Disciples stood compassed in that bright Cloud exspecting some miraculous event of so Heavenly a Vision when suddenly they might hear a voice sounding out of that Cloud saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him They need not be told whose that voice was the place the matter evinced it No Angel in Heaven could or durst have said so How gladly doth Peter afterwards recount it For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son c. It was onely the eare that was here taught not the eye As of Horeb so of Sinai so of Tabor might God say Ye saw no shape nor image in that day that the Lord spake unto you He that knows our proneness to idolatry avoids those occasions which we might take to abuse our own fansies Twice hath God spoken these words to his own Son from Heaven once in his Baptisme and now again in his Transfiguration Here not without some oppositive comparison not Moses not Elias but This. Moses and Elias were Servants this a Son Moses and Elias were sons but of grace and choice this is that Son the Son by nature Other sons are beloved as of favour and free election this is The Beloved as in the unitie of his essence Others are so beloved that he is pleased with themselves this so beloved that in and for him he is pleased with mankinde As the relation betwixt the Father and the Son is infinite so is the Love We measure the intention of Love by the extention the love that rests in the person affected alone is but streight true Love descends like Aaron's Ointment from the head to the skirts to children friends allyes O incomprehensible large love of God the Father to the Son that for his sake he is pleased with the World O perfect and happy complacence Out of Christ there is nothing but enmity betwixt God and the Soul in him there can be nothing but peace When the beams are met in one center they do not only heat but burn Our weak love is diffused to many God hath some the world more and therein wives children friends but this infinite love of God hath all the beams of it united in one onely Object the Son of his Love Neither doth he love any thing but in the participation of his Love in the derivation from it O God let me be found in Christ and how canst thou but be pleased with me This one voice proclaimes Christ at once the Son of God the Reconciler of the world the Doctor and Law-giver of his Church As the Son of God he is essentially interessed in his Love as he is the Reconciler of the world in whom God is well pleased he doth most justly challenge our love and adherence as he is the Doctor and Law-giver he doth justly challenge our audience our obedience Even so Lord teach us to hear and obey thee as our Teacher to love thee and believe in thee as our Reconciler and as the eternal Son of thy Father to adore thee The light caused wonder in the Disciples but the voice astonishment They are all falne down upon their faces Who can blame a mortal man to be thus affected with the voice of his Maker Yet this word was but plausible and hortatory O God how shall flesh and blood be other then swallowed up with the horror of thy dreadful sentence of death The Lion shall roar who shall not be afraid How shall those that have slighted the sweet voice of thine invitations call to the rocks to hide them from the terror of thy Judgments The God of mercies pities our infirmities I do not hear our Saviour say Ye lay sleeping one while upon the earth now ye lye astonished Ye could neither wake to see nor stand to hear now lye still and tremble But he graciously touches and comforts them Arise fear not That voice which shall once raise them up out of the earth might well raise them up from it That hand which by the least touch restored sight lims life might well restore the spirits of the dismaied O Saviour let that soveraign hand of thine touch us when we lye in the trances of our griefs in the bed of our securities in the grave of our sins and we shall arise They looking up saw no man save Jesus alone and that doubtless in his wonted form All was now gone Moses Elias the Cloud the Voice the Glory Tabor it self cannot be long blessed with that Divine light and those shining guests Heaven will not allow to earth any long continuance of Glory Only above is constant happiness to be look'd for and injoyed where we shall ever see our Saviour in his unchangeable brightness where the light shall never be either clouded or varied Moses and Elias are gone only Christ is left The glory of the Law and the Prophets was but temporary yea momentany that onely Christ may remain to us intire and conspicuous They came but to give testimony to Christ when that is done they are vanished Neither could these raised Disciples finde any miss of Moses and Elias when they had Christ still with them Had Jesus been gone and left either Moses or Elias or both in the Mount with his Disciples that presence though glorious could not have comforted them Now that they are gone and he is left they cannot be capable of discomfort O Saviour it matters not who is away whiles thou art with us Thou art God all-sufficient what can we want when we want not thee Thy presence shall make Tabor it self an Heaven yea Hell it self cannot make us miserable with the fruition of thee The Woman taken in Adultery WHat a busie life was this of Christs He spent the night in the mount of Olives the day in the Temple whereas the night is for a retired repose the day for company His retiredness was for prayer his companiableness was for preaching All night he watches in the Mount all the morning he preaches in the Temple It was not for pleasure that he was here upon earth his whole time was penal and toilsome How do we resemble him if his life were all pain and labour ours all pastime He found no such fair success the day before The multitude was divided in their opinion of him messengers were sent and suborned to apprehend him yet he returns to the Temple It is for the sluggard or the coward to plead a Lion in the way upon the calling of God we must overlook and contemn all the spight and opposition of men Even after an ill harvest we must sow and after denials we must woe for God This Sun of Righteousness prevents that other and shines early with wholesome doctrines upon the Soules of his hearers The Auditory is both thronged and attentive Yet not all with the same intentions If the people came to learn the Scribes and
know that hereby thou intendedst to teach thy Parents that thou couldest live without them and that not of any indigency but out of a gracious dispensation thou wouldest ordinarily depend upon their care In the mean time thy Divine wisdome could not but foreknow all these corroding thoughts wherewith the heart of thy dear Mother must needs bleed through this sudden dereliction yet wouldst thou leave her for the time to her sorrow Even so O Saviour thou thoughtest fit to visit her that bore thee with this early affliction Never any loved thee whom thou doest not sometimes exercise with the grief of missing thee that both we may be more careful to hold thee and more joyful in recovering thee Thou hast said and canst not lie I am with you to the end of the world but even whiles thou art really present thou thinkest good to be absent unto our apprehensions Yet if thou leave us thou wilt not forsake us if thou leave us for our humiliation thou wilt not forsake us to our final discomfort Thou mayest for three daies hide thy self but then we shall finde thee in the Temple None ever sought thee with a sincere desire of whom thou wert not found Thou wilt not be either so little absent as not to whet our appetites nor so long as to fainten the heart After three daies we shall finde thee and where should we rather hope to finde thee then in the Temple There is the habitation for the God of Israel there is thy resting place for ever Oh all ye that are grieved with the want of your Saviour see where you must seek him In vain shall ye hope to finde him in the streets in the Taverns in the Theaters seek him in his holy Temple seek him with piety seek him with faith there shall ye meet him there shall ye recover him Whiles children of that age were playing in the streets Christ was found sitting in the Temple not to gaze on the outward glory of that house or on the golden Candlesticks or Tables but to hear and appose the Doctors He who as God gave them all the wisdome they had as the Son of man hearkens to the wisdome he had given them He who sate in their hearts as the Author of all learning and knowledge sits in the midst of their school as an humble Disciple that by learning of them he might teach all the younger sort humility and due attendance upon their Instructors He could at the first have taught the great Rabbins of Israel the deep mysteries of God but because he was not yet called by his Father to the publick function of a Teacher he contents himself to hear with diligence and to ask with modesty and to teach only by insinuation Let those consider this which will needs run as soon as they can go and when they finde ability think they need not stay for a further vocation of God or men Open your eyes ye rathe ripe invaders of God's Chair and see your Saviour in his younger years not sitting in the eminent pulpits of the Doctors but in the lowly floors of the Auditors See him that could have taught the Angels listning in his minority to the voice of men Who can think much to learn of the Ancients when he looks upon the Son of God sitting at the feet of the Doctors of Israel First he hears then he asks How much more doth it concern us to be hearers ere we offer to be teachers of others He gathers that hears he spends that teacheth if we spend before we gather we shall soon prove bankrupts When he hath heard he asks and after that he answers Doubtless those very questions were instructions and meant to teach more then to learn Never had these great Rabbins heard the voice of such a Tutor in whom they might see the wisdome of God so concealing it self that yet it would be known to be there No marvel then if they all wondred at his understanding and answers Their eyes saw nothing but humane weakness their ears heard Divine sublimity of matter betwixt what they saw and what they heard they could not but be distracted with a doubting admiration And why did ye not O ye Jewish teachers remember That to us a Childe is born and unto us a Son is given and the government is upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of peace Why did ye not now bethink your selves what the Star the Sages the Angels the Shepherds Zachary Simeon Anna had premonished you Fruitless is the wonder that endeth not in faith No light is sufficient where the eyes are held through unbelief or prejudice The Doctors were not more amazed to hear so profound a childhood then the Parents of Christ were to see him among the Doctors the joy of finding him did strive with the astonishment of finding him thus And now not Joseph he knew how little right he had to that Divine Son but Mary breaks forth into a loving expostulation Son why hast thou dealt so with us That she might not seem to take upon her as an imperious Mother it is like she reserved this question till she had him alone wherein she meant rather to expresse grief then correption Onely herein the Blessed Virgin offended that her inconsideration did not suppose as it was that some higher respects then could be due to flesh and blood called away the Son of God from her that was the daughter of man She that was but the mother of humanity should not have thought that the business of God must for her sake be neglected We are all partial to our selves naturally and prone to the regard of our own rights Questionlesse this gracious Saint would not for all the world have willingly preferr'd her own attendance to that of her God through heedlesness she doth so her Son and Saviour is her monitor out of his Divine love reforming her natural How is it that ye sought me Know ye not that I must goe about my Fathers businesse Immediately before the Blessed Virgin had said Thy father and I sought thee with heavy hearts Wherein both according to the supposition of the world she called Joseph the Father of Christ and according to the fashion of a dutiful Wife she names her Joseph before her self She well knew that Joseph had nothing but a name in this business she knew how God had dignified her beyond him yet she saies Thy father and I sought thee The Son of God stands not upon contradiction to his Mother but leading her thoughts from his supposed father to his true from earth to Heaven he answers Knew ye not that I must go about my Fathers business It was honour enough to her that he had vouchsafed to take flesh of her it was his eternal honour that he was God of God the everlasting Son of the heavenly Father Good reason therefore was it that the respects to flesh
fish of the sea was tributary to him How should this incourage our dependance upon that Omnipotent hand of thine which hath Heaven earth sea at thy disposing Still thou art the same for thy members which thou wert for thy self the Head Rather then offence shall be given to the world by a seeming neglect of thy dear Children thou wilt cause the very fowls of Heaven to bring them meat and the fish of the sea to bring them money O let us look up ever to thee by the eye of our Faith and not be wanting in our dependance upon thee who canst not be wanting in thy Providence over us LAZARUS Dead OH the Wisdome of God in penning his own Story The Disciple whom Jesus loved comes after his fellow-Evangelists that he might glean up those rich ears of History which the rest had passed over That Eagle soars high and towrs up by degrees It was much to turn water into wine but it was more to seed five thousand with five loaves It was much to restore the Rulers son it was more to cure him that had been thirty eight years a Cripple It was much to cure him that was born blind it was more to raise up Lazarus that had been so long dead As a stream runs still the stronger and wider the nearer it comes to the Ocean whence it was derived so didst thou O Saviour work the more powerfully the nearer thou drewest to thy Glory This was as one of thy last so of thy greatest Miracles when thou wert ready to die thy self thou raisedst him to life who smelt strong of the grave None of all the Sacred Histories is so full and punctual as this in the report of all circumstances Other Miracles do not more transcend Nature then this transcends other Miracles This alone was a sufficient eviction of thy Godhead O blessed Saviour none but an infinite power could so farre go beyond Nature as to recal a man four daies dead from not a mere privation but a setled corruption Earth must needs be thine from which thou raisest his body Heaven must needs be thine from whence thou fetchest his Spirit None but he that created man could thus make him new Sickness is the common preface to death no mortal nature is exempted from this complains even Lazarus whom Jesus loved is sick What can strength of Grace or dearness of respect prevail against disease against dissolution It was a stirring message that Mary sent to Jesus He whom thou lovest is sick as if she would imply that his part was no-less deep in Lazarus then hers Neither doth she say He that loves thee is sick but he whom thou lovest not pleading the merit of Lazarus his affection to Christ but the mercy and favour of Christ to him Even that other reflexion of love had been no weak motive for O Lord thou hast said Because he hath set his love upon me therefore will I deliver him Thy goodness will not be behinde us for love who professest to love them that love thee But yet the argument is more forcible from thy love to us since thou hast just reason to respect every thing of thine own more then ought that can proceed from us Even we weak men what can we stick at where we love Thou O infinite God art Love it self Whatever thou hast done for us is out of thy love the ground and motive of all thy mercies is within thy self not in us and if there be ought in us worthy of thy love it is thine own not ours thou givest what thou acceptest Jesus well heard the first groan of his dear Lazarus every short breath that he drew every sigh that he gave was upon account yet this Lord of Life lets his Lazarus sicken and languish and die not out of neglect or impotence but out of power and resolution This sickness is not to death He to whom the issues of death belong knows the way both into it and out of it He meant that sickness should be to death in respect of the present condition not to death in respect of the event to death in the process of Nature not to death in the success of his Divine power that the Son of God might be glorified thereby O Saviour thy usual style is the Son of man thou that wouldst take up our infirmities wert willing thus to hide thy Godhead under the course weeds of our Humanity but here thou saist That the Son of God might be glorified Though thou wouldst hide thy Divine glory yet thou wouldst not smother it Sometimes thou wouldst have thy Sun break forth in bright gleams to shew that it hath no less light even whiles it seems kept in by the clouds Thou wert now near thy Passion it was most seasonable for thee at this time to set forth thy just title Neither wâ—s this an act that thy Humanity could challenge to it self but farre transcending all finite powers To die was an act of the Son of man to raise from death was an act of the Son of God Neither didst thou say merely that God but that the Son of God might be glorified God cannot be glorified unless the Son be so In very natural Relations the wrong or disrespect offered to the child reflects upon the father as contrarily the parents upon the child how much more where the love and respect is infinite where the whole effence is communicated with the intireness of relation O God in vain shall we tender our Devotions to thee indefinitely as to a glorious and incomprehensible Majesty if we kiss not the Son who hath most justly said Ye believe in the Father believe also in me What an happy family was this I finde none upon earth so much honoured Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus It is no standing upon terms of precedency the Spirit of God is not curious in marshalling of places Time was when Mary was confessed to have chosen the better part here Martha is named first as most interessed in Christs love for ought appears all of them were equally dear Christ had familiarly lodged under their roof How fit was that to receive him whose in-dwellers were hospital pious unanimous Hospital in the glad entertainment of Jesus and his train Pious in their Devotions Unanimous in their mutual Concord As contrarily he balâ—s and hates that house which is taken up with uncharitableness profaneness contention But O Saviour how doth this agree thou lovedst this Family yet hearing of their distress thou heldest off two daies more from them Canst thou love those thou regardest not canst thou regard them from whom thou willingly absentest thy self in their necessity Behold thy love as it is above ours so it is oft against ours Even out of very affection art thou not seldome absent None of thine but have sometimes cryed How long Lord What need we instance when thine eternal Father did purposely estrange his face from thee so as thou cryedst out of
the breast of Pilate His Conscience bids him spare his Popularity bids him kill His Wife warned by a Dream warns him to have no hand in the blood of that just man the importunate multitude presses him for a sentence of death All shifts have been tried to free the man whom he hath pronounced innocent All violent motives are urged to condemn that man whom malice pretends guilty In the height of this strife when Conscience and moral Justice were ready to sway Pilate's distracted heart to a just dismission I hear the Jews cry out If thou let this man goe thou art not Caesar's friend There is the word that strikes it dead it is now no time to demur any more In vain shall we hope that a carnal heart can prefer the care of his Soul to the care of his safety and honour God to Caesar Now Jesus must die Pilate hasts into the Judgment hall the Sentence sticks no longer in his teeth Let him be crucified Yet how foul so ever his Soul shall be with this fact his hands shall be clean He took water and washt his hands before the multitude saying I am innocent of the blood of this just person see ye to it Now all is safe I wis this is expiation enough water can wash off blood the hands can cleanse the heart protest thou art innocent and thou canst not be guilty Vain Hypocrite canst thou think to escape so Is Murder of no deeper dye Canst thou dream waking thus to avoid the charge of thy wives dream Is the guilt of the blood of the Son of God to be wip'd off with such ease What poor shifts do foolish sinners make to beguile themselves Any thing will serve to charm the Conscience when it lists to sleep But O Saviour whiles Pilate thinks to wash off the guilt of thy blood with water I know there is nothing that can wash off the guilt of this his sin but thy blood Oh do thou wash my Soul in that precious bathe and I shall be clean Oh Pilate if that very blood which thou sheddest do not wash off the guilt of thy bloodshed thy water doth but more defile thy Soul and intend that fire wherewith thou burnest Little did the desperate Jews know the weight of that blood which they were so forward to wish upon themselves and their children Had they deprecated their interest in that horrible murder they could not so easily have avoided the vengeance but now that they fetch it upon themselves by a willing execration what should I say but that they long for a curse it is pity they should not be miserable And have ye not now felt O Nation worthy of plagues have ye not now felt what blood it was whose guilt ye affected Sixteen hundred years are now passed since you wished your selves thus wretched have ye not been ever since the hate and scorn of the world Did ye not live many of you to see your City buried in ashes and drowned in blood to see your selves no Nation Was there ever people under Heaven that was made so famous a spectacle of miserie and desolation Have ye yet enough of that blood which ye called for upon your selves and your children Your former cruelties uncleannesses Idolatries cost you but some short Captivities God cannot but be just this Sin under which you now lie groaning and forlorn must needs be so much greater then these as your vastation is more and what can that be other then the murder of the Lord of Life Ye have what ye wisht be miserable till ye be penitent The Crucifixion THe sentence of Death is past and now who can with dry eyes behold the sad pomp of my Saviours bloody execution All the streets are full of gazing spectators waiting for this ruefull sight At last O Saviour there thou comest out of Pilate's gate bearing that which shall soon bear thee To expect thy Crosse was not torment enough thou must carry it All this while thou shalt not only see but feel thy death before it come and must help to be an agent in thine owne Passion It was not out of favour that those scornfull robes being stripped off thou art led to death in thine own cloaths So was thy face besmeared with blood so swoln and discoloured with buffetings that thou couldst not have been known but by thy wonted habit Now thine insulting enemies are so much more imperiously cruell as they are more sure of their successe Their mercilesse tormentings have made thee half dead already yet now as if they had done nothing they begin afresh and will force thy weakned and fainting nature to new tasks of pain The transverse of thy Crosse at least is upon thy shoulder when thou canst scarce goe thou must carry One kicks thee with his foot another strikes thee with his staffe another drags thee hastily by thy cord and more then one spur on thine unpitied wearinesse with angry commands of hast Oh true form and state of a servant All thy former actions O Saviour were though painfull yet free this as it is in itself servile so it is tyrannously inforced Inforced yet more upon thee by thy own Love to mankind then by their power and despight It was thy Father that laid upon thee the iniquity of us all It was thine own Mercy that caused thee to bear our sins upon the Crosse and to bear the Crosse with the curse annexed to it for our sins How much more voluntary must that needs be in thee which thou requirest to be voluntarily undertaken by us It was thy charge If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his crosse and follow me Thou didst not say Let him bear his crosse as forceably imposed by another but Let him take up his crosse as his free burden free in respect of his heart not in respect of his hand so free that he shall willingly undergoe it when it is laid upon him not so free as that he shall lay it upon himself unrequired O Saviour thou didst not snatch the Crosse out of the Souldiers hands and cast it upon thy shoulder but when they laid it on thy neck thou underwentest it The constraint was theirs the will was thine It was not so heavy to them or to Simon as it was to thee they felt nothing but the wood thou feltest it clogged with the load of the sins of the whole world No marvell if thou faintedst under that sad burden thou that bearest up the whole earth by thy word didst sweat and pant and groan under this unsupportable carriage O blessed Jesu how could I be confounded in my self to see thee after so much losse of blood and over-toilednesse of pain languishing under that fatal tree And yet why should it more trouble me to see thee sinking under thy Crosse now then to see thee anone hanging upon thy Crosse In both thou wouldst render thy self weak and miserable that thou mightest so much the
one in the Heart One Baptism so it is one in the Face Where these are truly professed to be though there may be differences of administrations and ceremonies though there may be differences in opinions yet there is Columba una all those are but diversly-coloured feathers of the same Dove What Church therefore hath one Lord Jesus Christ the righteous one Faith in that Lord one Baptism into that Faith it is the One Dove of Christ To speak more short one Faith abridges all But what is that one Faith what but the main fundamental Doctrine of Religion necessary to be known to be believed unto Salvation It is a golden and usefull distinction that we must take with us betwixt Christian Articles and Theological Conclusions Christian Articles are the Principles of Religion necessary to a Believer Theological Conclusions are School-points fit for the discourse of a Divine Those Articles are few and essential these Conclusions are many and unimporting upon necessity to Salvation either way That Church then which holds those Christian Articles both in terms and necessary consequences as every visible Church of Christ doth however it vary in these Theological Conclusions is Columba una Were there not much latitude in this Faith how should we fetch in the antient Jewish Church to the unity of the Christian Theirs and ours is but one Dove though the feathers according to the colour of that fowl be changeable It is a fearfull account then that shall once be given before the dreadfull Tribunal of the Son of God the only Husband of this one Church by those men who not like the children of faithfull Abraham divide the Dove multiplying Articles of Faith according to their own fancies and casting out of the bosome of the Church those Christians that differ from their either false or unnecessary conclusions Thus have our great Lords of the Seven hills dared to doe whose faction hath both devoured their Charity and scorned ours to the great prejudice of the Christian world to the irreparable damage of the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus The God of Heaven judge in this great case betwixt them and us us who firmly holding the foundation of Christian Religion in all things according to the antient Catholick Apostolick Faith are rejected censured condemned accursed killed for refusing their gainfull Novelties In the mean time we can but lament their fury no lesse then their errours and send out our hopelesse wishes that the seamlesse coat might be darn'd up by their hands that tore it From them to speak to our selves who have happily reformed those errours of theirs which either their ambition or profit would not suffer them to part with since we are one why are we sundred One saies I am Luther's for Consubstantiation another I am Calvin's for Discipline another I am Arminius's for Predestination another I am Barrow's or Brown's for Separation What frenzy possesses the brains of Christians thus to squander themselves into Factions It is indeed an envious cavil of our common adversaries to make these so many Religions No every branch of different Opinion doth not constitute a several Religion were this true I durst boldly say old Rome had not more Deities then the modern Rome hath Religions These things though they do not vary Religions and Churches yet they trouble the quiet unity of the Church Brethren since our Religion is one why are not our tongues one why do we not bite in our singular conceits and binde our tongues to the common Peace But if from particular visible Churches which perhaps you may construe to be the threescore Queens here spoken of you shall turn your eyes to the true inward universal company of Gods Elect and secret ones there shall you more perfectly finde Columbam unam one Dove for what the other is in profession this is in truth that one Baptism is here the true Laver of Regeneration that one Faith is a saving reposal upon Christ that one Lord is the Saviour of his Body No natural body is more one then this mystical one Head rules it one Spirit animates it one set of joynts moves it one Food nourishes it one Robe covers it So it is one in it self so one with Christ as Christ is one with the Father That they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me John 17. 22. Oh blessed Unity of the Saints of God which none of the makebates of Hell can ever be able to dissolve And now since we are thus and every other way one why are we not united in Love why do we in our ordinary conversation suffer slight weaknesses to set off our Charity Mephibosheth was a cripple yet the perfect love of Jonathan either cures or covers his impotency We can no more want infirmities then not be men we cannot stick at infirmities if we be Christians It is but a poor love that cannot passe over small faults even quotidianae incursionis as that Father speaks It is an injurious niceness to condemn a good Face in each other for a little mole Brethren let us not aggravate but pity each others weaknesses and since we are but one Body let us have but one Heart one Way And if we be the Dove of Christ and his Dove is one oh let us be so one with each other as he is one with us And as the Church and Commonwealth are twins so should this be no lesse one with it self and with her temporal head Divisum est cor eorum Their heart is divided was the judgment upon Israel ose 10. 2. Oh how is every good heart divided in sunder with the grief for the late divisions of our Reuben We do not mourn we bleed inwardly for this distraction But I do willingly smother these thoughts yea my just sorrow choaks them in my bosome that they cannot come forth but in sighs and groans O thou that art the God of peace unite all hearts in Love to each other in loyal Subjection to their Soveraign Head Amen As the Church is one in not being divided so she is but one in not being multiplied Here is unus uni unam as the old word is He the true Husband of the Church who made and gave but one Eve to the first Adam will take but one wife to himself the second Adam There are many particular Churches all these make up but one universal as many distinct lims make up but one intire body many grains one bach many drops and streams one Ocean So many Regions as there are under Heaven that do truly professe the Christian name so many National Churches there are in all those Nations there are many Provincial in all those Provinces many Diocesan in all those Dioceses many Parochial Churches in all those Parishes many Christian Families in all those Families many Christian Souls now all those Souls Families Parishes Dioceses Provinces Nations make up but one Catholick Church of Christ upon earth The God of the
Penance and Absolution The antient course as Cassander and Lindanus truly witness was that Absolution and Reconciliation and right to the Communion of the Church was not given by imposition of hands unto the Penitent till he had given due satisfaction by performing of such penal acts as were enjoined by the discreet Penitentiarie yea those works of Penance saith he when they were done out of Faith and an heart truly sorrowfull and by the motion of the Holy Spirit preventing the minde of man with the help of his Divine Grace were thought not a little available to obtain remission of the sin and to pacifie the displeasure of God for sin Not that they could merit it by any dignity of theirs but that thereby the minde of man is in a sort fitted to the receit of God's Grace But now immediatly upon the Confession made the hand is laid upon the Penitent and he is received to his right of Communion and after his Absolution certain works of piety are enjoined him for the chastisement of the flesh and expurgation of the remainders of sin Thus Cassander In common apprehension this new order can be no other then preposterous and as our learned Bishop of Carlisle like Easter before Lent But for this Ipsi viderint it shall not trouble us how they nurture their own childe CHAP. XIV The Newness of the Romish Invocation of Saints OF all those Errours which we reject in the Church of Rome there is none that can plead so much shew of Antiquity as this of Invocation of Saints which yet as it hath been practised and defended in the later times should in vain seek either example or patronage amongst the Antient. However there might be some grounds of this Devotion secretly muttered and at last expressed in Panegyrick forms yet untill almost 500 years after Christ it was not in any sort admitted into the publick service It will be easily granted that the Blessed Virgin is the prime of all Saints neither could it be other then injurious that any other of that Heavenly Society should have the precedency of her Now the first that brought her name into the publick Devotions of the Greek Church is noted by Nicephorus to be Petrus Gnapheus or Fullo a Presbyter of Bithynia afterwards the Usurper of the See of Antioch much about 470 years after Christ who though a branded Heretick found out four things saith he very usefull and beneficial to the Catholick Church whereof the last was Ut in omni precatione c. That in every Prayer the Mother of God should be named and her Divine name called upon The phrase is very remarkable wherein this rising Superstition is expressed And as for the Latine Church we hear no news of this Invocation in the publick Letanies till Gregorie's time about some 130 years after the former And in the mean time some Fathers speak of it fearfully and doubtfully How could it be otherwise when the common opinion of the Antients even below Saint Austin's age did put up all the Souls of the Faithfull except Martyrs in some blinde receptacles whether in the Center of the earth or elsewhere where they might in candida exspectare diem Judicii as Tertullian hath it four severall times And Stapleton himself sticks not to name divers of them thus fouly mistaken Others of the Fathers have let fall speeches directly bent against this Invocation Non opus est patronis c. There is no need of any Advocates to God saith S. Chrysostome and most plainly elsewhere Homines si quando c. If we have any suit to men saith he we must fee the porters and treat with jesters and parasites and goe many times a long way about In God there is no such matter he is exorable without any of our Mediators without money without cost he grants our petitions It is enough for thee to crie with thine heart alone to powre out thy tears and presently thou hast won him to mercy Thus he And those of the Antients that seem to speak for it lay grounds that overthrow it Howsoever it be all holy Antiquity would have both blushed and spit at those forms of Invocation which the late Clients of Rome have broached to the world If perhaps they speak to the Saints tanquam deprecatores vel potius comprecatores as Spalatensis yields moving them to be competitioners with us to the throne of Grace not properly but improperly as Altissiodore construes it how would they have digested that blasphemous Psalter of our Lady imputed to Bonaventure and those styles of mere Deification which are given to her and the division of all offices of Piety to mankinde betwixt the Mother and the Son How had their eares glowed to hear Christus oravit Franciscus exoravit Christ prayed Francis prevailed How would they have brooked that which Ludovicus Vives freely confesses Multi Christiani c. Many Christians worship divâ—s divasque the Saints of both sexes no otherwise then God himself Or that which Spalatensis professes to have observed that the ignorant multitude are tarried with more entire religious affection to the Blessed Virgin or some other Saint then to Christ their Saviour These foul Superstitions are not more hainous then new and such as wherein we have justly abhorred to take part with the practicers of them Sect. 2. Invocation of Saints against Scripture AS for the better side of this mis-opinion even thus much colour of Antiquity were cause enough to suspend our censures according to that wise moderate resolution of learned Zanchius were it not that the Scriptures are so flatly opposite unto it as that we may justly wonder at that wisdome which hath provided Antidotes for a disease that of many hundred years after should have no being in the World The ground of this Invocation of Saints is their notice of our earthly condition and speciall Devotions And behold thou prevailest ever against man and he passeth thou changest his countenance and sendest him away His sons come to honour and he knows it not and they are brought low and he perceiveth it not saith Job The dead know nothing at all saith wise Solomon Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun No portion in any thing therefore not in our miseries nor in our allocutions If we have a portion in them for their love and Prayers in common for the Church they have no portion in our particularities whether of want or complaint Abraham our Father is ignorant of us saith Esay and Israel acknowledges us not Loe the Father of the Faithfull above knows not his own children till they come into his bosome and he that gives them their names is to them as a stranger Wherefore should good Josiah be gathered to his Fathers
of muck but beaten down and burned with the fire of Gods Word the walls of Wood Hay Stubble which the Babylonian builders had raised upon the old Foundation which is Christ Jesus and edified upon it a fair Palace of Silver Gold precious Stones This same is the Opinion also of my Collegues of the French Church of this City of London If any self-conceited Christian thinketh this an advantage rather then a disparagement and disgrace to that punk the Roman Church and taketh thereby occasion to persevere to be her Bawd or Stallion and to run a whoring with her I say with the Psalmist The wicked hath left off to be wise and to doe good and with the Angel He that is unjust let him be unjust still and he which is filthy let him be filthy still For neither must an honest heart speak a lie for the good that may come of it nor conceal in time and place a necessary Truth for any evil that may insue of it If it harden more and more the flinty hearts of some unto death it will soften and melt the iron hearts of others unto life that seeing among us the mud and dirt of humane Traditions wherewith the Pope and his Clergy had furred and soiled the bright-shining glasse of the Gospel wiped away from this heavenly mirror of God's favour they may come unto us and beholding with open face as in a glasse the glory of the Lord may be changed with us into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Which last effect I pray with my heart your Reconciler may have with those that are children of Peace And so recommending your Lordship with all your learned eloquent sound and usefull Labours to Gods most powerfull blessing and my self to the continuance of your godly Prayers and old Friendship I remain for ever Your Lordships most humble and affectionate Servant GILBERT PRIMROSE From London the 26. of February 1629. To my Worthy and much respected Friend Mr. H. CHOLMLEY MAster Cholmley I have perused your Learned and full Reply to Master Burton's Answer wherein you have in a judicious eye abundantly righted your self and cleared a just Cause so as the Reader would wonder where an Adversary might finde ground to raise an opposition But let me tell you were iâ— a Book written by the Pen of an Angel from Heaven in this Subject I should doubt whether to wish it publick How true how just soever the plea be I finde such is the self-love and partiality of our corrupt nature the quarrell is inlarged by multiplying of words When I see a Fire quenched with Oyle I will expect to see a Controversie of this nature stinted by publick altercation New matter still rises in the agitation gives hint to a fore-resolved Opposite of a fresh disquisition So as we may sooner see an end of the common Peace then of an unkindly jarre in the Church especially such a one as is fomented with a mistaken Zeal on the one side and with a confidence of Knowledge on the other Silence hath sometimes quieted such like mis-raised brabbles never interchange of words This very Question was on foot some forty years agoe in the hote chace of great Authors but whether through the ingenuity of the parties or some over-ruling act of Divine Providence it soon died without noise so I wish it may now doe Rather let the weaker Title goe away with the last word then the Church shall be distracted For that Position of mine which occasioned your Vindication you see it sufficiently abetted and determined by so Reverend Authority as admits no exception I dare say no Learned Divine of our own Church or the forain can but subscribe in this our sense to the Judgement of these Worthies To draw forth therefore this cord of contention to any further length were no lesse needlesse then prejudiciall to the publick peace He is not worthy to be satisfied that will yet wrangle As for those Personall aspersions that are cast upon you by Malice be perswaded to despise them These Western parts where your reputation is deservedly pretious know your zeal for Gods Truth no lesse fervent though better governed then the most fiery of your Censurers No man more hateth Popish Superstition onely your fault is that you do not more hate Errour then Injustice and cannot abide wrong measure offered to the worst enemy Neither be you troubled with that idle exprobration of a Prebendary retribution who would care for a contumely so void of truth God knows that worthlesse gift was conferred upon you ere this task came into either of our thoughts and whoso knows the entire respects betwixt us from our very Cradles till this day may well think that a Prebend of three pounds by the year need not goe for a Fee where there is so much and so ancient cause of dearness I am sorry to see such rancour under the coat of Zeal Surely nothing but mere Malice can be guilty of this charge no lesse then of that other envious challenge of your decay of Graces of falling from your first Love from industry to ease from a weekly to a monethly preaching when those that know the state of your Tiverton the four-parted division of that charge and your forced confinement to your own day by publick authority both Spirituall and Temporall must needs acquit you and cry down the wrong of an accuser As for the vigour of Gods good Graces in you both common and sanctifying all the Country are your ample witnesses I that have interknown you from our childhood cannot but professe to finde the entrance of your age no lesse above the best of your youth in abilities then in time and still no lesse fruitfull in promises of increase then in eminent performances What need I urge this your Adversaries do enough feel your worth So as to speak seriously I cannot sufficiently wonder at the liberty of those men who professing a strict conscience of their wayes dare let their Pens or Tongues loose to so injurious and uncharitable a detraction whereof they know the just avenger is in Heaven It should not be thus betwixt Brethren no not with Enemies For the main business there wants not confidence on either side I am appealed to by both an unmeet Judge considering my so deep ingagements But if my umpierage may stand I award an eternall silence to both parts Sit down in peace then you and your worthy Second whose young ripeness and modest and learned discourse is worthy of better entertainment then contempt and let your zealous Opponents say that you have overcome your selves in a resolved cessation of Pens and them in a love of Peace Farewell from Your loving Friend and ancient Collegue JOS. EXON OCCASIONALL MEDITATIONS BY JOS. EXON Set forth by R. H. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE My very good Lord JAMES Lord Viscount Doncaster Right Honourable FInding these Papers amongst others lying aside
in my Fathers Study where of I conceived good use might be made in regard of that spirituall advantage which they promised I obtained of him good leave to send them abroad whereto he professed himself the more easily induced for that his continuall and weighty employments in this large and busie Diocese will not yet afford him leisure to dispatch those his other fixed Meditations on the History of the New Testament In the mean time the expressions of these voluntary and sudden thoughts of his shall testifie how fruitfully he is wont to improve those short ends of time which are stolne from his more important avocations and unlesse my hopes fail me the pattern of them may prove not a little beneficial to others Holy mindes have been ever wont to look through these bodily Objects at spiritual and heavenly So Sulpitius reports of S. Martin that seeing a Sheep newly shorn he could say Loe here is one that hath performed that command in the Gospel having two Coats she hath given away one and seeing an Hogherd freezing in a thin suit of skins Loe said he there is Adam cast out of Paradise and seeing a Medow part rooted up part whole but eaten down and part flourishing he said The first was the state of Fornication the second of Marriage the third of Virginity But what do I seek any other Author then the Lord of Life himself who upon the drawing of water from the Well of Shilo on the day of the great Hosanna took occasion to speak of those Living waters which should flow from every true believer John 7. 38. and upon occasion of a bodily Feast Luke 14. entred into that Divine discourse of God's gracious invitation of us to those spiritual viands of Grace and Glory Thus methinks we should still be climbing up in our thoughts from Earth to Heaven and suffer no Object to crosse us in our way without some spiritual Use and Application Thus it pleased my Reverend Father sometimes to recreate himself whose manner hath been when any of these Meditations have unsought offer'd themselves unto him presently to set them down a course which I wish had been also taken in many more which might no doubt have been very profitable These as they are I send forth under your Honourable Name out of those many Respects which are in an hereditary right due to your Lordship as being apparent Heir to those two singular Patrons of my justly-Reverenced Father the eminent Vertue of which your Noble Parents in a gracious Succession yields to your Lordship an happy Example which to follow is the onely way to true Honour For the daily increase whereof here and the everlasting Crown of it hereafter his Prayers to God shall not be wanting who desires to be accounted Your Lordships devoted in all humble observance RO. HALL Occasionall MEDITATIONS The Proeme I Have heedlesly lost I confesse many good thoughts these few my Paper hath preserved from vanishing the example whereof may perhaps be more usefull then the matter Our active Soul can no more forbear to think then the Eye can chuse but see when it is open Would we but keep our wholesome Notions together mankinde would be too rich To doe well no Object should passe us without use every thing that we see reads us new lectures of Wisdome and Piety It is a shame for a man to be ignorant or Godlesse under so many Tutors For me I would not wish to live longer then I shall be better for my eyes and have thought it thank-worthy thus to teach weak mindes how to improve their thoughts upon all like occasions And if ever these lines shall come to the publick view I desire and charge my Reader whosoever he be to make me and himself so happy as to take out my Lesson and to learn how to read Gods great Book by mine The TABLE of these MEDITATIONS following MED I. Upon the sight of the Heavens moving Pag. 452 MED II. Upon the sight of a Diall ib. MED III. Upon the sight of an Eclipse of the Sun ib. MED IV. Upon the sight of a gliding Star 453 MED V. Upon a fair Prospect ib. MED VI. Upon the frame of a Globe casually broken 454 MED VII Upon a Cloud ib. MED VIII Upon the sight of a Grave digged up ib. MED IX Upon the sight of Gold melted 455 MED X. Upon the sight of a Pitcher carried ib. MED XI Upon the sight of a Tree full blossomed ib. MED XII Upon the report of a man suddenly struck dead in his Sin ib. MED XIII Upon the view of the Heaven and the Earth 456 MED XIV Upon occasion of a Red-breast coming into his Chamber ib. MED XV. Upon occasion of a Spider in his Window ib. MED XVI Upon the sight of a Rain in the Sun-shine 457 MED XVII Upon the length of the way ib. MED XVIII Upon the Rain and Waters ib. MED XIX Upon the same Subject 458 MED XX. Upon occasion of the Lights brought in ib. MED XXI Upon the same occasion 459 MED XXII Upon the blowing of the Fire ib. MED XXIII Upon the barking of a Dog ib. MED XXIV Upon sight of a Cock-fight ib. MED XXV Upon his lying down to rest 460 MED XXVI Upon the kindling of a Charcole fire ib. MED XXVII Upon the sight of an humble and patient Begger 461 MED XXVIII Upon the sight of a Crow pulling off wool from the back of a Sheep ib. MED XXIX Upon the sight of two Snails ib. MED XXX Upon the hearing of the street-Cries in London 462 MED XXXI Upon the Flies gathering to a galled Horse ib. MED XXXII Upon the sight of a dark Lantern ib. MED XXXIII Upon the hearing of a Swallow in the Chimney ib. MED XXXIV Upon the sight of a Flie burning it self in the Candle 463 MED XXXV Upon the sight of a Lark flying up ib. MED XXXVI Upon the singing of the Birds in a Spring morning ib. MED XXXVII Upon a Coal covered with Ashes 464 MED XXXVIII Upon the sight of a Blackmore ib. MED XXXIX Upon the small Stars in the Galaxie or milkie Circle in the Firmament ib. MED XL. Upon the sight of Boyes playing 465 MED XLI Upon the sight of a Spider and her Web. ib. MED XLII Upon the sight of a Naturall ib. MED XLIII Upon the Loadstone and the Jett 466 MED XLIV Upon hearing of Musick by night ibid. MED XLV Upon the fanning of Corn. ib. MED XLVI Upon Herbs dried 467 MED XLVII Upon the quenching of Iron in Water ib. MED XLVIII Upon a fair-coloured Flie. ib. MED XLIX Upon a Glow-worm ib. MED L. Upon the shutting of one eye 468 MED LI. Upon a Spring-water ib. MED LII Upon Gnats in the Sun ib. MED LIII Upon the sight of Grapes ib. MED LIV. Upon a Corn-field over-grown with Weeds 469 MED LV. Upon the sight of Tulips and Marigolds c. in his Garden ib. MED LVI Upon the sound of a crackt Bell. ib. MED LVII Upon the sight