop of Antioch another called Bishop of Jerusalem and Title enough they have if that would maintain them but nothing else Keep your Masters Commandments and love his Ordinances to do them and then God is Honoured Concerning Obedience read and observe the life and death of Saul he would sacrifice to God and that of the fattest Cattel among all the Flocks of the Amalekites Why this was Honour one would think No it was not juxta Verbum Domini according to the word which was brought unto him by the mouth of Samuel and God prefers Obedience before Sacrifice This is the reason says Aquine in Sacrifice we offer up the flesh of a beast but in Obedience we offer up our own will unto God The Jews did so much esteem the killing Letter of the Law that they wore it as the chief ornament of their Vesture in the Fringe of their Garments as Frontlets before their eyes and about the wrists of their hands mark but that before their eyes for meditation about their arms for practise and execution There is a rule in Physick says a learned Bishop Per brachium fit judicium de corde The Veins come from the heart to the hand and there Physicians take their Crisis by their Pulse and motion So it is in Divinity you must make conscience of your knowledge by your practice and obey the word David held the word of God super mille pondo auri argenti above thousands of Gold and Silver Solomon esteemed the Law to be as bright as the Sun in the Firmament Praeceptum Domini lucidum illuminans oculos You have heard of Idolaters that have worshipped the Sun and Moon Much more let true Believers reverence the Law of God which is brighter than the Sun in the Firmament for so Elias thought and he covered his face with a Mantle as soon as ever the Lord spake as if the voice of the Lord were eyes sufficient to see by and he needed not the eyes of this body But far above Kings and Prophets and all the Sons of men the holy Angels are so ready to do Gods will that you shall scarce once read in Scripture that they were bid to go of Gods Errand but before you could say Do this they were gone to dispatch the Lords Employment Surely as it was a great abasement for the Word which was God to be united to the flesh of man so it is a great Honour for man who is but flesh to be united in obedience to the Word of God To contract my self in this Point Remember what manner of Law it is that we should obey St. Paul says it is sancta justa bona holy in respect of God that gave it just toward all men in civil commerce good for our selves to live in peace and safety What yoke then is more easie than the yoke of that Law which is holy and just and good Now in the third place as the Air which we hear sounding in our ears by concretion says Philosophy becomes clear water and may be seen so the Word of God which we hear preached unto the Ear in the holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper becomes verbum visibile a visible word in wine and water Honour one and honour the other for though they be twain in the administration yet in effect they are but one and the same one in application of our Saviours merits and the mercies of God one in fruit and efficacy to wash away our sins and to cleanse our Soul For as the bright Constellation which we call the Morning and Evening Star is one and the same So Christ in Baptism is the Morning light which illuminates Infants anon after they peep into the world and Christ in his Last Supper is the Evening Star Vltimum viaticum a light to shew every man the right way out of the world that is going to Heaven As one said of Prayer that it was due unto God when we rise and when we go to bed as a Morning and an Evening Sacrifice and therefore it might be called Clavis diei sera noctis the Key to open the day and the Bolt to lock in the night So I may say of the two Sacraments that they
are Clavis Ecclesiae sera Coeli Baptism the Key to open a door and give us admittance into the Church of Christ and the Eucharist is such a confirmation of grace that it is like a bolt that shuts us up into Heaven What reverence what devotion can be too much for such blessed mysteries Mistake me not when I speak of Reverence and Devotion I mean nothing less than Adoration and Worship to the Elements I allow not nay I abhor Popish Elevation and Procession I fear this lifting up of the Host ever since the Devil took up Christ to a Pinacle of the Temple I detest their gamish and gaudy Procession as if our Saviour did think it an Honour to ride upon the Popes Palfrey as Haman did upon King Ahasuerus Horse away with such ridiculous gesticulations But I am ashamed on the other side that there should be such froward Persons such unthankful Receivers of the Sacrament of thankfulness in our Church that deny the duty of their knee to the Supper of the Lord their feet stand stiff like the two Pillars which upheld the Theatre of the Philistines and Samson can scarce pluck them to the ground The very Devil durst not deny the truth in this Point Ask him what it is to honour Mat. 4. to fall down and worship As Maecoenas spake of a Roman that being amazed forgot to kneel unto Caesar when he came in his presence Hic homo timet timere Caesarem so these men are afraid lest they should over-reach themselves and give God more honour than his due It was an excellent speech of Scipio Africanus who being to ride in honour refused to sit in an Arch Triumphal Quia seni praetereunti non potuit assurgere if an old man passed by he could not rise up and do him reverence Beloved the Table of the Lord is a time of great triumph and solemnity and God is not passing from us but coming to us and is this all the honour that we will do him to stand upon stilts rather than kneel Will neither the apprehension of Christs Passion move us at that time Nor that Prayer which is used that body and soul may be preserved unto everlasting life will not that make us fall down Nor the consideration how Christ did humble himself for us unto the death of the Cross will not that make us humble Let it be the reproach of such profane men that Manna is faln down from Heaven round about our Tents and they will not stoop to gather it The fourth and last Honour which redounds to God is to obey the powers which are ordained of God It is good Divinity every day it is the proper Theam of this day O Lord make it a victorious and joyful day to thine Anointed Servant and our most gacious Soveraign many and many years and make it an happy and a triumphant day to his People that are under him and to their Children that are yet unborn Nazianzen speaking of Kings and Rulers to be the Images of God says that Monarchs and Kings in respect of God were like Pictures drawn clean throughout to the Feet the middle sort of Governours to Pictures drawn to the Girdle the third rank and lowest in authority to Pictures drawn but to the neck and shoulders but all in some sort are the Images of God only Christ is the express Image of his Person that sate down at the right hand of his Majesty Heb. i. O let Man who is made according to the similitude and likeness of Gods own goodness be faithful and Loyal to obey Kings and Princes in whom he hath imprinted the Image of his power and authority Mary Magdalen sate at our Saviours feet his Disciple John came nearer to his head and leaned upon his breast so God hath put all the world under his feet but Kings and Rulers lean as it were upon his breast as coming nearer to his love Now as the Altar was a refuge for them that fled unto it so Kings being as it were united unto God by an invisible copulation they are like priviledged persons always next unto the Altar and the hand of violence must not hurt them He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that honoureth you honoureth me But the Jesuit is more subtle than any beast of the field and he puts in a quarrel against Gods Anointed that if any prove an Heretick or a scandalous person to the Church nolumus hunc regnare then he hath lost the privilege of his Unction and his Scepter shall be broken by the Popes effulminating Authority I cannot answer this traiterous opposition better than by an Embleme of a Diamond with this word dum formas minuis He that pares a Diamond to make it give a better lustre and to point it artificially impairs the worth and value of the Diamond so to cut such large allowance from the due which God hath granted without that qualification to his Vice-gerents under pretence to make their Kingdom more beautiful and religious is the next way to break the neck of all Soveraignty it were well we had less of their art and more of their honesty As Agesilaus wrote to the Judges in the behalf of Nicias if Nicias his Cause be good let justice prevail if his Cause be wrong let favour prevail but be sure that Nicias prevail So say I if the Scepter of the King be a Scepter of mercy and righteousness God be blessed it is then we will honour it for righteousness sake if it should go wrong and not as we would have it so it hath far'd with other Common-wealths the Throne of the King is established in heaven and we must honour it for Gods sake but be sure the King be honour'd and obeyed There is a Fable which Plutarch hath to this purpose the Tail of the Snake began to cavil with the Head because the Head did always lead the way and direct the Body which way it list The Tail would not be contented unless it might go formost by course and the Head come sometimes behind but what followed upon this new contrivance the Tail prickt it self in thorns the Body was bruised every part offended and at last the Head was intreated to take upon him to lead and then the whole body was contented Beloved our part is to pray to God that the Head may run on in the right way like the matchless Pair that went before the mirrour of women pious Queen Elizabeth and the most excellent and learned of all wise Princes that ever were or shall be blessed King James Our part is to submit our wisdom to the secret counsels of the King and to demonstrate our faithfulness and love more amply by how much the times are like to be dangerous and troublesome but for the Tail to go formost it is a dishonour to God who hath given the Crown and Scepter to the King and it can breed nothing but disorder and confusion To sum up these four
rage the People tumult the Kings and Rulers of the Earth take counsel God is despised and beset round as it were with the Bulls of Basan How shall this strong conspiracy be broken Why in the fourth verse the Lord laughs and hath them in derision Do you make a question how all these shall be oppressed Non est res difficilis aut laboriosa ludendo facturus est quoties libuerit says Calvin It is no hard matter to bring to pass the Lord will do it at leisure nay as it were with sport and pastime The wicked can look for no other but to be put to shame hereafter and lightly esteemed For as they that honour God are called Oves à dextra Sheep on the right hand oves propter fructum naturae mansuetudinem Sheep for that they yield fruit to the Shepherd and because of the innocency and patience of their nature So the despisers have their Name Haedi à sinistrâ Goats on the left hand Quia salaces per praecipitia incedunt says Origen Because of their petulancy and that they walk in slippery places ready to break their necks Finally says St. Paul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God is not mocked that is not without retorting scorn for scorn for they that despise him shall be lightly esteemed Now from all contempt of his glory from all contempt of his Word and Commandment Good Lord deliver us AMEN A SERMON Preached upon the Gowry Conspiracy BEFORE KING JAMES PSAL. xli 9. Yea mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted which did eat of my bread hath lift up his heel against me THere is one way says Plutarch in Demetrius to make the whole world the better one course to be taken to put shame into all mens faces that they dare not sin It is but thus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not to suffer the acts of evil men to pass unregistred let their names be known and their deeds set forth in black colours that they who could find pleasure in a sinful life may be discouraged by an infamous memory Cum de malo Principe posteri tacent manifestum est eadem facere praesentem says Pliny It holds not only in Princes but in the manners of all men When we dare not speak of the vices of other men it is a sign they are rise among ourselves Can we then pass over this high and unsufferable wrong done to an innocent person in my Text Such a complaint as can hardly be match'd in all the Scripture For say that one friend hath parted from another as Demas lest St. Paul or that Ziba being trusted did fail Mephibosheth or that Jobs acquaintance whom he fed with his Morsels did shun him in the days of his sorrow yet for all these crimes to meet in one man disloyalty against friendship treachery against trust ingratitude against daily benefits this is strange quod nulla posteritas probet sed nulla taceat fit to be blazon'd that for infamies sake the most prostigate may fear to do the like This is my Scope there is the Center where I will fix the foot of my Compass and whatsoever I do add more is the Circle drawn about it In the days of King Davids persecution you would think the Text were sit for none but him Expositors indeed are not all of one mind to say who it is that is pointed out for this disloyal enemy Perchance his ungracious Son Absolon an untimely Usurper perchance Joab the Captain of his Host trusted with the command of all his Forces and yet complotting with Adonijah to supplant Solomon against the Fathers affection But most likely and you shall hear at this time of no other it was the great States-man Achitophel admitted into the secrets of his bosome and rewarded with the best honours of his Court even he his own familiar friend in whom he trusted which did eat of his bread did lift up his heel against him In the days of our Saviours humiliation the Text doth so fit his turn and that St. John saw in the thirteenth of his Gospel and did so apply it that at the first blush you will say it doth directly serve to express his pittiful case and the wickedness of Judas who did betray his Master Judas that followed him when he had no where to lay his head and could a friend do more Judas that dispensed his Alms to the poor surely the greatest trust that could be laid upon any servant by so charitable a Lord Judas his guest at all times and more especially a partaker of his Last Supper take him with all these titles and yet did he lift up his heel against his Master One interpretation more of this Text is revealed in this our Age. And it is verified in application to none so fitly as to our most renowned Soveraign in the happy and successful deliverance which God gave unto him this day against his enemies his Companion in recreations his confederate in counsels of the same unanimity of Religion that had broke the same bread at the Communion Table did rise up against the Lords Anointed But he that lifted up his heel was supplanted himself and cast down praised be God for evermore You see here are three examples of Traitors so notorious that we who live may almost be ashamed of Mankind and there are three examples of them who suffered so innocently that we may be proud there were men so good to endure it Wherefore I will draw my discourse into such a method that neither Achitophel may be forgotten that wronged King David nor Judas omitted that betrayed his Master nor those wicked Imps let alone in silence whom this day bath made notorious to Generations Achitophels treachery hath the precedency in time and therefore it shall be handled in the first part in whom you shall see three things 1. How odious it is to violate friendship yea mine own familiar friend 2. How hateful it is to wrong the trust reposed in us My friend in whom I trusted 3. How impious it is to forget the benefits we have received to spurn against him that seeds us He that ate of my bread hath lift up his heel against me Judas his Apostacy is the second part of my Text and in him let Hereticks discern how grievous it is to wound their Saviour whom they have served and let our Runnagates to Rome and Rhemes consider what a lamentable backsliding it is to leave the sincere Altar whereon they have eaten the body of Christ and drank his bloud I would our own Island had not brought forth such men as make up the third part of my Text in whose desperate attempt you shall see how the best alive are not only like to spill their good turns upon barren sands but also to lose their life their country their liberty even where they had cause to look for nothing but due homage and fidelity An first attend unto Davids complaint c. Yea mine own
residue the Lord will give victory to his chosen people But as Cyrus in Xenophon speaks of the manner of the Median hunting beasts in Gardens that they did ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã hunt beasts that were bound so to follow these turncoat Fugitives which have sheltred themselves in Cloisters and are sworn to do us mischief it were vincta venari to pursue that which was entangled therefore I leave them with Judas and this brand upon both their foreheads concluding the second part of my Text c. I am now descended in the third place to the stratagem of this day and am faln upon the haters of my Lord the King A King who is an uniter of Kingdoms into one body as David was of Judah and Israel none more zealous no not David himself for the prosperity of Jerusalem and the magnificence of the holy Temple Under Christ not only the Supreme Head but under Christ the most careful Watchman of our Churches and as Christ did tenderly affect his Apostles above all other men so the Successors of the Apostles the Reverend and most holy Bishops of our Church have found not the smallest place in the love of our gracious Soveraign Surely above all men if the Clergy be not careful to set forth the honour of this day with great joy and solemnity it is their ignorance or their negligence Ignorance is the very annihilating of a Scholar negligence the foulest fault in a Labourer Had these furious Sword-men that laid their weapons to his throat sound an austere Master nay a Tyrant they must have born with it and not touch the man that bears the character of the Lords Anointed But his Peers are verè parâs welcom as his equals his familiar friends Had they been out of the lists of counsel not acquainted with secret affairs what should they do but be thankful for the peace which they enjoy without trouble and pray for that Government which fills them with plenteousness without their labour but they were familiars in whom he trusted adventuring his Royal Person not only under their roof but under their locks and custody Lastly had his bounty no way flown into their Coffers and whose bounty among all the Kings of the earth hath replenished more yet their bodies are secure by the protection of his Laws their souls secure by his maintenance of true Religion their goods secure by his Courts of Justice and yet his own c. Did eat of his bread that is true But to feed upon the Kings hospitality is a curtesie every day common to thousands that visit the Court But for a mighty Monarch to grace his Subjects Table with his Royal Presence and to eat of his bread this is not the felicity of every one Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter it is a respect of high honour where it lights and the glory of an illustrious Family And out of doubt that mind must be very sordid and avaricious that esteems it not the more noble grace to make their service find acceptation that they may expend somewhat rather than receive somewhat of a mighty Potentate I can spare no more time to publish the black sin of the Authors of this treachery It was Dionysius his saying to Plato that if he should dismiss him and give him leave to depart for Greece Plato would make him the common talk of Athens Do not think O King says Plato that we have so little care of learned conference that we would chuse you for our discourse So I hope beloved that our hearts are so full charged with thankfulness to God for this days deliverance that in twenty years and more we have no leisure as yet to think of the Malefactors Let this day be spent and many days following only in Prayer and Supplication and Thanksgiving to that God who hath given victory to his Anointed and will do to his Seed for evermore Nay let me add one thing coronidis vice and I have quite done we have found this verse to tax Achitophel to condemn Judas and lastly to lie at their door who perished deservedly this day in their own fury Bonaventure hath yet smelt out another enemy and such a one as none more familiar none more intimate to any of us all Is not this fair warning beloved And will you know who it is O man it is thy self He that prays to God to bless him from his enimies is afraid of malice indeed it is a dreadful thing He that prays to God to bless him from his friends is afraid of treachery and indeed no mischief less avoidable But let me pray to God to bless me from my self no enemie so full of flattery so like to prevail so cunning in tentation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it is the Civil War which wastes the inward parts it is the carnal man against the spiritual Self-love is every mans disease Why You are your own familiar friend Confession of sins can hardly be extorted from us Why We trust to our selves too much Gluttony and Riot are within our Walls Why We feed our selves and are our own carvers From our enemies defend us O Christ from Forain Invasion from Domestical Conspiracy from the malice of Satan and from the corruption of this vile Flesh the body of death which we carry about Good Lord deliver us AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Fifth of November AMOS ix 2. Though they dig into Hell thence shall my hand take them WE have two sorts of Holy-days and Festivals to call Assemblies together into the Church of God Some in honour of the Saints who are our friends that their Piety may redound to our imitation Some occasioned by the malice of our enemies to sing praises for our preservation both are useful if we advise aright And who knows whether King David was instructed better from Hushai his Friend or from Shemei that reviled him He that would be safe says Plutarch and walk sure ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he must either have true Friends or bitter enemies And as God would have it the Church hath plenty of both sorts Saints of honour in heaven spiteful men to undermine it upon earth darkness beneath to complot treachery light above to reveal it There is both manus fodiens an hand digging into Hell against us and manus educens the eternal hand that fashioned all things on our side to take them out Beloved here are two chief instructions from two main ways to inform our faith blessed is every one that hath duly prepared one heart to receive them Which that we may the better do I pray observe what a lofty Hyperbole the whole verse doth consist of threatning the ungodly that they shall neither have advantage by Heaven nor Hell Though they dig c. They that go about to cast away themselves are not in their way except they wander And that you may know how sinners straggle whithersoever they go mark what several interpretations the words do bear Hugo the
being caught up into the clouds to live with God for ever Their judgment is right that he was disarrayed of all malignant qualities sin and mortality which belong to the soul or body But I wonder they should call these by the name of death for it was no otherwise with Enoch than it shall be with all men and women whom Christ shall find upon earth at his second coming St. Paul says they shall not die but they shall be changed that changing is no death for change and death are membra dividentia in the Apostle and cannot be confounded Now I have brought you out of all incumbrances of wrong opinions to the clear truth Enoch was not How He ceased not absolutely to live but he ceased to live any longer in a corruptible Tabernacle he prevailed above the sentence which was pronounced against Adam by the Judge of quick and dead Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return Mortality came from disobedience against the Commandment neither is it possible for any mere man to attain to such a measure of obedience as to deserve immortality do not imagine this holy Saint was without sin so that death could claim no dominion over him St. Chrysostome who speaks much for Enoch how the Lord rewarded his integrity with incorruption says no more but that he received Gods Law not that he kept it inviolably ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God kept him alive that received the Commandment that received it willingly and with an earnest heart to keep it But how was that Statute dispensed with you will say it is appointed to men once to die and after that comes judgment Heb. ix 27. An easie dispensation will serve for that for it was no otherwise with this man than it shall be with all the earth at the last day when the Inhabitants of the world shall not be uncloathed of skin and bone but be changed into an incorruptible perfection in the twinkling of an eye But that you may not wonder at Enochs case as if justice had connived and forgot it self remember this rule in St. James There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy Jam. iv 12. Mark that there are Judges constituted under the Law and it is not in them to save life where the Letter of the Law condemns for the Law governs them and not they the Law but there is a regent and principal authority whose clemency is above the Law That speech of Senecaes is as trivial as any Proverb Occidere contra legem nemo non potest servare nemo praeter te Every Varlet can kill a Citizen against the Law none but the Supreme Magistrate can save a Citizen against the Law You see then by what rectitude of justice Enoch might be exempted from death albeit we were all sentenced to become dust and clay out of which we were made because God is the most supreme independent Judge of all the world and may mitigate the severity of his own decrees Why should not his mercy preserve where it will And if he will preserve who can destroy Is there any curse but he can turn it into a blessing Where the Lord pleaseth to sweeten a bitter cup Poverty shall not be grievous nor ignominy dishonourable nor sickness painful nor life mortal A thousand fell before this Patriarch and ten thousand at his right hand but he was impassible and did not die He was not for the Lord took him Because the Septuagint Translators concur with St. Paul in one reading it is due to my Text to let it be known how they have enlarged this concise phrase And he was not in their words is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He was not found And Clemens the Scholar of St. Peter and Paul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it was not found that he ever died He appeared not and yet the Lord killed him not so the Chaldee Paraphrase For as St. Jerom said figuratively of the sweet end that Nepotian made that he did Migrare non mori And St. Bernard as much of Hubertus that he did Abire non obire Those pious men might rather be said to have gone a journey out of the way than have died so very properly and without a Metaphor it was true of Enoch that he did not die but was retired out of the way where he could not be found It seems he was much sought for as certainly good men will quickly be missed Antigonum refodio as the honest mans saying was he would have scrap'd the just King Antigonus out of his Grave when he was departed Though Elias was manifestly taken away into heaven yet the Sons of the Prophets besought Elisha that fifty strong men might go seek him lest the Spirit of the Lord had cast him upon some Mountain or into some Valley I could not blame them to wish they might find him again So says one upon that inquisition was made for Elias Enochus cum raperetur fortasse diu inquisitus fuit It may be Enoch was much inquired for in many places after God had took him Selneccerus says that the Lord exalted him up into the clouds Coram totâ Ecclesiâ praecipuis Patriarchis a great Congregation of men and the chief Patriarchs looking upon it Bolducus the Capuchin more particularly yet both altogether uncertainly using their own divinations Tulit eum Deus in nube in quâ apparebat ministranti God took him away in a cloud wherein he appeared as Enoch ministred unto him in the time of Sacrifice If this were done before a throng of Witnesses they might think it no more than a rapture for a little time as Paul was taken up into the third heavens for a small space and afterward restored to the Church They might search and hope to enjoy him again but he was not found the more was their loss that they wanted him the more was his happiness that he was quite gone and wanted nothing But Luther is of opinion that he was retired alone to walk with God in Prayer and sweet Meditations and then the Lord lifted him away to the habitations of the blessed when none were privy to it Seth and all the other Fathers of the Church knew not what was become of him his Son Methasalem and his Family look'd for him with sad hearts as Joseph and Mary sought for Jesus sorrowing no doubt they suspected the malice of the Caiâites they thought he was slain like innocent Abel and privily buried Perhaps it was not revealed in a long time after what was become of him But as the Romans were highly discontented with the loss of Romulus their Founder and would not be satisfied till Proculus swore he saw him carried away into Heaven So when the Patriarchs had sate down sorrowing because they found not the very Gem of the Church the righteous man Enoch it made their gladness the greater when they knew the Lord had translated him alive into Paradise Now I proceed The benefit of it
Noah sent up clean Prayers to God with the Oblation of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl For while Zachary burnt Incense in the Temple the whole multitude were Praying without at the time of Incense Luk. i. 8. And Solomon gives us light what was done at Sacrifice he spread out his hands to heaven in Prayer and dedicated the fat of the Peace-offerings to the Lord. Nay more the Evening Sacrifice burnt all night upon the Altar and the Priests continued in the Temple till morning at Prayer You that by night stand in the house of the Lord lift up your hands in the Sanctuary and bless the Lord Psal cxxxiv. 2. I know not what company they had at the Prayers of the Sacrifice by night or day very little if their devotion were no greater than ours I read in the Ages upward what a thrust there was in their Churches at the daily service of Prayer which concourse is quite disused in our days and unless the office of Prayer be pieced out with a Sermon in all places you shall find a most contemptible paucity and yet we should know that in a Sermon God sacrificeth to us not we to him Let me be bolder with you they are scarce worthy to be called Prayers as they are most negligently handled The Priest reads I will not say how dreamingly sometimes the People gape about and have other business in their heads Some chop in at the latter end cannot spare leisure to all Some answer to one line and hold their peace at ten Some stand more upon their ease than to stand up or bow down when they should with reverend gesture What can there be in such Prayers as these to call them a sweet savour Our sins stink in the nostrils of God and are odious you confess that and miserable man have you no better than such careless shuffling Supplications to sweeten them They were Wisemen that took out Myrrh and Frankincense when they came to Christ Ad faetorem stabuli excludendum to correct the ill savour of the Stable where he lay but contrary to all reason when our heart is dung and our ways more filthy than Augias Stable we yawn out heedless heartless undevotioned Prayers to mend the matter O is it not to us that he speaks by the Prophet Amos v. 21. I despise your Feasts I will not smell in your holy Assemblies I will borrow a piece of a Sermon from St. Bernard to make up this Point Stand before the Lord chearfully reverently devoutly Non pigri non oscitantes non parcentes vocibus non praecidentes verba dimidia Be not drowsie let not your attention slip from you when God is praised leave not all the Prayers to the Priests care but every one make up his part do not mangle and chop Gods Service let your Spirits go with every word when you hear an Hymn or Psalmodie think of nothing else but that which is sung You are not allowed a good thought at that time if it be extravagant much less a worldly a malicious a wanton cogitation Pare away these superfluities that you may say My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise Thus far that the devotion of Noah was very Aromatical in the sweet savour of his Sacrifice Secondly the care that this Patriarch had for the instauration of Religion above all things is like Mary's sweet Ointment which she poured upon our Saviour it shall be spoken of so far as the Word is Preaced in all the world Bethink you as well you may when Noah put forth his head out of the Ark to tread upon the earth which could afford him nothing but room to walk upon with how many thoughts he was distracted What house to put his head in where to be provided of Food and Raiment where were all the necessaries and comforts of life to be had How should he rake up a New World out of the Ruines of the Old All these instances and more than these were thoughts to take up a wise man and yet he laid all these under his feet and built an Altar upon them to institute a true form of Divine Worship in the first place that all the World might follow it Why it is evident that his heart gave him in charge to look to Religion above all the necessaries of life and to forget all things even himself till he had remembred God Abraham was a Pilgrim and it is ever observed in this Book of Genesis or with little exception that he never removed to any new place but first he built an Altar to the Lord. At the first quiet Station which the Children of Israel had vvhen they came out of Egypt Moses sanctified the first-born to God David was no sooner confirmed a King but he brought the Ark into its resting place We stand before a great God that will not be served with the second or third part of our care The Jews were rebuked that built houses for themselves when they were returned from Captivity and let the House of the Lord lie waste Christ did reprove it that the young man that was called to follow him should put in another thing between First let me go and bury my Father Can you find out any first before God that is the first and the Last Piety and Sacred Offices are sweetly managed when you give them the flower of your care and the pre-eminence before all things The day will shine prosperously on you if you give the first hour after you rise from your bed to Prayer The whole Week is blessed because the first day is the Lords-day to call holy Assemblies together The Heathen Romans began the Laws of the twelve Tables with a sanction of Religion Deos castè adeunto In all Commerce Confederacies Treaties let the honour of God be the prime and Master respect And all other fine devices will prove but counterfeits of wit to such sacred Policy Another thing makes this repair and settlement of Religion precious and highly valued for the unity and conformity of all parties present at it It was the first solemnity performed to God after the Floud that the Company before they dispersed might agree in one outward form of Divine Worship I do not know whether such a complete consent of all persons in the Earth was ever seen before or since the days of Noah Therefore it must needs afford an excellent savour There was no Idolatry in the world no different ways no divisions I am for this and I am for that This little Flock was at unity in it self the old Patriarch his Sons and Daughters agreeing in one Prayer and in one Sacrifice O rare and heavenly One Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts in the tongues of all the Angels is the most Angelical part of the Angels Ministry That is in heaven but the sacred Concord that I preach of was on earth An obedience running all one way no separations no
Carkasses of our Fore-fathers rotten long ago in their Graves But Noahs charity was wider than one Country saving that the whole world was but one Country at that time and he included all Ages to come in the intention of his Burnt-offering and Prayers So Patrial so publick so universal are the endeavours and supplications of all good men I will cite you a piece of a Prayer out of St. Ambrose Vouchsafe to hear me O Lord for the tribulations of all people for the groanings of them that are in Captivity the miseries of Widows and Orphans the relief of Strangers the languor of the Sick the impotency of the Aged for the distractions of every troubled Conscience for the Woes of all that are desolate and that the whole World may be in peace and safety the very Cream of our own Litany This is a full song of all parts whose loud volley must needs pierce the Heavens He that prays for the thousand thousands of all that are in distress will be heard as if he prayed with ten thousand voices Noahs Sacrifice was an intercession for all mankind and it was sweet as Christ died for the sins of the whole World to whose example St. Paul bids us frame our charity Walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and given himself for an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Eph. v. 2. Which brings in the last grain of Incense in this sweet savour God looked on his own Son appointed to be slain on the Cross it was Noahs Faith in that Sacrifice which found such gracious favour more precious than all the Powders of Arabia God will be pleased with righteous men such as this Patriarch was though in many things they sin he could not but be well pleased in Christ because in all things he was obedient Which well-pleasing in him redounds to all that are his true members Who are an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. ii 5. Let us put our Prayers our Thanksgiving our Repentance our Alms our Sufferings in his hand or they will never be well taken The Intercession of Christ should be continually in our remembrance He is the Angel Rev. viii 3. with the golden Censor to whom much Incense was given that he should offer it with the Prayers of all the Saints upon the Golden Altar which was before the Throne For take us in our selves without him and we are noysom ulcerous Swine wallowing in the mire but we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ 2 Cor. ii 15. They that verse continually with or near to carrion smells lose their sent and never stop their nose at them So the fetor of our sins is not so well discerned as it should be because we carry their contagion always about us The implacable Spirit thinks that revenge is sweet he that lives by wrong and robbery says Stoln waters are sweet It was the ancient word of the covetous Dulcis odor lucri ex re quâlibet any thing is sweet that brings in gain the Wanton doats of his unlawful pleasure and is so far from perceiving it to be obscene that he is catcht with the Harlots enticement Prov. vii 17. I have perfumed my bed with Myrrh Aloes and Cinnamon Alas these are the savour of death unto death and in St. Pauls Phrase they offer up the Sacrifice of Devils But put the trial upon our good actions good according to the perfection of parts though not of degrees all is unprofitable all short of Legal exactness and of Evangelical too unless our Father will say to us for Christs sake Well done good servant thou hast been faithful in a little The comfort which old Isaac took in the fragrancy of his Sons Rayment may be better applied to the sweet savour which is never separable from our gracious Redeemer The smell of my Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed Gen. xxvii 27. The great zeal of some and no mean ones to prove that every thing without Faith is fulsom and odious and that nothing is sweet but that which is washed in the bloud of Christ hath made them raise a report upon the incredulous Jews how true I know not but not easily laid that a corrupt rankness steams from their bodies ever since they crucified our Saviour Marcus the Emperour and Ammianus Marcell and other Heathen called them of old faetentes Judaeos nasty smelling Jews The Christian reporters add when any of them are converted and baptized that loathsom smell is never more perceived in them This record likewise is of good antiquity in Baronius That under Lucas Bishop of Constantinople a Synod was held in Trullo to which the Hagarens were summoned and warned to receive Baptism they and their Children They answered their Children were baptized What says the Bishop in the name of Christ No. Why then are they baptized The Hagarens reply that their children till they received that Sacrament were vexed with Devils and stunk worse than Dogs For my part I lend no ear to these relations because they of the Roman Profession that make them report no better of us Protestants than they do of the Jews One of them thought to discredit the Reformed Religion with this tale That the next day after Luther was laid in his Grave some came near to it and his body not to be found but such a pestilent evaporation of stink as offended all that were present All this while Luther was alive received this lying Pamphlet and read it and gave it such an answer as a slanderous Libel deserved I doubt not but the Lord smelt a sweet savour in that zealous Servant of his because he put his trust in Christ and believed that in the mercy of the most highest he should not miscarry And a better savour was in him I may resolutely say than in those his Adversaries who think they find much Nard and Cassia in the Condignity of their own merits By Faith Abel offered up a more excellent Sacrifice than Cain By Faith Noah being warned Heb. xi 7. prepared the Ark and became heir of the righteousness which is by Faith By Faith we must offer up our selves holy unblameable living Sacrifices that we which know Christ now by Faith may see him hereafter in perfect Glory AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON LOT'S WIFE GEN. xix 26. But his Wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt SInce the least sin that ever was committed deserves eternal punishment I am sure any sin that ever was done deserves an hours reprehension especially one of so great magnitude as this of Lots Wife He that will judg himself and take a strict account of his faults let him look this way to my Text and observe with me how many ways this woman transgressed through so small a motion as to turn about He that will examin his repentance and his vivification as well
of his people You shall rather find Achan distracted in sorrow between the heaviness of his sins and the death of his children It was much that a Mother in the Maccabees could exhort seven Sons one after another to despise King Antiochus and to suffer death for the name of the Lord. It is much that Prudentius reports of a woman that carried her infant in her own arms to Martyrdom Nec tantum osculum impressit unum vale inquit ô dulcissime Nature can hardly stoop to part with those children unto God in a good cause but to lose a Son in the anger of God in the guiltiness of a trespass O my son Absolon c. then we are afraid least they be lost for ever Give me Children says Rachel or else I die and alas she was but a dead woman in the birth of Benjamin Elisha strived to be thankful to his good Hostess the Shunamite he would do any courtesie for her O says Gehazi give her children before any thing and then you please her The greatest cruelty that moved St. Ambrose against the Emperour Theodosius for the Massacre committed at Thessalonica was on this wise A Father came to redeem two Sons taken captive and appointed to be slain He was allowed but the life of one for his money take which he would His kind heart equally earning after both could not say this rather than him the elder before the younger and for want of speedy resolution both were made away before his face This says Sozomen cost the poor Father his wits for ever to think he might have saved one Son and did not No colours could paint the face of Agamemnon where his Daughter was to be offered for a Sacrifice Par nulla figura dolori As it was said to Tully when Antony perswaded him to burn his invective Orations Commentus est Antonius eripere quemadmodum vixeras Fie said his friends unto him die rather for Antony would strip you of that glory which will give you life for ever So all the Pedigree of Achan being erased out Eripuit Dominus quemadmodum viveret God took that from him wherein he might hope to survive this was not only to put out the right eye of the men of Jabesh Gilead but for a Jew to die without succession Christ being theirs after the flesh is to go down with sorrow to the grave where all things are forgotten Whatsoever else is tumbled into the fire before Achans face it was but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it moved not his eyes to pity nor his ears to the cries of lamentation As his body was burnt wherein a soul so covetous did inhabit so his Tent was consumed with fire the habitation of so vile a body that Tent under which he was wont to sleep is cast over him the last time at his death where he must sleep for ever And as if every man were afraid to inherit Aurum Tolosanum his unlucky Gold it is made away for company Et pallium quod debuit cremari crematum est the Babylonish Garment which was appointed to be burnt in Jericho is now fired about his ears in the Valley of Achor Lastly The Cattel that should have laid down their lives honourably before the Altar under the Priests hand for a trespass offering even those innocent beasts are not suffered to live how many yellings were about his ears to resemble the very horrors of hell where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth A good man says Solomon is merciful to his beast as if the beasts fared the better for a good mans sake And jure Dominii the Lordship of man doth extend so far upon the Creatures that they are consortes paenae partakers of the punishment of evil men The Cattle of Egypt were slain with hail stones for the Egyptians Idolatry the beasts of Nineveh fasted for the Ninevites Luxury nay says the Prophet Jeremy the Herbs of the field wither and the Birds of the Air are consumed for the wickedness of them that dwell in the Land Dearly beloved the beasts are but Figures of God fierce indignation they are our brutish sins our cruelties more unnatural than the rage of beasts which God aims at it was not worth the praise to Achan that the beasts perished in his iniquity they will and must die with us Quicquid antea debebam nolle nunc non possum The only Sacrifice which God requires is to have them die before us And so I have done with every thing that partaked in the punishment of Achan I must now commit my self to a Problem of great perplexity how it stands with the righteousness of God that every man should not perish alone in proprio peccato in his own iniquity I am no Advocate against Gods Justice but against the ignorance of man Phaedon speaks thus to Socrates in Plato I pray you are you not displeased with these unrighteous Judges that have condemned you O not I says Socrates and if I were I would refer the case until I were dead and then meet Ajax and Palamedes ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and would ask them how they could endure a wrongful judgment and so put up my injury A reverend opinion of a Heathen concerning the judgment of sinners how contented would this man have stood before any sentence of Gods Tribunal But to the purpose this shall be my method to follow the cause in hand First That it is self love to our own person which perswades us other men sin and we pay the ransom Secondly Heathen men and not Christians did first fill the world with that opinion Thirdly That the melancholy distinctions of some School Divines have abused the truth But lastly our Conclusion shall be that the hair of an innocent never fell to the earth but that every man dies propter peccatum suum for his own iniquity For the first Nature as it is good and perfect taught us to love our selves fond and corrupt nature taught us to love our selves too much Out of this vanity those excuses spring up which make us absolve our selves and bind others Let us tell our own tale and we will say our Fathers eat the sowre grape when we may be discovered with the bunches in our own hands Rather than confess our own complection we will bely the Heavens and say the Sun hath scorched us Delicta majorum immeritus lues Romane To pluck in immeritus no desert of ours we will lay the Child at their door that never begot it The very Pharisees thought themselves so holy and our Saviour so bad that for no fault of theirs but for his blasphemies the Romans would come and carry away their Nation Wherefore says Socrates it were well with some men instead of travelling Si a seipsis aberrarent if they could wander from themselves No man says Plutarch doth know his own blemishes because he doth always carry himself about A Painter brings his work to good perfection when he leaves it for a time
an Ordinance but the Laws of the Lord are pure and just like Silver purged seven times in the fire without dross or corruption yet Jonadab is obeyed and God despised 2. Where was Jonadab now composed in the Grave of silence dust to dust the end of all men The Lord liveth for ever and there is no end of his dayes Yet Jonadab preacheth being buried and the words of the Lord are like a Dream which he that waketh hath forgotten 3. Jonadab was austere and his yoke exceeding heavy to dwell in no Houses but Shades and Tents not to till the ground the happiness of Cain above his younger Brother To live in poverty in Canaan where it was easie for all to be rich but Israel that I may not run into many particulars had but ten Commandments to keep and ten thousand Blessings for their Guerdon Et merces ab eo qui jubere potest vim necessitatis affert sayes Tacitus the days work may be well done when the Bondman is made an hired Servant Yet Jonadab finds duty in his Children and God finds rebellion in Israel Lastly was there any thing to give advantage to the Rechabites in the way of godliness more than Israel had did they want the snare of a delicious Table to make them wanton read what a Banquet Jeremy spread before them in the former verses But they said c. St. Austin says of the Syrophaenecian Woman who was both hardly spoken of by out Saviour at first and anon commended highly before her face quae contumeliam maximam sine dolore pertulit etiam laudationem perferret sine superbiâ she that took not her reproach in scorn would not wax arrogant upon her commendation so these Rechabites who lived with good content in a life full of neglect may the better endure to have their good deeds scanned without fear of begetting ostentation And therefore I will branch out my Text into these four parts in every of which they will justly deserve our praise and in some our imitation First when the Prophet Jeremy did try them with this tentation whether they would feast it and drink wine they make him a resolute denial a Prophet could draw them to no inconvenient act nolumus we will not 2. Very dutiful and religious was their obedience to the Orders of their Father Jonadab ask them if they will rebel and transgress no for obedience sake nolumus we will not do it 3. Junquets and banquetting were provided for them but they had weaned their Bodies from the Paps of luxury and thus says Temperance nolumus we will drink no wine 4. Here is stedfastness in their Vow made unto God For this is more than a frugal Diet it is the Vow of Sobriety nolumus in aeternum say the last words of this verse We have said for ever c. Some are good men of themselves but easily drawn aside by allurements such are not the Rechabites Some will lead well but they cannot follow good Masters but bad Servants all for freedom and nothing for obedience So are not the Rechabites Some are sober in their Diet but will not endure the Laws to interdict meats for a season and enjoyn Fasts and Abstinence such were not the Rechabites Some will protest unto God and oblige themselves to many performances which are instantly dissolved into wind and air such were not the Rechabites Resist Enticements love Obedience follow Temperance promise unto God and perform your Vows These are the praises of the Rechabites these are the four Distributions of my Text and of these in order I begin with Nolumus Jeremy hath no answer but they will not It is a hard case in earnest and the World will never run otherwise a Prophet must be acquainted with nolumus and look to be denied Do you speak for God and for his Altar Practise patience with that old Philosopher that solemnly begged alms among the Statues and Images in Athens and thus he tried how to bear with hard fortune when living men should refuse him Nolumus we will not Is this all the account may some man say of a Prophets words Our Saviour might excuse the Woman of Samaria a weak Vessel like the Pitcher wherewith she drew her water Hadst thou known who it is that asked of thee then thou wouldest have granted it but the Rechabites could not plead ignorance that they knew not Jeremy who was set up for a Sign against Judah and Benjamin Again our Saviour did commend St. Peters judgment that there might be many worse men than the churlish Son that said He would not to his Father yet he turned his mind and did as he would have him But with these men non is as much as nunquam they will never do it repentance is hid from their eyes Resolve we therefore that this is such a request where the Petitioner sued for nolumus and to be said nay is the fairest courtesie For that which Jeremy propounded it was not petitio beneficii but probatio fidei So Christ asked Philip for bread to feed the Multitude in Philippo non desideravit panem sed fidem he did it to prove his faith This is the Doctrin Let not thy Soul consent to be enticed unto folly When Syrens and Allurers come with honey in their mouths be you as wise as they were that had wax in their ears Like a sure Musician maintain your part and though some be out of tune be not carried away with their discords to offend against good harmony Vt rupes immota c. says the Poet let a wave dash against you and a billow break it self in twain and fome but for thy part give no ground unto the Tempter Jeremy nor any man alive must look to obtein more than the Servants of Naaman thought fit to be granted si magnum if the Prophet ask a great thing it must be done for the Prophets sake si malum if it be an unlawful thing si per amicitiam patris atque suam the highest Power upon earth hath not power to command it O what an excellent Court did King Saul keep not one of his Servants no not one about him would slay the Priests of God for the Kings Command Turn and slay the Priests of God says Saul unto his Guard 1 Sam. xxii they durst not do it those mighty men of volour durst not draw a sword in a bad Cause because they feared the Lord. Then Doeg is called for from among the Beasts a Herdsman more brutish than the Flocks he kept and he slew that day 85 persons that did wear a Linnen Ephod Such another was that Tribune of the Roman Army that had rather worship Idols with Gallienus the Emperor than serve the true God with Fructuosus the Martyr Jussum est Caesaris ore Gallieni quod princeps colit haec colamus omnes But Amram the Father of Moses is recounted among St. Pauls Saints Heb. 11. because he hid the Child three months and would
non in domo sed in viâ nascitur Our Saviour himself was born but in an Inn as if he took up his lodging for a night in this world and were but a Passenger They that were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sine aris focisque without an hearth to kindle a fire says Aristotle of all men they were the most poor and wretched That is no good Divinity says St. Austin writing concerning the tears of Judah by the waters of Babylon Mirum hoc esset si aliquò duci poterant ubi Deus eorum non esset If they that were hurried into Babylon could be carried away where God was not with them then and not till then their translation were a misery But as the Israelites removed from one journey to another according as the Pillar of smoke did remove by day and the Pillar of fire by night so I tell you of such men in my Text that turned their station every where as Gods Glory and his Worship did direct them Whether it be affliction or whether it be fear to give offence when we are in a strange Land sure I am somewhat is in it that makes such men most careful of their Religious Conversation Deborah found the Kenites those sojourners most ready to pursue that Tyrant Sisera Jehu could find no man to cleave unto him against the Idolatry of Baal but even this Jonadab the Founder of this order of the Rechabites who renounce all Mansion dwelling and vow for ever to live in Tents And as Abigail said to David Let thine Handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the Servants of my Lord the King So Jonadab puts his Children in a way to think themselves not worthy of Cities and Possessions among the Royal Nation whom God had chosen but Shepherds they must be and underlings to tend the Flocks of the Servants of the Lord. Foelix illud saeculum fuit ante architectonas says one Fair buildings and curious houses had they been unreared the Kitchins had not been plied so much to provide Banqueting and Luxury It was a scoff cast upon the Rhodians that they built as if they would live three Ages and they fed as if they would die in three days As if their fair Palaces moved them to make Feasts and their Feasts were occasions to make them surfeit and to sleep out their days in a Lethargy You shall not wag your heads another day at these mens Tenements and cry woe unto the houses that were built by Extortion The stone out of the Wall and the Beam of the Roof cannot condemn the Master You shall not censure them as Seneca did his own Country-men the Romans Vnicuique suum si restituerent ad casas reducerentur If every Nation whom they have robb'd and spoiled had their own they would have nothing left them but that which they began with their Shepherds Cottages And when you have erected such a place that you may set your name upon it says the Psalmist yet what have you done but pay'd Tribute where ye needed not says Plutarch Quare homines in auratis lectis dormiant c. Why should men put themselves to such cost to pay for their sleep when if they will chuse the open fields with Vriah or chuse a Tent with the Rechabites it will cost them little or nothing Nay some are so curious that they will not only have their houses for their lives but set up Tombs for their dead Carkasses before they die Nay they dare endite Hic jacet upon their Monument when they are yet alive when God knows whether their dust shall be scattered into all the quarters of the earth This that hath been spoken may serve to let you know how plausible it did seem to Jonadab to institute such a Vow because his Brethren were strangers in the Land of Jury And secondly it was well considered because their fortune might turn worse and worse they might be greater strangers For who is he that had not heard the threatning of the Babylonish Captivity Nay There are Psalms of Thanksgiving for their joyful return in the Prophet David Did not Solomons heart misgive him in this matter Observe but one passage in his heavenly Prayer at the Dedication of the Temple 1 Kings ix 46. If they carry us away captive into the Land of the enemies far or near and thy people repent then hear our supplication in heaven and maintain our cause The time drew so near that Jeremy and many Prophets spoke of it as if the Calamity were already begun in the borders of the Country Now when Captivity did ring in their ears who would only live as if one day would be every day and never provide for the Evening sorrow which might fall upon them Who would not exercise his mind to know what it was to lose Who would not cast away his burden against the flight of persecution So did the Rechabites For when the Chaldaeans should sweep away the people as an Ox licketh the grass they were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã one Wain could carry them their Tent and their Family Tectumque laremque armaque it was but a progress to pass over Euphrates but great was the sorrow of all the Tribes leaving their Houses and Vineyards it made Jeremy endite a book of Lamentation Noah left all he had unto the world seven days before the Floud began and what got they who thought him foolish and themselves happy to divide the spoils Lot forsook his house and the Sodomites did not enjoy it an hour who succeeded him A good Christian is indifferent to be cast into any mould by the hand of God He that is prepared to die but one kind of death is not yet fit to be a Martyr And he that is prepared to live but one kind of life is not yet fit to be a Confessor for the name of Christ A good Actor says Synesius can represent either Creon or Telephus and all is one in his skil to play the Prince or the Bondslave Hence ariseth all the misery of mankind says Athenagoras in Plutarch Quod quippiam nobis inexpectato accidit That something befals us which we did not expect nor were provided for it Foolish men who love nothing but their present life are like bad roots that grow sullen if you remove them from the earth that feeds them There is no life to Shemei if he may not run at random and rail and backbite in every corner As good it were to hang him out of the way as to confine him to one City though it were Jerusalem Such as can look no further into the world than that they may retire to their own home if need be are comprized under the Emblem of the Snail that goes a very little space from her Shell with this word Si pluit ingrediar a dash of rain drives them back again Your constant setled man is made for every fortune that is cast upon him his Emblem is Corpus quadratum
which hath five barley loaves and two fishes that he did belong to him and his fellow Disciples 't is neither in the Book nor in the nearest likelihood Baronius says that it is descended by Tradition that this Lad was St. Martialis who became an holy Martyr and was Bishop of Limoges in France Whosoever the party was if it be yielded as no man can refuse it that these Viands were his own how came they into Christs hands without bargain and sale for ought we read When Offertories were frequent in the Church every Sunday a voluntary oblation presented to the Lord by all that could give then the answer to this scruple was quickly understood If this were St. Martialis piety revealed it self in him in his tender years for I may safely say he surrendred these things up unto Christ as a willing Offertory as soon as he knew that our Lord did ask for them No offices of Religion will vanish away insensibly so soon as those that be chargeable For can any man tell how free Oblations are quite laid down and disused among us unless it be at some Solemn Festivities and Magnificent Funerals no reason but that two much thrift hath marr'd our thankfulness Abel and Noah and Abraham did not forget it in those Sacrifices which they offered up unto the Lord ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Law of nature egg'd them on gratitude provokt them say the Clementine Constitutions to which I can give no less than the antiquity of the fourth Century The Israelites beside their Tithes and First-fruits and other Ceremonies to which they were taskt were left to their own discretion for the Choice Vow and the Freewill Offering and they perform'd it sumptuously knowing that it was a glory due to the name of the Lord to bring an offering into his House of their own accord Psal xcvi 8. The lights that shined in this piety under the Gospel was the poor Widow that cast her two Mites freely into the Corbân Mary Magdalen that poured a Box of Spicknard upon Christs head of great estimation beside the Wise men of the East that cast their Gold and Myrrh before his Cradle and Nichodemus that dedicated his hundred pound weight of Aloes and Spices to his dead Body in the Sepulchre It were ostentation of reading to point to free Oblations out of Antiquity for there was no Age or Church without them Happy was he whose life was accounted so unreprovable that the Bishop would suffer him to bring a Gift to the Altar Sycophants Drunkards Whoremongers unjust Judges all scandalous persons were turned back disgracefully with their Oblation in their hand and it would not be taken ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã but such as possessed any substance by lawful increase they did voluntarily bring a Portion to the Lord to acknowledg their Tenure that they held all from him and their debt that they owed all unto him And this is pressed unto you by putting the case if Jesus took the loaves by free donation But what shall we say if he commanded them before they were offered to him Bring them hither to me so he speaks in St. Matthew By what Title did he require them be brought unto him or by what authority did he take them if another had the right possession even by that authority wherein he was invested in the dominion of all earthly things by that Prerogative whereby he sent for the Ass and the Colt when he rid into Jerusalem Bring them unto me and if any man say ought unto you ye shall say the Lord hath need of them and straight way he will send them By that propriety which he had in the Gadarens Swine by that right which he had in the Figtree which he cursed manifest signs that he did dispose of all things as he pleased without asking leave of the owners Belike say some Papalines there was a temporal Soveraignty in our Saviour over all things here beneath and this did rest upon St. Peter after him and is now immanent in St. Peters Successors all the Kingdoms of this World are theirs nec Constantinus dedit quickquam Sylvestro in strict justice Constantine gave nothing to Pope Sylvester for he was Lord of all before a poor plea for so proud a purchase And surely Pilat was more just in this point than those flattering Canonists The Jews exclaimed against our Saviour that he made himself a King Pilat could find no such fault in him but pronounced him innocent And well he might for all things were given unto him by the Father yet not by ruling all things like a King in his Kingdom but by uniting the humane nature to the Godhead and that ye doubt it not but that he had power over all Creatures as he was Man by the influence of that hypostatical union he had a name written on his thigh King of Kings and Lord of Lords Revel xix 16. super femur mark that upon his thigh that is upon his humane nature Now what should I call this Dominion of Christs whereby he was made Heir of all things Heb. i. 2. Surely it surpasseth all description and it hath no name But I am sure he held it not after a Regal way as David and Solomon were Kings in Israel It was transcendent above humane Majesty commanding Men and Angels Heaven and Earth Quick and Dead things sensible and insensible yet withall he was most subject to Rulers paying Tribute to Cesar and refusing to divide a small Inheritance between them that were contentious A mystical Kingdom and not to be exprest ruling over all and yet most obedient to Magistrates commanding every thing under Heaven and yet ministring to his Servants seized of no Inheritance yet having right in every Inheritance quod de suo non habuit sumpsit de alieno says St. Austin of these Loavs he had not bread of his own but that which another had became his own there was a justice paramount wherein no mortal Creature succeeds him which gave him interest in all things Therefore without offence or injury to the owner he took the Loaves But if he had them from his Disciples amicorum omnia communia then he might usurp them without any litigious brabble moved against his power and that the possession was theirs may be as true as the contrary the truth inclines rather to that side as I conceive because our Saviour said unto them date vos illis give ye them to eat and they and none else took away the twelve Baskets of that which remained And was this the purveyance which they had made against hunger five barley loaves and two fishes little enough and coarse enough God knows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says St. Chrysostom this was the Phylosophy and austere temperance of the Disciples they abhorred luxury and superfluity Yet do you miss nothing to make up the Meal where was their drink the fish is called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by our Evangelist
Church 3. That such as were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus should be called Christians I could acquiesce in this conjecture if it ascended higher that the Synod Apostolical confirmed it because it came from God I confess I have neither read nor heard that either Christ did leave the Tradition that it should be so with some of his Disciples or that an Angel proclaimed out of the clouds from Heaven or that it was imparted either by dream or revelation sent to any of the Prophets but since no man can challenge that he was the Founder of it I think it surpâsseth mortal Authority and therefore I leave the original of it to God It was only in the right of the Father in those times to give a name to his Child Zachary the Priest when he could not speak called for Writing-tables to give the name to John the Baptist and Christ himself having no Father on earth his Father gave him a name from Heaven Then why should not the Father of all that is called Father give that universal Name which belongs to his Children whom he hath regenerated by the Holy Ghost Put the Prophet Isaiah's authority to this reason and who can gainsay it Isa lxii 2. his scope is to extol Sion or the Church Evangelical says he The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all Kings thy glory and thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name It were endless to rehearse how many Authors apply this to the Nomenclature of Christian And again Isa xliii 1. I have redeemed thee certainly that 's the voice of Christ I have called thee by my name thou art mine Who will doubt now but that I have reduced our Title to the true original Our Godfather is the Lord above Let me reduce it likewise to the exact time when it began it will be no lost labour This is granted at all hands it did not happen so soon as ever Christ ascended up we were not crowned in our Cradle Pamelius takes advantage at a place in Tertullian to hold that the word Christian began to spread abroad in the fifth year after our Saviours Ascension that is in the very latter end of the Reign of Tiberius but I had rather say that his Author Tertullian mentions it too early for this will quite confound the History of the Scripture The Centurion Cornelius was not converted till two years of that there must be a competent space of time for those tidings to come to Antioch and for the work of the Ministry after that to gain a great number of the Gentiles for Barnabas to be sent for to undertake for a better increase it follows after all this the most successful St. Paul was brought thither and he and Barnabas assembled themselves a whole year with the Church this is plain in the Context before and then the Disciples were first called Christians in Antioch I like not Pamelius his supputation then he is too forward Genebrard in his Chronology runs as much backward and allows sixteen years to be run out since the death of our Lord before the faithful had the honor to get this memorable Title he takes his aim at the Synod which Turrian speaks of that the Apostles could be assembled no sooner in a sacred Council at Antioch whereas Turrian claims no more for his Synod but that the Apostles established that which was illustrious long before during the pains that Paul and Barnabas did spend at Antioch Therefore I suppose that the most judicious Baronius is but a little under or over that it fell out in the tenth year after the Ascension the Believers at Antioch being Decimae Domini the Tyth of the Lord those that were gained to the Faith in the tenth year being a selected Portion and a peculiar Benediction fell upon them Yet I am content to let that pass rather than you should think that there is some necessary efficacy in the number I look more sted fastly upon another great occurrency in those days which made this tenth year the fulness of time and the Disciples so ripe to receive this name that it could not well be deferred any longer For when the Gentiles were made partakers of the common salvation as well as the Jews who had been strangers together so many Ages before there was still a distance between them or at least no perfect conjunction and it grew an hard Task to piece them because the Jews either out of weakness did still affect the Ceremonies of Moses or having been so long familiar with them did desire to dismiss them reverently at their parting but the Gentiles loved all inoffensive liberty which was not contrary to nature and chiefly could not endure to refrain from meats which in themselves were lawful This quarrel was not decided till the Apostles at a full Council took a course with it in the fifteenth chapter of this Book Nay Clemens in the 7. lib. Const c. 48. says That they of the Circumcision had one Bishop over them to wit Evodius in this very City of Antioch they of the Uncircumcision in the same place at the same time another Bishop over them Ignatius this is his report though Ignatius himself say no such matter but gives the preeminence to Evodius alone next after the Apostles some variance and unkindness there was that 's certain and the first means to unite both sides in a perfect peace was that the one should not have this name and the other that name but to denominate them all from our Saviour and to call them Christians Quis nominum reatus quae accusatio vocabulorum says Tertullian names are guilty of no crime you cannot accuse them of any harm With the pardon of that Holy Father it is far otherwise for it is never seen but that men are stiff in opposition and almost irreconcilable when they please themselves to be distinguished from others by the names of those Doctors whose opinions they cleave unto If it once grow to a difference of Titles that which was but friendly disquisition of argument at first it turns to Emulation Emulations improve to be Factions and Factions that would soon have broke up like a mist many Ages cannot dissolve them If you know any that have mens persons in admiration and love to be denominated from them as the Captains of the Lords Host they are no better than Felons in Divinity that have set fire on the Becons to put all in tumult and combustion whereas except themselves there are no Enemies in arms within the Church of God That impartiality and indifferency to truth which this happy Church of England hath maintained not turning the Scale either this way or that way for Luther or Calvin's sake or whomsoever else it hath given us the advantage to be most comely in Discipline most retentive of good antiquity most certain of fundamental truth and of all Churches in the World to have least disagreement
language Vt ex politica dignitate auctior illustrior que fieret Ecclesiastica that the Ecclesiastical Dignity may become more ample and illustrious in the right of the Political Well to end all Antioch had once the day renowned for Orthodox Believers for constant Martyrs for innumerous Disciples she conteined 366 Parish Churches says Volateranus now her material buildings are for the most part eraced down her spiruual building quite vanished and her streets are possessed with Mahumetans You see that the Church is a removing Tabernacle rolling about from Sea to Sea from Land to Land That Truth which shall never fail upon Earth may fail in any particular Kingdom The Antiochians that were the first Christians are become the last God knows how the mystery of his vocation will work that the last shall be first Be not high-minded but fear that fearing we may work with diligence and believe with stedfastness and suffer with patience that we may be partakers of the first Resurrection in newness of life and of the second Resurrection in the glorification of Soul and Body AMEN A Commencement Sermon AT CAMBRIDGE ACTS xii 23. And immediately the Angel of the Lord smote him because he gave not God the glory and he was eaten of worms and gave up the Ghost IF the Caesarea was so attentive to hear King Herods Eloquence and how he did exalt himself above God What is your alacrity may I presume Dearly Beloved to give ear to this story and to Gods vengeance how he did exalt himself above Herod It might be suspected that Caesarea the Region which was called by the name of Caesar would be chiefly for the honour of the King but now we are in the house of the Lord and in his Temple doth every man speak of his honour says the Prophet David St. Luke hath occasioned the mention of two Angels in this Chapter and they are both strikers The first Angel is in the seventh verse that smote St. Peter on the side and rouzed him up from sleep I wish that a good Spirit sent from God may now stir up your attentions The second Angel is in my Text that smote King Herod in the inward bowels and believe it such as was the sin of Herod a presumptuous speaker such is the sin of every carless and unprofitable hearer that serves the vanity of his own imaginations in this holy place and gives not God the glory Is the Lord asleep think you because ye are drowzie Are not his Angels heedful of their charge because your thoughts are wandring Are you sure to come often to Church hereafter if you leave your affections at home to day Nay but though the present business be confined to an hour so is not the vengeance of the Lord for immediately the Angel smote him because he gave not God the glory Every religious exercise should be too long by a Preface I come therefore to set the Text in order that I may proceed to the explication of the parts and they are two First That Herod would not glorifie God indeed that is the bitter root out of which grew all these worms he gave not God the glory Secondly That God was glorified in Herod he was smitten of an Angel eaten of Vermine and gave up the Ghost Herod says St. Chrysostom gave not God the glory two ways 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his mouth spake proud things before the people 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he suffered the people to speak proud things as if he were equal with God and did not rebuke them Wherefore God was glorified in Herod four ways 1. That tantus periit the Ruler the Prince of the people he was smitten 2. A tanto periit no less than a mighty Angel smote him 3. Tantus tam repentè immediately he was smitten 4. Tantus tam luctuosè he was eaten of worms and gave up the Ghost Did not the Lord shew great glory in plucking down the mighty He was smitten Is not his arm exalted when the Angels are his Ministers An Angel smote him Shall not his wrath be terrible when it consumes in the twinkling of an eye Immediately he was smitten Lastly How weak is man in his sight even as a bulrush in the field All the beasts are his Army and the vilest creatures if he send them forth are strong as Lions the Worms did eat up this Galilaean and he gave up the Ghost As the man said in the Gospel Mat. xvii That his child fell often into the water and often into the fire two merciless Elements and very dangerous So Herod in the first part of the Text fell in aquas tumoris into the swelling waters of pride and in the second part in ignem terroris into the fire of vengeance and castigation The offence is to be offered to the first consideration he gave not God the glory There is a satiety of all things and to exceed a just proportion even in that which is good it is blameful and vicious too much justice is rigour too much temperance is diseaseful too much love is troublesome But to give God the glory it is a duty unto which we are bound with an infinite devotion if it were possible even as He is infinite so that we cannot fill up the measure much less are we able to exceed it Wherefore if God gave Children by seventies as he did to Ahab he asked but the first born who was consecrated to his service every hour of time that we live is his benevolence yet the Law is our remembrancer only to keep the Sabbath day the Earth is the Lords and all that therein is and yet his portion is but the tenth of the field but of his glory he hath parted no stakes to the Sons of men it is his own entirely non dabo never ask him for a share he will not part with it As his Ark did never thrive at Ashdod nor at Ekron but only when it was returned to Israel so let not the strength of the mighty nor the wisdom of the prudent be magnified glory will never thrive but when it is returned to the God of Israel and Dagon shall fall down before the Ark of his Majesty Themistocles demanding Tribute of the men of Andria told them that he had brought two powerful Advocates to plead his cause Suadam Vim Perswasion if they pleased Violence if they refused The self-same two Apparitors go before the glory of the most high Exhortation and Confusion Doth it like you to bless his name So God is glorified by the devotion of his Creature Doth it like you to exalt your self with Ero similis altissimo Then you shall be brought down and he will be honoured in your confusion He that swells to the greatest in this world shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven Et fortasse ideo non erit in regno coelorum ubi nisi magni esse non possunt says St Austin
to honour you but you must not say so to honour your selves no nor suffer your hangers-on to say so for you I will shut up this point with Rupertus his Meditation what an easie thing it is to dazzle the eyes of men with outward appearances If there were says he such a shout given to Herod being clad in a Royal Robe what applause will be given to Antichrist being clad in Gold and Silver and shining with Miracles We know the applause too well we hear what Titles the Romanists have given to their mighty Prelate whose height is sixty cubits above the Church and his breadth six cubits broader than the Kings that are under him Our ears tingle at the Acclamations What is it to say the Pope cannot erre Is not that the voice of God and not of Man What is it to say his power to forgive sins is more than instrumental Is not that the voice of God and not of Man What is it to say that his Excommunication can dethrone the Lords Anointed Is not that the voice of God and not of Man who said Eritis sicut Dii you shall be like unto Gods the Devil do ye think Gen. iii. Well guest but it is a Canonist that saluteth John the XXII as the Devil did Adam and Eve Our Lord God the Pope as you may find in the Extravagancies I will not name him the man is known whose Essay in the Popes defence is very famous that he desired to be at Rome to see him who is said to exalt himself above God cast down in confession at the feet of a poor Penitentiary very good I have seen Wrestlers crouch to the ground that they might throw their adversaries beneath them and get the glory so this great Colossus coucheth himself at the feet of his Confessor that he may trip up all the World and make them Vassals to Confession So much may be said of their Pride which the whole World begins to hiss at that without violence done to charity we may rightly suspect their humility Awake for shame and remember how lowly he was that St. Peter whom you glory to be the top of your Succession Brethren he that will be more than a Man may not we suspect him to be St. Johns Beast He that will be more than a sinful Man may we not justly tax him to be the Man of Sin And so I pass from the first general part how Herod gave not God the glory and come to shew you how God did get himself glory out of Herod Immediately the Angel c. He was smitten I told you that was the first Emphasis of the four For since Herod would be as great as God I will give him precedency so far that his Destruction shall be handled first and then the Vengeance of the Angel He was smitten Aliud est facere quod lex jubet aliud pati quod lex jubet says St. Austin The obedience of the Law was violated but the castigation of the Law cannot be avoided Matchiavel among his irreligious Principles says that all the credit of great Enterprises depends upon success for if Caesar had miscarried in his Civil Wars his infamy had been more odious than Catalines Potentes potenter cadunt mighty sinners run into mighty destructions and such conspicuous offenders as Herod was leave themselves as an Ensign on a Hill and as a Beacon upon the top of a Mountain says the Prophet Isaiah Where is his Eloquence now Where is his costly Garment to make him gorgeous to be gazed upon in his publick Oration Where is the out-cry of the Sidonians that Canonized his Tongue for the Voice of a God The Jealousie of the Lord was kindled like a pile of Brimstone which would not suffer a petty God to stand before him As Tertullian said of the Idolatrous Tragaedians in his time who dedicated their sports to the Gods of the Heathen Do not now flock unto them Christian Brethren says the Father you shall hear them hereafter tear their voice in Hell when you shall sit in the joyes of Paradise Tunc magis tragaedi audiendi magis scilicet vocales in suâ propriâ calamitate So we shall hear this rare speaker hereafter whether he can perswade Father Abraham to give him a drop of water to cool hid tongue One thought he had given good counsel to the Athenians when Alexander the Great stomach'd at ther City for denying him the title of a God Cavete ne dum coelos custodiatis terram amittatis Take heed least you forfeit your own possession of the earth for denying him the possession of heaven But the Sidonians gave Herod so much of heaven that they lost him all the earth but a Grave little more than a span long for his burial St. Chrysostome his question is very material upon this place why the people giving the first offence yet Herod is punished and the principal Malefactors to see to acquitted The reasons are so many that I must lay them down without much enlargement First ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Josephus gives the reason He should have reproved and abhorred he should have stopt his ears at their flatteries He should have thrown off his Crown and cast dust upon his head he should have rent his spangled Garment as St. Paul did at Lystra when they provided Garlands and Sacrifices and God-like entertainment Woe will be to thousands in our Church especially to Magistrates and Prelates that suffer so many unsavoury words to fly about their ears and not reprove them Why should your silken perfumed sinner talk ribauldry fit for brothels and I forbear to chide him Why should I suffer pestilent men to profane the Scripture and I a Minister of Christ stand by as if I were chop-faln A Swearer if his greatness be not in the reach of my tongue shall see in my face that he hath no place in my heart Be wise then O ye Rulers of the earth You must either be nursing Fathers to Gods Church or else Enemies there is no mean Out of the strong came sweetness as it is in Samsons Riddle Honey out of the belly of the Lion that is the happiness of the Church issued from the protection of godly Princes The Jesuits that say their charge is only to look to the Second Table and not to exceed negotiation of temporal affairs wish them no better death than Herod had who reproved not the People and immediately the Angel c. Secondly God will take a more exact account of great mens actions than of the Vulgar multitude because their lives are conspicuous and exemplary and as it was said of his Anointed Christ So we may say of his Anointed Kings He that is lifted up draws all men after him Woe be to the Governours who mislead the people that are under them As the Floud of waters in the time of Noah was fifteen Cubits higher than the tallest Mountains so the wrath of the Lord doth
convenient to begin your Reformation from the moment wherein you heard the Word taught in that place that then you stand slip off the old Serpents skin and renew your youth become a new Creature No man would sin so fast but he that thinks his Age runs away but slowly no man would be an unrepentant sinner to day but that he hopes for to morrow And why to morrow Nemo non suo die moritur My day to die was every day since I had an hour to live And I was a sinner before the first minute of that hour expired therefore why should not my heart smite me and contrition humble me lest Judgment should begin as soon as this word is spoken It is the Devils muttering and not a Christians to say Art thou come to torment us before thy time Of three things Cato did repent of more than the rest this is one Quod unum diem mansisset intestatus A day past over his head wherein his Will was not made he might have died intestate If a Heathen were so sollicitous that upon every day the things of this life might be duly ordered what care ought to be taken that we suffer not our eyes to flumber untill all things be accorded for the peace of our conscience for our reconciliation in Christ Jesus against the world to come Sickness and Death and Judgment who knows whether they be not as near to us as the avenging Angel was unto Herod who did immediately smite him that he was eaten c. Now I am faln in the last place upon the true castigation of Herods pride Tantus tam luctuosè that such a Potentate should die so miserably eaten up of Worms for five days says Josephus after he was smitten and then gave up the Ghost Lest he should glory that he was smitten by no less than an Angel Aeneae magni dextrâ behold the meanest of all Creatures the Worms are made his Executioners And lest he should domineer as Eusebius said he did that he died not sordidly in the rank of a mean man ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã with the dignity of a King which is the much admired happiness therefore the loathsomness of his Disease the ignobleness of the Scourge the irrecoverableness of the Mischief all are conjoyn'd to debase his Spirit O torture little dreamt of at this time Had he not the Physicians of Arabia about him How could he feel mortality Was he not in perfect strength to make Orations to the People What could be doubted of his health Was not his body kept sweet and clean like the body of a King Who would have suspected the putrefaction of Worms But remember that Manna bred Worms and stank though it came from heaven when it was too long preserved against Gods Commandment So though the Soveraignty of a King do come from heaven yet if it offend the Lord it will consume and putrifie He that humbled himself to be vermis non homo a worm and no man he is exalted above men to the right hand of God He that would have been Deus non homo a God and not a man is dejected below a man and made a worm See what contrariety of Instruments God did use to make his death the stranger an Angel and a Worm An Angel that he might say with the Philistines Who is able to endure these mighty Gods A Worm that he might say Et tu Brute the meanest of Creatures can conquer a King by Gods ordination An Angel for his sake who was the Judge to shew his mightiness A Worm for his sake that was judged to shew his baseness An Angel to shew how a sinner cannot look upon heaven for it is full of wrath A Worm to shew he cannot tread safely upon the earth for it is full of vengeance An Angel is an immortal Creature to threaten such pain unto the soul A Worm is a most corruptible creature to shew the fading of the body As St. Paul said of his Widows which were busie-bodies ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã She that is wanton is dead while she is alive because she is dead to Faith and good Works So I may say of Herod that he died while he was alive for Worms which feed sweetly upon the dead as Job says fed upon him in his life-time as if he had been buried after he had solemnly made his own Funeral Oration As the Poet spake of a poysonous death which wasted the body first and separated the soul afterward Eripiunt omnes animam tu sola cadaver So I may say of this Phthiriasis First it did eat up the body and so left no room for the soul to inhabite in the members Expertes opes ignaros quid vulnera vellent says Lucretius When anguish doth tear their heart skill cannot afford recovery when their whole body is but one sore they know not where they are wounded This disease is more observed in Histories to be the Arrow of the Lord against sinners of high presumption than any other Thus Sylla died thus Antiochus Epiphanes thus Herod the Great thus Arnulphus that spoiled the Churches of the Christians thus Phericides that gloried he never offered Sacrifice and yet lived as prosperously Quà m qui heccatombas immolant What do we talk of Blazing-stars that they are only fatal and ominous to the life of Noble Personages a few Worms have often bereaved them of their soul as easily as the little Worm smote the Gourd of Jonas But will some man say Do you make this disease an infallible sign of Gods especial indignation Brethren God forbid For Judgments fall promiscuously in this life upon the good and bad Seest thou a man rent with as many torments of infirmities as there be members in his body to receive them let your first Meditation be Acerrimum est praelium in viâ magnus erit triumphus in patriâ He suffers much in this life his triumph will be the greater in the world to come And let your second consideration be the dreadfulness of Gods anger Says Tertullian to the Roman Lords the tortures of your Bondslaves are Fetters your reward is a Cap of Liberty but we are servants of the most high Cujus judicium in suos non in compede aut pileo vertitur sed in aeternitate poenae aut salutis Whose judgment gives sentence either of Hell or Everlasting salvation To answer you more copiously One circumstance alone had bred no ill opinion of Herods death Many circumstances raise a suspicion that his Life was Criminal and his Death Exemplary 1. To be smitten in a sin immediately upon the fact to be smitten by an Angel to be gnawn to death with Worms the divine hand was over this Sentence and no natural cause Unless as Tertullian said of their lascivious Theaters that resounded with scurrility Ipse aer qui desuper incubat scelestis vocibus constupratur So that Sacrilegious shout which the people gave against the
ãâã ãâã 1. She is a Jerusalem a visible fair City that 's her external Communion 2. A Jerusalem above that 's her internal Sanctity 3. A Jerusalem that is free which is her supernal Redemption 4. A Mother that 's her Fruitfulness 5. The Mother of us which comprehends her Unity 6. The Mother of us all which expresseth the Universality Somewhat upon each of these as God shall assist me that the hour may be profitable to the hearers Jerusalem is the Substantive or fundamental word that bears up the whole Text and it is as musical a word as most that run upon syllables but it offers more pleasantness to the understanding than to the ear full of happy signification a name given ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as the Philosopher Plato was wont to say to accommodate to the Church Apostolical that unless God had foreseen that his saving truth should first grow up within the walls thereof it had never been called Jerusalem The first mention of it is to be required from Josh x. i. where we read that Adoni-zedek King of Jerusalem was afraid of Joshua when he had taken the strong City of Ai Yet I will not say that it was called Jerusalem in those dayes when Adoni-zedek lived It had two names before and the best Antiquaries of the Jews confess it is not spoken of by their Wise-men which name preceded The Rulers thereof whose mention is of the oldest time are Melchi-zedek and Adoni-zedek that is the King of Justice and the Lord of Justice so that the City was formerly called Zedek or Justice that without controversy but because through the corruption of our manners Justice may set mens teeth on edg when it is too severe and inflexible therefore it was also called Salem or the Border of Peace Melchisedech kept his chief Court there and he was King of Salem and Priest of the most high God And thus in the times fore-gone augusto augurio for a more fortunate Auspice it was known by the names of Zedek and Salem Justice and Peace both which were fulfilled in Christ our Lord who suffered there to satisfie his Fathers Justice and made our peace by the Propitiation in his bloud Things by-past so long agoe for the most part are all uncertain and it is not known whether it were David the renowned Conqueror of that City or some other holy Prophet that enlarged the short word Salem and made it Jerusalem Whosoever it was if our Doctors hit him right he had an excellent reason for it In this place the mighty Hill was called Mount Moriah in the dayes of Abraham Thither he brought his onely Son Isaac to sacrifice him as the Lord commanded but when the Ram caught by the horns did excuse his Son he called that high place Jehovah Jireth the Lord will be seen in the Mount This Jireth prefixt before Salem makes it Jerusalem as who should say this City the Church will bring you to the vision of peace Or thus let her be comforted in her persecutions Deus providebit pacem God will provide peace So that Justice Peace and Providence are the flowers that spring out of her names a sign that some great Blessing was hatching within her Circuit which was brought forth when the first Flock of Christ the great Shepherd was folded there who were sent from thence to baptize all Nations Neither have we of the New Testament encroached upon this Name without leave the Psalms the Prophets all that went before have given us authority for it To cite one for all those words of Jeremy come next to my mind At that time they shall call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord and all the Nations shall be gathered unto it We are the Parties spoken of and we are that Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord. Not to rob them of it that first possessed the Name but that both of us might be marked with one stamp as with a Seal of Unity It was Jerusalem before unto them of the Circumcision and still it is Jerusalem unto us of the Uncircumcision The Law and the Gospel are at no discord unless they be perversly mistaken the one was Christ veiled the other is Christ reveiled they make not two Churches no more than an Infant and one of full age make two diverse men it is the same bough that bears the flower and the fruit they are both Jerusalem No conjunction in the World was intended by God to be more amicable than between us two that we should be one People one Body one Sheepfold one City one Jerusalem any thing what you will which was of multitude and will hold fast together and become the same How often is our Peace-maker called a Corner-stone that he might grow with us both into one frame of building he stretched him to both Walls that both might rest in him Yet for all this none under Heaven are worse agreed than we through the envy of the Devil Socrus Synagoga divisa est contra nurum Ecclesiam says St. Austin It is as our Saviour foretold the Mother-in-law the Synagogue is divided against the Daughter-in-law the Church and the Daughter-in-law the Church is divided against the Mother-in-law the Synagogue But the scandal of the rupture is theirs and the curse of it is upon them which will never escape them that affect schismatical separations and to be holy after their own cut It were lamentable to tell you what the Polity of the Jews is at this time a spiritual Sodom is an harsh word but we that march after the Standard of Christ are an holy Jerusalem Which word must needs gather up our mind into many notions wherein Jerusalem of old and the Catholick Church do symbolize both of them the Seats of the Oracles of God both of them the Thrones of the Priesthood both of them sown with the bloud of Martyrs both of them illuminated by Prophets immediately sent from God there the Lepers that were cleansed after due Rites performed were received into the Congregation here contrite sinners after due penance performed receive their absolution to that Kings brought Presents and Proselytes came from far to this the most glorious Monarchs have afforded their bounty and protection In the one Christ was sacrificed for the sins of the World but the new Jerusalem and none but it doth partake the merit of his Sacrifice If fancy will take scope these Analogies are without number therefore I pass them by And I refer my self to two things especially how the Name descended upon the Church First While the old Tabernacle stood Jerusalem was the chief place wherein men called upon the Name of the Lord. Secondly Out of the same Sion went forth the New Law and Jerusalem was the Mother of the first born in Christ For the first as you would call a School of good letters Athens a place of good Military Education Lacedaemon and a Country of intemperance and luxury Babylon so because the Worship of God
against him Qui meretricibus voluptatibus inservit non liber est sed servus To be under pleasure is to be under tyranny and therefore the Statue of a Strumpet did better resemble servitude But happy are thy servants O Lord that stand before thee Deo parere libertas est you may think that Seneca had conferred with St. Paul when he learnt that Lesson that the service of God is perfect freedom who hath made us a Royal Priesthood and holy Nation Says Leo in the second Anniversary Sermon upon his own Assumption to the Papacy nothing so Kingly as a mind subject to God and Ruler of his own passions nothing so Priestly as to offer up the sacrifice of a pure conscience and the oblation of a broken heart There were ancient Ceremonies in Baptism as if the party to be baptized came to be inaugurated to a Kingdom when he professed himself a Disciple of the Gospel For it appears in some Rituals that they put a Crown of flowers upon the head of the Neophyte to which the Collect then used doth testifie We beseech thee O King of heaven for this dissoluble Crown to give him a Crown of justice and good works The same was figured by these Ceremonies in confirmation that is by the unction of their forehead and by the fascia which bound about their temples as a Diadem All these customs do border upon this phrase that our Jerusalem is every where in the Gospel called the Kingdom of heaven God is such a King whom none but Kings do serve none but Melchisedechs who are free from sin and at once both Servants of righteousness and Kings of righteousness Dignitate Domini honorata sit conditio servi He is so great a Lord that it is a Lordship nay a Kingdom to serve him In a word remember that our freedom is a strict obligation to all excellent vertue that being delivered from the hands of our enemies we may serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life Lord keep thy Jerusalem free from the bondage of sin that we may not be cast into the prison of utter darkness AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON GAL. iv 26. Jerusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all HAving drawn out the description of the Church in sundry lines of beauty that it is a Jerusalem a visible and glorious City for the external Communion a Jerusalem from above for her internal Graces a Jerusalem that is free for her Redemption through the bloud of Christ every man I suppose will attest thus unto it nihil addi potest huic bono nisi ut sit perpetuum O that it would last thus unto the worlds end by continual propagation for nothing can be added unto that which is so completely good but that it should be perpetual Lo I shall land you now upon that Shore and represent the Church unto you as a Mother that brings forth and is never barren whose fruitfulness continues her praise and happiness for ever she is the Mother of us all and of all those Generations after us that live by the faith of the Son of God as long as the World endures We are not in the condition of Xerxes who had as goodly a Train of Souldiers as ever marched into the Field but it drew tears from his eyes to think that in less than the space of an hundred years not one of all those thousands should remain alive They had not a Mother which brought forth uncessantly to repair their mortality That good which will not continue breeds great discomfort upon certain expectation of mutability But our Jerusalem shall never wain nor consume it is sown with the seeds of immortality If we were all included in one Isaac and he were slain upon the Altar for a Sacrifice yet Abraham were sure that God would restore him again being dead Jacob might faint and fear lest his Sons should miscarry one after another and he remain childless his despair was grounded upon the sadness of humane events if I be bereaved of my Children I am bereaved Gen. xliii 14. But the Church shall see her Childrens Children grow up by succession without end of dayes Christ should be put to death again and rise no more which is most impossible if she should quite disappear The root of the Tree of Life should die which cannot be imagined if her branches should all wither But this is a Lamp which is nourished with fresh oil from Heaven and shall never be put out it is the chiefest of all that is called good upon Earth and a constant perpetual good Therefore let the Children rise up and call this Mother blessed And as the Church hath taken upon it the proper name of Jerusalem yet without any Contract to the local and material building of Jerusalem so she hath taken up the appellation of a Mother yet without any respect to nature no way bending to natural causes or natural affections For not only our Parents in the flesh but the whole World hath quite lost us in this word As Moses remembred the great devotion of Levi that he said of his Father and Mother I have not seen them or I respect them not and of his Brethren I do not acknowledg them Deut. xxxiii 9. So by deriving our selves from this Mother we cast our fleshly Parentage aside and we say to her who did give us to suck from her Breasts as our Saviour did to the Blessed Virgin Mulier quid mihi tecum Woman what have I to do with thee Jerusalem is ours and we are hers Jerusalem which is above is free c. This remainder of the verse which is the dispatch of the whole Text requires our inspection into three particulars First To know our Mother that we may not be ignorant either of her fruitfulness or our own obedience He is a wise Son says Telemachus in Homer that knows his Father but he is a foolish Son that doth not know his Mother Secondly Note the unity and indivision of the Children of this Mother They are a cluster of Grapes hanging upon one Stalk a Brood of Chickens clockt under the wings of one Hen there is but one Steâ and one Progeny one Nostrum in relation to this Parent Mater nostrum the Mother of us The third and last part puts us to observe that the note of Universality was large in Pauls days but now much more amplified than in those times mater nostrum omnium the Mother of us all First A Mother gives a being to those whom she brings forth and that which is brought forth owes a great duty to the Mother upon these two hinges this main part of the Text is turned the one is the Fruitfulness of the Mother the other is the Obedience of the Children And what being is that which Jerusalem above doth contribute unto us that she is called our Mother It challengeth no part in our specifical essence or the
frame which the wise men of the world did think most out of order Some will say in their first cogitations upon my Text Are these the Souls of the First-born in Heaven that make such a clamour against their Persecutors Can they indeed be so eager of revenge Tantae ne animis coelestibus irae Besides Are they so passionately addicted to their own desires that they will not stay the prefixed time which God hath set but challenge him for slackness Vsque quo How long dost thou put us off Again What imperfection is this which they pretend as if they knew not how long it were till Christ would take the Kingdom into his hand and judge the proud after their deserving How do they know as they are known if they be kept so short of divine revelation But to stifle these Cavillations take special notice that you lose the whole Chain of this Prophesie if you hold not fast by this Link that St. John was in a rapture and taken up to the Heaven in the Spirit where the passages which he met withal were not really transacted but he seem'd to see the souls which were slain and he seemed to hear the moans which they made which is nothing else but a Prosopopaea where the Spirits of the Martyrs are imaginarily brought in as if they demanded the suppression of violent men that had spilt their bloud which doth not evince that any infirmities or disorderly affections are in them which may rashly be supposed but to set two things streight in our opinion which many Philosophizing heads did champ upon as if they were crooked in the Divine Providence First The righteous are taken away and no man regardeth it as the Prophet says Their days are cut short by violence and cruelty and yet their Persecutors live and are mighty What did the Heathen say to this who had good report for their Moral Conversation Is there no Justice in heaven Or doth it set no price upon the bloud of Just men Yes here is the best assurance that can be demanded a Scene as it were acted in heaven wherein is represented that the wrongs of the Saints are fresh in memory and shall never be forgotten Yet this is not all As this Scale is hoised up so there is another that must down as fast and that is principally aimed at in this Text. An Oppressor whose hand hath been very heavy upon another he is always jealous that in the turn of the Wheel his malice may be requited For none so miserable but in the Revolutions of Fortune may call his injuries to an account if he live What is the Method therefore of them that are profound Graduates in Malice Why mortui non mordent Let not thine Adversary live if you love to be secure dispatch him As Bassianus insulted over his Brother Geta when he had killed him Sit Divus frater meus modò ne sit vivus as long as my Brother lives not I care not though he be among the Gods Or as Jezebel cheared up Ahab that the worst was past Arise eat and take possession Naboth is not alive but dead This is a Maxim then in the Devils Politicks if you hunt for the destruction of any man your safety is in his utter extirpation This is as false as God is holy and true It is palpable that my Text labours especially with this Doctrine That the poor oppressed is more likely to obtain redress against his enemy when he is dead than when he was alive His Soul is then most precious to the Lord his Prayer most flagrant he is so near to Christ that he is next to the Altar his understanding is so enlightned that he knows what to ask and never fail Do their Oppressors think that these can do no harm because their bones lie scattered before the pit I would not be in Ahabs case though Naboth be dead and not alive for no worldly good would I provoke the clamours of such as these for they cry with a loud voice c. Here you have a Petition then put up to a mighty King by some persons that had sustained injury and after that garb I will divide it First As it useth to be in such petitory Writs consider we to whom the Supplication is preferred to one from whom there lies no appeal the King of Kings and Lord of Lords And the words are so laid together that the Souls under the Altar do beseech him by his three mighty Attributes Per potentiam per bonitatem per trigam gloriae He is the Lord therefore they implore him by that power which can do all things He is Holy therefore they solicite him by that goodness which detests Oppressions He is Truth and therefore they urge him by those Promises made which he cannot but accomplish It is the Lord holy and true into his hands they commend their Petition Secondly The manner of Petitioning is with vehemency and importunity With vehemency for they cried with a loud voice With importunity for they expostulate that it is not yet done How long Lord c. Thirdly Their asking and request is for no petty injury but for their bloud to judge and avenge their bloud Lastly The parties against whom they complain are expressed by contempt of their condition They dwell upon earth And now tell me if the Eagle hath not cause to fear though he hath torn these innocent Doves to pieces in his talons In what peril do those Grantortoes live that have slain the poor Servants of Christ heaps upon heaps When such a God is besought by the souls of such dear servants with such zeal and vehemency upon so great an injury and against such worldlings whose best project is to live upon the earth what will this come to in the end But the restauration of the afflicted the destruction of their Persecutors unto these tears for their joy in the nethermost Hell unto the others joy for their tears in the Kingdom everlasting Having thus distributed the Text into portions I go back to that which I put in the first rank the Petition is preferred to the Lord to the Lord that is holy and true And those words are both an invocation of praise and an obtestation by those sacred properties of the Divine Nature that their desire might be effected He that makes his address to God let him begin with his praise let him commemorate his excellent greatness let him delight to rehearse his Titles of Majesty without these your Petition is headless it hath no Exordium to induct it into the Court of grace extol him in his noble Attributes before you begin to exhibite your desires and the everlasting doors will be lifted up to let you in for the Lord cannot refuse his own glory As David bears you up to it in the last Psalm the Trumpet the Harp the Cymbal the Organ all Instruments of Musick are in the Tongue of him that doth praise the Lord. They were no babies