Iron and that for three years and an half together as in the case of 〈◊〉 's prayer if he say to the Sea Divide 't will run upon heaps and become on both sides as firm as a wall of Marble Nothing can be more natural than for the fire to burn and yet at God's command it will forget its nature and become a screen and a fence to the three Children in the Babylonian Furnace What heavier than Iron or more natural than for gravity to tend downwards and yet when God will have it Iron shall float like Cork on the top of the water The proud and raging Sea that naturally refuses to bear the bodies of men while alive became here as firm as Brass when commanded to wait upon and do homage to the God of Nature Our Lord walking towards the Ship as if he had an intention to pass by it he was espied by them who presently thought it to be the Apparition of a Spirit Hereupon they were seiz'd with great terror and consternation and their fears in all likelihood heightned by the vulgar opinion that they are evil Spirits that chuse rather to appear in the night than by day While they were in this agony our Lord taking compassion on them calls to them and bids them not be afraid for that it was no other than he himself Peter the eagerness of whose temper carried him forward to all bold and resolute undertakings intreated our Lord that if it was he he might have leave to come upon the water to him Having received his orders he went out of the Ship and walked upon the Sea to meet his Master But when he found the wind to bear hard against him and the waves to rise round about him whereby probably the sight of Christ was intercepted he began to be afraid and the higher his fears arose the lower his Faith began to sink and together with that his body to sink under water whereupon in a passionate fright he cried out to our Lord to help him who reaching out his arm took him by the hand and set him again upon the top of the water with this gentle reproof O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt It being the weakness of our Faith that makes the influences of the Divine power and goodness to have no better effect upon us Being come to the Ship they took them in where our Lord no sooner arrived but the winds and waves observing their duty to their Sovereign Lord and having done the errand which they came upon mannerly departed and vanished away and the Ship in an instant was at the shore All that were in the Ship being strangely astonished at this Miracle and fully convinced of the Divinity of his person came and did homage to him with this confession Of a truth thou art the Son of God After which they went ashore and landed in the Country of Genezareth and there more fully acknowledged him before all the people 6. THE next day great multitudes flocking after him he entred into a Synagogue at Capernaum and taking occasion from the late Miracle of the loaves which he had wrought amongst them he began to discourse concerning himself as the true Manna and the Bread that came down from Heaven largely opening to them many of the more sublime and Spiritual mysteries and the necessary and important duties of the Gospel Hereupon a great part of his Auditory who had hitherto followed him finding their understandings gravelled with these difficult and uncommon Notions and that the duties he required were likely to grate hard upon them and perceiving now that he was not the Messiah they took him for whose Kingdom should consist in an external Grandeur and plenty but was to be managed and transacted in a more inward and Spiritual way hereupon fairly left him in open field and henceforth quite turned their backs upon him Whereupon our Lord turning about to his Apostles asked them whether they also would go away from him Peter spokes-man generally for all the rest answered whither should they go to mend and better their condition should they return back to Moses Alas he laid a yoke upon them which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Should they go to the Scribes and Pharisees they would feed them with Stones instead of Bread obtrude humane Traditions upon them for Divine dictates and Commands Should they betake themselves to the Philosophers amongst the Gentiles they were miserably blind and short-sighted in their Notions of things and their sentiments and opinions not only different from but contrary to one another No 't was he only had the words of Eternal life whose doctrine could instruct them in the plain way to Heaven that they had fully assented to what both John and he had said concerning himself that they were fully perswaded both from the efficacy of his Sermons which they heard and the powerful conviction of his Miracles which they had seen that he was the Son of the living God the true Messiah and Saviour of the World But notwithstanding this fair and plausible testimony he tells them that they were not all of this mind that there was a Satan amongst them one that was moved by the spirit and impulse and that acted according to the rules and interest of the Devil intimating Judas who should betray him So hard is it to meet with a body of so just and pure a constitution wherein some rotten member or distempered part is not to be found SECT IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passover Our Saviour's Journy with his Apostles to Caesarea The Opinions of the People concerning Him Peter's eminent Confession of Christ and our Lord 's great commendation of it Thou art Peter and upon this Rock c. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven how given The advantage the Church of Rome makes of these passages This confession made by Peter in the name of the rest and by others before him No personal priviledge intended to S. Peter the same things elsewhere promised to the other Apostles Our 〈◊〉 discourse concerning his 〈◊〉 Peter's unseasonable zeal in disswading him from it and our Lord 's severe rebuking him Christ's Transfiguration and the glory of it Peter how affected with it Peter's paying Tribute for Christ and himself This Tribute what Our Saviour's discourse upon it Offending brethren how oft to be forgiven The young man commanded to sell all What compensation made to the followers of Christ. Our Lord 's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem Preparation made to keep the Passover 1. IT was some time since our Saviour had kept his third Passover at Jerusalem when he directed his Journy towards Caesarea Philippi where by the way having like a lawful Master of his Family first prayed with his Aposlles he began to ask them having been more than two Years publickly conversant amongst them what the world thought concerning him They answered that
life The imposition of a new name at his election to the Apostleship He and his Brother stiled Boanerges and why The Zeal and activity of their temper Their ambition to sit on Christ's right and left hand in his Kingdom and confident promise of suffering This ill resented by the rest Our Lord's discourse concerning the nature of the Evangelical state Where he preached after Christ's Ascension The story of his going into Spain exploded Herod Agrippa in favour with the Roman Emperors The character of his temper His zeal for the Law of Moses His condemning S. James to death The sudden conversion of his Accuser as he was led to Martyrdom Their being beheaded The Divine Justice that pursued Herod His grandeur and arrogance at Caesarea His miserable death The story of the Translation of S. James his Corps to Compostella in Spain and the Miracles said to be done there 1. SAINT James surnamed the Great either because of his Age being much elder than the other or for some peculiar honours and favours which our Lord conferred upon him was by Country a Galilean born probably either at Gapernaum or Bethsaida being one of Simon Peter's Partners in the Trade of Fishing He was the Son of Zebdai or Zebedee and probably the same whom the Jews mention in their Talmud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rabbi James or Jacob the Son of Zebedee a Fisherman and the many servants which he kept for that imployment a circumstance not taken notice of in any other speak him a man of some more considerable note in that Trade and way of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nicephorus notes His Mother's name was Mary surnamed Salome called first Taviphilja says an ancient Arabick writer the Daughter as is most probable not Wife of Cleopas Sister to Mary the Mother of our Lord not her own Sister properly so called the Blessed Virgin being in all likelihood an only Daughter but Cousin-german stiled her Sister according to the mode and custom of the Jews who were wont to call all such near relations by the names of Brothers and Sisters and in this respect he had the honour of a near relation to our Lord himself His education was in the Trade of Fishing no imployment is base that 's honest and industrious nor can it be thought mean and dishonourable to him when it is remembred that our Lord himself the Son of God stoop'd so low as not only to become the reputed Son of a Carpenter but during the retirements of his private life to work himself at his Father's Trade not devoting himself merely to contemplations nor withdrawing from all useful society with the World and hiding himself in the solitudes of an Anchoret but busying himself in an active course of life working at the Trade of a Carpenter and particularly as one of the Ancients tells us making Ploughs and Yokes And this the sacred History does not only plainly intimate but it is generally asserted by the Ancient writers of the Church A thing so notorious that the Heathens used to object it as a reproach to Christianity Thence that smart and acute reparteé which a Christian School-master made to Libanius the famous Orator at Antioch when upon Julian's expedition into Persia where he was killed he asked in scorn what the Carpenters Son was now a doing The Christian replied with salt enough That the great Artificer of the World whom he scoffingly called the Carpenter's Son was making a coffin for his Master Julian the news of whose death was brought soon after But this only by the way 2. S. JAMES applied himself to his Father's Trade not discouraged with the meanness not sinking under the difficulties of it and as usually the blessings of Heaven meet men in the way of an honest and industrious diligence it was in the exercise of this calling when our Saviour passing by the Sea of Galilee saw him and his brother in the Ship and called them to be his Disciples A Divine power went along with the word which they no sooner heard but chearfully complied with it immediately leaving all to follow him They did not stay to dispute his commands to argue the probability of his promise solicitously to enquire into the minute consequences of the undertaking what troubles and hazards might attend this new employment but readily delivered up themselves to whatever services he should appoint them And the chearfulness of their obedience is yet further considerable that they left their aged Father in the Ship behind them For elsewhere we find others excusing themselves from an immediate attendance upon Christ upon pretence that they must go bury their Father or take their leave of their kindred at home No such slight and trivial pretences could stop the resolution of our Apostles who broke through these considerations and quitted their present interests and relations Say not it was unnaturally done of them to desert their Father an aged person and in some measure unable to help himself For besides that they left servants with him to attend him it is not cruelty to our Earthly but obedience to our Heavenly Father to leave the one that we may comply with the call and summons of the other It was the triumph of Abraham's Faith when God called him to leave his kindred and his Father's house to go out and sojourn in a foreign Country not knowing whither he went Nor can we doubt but that Zebedee himself would have gone along with them had not his Age given him a Supersedeas from such an active and ambulatory course of life But though they left him at this time it 's very reasonable to suppose that they took care to instruct him in the doctrine of the Messiah and to acquaint him with the glad tidings of Salvation especially since we find their Mother Salome so hearty a friend to so constant a follower of our Saviour But this if we may believe the account which one gives of it was after her Husbands decease who próbably lived not long after dying before the time of our Saviour's Passion 3. IT was not long after this that he was called from the station of an ordinary Disciple to the Apostolical Office and not only so but honoured with some peculiar acts of favour beyond most of the Apostles being one of the three whom our Lord usually made choice of to admit to the more intimate transactions of his life from which the others were excluded Thus with Peter and his Brother John he was taken to the miraculous raising of Jairus his Daughter admitted to Christ's glorious transfiguration upon the Mount and the discourses that there passed between him and the two great Ministers of Heaven taken along with him into the Garden to be a Spectator of those bitter Agonies which the Holy Jesus was to undergo as the preparatory sufferings to his Passion What were the reasons of our Lord 's admitting these three Apostles to
following APPARATUS is only to present the Reader with a short Scheme of the state of things in the preceding periods of the Church to let him see by what degrees and measures the Evangelical state was introduc'd and what Methods God in all Ages made use of to conduct Mankind in the paths of Piety and Vertue In the Infancy of the World he taught men by the Dictates of Nature and the common Notices of Good and Evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls them the most Ancient Law by lively Oracles and great Examples of Piety He set forth the Holy Patriarchs as Chrysostom observes as Tutors to the rest of Mankind who by their Religious lives might train up others to the practice of Vertue and as Physicians be able to cure the minds of those who were infected and overrun with Vice Afterwards says he having sufficiently testified his care of their welfare and happiness by many instances of a wise and benign Providence towards them both in the land of Canaan and in Egypt he gave them Prophets and by them wrought Signs and Wonders together with innumerable other expressions of his bounty At last finding that none of these Methods did succeed not Patriarchs not Prophets not Miracles not daily Warnings and Chastisements brought upon the World he gave the last and highest instance of his love and goodness to Mankind he sent his only begotten Son out of his own bosom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Physician both of Soul and Body who taking upon him the form of a Servant and being born of a Virgin conversed in the World and bore our sorrows and infirmities that by rescuing Humane Nature from under the weight and burden of Sin he might exalt it to Eternal Life A brief account of these things is the main intent of the following Discourse wherein the Reader will easily see that I considered not what might but what was fit to be said with respect to the end I designed it for It was drawn up under some more disadvantageous circumstances than a matter of this nature did require which were it worth the while to represent to the Reader might possibly plead for a softer Censure However such as it is it is submitted to the Readers Ingenuity and Candor W. C. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex AEd. Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. AN APPARATUS OR Discourse Introductory TO THE Whole WORK concerning the Three Great Dispensations OF THE CHURCH PATRIARCHAL MOSAICAL and EVANGELICAL SECT I. Of the PATRIARCHAL Dispensation The Tradition of Elias The three great Periods of the Church The Patriarchal Age. The Laws then in force natural or positive Natural Laws what evinced from the testimony of natural conscience The 〈◊〉 Precepts of the Sons of Noah Their respect to the Law of Nature Positive Laws under that dispensation Eating Blood why prohibited The mystery and signification of it Circumcision when commanded and why The Laws concerning Religion Their publick Worship what Sacrifices in what sence natural and how far instituted The manner of God's testifying his acceptance What the place of their publick Worship Altars and Groves whence Abraham's Oke its long continuance and destruction by Constantine The Original of the Druids The times of their religious Assemblies In process of time Genes 4. what meant by it The Seventh Day whether kept from the beginning The Ministers of Religion who The Priesthood of the first-born In what cases exercised by younger Sons The state of Religion successively under the several Patriarchs The condition of it in Adam's Family The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel and their different success whence Seth his great Learning and Piety The face of the Church in the time of Enosh What meant by Then began Men to call upon the Name of the Lord. No Idolatry before the Flood The Sons of God who The great corruption of Religion in the time of Jared Enoch's Piety and walking with God His translation what The incomparable sanctity of Noah and his strictness in an evil Age. The character of the men of that time His preservation from the Deluge God's Covenant with him Sem or 〈◊〉 whether the Elder Brother The confusion of Languages when and why Abraham's Idolatry and conversion His eminency for Religion noted in the several instances of it God's Covenant with him concerning the Messiah The Piety of Isaac and Jacob. Jacob's blessing the twelve Tribes and foretelling the Messiah Patriarchs extraordinary under this dispensation Melchisedeck who wherein a type of Christ. Job his Name Country Kindred Quality Religion Sufferings when he lived A reflection upon the religion of the old World and its agreement with Christianity GOD who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son For having created Man for the noblest purposes to love serve and enjoy his Maker he was careful in all Ages by various Revelations of his Will to acquaint him with the notices of his duty and to shew him what was good and what the Lord did require of him till all other Methods proving weak and ineffectual for the recovery and the happiness of humane nature God was pleased to crown all the former dispensations with the Revelation of his Son There is among the Jews an ancient Tradition of the House of Elias that the World should last Six Thousand Years which they thus compute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Two Thousand Years empty little being recorded of those first Ages of the World Two Thousand Years the Law and Two Thousand the Days of the Messiah A Tradition which if it minister to no other purposes does yet afford us a very convenient division of the several Ages and Periods of the Church which may be considered under a three-fold Oeconomy the Patriarchal Mosaical and Evangelical dispensation A short view of the two former will give us great advantage to survey the later that new and better dispensation which God has made to the World 2. THE Patriarchal Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call it the days of emptiness commenced from the beginning of the World and lasted till the delivery of the Law upon Mount Sinai And under this state the Laws which God gave for the exercise of Religion and the Government of his Church were either Natural or Positive Natural Laws are those innate Notions and Principles whether speculative or practical with which every Man is born into the World those common sentiments of Vertue and Religion those Principia justi decori Principles of fit and right that naturally are upon the minds of Men and are obvious to their reason at first sight commanding what is just and honest and forbidding what is evil and uncomely and that not only in the general that what is good is to be embraced and what is evil to be avoided but in the particular instances of duty according to their conformity or repugnancy
state of Innocence for Man being created under such excellent circumstances as he was in Paradise could not but know that he owed to God all possible gratitude and subjection obedience he owed him as his Supreme Lord and Master gratitude as his great Patron and Benefactor and was therefore obliged to pay to him some Eucharistical Sacrifices as a testimony of his grateful acknowledgment that he had both his being and preservation from him But when sin had changed the scene and Man-kind was sunk under a state of guilt he was then to seek for a way how to pacifie God's anger and this was done by bloody and expiatory sacrifices which God accepted in the sinners stead And as to these it seems reasonable to suppose that they should be founded upon a positive Institution because pardon of sin being a matter of pure grace and favour whatever was a means to signifie and convey that must be appointed by God himself first revealed to Adam and by him communicated to his Children The Deity propitiated by these atonements was wont to testifie his acceptance of them by some external and visible sign Thus Cain sensibly perceived that God had respect to Abel's sacrifice and not to his though what this sign was it is not easie to determine Most probably it was fire from Heaven coming down upon the Oblation and consuming it For so it frequently was in the Sacrifices of the Mosaic dispensation and so we find it was in that famous Sacrifice of Abraham a Lamp of Fire passed between the parts of the Sacrifice Thus when 't is said God had respect to Abel and to his offering Theodotion renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he burnt it and to this custome the Psalmist alludes in that Petition Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reduce thy burnt-offering into ashes 8. WHERE it was that this Publick Worship was performed is next to be enquired into That they had fixed and determinate Places for the discharge of their religious Duties those especially that were done in common is greatly probable Nature and the reason of things would put them upon it And this most think is intended in that phrase where it is said of Cain and Abel that they brought their oblations that is as Aben-Ezra and others expound it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the place set apart for divine worship And this probably was the reason why Cain though vexed to the heart to see his Brother preferred before him did not presently set upon him the solemnity and religion of the Place and the sensible appearances of the Divine Majesty having struck an awe into him but deferred his murdrous intentions till they came into the Field and there fell upon him For their Sacrifices they had Altars whereon they offered them contemporary no doubt with Sacrifices themselves though we read not of them till after the Flood when Noah built an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt-offerings upon it So Abraham immediately after his being called to the worship of the true God in Sichem built an Altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him and removing thence to a Mountain Eastward he built another Altar and called on the Name of the Lord as indeed he did almost in every place where he came Thus also when he dwelt at Beer-sheba in the Plains of Mamre he planted a Grove there and called on the Name of the Lord the everlasting God This no doubt was the common Chappel or Oratory whither Abraham and his numerous Family and probably those whom he gained to be Proselytes to his Religion were wont to retire for their publick adorations as a Place infinitely advantageous for such Religious purposes And indeed the Ancient devotion of the World much delighted in Groves in Woods and Mountains partly for the conveniency of such Places as better composing the thoughts for divine contemplations and resounding their joynt-praises of God to the best advantage partly because the silence and retiredness of the Place was apt to beget a kind of sacred dread and horrour in the mind of the Worshipper Hence we find in Ophrah where Gideon's Father dwelt an Altar to Baal and a Grove that was by it and how common the superstitions and idolatries of the Heathen-world were in Groves and High-places no Man can be ignorant that is never so little conversant either in prophane or sacred stories For this reason that they were so much abused to idolatry God commanded the Israelites to destroy their Altars break down their Images and cut down their Groves and that they should not plant a Grove of any Trees near unto the Altar of the Lord lest he should seem to countenance what was so universally prostituted to false worship and idolatry But to return to Abraham He planted a Grove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tree which the Ancients generally make to have been a large spreading Oake and some foundation there is for it in the sacred Text for the place where Abraham planted it is called the Plain of Mamre or as in the Hebrew he dwelt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Oakes of Mamre and so the Syriac renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The House of the Oake The name whereof Josephus tells us was Ogyges and it is not a conjecture to be despised that Noah might probably inhabit in this place and either give the name to it or at least derive his from it Ogyges being the Name by which he is usually described in forreign Writers This very Oake S. Hierom assures us and Eusebius intimates as much was yet standing till the time of Constantine and worshipped with great superstition And Sozomen tells us more particularly that there was a famous Mart held there every Summer and a Feast celebrated by a general confluence of the neighbouring Countries and Persons of all Religions both Christians Jews and Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one doing honour to this Place according to the different Principles of their Religion but that Constantin being offended that the Place should be prophan'd with the superstitions of the Jews and the idolatry of the Gentiles wrote with some severity to Macarius the Bishop of Jerusalem and the Bishops of Palestin that they should destroy the Altars and Images and deface all Monuments of Idolatry and restore the Place to its ancient Sanctity Which was accordingly done and a Church 〈◊〉 in the Place where God was purely and sincerely worshipped From this Oake the ordinary place of Abraham's worship and devotion the Religion of the Gentiles doubtless derived its Oakes and Groves and particularly the Druids the great and almost only Masters and Directors of all Learning and Religion among the Ancient Brittains hence borrowed their Original who are so notoriously known to have lived wholly under Oakes and Groves and there to have delivered their Doctrines and Precepts and to have
veneration for the holiness and purity of their lives When Seth came to lie upon his death-bed he summoned his Children their Wives and Families together blessed them and as his last Will commanded them to worship God adjuring them by the bloud of Abel their usual and solemn oath that they should not descend from the holy Mount to hold any correspondence or commerce with Cain or his wicked faction And then breathed his last A command say my Authors which they observed for seven generations and then came in the promiscuous mixtures 13. To Seth succeeded his Son Enos who kept up the glory and purity of Religion and the honour of the holy Line Of his time it is particularly recorded then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. The ambiguity of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying sometimes to prophane sometimes to begin hath begotten various apprehensions among learned men concerning this place and led them not only into different but quite contrary sences The words are by some rendred thus Then men prophaned in calling upon the name of the Lord which they thus explain that at that time when Enos was born the true worship and service of God began to sink and fail corruption and idolatry mightily prevailing by reason of Cains wicked and apostate Family and that as a sad memorial of this corrupt and degenerate Age holy Seth called his son's name Enosh which not only simply signifies a man but a poor calamitous miserable man And this way go many of the Jews and some Christian writers of great name and note Nay Maimonides one of the wisest and soberest of all the Jewish writers begins his Tract about Idolatry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the times of Enosh referring to this very passage he tells us that men did then grievously erre and that the minds of the wise men of those days were grown gross and stupid yea that Enos himself was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among those that erred and that their Idolatry consisted in this That they worshipped the Stars and the Host of Heaven Others there are who expresly assert that 〈◊〉 was the first that invented Images to excite the Spirit of the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that by their mediation men might invocate and call upon God But how infirm a foundation this Text is to build all this upon is evident For besides what some have observed that the Hebrew phrase is not tolerably reconcileable with such a sence if it were yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one of the Rabbins has well noted that there wants a foundation for any such exposition no mention being made in Moses his story of any such false Gods as were then worshipped no footsteps of Idolatry appearing in the World till after the Flood Nor indeed is it reasonable to suppose that the Creation of the World being yet fresh in memory and Divine Traditions so lately received from Adam and God frequently communicating himself to men that the case being thus men could in so short a time be fallen under so great an apostasie as wholly to forget and renounce the true God and give Divine honours to senseless and inanimate creatures I can hardly think that the Cainites themselves should be guilty of this much less Enosh and his Children The meaning of the words then is plainly this That in Enosh his time the holy Line being greatly multiplied they applied themselves to the worship of God in a more publick and remarkable manner either by framing themselves into more distinct societies for the exercise of publick worship or by meeting at more fixed and stated times or by invocating God under more solemn and peculiar rites than they had done before And this probably they did the rather to obviate that torrent of prophaneness and impiety which by means of the sons of Cain they saw flowing in upon the World This will be further confirmed if we take the words as by some they are rendred then men began to be called by the name of the Lord that is the difference and separation that was between the children of Seth and Cain every day ripening into a wider distance the posterity of Seth began to take to themselves a distinctive title that the World might the better distinguish between those who kept to the service of God and those who threw off Religion and let loose the reins to disorder and impiety And hereof we meet with clear intimation in the story of those times when we read of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sons of God who doubtless were the pious and devout posterity of Seth calling themselves after the name of the Lord whom they constantly and sincerely worshipped notwithstanding the fancy of Josephus and the Fathers that they were Angels or that of the Jewish Paraphrasts that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sons of great men and Princes in opposition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sons of men the impure and debauched posterity of Cain who made light of Religion and were wholly governed by 〈◊〉 and sensual inclinations And the matching of these sons of God with the daughters of men that is those of the Family of Cain and the fatal consequences of those unhappy marriages was that which provoked God to destroy the World I have no more to add concerning Enosh than that we are told that dying he gave the same commands to his Children which he had received of his Father that they should make Religion their great care and business and keep themselves pure from society and converse with the Line of Cain 14. AFTER Enosh was his son Kenan who as the Arabian Historian informs us ruled the people committed to him by a wise and excellent government and gave the same charge at his death that had been given to him Next Kenan comes Mahalcleel who carries devotion and piety in his very name signifying one that praises God of whom they say that he trained up the people in ways of justice and piety blessed his Children at his death and having charged them to separate from the Cainites appointed his son Jared to be his successor whose name denotes a descent probably either because of the notable decrease and declension of piety in his time or because in his days some of the Sethites descended from the holy Mountain to mix with the posterity of Cain For so the Oriental writers inform us that a great noise and shout coming up from the Valley an hundred of the holy Mountaineers agreed to go down to the sons of Cain whom Jared endeavoured to hinder by all the arts of counsel and perswasion But what can stop a mind bent upon an evil course down they went and being ravished with the beauty of the Cainite-women promiscuously committed folly and lewdness with them from whence sprang a race of Giants men of vast and robust bodies but of more vicious and ungovernable
tempers who made their Will their Law and Might the standard and rule of Equity Attempting to return back to the holy Mount Heaven had shut up their way the stones of the Mountain burning like fire when they came upon them which whether the Reader will have faith enough to believe I know not Jared being near his death advised his Children to be wise by the folly of their Brethren and to have nothing to do with that prophane generation His son Enoch followed in his steps a man of admirable strictness and piety and peculiarly exemplary for his innocent and holy conversation it being particularly noted of him that he walked with God He set the Divine Majesty before him as the guide and pattern the spectator and rewarder of his actions in all his ways endeavoured to approve himself to his All-seeing eye by doing nothing but what was grateful and acceptable to him he was the great instance of vertue and goodness in an evil Age and by the even tenor and constancy of a holy and a religious life shewed his firm belief and expectation of a future state and his hearty dependence upon the Divine goodness for the rewards of a better life And God who is never behind-hand with his servants crowned his extraordinary obedience with an uncommon reward By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God And what that faith was is plain by what follows after a belief of God's Being and his Bounty Without faith it is impossible to please him For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that 〈◊〉 is a 〈◊〉 of them that diligently seek him What this translation was and whether it was made whither into that Terrestrial Paradise out of which Adam was expelled and banished and whereunto Enoch had desired of God he might be translated as some fancy or whether placed among the Stars as others or carried into the highest Heavens as others will have it were nice and useless speculations 'T is certain he was taken out of these mutable Regions and set beyond the reach of those miseries and misfortunes to which a present state of sin and mortality does betray us translated probably both Soul and Body that he might be a type and specimen of a future Resurrection and a sensible demonstration to the World that there is a reward for the righteous and another state after this wherein good Men shall be happy sor ever I pass by the fancy of the Jewes as vain and frivolous that though Enoch was a good Man yet was he very mutable and inconstant and apt to be led aside and that this was the reason why God translated him so soon lest he should have been debauched by the charms and allurements of a wicked World He was an eminent Prophet and a fragment of his Prophecy is yet extant in S. Jude's Epistle by which it appears that wickedness was then grown rampant and the manners of men very corrupt and vicious and that he as plainly told them of their faults and that Divine vengeance that would certainly overtake them Of Methuselah his Son nothing considerable is upon Record but his great Age living full DCCCCLXIX Years the longest proportion which any of the Patriarchs arrived to and died in that very Year wherein the Flood came upon the World 15. FROM his Son Lamech concerning whom we find nothing memorable we proceed to his Grand child Noah by the very imposition of whose Name his Parents presaged that he would be a refreshment and comfort to the World and highly instrumental to remove that curse which God by an Universal Deluge was bringing upon the Earth he 〈◊〉 his Name Noah saying This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed he was one in whom his Parents did acquiesce and rest satisfied that he would be eminently 〈◊〉 and serviceable to the World Indeed he proved a person of incomparable sanctity and integrity a Preacher of righteousness to others and who as carefully practised it himself He was a just man and perfect in his generation and he walked with God He did not warp and decline with the humour of the Age he lived in but maintained his station and kept his Line He was upright in his Generation 'T is no thanks to be religious when it is the humour and fashion of the Times the great trial is when we live in the midst of a corrupt generation It is the crown of vertue to be good when there are all manner of temptations to the contrary when the greatest part of Men goe the other way when vertue and honesty are laughed and drolled on and censured as an over-wise and affected singularity when lust and debauchery are accounted the modes of Gallantry and pride and oppression suffered to ride in prosperous triumphs without controll Thus it was with Noah he contended with the Vices of the Age and dared to own God and Religion when almost all Mankind besides himself had rejected and thrown them off For in his time wickedness openly appeared with a brazen Forehead and violence had covered the face of the Earth the promiscuous mixtures of the Children of Seth and Cain had produced Giants and mighty Men men strong to do evil and who had as much will as power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus describes them a race of men insolent and ungovernable scornful and injurious and who bearing up themselves in the confidence of their own strength despised all justice and equity and made every thing truckle under their 〈◊〉 lusts and appetites The very same character does Lucian give of the Men of this Age speaking of the times of Deucalion their Noah and the Flood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Men exceedingly scornful and contumelious and guilty of the most unrighteous and enormous actions violating all Oaths and Covenants throwing off kindness and hospitality and rejecting all addresses and supplications made to them For which cause great miseries overtook them for Heaven and Earth Seas and Rivers conspired together to pour out mighty Floods upon the World which swept all away but Deucalion only who for his prudence and piety was left to repair Mankind And so he goes on with the relation consonant to the account of the Sacred story This infection had spread it self over all parts and was become so general and Epidemical that all Flesh had corrupted their ways and scarce any besides Noah left to keep up the face of a Church and the profession of Religion Things being come to this pass quickly alarm'd the Divine Justice and made the World ripe for vengeance the patience of God was now tired out and he resolved to make Mankind feel the just effects of his incensed severity But
in the 〈◊〉 year of his Age and was buried in the Sepulchre which himself had purchased of the sons of Heth. Contemporary with Abraham was his Nephew Lot a just man but vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked for dwelling in the midst of an impure and debauched generation In seeing and hearing he vexed his righteous Soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds This endeared him to Heaven who took a particular care of him and sent an Angel on purpose to conduct him and his family out of Sodom before he let loose that fatal vengeance that overturned it 18. Abraham being dead Isaac stood up in his stead the son of his Parents old age and the fruit of an extraordinary promise Being delivered from being a sacrifice he frequented say the Jews the School of Sem wherein he was educated in the knowledge of Divine things till his marriage with Rebeccah But however that was he was a good man we read of his going out to meditate or pray in the field at even-tide and elsewhere we find him publickly sacrificing and calling upon God In all his distresses God still appeared to him animated him against his fears and encouraged him to go on in the steps of his Father renewing the same promises to him which he had made to Abraham Nay so visible and remarkable was the interest which he had in Heaven that Abimelech King of the Philistines and his Courtiers thought it their wisest course to confederate with him for this very reason because they saw certainly that the Lord was with him and that he was the blessed of the Lord. Religion is the truest interest and the wisest portion 't is the surest protection and the safest refuge When a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Isaac dying in the CLXXX year of his life the Patriarchate devolved upon his son Jacob by vertue of the primogeniture which he had purchased of his brother Esau and which had been confirmed to him by the grant and blessing of his Father though subtilly procured by the artifice and policy of his Mother who also told him that God Almighty would bless and multiply him and his seed after him and that the blessing of Abraham should come upon them He intirely devoted himself to the fear and service of God kept up his Worship and vindicated it from the incroachments of Idolatry he erected Altars at every turn and zealously purged his house from those Teraphim or Idols which Rachel had brought along with her out of Laban's house either to prevent her Father's enquiring at them which way Jacob had made his escape or to take away from him the instruments of his Idolatry or possibly that she might have wherewith to propitiate and 〈◊〉 her Father in case he should pursue and overtake them as Josephus thinks though surely then she would have produced them when she saw her Father so zealous to retrieve them He had frequent Visions and Divine condescensions God appearing to him and ratifying the Covenant that he had made with Abraham and changing his name from Jacob to Israel as a memorial of the mighty prevalency which he had with Heaven In his later time he removed his family into Egypt where God had prepared his way by the 〈◊〉 of his son Joseph to be Vice-Roy and Lord of that vast and fertile Country advanced to that place of state and grandeur by many strange and unsearchable methods of the Divine Providence By his two Wives the Daughters of his Uncle Laban and his two Handmaids he had twelve Sons who afterwards became founders of the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish Nation to whom upon his death-bed he bequeathed his blessings consigning their several portions and the particular fates of every Tribe among whom that of 〈◊〉 is most remarkable to whom it was foretold that the 〈◊〉 should arise out of that Tribe that the Regal Power Political Soveraignty should be annexed to it and remain in it till the 〈◊〉 came at whose coming the Scepter should depart and the Law-giver from between his knees And thus all their own Paraphrasts both Onkelos Jonathan and he of Jerusalem do expound it that there should not want Kings or Rulers of the house of Judah nor Scribes to teach the Law of that race 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until the time that 〈◊〉 the King shall come whose the Kingdom is And so it accordingly came to pass for at the time of Christ's Birth Herod who was a stranger had usurped the Throne debased the Authority of their great Sanhedrim murdered their Senators devested them of all Judiciary power and kept them so low that they had not power 〈◊〉 to put a man to death And unto him shall the gathering of the people be A prophecy exactly accomplished when in the first Ages of Christianity the Nations of the World 〈◊〉 to the standard of Christ at the publication of the Gospel Jacob died CXLVII years old and was buried in Canaan in the Sepulchre of his Fathers After whose decease his posterity for some hundreds of years were afflicted under the Egyptian yoke Till God remembring the Covenant he had made with their Fathers powerfully rescued them from the Iron Furnace and conducted them through the wilderness into the Land of Promise where he framed and ordered their Commonwealth appointed Laws for the government of their Church and setled them under a more fixed and certain dispensation 19. HITHERTO we have surveyed the state of the Church in the constant succession of the Patriarchal Line But if we step a little further into the History of those times we shall find that there were some extraordinary persons without the Pale of that holy Tribe renowned for the worship of God and the profession of Religion among whom two are most considerable Melchisedeck and Job Melchisedeck was King of Salem in the land of Canaan and Priest of the most high God The short account which the Scripture gives of him hath left room for various fancies and conjectures The opinion that has most generally obtained is that Melchisedeck was Sem one of the sons of Noah who was of a great Age and lived above LXX years after Abraham's coming into Canaan and might therefore well enough meet him in his triumphant return from his conquest over the Kings of the Plain But notwithstanding the universal authority which this opinion assumes to it self it appears not to me with any tolerable probability partly because Canaan where Melchisedeck lived was none of those Countries which were allotted to Sem and to his posterity and unlikely it is that he should be Prince in a foreign Country partly because those things which the Scripture reports concerning Melchisedeck do no ways agree to Sem as that he was without Father and Mother without genealogie c. whenas Moses does most exactly describe and record Sem and his Family both as to his Ancestors
death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the 〈◊〉 extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideons Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jewes themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jewes or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all 〈◊〉 and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their 〈◊〉 unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined onely to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or
a Fancy and put the body of your Piety into fermentation by presenting you with the circumstances and parts of such Meditations which are symbolical to those of your daily Office and which are the passe-temps of your severest hours My Lord I am not so vain to think that in the matter of Devotion and the rules of Justice and Religion which is the business of your life I can add any thing to your heap of excellent things but I have known and felt comfort by reading or hearing from other persons what I knew my self and it was unactive upon my spirit till it was made vigorous and effective from without And in this sence I thought I might not be useless and impertinent My Lord I designed to be instrumental to the Salvation of all persons that shall read my Book But unless because Souls are equal in their substance and equally redeemed we are obliged to wish the Salvation of all men with the greatest that is with equal desires I did intend in the highest manner I could to express how much I am to pay to you by doing the offices of that Duty which although you less need yet I was most bound to pay even the duties and charities of Religion having this design that when posterity for certainly they will learn to distinguish things and persons shall see your Honoured Name imployed to separate and rescue these Papers from contempt they may with the more confidence expect in them something fit to be offered to such a Personage My Lord I have my end if I serve God and You and the needs and interests of Souls but shall think my return full of reward if you shall give me pardon and put me into your Litanies and account me in the number of your Relatives and Servants for indeed my Lord I am most heartily Your Lordship's most affectionate and most obliged Servant JER TAYLOR THE CONTENTS THE PREFACE fol. I. An Exhortation to the Imitation of the Life of CHRIST fol. i SECT I. The History of the Conception of JESUS pag. 1. Considerations upon the Annunciation of the Blessed MARY and the Conception of the Holy Jesus p. 3. SECT II. The Bearing of JESUS in the 〈◊〉 of the Blessed 〈◊〉 p. 7. Considerations concerning the circumstances of the Interval between the Conception and Nativity p. 8. SECT III. The Nativity of our Blessed Saviour JESUS p. 13. Considerations upon the Birth of our Blessed Saviour JESUS p. 15. Discourse 1. Of Nursing Children in imitation of the Blessed Virgin-Mother p. 18. SECT IV. Of the great and glorious Accidents happening about the Birth of JESUS p. 25. Considerations upon the Apparition of the Angels to the Shepherds p. 28. Considerations upon the Epiphany of the Blessed JESUS by a Star and the Adoration of JESUS by the Eastern Magi. p. 31. SECT V. Of the Circumcision of JESUS and his Presentation in the Temple p. 35. Considerations upon the Circumcision of the Holy Child JESUS p. 36. Discourse 2. Of the Vertue of Obedience p. 40. Considerations upon the Presentation of JESUS in the Temple p. 51. Discourse 3. Of Meditation p. 54. SECT VI. Of the Death of the Holy Innocents or the Babes of Bethlehem and the Flight of JESUS into Egypt p. 65. Considerations upon the Death of the Innocents and the Flight of the Holy JESUS into Egypt p. 67. SECT VII Of the younger years of JESUS and his Disputation with the Doctors in the Temple p. 73. Considerations upon the Disputation of JESUS with the Doctors in the Temple p. 74. SECT VIII Of the Preaching of John the Baptist preparative to the Manifestation of JESUS p. 77. Considerations upon the Preaching of John the Baptist. p. 78. Discourse 4. Of Mortification and corporal Austerities p. 82. SECT IX Of JESUS being Baptized and going into the Wilderness to be tempted p. 93. Considerations upon the Baptizing Fasting and Temptation of the Holy JESUS by the Devil p. 95. Discourse 5. Of Temptation p. 102. Discourse 6. Of Baptism p. 116. Of Baptizing Infants p. 127. SECT X. Of the first Manifestation of JESUS by the Testimony of John and a Miracle p. 151. Considerations touching the Vocation of five Disciples and of the first Miracle of JESUS done at Cana in Galilee p. 155. Discourse 7. Of Faith p. 159. SECT XI Of CHRIST's going to Jerusalem to the Passeover the first time after his Manifestation and what followed till the expiration of the Office of John the Baptist. p. 167. Considerations upon the first Journey of the Holy JESUS to Jerusalem when he whipt the Merchants out of the Temple p. 169. Discourse 8. Of the Religion of Holy Places p. 171. SECT XII Of JESUS's departure into Galilee his manner of Life Miracles and Preaching his calling of Disciples and what happened until the second Passeover p. 181. Considerations upon the Entercourse happening between the Holy JESUS and the Woman of Samaria p. 187. Considerations upon CHRIST's first Preaching and the Accidents happening about that time p. 193. Discourse 9. Of Repentance p. 197. Upon CHRIST's Sermon on the Mount and of the Eight Beatitudes p. 221. Discourse 10. Upon that part of the Decalogue which the Holy JESUS adopted into the Institution and obligation of Christianity p. 231. Of the three additional Precepts which CHRIST super induced and made parts of the Christian Law Discourse 11. Of CHARITY with its parts Forgiving Giving not Judging p. 232. Of Alms. p. 258. Discourse 12. Of the second additional Precept of CHRIST viz. Of PRAYER p. 261. Discourse 13. Of the third additional Precept of CHRIST viz. of the manner of FASTING p. 272. Discourse 14. Of the Miracles which JESUS wrought for confirmation of his Doctrine during the whole time of his Preaching p. 277. SECT XIII Of the Second Year of the Preaching of JESUS p. 289. Discourse 15. Of the Excellency 〈◊〉 Reasonableness and Advantages of bearing CHRIST's Yoke and living according to his Institution p. 295. Discourse 16. Of Certainty of 〈◊〉 p. 313. SECT XIV Of the Third Year of the Preaching of JESUS p. 319. Discourse 17. Of Scandal or Giving and taking Offence p. 328. Discourse 18. Of the Causes and Manner of the Divine Judgments p. 335. SECT XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus until the Death and Burial of JESUS p. 345. Considerations of some preparatory Accidents before the entrance of JESUS into his Passion p. 357. Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples feet by JESUS and his Sermon of 〈◊〉 p. 363. Discourse 19. Of the Institution and Reception of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper p. 369. Considerations upon the Accidents happening on the Vespers of the Passion p. 383. Considerations upon the Scourging and other Accidents happening from the Apprehension till the Crucifixion of JESUS p. 389. Discourse 20. Of Death and the due manner of Preparation to it p. 397. Considerations upon the Crucifixion of the Holy JESUS p. 411. SECT XVI Of the Resurrection and
the Apostle says He that is in Christ walks as he also walked But thus the actions of our life relate to him by way of Worship and Religion but the use is admirable and effectual when our actions refer to him as to our Copy and we transcribe the Original to the life He that considers with what affections and lancinations of spirit with what effusions of love Jesus prayed what fervors and assiduity what innocency of wish what modesty of posture what subordination to his Father and conformity to the Divine Pleasure were in all his Devotions is taught and excited to holy and religious Prayer The rare sweetness of his deportment in all Temptations and violences of his Passion his Charity to his enemies his sharp Reprehensions to the Scribes and Pharisees his Ingenuity toward all men are living and effectual Sermons to teach us Patience and Humility and Zeal and candid Simplicity and Justice in all our actions I add no more instances because all the following Discourses will be prosecutions of this intendment And the Life of Jesus is not described to be like a Picture in a chamber of Pleasure only for beauty and entertainment of the eye but like the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks whose every feature is a Precept and the Images converse with men by sense and signification of excellent 〈◊〉 16. It was not without great reason advised that every man should propound the example of a wise and vertuous personage as Cato or Socrates or Brutus and by a fiction of imagination to suppose him present as a witness and really to take his life as the direction of all our actions The best and most excellent of the old Law-givers and Philosophers among the Greeks had an allay of Viciousness and could not be exemplary all over Some were noted for Flatterers as Plato and Aristippus some for Incontinency as Aristotle Epicurus Zeno Theognis Plato and Aristippus again and Socrates whom their Oracle affirmed to be the wisest and most perfect man yet was by Porphyry noted for extreme intemperance of Anger both in words and actions And those Romans who were offered to them for Examples although they were great in reputation yet they had also great Vices Brutus dipt his hand in the bloud of Caesar his Prince and his Father by love endearments and adoption and Cato was but a wise man all day at night he was used to drink too liberally and both he and Socrates did give their Wives unto their friends the Philosopher and the Censor were procurers of their Wives Unchastity and yet these were the best among the Gentiles But how happy and richly furnished are Christians with precedents of Saints whose Faith and Revelations have been productive of more spiritual Graces and greater degrees of moral perfections And this I call the priviledge of a very great assistance that I might advance the reputation and account of the Life of the Glorious Jesu which is not abated by the imperfections of humane Nature as they were but receives great heightnings and perfection from the Divinity of his Person of which they were never capable 17. Let us therefore press after Jesus as 〈◊〉 did after his Master with an inseparable prosecution even whithersoever he goes that according to the reasonableness and proportion expressed in S. Paul's advice As we have born the image of the earthly we may also bear the image of the heavenly For in vain are we called Christians if we live not according to the example and discipline of Christ the Father of the Institution When S. Laurence was in the midst of the torments of the Grid-iron he made this to be the matter of his joy and Eucharist that he was admitted to the Gates through which Jesus had entred and therefore thrice happy are they who walk in his Courts all their days And it is yet a nearer union and vicinity to imprint his Life in our Souls and express it in our exterior converse and this is done by him only who as S. Prosper describes the duty despises all those gilded vanities which he despised that fears none of those sadnesses which he suffered that practises or also teaches those Doctrines which he taught and hopes for the accomplishment of all his Promises And this is truest Religion and the most solemn Adoration The PRAYER OEternal Holy and most glorious Jesu who hast united two Natures of distance infinite descending to the lownesses of Humane nature that thou mightest exalt Humane nature to a participation of the Divinity we thy people that sate in darkness and in the shadows of death have seen great light to entertain our Understandings and enlighten our Souls with its excellent influences for the excellency of thy Sanctity shining gloriously in every part of thy Life is like thy Angel the Pillar of Fire which called thy children from the darknesses of Egypt Lord open mine eyes and give me power to behold thy righteous Glories and let my Soul be so entertained with affections and holy ardours that I may never look back upon the flames of 〈◊〉 but may follow thy Light which recreates and enlightens and guides us to the mountains of Safety and Sanctuaries of Holiness Holy Jesu since thy 〈◊〉 is imprinted on our Nature by Creation let me also express thy Image by all the parts of a holy life 〈◊〉 my Will and Affections to thy holy Precepts submitting my Understanding to thy Dictates and Lessons of perfection imitating thy sweetnesses and Excellencies of Society thy Devotion in Prayer thy Conformity to God thy Zeal tempered with Meekness thy Patience heightned with Charity that Heart and Hands and Eyes and all my Faculties may grow up with the increase of God till I come to the full measure of the 〈◊〉 of Christ even to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus that at last in thy light I may see light and reap the fruits of Glory from the seeds of Sanctity in the 〈◊〉 of thy holy Life O Blessed and Holy Saviour Jesus Amen THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin MARY until his Baptism and Temptation inclusively WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE FIRST PART Qui sequitur me non ambulat in Tenebris LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675. THE LIFE Of our Blessed Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST The Evangelical Prophet Behold a Virgin shall conceive beare a son and shall call his name Immanuel Isa 7 14. Mat 1 22 23 The Annunciation S. LUKE 1. 28 Haile thou that art highly favoured the Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women SECT I. The History of the Conception of JESVS 1. WHen the fulness of time was come after the frequent repetition of Promises the expectation of the Jewish Nation the longings and tedious waitings of all holy persons the departure of the
sweetnesses which represent the glory of the reward by the Antepasts and refreshments dispensed even in the ruggedness of the way and incommodities of the journey All other delights are the pleasures of Beasts or the sports of Children these are the Antepasts and preventions of the full Feasts and overflowings of Eternity 10. When they came to Bethlehem and the Star pointed them to a Stable they entred in and being enlightned with a Divine Ray proceeding from the face of the Holy Child and seeing through the cloud and passing through the scandal of his mean Lodging and poor condition they bowed themselves to the earth first giving themselves an Oblation to this great King then they made offering of their Gifts for a man's person is first accepted then his Gift God first regarded Abel and then accepted his Offering which we are best taught to understand by the present instance for it means no more but that all outward Services and Oblations are made acceptable by the prior presentation of an inward Sacrifice If we have first presented our selves then our Gift is pleasant as coming but to express the truth of the first Sacrifice but if our Persons be not first made a Holocaust to God the lesser Oblations of outward Presents are like Sacrifices without Salt and Fire nothing to make them pleasant or religious For all other sences of this Proposition charge upon God the distinguishing and acceptation of Persons against which he solemnly protests God regards no man's Person but according to the doing of his Duty but then God is said first to accept the Person and then the Gist when the Person is first sanctified and given to God by the vows and habits of a holy life and then all the actions of his Religion are homogeneal to their principle and accepted by the acceptation of the man 11. These Magi presented to the Holy Babe Gold Frankincense and Myrrh protesting their Faith of three Articles by the symbolical Oblation By Gold that he was a King by Incense that he was a God by Myrrh that he was a Man And the Presents also were representative of interiour Vertues the Myrrh signifying Faith Mortification Chastity Compunction and all the actions of the Purgative way of Spiritual life the Incense signifying Hope Prayer Obedience good Intention and all the actions and Devotions of the Illuminative the giving the Gold representing Love to God and our Neighbours the Contempt of riches Poverty of spirit and all the eminencies and spiritual riches of the Unitive life And these Oblations if we present to the Holy Jesus both our Persons and our Gifts shall be accepted our Sins shall be purged our Understandings enlightned and our Wills united to this Holy Child and entitled to a communion of all his Glories 12. And thus in one view and two Instances God hath drawn all the world to himself by his Son Jesus in the Instance of the Shepherds and the Arabian Magi Jews and Gentiles Learned and Unlearned Rich and Poor Noble and Ignoble that in him all Nations and all Conditions and all Families and all persons might be blessed having called all by one Star or other by natural Reason or by the secrets of Philosophy by the Revelations of the Gospel or by the ministery of Angels by the Illuminations of the Spirit or by the Sermons and Dictates of spiritual Fathers and hath consigned this Lesson to us That we must never appear before the Lord empty offering Gifts to him by the expences or by the affections of Charity either the worshipping or the oblations of Religion either the riches of the World or the love of the Soul for if we cannot bring Gold with the rich Arabians we may with the poor Shepherds come and kiss the Son lest he be angry and in all cases come and serve him with fear and reverence and spiritual rejoycings The PRAYER MOst Holy Jesu Thou art the Glory of thy people Israel and a light to the Gentiles and wert pleased to call the Gentiles to the adoration and knowledge of thy sacred Person and Laws communicating the inestimable riches of thy holy Discipline to all with an universal undistinguishing Love give unto us spirits docible pious prudent and ductile that no motion or invitation of Grace be ineffectual but may produce excellent effects upon us and the secret whispers of thy Spirit may prevail upon our Affections in order to Piety and Obedience as certainly as the loudest and most clamorous Sermons of the Gospel Create in us such Excellencies as are fit to be presented to thy glorious Majesty accept of the Oblation of my self and my entire services but be thou pleased to verifie my Offering and secure the possession to thy self that the enemy may not pollute the Sacrifice or divide the Gift or question the Title but that I may be wholly thine and for ever clarifie my Understanding sanctifie my Will replenish my Memory with arguments of Piety then shall I present to thee an Oblation rich and precious as the treble gift of the Levantine Princes Lord I am thine reject me not from thy favour exclude me not from thy presence then shall I serve thee all the days of my life and partake of the glories of thy Kingdom in which thou reignest gloriously and eternally Amen SECT V. Of the Circumcision of JESUS and his Presentation in the Temple The Circumcision of Iesus S. LUKE 2. 21. And when eight daies were accomphshed for the circumcising of the Child his name was called Iesus which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the Wombe The Purification and Presentation S. LUKE 2. 22. And when the dayes of her purification were accomplished they brought him to Ierusalem to present him to the Lord. 1. AND now the Blessed Saviour of the World began to do the work of his Mission and our Redemption and because Man had prevaricated all the Divine Commandments to which all humane nature respectively to the persons of several capacities was obliged and therefore the whole Nature was obnoxious to the just rewards of its demerits first Christ was to put that Nature he had assumed into a saveable condition by fulfilling his Father's preceptive will and then to reconcile it actually by suffering the just deservings of its Prevarications He therefore addresses himself to all the parts of an active Obedience and when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the Child he exposed his tender body to the sharpness of the circumcising stone and shed his bloud in drops giving an earnest of those rivers which he did afterwards pour out for the cleansing all Humane nature and extinguishing the wrath of God 2. He that had no sin nor was conceived by natural generation could have no adherences to his Soul or Body which needed to be pared away by a Rite and cleansed by a Mystery neither indeed do we find it expressed that Circumcision was ordained for abolition or pardon of original sin it
and the sons of Israel never murmured when God bad them borrow jewels and ear-rings and spoil the Egyptians But because God restrained these desires our duties are the harder because they are fetters to our Liberty and contradictions to those natural inclinations which also are made more active by evil custom and unhandsome educations From which Premisses we shall observe in order to practice That sin creeps upon us in our education so tacitely and undiscernibly that we mistake the cause of it and yet so prevalently and effectually that we judge it to be our very nature and charge it upon Adam to lessen the imputation upon us or to increase the licence or the confidence when every one of us is the Adam the man of sin and the parent of our own impurities For it is notorious that our own iniquities do so discompose our naturals and evil customs and examples do so incourage impiety and the Law of God enjoyns such Vertues which do violence to Nature that our proclivity to sin is occasioned by the accident and is caused by our selves what-ever mischief Adam did to us we do more to our selves We are taught to be revengeful in our Cradles and are taught to strike our Neighbour as a means to still our frowardness and to satisfie our wranglings Our Nurses teach us to know the greatness of our Birth or the riches of our Inheritance or they learn us to be proud or to be impatient before they learn us to know God or to say our Prayers And then because the use of Reason comes at no definite time but insensibly and divisibly we are permitted such acts with impunity too long deferring to repute them to be sins till the habit is grown strong natural and masculine and because from the infancy it began in inolinations and tender overtures and slighter actions Adam is laid in the fault and Original sin did all and this clearly we therefore confess that our faults may seem the less and the misery be pretended natural that it may be thought to be irremediable and therefore we not engaged to endeavour a cure so that the confession of our original sin is no imitation of Christ's Humility in suffering Circumcision but too often an act of Pride Carelesness Ignorance and Security 8. At the Circumcision his Parents imposed the Holy Name told to the Virgin by the Angel his Name was called JESUS a Name above every name For in old times God was known by names of Power of Nature of Majesty But his name of Mercy was reserved till now when God did purpose to pour out the whole treasure of his Mercy by the mediation and ministry of his Holy Son And because God gave to the Holy Babe the name in which the treasures of Mercy were deposited and exalted this name above all names we are taught that the purpose of his Counsel was to exalt and magnifie his Mercy above all his other works he being delighted with this excellent demonstration of it in the Mission and Manifestation and Crucifixion of his Son he hath changed the ineffable Name into a name utterable by man and desirable by all the world the Majesty is all arrayed in robes of Mercy the Tetragrammation or adorable Mystery of the Patriarchs is made fit for pronunciation and expression when it becometh the name of the Lord 's CHRIST And if JEHOVAH be full of majesty and terrour the name JESUS is full of sweetness and mercy It is GOD clothed with circumstances of facility and opportunities of approximation The great and highest name of GOD could not be pronounced truly till it came to be sinished with a Guttural that made up the name given by this Angel to the Holy Child nor God received or entertained by men till he was made humane and sensible by the adoption of a sensitive nature like Vowels pronunciable by the intertexture of a Consonant Thus was his Person made tangible and his Name utterable and his Mercy brought home to our necessities and the Mystery made explicate at the Circumcision of this Holy Babe 9. But now God's mercy was at full Sea now was the time when God made no reserves to the effusion of his mercy For to the Patriarchs and persons of eminent Sanctity and imployment in the elder Ages of the World God according to the degrees of his manifestation or present purpose would give them one letter of this ineffable Name For the reward that Abraham had in the change of his name was that he had the honour done him to have one of the letters of Jehovah put into it and so had Joshua when he was a type of Christ and the Prince of the Israelitish Armies and when God took away one of these letters it was a curse But now he communicated all the whole Name to this Holy Child and put a letter more to it to signifie that he was the glory of God the express image of his Father's person God Eternal and then manifested to the World in his Humanity that all the intelligent world who expected Beatitude and had treasured all their hopes in the ineffable Name of GOD might find them all with ample returns in this Name of JESUS which God hath exalted above every name even above that by which God in the Old Testament did represent the greatest awfulness of his Majesty This miraculous Name is above all the powers of Magical Inchantments the nightly rites of Sorcerers the Secrets of Memphis the Drugs of Thessaly the silent and mysterious Murmurs of the wise Chaldees and the Spells of Zoroastres This is the Name at which the Devils did tremble and pay their inforced and involuntary adorations by confessing the Divinity and quitting their possessions and usurped habitations If our prayers be made in this Name God opens the windows of Heaven and rains down benediction at the mention of this Name the blessed Apostles and Hermione the daughter of St. Philip and Philotheus the son of Theophila and St. Hilarion and St. Paul the Eremite and innumerable other Lights who followed hard after the Sun of Righteousness wrought great and prodigious Miracles Signs and wonders and healings were done by the Name of the Holy Child JESUS This is the Name which we should ingrave in our hearts and write upon our fore-heads and pronounce with our most harmonious accents and rest our faith upon and place our hopes in and love with the overflowings of charity and joy and adoration And as the revelation of this Name satisfied the hopes of all the World so it must determine our worshippings and the addresses of our exteriour and interiour Religion it being that Name whereby God and God's mercies are made presential to us and proportionate objects of our Religion and affections The PRAYER MOst Holy and ever-Blessed Jesu who art infinite in Essence glorious in Mercy mysterious in thy Communications affable and presential in the descents of thy Humanity I
confession and undertaking a holy life and therefore in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are conjoyned in the significations as they are in the mystery it is a giving up our names to Christ and it is part of the foundation or the first Principles of the Religion as appears in S. Paul's Catechism it is so the first thing that it is for babes and Neophytes in which they are matriculated and adopted into the house of their Father and taken into the hands of their Mother Upon this account Baptism is called in antiquity 〈◊〉 janua porta Gratiae primus introitus Sanctorum adaeternam Dei Ecclesiae consuetudinem The gate of the Church the door of Grace the first entrance of the Saints to an eternal conversation with God and the Church Sacramentum initiationis intrantium Christianismum investituram S. Bernard calls it The Sacrament of initiation and the investiture of them that enter into the Religion And the person so entring is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the Religion or a Proselyte and Convert and one added to the number of the Church in imitation of that of S. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God added to the Church those that should be saved just as the Church does to this day and for ever baptizing Infants and Catechuments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are added to the Church that they may be added to the Lord and the number of the Inhabitants of Heaven 15. Secondly The next step beyond this is Adoption into the Convenant which is an immediate consequent of the first Presentation this being the first act of man that the first act of God And this is called by S. Paul a being baptized in one spirit into one body that is we are made capable of the Communion of Saints the blessings of the faithful the priviledges of the Church by this we are as S. Luke calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained or disposed put into the order of Eternal Life being made members of the mystical Body under Christ our Head 16. Thirdly And therefore Baptism is a new birth by which we enter into the new world the new Creation the blessings and spiritualities of the Kingdom and this is the expression which our Saviour himself used Nicodemus Unless a man be born of Water and the Spirit and it is by S. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laver of Regeneration for now we begin to be reckoned in new Census or account God is become our Father Christ our elder Brother the Spirit the earnest of our Inheritance the Church our Mother our food is the body and bloud of our Lord Faith is our learning Religion our employment and our whole life is spiritual and Heaven the object of our Hopes and the mighty price of our high Calling And from this time forward we have a new principle put into us the Spirit of Grace which besides our Soul and body is a principle of action of one nature and shall with them enter into the portion of our Inheritance And therefore the Primitive Christians who consigned all their affairs and goods and writings with some marks of their Lord usually writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour made it an abbreviature by writing only the Capitals thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Heathens in mockery and derision made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Fish and they used it for Christ as a name of reproach but the Christians owned the name and turned it into a pious Metaphor and were content that they should enjoy their pleasure in the Acrostich but upon that occasion Tertullian speaks pertinently to this Article Nos pisciculi sccundùm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur Christ whom you call a Fish we knowledge to be our Lord and Saviour and we if you please are the little fishes for we are born in water thence we derive our spiritual life And because from henceforward we are a new Creation the Church uses to assign new relations to the Catechumens Spiritual Fathers and Susceptors and at their entrance into Baptism the Christians and Jewish Proselytes did use to cancel all secular affections to their temporal relatives Nec quicquam priùs 〈◊〉 quà m contemnere Deos exuere patriam parentes liberos fratres vilia habere said Tacitus of the Christians which was true in the sence only that Christ said He that doth not hate father or mother for my sake is not worthy of me that is he that doth not hate them praeme rather than forsake me forsake them is unworthy of me 17. Fourthly In Baptism all our sins are pardoned according to the words of a Prophet I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness The Catechumen descends into the Font a Sinner he arises purified he goes down the son of Death he comes up the son of the Resurrection he enters in the son of Folly and prevarication he returns the son of Reconciliation he stoops down the child of Wrath and ascends the heir of Mercy he was the child of the Devil and now he is the servant and the son of God They are the words of Venerable Bede concerning this Mystery And this was ingeniously signified by that Greek inscription upon a Font which is so prettily contriv'd that the words may be read after the Greek or after the Hebrew manner and be exactly the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord wash my sin and not my face only And so it is intended and promised Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins and call on the Name of the Lord said Ananias to Saul for Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the washing of water in the word that is Baptism in the Christian Religion and therefore Tertullian calls Baptism lavacrum compendiatum a compendious Laver that is an intire cleansing the Soul in that one action justly and rightly performed In the rehearsal of which Doctrine it was not an unpleasant Etymology that 〈◊〉 Sinaita gave of Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which our sins are thrown off and they fall like leeches when they are full of bloud and water or like the chains from S. Peter's hands at the presence of the Angel Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an intire full forgiveness of sins so that they shall never be called again to scrutiny Omnia Daemonis armae His merguntur aquis quibus ille renascitur Infans Qui captivus erat The captivity of the Soul is taken away by the bloud of Redemption and the fiery darts of the Devil are quenched by these salutary waters and what the flames of Hell are expiating or punishing to eternal
hand is heavy and his sword is sharp and pierces to the dividing the marrow and the bones and he that considers the infinite distance between God and us must tremble when he remembers that he is to feel the issues of that anger which he is not certain whether or no it will destroy him infinitely and eternally 4. But if the whip be given into our hands that we become executioners of the Divine wrath it is sometimes worse for we seldom strike our selves for emendation but add sin to sin till we perish miserably and inevitably God scourges us often into Repentance but when a Sin is the whip of another sin the rod is put into our hands who like blind men strike with a rude and undiscerning hand and because we love the punishment do it without intermission or choice and have no end but ruine 5. When the Holy Jesus had whipt the Merchants in the Temple they took away all the instruments of their sin For a Judgment is usually the commencement of Repentance Love is the last of Graces and 〈◊〉 at the beginning of a new life but is reserved to the perfections and ripeness of a Christian. We begin in Pear The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom 〈◊〉 hen he smote them then they turned and enquired early after God And afterwards the impresses of Fear continue like a hedge of thorns about us to restrain our dissolutions within the awfulness of the Divine Majesty that it may preserve what was from the same principle begun This principle of their emendation was from God and therefore innocent and holy and the very purpose of Divine Threatnings is that upon them as upon one of the great hindges the Piety of the greatest part of men should turn and the effect was answerable but so are not the actions of all those who follow this precedent in the tract of the letter For indeed there have been some reformations which have been so like this that the greatest alteration which hath been made was that they carried all things out of the Temple the Money and the Tables and the Sacrifice and the Temple it self went at last But these mens scourge is to follow after and Christ the Prince of the Catholick Church will provide one of his own contexture moresevere than the stripes which 〈◊〉 felt from the infliction of the exterminating Angel But the Holy Spirit of God by making provision against such a Reformation hath prophetically declared the aptnesses which are in pretences of religious alterations to degenerate into sacrilegious desires Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit sacriledge In this case there is no amendment only one sin resigns to another and the person still remains under its power and the same dominion The PRAYER OEternal Jesu thou bright Image of thy Father's glories whose light did shine to all the world when thy heart was inflamed with zeal and love of God and of Religion let a coal from thine Altar fanned with the wings of the Holy Dove kindle in my Soul such holy flames that I may be zealous of thy honour and glory forward in Religious duties earnest in their pursuit prudent in their managing ingenuous in my purposes making my Religion to serve no end but of thy glories and the obtaining of thy promises and so sanctific my Soul and my Body that I may be a holy Temple fit and prepared for the inhabitation of thy ever-blessed Spirit whom grant that I may never grieve by admitting any impure thing to desecrate the place and unhallow the Courts of his abode but give me a pure Soul in a chaste and healthful 〈◊〉 a spirit full of holy simplicity and designs of great ingenuity and perfect Religion that I may intend what thou commandest and may with proper instruments 〈◊〉 what I so intend and by thy aids may obtain the end of my labours the rewards of obedience and holy living even the society and inheritance of Jesus in the participation of the joys of thy Temple where thou dwellest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost O Eternal Jesus Amen DISCOURSE VIII Of the Religion of Holy Places 1. THE Holy Jesus brought a Divine warrant for his Zeal The selling Sacrifices and the exchange of Money and every Lay-employment did violence and dishonour to the Temple which was hallowed to Ecclesiastical ministeries and set apart for Offices of Religion for the use of holy things for it was God's House and so is every house by publick designation separate for Prayer or other uses of Religion it is God's House My house God had a propriety in it and had set his mark on it even his own Name And therefore it was in the Jews Idiome of speech called the Mountain of the Lord's House and the House of the Lord by David frequently God had put his Name into all places appointed for solemn Worship In all places where I record my Name I will come unto thee and bless thee For God who was never visible to mortal eye was pleased to make himself presential by substitution of his Name that is in certain places he hath appointed that his Name shall be called upon and by promising and imparting such Blessings which he hath made consequent to the invocation of his Name hath made such places to be a certain determination of some special manner of his Presence For God's Name is not a distinct thing from himself not an Idea and it cannot be put into a place in literal signification the expression is to be resolved into some other sence God's Name is that whereby he is known by which he is invocated that which is the most immediate publication of his Essence nearer than which we cannot go unto him and because God is essentially present in all places when he makes himself present in one place more than another it cannot be understood to any other purpose but that in such places he gives special Blessings and Graces or that in those places he appoints his Name that is himself specially to be invocated 2. So that when God puts his Name in any place by a special manner it signifies that there himself is in that manner But in separate and hallowed places God hath expressed that he puts his Name with a purpose it should be called upon therefore in plain signification it is thus In Consecrate places God himself is present to be invok'd that is there he is most delighted to hear the Prayers we make unto him For all the expressions of Scripture of God's 〈◊〉 the Tabernacle of God God's Dwellings putting his Name there his Sanctuary are resolved into that saying of God to Solomon who prayed that he would hear the Prayers of necessitous people in that place God granting the request expressed it thus I have sanctified the House which thou hast built that is the House which thou hast designed for my Worship I have designed for your Blessing what you have
Shepherd in the 〈◊〉 Afterwards they admitted Pictures but not before the time of Constantine for in the Council of Eliberis they were forbidden And in succession of time the scruples lessened with the danger and all the way they signified their belief to be that this Commandment was only so far retained by Christ as it relied upon natural reason or was a particular instance of the great Commandment that is Images were forbidden where they did dishonour God or lessen his reputation or estrange our duties or became Idols or the direct matter of superstitious observances charms or senseless confidences but they were permitted to represent the Humanity of Christ to remember Saints and Martyrs to recount a story to imprint a memory to do honour and reputation to absent persons and to be the instruments of a relative civility and esteem But in this particular infinite care is to be taken of Scandal and danger of a forward and zealous ignorance or of a mistaking and peevish confidence and where a Society hath such persons in it the little good of Images must not be violently retained with the greater danger and certain offence of such persons of whom consideration is to be had in the cure of Souls I only add this that the first Christians made no scruple of saluting the Statues of their Princes and were confident it made no intrenchment upon the natural prohibition contained in this Commandment because they had observed that exteriour inclinations and addresses of the body though in the lowest manner were not proper to God but in Scripture found also to be communicated to Creatures to Kings to Prophets to Parents to Religious persons and because they found it to be death to do affront to the Pictures and Statues of their Emperors they concluded in reason which they also saw verified by the practice and opinion of all the world that the respect they did at the Emperor's Statue was accepted as a veneration to his person But these things are but sparingly to be drawn into Religion because the customs of this world are altered and their opinions new and many who have not weak understandings have weak Consciences and the necessity for the entertainment of them is not so great as the offence is or may be 18. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain This our Blessed Saviour repeating expresses it thus It hath been said to them of old time Thou shalt not for swear thy self to which Christ adds out of Num. 30. 2. But thou shalt perform thy Oaths unto the Lord. The meaning of the one we are taught by the other We must not invocate the Name of God in any promise in vain that is with a Lie which happens either out of levity that we change our purpose which at first we really intended or when our intention at that instant was fallacious and contradictory to the undertaking This is to take the Name of God that is to use it to take it into our mouths for vanity that is according to the perpetual style of Scripture for a Lie Every one hath spoken vanity to his neighbour that is he hath lied unto him for so it follows with flattering lips and with a double heart and swearing deceitfully is by the Psalmist called lifting up his soul unto vanity And Philo the Jew who well understood the Law and the language of his Nation renders the sence of this Commandment to be to call God to witness to a Lie And this is to be understood only in Promises for so Christ explains it by the appendix out of the Law Thou shalt perform thy Oaths For lying in Judgment which is also with an Oath or taking God's Name for witness is forbidden in the Ninth Commandment To this Christ added a farther restraint For whereas by the Natural Law it was not unlawful to swear by any Oath that implied not Idolatry 〈◊〉 the belief of a false God I say any grave and prudent Oath when they spake a grave truth and whereas it was lawful for the 〈◊〉 in ordinary entercourse to swear by God so they did not swear to a Lie to which also swearing to an impertinency might be reduced by a proportion of reason and was so accounted of in the practice of the Jews but else and in other cases they us'd to swear by God or by a Creature respectively for they that swear by him shall be commended saith the Psalmist and swearing to the Lord of Hosts is called speaking the language of Canaan Most of this was rescinded Christ forbad all swearing not only swearing to a Lie but also swearing to a truth in common affairs not only swearing commonly by the Name of God but swearing commonly by Heaven and by the Earth by our Head or by any other Oath only let our speech be yea or nay that is plainly affirming or denying In these I say Christ corrected the licence and vanities of the Jews and Gentiles For as the Jews accounted it Religion to name God and therefore would not swear by him but in the more solemn occasions of their life but in trifles they would swear by their Fathers or the Light of Heaven or the Ground they trode on so the Greeks were also careful not to swear by the Gods lightly much less fallaciously but they would swear by any thing about them or near them upon an occasion as vain as their Oath But because these Oaths are either indirectly to be referred to God and Christ instances in divers or else they are but a vain testimony or else they give a Divine honour to a Creature by making it a Judge of truth and discerner of spirits therefore Christ seems to forbid all forms of Swearing whatsoever In pursuance of which law Basilides being converted at the prayers of Potamiaena a Virgin-Martyr and required by his fellow-souldiers to swear upon some occasion then happening answered it was not lawful for him to swear for he was a Christian and many of the Fathers have followed the words of Christ in so severe a sence that their words seem to admit no exception 19. But here a grain of salt must be taken lest the letter destroy the spirit First it is certain the Holy Jesus forbad a custom of Swearing it being great irreligion to despise and lessen the Name of God which is the instrument and conveyance of our Adorations to him by making it common and applicable to trifles and ordinary accidents of our life He that swears often many times swears false and however lays by that reverence which being due to God the Scripture determines it to be due at his Name His Name is to be loved and feared And therefore Christ commands that our communication be yea yea or nay nay that is our ordinary discourses should be simply affirmative or negative In order to this Plutarch affirms out of Phavorinus that the
his unreasonableness will give him a new degree of torment when he shall find himself in flames for being a stupid an Atheistical an irreligious fool This only I desire should be observed that our Blessed Master forbids not only swearing by God but by any Creature for every Oath by a creature does involve and tacitely relate to God And therefore saith Christ Swear not by Heaven for it is the throne of God and he that sweareth by the throne of God sweareth by it and by him that sitteth thereon So that it is not a less matter to swear by a Creature than to swear by God for a Creature cannot be the instrument of testimony but as it is a relative to God and it by implication calls the God of that Creature to witness So that although in such cases in which it is permitted to swear by God we may in those cases express our Oath in the form of advocating and calling the Creature as did the primitive Christians swearing by the health of their Emperour and as Joseph swearing by the life of Pharaoh and as Elisha swearing by the life of Elias and as did S. Paul protesting by the rejoycing he had in Jesus Christ and as we in our forms of swearing in Courts of Judicature touch the Gospels saying So help me God and the Contents of this Book and in a few Ages lately past Bishops and Priests sometimes swore upon the Cross sometimes upon the Altar sometimes by their holy Order yet we must remember that this in other words and ceremonies is but a calling God for witness and he that swears by the Cross swears by the holy Crucifix that is Jesus crucified thereon And therefore these and the like forms are therefore not to be used in ordinary communication because they relate to God they are as obligatory as the immediate invocation of his Holiness and Majesty and it was a Judaical vanity to think swearing by Creatures was less obliging they are just with the same restraints made to be religious as the most solemn invocation of the holy and reverend Name of God lawful or unlawful as the other unless the swearing by a Creature come to be spoiled by some other intervening circumstance that is with a denying it to relate to God for then it becomes Superstition as well as Profanation and it gives to a Creature what is proper to God or when the Creature is contemptible or less than the gravity of the matter as if a man should swear by a Fly or the shadow of a Tree or when there is an indecorum in the thing or something that does at too great distance relate to God for that which with greatest vicinity refers to God in several Religions is the best instrument of an Oath and nearest to God's honour as in Christianity are the Holy Sacrament the Cross the Altar and the Gospels and therefore too great a distance may be an indecency next to a disparagement This only may be added to this consideration That although an Oath which is properly calling God or God's relative into testimony is to be understood according to the former Discourse yet there may be great affirmations or negations respectively and confirmed by forms of vehement asseveration such as the customes of a Nation or consent shall agree upon and those do in some cases promote our belief or confirm our pretensions better than a plain Yea or No because by such consent the person renders himself infamous if he breaks his word or trust And although this will not come under the restraint of Christ's words because they are not properly Oaths but circumstances of earnest affirmation or negation yet these are humane Attestations introduced by custome or consent and as they come not under the notion of Swearing so they are forms of testimony and collateral engagement of a more strict truth 24. The Holy Jesus having specified the great Commandment of loving God with all our heart in this one instance of hallowing and keeping his Name sacred that is from profane and common talk and less prudent and unnecessary entercourses instanced in no other commandment of Moses but having frequent occasion to speak of the Sabbath for ever expresses his own dominion over the Day and that he had dissolved the bands of Moses in this instance that now we were no more obliged to that Rest which the 〈◊〉 religiously observed by prescript of the Law and by divers acts against securities of the then-received practices did desecrate the day making it a broken yoke and the first great instance of Christian Liberty And when the Apostle gave instructions that no man should judge his 〈◊〉 in a Holy-day or New-moons or the Sabbath-days he declared all the Judaical Feasts to be obliterated by the spunge which Jesus tasted on the Cross it was within the Manuscript of Ordinances and there it was cancelled And there was nothing moral in it but that we do honour to God for the Creation and to that and all other purposes of Religion separate and hallow some portion of our time The Primitive Church kept both the Sabbath and the Lord's day till the time of the 〈◊〉 Council about 300 years after Christ's nativity and almost in every thing made them equal and therefore did not esteem the Lord's day to be substituted in the place of the obliterated Sabbath but a Feast celebrated by great reason and perpetual consent without precept or necessary Divine injunction But the liberty of the Church was great they found themselves disobliged from that strict and necessary Rest which was one great part of the Sabbatick rites only they were glad of the occasion to meet often for offices of Religion and the day served well for the gaining and facilitating the Conversion of the Jews and for the honourable sepulture of the Synagogue it being kept so long 〈◊〉 the forty days mourning of Israel for the death of their Father Jacob but their liberty they improved not to licence but as an occasion of more frequent assemblies And there is something in it for us to imitate even to sanctifie the Name of God in the great work of the Creation reading his praises in the book of his Creatures and taking all occasions of religious acts and offices though in none of the Jewish circumstances 25. Concerning the observation of the Lord's Day which now the Church observes and ever did in remembrance of the Resurrection because it is a day of positive and Ecclesiastical institution it is fit that the Church who instituted the day should determine the manner of its observation It was set apart in honour of the Resurrection and it were not ill if all Churches would into the weekly Offices put some memorial of that mystery that the reason of the Festival might be remembred with the day God thanked with the renewing of the Offices But because Religion was the design of the Feast and 〈◊〉
must be severe in our discourses and neither lie in a great matter nor a small for the custom thereof is not good saith the son of Sirach I could add concerning this Precept That Christ having left it in that condition he found it in the Decalogue without any change or alteration of circumstance we are commanded to give true testimony in Judgment which because it was under an Oath there lies upon us no prohibition but a severity of injunction to swear truth in Judgment when we are required The securing of Testimonies was by the sanctity of an Oath and this remains unaltered in Christianity 41. Thou shalt not covet This Commandment we find no-where repeated in the Gospel by our Blessed Saviour but it is inserted in the repetition of the Second Table which S. Paul mentioned to the Romans for it was so abundantly expressed in the inclosures of other Precepts and the whole design of Christ's Doctrine that it was less needful specially to express that which is every-where affixed to many Precepts Evangelical Particularly it is inherent in the first Beatitude Blessed are the poor in spirit and it means that we should not wish our Neighbour's goods with a deliberate entertained desire but that upon the commencement of the motion it be disbanded instantly for he that does not at the first address and 〈◊〉 of the passion suppress it he hath given it that entertainment which in every period of staying is a degree of morose delectation in the appetite And to this I find not Christ added any thing for the Law it self forbidding to entertain the desire hath commanded the instant and present suppression they are the same thing and cannot reasonably be distinguished Now that Christ in the instance of Adultery hath commanded to abstain also from occasions and accesses towards the Lust in this hath not the same severity because the vice of Covetousness is not such a wild-fire as Lust is not inflamed by contact and neighbourhood of all things in the world every thing may be instrumental to libidinous desires but to covetous appetites there are not temptations of so different natures 42. Concerning the order of these Commandments it is not unusefully observed that if we account from the first to the last they are of greatest perfection which are last described and he who is arrived to that severity and dominion of himself as not to desire his Neighbour's goods is very far from actual injury and so in proportion it being the least degree of Religion to confess but One God But therefore Vices are to take their estimate in the contrary order he that prevaricates the First Commandment is the greatest sinner in the world and the least is he that only covets without any actual injustice And there is no variety or objection in this unless it be altered by the accidental difference of degrees but in the kinds of sin the Rule is true this onely The Sixth and Seventh are otherwise in the Hebrew Bibles than ours and in the Greek otherwise in Exodus than in Deuteronomy and by this rule it is a greater sin to commit Adultery than to Kill concerning which we have no certainty save that S. Paul in one respect makes the sin of Uncleanness the greatest of any sin whose scene lies in the body Every sin is without the body but he that commits Fornication sins against his own body The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus Wisdome of the Father thou light of Jews and Gentiles and the great Master of the world who by thy holy Sermons and clearest revelations of the mysteries of thy Father's Kingdom didst invite all the world to great degrees of Justice Purity and Sanctity and instruct us all in a holy Institution give us understanding of thy Laws that the light of thy celestial Doctrine illuminating our darknesses and making bright all the recesses of our spirits and understandings we may direct our feet all the lower man the affections of the inferiour appetite to walk in the paths of thy Commandments Dearest God make us to live a life of Religion and Justice of Love and Duty that we may adore thy Majesty and reverence thy Name and love thy Mercy and admire thy infinite glories and perfections and obey thy Precepts Make us to love thee for thy self and our neighbours for thee make us to be all Love and all Duty that we may adorn the Gospel of thee our Lord walking worthy of our Vocation that as thou hast called us to be thy Disciples so we may walk therein doing the work of faithful servants and may receive the adoption of sons and the gift of eternal glory which thou hast reserved for all the Disciples of thy holy Institution Make all the world obey thee as a Prophet that being redeemed and purified by thee our High Priest all may reign with thee our King in thy eternal Kingdom O Eternal Jesus Wisdom of thy Father Amen Of the Three additional Precepts which Christ superinduced and made parts of the Christian Law DISCOURSE XI Of CHARITY with its parts Forgiving Giving not Judging Of Forgiveness PART I. 1. THE Holy Jesus coming to reconcile all the world to God would reconcile all the parts of the world one with another that they may rejoyce in their common band and their common Salvation The first instance of Charity forbad to Christians all Revenge of Injuries which was a perfection and endearment of duty beyond what either most of the old Philosophers or the Laws of the Nations 〈◊〉 of Moses ever practised or enjoyned For Revenge was esteemed to unhallowed unchristian natures as sweet as life a satisfaction of injuries and the onely cure of maladies and affronts Onely Laws of the wisest Commonwealths commanded that Revenge should be taken by the Judge a few cases being excepted in which by sentence of the Law the injured person or his nearest Relative might be the Executioner of the Vengeance as among the Jews in the case of Murther among the Romans in the case of an Adulteress or a ravished daughter the Father might kill the Adulteress or the Ravisher In other things the Judge onely was to be the Avenger But Christ commanded his Disciples rather than to take revenge to expose themselves to a second injury rather offer the other cheek than be avenged for a blow on this For vengeance belongs to God and he will retaliate and to that wrath we must give place saith S. Paul that is in well-doing and evil suffering commit our selves to his righteous judgment leaving room for his execution who will certainly do it if we snatch not the sword from his arm 2. But some observe that our Blessed Saviour instanced but in smaller injuries He that bad us suffer a blow on the cheek did not oblige us tamely to be sacrificed he that enjoyned us to put up the loss of our Coat and Cloak did not signifie his pleasure to be that we should 〈◊〉
to chuse the time and the end for us and though we must prevaricate neither yet we may improve both we must not go less but we may enlarge and when Fasting is commanded only for 〈◊〉 we may also use it to Prayers and to Mortification And we must be curious that we do not obey the letter of the prescription and violate the intention but observe all that care in publick Fasts which we do in private knowing that our private ends are included in the publick as our persons are in the communion of Saints and our hopes in the common inheritance of sons and see that we do not fast in order to a purpose and yet use it so as that it shall be to no purpose Whosoever so fasts as that it be not effectual in some degree towards the end or so fasts that it be accounted of it self a duty and an act of Religion without order to its proper end makes his act vain because it is unreasonable or vain because it is superstitious The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesu who didst for our sake fast forty days and forty nights and hast left to us thy example and thy prediction that in the days of thy absence from us we thy servants and children of thy Bride-chamber should fast teach us to do this act of discipline so that it may become an act of Religion Let us never be like Esau valuing a dish of meat above a blessing but let us deny our appetites of meat and drink and accustom our selves to the yoak and subtract the fuel of our Lusts and the incentives of all our unworthy desires that our bodies being free from the intemperances of nutriment and our spirits from the load and pressure of appetite we may have no desires but of thee that our outward man daily decaying by the violence of time and mortified by the abatements of its too free and unnecessary support it may by degrees resign to the intire dominion of the Soul and may pass from vanity to Piety from weakness to ghostly strength from darkness and mixtures of impurity to great transparences and clarity in the society of a beatified Soul reigning with thee in the glories of Eternity O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE XIV Of the Miracles which JESVS wrought for confirmation of his Doctrine during the whole time of his Preaching Mary Martha A woman named Martha received him into her house And her sister Mary sat at Iesus feet and heard his word But Martha was cumbred about much serving And Iesus said unto her Martha Martha thou art careful troubled about many things but one thing is needfull Mary hath chosen that good part Luk. 10. 38 39 40 41 42. The dried hand healed devil cast out Mat 12. 10 And behold There was a man which had his hand dryed up c. 13. Then said he unto the man stretch sorth thine hand c. 22. Then was brought to him one possessed with a Devill c. and he healed him 1. WHen Jesus had ended his Sermon on the Mount he descended into the valleys to consign his Doctrine by the power of Miracles and the excellency of a rare Example that he might not lay a yoak upon us which himself also would not bear But as he became the authour so also the finisher of our Faith what he designed in proposition he represented in his own practice and by these acts made a new Sermon teaching all Prelates and spiritual persons to descend from their 〈◊〉 of contemplation and the authority and business of their discourses to apply themselves to do more material and corporal mercies to afflicted persons and to preach by Example as well as by their Homilies For he that teaches others well and practises contrary is like a fair candlestick bearing a goodly and bright taper which sends forth light to all the house but round about it self there is a shadow and circumstant darkness The Prelate should be the light consuming and spending it self to enlighten others scattering his rays round about from the 〈◊〉 of Contemplation and from the 〈◊〉 of Practice but himself always tending upwards till at last he expires into the element of Love and celestial fruition 2. But the Miracles which Jesus did were next to infinite and every circumstance of action that passed from him as it was intended for Mercy so also for Doctrine and the impotent or diseased persons were not more cured than we instructed But because there was nothing in the actions but what was a pursuance of the Doctrines delivered in his Sermons in the Sermon we must look after our Duty and look upon his practice as a verification of his Doctrine instrumental also to other purposes Therefore in general if we consider his Miracles we shall see that he did design them to be a compendium of Faith and Charity For he chose to instance his Miracles in actions of Mercy that all his powers might especially determine upon bounty and Charity and yet his acts of Charity were so miraculous that they became an argument of the Divinity of his Person and Doctrine Once he turned water into wine which was a mutation by a supernatural power in a natural suscipient where a person was not the subject but an Element and yet this was done to rescue the poor Bridegroom from affront and trouble and to do honour to the holy rite of Marriage All the rest unless we except his Walking upon the waters during his natural life were actions of relief and mercy according to the design of God manifesting his power most chiefly in shewing mercy 3. The great design of Miracles was to prove his Mission from God to convince the world of sin to demonstrate his power of forgiving sins to indear his Precepts and that his Disciples might believe in him and that believing they might have life through his name For he to whom God by doing Miracles gave testimony from Heaven must needs be sent from God and he who had received power to restore nature and to create new organs and to extract from incapacities and from privations to reduce habits was Lord of Nature and therefore of all the world And this could not but create great confidences in his Disciples that himself would verifie those great Promises upon which he established his Law But that the argument of Miracles might be infallible and not apt to be reproved we may observe its eminency by divers circumstances of probability heightned up to the degree of moral demonstration 4. First The Holy Jesus did Miracles which no man before him or at that time ever did Moses smote the Rock and water gushed out but he could not turn that water into wine Moses cured no diseases by the empire of his will or the word of his mouth but Jesus healed all infirmities Elisha raised a dead Child to life but Jesus raised one who had been dead four
that is to come That is plain And although Christ revealed his Father's mercies to us in new expresses and great abundance yet he took nothing from the world which ever did in any sense invite Piety or indear Obedience or cooperate towards Felicity And 〈◊〉 the Promises which were made of old are also presupposed in the new and mentioned by intimation and implication within the greater When our Blessed Saviour in seven of the Eight Beatitudes had instanced in new Promises and Rewards as Heaven Seeing of God Life eternal in one of them to which Heaven is as certainly consequent as to any of the rest he did chuse to instance in a temporal blessing and in the very words of the Old Testament to shew that that part of the old Covenant which concerns Morality and the rewards of Obedience remains firm and included within the conditions of the Gospel 16. To this purpose is that saying of our Blessed Saviour Man liveth not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God meaning that besides natural means ordained for the preservation of our lives there are means supernatural and divine God's Blessing does as much as bread nay it is Every word proceeding out of the 〈◊〉 of God that is every Precept and Commandment of God is so for our good that it is intended as food and Physick to us a means to make us live long And therefore God hath done in this as in other graces and issues Evangelical which he purposed to continue in his Church for ever He first gave it in miraculous and extraordinary manner and then gave it by way of perpetual ministery The Holy Ghost appeared at first like a prodigy and with Miracle he descended in visible representments expressing himself in revelations and powers extraordinary but it being a Promise intended to descend upon all Ages of the Church there was appointed a perpetual ministery for its conveyance and still though without a sign or miraculous representment it is ministred in Confirmation by imposition of the Bishop's hands And thus also health and long life which by way of ordinary benediction is consequent to Piety Faith and Obedience Evangelical was at first given in a miraculous manner that so the ordinary effects being at first confirmed by miraculous and extraordinary instances and manners of operation might for ever after be confidently expected without any dubitation since it was in the same manner consigned by which all the whole Religion was by a voice from Heaven and a verification of Miracles and extraordinary supernatural effects That the gift of healing and preservation and restitution of life was at first miraculous needs no particular probation All the story of the Gospel is one entire argument to prove it and amongst the fruits of the Spirit S. Paul reckons gifts of healing and government and helps or exteriour assistences and advantages to represent that it was intended the life of Christian people should be happy and healthful for ever Now that this grace also descended afterwards in an ordinary ministery is recorded by S. James Is any man sick amongst you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with oyl in the name of the Lord that was then the ceremony and the blessing and effect is still for the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up For it is observable that the blessing of healing and recovery is not appendent to the Anealing but to the Prayer of the Church to manifest that the ceremony went with the first miraculous and extraordinary manner yet that there was an ordinary ministery appointed for the daily conveyance of the blessing the faithful prayers offices of holy Priests shall obtain life and health to such persons who are receptive of it and in spiritual and apt dispositions And when we see by a continual flux of extraordinary benediction that even some Christian Princes are instruments of the Spirit not only in the government but in the gifts of healing too as a reward for their promoting the just interests of Christianity we may acknowledge our selves convinced that a holy life in the faith and obedience of Jesus Christ may be of great advantage for our health and life by that instance to entertain our present desires and to establish our hopes of life eternal 17. For I consider that the fear of God is therefore the best antidote in the World against sickness and death because it is the direct enemy to sin which brought in sickness and death and besides this that God by spiritual means should produce alterations natural is not hard to be understood by a Christian Philosopher take him in either of the two capacities 2. For there is a rule of proportion and analogy of effects that if sin destroys not only the Soul but the Body also then may Piety preserve both and that much rather for if sin that is the effects and consequents of sin hath abounded then shall grace superabound that is Christ hath done us more benefit than the Fall of Adam hath done us injury and therefore the effects of sin are not greater upon the body than either are to be restored or prevented by a pious life 3. There is so near a conjunction between Soul and Body that it is no wonder if God meaning to glorifie both by the means of a spiritual life suffers spirit and matter to communicate in effects and mutual impresses Thus the waters of Baptism purifie the Soul and the Holy Eucharist not the symbolical but the mysterious and spiritual part of it makes the Body also partaker of the death 〈◊〉 Christ and a holy union The flames of Hell whatsoever they are torment accursed Souls and the stings of Conscience vex and disquiet the Body 4. And if we consider that in the glories of Heaven when we shall live a life purely spiritual our Bodies also are so clarified and made spiritual that they also become immortal that state of Glory being nothing else but a perfection of the state of Grace it is not unimaginable but that the Soul may have some proportion of the same operation upon the Body as to conduce to its prolongation as to an antepast of immortality 5. For since the Body hath all its life from its conjunction with the Soul why not also the perfection of life according to its present capacity that is health and duration from the perfection of the Soul I mean from the ornaments of Grace And as the blessedness of the Soul saith the Philosopher consists in the speculation of honest and just things so the perfection of the Body and of the whole Man consists in the practick the exercise and operations of Vertue 18. But this Problem in Christian Philosophy is yet more intelligible and will be reduced to certain experience if we consider good life in union and concretion with particular
the flames of Hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear and purely for the love of God Whether the Woman were onely imaginative and sad or also zealous I know not But God knows he would have few Disciples if the arguments of invitation were not of greater promise than the labours of Vertue are of trouble And therefore the Spirit of God knowing to what we are inflexible and by what we are made most ductile and malleable hath propounded Vertue clothed and dressed with such advantages as may entertain even our Sensitive part and first desires that those also may be invited to Vertue who understand not what is just and reasonable but what is profitable who are more moved with advantage than justice And because emolument is more felt than innocence and a man may be poor for all his gift of 〈◊〉 the Holy Jesus to endear the practices of Religion hath represented Godliness unto us under the notion of gain and sin as unfruitful and yet besides all the natural and reasonable advantages every Vertue hath a supernatural reward a gracious promise attending and every Vice is not only naturally deformed but is made more ugly by a threatning and horrid by an appendent curse Henceforth therefore let no man complain that the Commandments of God are impossible for they are not onely possible but easie and they that say otherwise and do accordingly take more pains to carry the instruments of their own death than would serve to ascertain them of life And if we would do as much for Christ as we have done for Sin we should find the pains less and the pleasure more And therefore such complainers are without excuse for certain it is they that can go in foul ways must not say they cannot walk in fair they that march over rocks in despight of so many impediments can travel the even ways of Religion and Peace when the Holy Jesus is their Guide and the Spirit is their Guardian and infinite felicities are at their journey's end and all the reason of the world political oeconomical and personal do entertain and support them in the travel of the passage The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus who gavest Laws unto the world that man-kind being united to thee by the bands of Obedience might partake of all thy glories and felicities open our understanding give us the spirit of discerning and just apprehension of all the beauties with which thou hast enamelled Vertue to represent it beauteous and amiable in our eyes that by the allurements of exteriour decencies and appendent blessings our present desires may be entertained our hopes promoted our affections satisfied and Love entring in by these doors may dwell in the interiour regions of the Will O make us to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and all the instruments of Religion in order to thy glory and our own felicities Pull off the visors of Sin and discover its deformities by the lantern of thy Word and the light of the Spirit that I may never be bewitched with sottish appetites Be pleased to build up all the contents I expect in this world upon the interests of a vertuous life and the support of Religion that I may be rich in Good works content in the issues of thy Providence my Health may be the result of Temperance and severity my Mirth in spiritual emanations my Rest in Hope my Peace in a good Conscience my Satisfaction and acquiescence in thee that from Content I may pass to an eternal Fulness from Health to Immortality from Grace to Glory walking in the paths of Righteousness by the waters of Comfort to the land of everlasting Rest to feast in the glorious communications of Eternity eternally adoring loving and enjoying the infinity of the ever-Blessed and mysterious Trinity to whom be glory and 〈◊〉 and dominion now and for ever Amen DISCOURSE XVI Of Certainty of Salvation 1. WHen the Holy Jesus took an account of the first Legation and voyage of his Apostles he found them rejoycing in priviledges and exteriour powers in their authority over unclean spirits but weighing it in his balance he found the cause too light and therefore diverted it upon the right object Rejoyce that your names are written in Heaven The revelation was confirmed and more personally applied in answer to S. Peter's Question We have for saken all and followed thee what shall we have therefore Their LORD answered Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel Amongst these persons to whom Christ spake Judas was he was one of the Twelve and he had a throne allotted for him his name was described in the book of life and a Scepter and a Crown was deposited for him too For we must not judge of Christ's meaning by the event since he spake these words to produce in them Faith comfort and joy in the best objects it was a Sermon of duty as well as a Homily of comfort and therefore was equally intended to all the Colledge and since the number of Thrones is proportioned to the number of men it is certain there was no exception of any man there included and yet it is as certain Judas never came to sit upon the throne and his name was blotted out of the book of life Now if we put these ends together that in Scripture it was not revealed to any man concerning his final condition but to the dying penitent Thief and to the twelve Apostles that twelve thrones were designed for them and a promise made of their inthronization and yet that no man's final estate is so clearly declared miserable and lost as that of Judas one of the Twelve to whom a throne was promised the result will be that the election of holy persons is a condition allied to duty absolute and infallible in the general and supposing all the dispositions and requisites concurring but fallible in the particular if we fall off from the mercies of the Covenant and prevaricate the conditions But the thing which is most observable is that if in persons so eminent and priviledged and to whom a revelation of their Election was made as a particular grace their condition had one weak leg upon which because it did rely for one half of the interest it could be no stronger than its supporters the condition of lower persons to whom no revelation is made no priviledges are indulged no greatness of spiritual eminency is appendent as they have no greater certainty in the thing so they have less in person and are therefore to work out their salvation with great fears and tremblings of spirit 2. The purpose of this consideration is that we do not judge of our final condition by any discourses of our own relying upon God's secret Counsels and Predestination of Eternity This is a mountain upon which whosoever climbs like Moses to behold the land of Canaan at great distances may please his eyes or
death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every name Thus his present life was a state of merit and work and as a reward of it he was crowned with glory and immortality his Name was exalted his Kingdom glorified he was made the Lord of all the Creatures the first-fruits of the Resurrection the exemplar of glory and the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church and because this was his recompence and the fruits of his Humility and Obedience it is certain it was not a necessary consequence and a natural efflux of the personal union of the Godhead with the Humanity This I discourse to this purpose that we may not in our esteem lessen the suffering of our dearest Lord by thinking he had the supports of actual Glory in the midst of all his Sufferings For there is no one minute or ray of Glory but its fruition does outweigh and make us insensible of the greatest calamities and the spirit of pain which can be extracted from all the infelicities of this world True it is that the greatest beauties in this world are receptive of an allay of sorrow and nothing can have pleasure in all capacities The most beautious feathers of the birds of Paradise the Estrich or the Peacock if put into our throat are not there so pleasant as to the eye But the beatifick joys of the least glory of Heaven take away all pain wipe away all tears from our eyes and it is not possible that at the same instant the Soul of Jesus should be ravished with Glory and yet abated with pains grievous and 〈◊〉 On the other side some say that the Soul of Jesus upon the Cross suffered the pains of Hell and all the torments of the damned and that without such sufferings it is not imaginable he should pay the price which God's wrath should demand of us But the same that reproves the one does also reprehend the other for the Hope that was the support of the Soul of Jesus as it confesses an imperfection that is not consistent with the state of Glory so it excludes the Despair that is the torment proper to accursed souls Our dearest Lord suffered the whole condition of Humanity Sin only excepted and freed us from Hell with suffering those sad pains and merited Heaven for his own Humanity as the Head and all faithful people as the Members of his mystical Body And therefore his life here was only a state of pilgrimage not at all trimmed with beatifick glories Much less was he ever in the state of Hell or upon the Cross felt the formal misery and spirit of torment which is the 〈◊〉 of damned spirits because it was impossible Christ should despair and without Despair it is impossible there should be a Hell But this is highly probable that in the intension of degrees and present anguish the Soul of our Lord might feel a greater load of wrath than is incumbent in every instant upon perishing souls For all the sadness which may be imagined to be in Hell consists in acts produced from principles that cannot surpass the force of humane or Angelical nature but the pain which our Blessed Lord endured for the expiation of our sins was an issue of an united and concentred anger was received into the heart of God and Man and was commensurate to the whole latitude of the Grace Patience and Charity of the Word incarnate The Crucisixion Mark 15 25. Erat autem Hora tertia crucifixerunt eum Mark 15 25. And is was the third houre they crucified him The takeing down from the Cross. Luk. 23 50 And there was a man named Ioseph a Counsellour he was a good man a lust y e same had not consented to y e counsell deed of them 52. This man went unto Pilate begged y e Body of Iesus 53 And he took it down wrapped it in linen layd it in a Sepulehre that was hewn in stone wherein never man before was layd 6. And now behold the Priest and the Sacrifice of all the world laid upon the Altar of the Cross bleeding and tortured and dying to reconcile his Father to us and he was arrayed with ornaments more glorious than the robes of Aaron The Crown of Thorns was his Mitre the Cross his Pastoral staffe the Nails piercing his hands were in stead of Rings the ancient ornament of Priests and his flesh rased and checker'd with blew and bloud in stead of the parti-coloured Robe But as this object calls for our Devotion our Love and Eucharist to our dearest Lord so it must needs irreconcile us to Sin which in the eye of all the world brought so great shame and pain and amazement upon the Son of God when he only became engaged by a charitable substitution of himself in our place and therefore we are assured by the demonstration of sense and experience it will bring death and all imaginable miseries as the just expresses of God's indignation and hatred for to this we may apply the words of our Lord in the prediction of miseries to Jerusalem If this be done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry For it is certain Christ infinitely pleased his Father even by becoming the person made 〈◊〉 in estimate of Law and yet so great Charity of our Lord and the so great love and pleasure of his Father exempted him not from suffering pains intolerable and much less shall those escape who provoke and displease God and despise so great Salvation which the Holy Jesus hath wrought with the expence of bloud and so precious a life 7. But here we see a great representation and testimony of the Divine Justice who was so angry with sin who had so severely threatned it who does so essentially hate it that he would not spare his only Son when he became a conjunct person relative to the guilt by undertaking the charges of our Nature For although God hath set down in holy Scripture the order of his Justice and the manner of its manifestation that one Soul shall not perish for the sins of another yet this is meant for Justice and for Mercy too that is he will not curse the Son for the Father's fault or in any relation whatsoever substitute one person for another to make him involuntarily guilty But when this shall be desired by a person that cannot finally perish and does a mercy to the exempt persons and is a voluntary act of the suscipient and shall in the event also redound to an infinite good it is no deflection from the Divine Justice to excuse many by the affliction of one who also for that very suffering shall have infinite compensation We see that for the sin of Cham all his posterity were accursed the Subjects of David died with the Plague because their Prince numbred the people Idolatry is punished in the children of the fourth generation
of prepared torments he died a natural death in a good old age 5. After this Jesus having appointed a solemn meeting for all the Brethren that could be collected from the dispersion and named a certain mountain in 〈◊〉 appeared to five hundred Brethren at once and this was his most publick and solemn manifestation and while some doubted Jesus came according to the designation and spake to the eleven sent them to preach to all the world Repentance and Remission of sins in his Name promising to be with them to the end of the world He appeared also unto James but at what time is uncertain save that there is something concerning it in the Gospel of S. Matthew which the Nazarens of 〈◊〉 used and which it is likely themselves added out of report for there is nothing of it in our Greek Copies The words are these When the Lord had given the linen in which he was wrapped to the servant of the High Priest he went and appeared unto James For James had vowed after he received the Lord's Supper that he would eat no bread till he saw the Lord risen from the grave Then the Lord called for bread he blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said My Brother eat bread for the Son of man is risen from the sleep of death So that by this it should seem to be done upon the day of the Resurrection But the relation of it by S. Paul puts it between the appearance which he made to the five hundred and that last to the Apostles when he was to ascend into Heaven Last of all when the Apostles were at dinner he appeared to them upbraiding their incredulity and then he opened their understanding that they might discern the sence of Scripture and again commanded them to preach the Gospel to all the world giving them power to do Miracles to cast out Devils to cure 〈◊〉 and instituted the Sacrament of Baptism which he commanded should together with the Sermons of the Gospel be administred to all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Then he led them into Judaea and they came to Bethany and from thence to the mount Olivet and he commanded them to stay in Jerusalem till the Holy Ghost the promise of the Father should descend upon them which should be accomplished in few days and then they should know the times and the seasons and all things necessary for their ministration and service and propagation of the Gospel And while he discoursed many things concerning the Kingdom behold a Cloud came and parted Jesus from them and carried him in their sight up into Heaven where he sits at the right hand of God blessed for ever Amen 6. While his Apostles stood gazing up to Heaven two Angels appeared to them and told them that Jesus should come in like manner as he was taken away viz. with glory and majesty and in the clouds and with the ministry of Angels Amen Come Lord JESUS come quickly Ad SECT XVI Considerations upon the Accidents happening in the intervall after the Death of the Holy JESUS untill his Resurrection Jesus and Mary in the Garden Joh. 20. 14. 15. 16. Mary turning about saw Jesus standing knew not y t it was Jesus Jesus saith woman whom seekest thou Shee supposing him to be the garidner saith sir if thou have born him hence tell me etc. Jesus saith unto her Mary she turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is Master Jesus saith unto her touch me not for etc. Mary Magdalen came and told the desciples that she had seen the Lord. Our Lords Ascension Acts. 1. 9. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up a Cloud received him out of their sight 10. And while they stedfastly looked toward heaven behold two men stood by them in white apparell 11. Which also said this same Iesus shall so come as you have seen him go into heaven 1. THE Holy Jesus promised to the blessed Thief that he should that day be with him in Paradise which therefore was certainly a place or state of Blessedness because it was a promise and in the society of Jesus whose penal and afflictive part of his work of Redemption was finished upon the Cross. Our Blessed Lord did not promise he should that day be with him in his Kingdom for that day it was not opened and the everlasting doors of those interiour recesses were to be shut till after the Resurrection that himself was to ascend thither and make way for all his servants to enter in the same method in which he went before us Our Blessed Lord descended into Hell saith the Creed of the Apostles from the Sermon of Saint Peter as he from the words of David that is into the state of Separation and common receptacle of Spirits according to the style of Scripture But the name of Hell is no-where in Scripture an appellative of the Kingdom of Christ of the place of final and supreme Glory But concerning the verification of our Lord's promise to the beatified Thief and his own state of Separation we must take what light we can from Scripture and what we can from the Doctrine of the Primitive Church S. Paul had two great Revelations he was rapt up into Paradise and he was rapt up into the third Heaven and these he calls visions revelations not one but divers for Paradise is distinguished from the Heaven of the blessed being it self a receptacle of holy Souls made illustrious with visitation of Angels and happy by being a repository for such spirits who at the day of Judgment shall go forth into eternal glory In the interim Christ hath trod all the paths before us and this also we must pass through to arrive at the Courts of Heaven Justin Martyr said it was the doctrine of heretical persons to say that the Souls of the Blessed instantly upon the separation from their Bodies enter into the highest Heaven And Irenaeus makes Heaven and the intermediate receptacle of Souls to be distinct places both blessed but hugely differing in degrees Tertullian is dogmatical in the assertion that till the voice of the great Archangel be heard and as long as Christ sits at the right hand of his Father making intercession for the Church so long blessed Souls must expect the assembling of their brethren the great Congregation of the Church that they may all pass from their outer courts into the inward tabernacle the Holy of Holies to the Throne of God And as it is certain that no Soul could enter into glory before our Lord 〈◊〉 by whom we hope to have access so it is most agreeable to the proportion 〈◊〉 the mysteries of our Redemption that we believe the entrance into Glory to have been made by our Lord at his glorious Ascension and that his Soul went not thither before 〈◊〉 to come back again
of Visions 61. 23. Sins of Infirmity explicated 105. 10. seq Intentions though good excuse not evil Actions 107. 13. Incontinence destroys the Spirit of Government 189. 5. Instruments weak and unlikely used by GOD to great purposes 197. Incarnation of Jesus instrumental to God's Glory and our Peace 31. Inevitable Infirmities consistent with a state of Grace 207. Injuries great and little to be forgiven 252. Intention of Spirit how necessary in our Prayers 267. 17. Images their Lawfulness or unlawfulness considered 237. 16. Admitted into the Church with difficulty and by degrees 237. 16. Images of Jupiter and Diana Cyndias did ridiculous and weak Miracles 279. 7. Imprisonment sanctified by the binding of Jesus 387. Ingratitude of Judas 360. 9. John the Baptist his Life and Death 66. 5. 77. 78. and 79. 93. 292. 18. His Baptism 93. Whether the form of it were in the Name of Christ to come ibid. Joyes spiritual increase by communication 156. 3. Joyes of Eternity recompense all our Sorrowes in every instant of their fruition 426. Joyes sudden and violent are to be allayed by reflexion on the vilest of our Sins 196. 7. John Patriarch of Alexandria appeased the anger of Patricius 245. 30. Innocence is security against evil Actions 10. Justice of GOD in punishing Jesus cleared 415. 7 8. Several degrees of Justification answerable to several degrees of Faith 162. 7. Judgment of Life and Death is to be only by the supreme Power or his Deputy 253. A Jew condemned of Idolatry for throwing stones though in detestation at the Idol of Mercury 354. 32. Judging our Brother how far prohibited 260. 5. Judas's name written in Heaven and blotted 〈◊〉 again 313. 1. His manner of death 352. 25. Ingrateful 360. 8. He valued the Ointment at the same rate he sold his Lord 361. 11. He enjoyed his Money not Ten Hours 386. 7. Julian desired but could not be a Magician 361. 10. Judgment of GOD upon Sinners their causes and manner 336. 1. seq Judgments National 340. 8. Not easily understood by Men 339. 5. Joseph of Arimath embalmed the Body of Jesus 356. 38. Whether Judas received the Holy Sacrament 375. 13. K. KIng and Church have the same Friends and Enemies 336. Kingdom of Christ not of this World 352. What it is 392. 8. Kingdom of God what 263. 5. Kingdom of Grace and Glory ibid. A King came to Jesus in behalf of his Son 182. 6. Kings specially to be prayed for 365. 13. King's Enemies how to be prayed against ibid. To Kill the assaulting Person in what cases lawful 253. 3. L. LAws evil make a National Sin 341. 10. Law of Nature Vide Pref. per tot 20. 7. Laws of Man to be obeyed but not always to be thought most reasonable 42. 7. 48. 21. Laws of God and Man in respect of the greatness of the subject matter compared 46. 49. Laws of Men bind not to Death or an insufferable Calamity rather than not to break them 48. 21. Laws of Superiours not to be too freely disputed by Subjects 49. 23. Laws of order to be observed even when the first reason ceases 52. 1. It is not safe to do all that is lawful 45. 15 16. Law and Gospel how differ 194. 3. 232. 3. 295. S. Paul often by a Fiction of Person speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but as under the imperfections of the Law 104. 8. Law of Nature perfected by Christianity Pref. Law of Moses a Law of Works how 232. Law of Jesus a Law of the Spirit and not of Works in what sence ibid. Law-Suits to be managed charitably 256. When lawful to be undertaken ibid. Lazarus restored to Life 345. 2. Leonigildus kill'd his Daughter for not communicating with the Arians 188. 2. Leven of Herod what 321. 8. Lepers cured 324. 18. Sent to the Priest ibid. Unthankful ibid. The Levantine Churches afflicted the cause uncertain 338. 4. S. Laurence his Gridiron less hot than his Love 358. 2. 7. 〈◊〉 17. Life of Man cut off for Sin 303. 305. It hath several periods ibid. 274. Good life necessary to make our Prayers acceptable 266. 13. A comparison between a Life in Solitude and in Society 80. 5. Lord's Supper the greatest of Christian Rites 369. It manifests God's Power 371. 4. His Wisdome and his Charity 371. 5 6. It is a Sacrament of Union 371. 5 6. A Sacrament and a Sacrifice in what sence 372. 7. As it is an act of the Ecclesiastical Officer of what efficacy 373. 8. It is expressed in mysterious words when the value is recited 373. Not to be administred to vicious persons 374. 12. Whether persons vicious under suspicion only are to be deprived of it 376. 13. How to be received 377. 15. What deportment to be used after it 378. 17. To be received by dying Persons 407. 23. Of what benefit it is to them ibid. Love and Obedience Duties of the first Commandment 234. 8. Love and Obedience reconciled 427. 9. Love of God its extension 234. 9. It s intension ibid. n. 11. Love the fulfilling of the Law explicated 233. 5. It consists in latitude 236. 13. It must exclude all affection to sin ibid. 14. Signs of true love to God 236. 14. Love to God with all our hearts possible and in what sence ibid. Love of God and love of money compared 361. 11. Lord's Day by what authority to be observed 244. 24. And how ibid. Lucian's Cynick an Hypocrite 366. 7. Likeness to God being desired at first ruined us now restores us 364. 3. Lying in that degree is criminal as it is injurious 250. 40. M. MArriage honoured by Christ's presence and the first Miracle 154. Hallowed to a Mystery 158. 8. Marriage-breakers are more criminal now than under Moses's Law 158. The smaller undecencies must be prevented or deprecated Of Martyrdom 229. 18. Magi at the sight of Christ's Poverty renounce the World and retire into Philosophy 28. 13. Mary a Virgin alwayes 14. 2. An excellent Personage 2 3. 8. She conceived Jesus without Sin and brought him forth without Pain 13. Her joy at the Prophecies concerning her Son attempered with Predictions of his Passion 30. 4. Full of Fears when she lost Jesus 73. 1. She went to the Temple to pray and there found him ibid. Full of Piety in Her countenance and deportment 113. 32. She converted many to thoughts of Chastity by her countenance and aspect ibid. Mary Magdalen's Story 377. 9. 360. 5. 391. 9. 346. 5. 349. 13. Mary's Choice preferred 326. 26. Mark for sook Jesus upon a Scandal taken but was reduced by S. Peter 320. 3. Malchus an Idumaean Slave smote Jesus on the Face 389. 1. Meditation described 54. It turns the understanding into spirit 55. Its Parts Actions manner of Exercise Fruits and Effects Disc. 3. per tot 54. Men ought not to run into the Ministery till they are called 99. 3.
Thomas P. 137. The Life of S. James the Less P. 143. The Life of S. Simon the Zealot P. 149. The Life of S. Jude P. 153. The Life of S. Matthias P. 157. The Life of S. Mark the Evangelist P. 161. The Life of S. Luke the Evangelist P. 167. Diptycha Apostolica Or an Enumeration of the Apostles and their Successors for the first three hundred years in the five great Churches said to have been founded by them pag. 171. IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex AEd. Lambeth Feb. 25. 1674. THE INTRODUCTION Christs faithfulness in appointing Officers in his Church The dignity of the Apostles above the rest The importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The nature of the Apostolick Office considered Respect had in founding it to the custom among the Jews Their Apostoli who The number of the Apostles limited Why twelve the several conjectures of the Ancients Their immediate election Their work wherein it consisted The Universality of their Commission Apostolical Churches what How soon the Apostles propagated Christianity through the World An argument for the Divinity of the Christian Religion inferr'd thence The power conveyed to the Apostles equally given to all Peter's superiority over the rest disprov'd both from Scripture and Antiquity The Apostles how qualified for their Mission Immediately taught the Doctrine they delivered Infallibly secur'd from Error in delivering it Their constant and familiar converse with their Master Furnished with a power of working Miracles The great evidence of it to prove a Divine Doctrine Miraculous powers conferr'd upon the Apostles particularly considered Prophecy what and when it ceas'd The gift of discerning Spirits The gift of Tongues The gift of Interpretation The unreasonable practice of the Church of Rome in keeping the Scripture and Divine Worship in an Unknown Tongue The gift of Healing Greatly advantageous to Christianity How long it lasted Power of Immediately inflicting corporal punishments and the great benefit of it in those times The Apostles enabled to confer miraculous powers upon others The Duration of the Apostolical Office What in it extraordinary what ordinary Bishops in what sence styled Apostles I. JESUS CHRIST the great Apostle and High Priest of our Profession being appointed by God to be the Supreme Ruler and Governour of his Church was like Moses faithful in all his house but with this honourable advantage that Moses was faithful as a Servant Christ as a Son over his own house which he erected established and governed with all possible care and diligence Nor could he give a greater instance either of his fidelity towards God or his love and kindness to the Souls of men than that after he had purchas'd a Family to himself and could now no longer upon earth manage its interests in his own person he would not return back to Heaven till he had constituted several Orders of Officers in his Church who might superintend and conduct its affairs and according to the various circumstances of its state administer to the needs and exigencies of his Family Accordingly therefore he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The first and prime Class of Officers is that of Apostles God hath set some in the Church first Apostles then secondarily Prophets c. First Apostles as far in office as honour before the rest their election more immediate their commission more large and comprehensive the powers and priviledges where with they were furnished greater and more honourable Prophecy the gift of Miracles and expelling Daemons the order of Pastors and Teachers were all spiritual powers and ensigns of great authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Chrysostom but the Apostolick eminency is far greater than all these which therefore he calls a spiritual Consulship an Apostle having as great preheminence above all other officers in the Church as the Consul had above all other Magistrates in Rome These Apostles were a few select persons whom our Lord chose out of the rest to devolve part of the Government upon their shoulders and to depute for the first planting and setling Christianity in the World He chose twelve whom he named Apostles of whose Lives and Acts being to give an Historical account in the following work it may not possibly be unuseful to premise some general remarks concerning them not respecting this or that particular person but of a general relation to the whole wherein we shall especially take notice of the importance of the word the nature of the imployment the fitness and qualification of the persons and the duration and continuance of the Office II. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sent is among ancient Writers applied either to things actions or persons To things thus those Dimissory letters that were granted to such who appeal'd from an Inferiour to a Superiour Judicature were in the language of the Roman Laws usually called Apostoli thus a Packet-boat was styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because sent up and down for advice and dispatch of business thus though in somewhat a different sence the lesson taken out of the Epistles is in the Ancient Greek Liturgies called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because usually taken out of the Apostles Writings Sometimes it is applied to actions and so imports no more than mission or the very act of sending thus the setting out a Fleet or a Naval expedition was wont to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Suidas tells us that as the persons designed for the care and management of the Fleet were called ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the very sending sorth of the Ships themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly what principally falls under our present consideration it is applied to persons and so imports no more than a messenger a person sent upon some special errand for the discharge of some peculiar affair in his name that sent him Thus Epaphroditus is called the Apostle or Messenger of the Philippians when sent by them to S. Paul at Rome thus Titus and his companions are styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messengers of the Churches So our Lord he that is sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Apostle or Messenger is not greater than him that sent him This then being the common notion of the word our Lord fixes it to a particular use applying it to those select persons whom he had made choice of to act by that peculiar authority and commission which he had deriv'd upon them Twelve whom he also named Apostles that is Commissioners those who were to be Embassadors for Christ to be sent up and down the World
Christianity Indeed there is some cause why they are so zealous to keep both Scripture and their Divine Worship in a strange Language lest by reading the one the people should become wise enough to discover the gross errors and corruptions of the other Fifthly The Apostles had the gift of Healing of curing diseases without the arts of Physick the most inveterate distempers being equally removable by an Almighty power and vanishing at their speaking of a word This begot an extraordinary veneration for them and their Religion among the common sort of men who as they are strongliest moved with sensible effects so are most taken with those miracles that are beneficial to the life of man Hence the infinite Cures done in every place God mercifully providing that the Body should partake with the Soul in the advantages of the Gospel the cure of the one ushering in many times the conversion of the other This gift was very common in those early days bestowed not upon the Apostles only but the ordinary Governours of the Church who were wont to lay their hands upon the sick and sometimes to anoint them with oil a symbolick rite in use among the Jews to denote the grace of God and to pray over and for them in the name of the Lord Jesus whereby upon a hearty confession and forsaking of their sins both health and pardon were at once bestowed upon them How long this gift with its appendant ceremony of Unction lasted in the Church is not easie to determine that it was in use in Tertullian's time we learn from the instance he gives us of Proculus a Christian who cured the Emperor Severus by anointing him with oil for which the Emperor had him in great honour and kept him with him at Court all his life it afterwards vanishing by degrees as all other miraculous powers as Christianity gain'd firm sooting in the World As for Extreme 〈◊〉 so generally maintained and practised in the Church of Rome nay and by them made a Sacrament I doubt it will receive very little countenance from this Primitive usage Indeed could they as easily restore sick men to health as they can anoint them with oil I think no body would contradict them but till they can pretend to the one I think it unreasonable they should use the other The best is though founding it upon this Apostolical practice they have turn'd it to a quite contrary purpose instead of recovering men to life and health to dispose and fit them for dying when all hopes of life are taken from them XIII Sixthly The Apostles were invested with a power of immediately inflicting corporal punishments upon great and notorious sinners and this probably is that which he means by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operations of powers or working miracles which surely cannot be meant of miracles in general being reckoned up amongst the particular gifts of the Holy Ghost nor is there any other to which it can with equal probability refer A power to inflict diseases upon the body as when S. Paul struck Elymas the Sorcerer with blindness and sometimes extending to the loss of life it self as in the sad instance of Ananias and Saphira This was the Virga Apostolica the Rod mentioned by S. Paul which the Apostles held and shak'd over scandalous and insolent offenders and sometimes laid upon them What will ye shall I come to you with a rod or in love and the spirit of meekness Where observe says Chrysostom how the Apostle tempers his discourse the love and meekness and his desire to know argued care and kindness but the rod spake dread and terror a Rod of severity and punishment and which sometimes mortally chastised the offender Elsewhere he frequently gives intimations of this power when he has to deal with stubborn and incorrigible persons Having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled for though I should boast something more of our authority which the Lord hath given us for edification and not for your destruction I should not be ashamed that I may not seem as if I would terrifie you by letters And he again puts them in mind of it at the close of his Epistle I told you before and foretell you as if I were present the second time and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned and to all others that if I come again I will not spare But he hop'd these smart warnings would supersede all further severity against them Therefore I write these things being absent lest being present I should use sharpness according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification and not to destruction Of this nature was the delivering over persons unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh the chastising the body by some present pain or sickness that the spirit might be saved by being brought to a seasonable repentance Thus he dealt with Hymeneus and Alexander who had made shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience he delivered them unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme Nothing being more usual in those times than for 〈◊〉 excommunicate and cut off from the body of the Church to be presently arrested by Satan 〈◊〉 the common Serjeant and Executioner and by him either actually possessed or tormented in their bodies by some diseases which he brought upon them And indeed this severe discipline was no more than necessary in those times when Christianity was wholly destitute of any civil or coercive power to beget and keep up a due reverence and regard to the sentence and determinations of the Church and to secure the Laws of Religion and the holy censures from being sleighted by every bold and contumacious offender And this effect we find it had after the dreadful instance of 〈◊〉 and Saphira Great fear came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things To what has been said concerning these Apostolical gifts let me further observe That they had not only these gifts residing in themselves but a power to bestow them upon others so that by imposition of hands or upon hearing and embracing the Apostle's doctrine and being baptized into the Christian Faith they could confer these miraculous powers upon persons thus qualifisied to receive them whereby they were in a moment enabled to speak divers Languages to Prophecy to Interpret and do other miracles to the admiration and astonishment of all that heard and saw them A priviledge peculiar to the Apostles for we do not find that any inferiour Order of gifted persons were intrusted with it And therefore as Chrysostom well observes though Philip the Deacon wrought great miracles at Samaria to the conversion of many yea to the conviction of Simon Magus himself yet the Holy Ghost fell upon none of them only they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus till Peter and John came down to them who having
which one who pretends to calculate his Nativity with ostentation enough has given of it we are told that he was born three years before the Blessed Virgin and just XVII before the Incarnation of our Saviour But let us view his account Nat. est Ann. ab Orbe Cond 4034 à Diluvio 2378 V. G. 734 Ann. Oct. August 8 à 10 ejus consul 24 à pugna Actiac 12 An. Herodis Reg. 20 ante B. Virg. 3 ante Chr. nat 17 When I met with such a pompous train of Epocha's the least I expected was truth and certainty This computation he grounds upon the date of S. Peter's death placed as elsewhere he tells us by Bellarmine in the LXXXVI year of his Age so that recounting from the year of Christ LXIX when Peter is commonly said to have suffered he runs up his Age to his Birth and spreads it out into so many several dates But alas all is built upon a sandy bottom For besides his mistake about the year of the World few of his dates hold due correspondence But the worst of it is that after all this Bellarmine upon whose single testimony all this fine fabrick is erected says no such thing but only supposes merely for arguments sake that S. Peter might very well be LXXXVI 't is erroneously printed LXXVI years old at the time of his Martyrdom So far will confidence or ignorance or both carry men aside if it could be a mistake and not rather a bold imposing upon the World But of this enough and perhaps more than it deserves 3. BEING circumcised according to the Rites of the Mosaic Law the name given him at his circumcision was Simon or Symeon a name common amongst the Jews especially in their latter times This was afterwards by our Saviour not abolished but additioned with the title of Cephas which in Syriack the vulgar Language of the Jéws at that time signifying a stone or rock was thence derived into the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by us Peter so far was Hesychius out when rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Expounder or Interpreter probably deriving it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to explain and interpret By this new imposition our Lord seemed to denote the firmness and constancy of his Faith and his vigorous activity in building up the Church as a spiritual house upon the the true rock the living and corner-stone chosen of God and precious as S. Peter himself expresses it Nor can our Saviour be understood to have hereby conferred upon him any peculiar Supremacy or Sovereignty above much less over the rest of the Apostles for in respect of the great trusts committed to them and their being sent to plant Christianity in the World they are all equally stiled Foundations nor is it accountable either to Scripture or reason to suppose that by this Name our Lord should design the person of Peter to be that very rock upon which his Church was to be built In a fond imitation of this new name given to S. Peter those who pretend to be his Successors in the See of Rome usually lay by their own and assume a new name upon their advancement to the Apostolick Chair it being one of the first questions which the Cardinals put to the new-elected Pope by what name he will please to be called This custome first began about the Year 844 when Peter di Bocca-Porco or Swines-mouth being chosen Pope changed his name into Sergins the Second probably not so much to avoid the uncomeliness of his own name as if unbefitting the dignity of his place for this being but his Paternal name would after have been no part of his Pontifical stile and title as out of a mighty reverence to S. Peter accounting himself not worthy to bear his name though it was his own baptismal name Certain it is that none of the Bishops of that See ever assumed S. Peter's name and some who have had it as their Christian name before have laid it aside upon their election to the Papacy But to return to our Apostle 4. HIS Father was Jonah probably a Fisherman of Bethsaida for the sacred story takes no further notice of him than by the bare mention of his Name and I believe there had been no great danger of mistake though Metaphrastes had not told us that it was not Jonas the Prophet who came out of the Belly of the Whale Brother he was to S. Andrew the Apostle and some question there is amongst the Ancients which was the elder Brother Epiphanius probably from some Tradition current in his time clearly adjudges it to S. Andrew herein universally followed by those of the Church of Rome that the precedency given to S. Peter may not seem to be put upon the account of his Seniority But to him we may oppose the authority of S. Chrysostome a Person equal both in time and credit who expresly says that though Andrew came later into life than Peter yet he first brought him to the knowledge of the Gospel which Baronius against all pretence of reason would understand of his entring into eternal life Besides S. Hierom Cassian Bede and others are for S. Peter being elder Brother expresly ascribing it to his Age that he rather than any other was President of the Colledge of Apostles However it was it sounds not a little to the honour of their Father as of Zebedee also in the like case that of but twelve Apostles two of his Sons were taken into the number In his Youth he was brought up to Fishing which we may guess to have been the staple-trade of Bethsaida which hence probably borrowed its name signifying an house or habitation of Fishing though others render it by Hunting the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equally bearing either much advantaged herein by the Neighbourhood of the Lake of Gennesareth on whose banks it stood 〈◊〉 also the Sea of Galilee and the Sea of Tiberias according to the mode of the Hebrew language wherein all greater confluences of Waters are called Seas Of this Lake the Jews have a saying that of all the seven Seas which God created he made choice of none but the Sea of Gennesareth which however intended by them is true only in this respect that our blessed Saviour made choice of it to honour it with the frequency of his presence and the power of his miraculous operations In length it was an hundred furlongs and about XI over the Water of it pure and clear sweet and most fit to drink stored it was with several sorts of Fish and those different both in kind and taste from those in other places Here it was that Peter closely followed the exercise of his calling from whence it seems he afterwards removed to Capernaum probably upon his marriage at least frequently resided there for there we meet with his House and there
for some time till they were instructed in the first rudiments of his doctrine and by his leave departed home For it 's reasonable to suppose that our Lord being unwilling at this time especially to awaken the jealousies of the State by a numerous retinue might dismiss his Disciples for some time and Peter and Andrew amongst the rest who hereupon returned home to the exercise of their calling where he found them afterwards 4. IT was now somewhat more than a year since our Lord having entred upon the publick stage of action constantly went about doing good healing the sick and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom residing usually at 〈◊〉 and the parts about it where by the constancy of his preaching and the reputation of his miracles his fame spread about all those Countries by means whereof multitudes of people from all parts flock'd to him greedily desirous to become his Auditors And what wonder if the parch'd and barren Earth thirsted for the showers of Heaven It hapned that our Lord retiring out of the City to enjoy the privacies of contemplation upon the banks of the Sea of Galilee it was not long before the multitude found him out to avoid the crowd and press whereof he step'd into a Ship or Fisher-Boat that lay near to the shore which belonged to Peter who together with his companions after a tedious and unsuccessful night were gone a-shore to wash and dry their Nets He who might have commanded was yet pleased to intreat Peter who by this time was returned into his Ship to put a little from the shore Here being sate he taught the people who stood along upon the shore to hear him Sermon ended he resolv'd to seal up his doctrine with a miracle that the people might be the more effectually convinced that he was a Teacher come from God To this purpose he bad Simon lanch out further and cast his Net into the Sea Simon tells him they had don 't already that they had been fishing all the last night but in vain and if they could not succeed then the most proper season for that imployment there was less hope to speed now it being probably about Noon But because where God commands it is not for any to argue but obey at our Lord's instance he let down the Net which immediately inclosed so great a multitude of Fishes that the Net began to break and they were forced to call to their partners who were in a Ship hard by them to come in to their assistence A draught so great that it loaded both their Boats and that so full that it endangered their sinking before they could get safe to shore An instance wherein our Saviour gave an ocular demonstration that as Messiah God had put all things under his feet not only Fowls of the Air but the Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Seas 5. AMAZ'D they were all at this miraculous draught of Fishes whereupon Simon in an 〈◊〉 of admiration and a mixture of humility and fear threw himself at the feet of Christ and pray'd him to depart from him as a vile and a sinful person So evident were the appearances of Divinity in this miracle that he was over-powred and dazled with its brightness and lustre and reflecting upon himself could not but think himself unworthy the presence of so great a person so immediately sent from God and considering his own state Conscience being hereby more sensibly awakened was afraid that the Divine vengeance might pursue and overtake him But our Lord to abate the 〈◊〉 of his fears assures him that this miracle was not done to amaze and terrifie him but to strengthen and confirm his Faith that now he had nobler work and imployment for him instead of catching Fish he should by perswading men to the obedience of the Gospel catch the Souls of men And accordingly commanded him and his brother to follow him the same command which presently after he gave to the two Sons of 〈◊〉 The word was no sooner spoken and they landed but disposing their concerns in the hands of friends as we may presume prudent and reasonable men would they immediately left all and followed him and from this time Peter and the rest became his constant and inseparable Disciples living under the rules of his Discipline and Institutions 6. FROM hence they returned to 〈◊〉 where our Lord entring into Simon' s house the place in all likelihood where he was wont to lodge during his residence in that City found his Mother-in-law visited with a violent Fever No priviledges afford an exemption from the ordinary Laws of humane Nature Christ under her roof did not protect this Woman from the assaults and invasions of a Fever Lord behold he whom thou lovest is sick as they said concerning Lazarus Here a fresh opportunity offered it self to Christ of exerting his Divine Power No sooner was he told of it but he came to her bed-side rebuked the Paroxysms commanded the Fever to be gone and taking her by the hand to lift her up in a moment restored her to perfect health and ability to return to the business of her Family all cures being equally easie to Omnipotence SECT III. Of S. Peter from his Election to the Apostolate till the Confession which he made of Christ. The Election of the Apostles and our Lord 's solemn preparation for it The Powers and Commission given to them Why Twelve chosen Peter the first in order not power The Apostles when and by whom Baptized The Tradition of Euodius of Peter's being immediately Baptized by Christ rejected and its authorities proved in sufficient Three of the Apostles more intimately conversant with our Saviour Peter's being with Christ at the raising Jairus his Daughter His walking with Christ upon the Sea The creatures at God's command act contrary to their natural Inclinations The weakness of Peter's Faith Christ's power in commanding down the storm an evidence of his Divinity Many Disciples desert our Saviour's preaching Peter's prosession of constancy in the name of the rest of the Apostles OUR Lord being now to elect some peculiar persons as his immediate Vicegerents upon Earth to whose care and trust he might commit the building up of his Church and the planting that Religion in the World for which he himself came down from Heaven In order to it he privately over-night withdrew himself into a solitary Mountain commonly called the Mount of Christ from his frequent repairing thither though some of the Ancients will have it to be Mount Tabor there to make his solemn address to Heaven for a prosperous success on so great a work Herein leaving an excellent copy and precedent to the Governours of his Church how to proceed in setting apart persons to so weighty and difficult an employment Upon this Mountain we may conceive there was an Oratory or place of prayer probably intimated by S. Luke's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for such
passions ready to over-run the banks not able to endure a thought that so much evil should befall his Master broke out into an over-confident and unseasonable interruption of him He took him and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee Besides his great kindness and affection to his Master the minds of the Apostles were not yet throughly purged from the hopes and expectations of a glorious reign of the Messiah so that Peter could not but look upon these sufferings as unbecoming and inconsistent with the state and dignity of the Son of God And therefore thought good to advise his Lord to take care of himself and while there was time to prevent and avoid them This our Lord who valued the redemption os Mankind infinitely before his own ease and safety resented at so high a rate that he returned upon him with this tart and stinging reproof Get thee behind me Satan The very same treatment which he once gave to the Devil himself when he made that insolent proposal to him To fall down and worship him though in Satan it was the result of pure malice and hatred in Peter only an error of love and great regard However our Lord could not but look upon it as mischievous and diabolical counsel prompted and promoted by the great Adversary of Mankind A way therefore says Christ with thy hellish and pernicious counsel Thou art an offence unto me in seeking to oppose and undermine that great design for which I purposely came down from 〈◊〉 In this thou savourest not the things of God but those that be of men in suggesting to me those little shifts and arts of safety and self-preservation which humane prudence and the love of mens own selves are wont to dictate to them By which though we may learn Peter's mighty kindness to our Saviour yet that herein he did not take his measures right A plain evidence that his infallibility had not yet taken place 5. About a week after this our Saviour being to receive a Type and Specimen of his future 〈◊〉 took with him his three more intimate Apostles Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and went up into a very high mountain which the Ancients generally conceive to have been Mount Thabor a round and very high mountain situate in the plains of Galilce And now was even literally fulfilled what the Psalmist had spoken Tabor and Hermon shall rejoyce in thy Name for what greater joy and triumph than to be peculiarly chosen to be the holy Mount whereon our Lord in so eminent a manner received from God the Father honour and glory and made such magnificent displays of his Divine power and Majesty For while they were here earnestly imployed in Prayer as seldom did our Lord enter upon any eminent action but he first made his address to Heaven he was suddenly transformed into another manner of appearance such a lustre and radiancy darted from his face that the Sun it self shines not brighter at Noon-day such beams of light reflected from his garments as out-did the light it self that was round about them so exceeding pure and white that the Snow might blush to compare with it nor could the Fullers art purifie any thing into half that whiteness an evident and sensible representation of the glory of that state wherein the just shall walk in white and shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father During this Heavenly scene there appeared Moses and Elias who as the Jews say shall come together clothed with all the brightness and majesty of a glorified state familiarly conversing with him and discoursing of the death and sufferings which he was shortly to undergo and his departure into Heaven Behold here together the three greatest persons that ever were the Ministers of Heaven Moses under God the Instituter and promulgator of the Law Elias the great reformer of it when under its deepest degeneracy and corruption and the blessed Jesus the Son of God who came to take away what was weak and imperfect and to introduce a more manly and rational institution and to communicate the last Revelation which God would make of his mind to the World Peter and the two Apostles that were with him were in the mean time fallen asleep heavy through want of natural rest it being probably night when this was done or else over-powred with these extraordinary appearances which the frailty and weakness of their present state could not bear were fallen into a Trance But now awaking were strangely surprised to behold our Lord surrounded with so much glory and those two great persons conversing with him knowing who they were probably by some particular marks and signatures that were upon them or else by immediate revelation or from the discourse which passed betwixt Christ and them or possibly from some communication which they themselves might have with them While these Heavenly guests were about to depart Peter in a great rapture and ecstasie of mind addressed himself to our Saviour telling him how infinitely they were pleased and delighted with their being there and to that purpose desiring his leave that they might erect three Tabernacles one for him one for Moses and one for Elias While he was thus saying a bright cloud suddenly over-shadowed and wrapt them up out of which came a voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him which when the Apostles heard and saw the cloud coming over them they were seised with a great consternation and fell upon their faces to the ground whom our Lord gently touched bade them arise and disband their fears whereupon looking up they saw none but their Master the rest having vanished and disappeared In memory of these great transactions Bede tells us that in pursuance of S. Peter's petition about the three Tabernacles there were afterwards three Churches built upon the top of this Mountain which in after times were had in great veneration which might possibly give some foundation to 〈◊〉 report which one makes that in his time there were shew'd the ruines of those three Tabernacles which were built according to S. Peter's desire 6. After this our Lord and his Apostle's having travelled through Galilce the gatherers of the Tribute-money came to Peter and asked him whether his Master was not obliged to pay the Tribute which God under the Mosaick Law commanded to be yearly paid by every Jew above Twenty years old to the use of the Temple which so continued to the times of Vespatian under whom the Temple being destroyed it was by him transferred to the use of the Capitol at Rome being to the value of half a Shekel or Fifteen pence of our money To this question of theirs Peter positively answers yes knowing his Master would never be backward either to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's or to God the things that are God's Peter going into the house
darkness 4. HERE it was that the Blessed Jesus laboured under the bitterest Agony that could fall upon humane Nature which the holy Story describes by words sufficiently expressive of the higest grief and sorrow he was afraid sorrowful and very heavy yea his Soul was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceeding sorrowful and that even unto death he was fore amazed and very heavy he was troubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Soul was shaken with a vehement commotion yea he was in an Agony a word by which the Greeks are wont to represent the greatest conflicts and anxieties The effect of all which was that he prayed more earnestly offering up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears as the Apostle expounds it and sweat as it were great drops of bloud falling to the ground What this bloudy sweat was and how far natural or extraordinary I am not now concerned to enquire Certain it is it was a plain evidence of the most intense grief and sadness for if an extreme fear or trouble will many times cast us into a cold sweat how great must be the commotion and conflict of our Saviour's mind which could force open the pores of his body lock'd up by the coldness of the night and make not drops of sweat but great drops or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies clods of bloud to issue from them While our Lord was thus contending with these Ante-Passions the three Apostles whom he had left at some distance from him being tired out with watching and disposed by the silence of the Night were fallen fast asleep Our Lord who had made three several addresses unto Heaven that if it might consist with his Father's will this bitter Cup might pass from him expressing herein the harmless and innocent desires of humane Nature which always studies its own preservation between each of them came to visit the Apostles and calling to Peter asked him Whether they could not watch with him one hour advising them to watch and pray that they enter'd not into temptation adding this Argument That the spirit indeed was willing but that the flesh was weak and that therefore there was the more need that they should stand upon their guard Observe here the incomparable sweetness the generous candor of our blessed Saviour to pass so charitable a censure upon an action from whence malice and ill-nature might have drawn monsters and prodigies and have represented it black as the shades of darkness The request which our Lord made to these Apostles was infinitely reasonable to watch with him in this bitter Agony their company at least being some refreshment to one under such sad fatal circumstances and this but for a little time one hour it would soon be over and then they might freely consult their own ease and safety 'T was their dear Lord and Master whom they now were to attend upon ready to lay down his life for them sweating already under the first skirmishes of his sufferings and expecting every moment when all the powers of darkness would fall upon him But all these considerations were drown'd in a profound security the men were fast asleep and though often awakened and told of it regarded it not as if nothing but ease and softness had been then to be dream'd of An action that look'd like the most prodigious ingratitude and the highest unconcernedness for their Lord and Master and which one would have thought had argued a very great coldness and indifferency of affection towards him But he would not set it upon the Tenters nor stretch it to what it might easily have been drawn to he imputes it not to their unthankfulness or want of affection nor to their carelesness of what became of him but merely to their infirmity and the weakness of their bodily temper himself making the excuse when they could make none for themselves the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Hereby teaching us to put the most candid and favourable construction upon those actions of others which are capable of various interpretations and rather with the Bee to suck honey than with the Spider to draw poison from them His last Prayer being ended he came to them and told them with a gentle rebuke That now they might sleep on if they pleased that the hour was at hand that he should be betrayed and delivered into the hands of men 5. WHILE he was thus discoursing to them a Band of Souldiers sent from the High Priests with the Traitor Judas to conduct and direct them rush'd into the Garden and seised upon him which when the Apostles saw they asked him whether they should attempt his rescue Peter whose ungovernable zeal put him upon all dangerous undertakings without staying for an answer drew his Sword and espying one more busie than the rest in laying hold upon our Saviour which was Malchus who though carrying Kingship in his name was but Servant to the High Priest struck at him with an intention to dispatch him but God over-ruling the stroak it only cut off his right Ear. Our Lord liked not this wild and unwarrantable zeal and therefore intreated their patience whilest he miraculously healed the Wound And turning to Peter bad him put up his Sword again told him that they who unwarrantably use the Sword should themselves perish by it that there was no need of these violent and extravagant courses that if he had a mind to be rid of his Keepers he could ask his Father who would presently send more than twelve Legions of Angels to his rescue and deliverance But he must drink the Cup which his Father had put into his hand for how else should the Scriptures be fulfilled which had expresly foretold That these things must be Whereupon all the Apostles forsook him and fled from him and they who before in their promises were as bold as Lions now it came to it like fearful and timorous Hares ran away from him Peter and John though staying last with him yet followed the same way with the rest preferring their own safety before the concernments of their Master 6. NO sooner was he apprehended by the Souldiers and brought out of the Garden but he was immediately posted from one Tribunal to another brought first to Annas then carried to Caiaphas where the Jewish Sanhedrim met together in order to his Trial and Condemnation Peter having a little recovered himself and gotten loose from his fears probably encouraged by his Companion S. John returns back to seek his Master And finding them leading him to the High Priest's Hall followed afar off to see what would be the event and issue But coming to the Door could get no admittance till one of the Disciples who was acquainted there went out and perswaded the Servant who kept the Door to let him in Being let into the Hall where the Servants and Officers stood round the Fire Peter also came thither to warm himself where being espied by the
Servant-maid that let him in and earnestly looking upon him she charged him with being one of Christ's Disciples which Peter publickly denied before all the Company positively affirming that he knew him not And presently withdrew himself into the Porch where he heard the Cock crow An intimation which one would have thought should have awakened his Conscience into a quick sense of his duty and the promise he had made unto his Master In the Porch another of the Maids set upon him charging him that he also was one of them that had been with Jesus of Nazareth which Peter stoutly denyed saying that he knew not Christ and the better to gain their belief to what he said ratified it with an Oath So natural is it for one sin to draw on another 7. ABOUT an Hour after he was a third time set upon by a Servant of the High Priest Malchus his Kinsman whose Ear Peter had lately cut off By him he was charged to be one of Christ's Disciples Yea that his very speech betrayed him to be a Galilean For the Galileans though they did not speak a different language had yet a different Dialect using a more confused and barbarous a broader and more unpolished way of pronunciation than the rest of the Jews whereby they were easily distinguishable in their speaking from other men abundant instances whereof there are extant in the Talmud at this day Nay not only gave this evidence but added that he himself had seen him with Jesus in the Garden Peter still resolutely denied the matter and to add the highest accomplishment to his sin ratified it not only with an Oath but a solemn Curse and execration that he was not the person that he knew not the man 'T is but a very weak excuse which S. Ambrose and some others make for this Act of Peter's in saying I knew not the Man He did well says he to deny him to be Man whom he knew to be God S. Hierom takes notice of this pious and well-meant excuse made for Peter though out of modesty he conceals the name of its Authors but yet justly censures it as trifling and frivolous and which to excuse Man from folly would charge God with falshood for if he did not deny him then our Lord was out when he said that that Night he should thrice deny him that is his Person and not only his humanity Certainly the best Apology that can be made for Peter is that he quickly repented of this great sin for no sooner had he done it but the Cock crew again at which intimation our Saviour turn'd about and earnestly looked upon him a glance that quickly pierced him to the Heart and brought to his remembrance what our Lord had once and again foretold him of how foully and shamefully he should deny him whereupon not being able to contain his sorrow he ran out of Doors to give it vent and wept bitterly passionately bewailing his folly and the aggravations of his sin thereby indeavouring to make some reparation for his fault and recover himself into the favour of Heaven and to prevent the execution of Divine Justice by taking a severe revenge upon himself by these penitential tears he endeavoured to wash off his guilt as indeed Repentance is the next step to Innocence SECT VI. Of S. Peter from Christ ' s Resurrection till his Ascension Our Lord's care to acquaint Peter with his Resurrection His going to the Sepulchre Christ's appearance to Peter when and the Reasons of it The Apostles Journey into Galilee Christ's appearing to them at the Sea of Tiberias His being discovered by the great draught of Fishes Christ's questioning Peter's love and why Feed my Sheep commended to Peter imports no peculiar supereminent power and soveraignty Peter's death and sufferings foretold Our Lord takes his last leave of the Apostles at Bethany His Ascension into Heaven The Chappel of the Ascension The Apostles joy at their Lord's Exaltation 1. WHAT became of Peter after his late Prevarication whether he followed our Saviour through the several stages of his Trial and personally attended as a Mourner at the Funerals of his Master we have no account left upon Record No doubt he stayed at Jerusalem and probably with S. John together with whom we first find him mentioned when both setting forwards to the Sepulchre which was in this manner Early on that Morning whereon our Lord was to return from the Grave Mary Magdalen and some other devout and pious Women brought Spices and Ointments with a design to Imbalm the Body of our crucified Lord. Coming to the Sepulchre at Sun-rising and finding the Door open they entred in where they were suddainly 〈◊〉 by an Angel who told them that Jesus was risen and bad them go and 〈◊〉 his Apostles and particularly Peter that he was returned from the dead and that he would go before them into Galilee where they should meet with him Hereupon they returned back and acquainted the Apostles with what had passed who beheld the story as the product of a weak frighted fancy But Peter and John presently hastned towards the Garden John being the younger and nimbler out-ran his Companion and came first thither where he only looked but entred not in either out of fear in himself or a great Reverence to our Saviour Peter though behind in space was before in zeal and being elder and more considerate came and resolutely entred in where they found nothing but the Linnen Clothes lying together in one place and the Napkin that was about his Head wrapped together in another which being disposed with so much care and order shewed what was falsly suggested by the Jewes that our Saviour's Body was not taken away by Thieves who are wont more to consult their escape than how to leave things orderly disposed behind them 2. THE same Day about Noon we may suppose it was that our Lord himself appeared alone to Peter being assured of the thing though not so precisely of the time That he did so S. Paul expresly tells us and so did the Apostles the two Disciples that came from Emmaus The Lord is risen and had appeared unto Simon which probably intimates that it was before his appearing to those two Disciples And indeed we cannot but think that our Lord would hasten the manifestation of himself to him as compassionating his case being overwhelmed with sorrow for the late shameful denial of his Master and was therefore willing in the first place to honour him with his presence at once to confirm him in the Article of his Resurrection and to let him see that he was restored to the place which before he had in his grace and favour S. Paul mentioning his several appearances after his Resurrection seems to make this the first of them That he was seen of Cephas Not that it was simply the first for he first appeared to the Women But as 〈◊〉 observes it was the first that
wickedness as by keeping back part of his estate to think to deceive the Holy Ghost That before it was sold it was wholly at his own disposure and after it was perfectly in his own power fully to have performed his vow So that it was capable of no other interpretation than that herein he had not only abused and injured men but mocked God and what in him lay lyed to and cheated the Holy Ghost who he knew was privy to the most secret thoughts and purposes of his heart This vvas no sooner said but suddenly to the great terror and amazement of all that vvere present Ananias vvas arrested vvith a stroke from Heaven and fell dovvn dead to the ground Not long after his Wife came in vvhom Peter entertained vvith the same severe reproofs vvherevvith he had done her Husband adding that the like sad fate and doom should immediately seize upon her who thereupon dropt down dead As she had been Copartner with him in the Sin becoming sharer with him in the punishment An Instance of great severity filling all that heard of it with fear and terror and became a seasonable prevention of that hypocrisie and dissimulation wherewith many might possibly think to have imposed upon the Church 9. THIS severe Case being extraordinary the Apostles usually exerted their power in such Miracles as were more useful and beneficial to the World Curing all manner of Diseases and dispossessing Devils In so much that they brought the Sick into the Streets and laid them upon Beds and Couches that at least Peter's shadow as he passed by might come upon them These astonishing Miracles could not but mightily contribute to the propagation of the Gospel and convince the World that the Apostles were more considerable Persons than they took them for poverty and meanness being no bar to true worth and greatness And methinks Erasmus his reflection here is not unseasonable that no honour or soveraignty no power or dignity was comparable to this glory of the Apostle that the things of Christ though in another way were more noble and excellent than any thing that this World could afford And therefore he tells us that when he beheld the state and magnificence wherewith Pope Julius the Second appeared first at Bononia and then at Rome equalling the triumphs of a Pompey or a Caesar he could not but think how much all this was below the greatness and majesty of S. Peter who converted the World not by Power or Armies not by Engines or 〈◊〉 of pomp and grandeur but by faith in the power of Christ and drew it to the admiration of himself and the same state says he would no doubt attend the Apostles Successours were they Men of the same temper and holiness of life The Jewish Rulers alarm'd with this News and awakened with the growing numbers of the Church sent to apprehend the Apostles and cast them into Prison But God who is never wanting to his own cause sent that Night an Angel from Heaven to open the Prison doors commanding them to repair to the Temple and to the exercise of their Ministery Which they did early in the Morning and there taught the People How unsuccessful are the projects of the wisest Statesmen when God frowns upon them how little do any counsels against Heaven prosper In vain is it to shut the doors where God is resolved to open them the firmest Bars the strongest Chains cannot hold where once God has designed and decreed our liberty The Officers returning the next Morning found the Prison shut and guarded but the Prisoners gone Wherewith they acquainted the Council who much wondred at it but being told where the Apostles were they sent to bring them withóut any noise or violence before the Sanhedrim where the High Priest asked them how they durst go on to propagate that Doctrine which they had so strictly commanded them not to preach Peter in the name of the rest told them That they must in this case obey God rather than men That though they had so barbarously and contumeliously treated the Lord Jesus yet that God had raised him up and exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour to give both repentance and remission of sins That they were witnesses of these things and so were those Miraculous Powers which the Holy Ghost conferred upon all true Christians Vexed was the Council with this Answer and began to consider how to cut them off But Gamaliel a grave and learned Senator having commanded the Apostles to withdraw bad the Council take heed what they did to them putting them in mind that several persons had heretofore raised parties and factions and drawn vast Numbers after them but that they had miscarried and they and their designs come to nought that therefore they should do well to let these men alone that if their doctrines and designs were meerly humane they would in time of themselves fall to the ground but if they were of God it was not all their power and policies would be able to defeat and overturn them and that they themselves would herein appear to oppose the counsels and designs of Heaven With this prudent and rational advice they were satisfied and having commanded the Apostles to be scourged and charged them no more to preach this doctrine restored them to their liberty Who notwithstanding this charge and threatning returned home in a kind of triumph that they were accounted worthy to suffer in so good a cause and to undergo shame and reproach for the sake of so good a Master Nor could all the hard usage they met with from men discourage them in their duty to God or make them less zealous and diligent both publickly and privately to preach Christ in every place SECT VIII Of S. Peter's Acts from the Dispersion of the Church at Jerusalem till his contest with S. Paul at Antioch The great care of the Divine Providence over the Church Peter dispatched by the Apostles to confirm the Church newly planted at Samaria His 〈◊〉 and silencing Simon Magus there His going to Lydda and curing AEneas His raising Dorcas at Joppa The 〈◊〉 of all sorts of Creatures presented to him to prepare him for the conversion of the Gentiles His going to Cornelius and declaring God's readiness to receive the Gentiles into the Church The Baptizing Cornelius and his Family Peter censured by the Jews for conversing with the Gentiles The mighty prejudices of the Jews against the Gentiles noted out of Heathen Writers Peter cast into prison by Herod Agrippa miraculously delivered by an Angel His discourse in the Synod at Jerusalem that the Gentiles might be received without being put under the obligation of the Law of Moses His unworthy compliance with the Jews at Antioch in opposition to the Gentiles Severely checked and resisted by S. Paul The ill use Porphyry makes of this difference The conceit of some that it was not Peter the Apostle but one of the Seventy 1. THE Church had been
in Africk Sicily Italy and other places And here it may not be amiss to insert a claim in behalf of our own Country Eusebius telling us as Metaphrastes reports it that Peter was not only in these Western parts but particularly that he was a long time in Britain where he converted many Nations to the Faith But we had better be without the honour of S. Peter's company than build the story upon so sandy a foundation Metaphrastes his Authority being of so little value in this case that it is slighted by the more learned and moderate Writers of the Church of Rome But where-ever it was that S. Peter imployed his time towards the latter part of Nero's Reign he returned to Rome where he found the minds of People strangely bewitched and hardned against the embracing of the Christian Religion by the subtilties and Magick arts of Simon Magus whom as we have before related he had formerly baffled at Samaria This Simon was born at Gitton a Village of Samaria bred up in the Arts of Sorcery and Divination and by the help of the Diabolical powers performed many strange feats of wonder and activity Insomuch that People generally looked upon him as some great Deity come down from Heaven But being discovered and confounded by Peter at Samaria he left the East and fled to Rome Where by Witchcraft and Sorceries he insinuated himself into the favour of the People and at last became very acceptable to the Emperours themselves insomuch that no honour and veneration was too great for him Justin Martyr assures us that he was honoured as a Deity that a Statue was erected to him in the Insula Tyberina between two Bridges with this Inscription SIMONI DEO SANCTO To Simon the holy God that the Samaritans generally and very many of other Nations did own and worship him as the chief principal Deity I know the credit of this Inscription is shrewdly shaken by some later Antiquaries who tell us that the good Father being a Greek might easily mistake in a Latin Inscription or be imposed upon by others and that the true Inscription was SEMONI SANGO DEO FIDIO c. such an Inscription being in the last Age dug up in the Tyberine Island and there preserved to this day It is not impossible but this might be the foundation of the story But sure I am that it is not only reported by the Martyr who was himself a Samaritan and lived but in the next Age but by others almost of the same time Irenaeus Tertullian and by others after them It further deserves to be considered that J. Martyr was a person of great learning and gravity inquisitive about matters of this nature at this time at Rome where he was capable fully to satisfie himself in the truth of things that he presented this Apology to the Emperor and the Senate of Rome to whom he would be careful what he said and who as they knew whether it was true or no so if false could not but ill resent to be so boldly imposed upon by so notorious a fable But be it as it will he was highly in favour both with the People and their Emperors especially Nero who was the Great Patron of Magicians and all who maintained secret ways of commerce with the infernal powers With him S. Peter thought fit in the first place to encounter and to undeceive the People by discovering the impostures and delusions of that wretched man 4. THAT he did so is generally affirmed by the Ancient Fathers who tell us of ome particular Instances wherein he baffled and confounded him But because the 〈◊〉 is more intirely drawn up by Hegesippus the younger an Author contemporary with S. Ambrose if not which is most probable S. Ambrose himself we shall from him 〈◊〉 the summary of the story There was at this time at Rome an eminent young Gentleman and a Kinsman of the Emperors lately dead The fame which Peter had for raising persons to life perswaded his friends that he might be called Others also prevailing that Simon the Magician might be sent for Simon glad of the occasion to magnifie himself before the People propounded to Peter that if he raised the Gentleman unto life then Peter who had so injuriously provoked the great power of God as he stiled himself should lose his life But if Peter prevailed he himself would submit to the same fate and sentence Peter accepted the termes and Simon began his Charmes and Inchantments Whereat the dead Gentleman seemed to move his hand The People that stood by presently cryed out that he was alive and that he talked with Simon and began to sall foul upon Peter for daring to oppose himself against so great a power The Apostle intreated their patience told them that all this was but a phantasm and appearance that if Simon was but taken from the Bed-side all this pageantry would quickly vanish Who being accordingly removed the Body remained without the least sign of motion Peter standing at a good distance from the Bed silently made his address to Heaven and then before them all commanded the young Gentleman in the Name of the Lord Jesus to arise who immediately did so spoke walked and ate and was by Peter restored to his Mother The People who saw this suddenly changed their opinions and fell upon the Magician with an intent to stone him But Peter begged his life and told them that it would be a sufficient punishment to him to live and see that in despite of all his power and malice the Kingdom of Christ should increase and flourish The Magician was inwardly tormented with this defeat and vext to see the triumph of the Apostle and therefore mustering up all his powers summoned the People told them that he was offended at the Galileans whose Protector and Guardian he had been and therefore set them a Day when he promised that they should see him fly up into Heaven At the time appointed he went up to the Mount of the Capitol and throwing himself from the top of the Rock began his flight A sight which the People entertained with great wonder and veneration affirming that this must be the power of God and not of man Peter standing in the Croud prayed to our Lord that the People might be undeceived and that the vanity of the Impostor might be discovered in such a way that he himself might be sensible of it Immediately the Wings which he had made himself began to fail him and he fell to the ground miserably bruised and wounded with the fall Whence being carried into a neighbouring Village he soon after dyed This is the story for the particular circumstances whereof the Feader must rely upon the credit of my Author the thing in general being sufficiently acknowledged by most ancient Writers This contest of Peter's with Simon Magus is placed by Eusebius under the Reign of Claudius but by the generality both
S. Jude speaking of the Scoffers who should come in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts cites this as that which had been before spoken by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ wherein he plainly quotes the words of this Second Epistle of Peter affirming That there should come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts And that this does agree to Peter will further appear by this that he tells us of these Scoffers that should come in the last days that is before the destruction of Jerusalem as that phrase is often used in the New Testament that they should say Where is the promise of his coming Which clearly respects their making light of those threatnings of our Lord whereby he had foretold that he would shortly come in Judgment for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation This he now puts them in mind of as what probably he had before told them of 〈◊〉 vocc when he was amongst them For so we find he did elsewhere Lactantius assuring us That amongst many strange and wonderful things which Peter and Paul preached at Rome and lest upon Record this was one That within a short time God would send a Prince who should destroy the Jews and lay their Cities level with the ground straitly besiege them destroy them with Famine so that they should feed upon one another That their Wives and Daughters should be ravished and their Childrens brains dasht out before their faces that all things should be laid waste by Fire and Sword and themselves perpetually banished from their own Countrey and this for their insolent and merciless usage of the innocent and dear Son of God All which as he observes came to pass soon after their death when 〈◊〉 came upon the Jews and extinguished both their Name and Nation And what Peter here foretold at Rome we need not question but he had done before to those Jews to whom he wrote this Epistle Wherein he especially antidotes them against those corrupt and poisonous principles wherewith many and especially the followers of Simon Magus began to insect the Church of Christ. And this but a little time before his death as appears from that passage in it where he tells them That he knew he must shortly put off his earthly Tabernacle 7. BESIDES these Divine Epistles there were other supposititious writings which in the first Ages were fathered upon S. Peter Such was the Book called his Acts mentioned by Origen Eusebius and others but rejected by them Such was his Gospel which probably at first was nothing else but the Gospel written by S. Mark dictated to him as is generally thought by S. Peter and therefore as S. 〈◊〉 tells us said to be his Though in the next Age there appeared a Book under that Title mentioned by Serapion Bishop of Antioch and by him at 〈◊〉 suffered to be read in the Church but afterwards upon a more careful perusal of it he rejected it as Apocryphal as it was by others after him Another was the Book stiled His Preaching mentioned and quoted both by Clemens Alexandrinus and by Origen but not acknowledged by them to be Genuine Nay expresly said to have been forged by Hereticks by an ancient Author contemporary with S. Cyprian The next was his Apocalypse or Revelation rejected as Sozomen tells us by the 〈◊〉 as Spurious but yet read in some Churches in Palestine in his time The last was the Book called His Judgment which probably was the same with that called Hermes or Pastor a Book of good use and esteem in the first times of Christianity and which as Eusebius tells us was not only frequently cited by the Ancients but also publickly read in Churches 8. WE shall conclude this Section by considering Peter with respect to his several Relations That he was married is unquestionable the Sacred History mentioning his Wives Mother his Wife might we believe Metaphrastes being the Daughter of Aristobulus Brother to Barnabas the Apostle And though S. Hierom would perswade us that he left her behind him together with his Nets when he forsook all to follow Christ yet we know that Father too well to be over-confident upon his word in a case of Marriage or Single life wherein he is not over-scrupulous sometimes to strain a point to make his opinion more fair and plausible The best is we have an infallible Authority which plainly intimates the contrary the testimony of S. Paul who tells us of Cephas that he led about a Wife a Sister along with him who for the most part mutually cohabited lived together for ought that can be proved to the contrary Clemens Alexandrinus gives us this account though he tells us not the time or place That Peter seeing his Wife going towards Martyrdom exceedingly rejoyced that she was called to so great an honour and that she was now returning home encouraging and earnestly exhorting her and calling her by her Name bad her to be mindful of our Lord. Such says he was the Wedlock of that blessed couple and the perfect disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them By her he is said to have had a Daughter called Petronilla Metaphrastes adds a Son how truly I know not This only is certain that S. Clemens of Alexandria reckons Peter for one of the Apostles that was Married and had Children And surely he who was so good a man and so good an Apostle was as good in the relation both of an Husband and a Father SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome Peter's being at Rome granted in general The account of it given by Baronius and the Writers of that Church rejected and disproved No foundation for it in the History of the Apostolick Acts. No mention of it in S. Paul's Epistle to the Romans No news of his being there at S. Paul's coming to Rome nor intimation of any such thing in the several Epistles which S. Paul wrote from thence S. Peter's first being at Rome inconsistent with the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem And with an Ancient Tradition that the Apostles were commanded to stay Twelve years in Judaea after Christ's death Apassage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the 〈◊〉 of the Romish Church in their Accounts Peter's being XXV years Bishop of Rome no solid foundation for it in Antiquity The Planting and Governing that Church equally attributed to Peter and Paul S. Peter when probably came to Rome Different dates of his Martyrdom assigned by the Ancients A probable account given of it 1. THOUGH it be not my purpose to swim against the Stream and Current of Antiquity in denying S. Peter to have been at Rome an Assertion easilier perplexed and intangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there
him to kick against the pricks that he now appeared to him to make choice of him for a Minister and a 〈◊〉 of what he had now seen and should after hear that he would stand by him and preserve him and make him a great instrument in the conversion of the Gentile World This said He asked our Lord what he would have him to do who bad him go into the City where he should receive his Answer S. Paul's companions who had been present at this transaction heard the voice but saw not him that spoke to him though elsewhere the Apostle himself affirms that they saw the light but heard not the voice of him that spake that is they heard a confused sound but not a distinct and articulate voice or more probably being ignorant of the Hebrew Language wherein our Lord spake to S. Paul they heard the words but knew not the sence and the meaning of them 9. S. PAUL by this time was gotten up but though he found his feet yet he had lost his eyes being stricken blind with the Extraordinary brightness of the light and was accordingly led by his companions into Damascus In which condition he there remained fasting three days together At this time we may probably suppose it was that he had that vision and ecstasie wherein he was taken up into the third Heaven where he saw and heard things great and unutterable and was fully instructed in the mysteries of the Gospel and hence expresly affirms that he was not taught the Gospel which he preached by man but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ. There was at this time at Damascus one Ananias a very devout and religious man one of the seventy Disciples as the Ancients inform us and probably the first planter of the Christian Church in this City and though a Christian yet of great reputation amongst all the Jews To him our Lord appeared commanding him to go into such a street and to such an house and there enquire for one Saul of Tarsus who was now at Prayer and had seen him in a Vision coming to him to lay his hands upon him that 〈◊〉 might receive his sight Ananias startled at the name of the man having heard of his bloudy temper and practises and upon what errand he was now come down to the City But our Lord to take off his fears told him that he mistook the man that he had now taken him to be a chosen vessel to preach the Gospel both to Jews and Gentiles and before the greatest Potentates upon Earth acquainting him with what great things he should both do and suffer for his sake what chains and imprisonments what racks and scourges what hunger and thirst what shipwracks and death he should undergo Upon this Ananias went laid his hands upon him told him that our Lord had sent him to him that he might receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost which was no sooner done but thick films like scales fell from his eyes and his sight returned And the next thing he did was to be baptized and solemnly initiated into the Christian Faith After which he joyned himself to the Disciples of that place to the equal joy and wonder of the Church that the Wolf should so soon lay down its fierceness and put on the meek nature of a Lamb that he who had lately been so virulent a persecutor should now become not a professor only but a preacher of that Faith which before he had routed and destroyed SECT II. Of S. Paul from his Conversion till the Council at Jerusalem S. Paul's leaving Damascus and why His Three Years Ministry in Arabia His return to Damascus The greatness of that City The design of the Jews to surprize S. Paul and the manner of his escape His coming to Jerusalem and converse with Peter and James His departure thence The Disciples first stiled Christians 〈◊〉 Antioch This when done and by whom The solemnity of it The importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what S. Paul's Journey to Jerusalem with contributions His voyage to Cyprus and planting Christianity there The opposition made by Elymas and his severe punishment The Proconsuls conversion His preaching to the Jews at Antioch of Pisidia His curing a Cripple at Lystra and discourse to the people about their Idolatry The Apostles way of arguing noted and his discourse concerning the Being and Providence of God illustrated His confirming the Churches in the Faith The controversie at Antioch and S. Paul's account of it in the Synod at Jerusalem SAINT Paul staid not long at Damascus after his Conversion but having received an immediate intimation from Heaven probably in the Ecstasie wherein he was caught up thither he waited for no other counsel or direction in the case lest he should seem to derive his Mission and Authority from Men and being not disobedient to the Heavenly Vision he presently retired out of the City and the sooner probably to decline the Odium of the Jews and the effects of that rage and malice which he was sure would pursue and follow him He withdrew into the parts of Arabia where he spent the first fruits of his Ministery Preaching up and down for three Years together After which he returned back to Damascus Preached openly in the Synagogues and convinced the Jews of Christ's Messiah-ship and the truth of his Religion Angry and inraged hereat they resolved his Ruine which they knew no better way to effect than by exasperating and incensing the Civil powers against him Damascus was a place not more venerable for its Antiquity if not built by at least it gave title to Abraham's steward hence called Eliezer of Damascus than it was considerable for its strength stateliness and scituation it was the noblest City of all Syria as Justin of old and the Arabian Geographer has since informed us and the Prophet Isaiah before both calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the head of Syria seated in a most healthful Air in a most fruitful Soyl watered with most pleasant Fountains and Rivers rich in Merchandize adorned with stately Buildings goodly and magnificent Temples and fortified with strong Guards and Garrisons in all which respects Julian calls it the Holy and great Damascus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eye of the whole East Scituate it was between Libanus and Mount Hermon and though properly belonging to Syria yet Arabiae retro deputabatur as Tertullian tells us was in after times reckoned to Arabia Accordingly at this time it was under the Government of Aretas Father-in-law to Herod the Tetrarch King of Arabia Petraea a Prince tributary to the Roman Empire By him there was an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Governour who had Jurisdiction over the whole Syria Damascena placed over it who kept constant residence in the City as a place of very great importance To him the Jews made their address with crafty and cunning insinuations perswading him to
these more special acts of favour than the rest is not easie to determine though surely our Lord who governed all his actions by Principles of the highest prudence and reason did it for wise and proper ends whether it was that he designed these three to be more solemn and peculiar witnesses of some particular passages of his life than the other Apostles or that they would be more eminently useful and serviceable in some parts of the Apostolick Office or that hereby he would the better prepare and encourage them against suffering as intending them for some more eminent kinds of Martyrdom or suffering than the rest were to undergo 4. NOR was it the least instance of that particular honour which our Lord conferr'd upon these three Apostles that at his calling them to the Apostolat he gave them the addition of a new Name and Title A thing not unusual of old for God to impose a new Name upon Persons when designing them for some great and peculiar services and employments thus he did to Abraham and Jacob. Nay the thing was customary among the Gentiles as had we no other instances might appear from those which the Scripture gives us of Pharaoh's giving a new name to Joseph when advancing him to be Vice-Roy of Egypt 〈◊〉 to Daniel c. Thus did our Lord in the Election of these three Apostles Simon he sirnamed Peter James the Son of Zebedee and John his Brother he sirnamed Boanerges which is the Sons of Thunder What our Lord particularly intended in this Title is easier to conjecture than certainly to determine some think it was given them upon the account of their being present in the Mount when a voice came out of the Cloud and said This is my beloved Son c. The like whereto when the People heard at another time they cried out that it Thundred But besides that this account is in it self very slender and inconsiderable if so then the title must equally have belonged to Peter who was then present with them Others think it was upon the account of their loud bold and resolute preaching Christianity to the World fearing no threatnings daunted with no oppositions but going on to thunder in the Ears of the secure sleepy World rouzing and awakening the consciences of Men with the earnestness and vehemency of their Preaching as Thunder which is called God's Voice powerfully shakes the natural World and breaks in pieces the 〈◊〉 of Lebanon Or if it relate to the Doctrines they delivered it may signifie their teaching the great mysteries and speculations of the Gospel in a profounder strain than the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theophylact notes which how true it might be of our S. James the Scripture is wholly silent but was certainly verified of his Brother John whose Gospel is so full of the more sublime notions and mysteries of the Gospel concerning Christ's Deity eternal prae-existence c. that he is generally affirmed by the Ancients not so much to speak as thunder Probably the expression may denote no more than that in general they were to be prime and eminent Ministers in this new scene and state of things the introducing of the Gospel or Evangelical dispensation being called a Voice shaking the Heavens and the Earth and so is exactly correspondent to the native importance of the Word signifying an Earth-quake or a vehement commotion that makes a noise like to Thunder 5. HOWEVER it was our Lord I doubt not herein had respect to the furious and resolute disposition of those two Brothers who seem to have been of a more fierce and fiery temper than the rest of the Apostles whereof we have this memorable instance Our Lord being resolved upon his Journy to Jerusalem sent some of his Disciples as Harbingers to prepare his way who coming to a Village of Samaria were uncivilly rejected and refused entertainment probably because of that old and inveterate quarrel that was between the Samaritans and the Jews and more especially at this time because our Saviour seemed to slight Mount Gerizim where was their staple and solemn place of worship by passing it by to go worship at Jerusalem the reason in all likelihood why they denied him those common courtesies and conveniences due to all Travellers This piece of rudeness and inhumanity was presently so deeply resented by S. James and his Brother that they came to their Master to know whether as Elias did of old they might not pray down Fire from Heaven to consume these barbarous and inhospitable People So apt are Men for every trifle to call upon Heaven to Minister to the extravagancies of their own impotent and unreasonable passions But our Lord rebukes their zeal tells them they quite mistook the case that this was not the frame and temper of his Disciples and Followers the nature and design of that Evangelical dispensation that he was come to set on foot in the World which was a more pure and perfect a more mild and gentle Institution than what was under the Old Testament in the times of Moses and Elias The Son of Man being come not to destroy mens lives but to save them 6. THE Holy Jesus not long after set forwards in his Journy to Jerusalem in order to his crucifixion and the better to prepare the minds of his Apostles for his death and departure from them he told them what he was to suffer and yet that after all he should rise again They whose minds were yet big with expectations of a temporal power and monarchy understood not well the meaning of his discourses to them However S. James and his Brother supposing the Resurrection that he spoke of would be the time when his Power and Greatness would commence prompted their Mother Salome to put up a Petition for them She presuming probably on her relation to Christ and knowing that our Saviour had promised his Apostles that when he was come into his Kingdom they should sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel and that he had already honoured her two Sons with an intimate familiarity after leave modestly asked for her address begg'd of him that when he took possession of his Kingdom her two Sons James and John might have the principal places of honour and dignity next his own Person the one sitting on his right hand and the other on his left as the Heads of Judah and Joseph had the first places among the Rulers of the Tribes in the Jewish Nation Our Lord directing his discourse to the two Apostles at whose suggestion he knew their Mother had made this address told them they quite mistook the nature of his Kingdom which consisted not in external grandeur and soveraignty but in an inward life and power wherein the highest place would be to take the greatest pains and to undergo the heaviest troubles and sufferings that they should do well to consider whether they were able to endure what
Rome and being put into a Caldron of boiling Oil by the command of Domitian His banishment into Patmos Transportation what kind of punishment Capitis Diminutio what His writing the Apocalypse there The tradition of his hand wherewith he wrote it being still kept there His return to Ephesus and governing the affairs of that Province His great Age and Death The fancy of his being still alive whence derived by the Ancients The Tradition of his going alive into his Grave and sleeping there Several counterfeits pretending themselves to be S. John His Celibacy whether he was ever married His humility His admirable love and charity and hearty recommending it to the last His charity to mens Souls His endangering himself to reclaim 〈◊〉 debauched young man His singular vigilancy against Hereticks and Seducers His publick disowning Cerinthus his company Cerinthus who and what his principles The Heresie of Ebion what Nicolaitans who whence their Original An account of Nicolas the Deacon's separating from his Wife The vile principles and practises of his pretended followers S. John's writings His Revelation Dionysius Alexandrinus his judgment concerning it and its Author Asserted and proved to be S. John's The ground of doubting what His Gospel when and where written The solemn 〈◊〉 and causes moving him to undertake it The subject of it sublime and mysterious Admired and cited by Heathen Philosophers It s Translation into Hebrew His first Epistle and the design of it His two other Epistles to whom written and why not admitted of old His 〈◊〉 and way of writing considered The great Encomium given of his writings by the ancient Fathers 1. SAINT John was a Galilean the Son of Zebedee and Salome younger Brother to S. James together with whom he was brought up in the Trade of Fishing S. 〈◊〉 makes him remarkable upon the account of his Nobility whereby he became acquainted with the High-Priest and resolutely ventured himself amongst the Jews at our Saviour's Trial prevailed to introduce Peter into the Hall was the only Apostle that attended our Lord at his Crucifixion and afterwards durst own his Mother and keep her at his own house But the nobility of his Family and especially that it should be such as to procure him so much respect from persons of the highest rank and quality seems not reconcileable with the meanness of his Father's Trade and the privacy of his fortunes And for his acquaintance with the High-Priest I should rather put it upon some other account especially if it be true what Nicephorus relates That he had lately sold his Estate left him by his Father in Galilee to Annas the High-Priest and had therewith purchased a fair house at Jerusalem about Mount Sion whence he became acquainted with him Before his coming to Christ he seems for some time to have been Disciple to John the Baptist being probably that other disciple that was with Andrew when they left the Baptist to follow our Saviour so particularly does he relate all circumstances of that transaction though modestly as in other parts of his Gospel concealing his own name He was at the same time with his Brother called by our Lord both to the Discipleship and Apostolate by far the youngest of all the Apostles as the Ancients generally affirm and his great Age seems to evince living near LXX years after our Saviour's suffering 2. THERE is not much said concerning him in the 〈◊〉 story more than what is recorded of him in conjunction with his Brother James which we have already remarked in his life He was peculiarly dear to his Lord and Master being the Disciple whom Jesus loved that is treated with more freedom and familiarity than the rest And indeed he was not only one of the Three whom our Saviour made partakers of the private passages of his life but had some instances of a more particular kindness and favour conferred upon him Witness his lying in our Saviour's bosom at the Paschal Supper it being the custom of those times to lie along at meals upon Couches so that the second lay with his head in the bosom of him that was before him this honourable place was not given to any of the Aged but reserved for our Apostle Nay when Peter was desirous to know which of them our Saviour meant when he told them that one of them should betray him and durst not himself propound the question he made use of S. John whose familiarity with him might best warrant such an enquiry to ask our Lord who thereupon made them understand 't was Judas whom he designed by the Traitor This favour our Apostle endeavoured in some measure to answer by returns of particular kindness and constancy to our Saviour staying with him when the rest deserted him Indeed upon our Lord's first apprehension he fled after the other Apostles it not being without some probabilities of reason that the Ancients conceive him to have been that young man that followed after Christ having a linen cloath cast about his naked body whom when the Officers laid hold upon he left the linen cloath and fled naked from them This in all likelihood was that garment that he had cast about him at Supper for they had peculiar Vestments for that purpose and being extremely affected with the Treason and our Lord 's approaching Passion had forgot to put on his other garments but followed him into the Garden in the same habit wherewith he arose from the Table it being then night and so less liable to be taken notice of either by himself or others But though he 〈◊〉 at present to avoid that sudden violence that was offered to him yet he soon recovered himself and returned back to seek his Master confidently entred into the High-Priests Hall and followed our Lord through the several passages of his Trial and at last waited upon him and for any thing we know was the only Apostle that did so at his Execution owning him as well as being own'd by him in the midst of arms and guards and in the thickest crowds of his most inveterate enemies Here it was that our Lord by his last Will and Testament made upon the Cross appointed him Guardian of his own Mother the Blessed Virgin When he saw his Mother and the Disciple standing by whom he loved he said unto his Mother Woman behold thy Son see here is one that shall supply my place and be to thee instead of a Son to love and honour thee to provide and take care for thee and to the Disciple he said Behold thy Mother Her whom thou shalt henceforth deal with treat and observe with that duty and honourable regard which the relation of an indulgent Mother challenges from a pious and obedient Son whereupon he took her into his own House her Husband Joseph being some time since dead and made her a principal part of his charge and care And certainly the Holy Jesus could not have given a more honourable testimony of his
there but the Grave clothes which he had left behind him To all which let me add while my hand is in these things what Ephrem relates that from this Grave wherein he rested so short a time a kind of Sacred Oil or Unguent was wont to be gathered Gregory of Tours says 't was Manna which even in his time like flour was cast up from the Sepulohre and was carried up and down the World for the curing of diseases This report of our Apostles being yet alive some men made use of to wild and phantastick purposes Beza tells us of an Impostor in his time whom Postellus who vainly boasted that he had the Soul of Adam was wont to call his Brother who publickly prosessed himself to be our S. John and was afterwards burnt at Tholose in France Nor was this any more than what was done in the more early Ages of Christianity For Sulpitius Severus giving us an account of a young Spaniard that first professed himself to be Elias and then Christ himself adds That there was one at the same time in the East who gave out himself to be S. John So fast will Error like circles in the water multiply it self and one mistaken place of Scripture give countenance to an hundred stories that shall be built upon it I have no more to add but what we meet with in the Arabick writer of his life though it little agrees with the preceding passages who reports that there were none present at his burial but his disciple Phogsir probably Proghor or Prochorus one of the seven Deacons and generally said to have been S. John's companion and assistent whom he strictly charged never to discover his Sepulchre to any it may be for the same reason for which it is thought God concealed the body of Moses to prevent the Idolatrous worshipping of his Reliques And accordingly the Turks who conceit him to be buried in the confines of Lydia pay great honour and veneration to his Tomb. 10. S. JO H N seems always to have led a single life and so the Ancients tell us nay S. Ambrose positively affirms that all the Apostles were married except S. John and S. Paul There want not indeed some and especially the middle Writers of the Church who will have our Apostle to have been married and that it was his marriage which our Lord was at in Cana of Galilee invited thither upon the account of his consanguinity and alliance But that being convinced by the Miracle of the Water turned into Wine he immediately quitted his conjugal relation and became one of our Lord's Disciples But this as 〈◊〉 himself confesses is trifling and the issue of fabulous invention a thing wholly unknown to the Fathers and best Writers of the Church and which not only has no just authority to support it but arguments enough to beat it down As for his natural temper he seems as we have observed in his Brother's Life to have been of a more eager and resolute disposition easily apt to be inflamed and provoked which his reduced Age brought to a more staid and a calmer temper He was polished by no study or arts of Learning but what was wanting in that was abundantly made up in the excellent temper and constitution of his mind and that furniture of Divine graces which he was adorned withall His humility was admirable studiously concealing his own worth and honour in all his Epistles as Eusebius long since observed he never puts down the honourable Titles of Apostle or Evangelist but only stiles himself and that too but sometimes Presbyter or Elder alluding probably to his Age as much as Office in his Gospel when he speaks of the Disciple whom Jesus loved he constantly conceals his own name leaving the Reader to conjecture who was meant Love and Charity he practised himself and affectionately pressed upon others our Lord 's great love to him seems to have inspired his Soul with a bigger and more generous charity than the rest 'T is the great vein that runs through his writings and especially his Epistles where he urges it as the great and peculiar Law of Christianity and without which all other pretences to Christian Religion are vain and frivolous useless and insignificant And this was his constant practice to his dying day When Age and weakness grew upon him at Ephesus that he was no longer able to preach to them he used at every publick meeting to be led to the Church and say no more to them than Little children love one another And when his Auditors wearied with the constant repetition of the same thing asked him why he always spoke the same he answered Because it was the command of our Lord and that if they did nothing else this alone was enough 11. BUT the largest measures of his Charity he expressed in the mighty care that he shewed to the Souls of men unweariedly spending himself in the service of the Gospel travelling from East to West to leaven the World with the principles of that holy Religion which he was sent to propagate patiently enduring all torments breaking through all difficulties and discouragements shunning no dangers that he might do good to Souls redeem mens minds from error and idolatry and reduce them from the snares of a debauched and a vicious life Witness one famous instance In his visitation of the Churches near to Ephesus he made choice of a young man whom with a special charge for his instruction and education he committed to the Bishop of that place The 〈◊〉 man undertook the charge instructed his Pupil and baptized him And then thinking he might a little remit the reins of discipline the youth made an ill use of his liberty and was quickly debauched by bad companions making himself Captain to a company of High-way men the most loose cruel and profligate wretches of the Country S. John at his return understanding this and sharply reproving the negligence and unfaithfulness of his Tutor resolved to find him out And without any consideration of what danger he entred upon in venturing himself upon persons of desperate fortunes and forfeited consciences he went to the mountains where their usual haunt was and being here taken by the Sentinel he desired to be brought before their Commander who no sooner espied him coming towards him but immediately fled The aged Apostle followed after but not able to overtake him passionately intreated him to stay promising him to undertake with God for his peace and pardon He did so and both melted into tears and the Apostle having prayed with and for him returned him a true Penitent and Convert to the Church This story we have elsewhere related more at large out of 〈◊〉 as he does from Clemens Alexandrinus since which that Tract it self of Clemens is made publick to the World 12. NOR was it the least instance of his care of the Church and charity to the Souls of men
lances Baron Martyrolog Dec. 21 St. Thomas his Martyrdom Joh. 11. 16. Thomas which is called Didunus said unto his fellow-desciples Let us also goe that we may die with him The custom of the Jews to have both an Hebrew and a Roman name S. Thomas his name the same in Syriack and Greek His Country and Trade His call to the Apostleship His great affection to our Saviour Christ's discourse with him concerning the way to Eternal life His obstinate refusal to believe our Lord's Resurrection and the unreasonableness of his Infidelity Our Lord's convincing him by sensible demonstrations S. Thomas his deputing Thaddaeus to Abgarus of Edessa His Travels into Parthia Media Persia c. AEthiopia what and where situate His coming into India and the success of his Preaching there An account of his Acts in India from the relation of the Portugals at their first coming thither His converting the King of Malipur The manner of his Martyrdom by the Brachmans The Miracles said to be done at his Tomb. His Bones dug up by the Portugals A Cross and several Brass Tables with Inscriptions found there An account of the Indian or S. Thomas Christians their Number State Rites and way of life 1. IT was customary with the Jews when travelling into foreign Countries or familiarly conversing with the Greeks and Romans to assume to themselves a Greek or a Latin name of great affinity and sometimes of the very same signification with that of their own Country Thus our Lord was called Christ answering to his Hebrew title Mashiach or the 〈◊〉 Simon stiled Peter according to that of Cephas which our Lord put upon him Tabitha called 〈◊〉 both signifying a Goat Thus our S. Thomas according to the Syriack importance of his name had the title of Didymus which signifies a Twin Thomas which is called Didymus Accordingly the Syriack Version renders it 〈◊〉 which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thama that is a Twin The not understanding whereof imposed upon Nonnus the Greek Paraphrast who makes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have had two distinct names 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it being but the same name expressed in different Languages The History of the Gospel takes no particular notice either of the Country or Kindred of this Apostle That he was a Jew is certain and in all probability a Galilean He was born if we may believe Symeon Metaphrastes of very mean Parents who brought him up to the trade of Fishing but withall took care to give him a more useful education instructing him in the knowledge of the Scriptures whereby he learnt wisely to govern his life and manners He was together with the rest called to the Apostleship and not long after gave an eminent instance of his hearty willingness to undergo the saddest fate that might attend them For when the rest of the Apostles disswaded our Saviour from going into Judaea whither he was now resolved for the raising his dear Lazarus lately dead left the Jews should stone him as but a little before they had attempted it S. Thomas desires them not to hinder Christ's journey thither though it might cost their lives Let us also go that we may die with him probably concluding that instead of raising Lazarus from the dead they themselves should be sent with him to their own Graves So that he made up in pious affections what he seemed to want in the quickness and acumen of his understanding not readily apprehending some of our Lord's discourses nor over-forward to believe more than himself had seen When the holy Jesus a little before his fatal sufferings had been speaking to them of the joys of Heaven and had told them that he was going to prepare that they might follow him that they knew both the place whither he was going and the way thither Our Apostle replied that they knew not whither he went and much less the way that led to it To which our Lord returns this short but satisfactory answer That he was the true living way the person whom the Father had sent into the World to shew men the paths of Eternal life and that they could not miss of Heaven if they did but keep to that way which he had prescribed and chalked out before them 2. OUR Lord being dead 't is evident how much the Apostles were distracted between hopes and fears concerning his Resurrection not yet fully satisfied about it Which engaged him the sooner to hasten his appearance that by the sensible manifestations of himself he might put the case beyond all possibilities of dispute The very day whereon he arose he came into the house where they were while for fear of the Jews the doors were yet fast shut about them and gave them sufficient assurance that he was really risen from the dead At this meeting S. Thomas was absent having probably never recovered their company since their last dispersion in the Garden when every ones fears prompted him to consult his own safety At his return they told him that their Lord had appeared to them but he obstinately refused to give credit to what they said or to believe that it was he presuming it rather a phantasm or mere apparition unless he might see the very prints of the Nails and feel the wounds in his hands and sides A strange piece of infidelity Was this any more than what Moses and the Prophets had long since foretold had not our Lord frequently told them in plain terms that he must rise again the third day could he question the possibility of it who had so often seen him do the greatest miracles was it reasonable to reject the testimony of so many eye-witnesses ten to one against himself and of whose fidelity he was assured or could he think that either themselves should be deceived or that they would jest and trifle with him in so solemn and serious a matter A stubbornness that might have betrayed him into an eternal infidelity But our compassionate Saviour would not take the advantage of the mans refractory unbelief but on that day seven-night again came to them as they were solemnly met at their devotions and calling to Thomas bad him look upon his hands put his fingers into the prints of the Nails and thrust his hand into the hole of his side and satisfie his faith by a demonstration from sense The man was quickly convinced of his error and obstinacy confessing that he now acknowledged him to be his very Lord and Master a God omnipotent that was thus able to rescue himself from the powers of death Our Lord replied no more than that it was well he believed his own senses but that it was a more noble and commendable act of Faith to acquiesce in a rational evidence and to entertain the doctrines and relations of the Gospel upon such testimonies and assurances of the truth of things as will satisfie a wise and sober man though he did not
and that that Cross stained with his bloud had been left as a memorial of these matters An interpretation that was afterwards confirmed by another grave and learned Bramin who expounded the Inscription to the very same effect The judicious Reader will measure his belief of these things by the credit of the Reporters and the rational probability of the things themselves which for my part as I cannot certainly affirm to be true so I will not utterly conclude them to be false 6. FROM these first plantations of Christianity in the Eastern India's by our Apostle there is said to have been a continued series and succession of Christians hence called S. Thomas-Christians in those parts unto this day The Portugals at their first arrival here found them in great numbers in several places no less as some tell us than fifteen or sixteen thousand Families They are very poor and their Churches generally mean and sordid wherein they had no Images of Saints nor any representations but that of the Cross they are governed in Spirituals by an High-Priest whom some make an Armenian Patriarch of the Sect of Nestorius but in truth is no other than the Patriarch of Muzal the remainder as is probable of the ancient 〈◊〉 and by some though erroneously stiled Babylon residing Northward in the Mountains who together with twelve Cardinals two Patriarchs and several Bishops disposes of all affairs referring to Religion and to him all the Christians of the East yield subjection They promiscuously admit all to the Holy Communion which they receive under both kinds of Bread and Wine though instead of Wine which their Country affords not making use of the juice of Raisons steep'd one night in water and then pressed forth Children unless in case of sickness are not baptized till the fortieth day At the death of Friends their kindred and relations keep an eight days feast in memory of the departed Every Lord's-day they have their publick Assemblies for prayer and preaching their devotions being managed with great reverence and solemnity Their Bible at least the New Testament is in the Syriack Language to the study whereof the Preachers earnestly exhort the people They observe the times of Advent and Lent the Festivals of our Lord and many of the Saints those especially that relate to S. Thomas the Dominica in Albis or Sunday after Easter in memory of the famous confession which S. Thomas on that day made of Christ after he had been sensibly cured of his unbelief another on the first of July celebrated not only by Christians but by Moors and Pagans the people who come to his Sepulchre on Pilgrimage carrying away a little of the red Earth of the place where he was interred which they keep as an inestimable treasure and 〈◊〉 it sovereign against diseases They have a kind of Monasteries of the Religious who live in great abstinence and chastity Their Priests are shaven in fashion of a Cross have leave to marry once but denied a second time No marriages to be dissolved but by death These rites and customs they solemnly pretend to have derived from the very time of S. Thomas and with the greatest care and diligence do observe them at this day The End of S. Thomas's Life THE LIFE OF S. JAMES the Less S. IAMES Minor This Apostle being a Kinsman of our Lord and having Sale first Bishop of Hierusalem was cast down from the top of the Temple and after killed with a Fuâ—â—ers club Baron â—â—â— 1 o The Martyrdom of St. James y e lesse Mauh 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets stonest them which are sent unto thee S. James the Less proved to be the same with him that was Bishop of Jerusalem His Kindred and Relations The Son of Joseph by a former Wife The Brethren of our Lord who His Country what Our Lord's appearance to him after his Resurrection Invested in the See of Jerusalem by whom and why His authority in the Synod at Jerusalem His great diligence and fidelity in his Ministry The conspiracy of his Enemies to take away his Life His Discourse with the Scribes and Pharisees about the Messiah His Martyrdom and the manner of it His Burial where His Death resented by the Jews His strictness in Religion His Priesthood whence His singular delight in Prayer and efficacy in it His great love and charity to Men. His admirable Humility His Temperance according to the rules of the Nazarite Order The Love and respect of the People towards him His Death an inlet to the destruction of the Jewish Nation His Epistle when written What the design and purpose of it The Proto-evangelium ascribed to him 1. BEFORE we can enter upon the Life of this Apostle some difficulty must be cleared relating to his Person Doubted it has been by some whether this was the same with that S. James that was Bishop of Jerusalem three of this Name being presented to us S. James the Great this S. James the Less both Apostles and a third sirnamed the Just distinct say they from the former and Bishop of Jerusalem But this however pretending to some little countenance from antiquity is a very great mistake and built upon a sandy bottom For besides that the Scripture mentions no more than two of this Name and both Apostles nothing can be plainer than that that S. James the Apostle whom S. Paul calls our Lord's Brother and reckons with Peter and John one of the Pillars of the Church was the same that presided among the Apostles no doubt by vertue of his place it being his Episcopal Chair and determined in the Synod at Jerusalem Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus or 〈◊〉 out of him mention any more than two S. James put to death by Herod and S. James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem whom they expresly affirm to be the same with him whom S. Paul calls the Brother of our Lord. Once indeed 〈◊〉 makes our S. James one of the Seventy though elsewere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria he numbers him with the Chief of the Apostles and expresly distinguishes him from the Seventy Disciples Nay S. Hierom though when representing the Opinion of others he stiles him the Thirteenth Apostle yet elsewhere when speaking his own sence sufficiently proves that there were but two James the Son of 〈◊〉 and the other the Son of Alphaeus the one sirnamed the Greater the other the Less Besides that the main support of the other Opinion is built upon the authority of Clemens his Recognitions a Book in doubtful cases of no esteem and value 2. This doubt being removed we proceed to the History of his Life He was the Son as we may probably conjecture of Joseph afterwards Husband to the Blessed Virgin and his first Wife whom S. Hierom from Tradition stiles Escha Hippolytus Bishop of Porto calls Salome and further adds that she was the Daughter of Aggi Brother to Zacharias Father
one of the four Brothers of our Saviour Sons of Joseph by his former marriage though no other evidence appear for it but that there was a Simon one of the number too infirm a foundation to build any thing more upon than a mere conjecture In the Catalogue of the Apostles he is stiled Simon the Cananite whence some led by no other reason that I know of than the bare sound of the name have concluded him born at Cana in Galilee as for the same reason others have made him the Bridegroom at whose marriage our Lord was there present when he honoured the solemnity with his first Miracle turning Water into Wine But this word has no relation to his Country or the place from whence he borrowed his Original as plainly descending from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie Zeal and denote a hot and sprightly temper Therefore what some of the Evangelists call Cananite others rendring the Hebrew by the Greek word stile Simon Zelotes or the Zealot So called not as Nicephorus thinks from his burning zeal and ardent affection to his Master and his eager desire to advance his Religion in the World but from his warm active temper and zealous forwardness in some particular way and profession of Religion before his coming to our Saviour 2. FOR the better understanding of this we are to know that as there were several Sects and Parties among the Jews so was there one either a distinct Sect or at least a branch of the Pharisees called the Sect of the Zealots They were mighty assertors of the honour of the Law and the strictness and purity of Religion assuming a liberty to themselves to question notorious offenders without staying for the ordinary formalities of Law nay when they thought good and as the case required executing capital vengeance upon them Thus when a blasphemer cursed God by the name of any Idol says Maimonides the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Zealots that next met him might immediately kill him without ever bringing him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the Sanhedrim They looked upon themselves as the successors of Phineas who in a mighty passion for the honour of God did immediate execution upon Zimri and 〈◊〉 An act which was counted unto him for righteousness unto all posterities for evermore and God so well pleased with it that he made with him and his seed after him the covenant of an everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an attonement for Israel In imitation whereof these men took upon them to execute judgment in extraordinary cases and that not only by the connivance but with the leave both of the Rulers and the People till in after-times under a pretence of this their zeal degenerated into all manner of licentiousness and wild extravagance and they not only became the Pests of the Commonwealth at home but opened the door for the Romans to break in upon them to their final and irrecoverable ruine they were continually prompting the people to throw off the Roman yoke and vindicate themselves into their native liberty and when they had turned all things into hurry and confusion themselves in the mean while fished in these troubled waters Josephus gives a large account of them and every where bewails them as the great plague of the Nation He tells us of them that they scrupled not to rob any to kill many of the prime Nobility under pretence of holding correspondence with the Romans and betraying the liberty of their Country openly glorying that herein they were the benefactors and Saviours of the people They abrogated the succession of ancient Families thrusting obscure and ignoble persons into the High-Priests office that so they might oblige the most infamous villains to their party and as if not content to injure men they affronted Heaven and proclaimed defiance to the Divinity it self breaking into and prophaning the most holy place Stiling themselves Zealots says he as if their undertakings were good and honourable while they were greedy and emulous of the greatest wickednesses and out-did the worst of men Many attempts were made especially by Annas the High-Priest to reduce them to order and sobriety But neither force of arms nor fair and gentle methods could do any good upon them they held out and went on in their violent proceedings and joyning with the Idumeans committed all manner of out-rage slaying the High-Priests themselves Nay when Jerusalem was straitly besieged by the Roman Army they ceased not to create tumults and factions within and were indeed the main cause of the Jew 's ill success in that fatal war 'T is probable that all that went under the notion of this Sect were not of this wretched and ungovernable temper but that some of them were of a better make of a more sober and peaceable disposition And as it is not to be doubted but that our Simon was of this Sect in general so there 's reason to believe he was of the better sort However this makes no more reflexion upon his being called to the Apostleship than it did for S. Matthew who was before a Publican or S. Paul's being a Pharisee and so zealously persecuting the Church of God 3. BEING invested in the Apostolical office no further mention appears of him in the History of the Gospel Continuing with the Apostles till their dispersion up and down the World he then applied himself to the execution of his charge He is said to have directed his journey towards Egypt thence to Cyrene and Asrick this indeed Baronius is not willing to believe being desirous that S. Peter should have the honour to be the first that planted Christianity in Africk and throughout Mauritania and all Libya preaching the Gospel to those remote and barbarous Countries Nor could the coldness of the Climate benumb his zeal or hinder him from shipping himself and the Christian doctrine over to the Western Islands yea even to Britain it self Here he preached and wrought many miracles and after infinite troubles and difficulties which he underwent if we may believe our Authors whom though Baronius in this case makes no great account of yet never scruples freely to use their verdict and suffrage when they give in evidence to his purpose suffered Martyrdom for the Faith of Christ as is not only affirmed by Nicephorus and Dorotheus but expresly owned in the Greek Menologies where we are told that he went at last into Britain and having enlightned the minds of many with the doctrine of the Gospel was crucified by the Infidels and buried there 4. I KNOW indeed that there want not those who tell us that after his preaching the Gospel in Egypt he went into Mesopotamia where he met with S. Jude the Apostle and together with him took his journey into Persia where having gained a considerable harvest to the Christian Faith they were
both crowned with Martyrdom which Baronius himself confesses to be founded upon no better authority than the Passions of the Apostles a Book which at every turn he rejects as trifling and impertinent as false and fabulous But however wide is the mistake of those who confound our Apostle with Symeon the son of Cleophas successor to S. James the Just in the See of Jerusalem who was crucified in the hundred and twentieth year of his Age in the persecution under Trajan The different character of their persons and the account both of their Acts and Martyrdoms being sufficiently distinguished in the writings of the Church The End of S. Simon' s Life THE LIFE OF S. JUDE St Jude Maith 15. 55. Is not this the Carpenter's son are not his brethren James Joses Simon JUDAS Luk. 6. 16. Judas the Brother of James His Martyrdom Having preached y e Gospel in Mesopotamia he went into Persia where after he had gained great numbers to Christianity he suffered martyrdom Martyrol Rom. Oct. 28. The several names attributed to him in the Gospel Thaddaeus whence The custom of the Jews to alter their names when bearing affinity with the great name Jehova The name Judas why distasteful to the Apostles Lebbaeus whence derived His Parentage and Relation to our Lord. The Question put by him to Christ. Whether the same with Thaddaeus sent to Edessa In what places he preached His death His married condition The story of his Grandchildren brought before Domitian His Epistle and why questioned of old It s Canonicalness vindicated The Book of Enoch and what its authority The contention between Michael and the Devil about Moses his Body whence borrowed S. Jude proved to be the Author of this Epistle Grotius his conceit of its being written by a younger Jude rejected It s affinity with the second Epistle of S. Peter The design of it 1. THERE are three several names by which this Apostle is described in the History of the Gospel Jude Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus it being usual in the holy Volumes for the same person to have more proper names than one For the first it was a name common amongst the Jews recommended to them as being the name of one of the great Patriarchs of their Nation This name he seems to have changed afterwards for Thaddaeus a word springing from the same root and of the very same import and signification which might arise from a double cause Partly from the superstitious veneration which the Jews had for the name Jehova the Nomen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or name consisting of four letters which they held unlawful to be pronounced by any but the High-Priest and not by him neither but at the most solemn times Hence it was that when any man had a name wherein there was the major part of the letters of this ineffable title and such was Jehudah or Juda they would not rashly pronounce it in common usage but chose rather to mould it into another like it and of the same importance or that which had a near affinity and resemblance with it Partly from a particular dislike of the name of Judas among the Apostles the bloudy and treasonable practises of Judas Iscariot having rendred that name very odious and detestable to them To prevent therefore all possibility of mistake and that they might not confound the righteous with the wicked S. Matthew and Mark never call him by this but by some other name as no question for the same reason he both stiles himself and is frequently called by others Judas the brother of James and that this was one great design of it the Evangelist plainly intimates when speaking of him he says Judas not Iscariot For his name Lebbaeus it seems to have been derived either from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an heart whence S. Hierom renders it Corculum probably to denote his wisdom and prudence or else from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Lion and therein to have respect to old Jacob's prophecy concerning Judah That he should be as a Lion an old Lion and as a Lions whelp which probably might have a main stroke in fastning this name upon S. Jude From this Patriarchal prophecy we are told that one of the Schools or Synagogues of Learned men among the Jews who to avoid confusion were wont to distinguish themselves by different appellations took occasion to denominate themselves Labii as accounting themselves the Scholars and descendents of this Lion-like son of Jacob and that S. Jude was of this society and because of his eminency among them retained the title of Labius or as it was corruptly pronounced Lebbaeus I confess I should have thought the conjecture of a Learned man very probable that he might have derived this name from the place of his nativity as being born at Lebba a Town which he tells us Pliny speaks of in the Province of Galilee not far from Carmel but that it is not Lebba but Jebba in all copies of Pliny that I have seen But let the Reader please himself in which conjecture he likes best 2. FOR his Descent and Parentage he was of our Lord's kindred Nicephorus truly making him the son of Joseph and brother to James Bishop of Jerusalem that there was a Jude one of the number is very evident Are not his brethren James and Joses and Simon and Judas which makes me the more to wonder at Scaliger who so confidently denies that any of the Evangelists ever mention a Jude the brother of our Lord. S. Hierom seems often to confound him with Simon the Zealot whose title he ascribes to him though second thoughts set him right as indeed common advertency could do no less so plain is the account which the Evangelists give of this matter When called to the Discipleship we find not as not meeting with him till we find him enumerated in the Catalogue of Apostles nor is any thing particularly recorded of him afterwards more than one question that he propounded to our Saviour who having told them what great things he and his Father would do and what particular manifestations after his Resurrection he would make of himself to his sincere disciples and followers S. Jude whose thoughts as well as the rest were taken up with the expectations of a temporal Kingdom of the Messiah not knowing how this could consist with the publick solemnity of that glorious state they looked for asked him what was the reason that he would manifest himself to them and not to the World Our Lord replied that the World was not capable of these Divine manifestations as being a stranger and an enemy to what should fit them for fellowship with Heaven that they were only good men persons of a Divine temper of mind and religious observers of his Laws and Will whom God would honour with these familiar converses and admit to such particular acts of grace and favour 3. EUSEBIUS relates that soon after our Lord's Ascension
God has made them Authentick and consecrated them part of the holy Canon 6. BEING thus satisfied in the Canonicalness of this Epistle none but S. Jude could be the Author of it for who but he was the Brother of S. James a character by which he is described in the Evangelical story more than once Grotius indeed will needs have it written by a younger Jude the fifteenth Bishop of Jerusalem in the reign of Adrian and because he saw that that passage the Brother of James stood full in his way he concludes without any shadow of reason that it was added by some Transcriber But is not this to make too bold with Sacred things is not this to indulge too great a liberty this once allowed 't will soon open a door to the wildest and most extravagant conjectures and no man shall know where to find sure-sooting for his Faith But the Reader may remember what we have elsewhere observed concerning the Posthume Annotations of that learned man Not to say that there are many things in this Epistle that evidently refer to the time of this Apostle and imply it to have been written upon the same occasion and about the same time with the second Epistle of Peter between which and this there is a very great affinity both in words and matter nay there want not some that endeavour to prove this Epistle to have been written no less than twenty seven years before that of Peter and that hence it was that Peter borrowed those passages that are so near a-kin to those in this Epistle The design of the Epistle is to preserve Christians from the infection of Gnosticism the loose and debauched principles vented by Simon Magus and his followers whose wretched doctrines and practises he briefly and elegantly represents perswading Christians heartily to contend for the Faith that had been delivered to them and to avoid these pernicious Seducers as pests and fire-brands not to communicate with them in their sins lest they perished with them in that terrible vengeance that was ready to overtake them The End of S. Jude's Life THE LIFE OF S. MATTHIAS S. MATHIAS He preached the Gospell in Ethiopia suffered Martyrdome and was buried there S. Hierom. St. Matthias his Martyrdom Hebr. 11 37. They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were tempted were slain with the sword S. Matthias one of the Seventy Judas Iscariot whence A bad Minister nulls not the ends of his ministration His worldly and covetous temper His monstrous ingratitude His betraying his Master and the aggravations of the sin The distraction and horror of his mind The miserable state of an evil and guilty Conscience His violent death The election of a new Apostle The Candidates who The Lot cast upon Matthias His preaching the Gospel and in what parts of the World His Martyrdom when where and how His Body whither translated The Gospel and Traditions vented under his name 1. SAINT Matthias not being an Apostle of the first Election immediately called and chosen by our Saviour particular remarks concerning him are not to be expected in the History of the Gospel He was one of our Lord's Disciples and probably one of the Seventy that had attended on him the whole time of his publick Ministry and after his death was elected into the Apostleship upon this occasion Judas Iscariot so called probably from the place of his nativity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of Kerioth a City anciently situate in the Tribe of Judah had been one of the Twelve immediately called by Christ to be one of his intimate Disciples equally impowered and commissioned with the rest to Preach and work Miracles was numbred with them and had obtained part of their Ministry And yet all this while was a man of vile and corrupt designs branded with no meaner a character than Thief and Murderer To let us see that there may be bad servants in Christ's own family and that the wickedness of a Minister does not evacuate his Commission nor render his Office useless and ineffectual The unworthiness of the instrument hinders not the ends of the ministration Seeing the efficacy of an ordinance depends not upon the quality of the person but the Divine institution and the blessing which God has entailed upon it Judas preached Christ no doubt with zeal and fervency and for any thing we know with as much success as the rest of the Apostles and yet he was a bad man a man acted by 〈◊〉 and mean designs one that had prostituted Religion and the honour of his place to covetousness and evil arts The love of money had so intirely possessed his thoughts that his resolutions were bound for nothing but interest and advantage But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare This covetous temper betrayed him as in the issue to the most fatal end so to the most desperate attempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen calls the putting Christ to death the most prodigious impiety that the Sun ever shone on the betraying his innocent Lord into the hands of those who he knew would treat him with all the circumstances of insolent scorn and cruelty How little does kindness work upon a disingenuous mind It was not the honour of the place to which when thousands of others were passed by our Lord had called him the admitting him into a free and intimate fellowship with his person the taking him to be one of his peculiar domesticks and attendants that could divert the wretch from his wicked purpose He knew how desirous the great men of the Nation were to get Christ into their hands especially at the time of the Passeover that he might with the more publick disgrace 〈◊〉 sacrificed before all the people and therefore bargains with them and for no greater a summ than under four pounds to betray the Lamb of God into the paws of these Wolves and Lions In short he heads the party conducts the Officers and sees him delivered into their hands 2. BUT there 's an active principle in man's breast that seldom suffers daring sinners to pass in quiet to their Graves Awakened with the horror of the fact conscience began to rouze and follow close and the man was unable to bear up under the furious revenges of his own mind As indeed all wilful and deliberate sins and especially the guilt of bloud are wont more sensibly to alarm the natural notions of our minds and to excite in us the fears of some present vengeance that will seise upon us And how intolerable are those scourges that lash us in this vital and tender part The spirit of the man sinks under him and all supports snap asunder As what case or comfort can he enjoy that carries a Vultur in his bosom always gnawing and preying upon his heart Which made Plutarch compare an evil Conscience to a Cancer in the breast that perpetually gripes and stings the Soul with the pains of an intolerable
repentance Guilt is naturally troublesome and uneasie it disturbs the peace and serenity of the mind and fills the Soul with storms and thunder Did ever any harden himself against God and prosper And indeed how should he when God has such a powerful and invisible executioner in his own bosom Whoever rebels against the Laws of his duty and plainly affronts the dictates of his Conscience does that moment bid adieu to all true repose and quiet and expose himself to the severe resentments of a self-tormenting mind And though by secret arts of wickedness he may be able possibly to drown and stifle the voice of it for a while yet every little affliction or petty accident will be apt to awaken it into horror and to let in terror like an armed man upon him A torment infinitely beyond what the most ingenious Tyrants could ever contrive Nothing so effectually invades our ease as the reproaches of our own minds The wrath of man may be endured but the irruptions of Conscience are irresistible it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom very elegantly stiles it to be choaked or strangled with an evil Conscience which oft reduces the man to such distresses as to make him chuse death rather than life A sad instance of all which we have in this unhappy man who being wearied with furious and melancholy reflexions upon what was past threw back the wages of iniquity in open Court and dispatched himself by a violent death Vainly hoping to take sanctuary in the Grave and that he should meet with that ease in another World which he could not find in this He departed and went and hanged himself and falling down burst asunder and his bowels gushed out Leaving a memorable warning to all treacherous and ingrateful to all greedy and covetous persons not to let the World insinuate it self too far into them and indeed to all to watch and pray that they enter not into temptation Our present state is slippery and insecure Let him that thinketh he 〈◊〉 take heed lest he fall What priviledges can be a sufficient fence a foundation firm enough to rely upon when the Miracles Sermons favours and familiar converses of Christ himself could not secure one of the Apostles from so fatal an Apostasie 3. A VACANCY being thus made in the Colledge of Apostles the first thing they did after their return from Mount Olivet where our Lord took his leave of them to S. John's house in Mount Sion the place if we may believe Nicephorus where the Church met together was to fill up their number with a fit proper person To which purpose Peter acqualnted them that Judas according to the prophetical prediction being fallen from his ministry it was necessary that another should be substituted in his room one that had been a constant companion and disciple of the holy Jesus and consequently capable of bearing witness to his life death and resurrection Two were propounded in order to the choice Joseph called Barsabas and Justus whom some make the same with Joses one of the brothers of our Lord and Matthias both duly qualified for the place The way of election was by Lots a way frequently used both among Jews and Gentiles for the determination of doubtful and difficult cases and especially the chusing Judges and Magistrates And this course the Apostles the rather took because the Holy Ghost was not yet given by whose immediate dictates and inspirations they were chiefly guided afterwards And that the business might proceed with the greater regularity and success they first solemnly make their address to Heaven that the Omniscient Being that governed the World and perfectly understood the tempers and dispositions of men would immediately guide and direct the choice and shew which of these two he would appoint to take that part of the Apostolick charge from which Judas was so lately fallen The Lots being put into the Urn Matthias his name was drawn out and thereby the Apostolate devolved upon him 4. NOT long after the promised powers of the Holy Ghost were conferred upon the Apostles to fit them for that great and difficult imployment upon which they were sent And among the rest S. Matthias betook himself to his Charge and Province The first-fruits of his Ministry he spent in 〈◊〉 where having reaped a considerable harvest he betook himself to other Provinces An Author I confess of no great credit in these matters tells us that he preached the Gospel in Macedonia where the Gentiles to make an experiment of his Faith and Integrity gave him a poisonous and intoxicating potion which he chearfully drunk off in the name of Christ without the least prejudice to himself and that when the same potion had deprived above two hundred and fifty of their sight he laying his hands upon them restored them to their sight with a great deal more of the same stamp which I have neither faith enough to believe nor leisure enough to relate The Greeks with more probability report him to have travelled Eastward he came says Nicephorus into the first says Sophronius into the second AEthiopia and in both I believe it is a mistake either of the Authors or Transcribers for Cappadocia his residence being principally near the irruption of the River Apsarus and the Haven Hyssus both places in Cappadocia Nor is there any AEthiopia nearer those places than that conterminous to Chaldaea whereof before And as for those that tell us that he might well enough preach both in the Asian and African AEthiopia and that both might be comprehended under that general name as the Eastern and Western parts of the World were heretofore contained under the general title of the India's it's a fancy without any other ground to stand on 〈◊〉 their own bare conjecture The place whither he came was very barbarous and his usage was accordingly For here meeting with a people of a fierce and intractable temper he was treated by them with great rudeness and inhumanity from whom after all his labours and sufferings and a numerous conversion of men to Christianity he obtained at last the crown of Martyrdom Ann. Chr. LXI or as others LXIV Little certainty can be retrieved concerning the manner of his death Dorotheus will have him to die at Sebastople and to be buried there near the Temple of the Sun An ancient Martyrologic reports him to have been seised by the Jews and as a blasphemer to have been first stoned and then beheaded But the Greek Offices seconded herein by several ancient Breviaries tell us that he was crucified and that as Judas was hanged upon a Tree so Matthias suffered upon a Cross. His Body is said to have been kept a long time at Jerusalem thence thought by Helen the Mother of the Great Constantine to have been translated to Rome where some parts of it are shewed with great veneration at this day Though others with as great eagerness and probably as much truth