the infinite Graces and love and sweetness he discovered in that look all which upbraided his unkindness the posture he left that innocent Lamb of God in sorrounded with and ready to be torn in peices by so many Wolves and also his leaving him so and hasting to save himself all these we may presume so galled and wounded him as that had not the High Priests Gate bin shut upon him he would now have reentred to recant there publickly his former act and run through all hazards whatever with his dear Lord. But the divine Providence had appointed this for one of our Lords sufferings the clear desertion of all his Followers and that he should tread the Wine-press alone § 41 Yet something may be said on the other side in the lessening of the lapse of this prime Apostle That his love and courage seems to be greater than most of the rest in his following his Master to his trial and venturing into the High Priests Pallace when it was he that just before had cut-off the ear of his servant In his denyal its being without any great scandal not in publick but to some idle people standing about a fire and medling with a matter of no concernment to them In that it was done upon a suddain surprisal not done with premeditation or put to any formal Trial of his fidelity and where perhaps hazarding also the reputation of the other Disciple that brought him in might run in his mind and much more his being questioned for Malchus And as it seemed a shame to deny our Lord at the accusation only of a poor Maid-servant so it might seem a thing of no great consequence to confess him before such a mean person But which is most to be noted he denyed not that Jesus was the Messias or the Son of God he renounced no part of his faith no such thing was he asked nor if put to it would he ever have denyed it but he denyed only his knowledg of or acquaintance with such a person Lastly the Fall of this great Apostle God permitted besides for the aggravation of our Lords sufferings by his cheifest Disciple denying as another of them betraying him for many other good ends As to beget a perfect humility in him a little before too confident of himself to shew us what frail things we are the best of us when our Lord leaves us a little to our selves and hath not his eye upon us To comfort poor sinners in their great miscarriages since the greatest Saints as David and Peter have had their falls To shew the infinitness of Gods mercy to Penitents in his pardoning such great offences and that to persons most obliged to him and from whom he had reason to expect the greatest fidelity Lastly to teach Peter the cheif Pastor of his sheep the more compassion to sinners in reflecting on his own infirmities and faults and to bear with those who are tempted and fall in as much as himself stood not when he was so § 42 What became of the other Disciple no mention is made T is probable that better acquainted with the house he went up into the Court and was present at our Lord's trial and seeing the severe proceedings against him after the Council rose quitted the Pallace with the rest where he saw was no safe staying any longer for any friends of Jesus when also he might take Peter presently after his third misadventure there along with him § 43 Now to return unto our Blessed Lord committed to the custody of the High-Priests Officers and Servants until the morning and the reassembly of the Council in the same place in a fuller body These Officers one would think since the time that being sent to apprehend him they returned to their Masters with a Nunquam sic locutus est homo sicut hic homo should now have treated him with some ordinary civility especially no final sentence being yet passed upon him and the Judges being to reexamine his cause the next morning The ear also our Lord restored but two or three hours before to Malchus and his reprehending Peter for his cutting it off might not have bin so soon forgotten by them But indeed now was the Power of Satan and of Darkness and his chain never so much loosened as at this time before the approaching ruin of his kingdom who therefore ceased not by all those his Instruments to act his utmost malice nor to suffer our Lord to rest one minute § 44 The Ministers therefore having as yet no order for the executing of any higher corporal punishment and because our Lord also was to proceed gradatim through all sorts of sufferings instead of indulging him or themselves any repose in which our Lords servant S. Peter was more civilly used Acts 12.6 after their watching all the fore-part of the night compass him about in a ring and notwithstanding his modest silence no way provoking them fall on abusing him both with their tongues and hands as far as was permitted They spit on his face being the greatest note of ignominy and disgrace that was amongst the Jews see Deut. 25.9 where the man was to be used so that would not raise up seed to his brother And they abhor me saith Job in his typical complaint Chap. 30.10 they forbear not to spit in my face when his tyed hands also could not cleanse it They smote him also on the face with the palmes of their hands They punched and thumped him with their fists and by the Prophecies Esay 50.6 it seems they also plucked off his hair being not tondentes but vellentes of this meek Lamb. These Jews also treated him this night as a Mock-Messias as the next day the Gentiles abused him as a Mock-King and after their cruelty wearied in this way and his rare faculty in Prophecying coming into their mind they remembred a Boys-play to this purpose and got a cloath and blindfolded him whereof the Philistines abusing blind Sampson was a Type and fall on beating him a fresh thus hood-winked that he being the Messias and the Christ and the great Prophet that was to come into the world should now so hooded prophecy and tell them who it was that smote him § 45 Cruel and causeless malice for which of his sweet words or mighty works as he once said to you Jo. 10.32 who left heaven to save you and in whom you never saw fault and who went about every where doing good for which of these do you thus treat him And how could the blessed Angels at least that waited on our Lord have the patience to suffer such vile wretches and the dregs of the people to strike and spit on their Creator the Lord of Heaven and Earth but that they well knew it was the pleasure of their great Master out of his infinite charity to suffer this even for the salvation of those his Tormentors and to receive these blows for the satisfaction of their fault that gave them
envious rivals in the by-standing people's much admiring his discoveries of their ignorance that they could not discern him When-as indeed his mean parentage if known to them should rather have caused a more diligent inquisition the more they saw no human means either in so young an age of his attaining such science or in a mean education such confidence But this unworthy Generation was to be as enlightened in some things so blinded in others that what was decreed might be done unto Him § 117 Of the life and conversation our Lord from the 12th to the 30th year of his Age the appointed time of the third and yet more solemn manifestation to Israel we find only this short account given by S. Luke who yet was more punctual than the other Evangelists in relating the passages of our Lords Nonage that he was subject to his parents and that he increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and Man that is with those few with whom he had some familiar acquaintance and else-where that he assisted Joseph his reputed Father in his Trade and manual Emploiments And from this our Lord 's permitting that so much of the story of his life in whose both words and actions to those who were witnesses thereof must needs appear infinite wisdom and sanctity and charity should be so unknown to the world we may learn the little account we ought to make of our own fame or Reputation therein and to content our selves as our Lord herein did with the approbation and acceptance which our good works or Virtues if we have any find with God and the everliving and only right-judging world of his the innumerable Angels and Saints that are above For He only hath true Glory and Honour not whom men but whom the Lord valueth and esteemeth and Tantus quisque only quantus apud Deum § 118 But yet from some passages in Scripture some other things concerning our Lord's life and Conversation in this time may rationally be collected For first it may be gathered from S. Lukes words chap. 2.44 where his parents missing our Lord are said to have sought him among their Kinsfolks and acquaintance that as in the time of his manifestation and preaching his conversation was free and common with all sorts and conditions of men so that in his youth as to those who had any nearer relation or neighbourhood to him he carried himself with much familiarity and affability for he being in no peril of temptation or contagion of sin what needed he the relief of a more strict solitude when the case is much otherwise with any of us Again from S. Lukes saying as chap. 2. vers 40 that he waxed strong in Spirit and was filled with Grace and wisdom so vers 52 that he increased in favour with God and man i. e. as he grew elder he more and more did things acceptable both to God and men Non quod sanctior aut gratior saith Cardinal Tolet progressu temporis fuerit sed quod pro aetatis incremento perfectioribus gratiae sanctitatis operibus incubuerit or sapientiora verba opera proferret apud or coram Deo hominibus as the Sun alwaies equally full of light and heat yet is said to increase them as it draweth nearer to us and we more partake them I say from vers 52 compared with vers 47. that in the 12th year of his age the Doctors and people in the Temple were astonished at his understanding and answers may be gathered that during this time of his minority in his words and actions he discovered and sent forth continually many raies of his infinite prudence Sanctity and charity not only before his Mother and S. Joseph but among his other Kindred and familiar acquaintance and that for this he was exceedingly loved and admired by them and they clearly saw concerning him as it is said of the Baptist Luk. 1.66 that the hand of the Lord was with him Out of which great admiration of him we find those called his Brethren to have followed him afterwards as well as his Mother But yet from Matt. 13.54 c. and Luk. 4.16 amp c. it also appears that he cast such a veil over these his divine Excellencies and was so reserved in his Conversation that no great reputation or fame of him was spread abroad not so much as in his own City And hence the most of them wondred afterwards at the first appearance of these Divine Graces in his preaching at Nazareth they excepting though not against any delinquency or deficiency in his manners yet the meanness of his condition the common object of contempt and his illiterate Education § 119 2ly From the words his Mother spake to him privatly at the Marriage at Cana in Galilee where also our Blessed Lady shewed her charity and pitty to her poor friends or also kinsfolks upon their wanting Wine which words imply her desire that our Lord should furnish them therewith and upon his demur yet her speaking also to the servants to do whatsoever be should bid them it may be rationally collected that he had done privatly many miracles before-time in his youth in some domestick necessities in the like manner or also in some matters belonging to his Trade Tho this miracle in Cana may notwithstanding still be said the first i. e. publick one done by him after his beginning when Baptized to manifest himself unto the world unless here we will say the Blessed Virgin had some particular Revelation before-hand of this first miracle of her Son Nor may such Domestick Miracles in his youth be thought to anticipate the time appointed by his Father for shewing such works any more then his disputes and answers to the Doctors at 12 years old the constituted season of his Publick preaching The answer also then made to his Mother that his time was not yet come perhaps is not to be taken so in general that his time of doing any Miracles was not yet come which was already commenced upon his Baptism but rather that his time of doing that miracle was not yet fully seasonable till the failing of the wine more appeared or not now seasonable to do it in such a publick manner as she expected our Lord to shew who he was should have done it before all the Guests see the like expression Jo. 7.6 about our Lords going up to the feast For our Lord thought fit to do it more privatly none knowing thereof but the Servants upon which also perhaps intimated to her it was that she spake to them to do what he appointed But however if this be here understood of publick Miracles it opposeth not his doing them privatly and within his own family even from and in his Infancy upon necessary occasions § 120 3ly From other Texts it sufficiently appears that after our Lord was of a competent growth he assisted with his own corporal labour his parents Domestick necessities and wrought at his reputed-Fathers trade with
no way moved upon the prospect and glory of this City or advance also of his own soon meekly returned him a second answer out of the Scriptures out of the Law too as the former and out of the same book of it prohibiting such a fact upon any such Motive or promsie the text being corrupted by the Devil as to the true sence and due circumstances thereof telling him that it was written that we may not tempt the Lord our God The Text is found in Deut. 6.16 and the instance there made is not to tempt him as in Massah where the Israelites suffering some thirst had not the patience of expecting the time wherein God thought fit to relieve them but irreverently and ungratefully expostulated with and importuned Moses for a Miracle in their supply for drink after they had but now seen that Miracle for supplying them bread in the former Chapter So patient and resigned our Lord remained still in the place and posture as Satan had set and held him in for he who was permitted to place him there had not the power to cast him down thence so to try what would be the issue of it till he confounded thought of changing the Scene again and like Balak of trying his experiments upon him in another place and in a contrary manner § 158 Having therefore now attacked our meek Lord in two of the three ordinary and most effective sorts of temptations as S. John reckons them Concupiscentia carnis as to eating which meat was rendred more alluring by extreme hungar and Superbia vitae some vain glory or Honour when so mounted on the top of a Pinnacle of one of the stateliest buildings of the world by there shewing himself supported and born up by Angels in the Air he now thought of assaulting him with the third Concupiscentia Oculorum and wealth and Coveteousness that that Temptation might not be omitted toward our Lord with which we are most frequently over-thrown and by which wealth and honour once admitted he could at least sooner work his ruine these instruments of his temptation being also great tempters § 159 Now laying aside therefore the glorious suggestions to our Lord of his being the Son of God as in the two former Satan begins now to treat him not as God's but as the Carpenter's Son and to take more upon him and magnifie himself instead of our Lord and to see if he could trample upon our Lords humility in whom he could not beget any pride So taking him from the Pinacle and from the prospect of Jerusalem he transported him to yet a greater and statelier height the top of a very high Mountain as if to a place where himself was Prince and Lord of all and there makes a Scheme and representation unto him of the great and spacious Kingdomes of the Earth and of all the Glory and beauty as it were set forth and spread before him in a large Map and shewed too all at once as it were in a moment saith S. Luke as all lying at his his feet the more to surprize him Then tells him that all these are his and to whomsoever he pleaseth he can give them and the prosperity and flourishing of the wicked for a time in this world seem'd to make good his words that therefore if he would but bow his knee and give him the honour due to such a Patron and Benefactor All should be our Lords and he presently possessed of them Whence our Lord might see that for all the high titles that might be given him he had been in the world but poorly treated hitherto in being advanced no higher than a Carpenter § 161 It is likely that Satan set forth this last Temptation with many more words and shewed the many honours he had formerly bestowed upon his true Servants Hoping also that the sight and view of such worldly Pompe might much work upon such a Novice and one so meanly educated As our first Parents that fell were taken with the gloss and beauty of the forbidden fruit Gen. 3.6 and as the Israelites brought out of the Desart into the land of Canaan were by the plenty thereof Deut. 32.15 drawn away from God Incrassatus impinguatus dilatatus dereliquit Deum Factorem suum But very imprudent and no less silly was such a proposal of his to our Lord and full of Pride and lies Whenas indeed himself was a miserable Bankrupt and prisoner tied up in chains not able to help a poor witch for all her not only worship of but Contracts and giving her Soul to him to a single farthing nor to take his lodging in a filthy Swine without an extraordinary leave and permission and when as most contrary he to whom he spake was the very person to whom all these things were given by the Father and who was the true Lord and heir of all And therefore Satan in this third assault saith nothing of his Son-ship and having all things in heaven earth and under earth to adore and submit to him as such will they nill they even Satan himself And this perhaps was one way how Satan hoped his Temptation might fasten upon our Lord if he could thus at least provoke him unseasonably at this time to the challenging of these things to himself and so some little stain of ostentation and vain glory might possibly run along and mingle with it § 162 But our meek Lord replies no such thing to him takes no notice of his shameful lies nor the cheat of his deluding appearances but after he had shewed the highest detestation of his endeavouring to rob his Father of his due worship and of taking this to himself in those words spoken to him Get thee hence Satan as if his last impudent and blasphemous proposal had clearly discovered to him who he was he with the same spirit of meekness as before answers him a third time out of the Scripture and the Law that we are commanded to worship the Lord our God and him only to serve and in what ever condition we are placed of poverty and want may do no prohibited thing to make our selves rich great or Honourable Which it indeed we would yet by this way we cannot make our selves so And the Devil so oft as he saith this doth but lye to us Thus our Lord stoutly repelled the last temptation also the lust of the eyes the surprisal of which must be greater too in so barren a Desart And so this being the uttermost bait he had with which to have caught our Lord and not able to disobey our Lords words Get thee hence Satan by the power of which words our Lord at last manifested that which he was not pleased to shew at Satans request Viz. that he was the Son of God this evil Angel departed And now after the temptation as usually follows a Consolation as also before the great Honour done our Lord at his Baptism was streight pursued with a great humiliation and for the
most unreasonably a further sign from him and urged that Moses had given them Manna from Heaven and there also in like manner our Lord presently told them of his Death and his feeding them with his Flesh and Blood and then of their having everlasting life by it and his raising them up at the last day things at which some of them also then took great offence So here also they whether misconstruing his words as if he had said first that he would destroy their Temple for this at his Death they urged against him and the false witness Mark. 14.5 to speak home interposeth that he said he would destroy the Temple made with hands and in three daies raise up another made without hands and then that he in three daies would build it again a Temple that they said was forty six years in building in the one made him impious in the other ridiculous and so turned his mention of this his greatest work for the salvation of mankind into a great scorn and flighting of him and into the cause of a quarel against him till at last they contrived his Death the destroying of the Temple he here speaks of and brought these his words against him to justify it and so He in raising up again this Temple of his Deity thus destroyed exhibited to the World this great Sign which at this beginning of his preaching he engaged here This was the success of our Lords first Sermon and appearance amongst them as to the Pharisees and their followers already much degusted with him and filled with envy § 183 Yet many others there were that seeing his Miracles believed on him at least that he was some great Prophet sent from God among whom was Nicodemus But our Lord saith the Evangelist did not commit himself unto them admitting them not into his familiar society nor relied on their fidelity for he knew well what was in them and that several of them would fall away and especially in his last tryal most unworthily desert him Therefore our Lord usually when at Jerusalem after his publick teaching them in the Temple and his daies work there done withdrew himself and had no private meetings and conferences as he said at his tryal that in secret he had said nothing and many times at night removed with his Disciples out of the City neither though several in the Country are mentioned do we hear of our Lords admitting any entertainments in the City though we may presume he wanted not some Invitations And all this was but necessary for deferring the Conspiracies of his enemies till the due time of his offering-up appointed by his Father § 184 Our Lord continuing his publick teaching in the Temple and doing Miracles during the Paschal feast Nicodemus a Pharisee a ruler of the Jews as he is stiled here vers 1. One of the Sanedrim and a person studied in the law for our Lord chap. 3. vers 10. stiles him a Master in Israel shewing also herein to him that he knew who he was and on that account blames his ignorance being already a Convert as it is said Jo. 12.42 many other among the chief Rulers were afterward but timorous to confess him came privatly to our Lord by night for fear of losing his Reputation with his fellow-Rulers which shews a great envy and hatred toward our Lord already kindled in them to be farther instructed of him in the matters of the Kingdom of God and life eternal confessing to him that his Miracles had convinced him that he was an extraordinary Teacher sent from God Our Lord very courteously received him and in a few words manifested to him fully who himself was and the whole substance of the Gospel At the first he began to acquaint him with the first Foundation of the Christian Religion Regeneration which at the beginning he proposed some what obscurely perhaps to humble Nicodemus his too much conceit of his own knowledg telling him that to enter into the Kingdom of God one must necessarily be born again which word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated here again signifies also from above which Nicodemus much wondring at and speaking of entring again into our Mothers womb our Lord graciously explained it to him that he must be born again not of a woman or the flesh which would produce nothing but flesh but of water the external Ceremony appointed by God to be used in the new birth signifying a being cleansed and purifyed from former sin and of the Spirit which might render a man spiritual and enabled therewith to bring forth good works which spirit inspires as it pleaseth 1 Cor. 12.4 Mark 4.27 unperceived by sense and being as the wind of which we know not whence or whither it goes but by its effects do discern the presence thereof and then gently reflected on Nicodemus his ignorance so to render him more docible and humble that he being a Master in Israel should know nothing of this For this Holy Spirit and our Renovation by it is frequently spoken of in the Old Testament and so also many types of Baptism and of the Sacraments of the new Testament found there See Psal 50.12 13 14 9. 142.10 11. Ezec. 11.36 1 Cor. 10.2 3 4. Further told him that these things he now spake to him were the lowest matters but that there was much higher that he came to reveal to mankind from Heaven and from God his Father For that he was the only begotten Son of God descended from Heaven and again ascendeth thither and which also according to his Divinity remains alwaies there who spake nothing but what he knew and had seen with the Father See the like vers 32. and Jo. 8.38 5.19 30. Because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that men might not perish but have everlasting life i. e so many as believed in him and that as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness so he was to be lifted up See the like Jo. 8.28 So acquainting him but obscurely with his death sufferings That whosoever stung with sin beheld and believed on him might not perish but that those whoso did not believe on him were already condemned by occasion of his preaching to them not for their former sins which he came to take away but for their disbelief See Jo. 9.39 12.47 48. without which belief in him no forgiveness of Sin That he was the Light that was come into the world avoided only by those whose works were evil and so who feared the discovery of them by it and therefore made such opposition to him But that he that did truth would come to it as not fearing the manifesting of his deeds by it § 185 All these things he gratiously revealed to Nicodemus which delivered with his accustomed Majesty and Power must needs elevate Nicodemus into the highest admiration and reverence of his person love and gratitude towards his mercy and familiar condescendence especially having already seen his mighty
of these Samaritans being Israelites and many Jews also when obnoxious to the Laws or for some other secular advantages removing thither out of Judea After which times also another Anti-Temple about one hundred and fifty years before our Lords coming was erected in Egypt for the Jews flying together with Onias a Son of the High Priest when as persecuted by Antiochus Epiphanes which Temple perished as also the other near the time of the destruction of that in Jerusalem and both these forraign Temples seem preludiums of Gods worship shortly to be made common to the whole world This is premised for the better understanding of what follows § 197 Near to this City Sychem and this Mount was a Well digged by Jacob and then made use of by the City And here our Lord travelling on foot and wearied with his mornings journey it being now about noon and the heat of the day sat down on the side of the Well to rest himself it as a place of resort likely having some Trees and shade about it whilst the Disciples went into the Town to buy some meat for his and their dinner For the Jews had no commerce or conversation with the Samaritans when absolute necessity did not require it as this of travellers buying victuals of them so as to ear and drink and lodg with them being accounted by them Schismaticks and unclean which caused also the same enmity against and separation of the Samaritans at least some of them from the Jews see Luk. 9.53 the other Samaritans seem herein more remiss see vers 56. Whilst our Lord was here left alone a Samaritan woman came thither out of the City to draw water This happened also to be a woman that had had already five husbands either all already deceased or she by divorce separated from them for in latter times women also used to procure divorces from their husbands and that now lived incontinently with one not married to her § 198 Our Lord thirsty with his journey and desiring to entertain some further spiritual discourse with her concerning the salvation of this poor wretch requested of her some water to drink upon which she somewhat wondring asked him why he as appearing by his habit and perhaps his speech a Jew would receive water from her and out of her vessel being a Samaritan and one also it seems that for all the impurity of her life was a Zelot of the Samaritan Religion and way of Gods worship and of their separation from the Jews Here-upon our Lord moved with compassion took occasion to preach the new Gospel and to reveil himself to her and turning the mention of water with a Metaphor and to enter without force or abruption into pious discourse as usually and as we find he doth by and by concerning meat and again concerning harvest told her that he was a person from whom she might expect a greater curtesy and that if she had well known the Gift of God and who he was she would have begged water of him rather the true water quenching all thirst and in the receiving of it a Well continually abounding i. e springing up in all spiritual Graces to everlasting life conferred by it Our Lord here speaking as formerly in his discourse with Nicodemus of the Gift of the Holy Spirit which he came to bestow upon the world and which his Death procured of the Father which being conferred in our regeneration by the water of baptism cures all hunger and thirst after earthly things and fully satisfies and beatifies the Soul Consider Jo. 7.38 39. 6.35 Esai 44.3 § 199 The woman saying she should be glad to receive such water Our Lord the more to encrease her faith in him bad her to call her husband as if it were meet that he also with his wife should share thereof thus taking occasion to discover to her his knowledg of all her former life and condition and for the present of her living in secret concubinage She hereby discerning him to be a Prophet and perhaps to divert him from speaking more of her husband presently begun to consult him concerning Religion who in the present division were in the right the Samaritans or the Jews and where God was more acceptably worshipped in Mount Garizim where the Patriarchs Abraham and Jacob and afterward Joshua by Gods appointment and their fore-fathers that came out of Egypt built an Altar and offered Sacrifices as hath bin said or at Jerusalem a place of a latter consecration and sanctity the Samaritans also rejecting any testimonies produced out of the Prophets against them and see the vehement contest and dispute of the Samaritans and Jews that had bin before this in Alexandria before Ptolemeus Philometer made Judge in a cause Joseph Ant. l. 13. c. 4. § 200 Our Lord after he had first told her that the Samaritans not Jews for the time past were peccant and schismatical herein and the right way of salvation to be among the Jews and so also the Salvation through the Gospel first to be communicated to them proceeds to instruct her concerning the times of the Gospel now at hand wherein all such former Divisions and factions concerning the place of worship should be taken away that God was a Spirit not addicted or confined to Place nor taken with corporeal things and external Ceremonies but only as these were types and prefigurations of spiritual things to come and of his real service by and through Christ but that he expected those now who should worship him in what place soever in spirit and in truth intimating here the abrogation from henceforth of the former legal worship and Ceremonies which was accordingly established by the Apostles Act. 15. a thing that at this time the Samaritans would more willingly hear of than the Jews And he speaks also here to her of worshipping not God in general but the Father the true worshippers will worship the Father For that all worship of God now was to be through Christ his Son and by such as were also made his Sons through Christ Worshipping God also in Spirit seems to be the worship of him in and by the Holy Spirit given through Christ according to those expressions of our Lord to Nicodemus before Jo. 3.6 that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit and Mat. 22.43 David in Spirit called him Lord. And of S. Paul whom I serve in the Spirit Rom. 1.9 and Rom. 8.14 those who are led by the Spirit and vers 9. Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit § 201 The woman upon our Lords saying the Hour cometh c. replyed that she believed when the Messias should come he would declare all Gods pleasure concerning his worship and remove all the present differences Our Lord told her that himself was the Messias She hearing this and much transported with his former discourse whose words were with authority and setting hearts on fire and bidden also by him to call her husband carelesly leaving
228 Among other sick brought thither was a Paralytick so infirm as that four men were hired to bear him in his bed But when come to the house there was no possibility of passing through such a crowd with such a carriage Upon this both the sick man and his bearers most confident of our Lords compassion and help could they devise any access to him boldly attempted to uncover the roof of the house thence to let him down in the bed by cords into the Room where our Lord was From which we may gather that it was a mean and low building and having no upper stories and the covering or tiling of it in their flat roofs more easily removable without danger to those underneath in the house For certainly in their expecting so great a favour these men were very cautious of giving any offence nor this thins done by them without the owners leave and permission The sick man his being thus conveyed before our Lord in his Couch from the top of the house was a sight very pleasing to him taken with this their extraordinary faith making such a strange attempt and relying also on his clemency and goodness where they had cause rather to have expected his great displeasure and resentment for the house broken up over his Head for the incivility and dammage to his Host of Peter no rich man and the disturbance or also fright of the great persons then about him A strong faith casts away many scruples § 229 Our Lord saith the Text seeing their faith not only of the sick man but of his porters Mark 2.5 as he used to relieve one for the faith and prayers of another as for the Cananean womans faith he cured her daughter and for the Centurions faith his Servant and for one mans sake gives also grace and faith to another which grace and faith given renders him capable also of further favours first applied himself to the cure of his greatest necessity and infirmity though less in sight that of the Soul graciously calling him his Son and bidding him to be of good chear for that his sins were forgiven him In which action he intended also first to instruct us that all our corporal sufferings come because of sin see Jo. 5.14 what our Lord said to another impotent man that he should sin no more least something worse happened though not these inflicted on all sinners nor alwaies chiefly for our sins see Jo. 9.3 nor on every one proportionably according to their sin that we may judge none rashly 2ly Again to shew us that the sanity of our souls is much more important and valuable than that of the body and what ought chiefly to be sought by us from him 3ly Lastly to manifest that he was sent from God the Saviour of mankind and came with authority from his Father to remit the sins thereof as Zachary and the Angel to Joseph and the Baptist had foretold of him But yet we may observe here a certain modesty used by our Lord in his expression saying not remitto but remittuntur tibi which might have bin understood in such a sence as the Prophet Nathan's to David 2 Sam. 12.13 remittuntur i. e a Domino But notwithstanding these words heard by the Scribes and Pharisees that sate by gave them great offence this appearing to them no less than blasphemy and the making himself God § 230 Our Lord in his spirit saith St. Mark perceiving their thoughts Chap. 2.8 and what they reasoned within themselves though as overawed by the peoples esteem of him that they forbear as yet openly to accuse him thereof presently replyed to these their cogitations which might have bin another indication to them of his Deity none save God also knowing thoughts and declared to them that the Son of man for so he humbly stiles himself had received from his Father such power here on earth in behalf of mankind as to forgive the sins thereof and which power also the afterward delegated to other men his Apostles and their successours see John 20. and they also practising it in persona Christi 2 Cor. 2.10 Jam. 5.14 to this indeed the curing of these diseases of the Soul not those of the Body and the remission of mens sins and the purchasing thereof by his blood being the principal business of his coming into this world And that they might be ascertained of this he told them also that he had received the power of doing that in attestation of that which would seem to them a much harder matter than the saying to this man that his sins were forgiven him in which they had no means to know the truth of his words namely of making this Paralitick that lay before them sound and well and himself to carry away the bed on which others brought him hither Which at our Lords command was done accordingly the man passing thus through the multitude wonderfully astonished at it and going through the streets glorifying God this carriage of his couch brought thither by four men being an undeniable indication of the perfection of his Cure § 231 Hence our Lord removed to the Sea side as he did frequently where was more air and room for such a conflux of people As he passed along a rich Publican called Matthew was sitting somewhere near the Haven at the receit of Custome from the ships arriving there Now the Office of a Publican serving for the support of the Roman authority over the Jews was therefore very odious to them by the Publicans renting also the Roman Customes was often occasioned for improvement of their purchases the exacting more than their dues therefore were they forbid it by the Baptist as a common fault among them Likewise by reason of much money passing through their hands they practised Usury For these things they were joyned with publick sinners or also heathen and their society much avoided which caused our Lords expression in signifying the withdrawing our selves from the Society or conversation of an incorrigible neighbour Mat. 18.17 Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a Publican Notwithstanding this our Lord before the Pharisees and multitude that followed him stops at this rich Publican's Office and in the midst of his Accounts calls him to leave all and yeild a continual attendance on his person and indeed not only to have the honour of an Apostle but of being one of the four Evangelists that afterwards writ his life and S. Matthew also did this the first and more copiously than the others reduced afterward into a short compendium by S. Mark This action of our Lord was beheld by the people and especially by the Pharisees with great astonishment that he who pretended to so much sanctity should make choice of such a scandalous servant but no less that his words should have such a suddain influence upon one so much immersed in the world and at that very time so attent on his accounts for saith St. Luke he presently
mitigated their cruelty and malice Ecce Homo as if he had said to them see this rueful spectacle of suffering Innocency and at length have ye some compassion Is not here punishment too much already inflicted where none deserved But they the cheif Priests and officers especially assoon as they saw him in this pickle saith the Evangelist Jo. 19.6 renewed their former clamour Crucifige Crucifige The Governour replyed Take ye him and crucifie him if you can be so unjust for I cannot do it finding no fault in him The Jews seeing Pilat so resolutely still clearing our Lord as to that accusation of theirs which they thought would most take with the Romans Sedition c. retreat again to his blasphemy and his crimes against their Law whereof the Roman President wholly ignorant could not so well discern his or their Guilt saying that they had a Law according to which their Justice had proceeded against him and that by this Law he ought to dye on a higher account than Rebellion against Princes seeing he made himself the Son of God and became thereby guilty of the highest blasphemy against God himself which in their Law was punished with death But were it so this will not bear out or warrant their Crucifige or demanding the death of the Cross § 73 Pilat hearing that he made himself the Son of God and perhaps comparing it with what was reported of his Miracles and with the words also he had heard a little before from him standing at the Bar that he was a King but his kingdom not of this world and that he came into it to teach men Truth began to be seized with a religious fear to the great confusion and shame of our Lord 's own people that there might be some such thing indeed and so to reflect also on his scourging of him and the danger if he should proceed further to Crucifie him For his own Religion also had such opinions in it That the Gods sometimes do descend from heaven and take on them the shapes of men see Acts 14.11 And they also imagine some inferiour Semideos begotten by the Gods of women And perhaps these fables had their first original from some mistaken passages of the Sacred story of God's sometimes assuming a human shape and discoursing with the Patriarchs and from the Prophecies concerning the Son of God to be born of a woman To which may be added the extraordinary Gravity Modesty Fortitude Constancy Prudence and holy reservation so great unconcernedness and neglect as it were of what they said or did to him which he had observed in our Lord as one strangely elevated above all human passions and infirmities Startled I say with this fear and reflecting on his former ill treatment of such a person he returns again from the Jews into the Praetorium and there questions our Lord a-new whence he was i. e. whether of an human or divine race by this question giving our Lord occasion as Herod before to set forth and justly magnify himself the former as to his divine power in shewing some Miracle and this latter as to his divine Nature in declaring his descent But our Lord before him as before the other stood mute and silent not willing to admit the least detrectation or declining of his sufferings or the least endeavours contrary to his Fathers good pleasure well knowing also of Pilat as of the Jews that si responderet non dimitteret and lastly having before answered him sufficiently to this question when he told him that he was a King but not of this lower world that he descended to teach men the Truth of God Nor were those many divine works of his concealed from the Governour 's knowledg which evidenced an extraordinary Mission of him from God § 74 The Governour displeased at this silence after so much kindness as he thought shewed him and so contrary also to his own interest in neglecting all lawful observance of a Person that had him absolutly in his power and studied to release him asked him why he did not answer him in whose free power he knew it was whether this justly or unjustly either to crucify or acquit him but indeed Pilats professing it here in his power to release him whom he alwaies confessed an innocent person aggravates his guilt that followed in condemning him Our Lord here not deserting the vindication of the dignity of his person and Mission formerly declared both to the Jews and to the Roman Governour and referring these his sufferings and death wholly to the will of his Father not the power of man as also he did at his apprehension when he told the Jews this was their hour made a charitable breach of his former silence to check the Governours vaunting of his Power where he shewed so much injustice telling him with a very great gravity and majesty in his words and carrying himself as the very person Pilat feared he was that he could have no power at all against him except it had bin given him from above therefore those who delivered him an innocent person thro malice to him invested from above with such a power had the greater sin In these few words representing to Pilats passion and heat that all this was done by the permission and good pleasure of his Father to which not man's he yeilded this meek obedience as he told the Jews before at his yeilding himself to them in the Garden That he had no power over any person whatever but what a Superiour power who would call him to account permitted and again no just power over any person innocent as to the condemning or crucifying of such an one but yet much more no power over him who was the Son of God and King over all the world a thing he mentioned also to Peter when they called on him for Tribute Mat. 17.24 But yet that though he offended in what he did to him he was through his ignorance though not of his innocency yet of his person much more excusable herein than those others who delivered him to him who both against so many infallible evidences he had given them denyed him to be such a person and with so many false criminations brought him to him as a capital offender and abused the power of the lawful Magistrate to serve their malice thus representing to him both the Jews guilt and his own though withal he modestly excused his fault as much the less § 75 Our Lord 's thus humbling the Governours high language with minding him of a Superiour Authority to which he was accountable and of his sin in such proceedings and compliances against an innocent person yet these qualified with an acknowledgment of the Jews guilt much greater than his the prudence also and gravity of his Answer remitting nothing of his appearance to be such a person as Pilat dreaded him to be whose words were not like other men's but as they entred the ear pierced also the Soul continued still
cepissent jam spacium crucibus deerat corporibus cruces and this misery brought upon them when at this great Festival the whole body of the Nation as it were was gathered together in Jerusalem and so was encompassed and shut up there by the Romans See Euseb Ecclesiast Hist lib. 3. cap. 5. and Joseph de Bell. Judaic lib. 7. cap. 17. Ab omnibus regionibus ad Azymorum diem festum congregati bello subito circumfusi sunt c. Thus they devoted themselves here to God's Justice and thus it happened to them But their words taken in a better sense and as the divine goodness and pity is pleased to interpret them for all Penitents are a Prayer piously offered not only by them but the whole world to his offended Majesty to be saved through the sprinkling upon them of the blood of Jesus Our Lord's blood also crying to God from the Earth not as that of Abel or any other just Person 's shed by the impious for vengeance but for Mercy Nor hath the whole world any salvation or shelter but from his blood being upon it and its children for ever who also all had a hand both Jew and Gentile in offering it and in this sense God also will admit this prayer to be fulfilled see Rom. 11. but in the last place upon this most miserable Nation § 80 The Governour after having thus washed his hands sate down again and gave the final sentence upon our Lord released to them their precious choice Barabbas and committed Jesus to the Centurion and his Soldiers to be crucified according to their request § 81 Now this death on the Cross which our Lord was sentenced to and the Jews with so great clamour called for as it was often foretold expressly by our Lord see Mat. 20.19 Jo. 18.32 and other-while called by him his Exaltation Jo. 12.32 And I if I be exalted from the earth will draw all men unto me signifying saith the Evangelist what death he should die and by the context vers 34. it appears the people well understood his language And again Jo. 8.28 When ye have saith he exalted the Son of man then shall ye know that I am he So was it foresignified by many expressions in the Old Testament See Psal 21.17 The Council of the malignant hath besieged me they have digged my hands and my feet they have numbred in that racking posture all my bones they have beheld and considered me every limb of me stretched out before them and then speaking of his being stript of his cloaths They have divided my garments amongst them and upon my Vesture they cast lots To which stripping of him also that expression seems chiefly to relate where he saith Psal 68.8 That Confusion covered his face See Zachary 13.6 where the Prophet mentions this smiting of his Pastor and the man that clave to him and so scattering of his sheep vers 7. speaking thus of his being treated by his nearest relations as a false Prophet that he shall be asked What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands and he shall answer with these was I wounded in the house of my friends To which wounds also is applied that loving expression Esay 49.16 Ego tamen non obliviscar tui in manibus meis descripsi te I have engraven thee upon the palmes of my hands See Zech. 12.10 where speaking of the conversion of the Jews in the latter times and the great sorrow they shall then have for their crucifying their Messias the Prophet saith Et adspicient ad me quem confixerunt plangent eum planctu quasi unigenitum c. See Jer. 11.19 Ego quasi agnus mansuetus qui portatur ad victimam cogitaverunt super me consilia dicentes mittamus lignum in panem ejus for his bread eradamus eum de terra viventium To it likewise seems to relate Esay 52.13 Ecce intelligit servus meus exaltabitur elevabitur sublimis erit valde For it follows Sicut obstupuerunt super te multi inglorius erit inter viros aspectus ejus forma ejus inter filios hominum like to vers 2. of the next chapter Iste asperget gentes multas And Esay 11.12 Et levabit signum in nationes Concerning his thirst also in the violent and fervorous heat of such lingring pains see Psal 21.16 Aruit tanquam testa virtus mea lingua mea adhaesit faucibus meis And Psal 68.22 Dederunt in escam meam fel in siti mea potaverunt me aceto Typified also this death of the Cross was by many instruments of the peoples preservation in the Old Testament By the Tree of life provided to remedy the mischiefs done by the Tree of Good and Evil by the blood of the Lamb sprinkled upon the posts of the door that the destroying Angel seeing it might pass-over Gods people by Moses his Rod smiting the Rock and bringing out of it a fountain of water for refeshing the people By the Brasen Serpent listed up on high and fastned to a pole curing all that looked upon it of the other fiery Serpents bitings which our Lord also mentions as a Type of his own Elevation and drawing the eies of all upon him Jo. 12.32 Jo. 3.14 Sicut Moyses exaltavit serpentem in deserto ita exaltari oportet filium hominis ut omnis qui credit in ipsum looks upon him with the eie of faith non pereat By the Expansion of Moses his Armes and Hands on high made in the Mount for the conquest of Amalek which posture of his also by others help was continued for several hours and being any way altered changed presently the fortune of the battel By Elias his lying with armes stretched out upon the Child to raise him again to life By marking with the letter Thau the form of a cross the foreheads of those that were to be saved from the slaughter of the six destroying Angels Ezech. 9.4 Lastly by Abraham's only Son Isaac carrying the wood upon which he was afterwards laid and destined to be Sacrificed But God was more favourable and kind to Abraham if I may so say than to himself § 82 And as this manner of death was often foresignified and typified in the Old Testament so doth it seem before all other to have bin chosen by the Divine Counsel and our Lords designment who as he voluntarily suffered for us so what death he pleased for many special reasons First because his suffering being to save us and we by our sins having incurred the curse of God and so he for us taking this curse upon himself this was that special death which had Gods curse annexed to it Deut. 21.23 when upon some grievous crime God required the Malefactor to be hanged up upon a Tree before the Sun and as it were openly in his sight to be hanged up as unworthy to touch or tread upon the Sanctified land and not to be dispatched in a moment as by stoning or
therefore He was ordered to appear not in feasting or in glorious array or in some rich and stately Court or populous City or Pallace but in that most rigid fasting and in rough apparel and in an uncultivated desert Thus was he sent before to baptize and clense the whole Nation and to purge them from their former sins by repentance that they might be rendred a people fit to entertain so Holy a Prince and capable to receive the large effusions of his Spirit And so we find Mat. 3.7 the whole Nation as it were upon his appearing and telling them that One followed who brought his Faun in his hand to purge his Floor and who would burn the chaff with fire unquenchable Mat. 3.11 12. flocking unto him confessing sins especially the meaner people Publicanes Soldiers and such as had no high opinion of their own righteousness and receiving baptism and inquiring of him concerning their several duty and amendment of life See Luk. 3.10 c. 7.29 And among others we find also repairing to this forerunner out of the remoter parts of Galilee several of those whom our Lord afterward entertained for his Disciples learning as it were their first rudiments from this Baptist As Andrew John Peter Philip Nathanaiel Jo. 1. c. and not unlikely Matthew also amongst other Publicans Luk. 7.29 Only the Pharisees and Lawyers much conceited of their own Holiness frustrated the Counsel of God against themselves and would not come to confession to or receive baptism from Him Luk. 7.30 and as they first refused John's principles and discipline so afterward they profitted as little under that of the Messias 3. Lastly this Sacred person was ordained to proclaim and bear witness of the Messias before his face to all the people so soon as he should appear and with his finger to point out unto them his very Person Jo. 1.26 Only because he came so near the time of our Lord no miracles were to be wrought by him lest he should turn mens eyes upon himself from him that followed Him to whom these were reserved as a Royal prerogative and therefore our Savior enumerated these to Johns Disciples questioning who he was Mat. 11.5 6. to shew them that he was the Messias and a greater Person then their Master See Mat. 11.5 § 4 St. John Baptist being designed to so high an imployment all things suitably in him were very extraordinary and transcending the common condition of other men His Parents were chosen by God persons eminently holy and near akin to the Mother of the Messias Luke 1.6 36. He was conceived miraculously as Isaac had bin formerly when concupiscence and lust was now ceased in his Parents being very old and past procreation of children as if he was not to be a child of the flesh but of the Spirit Gal. 4.29 He was sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost even in the womb leaping there for joy saith S. Luke 1. c. 44. v. three Months before his Nativity at the approach of our Saviors presence as it were indicating thus early the Messias to his Mother His conception was first foretold to his parents by an Angel and that the same Angel Gabriel who six Months after annunciated our Lords conception to the blessed Virgin and who being singularly admitted into the secrets of God and one of the Angels of special presence Luk. 1.19 had long before those times revealed to the greatly beloved Daniel the punctual time of our Lords coming â—an 9.24 24. The Baptist thus miraculously entred into the world lived also such a life here as never any man lived before him after his infancy as one who was not like other Prophets taken for Gods service from leading a common life but from the womb filled with the Spirit He left his Fathers house who lived in a City in the Mountains of Judah and retired into the Wilderness was never corrupted with any acquaintance with men nor interessed in any affairs of human life nor learned at all the sinfully-compliant acts of ordinary society that so he might afterward as an equal stranger to all and independent on any for the necessaries of his life more freely reprehend the faults of every one whilst none could tax any in himself He lived in a remote Desert where doubtless he had much converse with God and holy Angels for what can we less imagine of him who was from the womb so singularly sanctified He used not at all the ordinary food of men at least after his sojourning in the Wilderness neither eating any Bread nor drinking any Wine so that the Jews seeing such abstinence affirmed he was possessed See Luk. 7.33 His raiment rough and suitable to his diet and such as he might receive from any dead beast for it was but Leather and woven Hair Of both which his diet and his Apparel our Savior pleased to take particular notice to the people as betokening an extraordinary person Mat. 11.8 Luk. 7.33 from whose unerring mouth he received such a testimony as never any had the like See Mat. 11.9 11 14. where tho the 11th verse there seems to intimate that the least of our Saviors disciples or followers should be made greater than he 1. in some sort more happy in hearing and seeing our Saviors words and works in enjoying clearer manifestations of the Gospel lastly in doing greater things than he namely all sorts of Miracles by the power of our Lord yet might they be notwithstanding and were most of them much inferior to him in the eminency of a continued Sanctity from his birth and the dignity of his office Who was chosen to be the first Minister of the Gospel and whose hallowed Tongue first shewed to the world the person of the Messias and whose Sacred hands baptized Him Elias the most eminent of all the Prophets as I said was his Type who prefigured him in his rough apparel and solitary abode and silvestrian fare living for the most part in the Forrest of Mount-Carmel as may be gathered from 1 King 18.19 42. comp 2 King 4.25 the habitation of his successor Elisha fed by Ravens in solitude and drinking of the Brook fasting beyond all others save Moses and Jesus typifying in his passing thro the divided waters of Jordan the baptism there of this his successor Bold in rebuking vice in Ahab as John in Herod and persecuted by Jezebel as he by Herodias § 5 And as the great Elias was the type of John so was John Baptist the most express and near Pattern and Semplar of the Messias both in the course of his life and in the manner of his doctrine and in his sufferings and death Miraculously conceiv'd in one kind as our Savior was in another and both foretold by the same Angel reserved in privacy and solitude all his younger years tho full of the Holy Ghost till about the 30th year of his age then beginning to preach and baptize as afterward did our Savior and preaching in the same new manner
and words comp Mat. 3.2 with 4.17 declaring unto them a Kingdom in Heaven which the Lord that followed him would confer on the worthy and the everlasting torments of Hell-fire which he would inflict on the rebellious telling them of a kingdom of God to be erected not abroad but within them and of the Holy Spirit which this King would baptize them with upon their repentance preached by Him freeing them from the thraldom not of the Romans but of sin nor from their servitude under Herod or Tiberius but under the great Prince of all this lower world Satan their spiritual and only dangerous enemy whose captives and children and not Abrahams they unknowingly were till by this Prince delivered This was the great deliverance to come by Jesus which both Holy Zachary spake of in his Benedictus Luk. ◠77 To give knowledg of Salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins and the Angel in his message to Joseph telling him why he should be called Jesus or Savior Matt. 1.21 because he should save his people from their sins Such punishments and rewards liberty and royalty as the Baptist preached being the only that were here worth the speaking of or looking after Thus was the Baptist appointed to be the beginner of the Gospel and the first open promulgator of this new Spiritual Kingdom The Prophets saith our Savior Mat. 11.12 13. prophecied until John 1. of such a thing to come but from the daies of John the kingdom of heaven began to suffer violence people by troopes now pressing into it and every one striving to gain for himself a share thereof whilst they crowded in such multitudes to Johns Mat. 3.5 and our Saviors baptisms Joh. 3 26. Only John began the publishing of this Gospel afar off as it were not coming into the Temple or the cheif Cities to preach it but staying a loof off in the Wilderness and near Jordan leaving these honors to the Lord who followed Him by whom the Gospel was brought still nearer till it visited at last every small Town and Village § 6 And as John preceded our Savior in his new and Spiritual doctrine so he resembled him much what in his Heroical vertues Both in his magnanimity and courage and in his mansuetude and clemency and in his humility and self-denial which was never in any man so great as in our Savior 1 Using the same boldness toward Herod Luk. 3.19 20 as our Savior afterwards did Luk. 13.32 reproving him for all the evil he had done saith the Evangelist Luke 3.19 and particularly concerning his Wife not fearing the implacable wrath of a woman and a Queen tho this cost him his life Again treating the Scribes the Pharisees and Sadduces whose manners he knew by the Spirit and Revelation not having learnt them by experience at the first sight roughly and severely as their incorrigible Hypocrisy and malice deserv'd reproving them in the very same terms as our Savior comp Mat. 3.7 with 23.33 and calling them Generation of Vipers or Serpents they being the brood of the old Serpent the Devil in the resemblance of their manners see Jo. 8.44 in opposition to their boasting of their being Abrahams seed to whom they were nothing like in their lives 2 Meanwhile toward the soldiers the publicans and others notorious but relenting sinners using the same mansuetude as Christ teaching them their duty for the future without upbraiding their former faults This great Saint not bred in the Court or in ceremonial Society but in retiredness and solitude neither reverencing the secular porte and state of the Pharisee nor despising the meanness and low esteem of the Publican Only in general the Baptist seems to personate a greater austerity then our Lord both in his conversation and his preaching pressing mainly the discipline of repentance and threatning much the wrath to come hell-fire and damnation to the disobedient having something more herein of the Spirit of his type Elias whereas our Saviors language was more benign and indulgent publishing remission of sin and promising a Kingdom to the obedient and also telling his Disciples that the Spirit of Elias did not so well befit them Yet were both our Saviors and Johns dispensations suitable to their seasons the one answering to the beginning of an holy life the other to the end and consummation thereof the one laying the foundation with threats and terrors the other building it up with consolations and mercies the Lord doing the rough part by his servant the gentle and mild by himself 3 Again much resembling our Savior also in his great humility accompanied with such eminency of Sanctity He that was so far above the Prophets yet when the Jews sent to him and asked him whether he was Elias or whether he was a Prophet which is to be understood here as in Mat. 16.14 the Jews then holding a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He answered No without telling them that he was that typified Elias which was for to come or that he was more then a Prophet and expressed himself meanwhile by the most diminutive term that could be thought on that he was only Vox clamantis c. before a greater Person that was then coming after him He stood exceedingly upon his guard of lowliness and disparaged himself upon all occasions as the Jews and his Disciples magnifyed him Being conjectured by them for the Messias he nourished not the mistake for his own honor but saith the Evangelist Jo. 1.20 he confessed and denied not i. e. to speak this truth against his own reputation but confessed that he was not He. And Jo. 3.28 he takes solemn witness of such his confession In comparing himself with him he useth an expression to debase himself beneath the lowest of his servants that he was not worthy stooping to untie the latchet of his shoe Mar. 1.7 and Jo. 3.31 he saith that he being earthly did but loqui de terra speak of the Earth i. e. low and mean rudiments for which S. John useth this phrase see Jo. 3. v. 12. in comparison of Jesus who coming from Heaven above spoke of the greater misteries which he had there heard and seen He every where gave place to our Savior left Bethabara in Judea the more publick place of concourse for our Saviors disciples some of whom had formerly bin his to baptize in and retired himself North-ward toward Galilee to Enon near to Salim Jo. 3.23 He transmitted his Disciples to him Jo. 1.35 and resign'd his former Auditors and the multitudes to his conduct and when the people so soon as they saw his great Miracles and heard his divine words now admired and flockt after Jesus much more then they did after John He rejoiced to hear it with an humble acknowledgment Oportet illum crescere me minui and when his ambitious disciples made a complaint to him of it he answered them that he was but a waiter on this Bridegroome of the Church and his joy was
those words chap. 31.15 Thus saith the Lord which shews also nothing done in this business without his certain providence in it A voice was heard in Ramah a chief Town or the Tribe of Benjamin Rachels progeny lamentation and bitter weeping Rachel who dyed and was buried near Bethleem weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children because they were not Viz. being carried away from her into captivity which was the first fulfilling of this prophecy of Jeremy and which was a type of this other the more principal accomplishment of it here But there the Lord presently comforts her saying vers 16 17. Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine eies from tears for there is hope in thine end saith the Lord that thy children shall come again to their own border and from the land of the Enemy and vers 9. I am a Father to Israel and Ephraim is my first-born And afterward in the same chapter vers 22. is a promise made to them of the Messias § 91 And so happens it exactly here also in the more principal fulfilling thereof This rough beginning of the slaughter of the Infants at our Lords birth being a type of his that was to follow and presignifying what should be done first in the slaughter in the appointed time of our Lord himself a person more innocent than these Infants and Gods first-born and again in the slaughter of many innocent Martyrs in the first beginning and infancy of Christian Religion by the tyranny of the Roman Herods our Mother the Church as Rachel disconsolately weeping over them But this slaughter as the other captivity ended in joy and the children came again and all these designs were frustrated as Herod's was and religion still survived their wrath and persecutions And as Rachels Son born at Bethleem was first called a Benoni but afterwards a Benjamin so also was this type perfectly fulfilled in our Lords being made a Benjamin and sitting at his Fathers right hand at last after thus his being at first a Benoni and these Infants also that suffered for him were for this advanced by the Divine bounty to the eternal rewards of Martyrdome § 92 Yet in this innocency of the children there seems to be some effect of the Divine Justice upon the parents who must needs have highly incurred his displeasure in the great inhumanity they had shewed to a poor stranger one of their own kindred ready to lye down in shutting her out of their doors which tho they had bin never so full of guests should rather have bin done to some other of them than to such an helpless object of their charity Which fault was yet more aggravated in suffering her and her new-born Child for so long a time after also Luk. 2.17 to lodg amongst the beasts if our Blessed Lady sojourned in the Stable till her purification when the Text also saith that the Shepheards had given them some notice of the Dignity of the Child and his Mother § 93 The cruelty of this Infanticide was so much noised every where abroad as it soon came to the ears of Augustus Qui cum audisset saith Macrobius Saturnal lib. 1. inter pueros quos in Syria Herodes Rex Judaeorum intra bimatum jussit interfici filium quoque ejus occisum some saying that he had then also caused to be slain a Son of his own lately born of a wife of his that was of the Tribe of Judah ait Melius est Herodis Porcum esse quam filium Herod being a Proselite of the Jewish Religion and this prohibiting the killing of Swine or eating their flesh as held a most unclean beast But Augustus herein might perhaps also reflect both on the former slaughter of two sons of his Aristobulus and Alexander on suspition of a conspiracy against him and on the leave he had lately procured from the same Emperor for the killing another of his sons Antipater whom afterward he caused to be put to death on the same account § 94 Whilst this bloody Tragedy was acting in Judea S. Joseph with his holy charge safely arrived in Egypt Where his sojourning found the more consolation and friends by reason of the Multitude of the Jewish Nation that at this time inhabited there as also in Cyrene and the parts beyond it For this Nation according to Gods promise multiplying exceedingly were in all times much dispersed abroad for which see Acts 2.8 being placed also by the Divine Providence as it were in the midst of Nations and at the end of the Mediterranean Sea from whence all the Western Countries received their first Colonies and inhabitants by reason of the first peopling of the world made in the East Every where also where the Jews planted themselves they had Synagogues and in these publickly read to them the Books of Moses and the Prophets by which also were begotten amongst other Nations many Proselites to the Jewes Religion and such was the Queen of Ethiopia's Eunuch And this also prepared the way for the easier spreading afterward of the Gospel for where ever almost the Apostles came they found Jews and so began first their preaching in their Synagogues and with the expounding to them of the prophets read to them on the Sabbaths And these forraign Jews were also the better preserved in the true knowledg and worship of God by the repair of those at least of better quality among them at the great festivals to Jerusalem and to the Temple there see Act. 2.5 9. c. But in Egypt in the parts thereof nearest Palestine wherein called the land of Goshen the Israelites also inhabited after Jacob descended thither the Jews at this time more abounded by reason of a Temple built there by â—nias a son of the High Priest who with many other Jews fled thither from the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes to which Temple the King of Egypt gave all furtherance the more to strengthen himself by the attraction of many Jews against the same Tyrant Where also Onias erected an Altar mis-applying the prophecy Esay 19.19 c. to his own times And this Temple was then standing when our Lord came thither being not destroyed till Vespasian's time and by his command a year after the demolishing of that at Jerusalem and after it had stood above two hundred years § 95 Here then some little habitation was taken by S. Joseph among his Compatriots in some Town near the Confines of Judea some say Heliopolis with his trade supplying necessaries uncertain how short or how long this his banishment might be and depending on the Angels new order for his return Where also the sojourning among strangers afforded more time to this Holy Family for their Devotions unto the Holy Child and to God his Father Nor could they want also the exercise of those afflictions which the rage and jealousies of the Devil in such an early march of our Lord into his chiefest territory and fortification were any way permitted to raise to
and way-sides are enameld with to give you them in his own language Anemones Calcedoines Ranuncules Narcissus Cyclamens d Iris de toutes especes de couleurs de Moly de Lavende Stecas Ambroise Serpolet Mariolene Origan Nepeta Scordium and many other little Flowers intermingled with Trees and Shrubs that are alwaies green so that the sight of the one and fragrancy of the other makes it seem an Earthly Paradise with an air also so well tempered that little sickness happens there Thus he This of Nazar flos or Surculus a Name in the Prophets applyed to our Lord and this City perhaps having its name from these so plentiful about it § 103 But some Allusion here also may be made for the likeness of the Sound to the Nazarites tho this word not written with a Tsade â— as our Lords name Nazar is but a Zain â— being persons in a singular manner separated and devoted to God And the famous Nazarite Judg. 13.5 Sampson is observed by the Fathers in ortu in pueritia nuptiis suis Leone apibus asini maxilla fonte ex ea prognato Gazae portis coma detonsa exoculatione pistrina Templi Dagon eversione maxime ultranea stupendaque morte Christum praefigurasse being a great Deliverer of Gods people and Conquering their Enemies all alone without Armies or Armes Obtaining the greatest Victory over them by and at his death after their Bonds and fetters triumphantly rising up and carrying away the Gates from their City by his locks cut becoming weak his eyes put out buffetted and made a common mocking-stock but after this avenging himself of all his enemies Out of the dry Jaw-bone issuing a fountain and out of the dead Lyon meat and sweetness Fons Baptismatis regenerationis Mel redemptionis Cibus Eucharistiae Such a Nazarite then also was our Lord. 2. Besides this said of our Lords Name again the same Evangelist observes chap. 4.14 the Prophet Esay's plainly foretelling our Lord's residence in Galilee of the Gentiles and in the land of Zabulon where Nazareth was Esay 9.1 and a great light springing up there to those that sate in darkness This his Habitation then in Galilee at Nazareth was also sufficiently foretold but they not worthy to understand it § 104 Our Lord and his Parents are now arrived and settled at Nazareth Where it is conjectured by some that the Blessed Virgin was an Heiress because S. Matthew hath related the Genealogy of Joseph her husband to shew hers when-as except in such a case it was not necessary that one should match into the same Tribe And from this again it is collected that as their condition as appears from Josephs trade was not very rich so neither very necessitous How our Lord here spent his childhood and youth and indeed much the greatest part of his life as also before of the Employment of the Baptist in the Desart till the thirtieth year of his age very little is expresly mentioned in the scripture And herein me-thinks appears the greatness of our Lord's humility and design to give our ambition and vain-glory an example of imitating him that he should so little value or also ordain it that all those admirable vertues of his and effects of the Divine wisdom and Grace that appeared in all his words and actions and which saith the Evangelist Luk. 2. â—â— were so grateful to those with whom he conversed should during so long a time be save one passage in the twelfth year of his age utterly lost if I may so say and concealed and unknown to the world and only manifest to his Father above and the inhabitants of Heaven When as had it bin his pleasure there were so many that might have delivered this story from the mouth of his Holy Mother who let nothing pass unobserved but was a faithful measures from his first infancy saith S. Luke 2.19 51 of all she saw and heard in or concerning him Little I say is expresly delivered But notwithstanding from the consequences of several texts much may be learned § 105 To attain then a more perfect Notion and Idea hereof we are first to know That our Lord from his very birth as to the perfections of his soul had nothing of a child in him but that he was as full of all light and knowledge of wisdom and of all the Graces and powers of the Holy Ghost of the zeal of his Fathers honour and salvation of man-kind at his Nativity as afterward in the time of his Man-hood and of his preaching and working Miracles In whom wore hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg saith the Apostle Col. 2.3 And all the fulness of the Divinity dwelling bodily vers 9. And the word was made flesh full of grace and truth saith S. John c. 1. Nor did God give the Spirit by measure unto him Jo. 3.34 All which texts must be verifyed at the Union of his man-hood to the Divinity sutable to the supreme Dignity thereof which Union was at his Conception Nor is there any reason for a temporary suspension of these as of some perfections of the Body in order to our Redemption but rather of the contrary And that the increase in them which S. Luke speaks of chap 2 was only of the more manifestation of the effects thereof in the progress of his Age as also sufficiently appears in that without any the least former application of him to learning or studies or solitude of life like the Baptists when the sacred number of twelve years of his childhood were compleated in going as usually with his parents to the solemn feast he secretly quitted his parents and entring into the Temple Luk. 2.46 47. sate him down in the midst of the Doctors disputing and as king them questions and astonishing them saith the Text with his understanding and answers § 106 This then laid as a foundation 2ly We ought to conceive That he was subject to none of those infirmities of mind usual to children levity and inconstancy love of play and being delighted with toyes peevishness against Superiors and those who take most care of them longing and desiring things hurtful and procuring them when with-held by crying foolish and silly prattle c or also any other which though involving no sin in them yet are the effects of want of knowledg and experience but that all was contrary in him Sweetness modesty gravity seriousness quiet reposed ever well pleased observant and obliging of those to whom was committed his Education And Here we may also the more admire in so great perfections of his Soul his divine patience for our sakes of so many debilities and infirmities of the Body for so long a time enduring them when he perfectly apprehended and was sensible-of them all and when hindred by them from speaking or acting things sutable to his understanding As we may imagine what an affliction it would be for a person that is already in his man-hood and of a wise
Spirit as when afterward he repaired into the Desart and these abode for the three daies next ensuing § 110 In the Temple about the Court of the people were certain Porches or Exedraes or Chambers called also Gazophylacia for the Goods and Treasure of the Temple reposed in them such Roomes were belonging to the Priests see Jer. 35.2 4.36.12 26 and in these the Doctors of the Law assembling at certain times or Hours of the day expounded the Mosaick law to the people and instructed the youth such as applyed themselves to learning disputed also among themselves and stated the hard questions and difficulties therein Who also beside the Temple used Synagogues and had likewise beside these many Schooles instituted for the fame purpose Of which Schooles and Synagogues there are said to have bin in Jerusalem 480. Sigon ius lib. 2 cap. 8. So Act. 19.9 is mentioned S. Paul's reasoning or teaching at Ephesus in the Schoole of one Tyrannus Act. 24.12 He pleads his not having disputed with any in the Temple Act. 6.9 are mentioned those of the Synagogue of the Libertines Cyrenians c. disputing with Stephen Jerem. chap. 36.10 Baruch is said to have read the words of Jeremiah himself being in restraint in the house of the Lord in Gazophilacio Gamariae Scribae in vestibalo superiori in introitu portae novae domus Domini audiente omni populo which perhaps was done out of some eminenter place in the roome to the people standing in the Court See also Jer. 26.10 11. So our Lord John 8 20 is said to have preached to the people in the Temple in Gazophylacio and another time in Porticu Salomonis Jo. 10.23 In these places also where the Doctors taught their Schollars or the people were some Chaires placed for themselves and some lower seats or Mats spread on the floore for their Schollars or Auditors So S. Paul saith Act. 22 that he was taught at the feet of Gamaliel according to the perfect manner of the law of the Fathers § 111 In this Conference of the Doctors then the Holy Child Jesus presented himself on the third day after his with-drawing from his parents for it is not likely that he appeared in this assembly more then once which would have caused some greater inquiry after him contrary to the predesigned privacy and obscurity of his Education after he had spent the two former daies as is said of Anna in the Temple in praier and fasting and so as when he was in the Desart or at some times in going forth and in humility begging from other's charity what was necessary for his sustenance Here then the Text saith our young Lord sate in the midst of them they being placed in a semi-circle among other persons perhaps not much elder who were then present and sate at their feet to hear and learn Here our Lord attentively hearkned to their discourses and in things difficult or not sufficiently explained asked them as perhaps other their Schollars did with a modesty becoming his age his questions but then some of these at least being such as they could not well resolve like those afterward Mat. 21 25. whether Johns Baptism was from Heaven or of Men and How David called Christ his Lord the Lord being his Son He to give them some light so much as his Father permitted what person He was and to shew them manifestly in those immature years that his wisdom was from above and that he asked such things not for his own but their learning He being that Eternal wisdom that composed those laws and inspired those prophecies which they expounded gave them also the solutions to those questions wherein they were deficient He sate saith the Text in the midst of them not only hearing but asking them Questions And not this only which Schollars usually do but giving answers also answers probably not only to their Questions but to his own when they could not resolve them and such answers as that all that heard him were astonished saith the Text at his understanding All which shews something very extraordinary and divine in this his appearance Where also Himself guiding these discourses as He did when He went up into the Chair at Nazareth the opening of the Books at such a place as spake of Himself we may imagine the subject was some thing concerning the Revelation and coming of the Messias whose gracious speeches there delivered as with the modesty of a Child so with the gravity and authority of a Law-giver sent from Heaven and now also not as the Scribes but with strange force and inward conviction to his Auditors filled them and the others his hearers with strange admiration And this admiration probably would have produced a further inquiry after him had not in the height of such their astonishment the entrance in of such mean people as his parents conduced on the other side to abate their great esteem of him and served to draw a veil over the faces of such either lazy searchers or already envious Rivals that they could not discern him When as the meanness of his Education should have rather increased a diligent quest after him the more they saw no human way of his attaining either such science or Spirit and Confidence § 112 But leaving him here thus employed in iis quae fuere Patris let us return to the sad Mother and her Husband who perceiving the Holy Child strayed from them at their going out of the City and after some search there-about not finding him imagined him to have bin gone a little before in the company of some of their friends and Kindred and so made the more hast for this out of Town and went so much the faster from the place where he was to overtake him upon the way After having finished thus in a longing expectation their first daies journey homeward and not having found the Child at night as they had hoped among their friends they fell now especially his tender Mother into no small solicitude and jealousie concerning him Now came into their minds the first noise and discovery of him raised by the Shepheards and afterward much more by the Magi and then again S. Simeon's and Annas proclaiming him in the Temple the Hereditary malice of Herod's family and Party and who ever governed his not enduring a Rival the secret intelligence and Spies that might have bin set upon him and them and some discovery of his removal into Galilee their own negligence in not more carefully attending on him and all his motions whom God had so honoured and entrusted with the Guardianship of his Son and perhaps their fault in carrying him to Jerusalem when as the law dispensed with his age as yet for performing this Holy Ceremony Such thoughts as these might much afflict them besides such their love and affection to his most amiable person and obliging behaviour as could not with any patience endure him to be out of their fight In that sad night
what abundance of tears may we imagine especially his Holy Mother to have powred forth so that she had great reason to represent this her sorrow to her Son as soon as she regained him Your Father and I have sought you sorrowing How may we imagine this desolate Virgin now to have lamented like the Spouse in the Canticles cbap 3.1 2 c which also in a special manner was the Type of her as one above all other Spouses the dearest to her Beloved for ever Quaesivi quem dilexit anima mea quaesivi illum non inveni Surrexi circuivi Civitatem per vicos plateas quaesivi quem dilexit anima mea quaesivi non inveni All this grief meanwhile was well known to and foreseen by her Son amidst his Devotions in the Temple But these afflictions are the things which exceedingly endear the Saints to God and perfect in them his love and therefore he is so liberal in bestowing these upon them § 113 The next morning they return back with speed toward Jerusalem and at night repairing ta their former lodging neither there it seems heard they any thing of him which argues for this time of his absence his pernoctation in the Temple and so they must pass this second night also in great desolation On the third day morning conjecturing perhaps by his former practice the place of his affections they repaired to the Temple and there happily they found him this sorrow and joy being a Type of that they were for the like time to suffer at his Death and after three daies of their recovery of him again in a joyful Resurrection And here saith the Evangelist they found him sitting in the midst of the Doctors I suppose in the manner before related unless this his sitting among them and also his proposing Questions to them may be thought to argue his taking some authority upon him as an extraordinary Embassadour sent to them from God where the most apparent maturity of his Celestial wisdom abundantly supplied the defect of his age At this fight his Parents also were amazed saith the Text For as it repaired their joy so it could not but cause in them also great admiration that he who had hitherto observed so much humility and silence and privacy at home among the simple people there should now on a suddain disclose so much spirit and confidence wisdom and Eloquence abroad among the most learned sought out by him for that purpose § 114 Our Lord upon their presence dutifully rising and coming to them and taking this occasion to withdraw himself from that admiring Assembly his Mother in whom this sight had made still greater impressions of Reverence toward him asked him not to blame his action at all but rather to be informed of the reason of it as also lovingly to condole her past sorrows for the loss of him why he had done so to them Fili quid fecisti nobis sic telling him that she and his Father had undergone a great deal of care and grief in seeking for him Where we may note her modest including all she saith of his action that caused her so much pain in one monosyllable sic To whom he answered as unconcerned in any human relations and pleading no other thing than obedience to his Father for his excuse as he frequently doth else-where See John 2.4 Mat. 12.48 that they might have spared such their solicitude that he was to mind and attend the business for which that his Father had sent him Which early fervour of his for yielding in all things exact obedience to the will of his Father calls to mind what in the like case he said afterwards Jo. 4.34 in answer to his Disciples that it was his meat to do the will of his Father and Jo. 9.4 That he must work the works of him that sent him and Jo. 14.31 That as the Father gave him commandment so he did and Jo. 18. That for this cause he came into the world to bear witness to the Truth Which now first when yet a child he did in the midst of the Great Doctors by his Father's special appointment and order and of the Holy Spirit and wisdom wherewith he was replenished if perhaps now they would take any notice of this their Messiah by seeing the Holy Spirit and wisdom wherewith his immature years were replenished and by comparing his present age with the time of his Nativity which God formerly made known to them by the Magi whereas they carelesly then neglected those homages to him which Strangers performed § 115 The Holy Virgin and S. Joseph did not as yet well understand what our Lord meant by such an answer They knew well what he meant by his Father but not by his business Those things in particular which our Lord was to do and suffer in this his Mission from God for the Redemption of mankind being not as yet discovered to them As indeed no Saint was ever so great to whom God hath manifested all his mysteries and Counsels but this is done by certain Degrees that all may depend herein wholly on his good pleasure Neither is the ignorance of these things any fault in this Blessed Mother of our Lord. In Luc 2. c. 50. Of whose perfections thus Cardinal Tolet Licet magnam gratiae fidei copiam acceperit in Conceptione sua quando filium concepit tamen fide gratia ac Sanctitate indies augebatur And Possunt saith he multa mysteria ignorari absque ulla culpa Of which Mysteries also he observes that Saepe datur majora agnoscere non minora in his quae non propria virtute sed divina gratia assequimur ut sic ostenderetur omnia accepta esse a Deo ex gratia benevolentia § 116 Meanwhile the Holy Virgin whose great Reverence toward our Lord hindred any further inquiry into the meaning of his words or making any further reply let none of his words fall to the ground but carefully treasured them up in her heart From whom 't is likely the Relaters of these passages to S. Luke received them because this Evangelist makes several times particular mention of the diligence of the Mother of our Lord in keeping such an exact account So our Lord returned with his Parents to Nazareth He after this publick manifestation of himself and great applause continuing still the same obedience to them in all things and they observing him still with a greater degree of Admiration and Devotion In all which passages it seems strange that these Doctors after such a Visit and light given them of the extraordinary quality of his person should take no further notice of nor make any further inquiry after him nor yield him any sutable entertainment But perhaps the coming-in of such mean people there appearing as his parents might serve in some manner to abate their esteem of him and to draw a veil over the face of such lazy inquirers or also already
some reluctance we may conceive of his Parent 's inclinations and their greater admiration of such an humiliation considering his person but this inclination checked with a most exact observance of him in whatsoever he seemed addicted to I say this sufficiently appears from the words Mat. 13.55 56. and Mark 6.3 where upon our Lords entring upon his office and after some time coming also to his own Town Nazareth with a train of his Disciples and a great fame of his Miracles following him there to preach the Gospel among his Kindred and acquaintance it is said the Citizens wondred whence he should have that wisdom and knowledg and those mighty works considering his mean education and Kindred among them stiling him there the Carpenter's Son and in S. Marke plainly Maries Son and himself called the Carpenter for before that time it seems S. Joseph was deceased Wherein we see it was his Fathers good pleasure the more to shew Our Lords wisdom and knowledg to descend from above and to be infused by him that sent him that he should neither be sent to the famous School in Jerusalem for teaching and learning the Law as S. Paul was Act. 22.3 nor to any of those Synagogues mentioned Act. 6.9 Nor educated in the Temple among the Priests as Holy Samuel was being from a child dedicated to the Lord nor should retire into the Desart for Solitude and Contemplation as the Baptist Lives surely our Lord if indulging his own will would much sooner have chosen but in this his state of Exinanition should descend far below John and take on him not the form of an Hermit or Contemplatist but of a Servant and a poor Apprentice to an ordinary Trade and herein should earn his own victuals and serve his neighbours also as any had use of him for the greatest part of his life And as it was appointed that at 12 years of age before such Divine knowledg could be acquired by Industry he should make an admirable discovery thereof among the Doctors in the Temple tho this was then ungratefully or also enviously not taken any notice of by them so it was ordained also that all his youth should be spent in this laborious handycraft Whereby it might be most evident he stood in no need of human Arts or Sciences and also he might give the world an example after so great an humiliation of his being Gods only Son not to disdain to serve our neighbour in the lowest manual offices in any necessities concerning his Body or also Estate as well as Spiritual but whereby also he might the better disguise and hide the Dignity of his person till he had descended yet further to the lowest step of his Humiliation and accomplished his Passion on the Cross sect 121 For we find this education and mechanick trade of his to have bin a main scandal and after that his admirable doctrine and works had given an occasion of his being more enquired after to have bin spread all abroad and well known not only at Nazareth or in Galilee but at Jerusalem For Jo. 7.15 in the third year of his preaching as he taught in the Temple it is said the Jews marvelled and said How knoweth this man letters or learning having never learned From which also may be gathered that in his Sermons like to that discourse of his in going to Emaus were mixed many profound and convincing Expositions of the Law and Prophets and such as were not attainable by others if at all without much study therein To whom our Lords answer in the next verse giving this reason Viz. that they might know that his doctrine was not his acquired by any his industry or Art but his that sent him Learnt and revealed from above and brought out of the bosome of his Father Jo. 1.18 And his very kindred from this mean exercise of his youth when afterward he began to open and discover the hidden treasures of his wisdom not believing on him saith the Text Jo. 7.5 asked him why if he was such as he made himself he staid amongst them in Galilee and went not into Judea to shew himself there among the Learned when indeed our Lords usual abode in Galilee was for the safety of his Life Thus our Lords Carpentership was made no small mortification to him § 122 But yet this is imagined such Carpentors work as was exercised at home Some think that of a Wheel-wright and making Ploughs and Yokes and other instruments of husbandry for the service of his Neighbors Aratra conficiens Juga boum saith S. Justin Martyr Contra Tryphonem a very ancient Father this suting much better with the retirement and Devotions of so Holy a family and also with the privacy of our Lord's education than seeking here and there work abroad in other men's houses And this trade it is probable our Lord followed for some time after Josephs decease by those words in S. Marke Is not this the Carpenter the Son of Mary and so a little after our Lords Baptism mention is made of his Mother only none of Joseph as Jo. 2.1 Matt. 12.47 It seeming good to the Divine wisdom to leave our Lord for some time before his manifestation without any reputed Father here on Earth whose true Father was in Heaven Thus our Lord the second Adam eat his Bread for many years in the sweat of his browes subjecting himself herein to the curse laid upon the first his sinning fore-father in a Trade requiring much strength and force And his Trade an Emblem if happily an house-wright of his rebuilding that house of God which the other former had destroyed § 123 4ly It may further be gathered from the many hardships suffered even in our Lords tender Infancy his being born in a poor Stable carried away presently after in so weak an age some hundreds of miles into a strange Country and again brought back from thence as also from what is prophetically said of him by David In Laboribus a juventute mea Again from his many times professing that he came not to do his own will but the will of his Father where his own will denyed intimates natural inclinations different from his Fathers appointments concerning him but yet exactly subjected thereto and that he came not to be ministred to but to minister and when he had so many attendants that his behaviour amongst them was as of one that served and as one that waited on and provided for them whilst they sate at Table See Luke 22.27 spoken upon occasion of their striving among themselves for Honour and about that time also his washing their feet and lastly from the Apostle's expression that he took on him the form not of a man only but a servant From all these I say we may well argue that his youth was not passed without many mortifications and hardships such as poverty and handy-labour affords many great self-denials an exact obedience of his child-hood to his Superiours according to the flesh
rejoicing at the presence of our Lord when he also yet in his Mothers womb and their acquaintance only before they were born after his infancy his leaving his Fathers house and retiring into the Desart and solitude his rigid dyet raiment and habitation in some grot there his non-conversation with men and so neither corrupted with their manners nor distracted at all with human affairs and the Holy Spirit supplying to him all that knowledg of men's persons that was necessary to his high employments the many resemblances he had to Elias and also to our Lord in his doctrine and in his Heroical Virtues and especially in his stupendious humility and sufferings these things I say have bin partly described before § 4. c. in the Relation of the Baptists Nativity where the inquisitive Reader may review them § 129 To this great person therefore as yet in the Desart being about 30 years of age the appointed age under the law Numb 4.3 23. for the Priests and Levits to enter upon the exercise of their functions and half a year elder than our Lord as who was to be his forerunner and to appear abroad sooner came the word of the Lord that he should now leave his solicitude and enter upon the Office for which he had bin thus prepared and which emploiment doubtless he had much expected and longed for Upon which John came forth not immediatly to Jerusalem or into the Cities of Judea this honour being left for our Lord himself and the Kingdom of Heaven being to approach still nearer by certain degrees but into the out-skirts of the Desart of Judea and from thence removing to Bethabara where also our Lord sojourned for some time a little before his Passion Jo. 10.40 beyond Jordan near to the great Road from the East for passing over the River into Judea by which way the Israelites when they came out of Egypt walking through Jordan a type of Baptism as also their passing through the red Sea entred into the Holy Land and by which way they were afterwards carried away Captives from it to Babylon where also Elias the type of John after passing this Jordan was taken up in a fiery Chariot Here then John in his Spirit began to appear again and to proclaim as it were at a distance and afar off the speedy coming of the Jew's Messiah and of his Kingdom and to fulfil the Vox clamantis in deserto spoken of in the Prophets Some conjecture also the beginning of Johns thus proclaiming our Lord to have bin in September or the feasts of Trompets which was the beginning of the Civil year of the Jews Lev. 23.24.25.9 and this same year also to have bin a year of Jubile which well agrees with Esay 61.2 Vt praedicarem annum placabilem Domini and in which year of Jubile also was a greater concourse of people from all Forraign parts but the various computations of the age of the world renders this thing very uncertain § 130 Now then the Baptist began for a due preparing of the Nation for the reception of so great and Holy a Prince to exhort the people to a Confession and repentance of their sins and the receiving Baptism to that effect which he had orders from him that sent him to confer on all such as were penitent and to a speedy reformation of their lives for that now shortly all flesh should see the salvation of God and for that this Lord would come with his Fann in his hand and would throughly purge his floore gathering the Wheat into his Garner but burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire and because that now the Axe should be laid to the root of the Trees and such as brought not forth good fruit should be hewn down and cast into the fire Which things delivered with such an authority and gravity put his Auditors into a great consternation and fright and suddainly alarmed the whole Nation and especially the Hierosolymites being at no great distance from the place of his preaching and much frequenting him Whose wonder also was encreased by his appearance in such a desolate place and not coming into their Cities And his strange Habit of hair-cloth and being tyed with a leather-Girdle like Eliah and several of the ancient Prophets Esay 20 2◠2 King 1.8 Zech. 13.4 and his strange abstinence not eating any bread nor drinking Wine nor needing at all any human supplies for his food one part of his diet being a kind of Locust or Grashopper to be found every where upon the grass and which it seems was a Fare sometimes of the poorer sort in a case of necessity eaten by them either raw or boyl'd or also salted and dried mentioned in Levit. 11.22 and allowed there for a clean food and another part when these Locusts not to be had wild honey such as the wood-bees wrought in the hollow parts of Trees plentiful in this Country See 1 Sam. 14.26 and his abstinence such as the Pharisees concluded supernatural and so effected by his being possessed with a Devil his lodging also the hard ground in some Cave or Grot By which things this Preacher of Penance appeared also the greatest Example thereof that as yet the world ever saw These things I say still advanced their great esteem and admiration of him and gave greater weight and credit to his words the Pharisees ostentation of fasting being quite eclypsed by it § 131 To this also may be added his discovering the secrets of their hearts that came to him and discerning their several sins and delinquencies Mat. 3.7 tho having no knowledg of or conversation with them The Counsels and advices he gave them high and sublime and like unto those of our Lord. As among others that given to the people for the larger extent of their charity that he that had two Coats should impart to them that had none and so also should do for Bread and Meat These his Counsels rightly also fitted to every ones condition whilst for the amendment of their manners each one desired to learn from him the several Duties of their calling the things belonging to which he knew not by experience but the Holy Spirit His admitting contrary to the Pharisees all persons with an equal mansuetude and affability and not keeping more distance from those esteemed greater Sinners Publicans or Soldiers this reprehending the greatest with all freedom and without fear before all the people and receiving the humble though great offenders without expostulation or reproach All these wrought in the people an Opinion of the Baptist that he was some eminent Prophet or also the Messias though himself sufficiently disclaimed it § 132 Upon this fame To this new burning and shining Light as our Lord stiles him a great conflux was made after some time out of the whole Nation not only out of the nearer parts of Judea but also of Galilee From which Countrey among others we find Peter and Andrew his brother intermitting their fishing and
all hereby the more to exalt himself § 137 After that these Preparations were made and Our Lord now also had compleated the thirtieth year of his age at which age the Priests as hath bin said and Levits were admitted to administer in the Sanctuary Numb 4.3 23 and at which age his Father David was installed in the Kingdom of Israel and Joseph advanced to the government of Egypt Types of our Lord Now was the full time come that he should throw off his long disguise and manifest himself And herein should first receive in publick before John and all the people a Commission from his Father speaking to the world from Heaven and a Solemn Vnction to his Office from the Holy Ghost He then to whom also and to his Holy Mother all these things done by John were related by their neighbours that he might fulfil all righteousness and shew obedience to all ordinances instituted by his Father Johns Baptism being from heaven and not of men as he argues against the Pharisees Mat. 21.25 as also that he might give good example to other Galileans for which see what he did Mat. 17.27 ut non scandalizemus eos in doing any thing that lookedlike disobedience not many daies after 30 years old went up as many others from Galilee and humbly presented himself among the other multitude to receive Baptism from John as a penitent so habited so mortified with grief and confusion remembring the burden he had taken upon him for our sakes of the sins of the whole world and compleating the Confession and Contrition of all those poor sinners that stood with him desirous of the same Absolution and among the rest even those of the Baptist himself The place of our Lords Baptism probably from John 1.28 was Bethabara viz. where the waters being divided the people of Israel passed over Jordan with Joshua into the land of promise and whither our Lord also coming out of the Desart returned to John And it seems by S. Lukes words chap. 3.21 in which all the people were baptized c that there was a great conflux of people to John at that very time For indeed one end of John's baptizing was that our Lord should be made manifest to Israel Jo. 1.31 § 138 The Baptist tho living in the same house for three Months with him before they were born had never before seen this sacred person whom he was sent to proclame the Divine Providence for avoiding any suspition of fraud or compact so ordering that they should be educated in two remote and opposite corners of Palestine yet presently upon his appearance by the Spirit knew him to be Christ our Lord. For S. Jonn's Non noveram c. Jo. 1.33 as S. Chrysostome and others is to be understood more largely Viz. of the time before our Lords coming from Galilee and before the solemnity of the Baptism in which solemnity because the most evident testimony was the Holy Ghosts descent and sitting upon our Lord therefore it is instanced in by the Baptist as if he had said I knew him not at all formerly till the time when he came to be baptized and the Holy Ghost in the shape of a Dove visible to all sate upon his Head The Baptist then presently knew him and much astonished at his great humility in offering himself to receive this Baptism of sinners with a like humility prostrated himself before him and telling him that himself had need to be baptized of him desired to be excused from so great a presumption whose shoos-latchet he had formerly told the people Jo. 1.27 he was not worthy to untie But our Lord now no way disguising or concealing himself to John with a word that so he ought to fulfil all righteousness removed his fear and scruple and so in all humble obedience to his good pleasure John performed this Office to him § 139 Our Holy Lord so soon as he ascended out of the water without any entertaining himself with his Cosin and servant the Baptist though this was their first interview immediatly put himself upon the banck of Jordan in the posture of praier wherein we may presume he offered himself according to his words in the Psalme Lo I come as in the volume of this book it is written of me to do thy will O my God to all those hard services and sufferings for the redemption of mankind which his heavenly Father expected from him as we find he did a little before his passion Jo 12.17 desiring him to glorify his name at which time also his Father spake to him Jo 12. being in great desolation from heaven in the hearing of all the people Whilst our Lord was thus praying and the Baptist who had had a preindication from God that he should discern his Son by the visible descent upon him at his Baptism of the Holy Ghost and also the people who could not but observe the extraordinary reverence S. John gave to him or also some of them hear his words had fixed their eies upon him Behold the Heavens were opened and first descended from them with a stream of light the Holy Ghost in the appearance of a Dove the innocency and harmless simplicity of which gaulless peaceful and mourning creature Our Lord recommends Mat. 10.16 and several qualities in it observed to resemble those of the Holy Spirit are mentioned by the Apostle Gal. 5.22 1 Cor. 13.4 which streaming Dove rested or sate upon him as was presignified by God to John and probably remained so according to Jo. 1.33 till hasting toward the Desart he was carried out of their sight § 140 This appearance again was seconded with a Voice from the opened heaven and from the Divine Majesty there declaring to the world This person to be his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased The words as also the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him are pre-related in the Prophet Esay 42.1 and cited also by the Evangelist Mat. 12.18 and do reveal to the world this joyful news as if he had said This is my Son the long expected Messias the new and perfect Legislator that declares all my will that is the Compleatment of all the Prophecies the only Mediator between me and sinners the Redeemer and Reconciler of the world unto me and my meek Lamb that takes away the sins thereof the only Holy and Eternal High Priest Lastly the King and Lord of the Universe In whom nothing at all displeaseth me and in whom I have bin pleased from all Eternity and except in whom none other pleaseth me and in whom all others may please me but unless through him I cannot love sinful man concerning whom the time was that it repented me at heart that I had made him Gen. 6.6 but which grief this my Son hath removed and again reconciled all things to me § 141 The same with which words were spoken a second time in the Holy Mount out of a bright cloud nearer hand when this
to qualify and lessen the great and suddain fame that might be of him which also was done for our example from that publick testimony they saw given by the other persons of the Trinity the Father and the Holy Ghost as also in the rest of his life he used frequent concealments of himself and enjoyned others silence for the non-preventing his future sufferings that so his six weeks absence and non-appearance might a little remit the former expectation and the Baptists immediatly sending all men after him whose manifestation was only to be discovered by certain degrees and therefore when returning from the Desart his stay with the Baptist much proclaiming him was only for two or three daies § 150 After his forty daies abode in this desolate place prostrated as Moses in his Fast before the Divine Majesty in praiers and intercessions and such Contemplations of God as his types Moses and Elias had formerly enjoyed and probably accompanied as they with a suspension of his natural faculties and a perpetual fast our Lord began when such his Devotions were ended and nature returned to its ordinary functions to be vehemently an hungred The Devil even the Prince of them as may appear from Matt. 25.41 Apoc. 12.9 who had narrowly watched Him hitherto and looked upon him with such an envious eye as he did on our first parents in their Innocency but could not attack him whilst in praier when this was ended and he saw also so great an hunger to pinch our Lord which our first parents had not when he prevailed with them to eat forbidden meats had entertained hence some hopes of prevailing upon his infirm humanity as he did on theirs viz. not to wait for his Fathers Provision for him in due time of such food as was necessary but with a power of Miracles presently in an extraordinary manner after such a meritorious Act of forty daies fast to supply himself with it In which Temptation also he hoped to make some advantage in reminding him of the dignity of his person and suggesting unto him that he was the Son of God Especially at this time the honour done him lately not only by the Baptist but from God himself both the Father and the Holy Ghost from heaven and now also the great Change of his life entring upon the office of the Messias might seem to have elevated his thoughts and ambitions above the temper of his former meanly entertained condition For tho the Devil had heard those glorious words pronounced from Heaven but lately at his Baptism and in his ranging every where for prey probably was well acquainted also with all the former miraculous passages of his life lead also hitherto without all sin and with all the prophecies concerning our Lord if we see how readily he afterwards quotes Scripture to him and how in his first accosting of him he pressed his being the Son of God yet since our Lord was also clothed with our infirm flesh he might not so perfectly discern the Hypostatical Vnion of such his lately assumed Humanity with the Deity nor how far it might be invested or assisted therewith and its weakness receive influences from it For this General enemy of mankind saw this his human nature clothed with all the infirmities as here in suffering hungar and passions or affections of it Whereby his flesh or sensitive appetite at that of others did naturally desire things delectable to it as meat drink rest sleep c. But yet these desires were alwaies such as were perfectly subjected to the guidance of right reason and wholly ordered and moderated by it and such wherein he had hitherto never sinned though it is most likely that Satan had not forborn before to tempt him as others to some exorbitancy therein even from his child-hood and again were such wherein he was also by reason of the Hypostatical Union of this nature to the Deity and perfect sanctification thereof by it utterly impeccable though this not known to the Devil Our Lord saith the Apostle not only felt our infirmities Heb. 4.15 but was in all points tempted like as we are i. e. by external objects occurring and inviting his nature to the use of them but without sin this sensitive nature was ever so overruled by reason as never by the least consent of his will to proceed to any excess beyond the bounds set by the Divine Commands Poterat quidem anima Christi saith S. Thomas 3. Q. 15. Art 4. resistere passionibus ut ei non supervenirent praesertim virtute divina sed propria voluntate se passionibus subjiciebat And In nobis quandoque hujusmodi motus non sistunt in appetitu sensitivo sed trahunt rationem quod in Christo non fuit quia motus naturaliter humanae carni convenientes sic ex ejus dispositione in appetitu sensitivo manebant quod ratio ex his nullo modo impediebatur facere quae conveniebant § 151 Therefore from this his liability to passions and the new change of his life Satan conjectured a fair opportunity for begetting in his humanity in his former life hitherto so poorly treated some Elation of mind and vain ostentation of its transcendent dignity and present advancement Or supposing Satan knew such an Union of this his humanity to the Deity as that our Lord could not possibly commit the least sin and that his present temptations were but in vain as all his former had bin yet was his malice to him so extream as it could not let him rest so far as God permitted and he rejoyced to give him some molestation though with a greater mischief to himself a quality we observe also in the Devil's children malicious men who do not forbear to afflict their neighbors in their own suffering much greater dammage § 152 He then as soon as God had relaxed his chain invades our Lord and probably appears to him in some comely and Glorious shape as we may conjecture from his last temptation wherein he desires Adoration from him Or as some think to be more sutable to the place shewed himself in the habit of some religious Hermite Or perhaps not disguising at all who he was which also was well known to our Lord subtilly desired some evidence of the supereminent Dignity of our Lords person as it were for his own satisfaction and that he might know his due subjection to him His request therefore was that if he were the very Son of God as he was lately proclaimed from heaven to be he would for the honour also of his human nature hitherto so meanly treated now shew an act of his Divine omnipotency and taking some pitty of its present necessities command those Stones that lay before him to become so many loaves of bread especially since in that desart place he could expect no other ordinary supply As indeed long ago in the like necessity the same Lord out of the stony Rock in the Desart brought forth water And the more kind
and harmless the request here seemed to be the more dangerous the temptation Whilst hereby the Devil hoped to allure him for the glorifying of his humanity to shew some superfluous and vain-glorious act of his power as he mingled with our first parents taking the forbidden fruit a vain ambition of knowing good and evil and to make some breach of his former resignation and obedience in this his state of humiliation to his heavenly Father as the impatient Israelites also in the Desart when pinched with hungar presently became clamorous against Moses and would not attend Gods good time and leasure for making provision for their wants § 153 Our Blessed Lord standing upon his Guard and acting all things according to the present design of his coming into the world Viz. to do entirely and only his Fathers good will and pleasure through whatever sufferings though he might here with his most Soveraign authority have presently banished Satan from his presence as he did at the last and have dismist him with some sharp reproof Yet to give us herein an example he chose rather to answer him though such an one in the Spirit of meekness and according to what S. Michael the Arch-Angel did Jude 9 or our Lord not indulging himself so much not medling with the person of the tempter chose to reply to the Temptation And here also he preferred to frame all his three replies out of the word of God A direction which the Apostle hath left us Tak saith he the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God as for the most powerful way of repelling this evil Fiend by our shewing to him Gods command contrary to his suggestions As also our Grandmother Eve when yet in innocency at first answered Satan tempting her Gen. 3.3 That she had a command from God to the contrary This well but she stood not firm to it § 154 To this first Satanical temptation therefore that he should presently with an extraordinary hand make the Stones about him bread to satisfie the hungar of such a Supreme Lord and one so dear to God he as it were reflecting on the former miscarriage of Gods people when an hungred and thirsty in the Wilderness in their presumptuously demanding a Miracle before its time returneth to this Tempter those words of Moses in Deut. 8.3 spoken by Moses concerning the Manna given to them so miraculously from heaven telling Satan it was written there That Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God The context there runs thus He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with Manna which thou knowest not that he might make thee know that Man lives not by bread only but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Intimating that we are for any our wants with patience to depend on the Divine providence and provision who is all-sufficient and able with a word to supply our necessities as he did that of his people in the Desart with Manna as also that his meat and drink and life was the observing his Father's word and command and the yielding a punctual obedience thereto As if our Lord had said here to Satan what elsewhere to his Disciples Jo. 4.32 34. I have meat to eat that thou knowest not of My meat is to do the will of him that sent me But lastly what need of a Miracle here where he could as he pleased satisfie his hungar by other ordinary means either by feeding on Johns food in the Desart at hand or by speedily quitting the desart receive it elsewhere Yet this our good Lord who would not here at such a person's request relieve his own forty-daies-fast with a Miracle did afterward out of compassion and also to hew thee who he was with a Miracle supply the peoples fast though suffered only for a day or two Mat. 15.32 Thus the Devils temptation instead of elevating our Lord to some pride by which himself fell or curiosity in shewing vain-glorious and superfluous wonders or sensuality in lusting after food produced in him only an act of humble submission obedience and resignation to his Fathers good pleasure and Orders § 155 The Devil finding no entrance of Pride or self-exaltation into our Lords humanity this way presently devised another Our Lords hungar being also thus longer continued until all his temptations were finished and removes our Lord out of this privacy and melancholick recess into a place of greater State magnificence and resort and so taking him up saith the Text carried him speedily out of the Desart into Jerusalem Which taking him up the Preface to the temptation following is to be reckoned also no small temptation and trial of our Lords humility and annihilation to suffer himself to be hugged upon the shoulders or embraced in the arms or touched with the pawes of such an horrid and accursed Beast as our Lord in whatever external shape knew him to be For the transportation seems to be literally understood and real not representative only in a Vision Which Vision would either imply that our Lord's humanity must be so far imposed-upon and deceived by Satan as to think it real or if this transportation known to our Lord to be only a shew must much weaken the Temptation § 156 Brought hither he carries him streight to his Fathers house the Holy Temple sumptuously built by Herod and sets him on the very highest place thereof one of the Pinacles we may imagine of the Porticus or tower which was raised higher than the rest of the Fabrick and which faced the Courts Here Satan supposing the place might some way also sublimate our Lord his thoughts if it did not work the other way upon him that his danger of falling might beget some fear in him and diffidence towards God Here I say he minds him again of his being stiled the Son of God and that if he was so he would shew to him and perhaps to all the people that stood in the Courts if such his station was visible to them who he was and would by an act of his power provide for his safety in securely casting himself down from thence and relying on the support of his Servants the Angels waiting there to catch him an hand he had much rather fall into than those of Satan Especially when from this summity where he was placed there were no stairs or other passable descent And because also it appeared by our Lords last answer that he made his Fathers word his Rule Satan now also produced Scripture as he usually doth to those he deceives but misapplied that God had given his Angels charge concerning him and that in their hands they should bear him up c. which place if not particularly meant of him alone yet spoken in General of all Gods Servants must also be truely extended to his Son § 157 Our Lord still remaining fixt upon the basis of his humility and
13.55 are said to be James and Joses and Simon and Judas besides Sisters there also mentioned See Hegesippus apud Eusebi m l. 3. c. 10 26. and these are thought to be the sons of Alpheus supposed brother to S. Joseph and elsewhere called Cleophas and of Mary his wife See Matt. 10.3 compared with Matt. 27 56. called Mary Mother of James Mat. 27.56 Mark 16.1 and called Mary of Cleophas i. e as some suppose wife of Cleophas Jo. 19.25 and called there Sister to the Blessed Virgin i. e a near Kinswoman Unless we will suppose her to be wife of Alpheus brother to S. Joseph and Father of our Lords brethren and daughter to Cleophas a person distinct from Alpheus and Brother to Joachim the Blessed Virgins Father or to her Mother Anna. But if Cleophas be supposed Brother to S. Joseph then Alpheus may be brother to the Blessed Virgins Father or Mother and thus our Lords brethren will be his nearer Kindred Salome also wife to Zebedee is supposed a daughter of Alpheus and so her sons James and John our Lords Kinsmen I say these brethren of our Lord seem to have removed their habitation to Capernaum For they made not only this journey with him thither but here we find them again Mat. 12.47 compare 13.1 and Mark 3.20 21 31. comp 2.1 13. and 3.1 7. where the Synagogue is that in Capernaum And it seems their so solicitous looking after our Lord Mat. 12.46 was for his taking some refection the importunity and pressing of the multitude disturbing the due times of his repast Mark 3.20 and excluding his nearest friends from him and his zeal also of instructing the people and bringing them into the Kingdom of Heaven whom he campassionately beheld Matt. 9.36 as Sheep having no Shepherd which zeal some of his unbelieving Kindred thought mingled with some excess Mark 3.21 making him neglect his sustenance and the care of his Body Here it was also Jo. 7.3 as appears by the context that his Brethren perhaps having also some little touch of ambition spake to him that he would go and shew himself rather in Judea some of them having as yet some distrust of his Messiasship and high pretences when they saw him keep so much in Galilee though this necessary for prolonging his life till the time was come of his being offered up and far from Jerusalem and the Highest Court of the Nation there as also from the Court of Herod It is most probable also that these his Brethren attended on him in most of his peragrations and excursions through the other Cities and Towns of Galilee and elsewhere they and our Lords Mother are mentioned Act. 1.14 among the attendants of our Lord at his Ascencion and if they had not bin part of his ordinary Train and Auditors he would not have called two of them Viz. James and Jude to have bin of the number of the twelve And it appears that our Lord had many as it were constant followers of him besides the twelve by those 70 that besides the 12 were sent abroad by him by two and two to preach the Gospel Luk. 10.1 and by what S. Peter saith Act. 1.21 § 178 As for his Holy Mother also we cannot think but that she preferred the hearing of his Sermons the beholding of his wonderful works and the consolation of his ordinary Conversation beyond all other things of this world but by which also she became a great fellow-sufferer in all the affronts and reproaches given him in the most of his life time as well as at his death For we find many other women also as well as men that were his usual followers and every where provided necessaries for him and his Apostles As also afterward some of the Apostles in their Peregrinations had the attendance of women for providing them necessaries see 1 Cor. 9.5 And such of these as were rich ministred to him also of their substance Many women were there by the Cross Mat. 27 55 56. saith S. Matthew which followed Jesus from Galilee ministring unto him Among which saith he was Mary Magdalen Mary the mother of James and Joses our Lords Brethren and so she the wife of Alpheus And the Mother of Zebedees children Salome The same is said by S. Luke 23.55 24.10 he adding there Joanna the wife of Herods Steward And chap. 8.1 2 3. the same Evangelist saith that as our Lord went throughout every City and Village preaching c. the twelve were with him and certain women Mary called Magdalen Joanna Susanna and many others which ministred to him of their substance And we find Salome's request to our Lord for her two Sons was not made at Capernaum but some where upon the way in his last journey to Jerusalem wherein she with many other women waited on him as hath bin said See Mat. 20.20 comp 17. 29. So that I may say our Lord had an Holy Court of pious men and women following and attending on him in most of his travels Among these therefore was our Lords Blessed Mother and she most diligent in the same offices and contributing also the little she had to the common charges or supposing she had nothing was by the other more wealthy supplyed with necessaries as our Lord was Yet I say not this of a perpetual but of a frequent attendance whilst they sometimes also were absent and ordered other necessary affairs but then the residence of our Blessed Lady seems to be not at Nazareth but at Capernaum whither our Lord made frequent returns from his journeys about the Country As for the Nazaren's words Mat. 13.56 His Sisters are they not all with us This may be said only of his Sisters exclusively to his Mother or Brethren or may be understood of their ordinary former abode there § 179 Our Lords staying at Capernaum was not long the great solemn Paschal feast of the Jews now approaching He is commonly said to have received Baptism from John January the sixth after which having spent six weeks in the wilderness and some time afterward with the Baptist in collecting some Disciples and then making some little stay at Cana with his kindred and the Paschal Feast being celebrated at the full Moon it March accordingly our Lords abode in this City was not above a fortnight or three weeks In which time is no mention of any publick Predication of his the entrance upon which perhaps was intended to be rather at Jerusalem and in his Fathers house there mean while employed in more private Discourses and instructions of his Disciples and others Though his Miracle done at Cana having so many witnesses must needs be much talked of there and the Dignity of his person and the Baptist's Testimony of him by his Disciples communicated to many others and the same thereof also gone before him to Jerusalem At the great Feast of the Pasch he went up thither accompanied with his Disciples as for the observance of the Feast so there solemnly
Deeds confirming his words who henceforth continued his faithful though secret Disciple and in the Council when our Lord was spoken against Jo. 7.51 desired they would but hear him what he might say for himself thinking that thus themselves might be as much taken with him as was their Officers in Jo. 7.46 and himself here This of our Lords gratious discourse with Nicodemus but whether all that is said in S. John chap. 3. from vers 10. to the 22. be our Lords words or part thereof from vers 16. be S. Johns dilating upon them is uncertain And the like happens in many other discourses found in the Evangelist much resembling one another § 186 The Paschal feast ended our Lord not trusting himself to the Hierosolymites Jo. 2.24 Jo. 2.24 where the Pharisees that had already conceived so much hatred against him in seeing his boldness and spirit far beyond the Baptists and the great concourse of the People to hear him had so much power and followers departed thence and went into the Country and the other Cities of Judea where he was also followed by very great multitudes as appears Jo. 3.27 and preached to them we may presume such things as before to Nicodemus concerning repentance and the washing away their former sins by Baptism and their Regeneration of the Spirit concerning his Passion and Mission from God his Father and belief in him for remission of sin All which he confirmed also every where with charitable miracles among them in ejecting Devils and healing their Infirmities which miracles the Baptist did not therefore his Brethren afterward Jo. 7.3 making mention of the Disciples and followers he had in Judea advise his return to them and the shewing his mighty works among them § 187 Here also he caused such as were his Penitents for he and his also in the first place preached Repentance as well as John See Mark 1.15 6.12 Luk. 10.13 Act. 2.38 and Converts to be baptized probably many of them together in places convenient to be baptized by his Disciples saith S. John himself not baptizing except those his Disciples that baptized others Epist 108. or some one of them to administer it to the rest For as S. Austin he that descended to the Humility of washing their feet would much more to the ministring of baptism but yet if the Apostle saith he was sent to preach not baptize much more might our Lord busied in greater affairs in teaching and relieving the peoples necessities delegate this inferior office to his Apostles as a thing which was to be continued after his departure in the succession of them to the end of the world whereas we do not find that the Baptist committed or propagated this Office to any of his Disciples but continued it only himself till it utterly ceased after that our Lord became more publickly known at the time of Johns imprisonment which followed shortly after For Johns Baptism was only preparatory to that of our Lords his signifying remission and cleansing from former sins through faith in him that came after him Act. 19.4 Our Lords conferred an ability also to live holily for the future by giving the Holy Spirit and planting Gods Grace in the Baptized for newness of life and bringing forth good works Though those extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit also was not as yet conferred as were after our Lords Ascention and sending down the Holy Ghost at Pentecost in all its miraculous and Stupendious operations and effects Of which effects it is that the Evangelist speaks when he saith chap. 7.39 That the Spirit was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Such a difference therefore being between John's and our Lords Baptism S. Johns hindred not but that those baptized by him came and received it afterward from our Lord by the hands of his Disciples as we see S. Paul meeting at Ephesus with some that had received Johns Baptism yet rebaptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus Act. 19.5 and it cannot be thought but that many of those thousands of Penitents Act. 2.41 and 4.4 that were Baptized by the Apostles had received it formerly from John § 188 The Baptist also to give way to our Lord so soon as he began to make his peragrations in the Country and Cities of Judea had removed farther off toward Galilee and so nearer also to the Court of Herod He having often changed his station to communicate his Ministry during his time appointed more freely to several parts of the Nation Who at the first preached on the West or hither side of Jordan in the wilderness of Judea where he had formerly spent his life not very remote from his Fathers house after removed to Bethabara beyond Jordan in Peraea belonging to Herods Jurisdiction where our Lord was baptized by him Hence also departed further from Jerusalem left as I said to our Lord and from the Pharisees his great Enemies into the more Northern parts baptizing now not in Jordan but in Enon upon the coasts of Galilee not far from Jordan and where was a River flowing into it Whence probably King Herod also hearing of his Fame sent for him heard his Sermons and consulted him also in his Affairs But of this more hereafter § 189 Whilst our Lord thus preached in Judea and John in the Borders of Galilee the self same Doctrine and Gospel Repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven and Salvation brought into the world by the Son of God Jesus to whom John bare witness as such and whilst both were frequented by much people but our Lord by many more than John as for other reasons his great Majesty and authority in Teaching his Miracles of all sorts so for Johns sending and referring all men to Jesus and Johns Baptism also relating to his for compleating it Satan upon this begun to stir up some emulation and controversy between their followers and also concerning the dignity of their persons as appears by John's answer to them which was to be preferred the Disciples of John having a zeal for their Master strangely severe and mortified in his diet apparel fasts retreats and one from whom our Lord also received his Baptism and yet seeing a much greater concourse of people after our Lord one more free and popular in his Conversation and many more receiving Baptism from him than from John and on the other side our Lords followers among the Jews justly and that from the Baptists own mouth and frequent confession preferring both the Baptism and Person of Jesus This then doubtless was some ground of their Contest but some think there might be some disputation also between the Disciples of John and of the Pharisees concerning the Virtue of the former Mosaical Purification and cleansing viz. whether those not equal or much preferrable with this new Rite introduced by the Baptist and afterward continued by Jesus Hence S. John's Disciples came to him and told him complainingly that the person who came to him for
her water-pot behind her ran presently into the City which also was the intent of our Lords talking with her Viz. to communicate the Gospel also to these first fruits of the Samaritans who were half Israelites and Midlings between the Jews and Gentiles And told them that surely the Messias was come and was in the field or at least some great Prophet that had told her all things that ever she had done upon which the men of the City also hasted and came forth unto him § 202 Mean while his Disciples were returned from the Town with provision for dinner and as they came near perceiving his familiar discoursing with the Samaritan woman wondred not a little at it from the strangeness they knew was between the Jew and Samaritan and perhaps from the little converse our Lord had formerly used with wemen especially so alone and commonly his discourse only of the kingdom of God and spiritual matters which to a Samaritan seemed impertinent and such a one little capable thereof But standing in great reverence durst not ask him concerning it but when she was now gone away invited him to take his dinner To which well knowing this their wonder and so intimating to them what he had bin doing he told them transferring the discourse to higher matters as he did that with the woman concerning her water that he had meat to eat that they knew not of that it was his meat to do the will of him that sent him and in all places to finish his work toward those to whom he was sent Signifying to them that he was also among others to intend the conversion and salvation of these poor and despised Samaritans and of that foolish people in Sychem as they are called Ecclesias 50.26 that whereas they reckoned yet fower months unto harvest there appeared a great harvest every where to be gotten in as it were prenoting to them the conflux that would be made to him presently out of this City that the feilds were white already and the world prepared for the reapers the same Metaphor he used again afterwards when in Galilee great multitudes flocked unto him Mat. 9.37 sorry the labourers in this harvest were so few He proceeded also to tell them that they were chosen to be the reapers thereof and to enter upon the former labours and tillage of the Prophets and to gather much fruit to be stored up in life eternal where also both the former sowers and they the latter reapers should at last receive their full wages and rejoyce together in those Heavenly Treasuries § 203 By this time the woman was returned out of the City and a multitude of people with herto see our Lord the Prophet she told them of and to hear his further discourses concerning their Religion To whom our Lord in great compassion having preached as he did formerly in Judea the Gospel and Kingdom of heaven and remission of sins through belief in him the Saviour of the world with such his speeches he so opened their hearts for these were a part of these fields he spoke of that were already white unto harvest that the men overjoyed gratefully cold the woman that they had now received much more satisfaction from our Lord himself than from her relation concerning him and so much importuned him for a longer stay with them where having spent two daies more for their confirmation in the faith he thought fit to depart lest by such his longer conversation with them some scandal might be given to the Jews Among whom also as being the former Church of God the Gospel was in the first place to be published and therefore in sending his Disciples abroad he commanded them not to enter into any Towns of the Samaritans though himself was pleased in passing as it were to reap this first fruits thereof As also elsewhere he healed and converted to believe in him some other Gentiles and not Israelites Mat. 15.26 8.10 whom he saw extraordinarily prepared thereto And it is very observable for a further conviction of the ingrateful obstinacy of the Jews that this poor despised people were the first of his Auditors we read of that after his first called Disciples without also any Miracles of his shewed among them made such a noble confession of him saying We know that this is indeed the Christ and the Saviour of the world Which conversion of the Samaritans our Lord perfected some three or four years after as our Lord was now ascended into heaven by sending his Apostles thither before their spreading further to the Gentiles See Act. 8.5 6. At which time also we find the same credulity and alacrity in this people as is here And the people saith the Text with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake as commonly those more grosly erring are sooner convinced thereof and reduced to truth § 204 After two daies stay in this place Our Lord went on his journey for Galilee and returned to Cana where he had formerly done the Miracle of changing the water into Wine the Fame of which as also the Galileans in their going to the Paschal feast there having seen the great miracles he had also done at that time in Jerusalem made this people to entertain and welcome him with very great applause and concourse and much better prepared for receiving his Heavenly doctrine and counsels the chief business for which he descended from heaven And by the Divine providence so ordering it that our Lord also might be the more welcome and secure among the Capernaites in particular where he designed his chief Residence it then so happened that the Son of a Noble man and Royal Officer in Capernaum fell sick and his life at last utterly despaired of Whereupon his Father hearing of our Lords miracles and of his return into those quarters hasted to Cana and there humbly besought him that he would vouchsafe to come down speedily to Capernaum and heal his Son who lay at the point of Death which also afforded our Lord an occasion of declining Nazareth where he knew his former mean education would render the function of his office less beneficial and the miracle might make also his return to Capernaum much more acceptable and desired § 205 Our Lord making some delay and reprehending his Auditors that without miracles they were so slow to believe the Noble-man again importuned him to make some hast before his Son was dead Whereupon he presently dismissed him with this answer that his Son lived signifying to him that he would heal him as well without going to him Which thing as he believed so he found most true when taking leave of our Lord and departing presently upon it meeting his Servants the next day he perceived from them his Son 's perfect recovery punctually at the time our Lord spoke these words and so he and his whole family were converted to the faith of the Gospel some imagining him to have bin Cusa an Officer of Herod's
and Susanna that afterward followed our Lord and ministred to his necessities Luk. 8.3 to have also bin his wife § 206 Our Lord after some time leaving Cana came to Capernaum where he made his most ordinary residence Of the situation of which and the great conflux of people thither the frequency of Cities in those parts by reason of the extraordinary fruitfulness of the soil some of that part called Decapolis from the many cities there the convenience of passing any whither upon the Lake and the remoteness from Jerusalem and from the molestation of the Pharisees and chief Priests things well serving our Lords designs Of all these I say see before § § 101 102. Here saith the Evangelist Mark 1.14 and every where as he passed along the Country our Lord began to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God telling them that the promised time of the coming of their Messias was now fulfilled and this Kingdom at hand that therefore they should repent and believe his Gospel And it seems Jo. 4.45 that this meaner and ruder people or Galilee received him now at the first with much more honour and attention to his doctrine than the Judeans attracted also therto by his miracles Here his Disciples Peter and the rest returned home and not as yet invited to a closer attendance as also for the better providing for the necessities of their families betook themselves to their former trade off fishing and meanwhile our Lord by his Miracles and healing their sick brought in daily greater flocks of people to hear his Sermons this latter being his chief design for salvation of their souls as the other theirs for releiving their corporal necessities And his fame was suddainly spread all abroad throughout all Syria saith S. Matthew and there followed him great multitudes from the other parts of Galilee he had North and from the East side of Jordan and the Lake and from Judea and Jerusalem more South in fine from all Quarters round about So that it was necessary our Lord should recollect to himself the Disciples he had formerly called and add some more to them that should depart no more from him but give a perpetual attendance on his affairs and assist him in his predications after they themselves had first as his constant Auditors received from him all necessary instructions therein He also had now an intention for some time of leaving Capernaum and making a peragration throughout Galilee as to the places not already visited and after this of crossing the Sea of Galilee and passing to some remoter parts being after this to present himself at Jerusalem in the Paschal feast now not far off In which travels the attendance of his Disciples was necessary to Him Which circuit also he began in the entrance of the week following § 207 As our Lord therefore was walking one day by the side of the Lake and much pressed by the multitude that followed him crowding to hear the gracious words that came from him Simon Peter and his brother and the two sons of Zebedee who were their partners and had bin fishing all the former night but caught nothing had there as he passed drawn their Ships to the shore and were washing drying and repairing their Nets Our Lord therefore entred into Simons Boat and desired him to put off a little from the winding of the Land that from thence he might with more convenience finish his discourse to the people After which ended to reward Simon for this courtesy as also to presignify first to him and his fellows in their catching of fish the miraculous success hereafter of their catching of men he bid Simon to launch out into the deep and let down his Net for a draught Simon telling our Lord that their former night-labour more seasonable for that purpose had caught nothing yet in confidence of good success did as our Lord commanded and presently so great a number of fish were inclosed that the Net broke which accident also was a type of the ruptures by Schism and Heresies which should afterwards happen also in the Church and in Simon and the rest their catching of men whereupon he called for help from their partners James and John that were in the other ship both the Ships being loaden therewith so as they were near to sinking this also signifying that the purity of the Christian Religion should be much endamaged by the multitudes of bad as well as good entring into the external profession thereof And as elsewhere he likens the Kingdom of Heaven or Gospel to a Net catching fish of all sorts but many of these afterward cast away Mat. 13.47 § 208 In all this our Lord seems to have done a particular honour to Simon Peter To whom it was that he spake first to thrust out his Ship a little from the land and to let down his Net for a draught by him that this great draught of fishes were caught and others called in to help to him that the promise was first made of his catching men and the post haec capies bomines said to Peter singly here as the pasce oves was after our Lords resurrection He also much astonished hereat falling down at our Lords feet acknowledged himself unworthy so great a favour or that our Lord should vouchsafe his presence or conversation to so sinful a person And this profound humility and reverence of his made way for our Lords further bounty and kindness and himself still taken nearer unto him the farther distance he imagined he ought to keep from him bidding him not to be afraid for the Majesty of our Lord from some extraordinary discovery from God Peter had thereof such as that in Mat. 16.17 when he was enlightened by God the Father to know his Son had strangely daunted him for that he would have him from henceforth wholly to quit his former employment and constantly to be with and attend on him and his ministry for that he would make him now a fisher of men together with the rest of his companions and partners Andrew James and John All whom upon this gracious invitation immediatly quitted their Boats and Nets and the great draught of fish he had but now bestowed upon them leaving also the care of their servants unto Zebedee the Father of James and John and so followed our Lord now without any more departure from him as before Transported with this honour he did them mean fishermen when also they saw the whole world and even the great ones thereof so admiring and running after him They left all saith Jansenius Non ut nullam amplius cum suis haberent consuetudinem sed quod nulla amplius eis esset rerum suarum cura nullaque possessio omnibus quae habebant relictis potestati propinquorum And we may gather from S. Peters words to our Lord Mat. 19.27 that they left all in some such manner as the sad rich young man being advised to it refused and by our Lords
to them and to be an accidentary diminution of their present pains Yet again the absence of good Angels from the Court of Heaven and the glorious appearance of Gods Majesty there when they sent hither is recompensed with the joy they have in doing Gods will and succouring his Servants here below so the relaxation the Devils have from their low imprisonment seems counterpoised in their ascent with the gnawing grief they have here by reason of their malice its being so frequently defeated and the good Angels and also Holy men ruling over them and Gods continually bringing his greater good and Glory out of their evils and by their punishment after the last day to be increased according to the evil also they have done on earth As for souls departed hence the return of them hither out of those places of joy and repose above or of torment below wherein they are received till the last day is much more uncertain especially concerning the damned And the frequent apparitions that are made here of Saints departed or if any such have bin of some souls that are in hell all these may be represented by the ministery of Angels good or evil Pardon this digression Now to go on § 212 The Devil thus supplicating our Lord not to destroy them adds further that he well knew him who he was the holy one of God as the Devils did frequently at other times See Mark 3.11 where they also fell down before and worshipped him and Luk. 4.41 the Devils saith the Evangelist came out of many crying out and saying Thou art Christ the Son of God for they saith he knew that he was Christ See also Acts 16.17 18. He being either made to speak this truth out of constraint and against his will or out of flattery hoping so to find some favour from him who was neither able to carry his prey away or himself to quit the place Our Lord first commands him silence as elsewhere Luk. 4.41 and as also the Apostles Acts 16.18 not accepting any such testimony from the Father of lies which Author also might render it suspicious and therefore speak it that it might not be believed and charged him also to leave the person So roaring out again amain as if dreading those greater sufferings to which he was remitted or at least the loss of his prey he threw down the person in the midst of the people and so left him without any further hurt This is the first Devil that is mentioned to have bin cast out by our Lord as still greater works by degrees are shewed by him and the first Confession made by them of his person and of their subjection to him upon which the people much admiring cryed out what virtue and power hath this man that the Devils streight obey his commands § 213 After this our Lord departing from the Synagogue with his four Disciples entred into the house of Simon Peter at noon there to take his dinner See Luk. 14.1 where it seems was his ordinary abode when in Capernaum Here Simon Peters wives mother lay sick of a Feavor probably seizing on her but the night before otherwise our Lord would have bin importuned for her sooner whom he presently healed with only touching her with his hand and rebuking and commanding the feavor to depart from her who presently arose and helped to provide necessaries for them For the rest of the day being the Sabbath he was free from the multitude till the evening after sun set But then saith St. Mark all the City were gathered about the door bringing their sick to be cured as also several possessed with Devils whom trembling and confessing him as the former had done in the Synagogue that he was Christ the Son of God he presently silenced them both as unwilling to borrow any testimony from such vile and detestable wights and as these unseasonable now discovering the Dignity of his person which tended to the prevention of his sufferings and contradictions he was to undergo as also proposing himself in a pattern to us of modesty and humility in not permitting any thing to our own praise to be said in our presence § 214 All people thus flocking after him the next morning for preventing the like concourse and likewise for preparing himself for his intended journey and circuit about Galilee he arose a great while before day and before the Disciples were awake or aware of it and departed into a solitary place and there betook himself to prayer probably giving thanks here to God his Father for the gracious benefits afforded to mankind by his ministery and petitioning for his Auditors their bringing forth worthy fruits thereof and also for the future like success thereof in those other parts of Galilee of which he now intended a visitation And here in such his retiring into solitude and that by night a time not encombred with other employments giving us also an example how we may best perform our devotions without distraction by night-watching and retirements S. Peter and the other Disciples when risen and missing him in the house went out after him and having found told him that all men sought for him And by this time also the people had discovered where he was and so importuned him for a longer stay and that he would not depart so soon from their City But he answered them that he must preach the Kingdom of God also to other Cities and people for therefore was he sent § 215 So leaving Capernaum for a time Our Lord departed to preach the Kingdom of God in the other Cities and Towns of lower Galilee doing this especially in their Synagogues on the Sabbaths And then after his Sermons and cures applyed to their souls ordinarily healing their sick and freeing the possessed attended meanwhile with his Disciples and followed by great multitudes of people and by several of the Scribes and Pharisees some as his Converts others as spies upon his words and actions their envy toward him increasing with his fame and applause As for the following History of our Lords Travels Sermons and Miracles in Galilee which are more fully related by the three first Evangelists there seems a great uncertainty as to the time and place of several of them these all endeavoring brief relations and chiefly intending the matter but not the Order as a thing of less consequence Nor is the contexture of these stories in the Harmonists though gathered by them with a most diligent and scrupulous observation of the circumstances and of any necessary connection expressed in any one of the Evangelists yet so evident or agreeing with one another as that there doth not remain probable arguments of ranging several of them otherwise Therefore I shall without much solicitude or anxiety in a matter which seems by no industry clearly decidable nor an errour therein much damagable chuse to follow that Method wherein the most of them do consent and have already pitched on § 216 Our Lord then
Ship and for the more convenience out of it preached to the multitude that followed him still until the evening he without returning to Capernaum or taking some repose appointed his Disciples to dismiss the people and staying still in the ship bad them presently to pass over to the other side of the Lake perhaps having some great compassion of the miserable Demoniacks that were there But there being several other small ships in the Port some others also entred into them and still accompanied him In their sailing thither-ward there descended a great storm of wind upon the Lake whilst our Lord wearied with his daies service or rather to try the faith of his Disciples was retired into the hinder part of the ship and there lay a sleep upon a pillow when by the waves beating into the Ship and it already seeming full of water and ready to sink the Disciples exceedingly affrighted having forborn hitherto to disturb our Lords rest suddainly awaked him saying Master Master save us we perish Whereupon he streight rebuked the Wind and the Sea saying Peace be still and then blamed them not for repairing to him in this their danger but for their great fear and want of faith as he doth very frequently want of faith in God who expects a confidence in him which also cannot be without some degree of love of him not only in the just and his Servants but also in sinners among whom also the just ought to reckon themselves a confidence sutable to the most vigilant Divine providence extended not only to the good but to all the Creation Whilst he is as exceeding faithful to the righteous so exceeding merciful also to sinners when they make their humble addresses to him and this also is a great honour to his mercy that sinners also believe in it and this faith also in them is a very effectual means of receiving such his mercies But our Lord might much more blame their want of faith in him after that they had now acknowledged him the Son of God and seen so many of his former Miracles After his rebuking the winds and Sea followed immediatly a great calm and a very great wonder and astonishment and fear and reverence of him timuerunt timore magno both in the Disciples and those in the other Ships accompanying him partakers we may suppose both of the same danger and deliverance this being the first miracle they had seen of this kind § 221 Our Lord the next morning landed in the Country of the Gadarens or Gergseans a region given by Moses to the tribe of Reuben Dan and half that of Manasses probably now inhabited partly by Israelites the cause of our Lords going thither partly by Gentiles as may be gathered by such store of swine nourished there to be sold to the Gentiles Roman Soldiars and others which seems by the mischief happening to these swine to have bin a fault in those of the Jewish Nation and to have so many waies displeased our Lord. Upon his arrival presently two possessed and strangely distracted with some torn rags about them came running towards him which if they had not of themselves none could have brought them to him and fell at his feet and worshipped him Both of them hideous spectacles but one much fiercer than the other who tore all his cloths and day and night making grievous outcries cut his flesh with sharp stones and who having bin often bound with chains when the fits came on him brake them in pieces nor could he be shut up in any house but both of them ranged in the Mountain and among the Tombes which were placed out of the cities and commonly digged in some rocky places see 2 King 23.16 places of greater horrour sought out by the Devil in which these men lay and were so outrageous against any they met with as none durst pass by that way Yet so soon as our Lord was landed they came submissively to him for the Devils soon perceived his presence and had had already some intimation from him of their departing and releasing those miserable creatures And first like the former possessed person in the Synagogue confessing who he was and pleading they molested not nor gave any affronts to him they besought and then adjured him by God by whose eternal laws their extreme sufferings were yet deferred that he would not presently send them away into the Abysse nor torment them before the time of which see before § 210. nor yet expel them out of that country these having by Gods permission perhaps certain regions and circuits of their ranging assigned to them wherein they are with all diligence to serve their Prince the God of this world as the Apostles stile him and being perhaps more addicted to the places wherein they have done much mischief § 222 Our Lord the more to discover what a condition and crowd of them were gotten into one of these miserable wretches which also caused such a strength and fury in him beyond ordinary Demoniacks no way to be mastered and to shew what a palace they esteemed such a lodging and what solace the mischief they can do in and to it when ever permitted asked this unclean Spirit what was his name the evil Spirit for the great multitude of them gotten into this hold and perhaps for moving the more his compassion to them being so many expressed it by the word Legion a military term as these evil Spirits serve a perpetual warfare against man which hath bin used by the Romans in several times for a various number but ordinarily for many thousands From which may be gathered what an infinite multitude of faln Angels there be and which coast up and down in these lower Regions out of envy seeking the perdition of men As likewise what a strict guard and protection God hath over us that the malice of so many thousands of them should be confined to and imprisoned as it were in one person and lastly from which is manifested the great Majesty and power of our Lord not only over single but whole armies and Legions of them supplicating at his feet and flattering him with his Titles § 223 Now there being higher in the Mountain and not far off an herd of about two thousand Swine feeding the Devils therefore besought our Lord the rather hoping to obtain such their request of a Jew that they might enter at least into the Swine Unclean Spirits into these unclean Beasts which our Lord permitting they carried the swine down a precipice from the hill and drowned them all in the Lake Wherein these evil Spirits presently betrayed their malice endeavoring by this to incense the Gadarens and the owners of the swine doubtless no small number of persons against our Lord as indeed it happened though by this means they presently dispossessed themselves of that harbour and lodging for which they so earnestly importuned our Lord. Which shews also in the possession of men their greatest consolation to be
doing the more hurt to them and others and that if permitted they would have as soon dispatched the two possessed as they did the swine though to their own dammage and their incurring perhaps some of those greater sufferings they so much deprecated Meanwhile our Lord who well foreknew what would be the issue yet for many good reasons might permit the fact first hereby to shew more manifestly what a number of Devils were ejected out of the man by their dislodging none being indulged to have more than one into such a number of swine and what a preservation thus the whole country received from our Lord. 2ly Again hereby to make a tryal of the virtue of the Gadarens whether for the freedom and redemption of those miserable objects of their pitty their brethren and fellow-citizens out of the cruel hands of so many Devils they would resign and take chearfully the loss of some of the most unclean and unnecessary of their goods which loss the owners of them being so many to any single person might not be great as also to shew us how much the saving of another man is to be valued beyond that of our own estate 3ly Perhaps also since these creatures are unprofitable any way save for food and this prohibited the Jews Levit. 7. â—1 Deut. 14.8 to punish thus a fault in the owners of them if Israelites nourishing such numbers of them which were only saleable to strangers and neglecting provisions more serviceable to their own people or Country Or if these swine kept by forraigners only to punish the affront and contempt thus offered to the Jewish Nation and their laws in a country rightly belonging to their possession 4ly Lastly to shew the perpetual mischiefs and damages these evil Spirits could and would do even to any thing belonging to us if they were not restrained by the divine goodness § 224 These and many other good ends might be of such a permission But this accident according to the rudeness of that people had a much contrary effect For the swine-keepers hasting into the Town and declaring our Lords arrival there and what had happened to the two miserable possessed men also what to the swine the inhabitants presently upon it before our Lord entred into their city went forth to prevent him And though they could not but have heard of our Lords many miracles wrought elsewhere and many among themselves had need of the like mercies and though the loss of their goods was no way valuable to the salvation both of their souls and bodies by this gracious visit of the Messias had no sence of such happiness But instead of returning our Lord thanks for the poor mens delivery out of such a slavery beheld by them now sober and clothed and magnifying our Lord and humbly sitting at his feet instead of sitting down with them and hearing his Divine words or bringing their sick to him and inviting him and his Disciples into their City being much offended with what had passed and dreading rather what might happen upon such another dispossession to the rest of their goods intreated our Lord to leave their coasts as if the Devils after leaving the swine had seized upon them § 225 But meanwhile by such a notable circumstance of the loss of the swine the fame of our Lords miracle on the possessed and soveraignty over such an army of devils was rendred much greater And from hence also may be observed that God many times in this world but alwaies for the more advancing our salvation hereafter doth not his favours so gratis that they shall be qualified on our side with no other Crosses by which price as it were we may seem to purchase them of him though the one be unconsiderable in respect of the other There must be here usually some tarantello joyned with the bello And these people by the undiscreet impatience of a small damage with which our Lord made the tryal of them lost an unvaluable treasure and reward for it viz. the Gospel that now came to visit them and the rescue of their whole country from the spiritual slavery of Satan § 226 Our meek Lord to this uncivil and ingrateful carriage and treatment of the Gadarens whose City as Josephus saith De Bell. Judaic 5. c. 3. was the chief Metropolis of that whole country and who were the only people that whilst all the world courted and run after him desired to be rid of him making no reply and being not departed far from the Ship that brought him returned into it not receiving for himself or his poor Disciples the least hospitality or refreshment from them and as he had said a little before to the Scribe not having there where to lay his Head Only the man that was dispossessed of the Legion cured we see in soul as well as body followed still after him and when they took shipping desired he might go with them perhaps having some fears lest left behind the Devils expell'd should reseize upon him But it was our Lords pleasure that he should rather abide in his own Country that had seen his former misery and He who elsewhere forbad others to speak of the cures and mercies shewed them yet commands him there to publish the miracle he had wrought and proclame how great things God to whom our Lord here for our example ascribes his good actions had done for him and had had compassion on him to publish it I say in a place where they were so little sensible of it Nordid our Lord that we read of ever return to this place again observing that lesson he gave to his Disciples not to cast pearls before swine nor force the Gospel and religion and as it were endeavour to break open the dores of mens understandings upon them that teaching being most what without success that is not willingly received Unless we may imagine this repulse came from the Divine Providence that this eastern side of the Lake half-Gentile as the great number of their swine also intimates should not as yet be enlightened with the Gospel as neither the Samaritans till it first amply preached to the main body of the 12 Tribes § 227 From hence our Lord returned to Capernaum his usual retreat and to his accustomed lodging there probably the house of S. Peter and perhaps they for this expecting custome from him and Peter he ordered him to pay it the report of his return spread abroad a multitude or people so many saith the Evangelist as there was no roome to receive them even about the door gathered to him to hear his Sermons and to bring to him their sick among which multitude were many great persons Pharisees and Doctors of the Law come from Judea as well as Galilee In the house then he taught the people and healed all the sick that could get to him the Pharisees and Doctors as persons of more note there sitting by him and narrowly observing all his words and actions §
left all rose up and followed him Luk. 5.28 But the Glory and wisdom of our Lord was exceedingly set forth in this passage whereby he first shewed them again what he had said before that he had power to forgive sins and what he said to them afterwards that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance that by the example of his own humility condescendence and mercy to the most despised conditions endeavouring to abate the Pharisees pride and encourage like the Baptist before him all penitents in what ever state of life to apply themselves to him not breaking a bruised reed or extinguishing the smoking flax but above all whereby he shewed that he did not find but make fit for his service those whom he admitted to it and acted all things with a great Majesty over mens spirits like a God and himself this operation upon the mind of the Publican in the midst of his business being a greater miracle than that done but now upon the Body of the Paralytick § 232 St. Matthew much overjoyed and so his fellow-Publicans with this singular favour done him streight quitted his Bank and the same day invited our Lord and his Disciples to his house and there made him a great feast saith S. Luke though S. Matthew himself passeth over the matter more slightly only with a factum est cum occubaret in domo without an ipsius and so also when he names himself he adds Publican and Matthew the Publican chap. 10.3 which Feast also served for a farewel entertainment to his friends and former acquaintance a many of which were Publicans and so also these sate down at the Table and eat with our Lord and his Disciples in which matter of eating and drinking the Jews especially used the greatest caution of any defilement and therefore the Pharisees refused the invitement or to mix with such a Society And now their displeasure growing to the height began to break into words which before was smothered in their thoughts § 233 They then after this entertainment question yet not with out Lord himself but his Disciples first why they and especially their Master a man of so much Sanctity did so familiarly converse and eat arid drink with Publicans and sinners By sinners meaning the common sort of people not so strict in their lives nor wary for their conversation nor diligent in their purifications nor frequent in their fasts and Devotions nor strict in their tithes and other severities as the Pharisees were therefore reckoned by them unclean besides those who were scandalous for other faults Luk. 7.39 Upon which account the Pharisee elsewhere wonders that our Lord would suffer Mary Magdalen to touch him and from his companying with such liberty they aspersed him as a glutton and a wine-bibber Our Lord overhearing them or otherwise knowing their words then as their thoughts before first answered them as usually in a Parable that they that are found and whole need not the company of the Physitian but they that are sick And thus he justified such his conversation upon the account of his being a Physitian and sent not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance so his disciples were excused as being there not for theirs but his company But otherwise doubtless for these that are not spiritual Physitians but themselves also sick such company ought most carefully to be declined 1 Cor. 6.10 2 Thes 3.14 all sin being very contagious and also by our withdrawing from it to be discouraged This account given for himself He also knowing the Pharisees great defect herein zealous in their shew of service toward God but failing in their charity and mercy toward their neighbour bids them learn better the meaning of that saying in Osee Chap. 6.6 I will have mercy and not Sacrifice God preferring mercy to our Brethren before Sacrifice to himself By which most prudent answer of his those poor penitents that surrounded our Lord received much consolation and the Hypocritical Pharisees an inward conviction and confusion § 234 Silenced here they proceed again to question our Lord and to expose him to some publick shame in a matter they supposed yet much less defensible in which also to make their party the stronger they joyned with them the disciples of John the Baptist notwithstanding the great disesteem they had both of him and his followers Now these disciples also had an emulation of the great fame of our Lord and also had learnt of their Master the frequent practice of fasting and had also received from him certain forms and directions for prayer see Luk. 11.1 as our Lords disciples afterwards did from him and from the erant jejunantes Mark 2.18 some think this was one of their fasting daies These therefore rather chosen to be the speakers more to aggravate the matter from the rules and prescriptions of the Baptist one so much commended by our Lord applyed themselves now to our Lord himself but questioned him only concerning his disciples as before they asked the disciples concerning him And it was at a very seasonable time too when they both came but now from a feast their demand was why whenas both they and the Pharisees used frequent fasts his Disciples did not so but did eat and drink thinking hereby to force him either to condemn fasting or his own followers for omitting it § 235 Our Lord neither discouraging the Disciples of John nor prejudicing his Order nor as yet discovering the Pharisees Hypocrisy in their fasting which he well knew see Mat. 6.16 answers them again in a Parabolical manner first that the children of the bride-chamber could not mourn and fast whilst the Bridegroom was with them in a time of joy and a ready supply from him all-powerful of all their requests and desires but that the daies would come when the Bridgrome should be taken from them and then they should fast in those daies Fast and also make praiers in such a superlative degree as that those of the Baptists disciples and of the Pharisees were no way to be compared to what hath bin practised since in the Church of Christ And among the Christian fasts our Lord also is thought here to have had a special regard to the solemnizance of Lent which the Church should observe for ever specially relating to this Bridgroome at that time his being taken away from her by a most cruel death But after this reason of his disciples not mourning and fasting for the present the joyful presence of the Messias Our Lord adds another but this also delivered in Parable viz. that a new piece of cloth was not to be sowed on an old garment lest the rent should thereby be made worse nor new wine poured into old bottles lest so they should be burst and the wine spilt intimating that for the present before their renovation by the Holy Spirit his Disciples were not as yet so capable of receiving or practising the strictness and severity
the custome of the Jews See Jer. 9.17 2 Chron. 35.25 were called thither and by their doleful Notes and Voices according to the design of these excited the grief of all those friends and acquaintance that came to lament with the Parents of the deceased Our Lord commanded their silence and slighted the matter to do this great miracle with the more privacy so the less as yet to provoke the envy and persecution of the Pharisees as also to be a pattern herein to us of avoiding applause He excluded all others and took only into the roome the parents of the Damsel and three of the Disciples a competent number for witnesses and taking the deceased maid by the hand bid her arise which she presently did her soul returning to her and walked before them Our Lord to shew the cure perfect bidding them to give her some food the parents and Disciples must needs be much astonished hereat This being for the Rulers honour and rewarding of his patience the first of the only three persons our Lord raised from the dead during his whole life time And therefore this as the first done with more secrecy the raising of the widows Son more openly and of Lazarus again more publickly than that And his power herein also was manifested by several degrees First this maid was raised not long after deceased and whilst yet lying in her bed but the widows Son when already carried forth to be buried And lastly Lazarus after his having bin buried and lain four daies in his Grave The Parents then being enjoyned secrecy but no way perswaded thereto thinking it a part of their gratitude to divulge it Our Lord departed toward his own lodging in Capernaum § 241 In the way two blind men followed him desiring testorement of their sight and stiling him the Son of David i. e the promised Son to whom the Kingdom of David should be restored see Luk. 1.32 and see the like of other blind men Mat. 12.23 and Mark 10.47 52. which was an act of great faith in them Our Lord took no notice of them in publick but when come into the house he first to try and strengthen their faith asked them whether they believed that he was able to do such a thing and then touching their eyes with his hands imputed the cure to their faith enjoyning them also secrecy but in vain to men so overjoyed As these cured blind men went out from our Lord they brought to him one possessed with a Devil that rendred him dumb and speechless Which Devil being cast out the dumb presently had his speech restored to him the people wondring and praising God the Pharisees raging and blaspheming and divulging among the people when their mouths were stopt as to his other miracles that for his ejecting Devils he did it by the power of the Prince of the Devils with whom he was in league over the rest his Subjects perhaps by them now at first in our Lords absence but afterward in his presence too where we shall also meet with our Lords answer to it § 242 After our Lords residence for some four months at Capernaum and elsewhere in Galilee as appears by Jo. 4.35 42. and his visiting all the Cities and Villages thereof teaching in their Synagogues preaching the Gospel healing their sick and doing many miracles among which was the raising of the Rulers young daughter deceased to life the next Paschal feast of the Jews now approached being the second of those feasts succeeding his baptism and he now in the thirty second year of his age For the Celebration whereof our Lord together with his Disciples went up to Jerusalem whose words and actions there are delivered to us by S. John writing after the rest of the Evangelists and supplying many things omitted by them who declareth chiefly these his words and actions transacted in Galilee the place of our Lords ordinary residence for declining the fury of the Pharisees and Rulers of the Jews till the appointed time of his Death was at hand § 243 Here then S. John first relates a Miracle done at Jerusalem by our Lord upon a much-known Paralytick Done on the Sabbath day and further the man bid by him to take up his bed and walk contrary as it seemed to their law forbidding them the doing any work Exod. 20.10 and particularly bearing of any burdens Jer. 17.21 22 which thing when discovered by the great ones among the Jews to have bin done by our Lord so highly enraged them saith the Text as instead of magnifying him for so great and charitable a Miracle they not only persecuted but thought to stay him for causing such a breach of the Sabbath Jo. 5.16 The Story is this Near the Sheep-or beast-Gate and not far from the Temple was a great pool said to have bin made first by Solomon where the Sacrifices were to be washed and made clean before they were carried into the Temple This pool serving for such an Holy use an Angel of God at certain times but uncertain when or how often or whether more usually at the feasts descended and moved or troubled and muddied or ruffled the waters thereof After which motion discerned the first person any way infirm of his limbs lame blind withered paralytical c. that could get into the water was immediatly and perfectly cured which curing of one only shews it to proceed from a peculiar divine dispensation and not any natural cause and this because rarity recommends and sets a great value on Gods works as we see our Lord also of many infirm that then lay here cured only one In the five porches thereof built for this purpose and the place therefore called Bethesda i. e. Domus misericordiae lay a multitude of infirm people waiting for the troubling of the water Among these was a poor man lying on a bed that had laboured under his infirmity thirty-eight years inveterate and incurable who also had lain there a long time by reason of his poverty having no help and still prevented by others stepping into the moved water before him § 244 Our Lord visiting this Hospital if I may so call it on the Sabbath made choice of this man on whom to shew his mercy restrained here in order to his passion from such universal benefactions as he wrought in Galilee both as being a greater object of charity and his long infirmity well known abroad and as one having a bed the carrying away of which bed on the Sabbath he knew would give the Jews much occasion of inquiring after him that commanded it and by which he might shew to them more publickly his authority and commission and whence he was and that he was both Master of the most veteran and incurable diseases and Lord also of the Sabbath After his having asked him first to excite his faith and expectation whether he had a desire to be cured and heard his doleful complaint who hoped it only from the waters he bad him presently
take up his bed and walk Upon which the impotent man was instantly cured and carrying his bed on the Sabbath was presently questioned by the Jews probably these inquirers being either the Pharisees great zelots for the Sabbath or some of their Disciples for the breach of it in so doing who answered them that he was bid to do so by the person that cured him But our Lord there being a throng of people in the place he presently conveyed himself away and returned into the Temple All which occasioned the cure to be more taken notice of and the person looked after that had done it nor could the poor man give any account of him But a little after he repairing also to the Temple probably there to render more solemn thanks to God for his cure Our Lord now discovers himself to him and minding him of the mercy he had received exhorted him to amendment of life least a worse thing yet should happen unto him in die irae if not in this Rom. 2.4 5. yet after this life § 245 The man after he had paid his due adoration and thanks hasted to the former busy enquirers after the Author of his cure and told them it was Jesus doubtless thinking he should advance his honour and esteem with them thereby But it happened much otherwise for instead of this they sought his death for his own breaking in doing this cure and causing the other man also to break the Sabbath Our Lord then questioned by them concerning it as he was often for the like and made them great variety of answers and defences for it by which they were still silenced at this time answers them as absolute Lord of the Sabbath that he was to do the works for which God his Father had sent him among which was restoring the lame giving sight to the blind c. Mat. 11.5 whether this were on Sabbath or week daies or whoever should suffer scandal thereat But his answer now again was made by them worse than his fault collecting hence an higher accusation for destroying him because faith the Text he not only hath broken the Sababth Jo. 5.18 but said also that God was his Father and made himself equal with God which equality had the Jews miscollected from our Lords words as the Arrians say they did probably our Lord or the Evangelist would have reflected on it § 246 But our Lord well knowing his time not yet come of being delivered into their hands with the same undaunted courage and infinite charity and zeal after their salvation prosecuted his former discourse and took this opportunity to declare to them plainly and fully who he was his Union and intimacy with God his Father and why he was sent by and from him into the world and with what authority and power that all might provide for their Salvation by the believing in and the honouring of him as they did the Father See his Sermon made to them Jo. 5. The chief Contents whereof were these That in nothing he sought his own will our Lord having the same natural affections as other men but these in all things subjected to the Divine good pleasure and disposal but the will of his Father That he did nothing of himself but what he saw his Father do and that as he heard of him so he judged that all judgment also was by the Father committed into his hands see the like Mat. 11.27 Jo. 3.35 and the power of doing whatever the Father doth That every one who heard his words and believed that God had sent him should not come into condemnation .i. e. for his former sins now remitted in him but was passed from death to life speaking of death and life spiritual and eternal and of their regeneration thereto by the Spirit See 1 Jo. 3.14 that they who marvelled now so much at the present works he did namely in curing of diseases c. should yet hereafter see far greater from him namely upon the hearing of his voice by the Archangel all that are in their graves coming forth and receiving from him their final doome the good to the resurrection of life the evil to the resurrection of damnation the like things of his hereafter coming in the clouds c. he told to them before his passion Mat. 26.64 and to Nathanael Jo. 1.51 Angels waiting upon him and going hither and thither as he sent them that therefore it was the Fathers pleasure that all should believe in and do honour unto the Son as they did to the Father whose words and actions were the same and they saw and heard God the Father in the Son And concerning his being such a person and the words he spake to them Truth that they had an abundant testimony though considering his person his own was sufficient Jo. 8.14 16. First from his Father 1 both that which he gave them from heaven concerning him at his Baptism the like to which was done twice afterwards at our Lords tranfiguration before three witnesses Mat. 17.5 which is mentioned again by S. Peter 2 Epis 1.16 17. and at his solemn entrance into Jerusalem before his passion God the Father then from heaven speaking to him Jo. 12.20 23. perhaps for a testimony also to the Greeks or Gentiles see Jo. 7.35 who then first admitted by the Apostles came to worship and to make their humble addresses to him which foresignifyed salvation to be shortly after communicated to them by his now approaching death And a-again 2ly that testimony which his Father gave to him in the Miracles which he wrought by him which testimony he frequently urgeth See Jo. 10.25 38. 15.24 2ly A Testimony from John the Baptist though having that of God he needed not that of men which John was sent before him amongst them as a burning and shining light till the time he was to be eclipsed and silenced and they some of them at least were willing for a season to rejoyce in his light 3ly Testimony also from the Scriptures in which they thought were contained the way to eternal life which Scriptures had they duly searched they might have found them abundantly witnessing of him Lastly testimony from their lawgiver Moses in whom they had so much confidence who also spake clearly of him Jo. 1.45 Deut. 18.15.18 where upon petitioning that they might not hear again the voice of God nor see that terrible fire c he tells them that God would raise them up a Prophet like unto him and would put his own words into his mouth c and to him they should hearken whose words would sufficiently accuse unto God his Father their infidelity though our Lord should hold his peace But that notwithstanding such witness and evidences they would not believe because they had not the love of God in them nor as our Lord did sought the honour that only cometh from him through whatever worldly disesteem but was envious ambitious which shews he spake chiefly to the Pharisees and
their Disciples see Mat. 23.5 and intended only the advancement of their own honour with men which they saw our Lords eclypsed They sought to justifie themselves before men saith S. Luke 16.15 and they did their works that they might have glory of men Mat. 6.2 and they loved the praise of men saith S. John more than the praise of God Jo. 12.42 and this ruined their faith founded on humility and obedience sancta stultitia ut sapiens fiat 1 Cor 3.18 that therefore whilst now they thus rejected him who coming in great humility spake all things unto them in the name of God his Father and no way magnifyed himself nor sought as they his own Glory Jo. 7.18 8.50 by Gods just judgment upon them they should hereafter be given up to follow others who came to them in their own name many seducers and false Prophets neither by true miracles or other testimony shewing their Commission from God as he did Which things were eminently fulfilled by this nation prone to follow those who pretended themselves Prophets not long after our Lords ascent into heaven by many Heads of their factions provoking the Roman Armies and the destruction of the Nation following upon it § 247 Our Lords Sermon being ended occasioned by the Jews accusing him first for a breach of the Sabbath in his curing the Paralytick and then again of Blasphemy in the defence he made for himself In which discourse of his they and said only truth in it said he made himself equal with God A new Controversy concerning the Sabbath happened again not long after on this manner On the first Sabbath succeeding the Paschal feast as S. Lukes word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is commonly understood in reckoning in the seven Sabbaths till Pentecost from the second day of the Paschal-feast On this or some other so called Our Lord with his disciples perhaps in his removal now towards Galilee after the feast ended or as some think in his going from Mount Olivet through the vale to Jerusalem passed through some corn-fields probably in going to some Synagogue there to instruct the people as was his ordinary practice on the Sabbath and as may be conjectured from the multitude of people that followed him and among them some Pharisees who quitted him not watching most narrowly all his waies words and actions for materials of accusation against him Now some shorter journeys on the Sabbath were not disallowed because of repairing to the publick places of Gods service when at some distance from mens habitations In this field the Disciples or some of them at least being much an hungred began as they passed to pluck the eares of corn and so rubbing them in their hands to eat it a thing indulged by the law to any travellers through their Neighbours corn Deut. 23.25 and a thing commonly done had it not bin on the Sabbath and so this labour done in it Viz. of rubbing the eares in their hands For it seems on other Festival daies besides the seventh day of the week which festivals were also called Sabbaths See Lev. 23.11 15.24 32. though in these also they were prohibited the doing of any servile work yet they might then do any thing relating to preparing their diet see Exod. 12.16 But on the seventh day they were prohibited any work whatever See Levit. 23.7 comp 3. even in order also to their daily food as to making any fire for dressing it c. Exod. 35.3 Though this again could not be so strictly understood as that no motion might be used on that day in order to our diet as the carrying or setting it on a Table the cutting of it into pieces or putting it in their mouths And the Disciples food here seems to be a provision ready-dressed there only remaining their picking it out of the ear to put it in their Mouths The Pharisees streight observing this their rubbing of the eares instead of any Compassion toward the poor disciples who endured much hardship both as to diet and lodging in this ambulatory life of the Lord they waited on fell on quarrelling again at their breach herein of the Sabbath and hereof made their complaint to our Lord. To whom he answered but out of the Scriptures several things all intimating that these zelots were too strict and scrupulous in this matter He represented to them then that David in a kind of necessity was excused in eating of the Proposition Bread and prohibited to any save the Priests That the Priests in the Temple on the Sabbath-daies for the necessary performance of their office profaned the Sabbath Viz. in the work of repairing the fire on the Altar killing and preparing the Sacrifices c. and were blameless herein whence the Jewish proverb that In Templo non est Sabbathum which Temple if it excused them that there was here one greater than the Temple the attendance on whom and the wanting of other necessary provision might excuse the Disciples in this fact That himself was Lord and Author also of the Sabbath as also of the whole law and a Judg of the true observance or breach thereof our Lord taking occasion every where to let them know who he was that so they might believe in and have salvation by him And that the Sabbath being made for the benefit of man the rest thereof was not extended to deprive him of any necessaries And besides these he pressed them again with that place in Hosee I will have mercy and not Sacrifice Herein upbraiding their hypocritical pretences of sacrifice religious ceremonies and the worship of God to discountenance works of mercy and charity which on this day as to others so much more may be performed to our selves and this in particular of repairing our bodies therein with necessary sustenance that therefore if they had well known what that saying meant they would not have condemned the guiltless Thus our Lord where his urging misericordiam volo non sacrificium and Davids and the Priests fact in a case of necessity argues his disciples though t is probable in a morning as his own hungring was Mat. 21.18 much pinched with hunger and that in this ambulatory and Pilgrim life they made many poor meals and missed many and so their Master too And that the same happened to them for lodging And therefore he forewarned the Scribe that would attend on him Mat. 8.19 what he must expect § 248 To this Quarrel concerning the Sabbath the Evangelist adds another happening on another Sabbath perhaps the next Our Lord now returned into Galilee and probably to Capernaum went as usually into their Synague and taught Now there stood before him a man that had his right hand withered And the Pharisees observing it and nothing bettered by our Lords late answer to them watched him whether he would heal him on the Sabbath that they might have saith the Text still more accusation against him Our Lord perceiving their wicked thoughts having first called forth the
Galilee and again Luk. 9.10 Such a desert near to Bethsaida whither he retired with his Disciples returned from their preaching and where also he fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes and also where he is said to have bin alone praying Luk. 9.18 which seems to be the desert wherein was this Mountain And Rogier in his Terre Sancte L. 1. c. 10. saith the Oriental Christians conceive the same Desert to have bin the place of our Lords miracle of the five loaves viz. some where between Bethsaida and Tiberias And indeed many texts seem to confirm it not easily explained otherwise For Luk. 9.10 It is said to be a Desert near Bethsaida John 6.23 Tiberias to have bin near to the place and Boats to come from thence that carried away the people perceiving our Lord gone thence to Capernaum Mat. 14.13 The people said to have followed him from the cities on foot i. e. by fetching a compass whither he was departed by ship Jo. 6.14 Our Lords return to have bin first to Capernaum and after passing to Genezareth Mat. 14.34 which is called a transfretation because made over a great Bay of the Lake though not crossing it As for the 30 furlongs mentioned Jo. 6.19 these may be understood of their rowing to and fro against a contrary wind The latter feeding also of the four thousand Mat. 15.21 seems to have bin in the same desert the place being said to be near the Sea of Galilee at his return from the Coasts of Tyre and Sidon he not taking ship first but going there into a Mountain Mat. 15.29 And in the same mountain seems to have bin our Lords Transfiguration if we well compare the Context and our Lords motions before and after it His being in the Town of Cesarea Philippi or Decapolis lying North of the inferior Galilee see Mark 5.20 7.31 Mat. 4.25 a little before and returning to Capernaum after it See Mark 8.22 27. -9.2 30 Mat. 17.22 24. and the multitudes and Scribes there following and attending on him as usually about Capernaum Mark 9.14 well considering these I say Our Lords Transfiguration seems to have bin also in this Mountain And this from our Lords so much frequenting it as well as from his glory manisted there to have bin called by S. Peter the Holy Mount which hill also standing in the midst the chief habitation of his Galilean Disciples and Converts seems also to be the appointed place of his apparition to them after his Resurrection § 252 In this Mountain saith the Evangelist before the Election of his twelve Apostles our Lord continued all night in prayer leaving herein to us an example of our like preparation by much prayer before actions of any great consequence The matter of his prayer not expressed may partly be gathered from that most passionate one he made for these Apostles also a little before his passion for the conservation of them after his departure set down John 17. and from that at the same time made for the Head of them S. Peter that his faith might not fail Recommending these much to his Fatherly Benediction who were to be the twelve Foundations whereon his new Church was to be built for perpetuity maugre all the Gates of Hell Eph. 22.20 Mat. 16.18 who were to be the salt for seasoning and preserving eternally from corruption the putrifyed world ever since Adams fall and the Tapers to enlighten it sitting hitherto in the darkness of Heathenism and vain and uncertain Philosophy who were to suffer all the world over such hardships and persecutions and at last most cruel death for his Name and who were to have their twelve Names written on the twelve Foundations of the Golden Celestial Jerusalem Apoc. 21. Namely praying that these might be furnished and fortifyed with all Graces worthy so high a Profession but also herewith a most admirable resignation of our Lord to his Fathers good pleasure in the election of Judas Iscariot and in the entrusting him afterward with the common purse of his maintenance and charities which Judas however at the time of his Election he might seem in a capacity for such office preferrable before others yet our Lord then well foreknew his future ill correspondence with it and it seems from our Lords words Jo. 6.70 that a whole year before our Lords passion and this servants betraying of him he had then much of the Devil in him unless these words be to be understood prophetically and relating to his future Treason And for-as-much as these his twelve Apostles are a type of his Church this example of a Judas a thief and traytor found among them and yet so patiently admitted and tolerated by our Lord shews that it is not to be expected or exacted that his Church here on earth as to the external members thereof should ever be in a better condition but Tares mingled with the Wheat in this field and bad fish with the good in this Net And it is a note of S. Austin De Civ Dei lib. 18. cap. 49. making much against the Puritan Donatists Habet saith he inter â—os unum Judam quo malo utens bene passionis suae dispositum impleret ecclesiae suae tolerandorum malorum praeberet exemplum § 253 The Morning come he calleth up to him his disciples who it seems attended near hand and took their rest the night before at the foot of the Hill and out of them being a great number Luk. 6.17 that were his more constant followers and Auditors out of which number also he is said after this to have made a second election of 70 or 6 times 12 Luk. 10.1 answerable to the 70 chosen by Moses for his assistance Numb 11.16 He chose 12 persons according to the number of the 12 Tribe of Israel that they should continually wait on him hear all things he taught and bear witness afterward to the world of whatever passed and whom he might send abroad as he thought fit after first well instructed by him for it by two and two together to preach the Gospel as the harvest still encreased to whom also for this reason he gave the name of Apostles These were all Galileans and five of them his Kinsmen viz. 1. and 2. James and John sons to Salome according to the common opinion daughter to Alpheus or Cleophas brother to Joseph and 3ly James the less the 4th Simon of Cana one of James his brothers being called Simon and our Lord having kindred at Cana on which account was the invitation of his Mother to the marriage there and therefore is this Simon of Cana conjectured to be one of the Brothers and a Kinsman of our Lords And the 5th Judas Thadeus James Simon and Judas being suppose sons of Alpheus or Cleophas and of Mary his wife stiled therefore a Sister to our Lords Mother Jo. 19.15 because her husband was brother to Joseph and brother of Salome and called our Lords brethren Which Brethren it seems
to every tittle that the Body of heaven and earth was after a certain time to vanish and pass away but no so one letter of Gods word Again that for the moral commandements and precepts of the Law much less came he to give any relaxation to mens former obedience thereto but to exact the observance of them to the least iota having procured for them from his Father the Holy Spirit for enabling them also to such observance and that he who did not endeavour to keep those that were slighted and accounted the least of these Commandements some of which he mentions below vers 22 28 34 39. not being angry not lusting in our heart not swearing at all c. not rendring evil for evil c. as well as those thought greater could not reach Heaven or eternal happiness In prosecution of which our Lord began to expound to them the true meaning and just extent of several of these Laws corrupted by the former glosses of the Pharisees and human Tradition That the precept of not killing or committing murder extended not only to not taking away our Neighbours life but to any reproaching or vilifying them by words as calling him silly or a fool which said without cause and in malice toward him incurreth not the sentence of a Civil Judg to some corporal punishment or also death in these lesser Courts in the several Cities or that greater at Jerusalem but even of damnation to hell-fire again extendeth also to any anger or disaffection against him in our heart Therefore that before they brought any Sacrifice offering or gift or made any addresses to God concerning themselves or implored his pardon of their faults or any his favours to them they should call to remembrance if there were any displeasure or disgust between them and their neighbour and should presently procure a reconciliation with him especially if such neighbour have any just quarrel against them on the former account that thus they might wisely prevent their neighbours complaints to God the Supreme Judg of all Whose exact justice upon such wrong done would certainly cast them into prison and before any releasment require of them the uttermost farthing if they were not diligent thus before hand and whist they have opportunity in this life to make their composition and peace with him § 266 Our Lord having said this in exposition of the Commandment proceeds to the second of committing Adultery the most natural impetuous and troublesome of our passions being these two Anger and Lust the one from an excess of hate towards another the other of Love After the bridling of the one he now prescribes that of the other and to this purpose tells them that this precept also of not committing adultery extended not only to not actually lying with our neighbors wife but not to much as looking on her or any other woman not our own wife with any lustful thoughts for that all such persons were guilty of committing adultery already with such persons in their heart And therefore that it even our right eye or right hand should be the instrument or tempter to offend God in such a manner it were better if we could procure no other remedy of committing such sin without doing this even to pluck out this though our right eye or cut off our right hand than to sin against God and so have not this eye or hand only lost but our whole Body cast for such offence into eternal flames Intimating at least our cutting-off the observed occasions of sin even though these seem as precious and dear unto us as our eye or right hand That also in marriage they were religiously to observe such an Holy Contract and patiently bear this great Yoke when not well and discreetly engaged without expecting any relief or indulgement of a separation or divorce afterward contrary to the great liberty they had taken herein except in the case of Fornication And in such case also that the parties might not upon this presently clap up new marriages better suting with their new affections and amours but were to live continently and single for God gives ability in such a separation Things which said by our Lord elsewhere the Disciples so check d at Mat. 19.10 that they concluded it was better to forbear marriage if having so streit obligations upon it § 267 From this he proceeds to some liberties and indulgments they practised contrary to the intention of the Divine Law in their conversation with their neighbour especially in a custome of oaths and other aggravating asseverations mostly coming from an evil root in their discourses and treatings which is contrary to the simplicity and moderation that ought to be in their words and reverence towards God and his creatures in relation to him that ought to be observed in their Oath In which matter he instructs them that the precept concerning an oath Lev. 19.12 and Deut. 6.13 Viz. that they should not forswear themselves and should perform unto the Lord their Oaths did not allow them a liberty to swearing also whenever they spake a truth swearing either by God himself or by any of his Creatures Or secure them that swearing also by some of Gods creatures at least such as by some Consecration had not a more special relation to him as the Sacrifice the Gold of the Temple c. signifyed nothing and had no guilt in it according to their false Glosses thinking reverence in using Oaths was only confined to the name of God and to his name not as to swearing but only false-swearing by it But that Mat. 23.16 excepting where necessity and matters of great consequence required it in which case we find Gods greatest Saints for advancing truth to have used it Heb. 6.16 And an end of all strifes among men faith the Apostle is an Oath their ordinary communication and discourse and dealing with their Neighbour was to be without any swearing at all either by God himself whose name they were at no time to take in vain Or by any of his Creatures over the least of which even an hair they had no power to make it white or black and all which they ought to reverence for the relation they have to him who at the first made them and alwaies replenishes and dwelleth in them But that their ordinary communication should be plain and simple and without endeavouring with any such attestations or artifice to add weight to their words Yea Yea Nay Nay as our Lords Amen Amen their assertion only being reiterated where less credited for that what was more than this came of Evil i. e. some irreverence toward God in himself or in his Creatures and again of evil either others having more jealousy of the truth of our words than they ought which in them is malice or from our own desiring to add more weight to our words than the matter requires which in us is a faulty ambition See this Lesson of our Lord repeated
this he alfo assured them that tho they were not to do to others what others in any kind of evil did to them Yet that whatever they did to others the same should be done again to them and as they meted in their behaviour and carriage to others in good or evil in forgiving and giving to them or in smiting or robbing them it should be measured to them again Gods justice taking great care of it as he did before being complained-to of the mans paying the last farthing an exact measure full pressed down and shaken together and running over and this done to them by others Gods instruments therein though they saw no cause to expect or fear it from the same persons to whom themselves had formerly done good or harm that therefore on this account they should also forbear judging censuring or condemning others that themselves might not be so And that they should rather endeavour to see the greater faults in themselves than blame the smaller of their Neighbours and to cast the beam out of their own eye before they pick the motes out of other mens that otherwise in their attempting to rectify lead and guide others whilst themselves also are blinded the end thereof will only be their falling both into the pit § 272 Our Lord having thus expounded the true extent of several precepts especially if they would observe them in such a degree as might attain Christian perfection which precepts were formerly much mis-understood proceeds further to instruct them in the manner of their performance in general of their good works and of those three great Christian Duties the first relating to God the second to our Neighbour the third to our selves Prayer Almes and Fasting or mortification and subduing of the flesh to the Spirit of their performing these so as that they might be acceptable to and rewardable with God whilst the Pharisees in all these doing them with a wrong intention lost but their labour and charge Rewardable I say For as in Almes and charities to our neighbour God hath engaged to pay to us again and that pressed down what ever good we do to others So in Prayer he looks upon us as much honouring him thereby and in fasting as suffering something for his sake in order to better serving him by subduing of the flesh and so also for these in his great bounty provides a reward But in all these our Lord saw the vain-glorious Pharisees to loose their recompence with God by doing them to be seen of men as by their sounding a Trumpet for gathering together the poor when they had almes to bestow as is said also to be done in distributing the poors Tithes and as their standing in the market-place to perform their Devotions supposed to be made there for Gods rewarding their Benefactors and for averting his judgments from the people c. By this device gaining much charities from silly women and by their hanging down their heads and looking pittifully when they fast upon like occasions But our Lord told his that these duties to be recompenced by God were to be so cleansed from all applause from men as that in the distributing of their Almes if it were possible the left hand should not know what the right was doing and that in fasting they should rather disguise it by washing their face and anointing their Head and in their prayer that they should betake themselves to their Closet and shut the door after them for that thus the more they endeavoured to hide their work the more would God that seeth all secret things manifest it in a publick rewarding thereof § 273 That also in their prayers they should not use many vain repetitions like the heathen out of any diffidence in God as if he knew or understood not their wants before they asked him or was averse or careless in relieving them before with many words perswaded thereto For that if they so evil natured rejected not the prayers of their children but give all things necessary or good for them how much more would the infinite goodness and kindness of their Heavenly Father do the same § 274 Thus our Lord endeavours to arm them with much faith and confidence in their devotions knowing how necessary this is to the good success of their prayers and to fortify them against all distrust either of his divine omniscience or paternal compassion But here we must not forget that the same our Lord elsewhere much recommends assiduity and importunity in prayer as nâ—cessary to excite those holy affections in us which may render us more capable of his Favours Upon this account pist 121. St. Austine in his Epistle to the religious Lady Proba giving her directions concerning her prayer exhorteth her especially to the spending of much time therein instancing for it in the importunate widdow and neighbour Luk. 18. commended by our Lord. For that saith he there a nobler effect will follow where a more fervent affection goes before And That such importunity and perseverance is necessary that our desire faith hope may not in some manner grow cold For neither saith he is praying long time as some imagine to pray with much speaking Much discourse is one thing a continued affection another For it is written of our Lord himself that he continued all night in prayer and that he prayed longer or more vehemently where what did he but give us an example Luk. 6.12 22.43 c Thus he commending to us not many words but much affection praying long and saying little For their praier also he prescribed them that form full of Spirit but sparing in words Our Father c. where in the first place we give and offer up all Glory to this celestial Father desiring that every where and in all things his name may be Sanctified his Kingdom come and his will be done Then we petition for our selves viz. for the supply of our daily necessaries for the pardon and remission of our former sins and offences against God but for the obtaining of this engaging also the remission of other mens trespasses against us without which he tells us no pardon was to be expected of any from God he indeed remitting us pounds for our remitting pence then for the future his delivering us from any temptations that may hereafter induce us to offend him and from any evil punishment or misery deserved by our former having offended him Only for one of these Petitions the obtaining pardon of our offences against him he layes one burden upon us namely our engaging the remission of other mens trespasses against us and that so full as we desire his towards us without doing which he tells us no pardon is to be expected from him § 275 This of the contents of our Lords Sermon as it seems relating more generally to all Another part of his speech he applyed more particularly to his Disciples telling them that they were the Salt of the earth which he had provided
for seasoning the insipidness and unsavoriness thereof towards God and for preserving it eternally from corruption and that they were the light of the world for illustrating its darkness And lastly a City or Society in which all the world were to be joyned and collected and to become Subjects and members thereof and one Body or Corporation one Faith one Spirit c being therein Eph. 4.4 that therefore they were to provide that this Salt should not become unsavory or insipid for then wherewith could that which is to season all others be seasoned it self And that this light should not be put under a bushel nor this their City hid as it were in a vale or such which should not be eminently discovered for then how could the world know where to joyn themselves to the communion thereof Lastly that also their light and their doctrine were to be accompanied with their good works that people might see the one as well as the other though such good works not done to be seen of men nor that themselves but their heavenly Father working such Sanctification in them might be glorified thereby 2 Cor. 8.21 Rom. 12.17 Their example and practising of their doctrine being much the more difficult and this much more effectually converting others than teaching doth 1 Pet. 2.12 3.16 And that at the last day many of them should come unto him saying Lord Lord and telling what great matters their preaching and prophecying in his name had effected yet should they be rejected on this account that their works were evil And that every tree thus bringing forth ill fruit should surely be cut down and cast into the fire § 276 He told them likewise and herein also gave a precaution to the people that there should arise among them many false Prophets and Teachers who should come in sheep's clothing and counterfeit much Sanctity and use much fair language c. but yet within were very wolves 2 Cor. 11.3.13 and that there was one sure test by which they might know them Viz. by the fruits they bare for that as the tree was bad or good so would the fruit certainly be Which rule our Lord seems to have given them upon a double account Both because truth and goodness or Holiness proceed from the same Holy Spirit within us the fountain of both and are eternally linked together and so errour and vice So that all things truely weighed no true doctrine can ever tend to an evil life nor errour to a good and Holiness alwaies suffers not gains by a lye Therefore also are truth and iniquity frequently opposed -1 Cor. 13.6 Rom. 2.8 1.18 So that no mans wickedness can be the effect or consequent of any truth he holds though who holds the truth may still be wicked from another principle in him That therefore thus true and false teachers may be known by the fruit of their doctrines in their Auditors if these tend to the infusing into them higher degrees of all kinds of piety and charity Or on the contrary do infuse any seeds of impiety injustice uncharitableness sensual liberty uncleanness or sedition and disobedience to Dignities and Superiors This as to the fruit of their doctrines But secondly because as to their persons the root in such false teachers alwaies is evil i. e. their affections and intentions are perverted which perverse affections at last manifest themselves in their lives and practices these either for secular ends teaching doctrines not believed and known by them to be false purposely to deceive which ends and hypocrisy will certainly discover themselves in their works or tho the doctrines taught are also believed by them yet there are some vicious inclinations respecting secular interests which do induce such a beleif especially where they depart from the Traditions of the Church and former Superiours and such secular interests will appear in their works and manners and the heart bad in one thing will be so in another Therefore the Apostles do describe frequently such false teachers as vitious in their lives and seducing with their fair speeches when in their sheeps clothing See Rom. 16.17 18. Phil. 3.19 -2 Cor. 11.3 13. -1 Tim. 4.2 Tit. 3.11 -2 Pet. 2.3 10. c. in which texts they are represented as Sibi placentes gloriae sitientes assentatores invidi maledici obtrectatores ventri dediti suis temporalibus commodis avaritiae servientes suum negocium agentes some way or other non veritati noting them specially as covetous sensual speaking ill of Dignities But here note that by false Prophets are chiefly meant those who know their doctrines to be false and intend to deceive and teach in Hypocrisy and live in disobedience to a Superiour Church-authority Otherwise some good man may teach an errour and some bad truth But as these have or want the Grace of God in their heart and have their will and affections sincere or corrupt so will their fruit mostly be good or bad and among other things their teachings and instructions will have a relish thereof After this our Lord concluded his whole Sermon thus that the Foundation of Happiness was their good works and their not-hearing or teaching but doing what he taught which was laying the Foundation upon a sure rock so that no storms should shake the building raised upon it But that the Hearer of his words and not practicer was like a fool building his house on sand Upon which a time would be when the raines should come and the winds blow and the floods arise and the storms beat vehemently upon it and the fall thereof should be very great and terrible And thus ends our Lords great and famous Predication in the Mount to his Apostles and to all the People who saith the Evangelist were much astonished as at his doctrine so at the manner of his delivery thereof For he spake to them all these things with a kind of Majestical Authority and not as the Scribes An Historical Narration OF THE LIFE OF OUR LORD JESUS PART II. Beginning after the prayer recorded Joh. 17. § 1 GREAT was the present malice of the Devil in this hour of trouble approaching against the rest of his poor Disciples to gain possession of them also as he had already of Judas Jo. 13.27 and Satan had desired Luk. 22.31 32. c. concerning them as he did concerning Job That God who keeps a continual restraint upon this hater of mankind not only for his hurting us after sin but also for his tempting us unto it would but now let him have the sifting of them a little after all the great works they had seen done by this their Master and all the gracious words they had heard from him to try their fidelity to him Our Lord therefore foreseeing the great temptation that at this time they also foreseeing his Fathers permission to these Powers of Darkness were to undergo and how greivously they might otherwise miscarry in it interceded to his Father
and as it were unconcerned to the great wonder of the Council where occurred such advantages of clearing his cause and Innocency § 31 At the last two appeared some think by the assurgebant in S. Mark chap. 14. that they were also two of the Assessors that pitched both upon the same matter and this bearing the shew of an high Crimination his threatning to destroy and demolish their Temple which also they reproach'd him with when he hung upon the Cross Mat. 27.40 at the very time when indeed they themselves were dissolving the Temple he spake of But these also in reciting of his words varyed as from the truth of what our Lord said so from one another One testifyed that he said absolutely he would destroy it Destruam Mark 14.58 The other that he could or was able to destroy it in the space of three dayes Possum destruere Mat. 26.61 Whereas his words were neither destruam nor possum destruere but Solvite Destroy ye as now indeed they were about it and his excitabo not long after to follow it One witnessed in general That he said he would destroy the Temple but then he might mean some other Temple as indeed he did the Temple of his Body but the other that he said he would destroy the Temple made with hands that very Temple of Jerusalem and that in three daies also he would undertake to build it up again reaedificabo whereas his own words speaking of the Resurrection of the Temple of his body was excitabo Thus they urged against him things that he knew not Psalm 34.11 and laid to his charge things that he never meant But then his saying he was able to destroy it seems only a vaunting and vain-glorious speech not deserving death or bonds and it he said further that he would do it this argued only a malitious intention where no possibility of acting Words they were also spoken some years before without attempting any such thing in the least afterwards Nay one of his valiantest acts and wherein he most shewed his power was quite contrary to it the cleansing of the same Temple from any profanation of it in the least manner even in the outward Courts thereof of which there wanted not Witnesses many who suffered by it But making the worst we can of his saying yet when the witnesses added the following words also that within other three daies again he would rebuild it the one I hope if they held him such a Miracle-worker would make amends for the other and sure he would not after pulling down rebuild it but to build it better and his good intention in reedifying it may ballance if not disprove a bad one in demolishing it But alas these words now in the scarcity of any other solid accusation so aggravated were before at the time he spake them even according to the Jews understanding them only slighted as a a vain brag and not thought liable to bear an action they then replying to him that he spake impossibilities for that a Temple that had been before forty six years in building could not by one person so speedily be pulled down or reedifyed Jo. 2.20 § 32 Though this was the greatest matter these Witnesses in the Court had to say against our Lord the High Priest well saw the slightness of it and therefore though here the only alleadged not a word was said of it for shame before the Roman Governour Pilat which would but too apparently have betrayed their empty and causeless malice But our Lord all this while that such things were tumultuously objected remaining recollected and silent the Judge seeming well satisfied with what was laid to his charge and observing our Lords resolute silence stood up and asked him whether he did not hear what they urged against him why he answered them not and what he had to say for himself against such mighty accusations As if he had forgot that for the last words he spake for himself he suffered him to be strucken over the face § 33 But our Lord thus provoked to speak and plead for himself continued still silent and that for many good reasons First silent because the witness contradicting and destroying its self needed no further confutation by him Silent out of the highest Prudence and Pity to his Accusers and Judges where he foreknew his speaking could have no good Effect upon their malice but rather served to increase their Guilt Silent again to shew the perfect moderation and Mastery of his Passions and a most entire Resignation to his Fathers will to leave us an example herein saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.23 Tradens se Judicanti illum injuste Silent upon higher grounds yet 1 Pet. 2.24 Heb. 9.28 Now were laid on him all our iniquities Esay 53.5 Now was he who knew no sin made sin and made a curse for us because out of infinite love he would be so Oblatus est quia ipse voluit Now he presented himself before Gods justice in our stead and who were most notoriously guilty of whatsoever he was accused Whether blaspheming Destroying Gods Temples or whatever else and had all reason to stand speechless Languores nostros saith the Prophet ipse tulit dolores nostros ipse portavit quasi leprosus percussus a Deo humiliatus vulneratus propter iniquitates nostras attritus propter scelera nostra disciplina pacis nostrae super eum sicut ovis ad occisionem ducta quasi Agnus coram tondente se the shearers stripping him not only of his clothes but his life obmutescens non aperiens os suum quem propter scelus populi sui percussit Deus As the Prophet at large describes there his condition Esay 53. And so we ought to imagine him now putting himself in our stead before the Tribunal of his Eternal Father and without justifying himself at all speaking to him with a love far transcending that of David 2 Sam. 24.17 Though I have never sinned nor done wickedly before thee yet for what these my Brethren have done let thine hand I pray thee be not against them but against me And so silent and without any Defence of himself for what could he say for us or in our Defence but only confess our guilt offering himself to Gods vindicative Justice for all our Blasphemies Treasons and affronts done to this divine Majesty ever since that of Adam's and amongst the rest even for their sins also that thus unjustly persecuted him with the same Deprecation for them now as on the Cross Dimitte illis Pater Non enim sciunt quid faciunt Luk. 23.34 Lastly silent obediently to fulfil what all the Prophecies had so punctually foretold of him For at this time it was that all those doleful complaints occurring in the Psalmes and elsewhere concerning his innocence and suffering mute and not replying were exactly and perfectly verified Psal 34.11 Surrexerunt Testes iniqui quae ignorabam interrogabant me Psal 38.2.9 10 Posui ori
deterring us before by Gods purity and Justice from so vile an act but after it inviting to repentance and reformation § 55 He then having heard or perhaps seen how far they had proceeded against his innocent Master sentenced him to dy and were now carrying him away to Pilat to procure the Execution now too late repenting himself of his horrid fact brought back to them the money he had received of them but a few hours before and told them he had grieveously sinned in betraying innocent blood Which was thus ordained by divine Providence after the opposition made before by those two upright Counsellors Joseph and Nicodemus that these his Judges might also reflect on their own crime by Judas his confessing his in their condemning that innocent blood he had betrayed But they regardlesly bidding him to look to his own faults himself and asking what his infidelity to his Master was to them hastily repelled him from before them What is thâ—t to us say they Mat. 27.4 Yes surely something 't is to you for besides that you Preists are the Physitians of sick souls to whom poor sinners repair for your Spiritual Counsel and making their attonement and reconciliation with the offended God you may remember that you are the persons that hired this poor Wretch to commit this sinful Act or if he did well in it your charity stood engaged to pacify and assure therein his troubled conscience § 56 Judas receiving no consolation or thanks from them nor seeing any hopes of their relenting or dismissing his Master and they rejecting also the mony which he would now have bin glad to have refunded for his Masters ransome he presently went and threw his poor recompence of his wickedness in the Temple where their Officers might find and dispose of it and so went and hanged himself to get out of his present pain thus dying the accursed death before spoken of not able any longer to endure the goads and pangs of his conscience setting before him the innocency of our Lord the dignity of his person his love and affection to him in great humility washing his feet but last night at Supper so requited all our Lord 's sweet Sermons and charitable actions unworthy of such a treason lastly the divine vengeance and those last words of our Lord concerning him at Supper Mat. 26.24 Filius quidem hominis tradetur sed vae homini illi bonum erat illi si non esset natus homo ille for the Devil we may imagine suggested whatever might more swell his Despair Here was a most bitter Compunction for his sin repentance and confession and that publick lastly restitution and all too little for him who had done such despight to the Spirit of Grace and was now fallen into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.29 30. and a fearful expectation of Judgment and fiery indignation Cap. 10.27 which spirit now having abandoned him all such his relenting could not be sound sincere or acceptable to God but like that of Esau not finding place of a right Repentance though sought carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 § 57 After his having thus made away himself the divine vengeance also pursued him further which seems to be pointed-at by the Psalmist Psal 108.18 Intret Maledictio sicut aqua in interiora ejus For his body thus hung up burst in peices and his bowels so void of compassion to the persecuted Innocent were ejected and emptied out of his body full of stench and corruption and most noisome to all that approached and beheld it Which strange and sad accident also could not but be presently diffamed and spread abroad and might have bin a second warning to those others Actors in this Murther so to prevent that unparallelled Judgment that shortly after followed upon the whole Nation in which also by Josephus this is noted as one of the greatest Roman torments used towards those poor Jews who fled to them for mercy that the Soldiers frequently ripped up their bowels for swallowed Gold § 58 His money thrown down in the Temple afterwards the cheif Preists took up for none else might touch things dedicated And because it was the price of blood though themselves were the Purchasers of it their devotion thought not fit to put it into the Treasury of Holy things there God having prohibited less scandals than this to be brought into the Temple Deut. 23.18 and not permitting David because a shedder of blood though such as ought to be spilt to have a hand in building it they resolved therefore to dispose of it some other way and the divine Wisdom so ordered it that they should lay it out upon land a known peice of ground that ever after called the field of Blood might perpetuate the memory of their wicked fact This ground they designed for a burying place for strangers such Proselytes of the Gentiles as much resorted to their solemn feasts their buryals generally being out of the City a type of Christs blood benefitting those strangers whilst they that shed it lost their share in it Nec introierunt in requiem ejus and a type of the Gentiles now admitted by the Purchase of that blood to be joined and to take their everlasting rest and repose with his former people the Church of the Jews All these particulars we have punctually foretold by the Prophet Zachary Zac. 11.12 13. both the just summ of the price thirty shekels or pieces of silver and the vileness of it exaggerated being the value of a Servant in case his Master was any way deprived of him Exod. 21.32 and the projection of this money in the Temple and the disposing of it to a Potter yet had not these learned men that fulfilled it light to discover it To a Potter i. e. one that traded in vile and cheap ware which shewed the summ fit for a very mean purchase The field it seems by the price of it was some neglected place perhaps where potsherds were cast out as Montetestaced at Rome or where clay was digged for pot-making and it was ever after by the people called the field of blood for a Witness against the cruel purchasers but also as it seems by St. Peters words Acts 1. upon this account that Judas chose the same piece of ground wherein to make away himself and where his bowels and blood by the divine Justice poured out before our Lord's became such a loathsome and offensive spectacle to the beholders § 59 Now to return to the High Priests They and the Scribes and the Elders the whole Multitude of them saith S. Luke Luk. 23.1 not spending much time in consultation concerning a matter long before resolved betimes in the morning Jo. 18.28 led away our Lord thus condemned and bound to the Roman President 's Pallace and delivered him up into the hands of the Romans And so were they themselves afterwards for it the whole Nation led into captivity by Titus their City destroyed a thing sadly foreseen and deplored
by our Lord in his Palm-Sunday Triumph when as from Mount Olivet he beheld the City he wept over it Luk. 19.41 and again in the Holy week of his Passion when in the Temple he told them their house was now left unto them desolate Mat. 23.38 and again when he sate on the Mount Olivet over against the prospect of the Temple Mat. 24.1 c. with his Disciples and lastly as he went to Execution and saw the people weeping for him As the cheif Priests in this suddain transmitting of our Lord to Pilat shewed the great zeal they had of his speedy dispatch so this Eve of the great feast of the Passover seems also to be one of the usual daies if not of the tryal yet of the Execution of Malefactors thus made more Exemplary at the time of so great a confluence of People hither Because we find others then executed besides our Lord and because it is said to be the custome in honour of this great Feast for the Roman Governour at this Sessions to release one of the Persons condemned to the Jews who as they had lost the power of putting any to death so of pardoning or releasing any from it § 60 Our Lord brought hither was committed to the Roman Guards and carried by them to the Praetorium or Court of Judgment But the High Priests and Antients of the Jews entred not in with him because this Evening they were to eat the Pasch not performed by them in its proper time as it was by our Lord because the Paschal-Feast-day happening this year to fall on the day before the Sabbath was by a former custome transferred to it Now the eating of the Paschal Lamb was prohibited to all that were any way unclean Numb 9.11 and the Jews held the touching or any Gentile whom they esteemed unclean as not being cleansed at all from their pollutions according to Levit. 5.3 and 15.1 c. to render them so he who touched any thing unclean becoming unclean Lev 5.2 For this cause they stayed without and it happened also opportunely for their better prevailing with and perswading the people by and by that they should save Barabbas rather than Jesus the one a true raiser of Sedition and the other falsly accused of it § 61 This impediment of their entring into the Pallace and there preferring their accusation against the Prisoner made them also hope from Pilat rather a Confirmation of their sentence and an order for his execution than a reexamination of his cause and that his guilt in such an extraordinary case should be taken upon their word But God would not suffer their Injustice so to be huddled up nor yet Pilat who it seems had more intelligence of their proceedings then they imagined for a Roman Tribune and Cohort were also employed in our Lords apprehension Jo. 18.12 and doubtless had heard much of the fame of Jesus and had a vigilant Eye upon his motions and on the concourse of the people made to hear him but without discovering any harm in his actions and also who knew saith the Text that not for any capital crimes of his but for meet envy no small Guilt of theirs they had delivered him He therefore seeing the Prisoner stand before him without his Accusers riseth from the bench and unexpectedly goes forth to them and askes them what accusation they brought against him who now answered him also in general that if he were not a Malefactor they would not have sent him to him Pilat somewhat moved with such their declining his further examination of the matter desires them then since they had found him such they would resume the matter into their own hands and finish the work they had begun and punish the Delinquent themselves according to his demerit Upon which they replyed That his crimes were such as deserved death and that in the most severe and exemplary manner which it was not permitted to them to inflict and so when thus urged to it began to accuse him to the Governour of such things as they imagined might be of most weight with him and the Roman-Militia pressing in particular his forbidding to give Tribute to Cesar and saying that he himself was Christ a King An accusation in the sence they intended it and as it might any way intrench upon Cesars rights very false For as for Tribute he had both actually before paid it when demanded of him to Cesar Mat. 17.26 and also being asked by them the Pharisees joined with the Herodians Mat. 22.16 the question about the lawfulness of it but two or three daies before his apprehension on purpose saith the Evangelist Luk. 20.21 that they might take hold of his words that so they might deliver him into the power of the Roman-Governour he affirmed it and utterly silenced them with that divinely prudent answer of his Reddite quae sunt Caesaris Caesari quae sunt Dei Deo that they should give to Cesar Cesars Coine And as for his Messias-or Kingship he had confessed it indeed but that his sitting upon his Throne should be not here but in Heaven ad dexteram Patris and the Glory of it not present but hereafter Quando veniet cum nubibus The like account whereof he gave afterward to Pilat and also de facto when the Multitude purposed to have made him King Jo. 6.15 he had declined it and presently withdrew himself and elsewhere in a contraversy between two Brothers about dividing Luk. 12.14 a piece of land he refused to be an Arbitrator and sent his Disciples about the countrey without carrying a peny of money or so much as a staff Mat. 10.10 i. e. wherewith to defend themselves or offend others taught them continually Patience and non-resistance if struck on the one cheek to turn the other the fundamental way of the propagation of his Kingdom In his late apprehension he commanded Peter to put up his Sword and forbad the use of it against authority and presently repaired the hurt he had done with it All which fulfils that so often repeated of our Lord in the Psalms Oderunt me gratis without any cause Et quae ignorabam interrogabant me § 62 Pilat upon this their accusation returned into the Praetorium where he had left our Lord in the custody of the Roman-Guards and calling him before him asked him whether he was the King of the Jews meaning that Messias or Christ or King that the Jews had so long expected perhaps because that his Accusers had told him that our Lord had before them openly himself confessed it Our Lord though well knowing what had passed without yet to reduce the Governour the more to reflect on his own observation and experience and on the malice and envy of his Adversaries well known to him desired doubtless with a great appearance of gravity and Majesty to know whether he asked such a Question of himself and from any jealousy our Lord's life and actions had raised in him of his aspiring
their King because indeed he was so all the people now engage themselves also in the like guilt as the High Priests and Elders before and publickly renounce our Lord meekly standing before them for the Christ or their King and cry out also against him Crucifie him Crucifie him not only demanding Justice but impudently prescribing to the Judge the manner of his punishment and that the cruellest could be named And when also before all the people the Governour now the third time declared that he could find no fault at all in him they a second time redouble their clamours and cryed out more exceedingly saith the Text Mark. 15.14 Crucifie him Crucifie him § 70 The Governour now at a great stand who before had mentioned the chastising of him and was now defeated of his design concerning Barabbas seeing no way but one possible to save his life viz. to satisfy their malice to some degree with some lesser torments inflicted on him presently gave order for scourging him which also the more severely it was done the more necessary he supposed in the issue it would be for preserving him from such an horrid death The Roman manner of scourging offendors is said to be this To strip the person naked and tye him by his hands and feet to a pillar with his face towards it and so beat him with a whip made with cords or thongs of leather that wound much worse then rods A very sore and ignominious torment it was and therefore no citizen of Rome whatsoever or any having this priviledge might be so punished See Acts 16. 37 22 15. Facinus est vincire civem Romanum scelus verberare prope Parricidum necare quid dicam in crucem tollere saith Cicero in Verrem orat 5. § 71 Our Lord was committed by Pilat to the Roman Soldiers for executing this punishment who took him into the Praetorium Mat. 27.27 Jo. 19.4 or atrium Praetorii saith St. Mark chap. 15.16 And to do this and the rest of their pranks the more solemnly after they had seen the sport Herods men had made with this Jewish Prince and perhaps some of them that also of the High Priest's officers over-night and not meeting with such a joculary object every day they assemble the whole Cohort consisting of some hundreds to come and perform their homage to him some of them looking on whilst others acted By whose obsequiousness as servants use to go beyond their Lord's Commission we may imagine his stripes were laid on without any regret or common humanity in such a multitude of military Spectators till he being rendred all in a gore blood excepting only his face and head was made a fit spectacle to shew to those Adamantine-hearted Jews And indeed if what we owed in this kind was undertaken to be paid by him as it was and that without his speaking a word to decline it we may hence measure the greatness of his sufferings from that of our demerits Multa flagella Peccatoris saith the Psalmist and our Lord pronounced as it were against himself That our knowing his Fathers Will and not doing it deserves many stripes which at last came to that That he himself must defray for us And thus also were all the Prophecies fulfilled by him to the uttermost which the Scriptures long before had delivered Psal 34.15 Adversum me laetati sunt convenerunt congregata sunt super me flagella ignoravi for what cause Subsannaverunt me subsannatione frenduerunt super me dentibus suis Quem tu percussisti persecuti sunt super dolorem vulnerum meorum addiderunt Psal 68 and again Psal 37.18 Ego in flagella paratus sum dolor mens my stripes in conspectu meo semper And the reason follows Quoniam iniquitatem meam i. e. meorum taken on me annuntiabo cogitabo pro peccato meo And again Psal 128.3 Supra dorsum meum fabricaverunt peccatores prolongaverunt iniquitatem suam Or as the Hebrew supra dorsum meum araverunt arantes prolongaverunt suleum suum For doubtless his back was strangely furrowed and plowed-up And now was that chiefly verified Esay 53.2 c. Non est species â—i neque decor vidimus eum non erat aspectus Languores nostro ipse tulit dolores nostros ipse portavit Et nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum with his broken skin percussum a Deo humiliatum Ipse autem vulneratus est propter iniquitatâ—s nostras attritus est propter scelera nostra Disciplina pacis nostrae super eum livore ejus sanati sumus And after Propter scelus populi mei percussieum And of this also particularly he several times foretold his Disciples saying that his own People should deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify him Mat. 20.19 Mark 10.34 § 72 After this to fulfil the illudendum as well as flagellandum our Lord foretold and to prepare him further for the shew their Master intended they thought fit to dress him like a King as Herod had done before them and so pulling off his garments again now cleaving to his scarifyed back if perhaps these were at all put on after his whipping they arrayed him with an old-cast purple cloke and wanting yet a Crown for this King they took a bunch of thorns and platting them together made a wreath thereof and pressed it about his Temples whereby his Sacred face and head also hitherto blood-free became of the like dye with the rest of his body pierced every where with the spikes of the thorns of which Sacred head now compassed with a bunch of thornes when God saved Abrahams only Son yet so loved the world as not to save his own the head of the Ram which so Abraham took and offered for him all entangled and wrapped in thornes seems to be a lively type Then for a Scepter also sutable to his Crown they took a reed and gave it him in his right hand This done for his Inauguration they fell on their knees and worshipped him saying Ave Rex Judaeorum God save the King of the Jews And then that their merriment and mockery might not end without strokes they rose oft their knees and fell a beating him with their fists and spitting in his face mingled their excrements with his blood and took the reed out of his hand and said him over the head with it and so nailed his Crown closer to his Temples And by this time Pilat calling for him they put the reed again into his right hand which he meekly held so as they placed it and so brought him forth all imbrewed in blood head face and body with his Robe Crown and reeden Scepter and presenting him on the Gallery or Terrace-walk before all the Jews Pilat said Jo. 19.4 I bring him forth to you again that ye may know that I find no fault in him being thus ill treated by Pilat not for his but their crimes so to have
some other speedy death but there fastned to remain till near the going down of the Sun and then taken and buried that the land might not be defiled by his being above ground Gal. 3 13. See Deut. 21.23 as hath bin said already § § 83 Secondly because our sins deserved the utmost torments and even these eternal and our Lord in this case undertaking the satisfaction of Gods Justice for them this death by crucifying was chosen as being of all those ordinarily inflicted on Malefactors the most dolorous and tedious being only a wounding or piercing of exterior parts the hands and feet that approach not the principal or vital members the Head or Heart and so preserving an integrity of sense Nor was any great effusion of the blood caused by such wounds so to exhaust the spirits for the nailes still filled the holes they made but on the other side this piercing being made in the most nervous parts which Nerves are the Organs of sense produced a most acute pain and so the person was left in this posture fastned hand and foot on the rack abandoned to the Fowles or to Famine if a fever caused by these extream torments did not dispatch him sooner the body usually remaining in such torment for many hours if not daies Our Lord hung so for three hours before he expired in a Miraculous patience resignation and silence all the words he spake scarce taking up three or four minuts of it and when this time was run out the Roman Governour wondred if he was dead so soon and both the other Malefactors were then still alive Therefore the Apostle speaking of this our Lords death puts such an Emphasis upon it That he was obedient to the death even to this death of the Cross By the greatness of his sufferings therefore our Lord would have us learn the true weight and heinousness and desert of our sins the cancelling of which cost him so dear As also such exquisite pains both he and God his Father chose to shew their great love to man and his salvation and if there were no absolute necessity for the Son of Gods satisfaction for us by such exquisite torments the least prick of whose finger would have bin a ransome for a thousand worlds yet surely the more he suffered for us the more he shewed he loved us and the less of his pains were necessary for any satisfaction the more these so greivous demonstrate the greatness of his affection § 84 Thirdly such an horrid and lingring death was chosen by our Lord to remain for ever an example and pattern and consolation to all his followers in their sufferings again for him so often as they call to mind that he endured first far greater for them and that God doth not treat us servants and sinners so severely as he did his innocent and only Son and that we might be ashamed of our tergiversation or impatience of any small sufferings having seen his resignation and alacrity and voluntarily undertaking for us of so much greater § 85 Fourthly setting now aside the extream torments thereof this death seems to be chosen in many other regards For next by it this Evangelical Sacrifice hath a nearer resemblance to all those former made under the Law that were only Types of it Resemblance In our Lords being laid and spread when they fastned him with nails on the wood of the Cross to be consumed on it by degrees so those Sacrifices laid on the wood of the Altar but this on the Cross during much longer before it was consumed the heat of which torture also forced a sitio from our Lord. So saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.24 Ipse pecâ—ata nostra pertulit in corpore suo super lignum And S. Paul Eph. 5.2 Tradidit se ipsum pro nobis oblationem hostiam Deo in odorem suavitatis Again in our Lord 's being elevated and lifted up toward Heaven as those also were on an Altar raised up in Salomons Temple ten cubits high 2 Chron. 4. and ascended by steps and the Sacrifice also upon this Altar was elevated or heaved up again and waved before the Lord in the hands of the Priest and the Altar of the oblation of incense was made also of wood Again this death seems the most convenient also for the pouring out of the blood of this Sacrifice even the whole Mass of it gathered to the heart in a great stream at the foot of the Cross as the Priest did to that of the legal Sacrifice at the foot of the Altar as it were all at once by the Soldiers lance instead of the Priests knife but this not till such tedious and lingring torments for several hours first endured whereas the legal was presently dispatched out of its pain and lay a long time indeed to be consumed on the Altar but after it was first deprived of life and sense This death most convenient also for this Lamb of God fulfilling the type of the Paschal Lamb and the prophecies whereby God signified that he would not have a bone of his only Son to be broken nor his body any way mangled or divided any further than four holes made in his hands and feet and a wound in his side whilst meanwhile his stripping and then his long and scorching pains suffered from the fire of Gods wrath against our sins falling all upon him which he endured on the Cross answers to that Lambs being first flayed and then whole and entire stretched out at length and by degrees rosted by fire Thus then this Evangelical Sacrifice in this manner of the offering thereof most resembled the legal § 86 Fifthly this death on the Cross was a death most visible to all and publickly exposed in which could be used no personating fraud or concealment the body nailed up on high naked to be surveyed by the eyes of whatever Spectators for many hours nay examined and discoursed with so that there could be here no pretension of a delusion or cheat And if notwithstanding this so many Hereticks even in the Apostles daies thinking this too great a disparagement to the Son of God have denied the reality thereof what would they have done had our Lord suffered in some other manner less conspicuous § 87 Sixthly a death of those that are violent the most convenient and proper for those pious and charitable words and actions that were to be performed at his death In his making his Will as it were and disposing of his afflicted Mother his great care to the provision of his best beloved Disciple In testifying his free forgiveness of his Enemies Revilers and Torturers by his Praying to his Father also for their pardon In receiving to Mercy at the same time by the vertue of that his death on the Cross the penitent Robber a symbol of his doing the same to all sinners whatever that should at any time repair to him for salvation through those sufferings In manifesting his patience obedience and love
to God calling him Father in the midst of that severe handling of him and meekly resigning his dying Spirit into his hands Lastly in his dying before the other two and sending out a loud voice at his expiring which shewed his Divinity and that he gave up his life not upon any constraint of torments but voluntarily and when he pleased § 88 Seventhly This manner of death by the lifting up of the body in it towards heaven seems very significative that we now after and in imitation of it should exalt and remove our eyes and affections henceforth from the Earth towards Heaven Therefore our Lord gives it this honourable name of his Exaltation And I saith he if I be exalted from the Earth will draw all unto me Jo. 12.32 And the Apostle calls it his triumph having taken out of the way the Decree that was contrary to us he fastned it to his Cross and having despoiled the principalities and potentates triumphed over them in it Col. 2.15 So also in the nailing and fixing of the flesh of our Lord to the Cross significative of the mortifying and crucifying of the flesh and its lusts that is required of us in imitation of our Lord so disenabling it to stir hand or foot as it were any more to the breach of Gods commands and signifying our now dying to sin as he for it and this death of the Cross is often thus alluded to by the Apostle § 89 Eightly and Lastly the posture of this death carryed in it a lively Representation of his love to mankind with his arms stretched out as it were to embrace and receive all those who would come to him and his head declining to kiss them Having made this Digression upon the Jewes so often vehement demanding and at last Pilats consent to our Lord's Crucifixion to shew the multiplicity of the divine wisdom in the choice of this manner of death rather than any other I proceed now in the relation of the story after Pilats having committed to the Roman Guards the execution thereof § 90 The time now after Pilats four or five returns into the Praetorium and Exits to the Jews whilst he endeavoured by all means to have preserved our Lords life i. e. so far as his own safety with Cesar and his reputation with the Jews would permit and after our Lords being sent to and returned from Herod and the soldiers scourging and dressing him so as to be made a fitter object of the hard-hearted Jews Pity drew well towards Noon Jo. 19.14 Luk. 23.44 about the sixth hour saith St. John and St. Luke though called as yet the third hour by St. Mark because the sixth hardly yet begun The scoffing Soldiers then seizing on our Lord after some further abuses which both in words and actions by Satans instigation were committed both in the way and at the place of Execution as we may gather from the very Theif in the midst of his torments not tempering himself from reviling of him with the rest stript our Lord of his Purple and put on him his own garments whose prize shortly they were to be and so making all speed laid a cross already prepared upon his torn shoulders and so led away this only Isaac of God carrying the wood of his Sacrifice upon his back § 91 And to fulfil a second time after his being coupled with Barabbas the Prophet Esay's cum sceleratis reputatus est Esay 53.12 and that there might be some greater appearance of Justice and our Lord mingled with company whom the people might think like himself there were two notable Thieves on either hand one joined with him and haled along to their Execution but these also or one of them at least railing at him even when suffering with him and such companions he was to have of his greifs as offered him no solace therein And indeed if we consider the person he now took on him what Malefactor or crimes so great as could match him or his for he carried on his shoulders all the sins of the whole world present and past and to come and even those too of these Malefactors and so also this Anathema as the chief was crucified in the midst and the reason in the Prophet of his cum sceleratis reputatus seems very apposite quia ipse peccata multorum tulit Graced with this company and laden with an heavy Cross the long beam thereof being probably more than twice the length of a man for his body was to be stretched at its full length upon it and to be exalted to such a convenient height as might render him a spectacle to all the multitude and de facto so high it was that the Soldier to pierce his side used not his Sword but his Lance and to give him drink they tyed a spunge to the end of a long reed and so reached it to his mouth It was also to carry a Title over his head and to be fastned in the ground and the cross Beam of it also was to equal the breadth of his body and length of his arms I say thus laden he made a painful but most chearful march under it through a good part of the City the Governours Palace being near the Temple on the East side of it and Calvary the place of Execution at the North-West side thereof till when coming without the Gate he fainted away under it his body being now grown very feeble and his spirits exhausted by reason of his cruel scourging and other base usage of the three Guards of Officers Caiphas's Herod's and Pilats he had passed through and of his being kept all night without the least sleep or repose or refreshment or his former temperance having any superfluous humors to feed on Because our Lord alone was unable to bear it any further and it was an ignominious thing to carry or touch the instrument of the Execution of a Malefactor whence the word Furcifer was a common name of reproach by chance a poor man that came then out of the countrey one Simon a stranger of Cyrene in Africk where was then a great Colony of the Jews Act. 2.10 6.9 Joseph de Excid Hieros l. 7. c. 38. meeting them the Soldiers laid hold on him and forced him to bear our Lord's Cross after him either the whole or the heaviest end thereof whose sons Alexander and Rufus are particularly named by the Evangelist Mark 15.21 which shews that they were not only Converts to the Christian Faith but persons of some note amongst the Primitive Christians see Acts 19.33 Romans 16.13 it those the same And it is to be presumed that our Lord rewarded this service done him to their Father also in making him a Member of the Church and of his Kingdom and that he was saved by the Holy Cross he bore who thus had the honour even in the truest sense to take up the cross and follow our Lord and to partake of his reproach and ignominy But the divine Counsel
Psalms and elsewhere foretelling this So omnes saith the mourning Psalmist videntes me deriserunt me locuti sunt labiis moverunt caput aperuerunt super me os suum sicut Leo rapiens rugiens subsannaverunt me subsannatione frenduerunt super me dentibus suis dilataverunt super me dixerunt Euge Euge. Psal 68.25 Sustinui qui simul contristaretur non fuit qui consolaretur non inveni Psal 108.2 Locuti sunt adversum me lingua dolosa sermonibus odii circumdederunt me and so Psal 30.14 Audivi vituperationem multorum commorantium in circuitu Et ego factus sum opprobrium illis viderunt me moverunt capita sua Where also their very words Mat. 27.43 He trusted in God Let him deliver him now if he will have him for he said I am the Son of God are set down Psal 21.9 Speravit in Domino eripiat eum salvum faciat eum quoniam vult eum And so Psal 3.3 Multi dicunt animae meae non est salus ipsi in Deo ejus and so in Wisdom chap. 2.16 Gloriatur patrem se habere Deum videamus ergo si sermones illius veri sine Si enim est verus filius Dei suscipiet illum liberabit illum de manibus contrariorum Contumelia tormento interrogemus eum probemus patientiam illius Morte turpissima condemnemus eum erit enim ei respectus apud Deum ex sermonibus suis i. e. if we may believe his words Thus the Holy Ghost foresaw and foretold these their Blasphemies and whilst such ungrateful treatment added to his anguish the fulfilling these prophesies yeilded him great consolation Thus was he exclamed on by all manner of people sustinuit qui simul contristaretur non fuit by the cheif Priests and Scribes and Elders saith the Evangelist who not satiated with their former cruelties it seems came hither also to see him dy by the common people by the Roman Soldiers acting here the second part of that they had done in the Praetorium to this their mock-king by the Passengers on the high way our Lord being crucified near the road that passed to Shiloh and Gibeon Lastly by the very Thief in the midst of his like torments by all these jeering at his pretensions of being Christ and the King of Israel taking Pilats superscription also for a mock at his making himself the Son of God and his constant faith and trust in him and that since he had so near a relation to God they would fain see now if his God would deliver him jeering at his former good works and Miracles and that since he was so bountiful of them toward others they would fain see him now do one upon himself unpin his nails and descend from the Cross at his vain boasting to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three daies for it seems this for want of worse was spread amongst all the People for his great crime for it was the passengers on the high way that twitted him with it whilst indeed they themselves were now acting that thing he foretold of their destroying the Sacred Temple of his Body that now therefore he should repair his own ruines Ah thou that destroyest the Temple and buildest it in three daies c. jeering at his being Jesus the Saviour of the world that now therefore he should shew it and save himself Such were their scoffings somewhat like Satans former jeers in the Desert whose also these were That since he was Gods Son he should make the Stones there Bread and he should throw himself down from the pinnacle to be held up by Angels and such as those wherewith he usually afflicts the Members of Christ when on their death-bed representing in those their present sufferings their former hope and Faith in God as vain The Thief also hanging by him in the midst of his own like torments could not forbear now despairing of the hopes he had of deliverance by him famous for Miracles but fell also on mocking him and asking him if he were the Christ why he did not save himself and them But the penitent Malefactor on the other hand whose heart God had touched amidst so many blasphemies to Glorify and confess our Lord seeing his silence fell on rebuking his Fellow and asked him if he at least whilst others at liberty said what they pleased had no more fear of God especially being himself in the same sad condemnation and justly for his wicked deeds and so near his End than to fall on railing upon an innocent and just person that had done nothing amiss instead of acknowledging and confessing his own Guilt And this said to his Fellow Theif he with a strong faith beleiving our Lord to be indeed what he was the Christ the Son of God the Saviour of the world the King of Israel began to make his humble Addresses to him and desired that he would remember him when be came into his Kingdom A stupendious faith and divinely inspired now when he saw our Lord upon the very lowest step of his humiliation now when faith perhaps failed his very Apostles Yet there wanted not also some external excitements that might partly raise such a devotion in him to our Blessed Lord as perhaps the great fame of his former Sanctity and Miracles and also many circumstances which he beheld of his passion his divine patience and meekness his compassionate and prophetick speeches to the women of Jerusalem which lamented him his praying for his enemies when they nailed him to his Cross his admirable silence to so many unjust reproaches and particularly to that of his fellow-thief To whom our Lord graciously promised and that with an Amen that he should be remembred and that very day be with him his Lord in the heavenly Paradise appointed for the reception of all blessed Souls till the Resumption of their bodies applying the merits of this his passion to that poor Wretch which first humbly acknowledged his own sins and demerits in saying and we ind edjustly and then confessing our Lord's innocency and personal dignity implored his mercy And thus was the saving of this believing Thief the first fruits as it were of the infinite benefits to mankind of these our Lords sufferings and the early pledg of that eternal mercy which all penitent sinners should receive from him to the worlds end All this while stood first at a greater distance then nearer the Cross as their fears or the Soldiers fierceness or the crowds of people grew less the Holy Virgin the sad Mother of our Lord and the Women our Lords former Attendants that accompanied her among whom was Mary Magdalen and Mary of Cleophas our Blessed Lady's sister-in-law her husband being brother or else she sister to Joseph which Mary was the Mother also of James the less and Joses and Simon and Judas that were called our Lord's Brethren i. e. near Kinsmen by the relation they had to Joseph For if
this Mary had bin the Blessed Virgin 's own sister her Name would not have bin also Mary this being not usual or convenient to call two sisters undistinguishable by the same Name There was also present Salome John's Mother and others and John likewise our Lords beloved Disciple whose confidence above the rest we saw in the High Priests Palace was there with them but likely none other of the Eleven at least so near affraid of being apprehended if they should have appeared and perhaps John more presuming here as in the Palace because known to the High Priest Here then stood the sad Mother of our Lord beholding and hearing all that was done to and said against her Son with the like patience and resignation as he suffered it and ready with Abraham for the love of God to have offered him up her self had he commanded it Here she and the rest heard also that admirable confession of our Lord by the penitent Thief and our Lord 's gracious answer to him which must needs be a great consolation to them After which Answer our Lord looking down upon his Mother and compassionating her condition as well as Grief spake to her first and calling her Woman perhaps for preventing those affronts to which her near relation to him hated of all if it had bin known made her liable recommended John his beloved Disciple to her love and affection instead of himself as one that thence forward would perform the duty and observance to her of a Son and then speaking to John recommended to him the care and providing for her now aged about fifty and a desolate widow Joseph being formerly dead and now also her only Son taken from her as his Mother he being a single person and Virgin as she and having no Wife or family of his own to take care of as many others had and by reason of his wealthy parents out of which wealth also Johns mother formerly made provision many times for our Lord having the command of so much maintenance as was necessary for their decent subsistance Which recommendation of our Blessed Lady to John shews that notwithstanding the mention we find of her sister and four of our Lords Brethren yet that they were not of so near a Relation as that our Lords Mother after the death of Joseph had any family of her own or these had any constant habitation with her so as that she might rather have bin committed to their care and provision in her now declining age § 101 Our Lord having thus made his Will and disposed of his onely charge his dear Mother whom St. John took to himself and served with all fidelity and supplied with all necessaries till her death spake not at all after this for near the space of three hours from about the sixth till the ninth hour a little before he gave up the Ghost but continuing in silence and prayer and his countenance lift up towards heaven went on finishing that Sacrifice which was to be the redemption of the world consuming and melting away in the flames of Gods wrath toward sinners now in its effects seizing on him in their stead for all the offences of all mankind that had or should be When as he grew nearer to his end the Sun now at midday see Amos 8.9 and when not capable of any natural Ecclipse the Moon being now at the full and at its greatest distance from it began to be darkned and to lose its light this noblest body of the Creation sympathizing as it were with its Lord and covering its face at such a horrid Spectacle and indicating to the hard-hearted Spectators the true Sun of righteousness and that true Light that enlightneth every one that cometh into this world to be now setting and its glory ecclipsed so far as the malice of the Prince of Darkness and his Instruments could effect it and intimating now also the cheif reign of the power of darkness permitted by God to the Prince thereof § 102 All things were now full of terrour and amazement and mens hearts with fear began now to melt and relent and their former taunts and merriments to be changed into a deep silence and expectation what would be the Issue suspecting more miraculous things to follow when about the ninth hour or three of the clock in the afternoon the solemn time of offering up the Evening Sacrifice our Lord when now seeming to be quite spent and near his expiration cried out with a loud and strong voice and such as was not usual to such a manner of death exhausting all their spirits and strength before taking away their life to shew that he laid his life down not compelled but when he pleased though without shortning the time of the sufferings belonging to that cruel death and to testify also against Hereticks the Reality of his sufferings saying with great force that all the multitude heard him those first words of the Psalm penned by the Holy Ghost for a Description of his Passion Eloi Eloi lamma Sabbacthani My God My God why hast thou forsaken me expressing the last pangs of death now approaching and the inexplicable torments and anguish of Body and Soul due to our sins that now lay upon him which he calls his sins in the following part of this verse of that mourning Psalm longe a salute mea verba delictorum meorum and which sin of ours made this patient Lamb of God after three hours silence so break out into this complaint under them where more greivous than the corporal sufferings was the interior anguish of Spirit in his Divinity its suspending from his Humanity all those consolations which might any way relieve its sorrows and with which his Servants in their greatest sufferings are usually refreshed This like to that his Agony in the Garden but now without an Angel where the Apostles mention Heb. 5.7 of our Lord in the daies of his flesh offering up to God prayer and supplications with strong cryes and with tears may well be understood as of the tears and prayers and strong cryes made and shed in the Garden so of these now iterated on the Cross for the weight of Gods wrath lying on our sins which he assumed is inexplicable These words of that prophetick Psalm might have hinted to the learned High Priests and Elders that the Tragedy of this Psalm was just now acted and lively expressed in every part of it and they those miserable Wretches by whose persecutions this prophecy was fulfilled and so might have begotten some compunction in them But either they so blinded as not to understand those words or the other common-people at least mistaking them nor knowing them for the beginning of the Psalm and hearing them pronounced with such a loud voice thought from the similitude of the word Eloi twice repeated that our Lord called upon Elias that he would not forsake him in this his misery but come to help him For it was the common belief that
Christians being only six foot square and eight foot high and the entrance into it on the East-side about three foot high and three foot three inches broad On the right side of which Sepulcher from the entrance the Sacred body of our Lord was placed see Mark 16.5 compared Jo. 20.12 with his head toward the West After this the door or mouth of the Cave was shut up and fenced with a massy piece of rock cut out for the purpose not to be removed but by the help of many hands to hinder any violation of the Sepulcher or Body or robbing it of those costly linnen and spices that should be bestowed upon it Such a cave it was where Lazarus was buried Jo. 11.38 31 41. with a great Stone rolled upon the entrance into it which our Lord then commanded to be removed and our Lords raising of him a lively type of the same thing he would shortly after perform in raising himself Meanwhile those women our Lords former Disciples and Attendants that assisted not in this action keeping some distance perhaps in respect of these honourable persons with whom they had no acquaintance observed all that was done where their Lord was laid and how the Sepulcher made fast and it being now too late because night approached they intended after the Sabbath ended to express their last love and affection to ther dear Lord also in bringing some more sweet odours and spices for preserving and perfuming of his Sacred body and the narrow roome where it lay more to shew the honour and devotion they bare to it and once more to behold to touch and kiss those most holy Relicks than that there was now need of any more such cost § 113 Thus our so cruelly murthered Lord was now at rest whilst his glorious Soul meanwhile that was never separated from the Deity and now attended on with multitudes of Angels descended into Hell and the lowest parts of the Earth and of his Kingdom and there triumphed over the Powers of Darkness conquered as to their former Tyranny over man and over the lower part of this world by his late death and delivered also thence such imprisoned Souls as were capable of the mercy and favours of his Passion according to that of the Prophet Zee 9.11 Tu quoque in sanguine testamenti tui emisisti vinctos tuos de lacu in quo non est aqua and so with them entred into Paradise the place of joy and Repose for all happy souls till the resurrection of their bodies where he was adored by them as the Author of their Salvation and endless felicity and amongst the rest by the Soul of his late Fellow-sufferer though upon a just account the penitent Theif and so this its beatifical presence they there injoyed till the appointed time of its return to exalt also his crucified body to the state of glory Thus I say our so cruelly murthered Lord was now at rest but not so the consciences of the Pharisees and High Priests Whose seeing these two noble persons Joseph and Nicodemus thro so much popular hate to have so honourably interred his Body gave them a great jealousy and the predictions also about his rising again the third day much disturbed them Though a thing which was quite forgotten by our Lords Disciples and Followers who one would think had most cause to have remembred it and which he had so often told them of and they had upon hearing it from him also disputed amongst themselves what should be meant by it as they descended from the holy Mount after our Lord's Transfiguration and after this again were by him minded of it but the night before his passion as they went along to the Garden he telling them then also that when risen he would go before them into Galilee Mat. 26.32 I say this forgotten by them yet now very much troubled and disquieted the thoughts of the High Priests They could now call to mind how when they asked him a sign once and again Mat. 12.38.16.4 he alleged to them that of Jonah and that the Son of man as Jonah in the Whales belly should lye three daies in the heart of the earth and so be cast up again and the jaws of Death not be able to detain him And his saying that if they destroyed the Temple meaning his Body after three daies he would raise it up which speech of his though before they made it misconstrued by them an Article to condemn him yet now they could apprehend in another and its right sense and might thereby have condemned themselves Now also perhaps the words of our Lord spoken with so much Majesty before them at his arraignment ran in their mind that they should shortly see him sitting on the right hand of Power and lastly the obsequious respects they saw given to his body by those two eminent persons they conceived might arise from some such hopes and were performed from some such expectation Remembring therefore these predictions and perhaps not free from all fears of such an event after having beheld such wonderful things at and before his death they thought it meet at least to prevent any cheat in the business and to hinder that his Disciples might not upon such rumour of his rising again to deceive the credulous people remove secretly his body and so shew the empty Sepulcher and suborn some to say they had seen him though indeed no reason they had to suspect any such thing but rather that his Disciples if finding his words false would at least recant their former error and confess him an Impostor and a false Prophet Therefore they hasted again to Pilat for all that it was the Sabbath it being late over night before they were informed of his solemn and sumptuous Burial and relating to him these predictions and the bad consequence that might be of them importuned him that there might be set a watch before the Sepulcher till the third day and as if jealous also of the corruption of the Watch that the Sepulcher might be sealed besides But why this seal because if the body were taken away there must be a breach of the seal and so this theft discovered But so would there be a breach of it if the body risen again For how could they imagine that that power which raised the body might or would not also throw open the door for its passage But this Seal served well meanwhile to save it from the pillage of the Soldiers and to guard it from the Guards Some Antients say that the stone was by them fastned to the Sepulcher with iron These things were done accordingly by themselves the Governour leaving this wholly to their own ordering and doubtless much wondring at these their extravagant jealousies and fears So to the Monument they go set this Guard and seal the stone and this with no regret that it was on the Sabbath of the breach of which but by better works surely than these they had so
so his glorified Body should not remain alone but have also a great train of other glorified Bodies whom he thought meet to wait upon him and with it ascend to Heaven Who to shew his conquest not only over his own but our death and to confirm to us also our resurrection by vertue of his were together with him the Primitiae dormientium and the primogeniti ex mortuis in whom the divine Wisdom thought fit then to foreshew what is to be performed and made good to the rest of the bodyes of all his Saints now lying in their dust at the great day And some of these Saints also in these their new restored bodyes came into the Holy City saith the Evangelist stiling it so as if now sanctified with their presence and in alluding to the celestial Jerusalem of which these glorified bodyes were now to be eternal Inhabitants and there these also appeared to many saith the Text according as the Divine providence disposed testifying to them the Resurrection of our Lord and further confirming it with their own and so presently disappeared again Now what glorified persons these should be whether some holy men or also Disciples of our Lord that were lately before deceased as the Baptist S. Simeon Anna Zachary S. Joseph or others whose Sepulchers were near the City and well known and now viewed to be opened and empty by such as remembred their interment appearing to such to whom their persons were formerly well known or also whether most of the more eminent former Patriarchs and Prophets that had lain now so long a time in the dust and whom our Lord would gratify with a more early Resurrection we not knowing how far his favours now at this his entrance into his glory might be extended though what S. Peter saith of David Act. 2.34 seems somewhat to weaken such an opinion here I say it would be too curious to inquire further into such a matter hidden from us to whom several things of the Oeconomy of the next world for certain reasons of the Divine Wisdom are as yet but very sparingly revealed § 117 Amidst these extraordinary discourses of our revived Lord by the Guards and by the Saints risen with him the Galilean women who on the Eve of the Sabbath had observed where his Body was laid and knew nothing of the Guards that were set there the next day and having now prepared a more choice composition of spices and odours than the former hast of his burial would permit to Nicodemus in which women also used to be better skilled rose up very early in the Morning to go to the Sepulcher there to visit his precious Body and pay this last office of their duty and love unto it These were Mary Magdalen and Mary our Blessed Ladyes sister-in-law and mother of our Lords Brethren Salome the mother of James and John Joanna the Wife of Herods Steward and some others besides But no mention is there of our Lords Mother the Blessed Virgin amongst them and the reason why she who had a much greater love to and grief for her Son than any other yet was not so active as they in expressing it seems to be either that John to whose prudent care she was committed had restrained her return to the Sepulcher so to put some bounds to her grief and that this might not add sorrow to sorrow or rather because both the faith of his Resurrection before it came to pass was never diminished or ecclipsed in her who also full of Grace laid up in her heart all our words and well remembred what others forgot and also because most probably our Lords consolation of her so soon as he was risen was not at all deferred but that by his immediat apparition to her he afforded her an early recompence of her former suffering those sword-points of sorrow at his Cross and also of the faith which in her alone withered not at that time as in the rest Though our Lord mean-while did not think fit to use her having so near a relation to his person for a witness to others of his return to life which she also might then understand from him was to be discovered by certain degrees for the greater trial of his Disciples and evidence of the fact and so whilst others went to and fro she remained after this beatifical sight all this morning in the posture of so great a Mourner retired continuing in a rapture of joy and uncessant praises and thanksgivings to God For none can here rationally imagine that our Lord who vouchsafed to honour Mary Magdalens love and tears and S. Peters primacy and extraordinary affection to him with a gratious sight of him before the other men or women omitted this to his own Mother more loving and beloved by him § 118 The most Holy Virgin thus retired and the other women as yet busy in ordering their Provisions Mary Magdalen more regardless as formerly Luk. 10.42 of such by-businesses more fervorous and impatient in her affection to be with what was yet left her of our Lord whom only the devout observation of the Sabbath could have restrained from the Sepulcher so long ran before the rest whilst it was yet dark saith S. John with a valour more than a womans to this place there rather to expect and stay for her company For this S. Johns particular story of her as also our Lords appearing to her alone before the other mentioned also by S. Mark Mark. 16.9 He appeared first to Mary Magdalen seems to intimate But here some of the Evangelists writing things more compendiously in which others are more copious and some with more others with fewer circumstances and so for persons also some mentioning more than other do wherein yet is no contradiction whilst I give the substance of what these Sacred Historians have delivered I desire your pardon if I do not or cannot punctually observe the order of every thing done in this so small a time and yet so very full of various occurrences since as S. Jerome on Mat. 28. observes particularly of these women there seems to have bin several excursions to and returns from the Sepulcher made by them and perhaps not of all of them together Crebro abeunt saith he recurrunt non patiuntur a Sepulcro Domini diu abesse aut longius Mary Magdalen then coming thither thus alone when the soldiers were already fled away of whom she knew nothing saw the great stone rolled from the Sepulcher and our Lords body taken thence at which surprized with great wonder and grief she ran back into the city to the house where S. Peter abode with S. John and the Blessed Mother of our Lord probably all the Disciples not lodging together to tell them the sad News See Ink. 24.9 12 24. that the Monument was thrown open and no body there These two the chief of the society and between whom seems to have bin a more particular friendship who also had
what they were afterwards to instruct the Jews and all other Nations expounding to them the Law and the Prophets shewing them the many predictions concerning the Messias his Sufferings Resurrection and so entrance into his Glory a many of which they mentioned afterward in their Sermons in the Acts opening their understandings to understand the Scriptures § 128 Afterward more particularly addressing himself to his Apostles he told them in this and several other apparitions made to them before his Ascension that he was very shortly to go into Heaven to his Father and leave them here behind him That all power both in Heaven and Earth was given to him that therefore by this his Authority he also sent them to preach the Gospel to all Nations and witness to them the things they had seen and heard from him but beginning their predication first at Jerusalem and to Gods former people the Jews That they should preach to them repentance and remission of sin thro his name and also the observation of all those things which he had commanded them And that they should also Baptize them In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost instructing them that who so believed in him and were baptized which was the Sacrament instituted for washing away their sins for conferring on them the Spirit of regeneration and for initiating them into his Church should be saved and the unbelieving damned And that great signs also should follow them that believed and were of the Christian profession which signs should bear witness to the truth of their faith and Religion That in his name they should speak strange languages cure the sick cast out Devils and have a special command over all the powers of the Enemy as they are called Luk. 10.19 in taking up or treading on Serpents or in hapning to drink any poison not to receive any hurt from them Not that all Believers should do such Miracles but that these should still remain in the Church or Congregation of true Believers Testimonies and Evidences of Gods special favours to and presence with them § 129 At last he proceeded to their solemn Ordination wherein after he had pronounced a second Pax vobis and a sicut misit me Pater ego mitto vos He breathed upon them with his most Sacred mouth and said these words used ever since by them and their Successors in the ordination of others Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose sins ye shall forgive i. e. by Baptism or for those committed afterwards by Absolution upon confession and repentance or penance they are forgiven them and whose sins ye shall retain i. e. by not baptizing or absolving or further binding with Church-censures the impenitent and obstinat they are retained And so solemnly promised to be with them and their Successors with his power and protection till the end of the world and the time of his return to judg it § 130 This said he disappeared also to them as he had done several times already to the other which caused in them now less wonder at the former leaving their hearts replenished with great consolation After this done on the second day of the Feast and the first of his Resurrection he absented himself from them till the Eighth when that solemn Festivals Octave was fully ended and the people were upon their return to their own countreyes and habitations Where for this time our Lords glorious Person was together with those other Saints whose Bodyes were raised with him till his Ascension would be too much curiosity to inquire It seems he was pleased to observe the fixed laws of the Divine wisdom for Souls or Persons already translated to the next life viz. to have no more familiar or long-during converse with those of this for so neither did Elias and Moses make any long stay with our Lord in the Holy Mount. As for other good ends so perhaps for this the greater merit of our faith here concerning the life and affairs of the world to come § 131 S. Thomas one of the eleven was absent when our Lord thus appeared where some imagine from the fear he formerly bewrayed John 11.5 that he might not be as yet returned to the Society since their dispersion on Thursday night at our Lords apprehension and so might not have heard as the rest of our Lord 's former appearings at all to the women and to Peter c He whether the same night or afterwards being come to them and informed of their having seen our Lord yet for a greater manifestation still of our Lords Resurrection and for begetting in this Apostle more humility continued in the same incredulity as to their relations though so many as they had done to the other likely perswaded by the Circumstances of his appearing in the night coming through Doors shut and making scarse any stay at all with persons to whom he had formerly shewed so much affection but suddainly vanishing again that it might be some airy spirit subject in his motions to the order of a Superior power And though they related to him also their having seen his scars and touched his body or at least invited to do it yet he fancied that this was not done to purpose but ought to be better examined and that if he had bin there he would have thrust his hand into the Gash in our Lords side and his fingers into the holes made by the nails c Notwithstanding that this person besides his hearing our Lords many predictions to them of his Resurrection was present with the rest at our Lords raising from death after laid upon the Bier the widdows son at Naim and again at his raising of Lazarus out of his Sepulcher when he had lain longer time there than our Lord had done But this too-much suspicious and despondent inclination of his had appeared also several times formerly that we may see what materials our Lords Grace wrought upon and not to be discouraged as in those words of his at our persecuted Lords return into Judea for the raising of Lazarus Jo. 11 16. He then presently resolving that there our Lord and they must lose their lives and in his words again John 14.5 where our Lord telling his Disciples of his departure shortly and that they knew the place and the way whither he went Thomas dejectedly replied that they knew not whither he went and how could they know the way thither To whom our Lord answered that his Journey was a Return to Heaven to his Father whence he came and that He himself believed-in was the way thither Yet after the descent and renovation of the Holy Spirit this Apostle especially was made choice of to be a most eminent Assertor of the same Resurrection and Propagator of the Gospel throughout India and the remotest Nations of the East fulfilling our Lords words Acts 1.8 Et usque ad ultimum terrae and there at last laid down his life for it § 132 Our Lord then
office till they were endued with further Gifts from on high to be procured for them by our Lords Ascension In expectation therefore of these things and of his reappearance to them in Galilee many of them continued together as also our Lords Holy Mother probably in Capernaum the place of our Lords former ordinary abode at S. Peter's or also Zebedee's house and spending their time there as afterwards at Jerusalem Act. 1.14 in Praier and Praises and holy discourse and frequented by many others that had bin former Disciples and Admirers of our Lord to whom privatly they communicated his Resurrection and confirmed them in the faith § 136 After not many daies St. Peter whom the rest much observed and complyed with mentioned one evening to those with him his purpose to go out on fishing for which the calmness and darkness of the night whereby the fish are less frighted with their Nets as the best season used before by them see Luk. 5.5 some think because our Lords apparitions were usually on the first day of the week his Resurrection day that this was the Evening after the Sabbath was ended and when they had bin two or three daies in Galilee This employment St. Peter might undertake for the present but without all thoughts doubtless of any continuance of it not to seem void of business or ashamed of his former Trade as also to make some better provision for their necessary sustenance The Disciples that were present consented also to go with him probably all or most of them also formerly Fishermen The Persons were Zebedees two sons James and John Between the latter of which and St. Peter was a more intimate affection and they seldom parted from one another Thomas Nathanael and two others not named some conjecture these might be St. Andrew Peter's Brother and St. Philip his Fellow-townsman And Nathanael here who is not mentioned by this name but only by St. John being a Galilean a familiar acquaintance of Philips and called at the same time with him and who then made such an early and noble confession of our Lord Jo. 1.49 acknowledging him the Son of God and King of Israel and then also declared by our Lord so sincere and upright a Person and here also joined with them by the name of Disciples here Jo. 21.14 being meant Apostles is supposed to have bin one of the twelve and in the other Evangelist called by his Fathers name Bar-Tholomew as Peter Bar-Jona which Bartholemew in reciting of the Apostles names is also joined and placed next to Philip Mat. 10.3 and Mark 3.18 The Ship and Nets they used probably were those which in their former constant attendance on our Lord were left to the management of their near Relations and friends old Zebedee and his Servants and perhaps St. Peters Wife and his Mother for their better lively-hood by some hired servants still continued the trade Which Ships or Barkes also were on several occasions made use of by our Lord whilst he passed to and fro upon the the Lake to the Regions and Towns adjoining These Persons then being many of the chief of the Apostles seven of them in all which is a number much celebrated in Scripture went out together on fishing and that they might be the better prepared for the next mornings Miracle all that night though labouring hard caught not a fish as it also hapned to Peter before at our Lords first calling him from his trade Luk. 5.5 and he might imagine this a punishment of his return to it now so long deserted when designed for another employment The next morning our Lord standing on the shore but unknown in his former loving and familiar way calling them children asked them if they had any meat as if he would have bought some fish of them to whom they answering they had none he directed them to cast their Net on the right side of the ship and they should find some which they very obsequiously did perhaps suspecting something concerning the Person by his language of calling them children he making choice of this dearest term of love and affection rather than others of subjection and frequently using it See Mark 10.24 children how hard is it and John 13.33 little children yet a while I am with you c which word also the Apostles used to their Disciples and Converts 2 Cor. 6.13 Gal. 4.19 perhaps also they calling to mind the former Miracle our Lord had wrought in this kind after they had laboured so another whole night and caught nothing This was no sooner done but they perceived their Net so ponderous with the fishes it had enclosed that not able to lift it up into the ship they were forced to drag it along toward the shore Upon which St. John said to Peter that certainly it was our Lord either by his quicker sight better discerning him or from this great Miracle perswaded thereof Peter according to his wonted fervour and courage and moved by an extraordinary love he bare to our Lord impatient of the slow motion of the Ship dragging gently the laden Net girding only close to him his Fishers coat without further apparelling himself threw himself into the Sea it being not far to the shore Methinks this action somewhat resembling these two Disciple's behaviour at our Lords Sepulcher where John first discovered and Peter first entred where after his having adored our Lord and the others now arrived he went up again into the Boat to help them to land the Net full of great fishes in number one hundred fifty three yet without the least breach of the Net The former story of the Apostles fishing at their first call to follow Christ and so to become Fishers of men and the Miracle then done by our Lord varying in several Circumstances from this gave occasion to St. Austin in Johan Tract 122. knowing no casualty to be in our Lords Works but all as Parables significative and predesigned with an infinite wisdom more than we can for the present discover to conjecture these two fishings to represent the two states of the Church before and after the Resurrection when all things will be perfected In the first therefore he observes That the Disciples were bidden by our Lord then in the Ship together with them to cast their Nets but not so particularly on the right side of the ship That the fish caught were some great some small not drawn to the land but taken into the ship that by the Multitude of them the Net was broken and by their weight the ship in hazard to be sunk no certain number of them taken no feast or entertainment of the Fishermen after their toil But in this latter Our Lord is standing on and calling to them from the shore the Apostles being seven that is a compleat number are bidden to cast their Net and all the fish are taken on the right side of the ship these a certain number all great ones drawn to land no Net broken or
see Acts 10.34 15.7 And as S. Paul had an extraordinary Mission from Christ Acts 9.11 So had he one from the Church of Antioch Act. 13 3. and both his Baptism and Mission from the Ministry of those who received this Power from the Colledge of the Apostles of which Peter was the Head Our Lord to make this charge effect the deeper impression on Peter and all his Successors ceased not thus but repeated it asking him again and again only omitting the first comparison till Peter was grieved Jo. 21.17 and ashamed whether he loved him and upon the same Answer of his appealing to our Lords omniscience made now three times from whom our Lord may seem to require this trinal confession to expiate and reverse his former trinal Denyal he thrice iterated to him the same charge that in the absence of himself he should return this love to his little ones whom he sometimes called Lambs sometimes Sheep to shew all in his fold old or young committed to his government and that all strong or weaklings have need of the Pastors feeding them and were subjected to him After our Lord had thus instructed this chief Servant and Steward of his houshold Peter what he should do he began to preacquaint him also with what he should suffer for him the more to pre-arm him for future Events and that nothing hapning unexpected or that was not known to be by the divine Providence predesigned such things might afterwards less surprise him and that the conceit of a present secular Kingdom of our Lord and their advancement in his Court might be removed out of his mind He then began to tell him with a double serious Amen pronounced before it That as in his yonger age he had gone whither and done what he pleased so hereafter in his old age he must expect a change That as he must undertake great labours for his sake so undergo great afflictions and be made like unto his Master he so loved Mat. 26.35 as in his preaching of so in his sufferings for the truth and fulfil the promise he had once engaged of dying if not with yet for him That one day as himself had done he must stretch out his hands and another gird him and carry him away whither he would not to Prison and to the Cross signifying to him that he should glorify God his Father by Martyrdom and the Cross as himself had done Which accordingly happened in the thirteenth year of Nero after he had diligently fed Christ's sheep after this transiens universa visiting all places Acts 9.32 for thirty five years § 138 And so our Lord rising up and saying to Peter chiefly intended in a mystical sense follow me i. e. my example in undergoing such Events as he had discovered to him with all valour alacrity and constancy he walked on the shore Peter at a nearer distance attending him Who turning him about and seeing John coming after them probably somewhat before or faster than the rest presuming on the love our Lord bare to him to whom also Peter as well as our Lord had an extraordinary affection he took the boldness having heard his own doom to inquire of his al-knowing Master concerning this his dear friend what the Divine good pleasure had ordeined also touching him To whom our Lord repressing the Apostles curiosity returned somewhat a dubious Answer That if he would have John tarry till his coming this nothing concerned him but that he should prepare himself to follow him in that way of death and suffering as himself had trod before him See Jo. 13.36 Now Johns stay till our Lords coming being capable of several senses viz. either our Lords last coming to the general Judgment in those times imagined not far off or his coming in that signal Judgment of his upon the Jewish Nation at the destruction or Jerusalem which St. John only out-lived or his coming when he calleth and removeth his Servants away from hence by natural death ordinarily in Scripture-language called his coming see Mat. 24.42 46 50. Apoc. 2.24 3.5 this last we may imagine from the Event was our Lord's meaning though the Disciples either hearing these words from our Lord or related to them by St. Peter from hence gathered that John our Lords Favorite should not dye but remain till his second coming then commonly thought near at hand to which imagination of theirs as also of others following St. Johns long life and some miraculous deliverances gave still more strength who died not till sixty seven years after this was spoken by our Lord and remained alive almost thirty years after the Destruction of Jerusalem This opinion St. John now much aged when he writ this his Gospel endeavoured to remove telling them our Lord had expresly said no such thing but left our Lords words any further unexpounded as not seeming any way to decline or wave his own Martyrdom which doubtless he much thirsted for and had in some manner already undergone and outlived it Tertull de Praescript Cap. 36. being in Domitian's persecution of the Christians sent by the Proconsul of Asia as a chief Heresiarch to Rome and there cast into a vessel of scalding Oil to have taken away his life but was miraculously preserved to make good our Lords words and so banished into Patmos from whence returned he writ his Gospel shortly after which our Lord came to call him away in a natural and peaceable death when above ninety years old § 139 After these occurrences besides the Sea of Galilee related by S. John in a Post-script chap 21. after he had finished his Gospel Chap. 20. One Motive of which Postscript perhaps was the rectifying a mistake in some of the Disciples concerning our Lords Prophecy of his staying till he came Our Lord suddainly disappeared leaving them in a longing expectation of his return to them and a more publick manifestation of himself in Galilee at the time and place preappointed § 140 At which time a great Multitude of our Lords Converts in Galilee having notice of it from the Apostles were gathered together this being supposed the Apparition St. Paul speaks of 1 Cor. 15. when he saith he was seen of above five hundred Brethren at once in a certain Mountain of Galilee imagined the same upon which he was transfigured and where Moses and Elias appeared to him and which was by St. Peter called the Holy Mount This Mount is by many thought to be Mount Tabor a most beautiful Hill exactly round and ascensible only on one side not so steep as the others and having a Plain for about half a mile Diameter at the top which hill our Lord living so near it situate about some three or four miles from Nazareth perhaps had sometimes frequented in his youth But it seems rather to be another Mountain nearer to Capernaum the place of his ordinary Residence in Galilee where also a-nights he frequented Prayer called his twelve Apostles delivered the Beatitudes
person our Lord appeared also in great beauty and Majesty and like himself that this was his beloved Son Mat. 17. in whom he was well pleased And this then added to it that after Moses and Elias the law and the Prophets vanished they should in the last place hear him for which purpose viz. their hearing and obeying this Lord also was this voice made unto the people here at Jordan Again a third time when the same our Lord a little before his Passion was in great desolation and desired to be delivered from the approaching paines of death Jo. 12.27 but then afterwards resigning his natural will as in the Garden prayed that his Father would not spare him but glorifie his name Viz. in our Lords passing through all those bitter sufferings preappointed for him his Heavenly Father himself vouchsafed with a voice from heaven to answer his Praier telling him he would glorifie his name yet again Viz. in the admirable Resurrection and Ascension of his Son as he had done already viz. in his glorious Miracles where also our Lord told the people concerning this voice from heaven that it came not for his sake or satisfaction who alwaies knew his Fathers will concerning and Love to him and the glory he had and ever was to enjoy with and from him not for his sake I say but for theirs that they acknowledging this glory the Father both had and would bestow upon his Son should accordingly honour and obey him As also now at his Baptism the visible descent of the Holy Ghost was for the peoples-sake that they might hereby know that he who was full of the Holy Ghost as much before as after this visible descent thereof had it in his power by baptism to confer on others § 142 Often therefore also doth he mind the people for their admittance and believing on him of this his Fathers bearing witness to him Of his Fathers sending him and Sanctifying him see John 8.18 54. 5.32 37. 10.36 which relates as to his Fathers testimony of him by Miracles so doubtless to this signal one received before the beginning of his Ministry at his Baptism and to his Sanctification at this time by the visible appearance of the Holy Ghost sitting on him And this very manifestation thus of our Lord to Israel the Baptist names as one of the ends of his own coming and Baptizing Jo. 1.31 And most congruous also it seems that our Lord's Institution of conferring Baptism for ever being in the name of the Blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost all these should first after this manner manifest themselves in his own Baptism Which Vnction of his with the Spirit foretold by Esaias chap. 61.1 our Lord also in his Sermon Luk. 4.18 openly applies to himself And this was the first Scripture he as it were casually opened at to explain it to his own country men at Nazareth § 143 After this Testimony given to God the Son by God the Father and God the Holy Ghost at his Baptism in the midst of the admiration and expectation of John and the people beholding him our Lord in the Vehemency of the same Spirit which alwaies remaining in him in the same plenitude and not given by measure yet acted more or less in his Humanity as occasion was offered suddainly departed out of their sight and went speedily toward the Desart from whence John formerly appeared Immediatly saith S. Mark the Spirit drave him into the Wilderness And such Rapts of the Holy Spirit have bin formerly seen in Elias see 1 King 18.12 2 King 2.16 and others Act. 8.39 with an elevation of their bodies also into the Air tho probably not so here of our Lords By wilderness also is here meant the most desolate invious and unfrequented recesses thereof Where were the dens latebrae of wild beasts for their safety for the Evangelist saith he was there with the wild beasts whence we may conjecture John Baptist's Desart also to have bin such however some would mitigate it Where also we may say is the most ordinary dwelling and haunt here on Earth of evil Spirits not so much by their choice though in some respect they hate the places frequented by men and where is some greater appearance of Devotion and of Gods service and worship as from their Condemnation and the Divine restraint See Mat. 12.43 the evil Spirit when having lost his possession of the man his walking in drie or barren and desolate places and Mark 5.3 their haunting the Tombs and Esai 13.21 and 34.14 the Satyrs dancing in such places and Apocal. 18.2 Desolate Babylon becoming the Habitation of Devils To which may be added the experience of Hermits that inhabiting Desarts are more molested with them and here also our Lord met and had his chief combat with the Devil § 144 Into this solitude then our Lord retired after his being anointed with the Holy Ghost and now shortly to enter upon his Ministry retired as we see with great fervency of Spirit to fulfil his Fathers will i. e. the foreseen great Mortifications he was there to undergo no way remitting but advancing this holy impetuosity And here he remained and separated himself during forty daies This being the round number used for 7. sixes of daies or 6. multiplied 7. times and a number in Scripture most frequently prescribed by God according to his Creation of the world in six daies for the dispatch of any great work labour or sufferings Of which may be given very many instances if this would not too much divert the Reader See Gen. 7.4.17 Ezec. 4.6 Jonah 3.4 Gen. 6.3 thrice forty years Deut. 8.2 Gen. 15.13 ten times 40. Judg. 13.1 Apoc. 2 3. and about so many months was the time of our Lords preaching See before § For this time then he sequestred himself to be vacant without admitting the distraction of any human converse or secular business and with those advantages that bodily fasting gives to the operations of the Soul for supplication and praier for the solemn preparation for that high service and ministry he was now entring upon and designed-to and again for the making a more solemn oblation of himself to his Father as to the most voluntary undertaking of all those hardships and sufferings that were set before him and that were desired by him in all these the more to glorifie his name Now though our Lord for such a more intimate conversation with God and perfect Contemplation needed not to use such exteriour means as retirement and abstinence from food and dismission from other Emploiments by reason of the supernatural perfections which from his Deity and plenitude of the Spirit were infused and refunded into his human Nature Yet as Suarez observes In 3. Thom 2. Tom. Disp 2◠§. 1. Per cognitionem anima naturalem non poterat sine speciali miraculo multa simul perfecte considerare neque per operationem phantasiae simul comitari operationem intellectus si circa