Observation of days touching the very labour of the Cattel in the field and what not It was a burden as the Apostles testifie which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear yet there was sweetness in all this because it was done for the Lords sake though the task had been stricter David did well set forth the condition of the Law unto what great bondage it did captivate a man in these words Behold O Lord how that I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid a servant in extremity of thraldom and therefore it was repeated a Servant born for partus sequitur ventrem he must needs be so that was the Son of an handmaid he was born to be circumcised and to be a debtor to the whole Law Such were all they that boasted themselves to be the only freemen in the world because they were the Sons of Abraham Nay Simeon was not only such a Servant as I have hitherto described bridled under the Pedagogy of Moses Law but out of the relative terms of my Text I will shew that he was in greater subjection and aw for how doth he call the Lord here Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Lord that had power of life and death over his Vassal you shall not find it used again in all the four Evangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Favorinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Lord of a bondman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a freeman that is an hired servant I have plaid the Critick enough such servants those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were anciently called so not because they were paid for their labour which they did undergo in drudgery but because they were taken by hostility and their lives were forfeited to the Conquerour who had power to slay them yet spared them and resigned them up into their hands that would lay down a ransom for them So Simeon confesseth that God had the power of life and death over him when he might have killed him out of his clemency he spared him Behold a Servant then and such as he was such were all the Jews a man under the yoke of the Law and under the power of death But behold as this day the Deliverer was born and did quite change the copy of our service Christ as God did put the Church under the servitude of the Law but being made man he hath exempted us to the liberty of the Gospel and though we shall all die through that sentence which cannot be repealed yet if we believe that he hath given himself a ransom for us and live unto righteousness we shall not die unto condemnation But that you may know what kind of servants they are that retain to that family whereof God takes the care and administration mind the character of Simeon which the Holy Ghost gives him in the verses preceding my Text for his Calling it is obscurely past over thus there was a man in Jerusalem Galatinus says out of the Rabbins that one Simeon the just was the Master of the great Doctor Gamaliel and that may very well light upon this Simeon Much hath been urged to prove him to be a Priest but to no purpose Salmeron and Tolet alledge that when a child came to be presented to the Lord the Priest took the child out of the arms of his Mother and did not restore him again till he was redeemed for five Shekles of Silver according to the Law Num. xviii but how will they prove that a Child might not light into the arms of some other incidentally as well as into the arms of the Priest Yea but Simeon blessed Joseph and Mary ver 34. that is a Sacerdotal action Nay not always old Jacob blessed Pharaoh and every Prophet is an instrument of Benediction At the last heave says Tolet it is an old tradition of the Church to paint him in a Priestly Vesture an hard refuge when they refer us for a proof to Pictures and not to the Word of God Whether the Priesthood or the Layty may challenge him for theirs I know not one thing I know that he was a just man and waited for the consolation of Israel a pious holy Father a frequenter of the Temple a man uncompounded with the world but this was his righteousness that he lookt for the blessed off-spring God and man whom the Lord would send to redeem his Saints You will say perhaps did not all the Jews expect the Messias What did he more than other men Why herein he did exceed them that they did not look for such benefits from the Messias as Simeon did such spiritual refreshment for the soul and for the spirit Then the common sort of people lookt for Christ afar off he lookt for him just at that time near at hand As Joseph of Arimathea is said to look for the Kingdom of God that is to see Christ incarnate even then in the fulness of time Luke xxiii 51. Again others waited for Christ but carelesly without any earnest affection Simeon even languisht with longing and did passionately desire it St. Austin says that he did continually pray for the coming of Christ and often repeated that of David Psal lxxxv Shew us thy mercy O Lord and grant us thy salvation and then God answered him that he would fulfill his hearts desire Nicephorus tells us a vagrant story that Simeon was reading those words Isa vii Behold a Virgin shall conceive a Son and being sollicitous what that place should mean an Angel appeared and told him he should not die till he had seen that Babe with his eyes of whom Isaiah Prophesied This is certain the Holy Ghost had given him some great assurance of it The Spirit was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 25. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only in him but upon him which signifies extraordinary assistance as when it is said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me Isa lxi You see now with what endowments of heavenly graces Simeon was enricht before he called himself the servant of the Lord. His modesty would give himself no better title yet our Saviour speaks better things of those that believed Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends c. Joh. xv 15. It is not the meaning that we shall ever out-grow the name of servant for even at the day of judgment in the time of our reward it shall be said Well done good and faithful servant But here it is we are all servants by debt and nature the Gospel stiles us friends by Covenant and Composition Before Christ was revealed God dealt with them of the Synagogue as with servants he did not reveal the mysteries of the Trinity of the Incarnation of the coming of the Holy Ghost if he did reveal them to the Prophets it was ex privilegio not ratione status it was by
unto the worlds end The Schoolmen collect a threefold opening of the heaven in holy Scripture and every way through the power and act of Christ Says Ales In baptismo aperta est coeli janua per figuram in passione per meritum in ascensione per effectum 1. The gates of heaven were opened at this Baptism as in a Type or Figure that they should be opened and God will certainly make good whatsoever he did but shadow in a Figure 2. They were opened at the shedding of his bloud upon the Cross as by those means which did meritoriously procure the opening Therefore we sing in the Te Deum When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers 3. They were opened effectually when his own glorious body entred in once into the most Holy of Holies when the heads of the everlasting doors were lifted up at the day of his Ascension And where the head doth sit at the right hand of God the Members of the body having their sins washed clean away shall reign also The Earth never opened in holy Scripture but upon some Curse for the destruction of man The Heavens never opened but that some mighty Blessing might distil down upon us the probatum whereof is in the second general part of my Text for the first Miracle which we have handled did but make way unto the second And after the heavens were opened he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him That John Baptist had this Miracle so clearly in his eye that he saw the Spirit of God I find it not so material to the business of the Text as to insist much upon it For although some observe upon it that the first Witness that preach'd of the Son of God is conceited to be the first Witness that saw the Holy Ghost yet the Miracle hapned not so much for Johns sake as to lead the whole multitude into a right apprehension that Jesus was that holy One which came into the world for the redemption of Israel John was born of a barren woman his Garments very strange and uncouth no better than the skins of Camels clapt about him as they were flay'd from the beast his austerity of life stupendious his Preaching powerful high in estimation so that all the Regions round about came to him to be baptized this drew them to conceit that none could come into the world to be compared with John But Columba columbam docuit the Dove taught the Dove the Spirit taught the Church who was the Christ the Saviour of mankind by the descending of the Dove That which I will speak to this Point briefly shall be brancht out into a threefold inquiry 1. Whether this were a living bird or no more than the figurative Apparition of a Dove 2. How aptly the Spirit came in one figure upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at the day of Pentecost upon the Apostles 3. That the figure of a Dove doth sweetly admonish us of the properties of the Holy Ghost What manner of Dove this was is not a question of such doubtful resolution as the former how the heavens were opened for treading in the path of the Scripture as I adjudge it we may find the truth For three Evangelists say that the Spirit did sit upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were a Dove then add St. Luke unto it that the Dove came in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a bodily shape and these put together me seems do strongly prove two things 1. That it was not viva columba a Pigeon out of the Dove-Coats with a living soul for to notifie that there was but the outward fashion and resemblance of such a bird in three Gospels we read it was but quasi columba like a Dove And yet that you may not take it to be mere Phenomenon a shadow to perswade the eye having no substance in truth St. Luke hath not omitted that it was a bodily shape Verae effigies columbae a body created for this service having the true lineaments of a Dove To make both these opinions good by several illustrations And first what need it to be of the true Species of Doves Was not miraculous Omnipotency as much seen to frame such a shape out of the Elements at an instant and to put motion in it to descend upon the head of Christ as if it had been a very foul It was a work which could not be effected but by the infinite and incomprehensible Trinity For the Dove was a representation of the Holy Ghost the voice which came from heaven did speak the Father only the humane nature was united only to the Person of the Son but the Dove the voice the humane nature were the works of the whole Trinity which coequally works all effects in the world You may fully conceive what natural composition this Dove had by those bodily shapes wherein the Angels or God appeared of old to the Patriarchs they were not actuated by a soul but moved about by God or his Angels for the present turn as a Ship is by the Pilot. When their Errand was dispatcht the body vanisht away into air So the use of this Miracle being accomplished at Jordan the Dove was no more seen but instantly resolved into Elements Besides that which came down upon the Disciples at Whitsontide was a cloven tongue like as of fire did ever any man say it was fire indeed So this Apparition upon the head of Christ was like a Dove But for what purpose or necessity should it be a Dove indeed For Christ was man indeed because he took upon him the nature of man to redeem it therefore the reason is forcible that the Holy Ghost should not come down in a Dove indeed because he took not upon him the nature of a Dove to redeem it Secondly I gathered from St. Luke though it had not the life of a Dove yet it had lineaments and compacture of true substance like a Dove Christ came among us bodily in the flesh wherefore says St. Austin to shew that the assumption of a corporeal nature did not make an inequality of persons in the Godhead a voice was heard from heaven in the Person of the Father as if it had proceeded from the instruments of the body and a bodily Dove did descend from heaven in the Person as it were of the Holy Ghost Likewise the coming down is the motion of a body The Spirit is every where and cannot descend to any place which was not filled with his presence from the beginning of the world but in hôc signo in this bodily shape and effigie he came down And mark Beloved the Devil is Spiritus cadens I saw Satan fall like lightning down he tumbles to the nethermost Pit and all that follow him but the Holy Ghost descends like an humble Spirit according as our Saviour bids us place our selves at
Pollinctores quia pollutos ungerent But among divine Writers all do embrace this as a strong conjecture and indeed not to be denied that the Servants of God embalmed and anointed the dead both in the Old and New Testament in honour of the Resurrection So Joseph commanded the Physicians to embalm his Father So certain devout Widows washed the body of Tabitha and laid her forth in an upper Chamber Acts ix 37. Let me not omit how Christ himself did approve of that Ceremony while he was living A woman broke a box of Oyntment of Spikenard very precious upon his head and when some had indignation at it he forbad his Disciples to trouble her saying She is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying Mar. xiv 8. That woman spent her cost upon him when he was alive to give her thanks Mary came to pour her Spices upon his Grave when she thought he was dead true Love is munificent to them who are dear unto it when they live but more abundantly when they are deceased Now carry your attention with you to the third part of the Text that no season was so fit to be watch'd as this which the women laid hold of The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalen This coming was upon the third day after Christ had been laid in the Grave and it was upon the same day which from thenceforth was called the Lords day wherein our holy Assemblies every week do meet together these two things are fit to be examined before I leave the Treatise of this Point From the beginning of the world was there never any thing of so great expectation as the success of this day whether that which Christ had so often foretold should come to pass that he should die and the third day he would rise again How busie were the women to come abroad and try what they could learn And I verily think the waves of the Sea rowl not about so fast in a Tempest as the thoughts of the Disciples beat within their heart and earned within them between fear and hope whether the day were like to prove glorious or uncomfortable well God did rather go beyond his own word than come a whit behind it He made this third day the most memorable Feast that ever the Sun shined upon It was a third day when Joseph released his brethren out of Prison Gen. xlii 18. On the third day in the morning after the people had come to Mount Sinai the Law of God was delivered Exod. xix 16. On the third day Esther put on her Royal Apparel and stood before Ahasuerus and desired him to be good to her Nation Esther v. 1. On the third day Abraham came to the place where his faith was tried and Isaac was restored back again alive when the sacrificing knife had been at his throat Gen. xxii 4. To come near to the mark the third day Jonas was cast safe upon the Land out of the belly of the Whale and that was the sign which Christ gave to the Jews able to convince all infidelity as Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the Whale and then came forth alive so Christ burst open the Monument the third day and appeared unto many Reason may be busie to enquire why the Son of God prefix'd such a space of time for his Resurrection before he would quicken his flesh rather than any other Certainly there is but one modest conjecture which is this he would lie no longer than some hours of a third day in the grave lest he should keep the weak faith of his Disciples too long in suspense yet sooner he would not open his monument lest his enemies the Jews should pretend he was but cast into a swoon by the sharpness of pain and not truly dead These following I will allow for ingenuous allusions and no more that our Redeemers body was bereaft of life unto the third day to appease the offended justice of every Person in Trinity God the Father Son and Holy Ghost to signifie that we were dead in sin by thought word and deed To bring unto eternal life them that believed either under the Law of nature under the Law of Moses or under the new Covenant of grace To restore the three parts of spiritual life unto us Faith hope and charity Tria sunt omnia says another three days are the sum of mans life both here and for ever A day of labour in this World a day of rest in the Grave a day of reward in the Resurrection If there be any Son of Adam that would have a fourth day Dies otii in hâc vitâ A day of ease and pleasure in this life such a one is Lazarus quatriduanus putet It may be said of him as the two Sisters said of Lazarus their Brother He hath lain four days in the ground and begins to smell Three days are all labour rest and reward these are allusions I said to the Resurrection of Christ upon the third day One thing is very observable to match this circumstance of the New Testament and an accident which fell out in the Old Even this very day wherein Christ arose and gate dominion over death the same day which was the third day after the eating of the Passeover Moses brought the Children of Israel through the Red Sea unto dry Land certainly intimating that they went through death to life and so did Christ St. Peter hath a Text 1 Epist 1.10 which doth authorize me yet to search further and more diligently about the time of this Resurrection Saies he The Prophets have enquired and searched diligently what manner of time the Spirit of Christ did signifie when it testified before hand the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow And surely there is a great mystery coucht in the circumstance of time that the Evangelists have differently set down other observations that concurred upon the Resurrection but all of them in one phrase do agree in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that this wonder was wrought upon the first day of the week 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vna Sabbati The Jews gave such honour to their Sabbath that every day following had the denomination from it the first second and the third day after the Sabbath and so unto the sixth The Latine Church in their Liturgies hath given the same honour to Easter Day for Easter day by principallity being called Feria the Holy Day The Latines from it call the days of the week primam secundam tertiam Feriam and so unto the sixth Our vulgar English calls the first day of the week Sunday and all other days following are denominated from some of the Planets we received such Language in this Island from our Forefathers who were Paynims and knew not God but we differ from them in the intention they did it out of Idolatry to the Sun and Moon c. we to signifie that God made the Host
the Feast Go and sit down in the lowest room but litterally descension is infallibly the motion of a body And otherwise the wonder had herein consisted not that such a Dove was seen but that such a strange spectacle appeared to John and to all the multitude which was not to be seen John did see the object it did not phantastically in a shadow deceive him as if he saw it And it is a touch worthy to be observed by the way that my Text says he saw the Spirit which is a clear Metonimy of the sign for the thing signified for in truth he saw no more than the outward sign of the Spirit To call the holy Spirit by the attribute of the Dove is a Sacramental signification not an essential mutation just such a form of speech as when Christ brake bread at his Last Supper and said unto his Disciples This is my body I proceed to that which follows how aptly the Spirit came in one figure at this time upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at this day of Pentecost upon the Apostles If I would rake old Heresies out of their dead embers to refute them here I had occasion The Arians extorted from hence that Christ did receive the mighty gift of Sanctification at this Baptism and other admirable graces of the Spirit which he had not before If they were worth the refuting I could tell them Joh. i. 14. As soon as ever the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us he was full of grace and truth On the contrary the Macedonian Hereticks men of corrupt minds did make a difference of dignity between Christ and the Holy Ghost as the body of a man was more excellent which belonged to Christ than the body of a Dove wherin the Spirit sate upon him Then belike if an Angel should come in the shape of a man or of an Eagle which is more glorious than a Dove he should also have the preheminence But the blindness of the error came from hence that they did not distinguish how Christ took upon him the nature of a man but the Holy Ghost did not assume the nature of a Dove Let these blasphemies go let them rot and consume with the Authors which invented them the Father the Son and the Spirit are all one in Glory equal in Majesty coeternal Upon occasion of Baptism the Master sent forth his Disciples saying Go and baptize all Nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Can I pass by the surpassing wit of St. Austin upon that place Non in nominibus sed in nomine patris ubi unum nomen est ibi unus Deus Not in the names but in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Where there is but one name and no more there is but one God and no more As in like argument St. Paul Gal. iii. 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the Promises made he saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ Let me return into my own path which I am to beat that Christ had one sign of the Holy Ghost coming down upon him and the Apostles had another Upon which diversity thus I find the Fathers exercising their wits in several meditations First The Spirit sate upon our Saviours head in the shape of an whole entire creature in no other figure but a tongue upon the Apostles which is no more than a little part of the body for we receive the grace of God by scantlings and pittances and small measures the whole Spirit flowed into Christ in all abundance In like manner Gregory shews the odds between his fulness and ours in Analogy between the head and other members of the body A body hath the sense of touching only and no more the head is the continent of all the five senses Ita membra superni capitis in quibusdam virtutibus emicant ipsum caput in cunctis virtutibus flagret So the Saints have several gifts and ornaments divided among them some in one kind some in another but the head of the Church hath all flourisheth with all those vertues united in himself which are parted among his members Secondly The tongues of holy men and Prophets did often promise grace and reconciliation to the world and therefore a tongue did sit upon them as it were a Crest of Armory a Dove when time was did actually exhibit that God was pacified and appeased when he had been wroth I mean the Dove which returned to the Ark with a dry Olive branch in her mouth in token that the waters were dried up and that Noah and his Family might come forth with safety Therefore a Dove most properly did belong to Christ Most properly I say but more transcendently says St. Chrysostom now than ever The first Dove did comfort the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that punishment was taken away this Dove is a sacred pledge that grace and blessings shall be bestowed upon us Now it appeared not to bring one man and his family safe into the possession of the earth but to bring all Believers safe into the possession of heaven Thirdly The Spirit came not to Christ in fire for he was full of Zeal nor yet in the shape of a tongue for full of grace were his lips But discite quia mitis learn of me because I am meek and gentle therefore says Bernard the Dove came to testifie the placidness of the Lamb. Quod agnus in animalibus columba in avibus such as the Lamb is among the beasts of the field such is the Dove among the fouls of the air Fire is stern and formidable Christ would have none of that that which sorts with consolation to recreate a trembling conscience was his peculiar choice therefore the third Person descended like a Dove and sate upon him Fourthly The tongues wherein the Apostles received the grace of God were cloven and divided not to signifie a rent and a division Linguarum distantiae non sunt schismata but because there is a diversity and a dispreading about of the gifts of God Then comes down one single Dove to honour Unity Spiritus sanctus divisus in linguis unitus in columbâ says St. Austin it was pride which caused that diversity of tongues it was the Holy Ghost through the humility of Christ which sanctified that diversity Quod turris dissociaverat Ecclesia collegit Babel the Tower of pride scattered the world the Church which is the Tower of humility gathers the world together But the Dove was the Ensign of our Saviours Kingdom standing for the unity of the Spirit which is the bond of peace Fifthly The Holy Ghost was made manifest to the Chruch first in a Dove at the feast of Christs Baptism afterward in fire at the Feast of Whitsontide to betoken it is the same Spirit which requires innocency in the
corruption that is in us and to be the Sons of God Because there is mention of a good Spirit immediately before my Text that descended from heaven upon him in the shape of a Dove and all the business after my Text concerns an evil Spirit that assaulted him with many tentations therefore the quaere ariseth which of these did lead him into the Wilderness The Syriack determines it plainly Ductus â spiritu sancto he was led by the Holy Ghost And it is of more moment that certainly the Syriack Paraphrase took it from St. Luke Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that understand Grammer and the original Text do easily discern that the same word in the same sentence implies one and the same thing the latter being an effect of the former for being full of the Holy Spirit he was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness And I will parallel it plainly anon with that of St. Paul Acts xx 22 Behold I go bound in spirit to Jerusalem Moreover the Devil approached not unto him till after he had fasted forty days he began to be an hungry for he had no motive to begin his tentations till he perceiv'd he was in the distress of hunger like a weak man Therfore it was not Satan that carried him into this place where he fasted for then the tentation had begun before he had set foot in the Wilderness The case is clear to say no more of the first Point that the Spirit which led him was the influence and impulsion of the Holy Ghost The second thing to be askt is how the Spirit did lead him This can be conceived but two ways Either by inward instigation or removing him suddenly from one place to another which is called outward translocation Each way may be admitted for both are according to Analogy of Faith and both are favoured out of the Greek Text of sundry Evangelists You shall read in St. Luke Chap. iv 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was led by the Spirit which doth imply that the Holy Ghost did inwardly inspire that resolution into him and did assist continually while he abode in the Wilderness You shall read in St. Mark Chap. i. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness as if he had been transported thither in some wonderful rapture And my Text is read thus in St. Mathew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was led up of the Spirit The Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sursum to lead up hath either regard to the situation of the Desart which was by far the higher ground in respect of Jordan where our Saviour was before Or else that he was exalted from the earth and carried away by the Spirit through the air untill he came unto that place where he spent forty days in Prayer Fasting and Meditation I dare not contend out of the Scriptures but that the Spirit wrought both ways upon Christ both carrying his body into the Wilderness and instigating his mind No unusual thing in the first sense for the Spirit to transport a body suddenly through the air without the motion of the feet to a place of far distance And although the whole Trinity God the Father the Son and Holy Ghost concur to that action and produce it or perhaps appoint an Angel to be the instrument yet it goes under the name of the Spirit because that Miracle impresseth a strange vertue into a material body as if it were spiritual How Enoch and Elias were translated on high in their bodies I have declared my mind not long since And surely before Elias his last translation into heaven this did befall him often times Obadiah was jealous of it 1 King xviii 13. It shall come to pass when I am gone from thee the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not What Ezekiel reports of himself I cannot say but it was rather an imaginary than a real rapture but thus he Ezek. viii 3. The hand of God took me by a lock of mine head and the Spirit lift me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem This could not be imprinted in his imagination but that it was possible to be done really And Gregory meditates well upon it Every regenerate person during the time of this mortal flesh is so lifted up between heaven and earth Adhuc ad superna plene non pervenit sed tamen ima dereliquit His conversation and his heart are not altogether in heaven but they are higher than the earth What a direct instance is that of the Prophet Habakkuk He was carrying food to the Reapers in the Land of Jury and the Angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head and through the vehemency of the Spirit set him in Babylon Neither need this be rejected for Apocryphal since there is an example to match it Acts viii 39. The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip who was then at Gaza and he was found at Azotus which two are forty miles distance after the best descriptions of the Holy Land A Faith that is but linum fumigans a dusky faith and shines not clearly may easily admit this for if the birds can cut the air with their gross wings naturally who will not be perswaded that God can make the body of man more nimble and fit for such a motion by his supernatural power But I marvel at those Expositors who are squemishly conceited against that opinion that they did not frame this objection God doth not use to work Miracles only to shew tricks as one would say no necessity requiring Then cui bono Why might not Christ have gone into the Wilderness step by step What occasion of moment should urge the Spirit to transport him Beloved it was thus far expedient that Christ should vanish and no man know which way he was departed that he might avoid the honour which the multitude would have done him upon that voice which came from heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased So in the sixth of St. John after the miracle of feeding some thousands with a little bread and a few fishes Christ perceived that they would take him by force and make him a King therefore he made a sudden departure none knew whither till his Disciples met him walking upon the Sea in a dark night and a great storm Mat. xiv 23. This is reason then sufficient to decline the people who were astonished at the testimony which was given him from heaven that the Spirit snatcht him away in a rapture into the Wilderness Why this interpretation of the word should not take with you I know not but I am sure the next must take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was led by the Spirit that is the Holy Ghost did inspire this heroical resolution into his humane nature to
wherein so many run upon this Point I will give you my judgment in that method wherein I have always directed my self a method to give God the glory of all that which is good to make sinners humble because they have no good in themselves as of themselves and to make us all diligent in good works that we may not neglect the gift which is given us in Christ through sluggishness and security The grounds upon which I will insist are these 1. We must be led by the Spirit before we can work any thing which is good 2. I will unfold how we are led by initiating or preventing grace when we are first made partakers to taste of the hopes of a better life 3. I will shew how we are led by preparatory grace which goes before the complete act of our regeneration 4. With what great and mighty power the Spirit doth lead us in converting grace 5. How we are led by subsequent grace and sanctification which co-operates and assists us after our conversion To these heads I will briefly and peaceably reduce a volume of litigious disputation 1. I enter into all by this door before the Spirit come down upon us and lead us with his sweet motions our heart can produce nothing which is good The heathen are no competent witnesses in this cause how far nature is weakened in all vertue and how much it is prone to all evil they know no supernatural strength above nature and therefore could not acknowledge the efficacy of it In a word we must not believe man how far he is corrupted but God for man must not be judge in his own cause The Pharisees likewise shall not be heard to speak in this Point whose arrogancy made them enemies to grace You remember with what contempt they ask'd Christ are we blind Joh. ix 40. Alass of our selves we are all under that woe Vae vobis duces caeci Woe be to you blind guids Mat. xxiii 16. Whither will a blind mans feet carry him but into a pit or into a snare unless he have a leader By nature this dark blindness is upon us for else why have we a Leader Omne id naturae deesse intelligitur quod spiritus sancti operâ communicatur says St. Austin Whatsoever is put into us by the Holy Ghost manifests how much was wanting by nature The good Spirit may say of his direction as Job did of his charity I was eyes unto the blind and feet unto the lame Job xxix 15. The heathen erred from the truth through ignorance the Pharisees through arrogancy among Christians none offended more foully than the Pelagians partly through subtilty of wit partly through arrogance What shifts did they not invent rather than confess the truth Sometimes calling the endowments of mans nature even under this great blemish of depravation by the name of grace When that would not serve yet they would allow no grace to support mans free will but the external preaching of the Word and dispensation of the Sacraments 3. When this would not satisfie the Church they went thus far they did not hold there was grace of sanctification to prevent us from sin but grace of mercy to remit our sins Yet they stood under condemnation and at last this was all that could be wrung from them supernatural grace was necessary not simply to strengthen us to do good but only to do good with greater facility Whereas it behoved them to have accused nature in this present state of malignity so far that now it is become that accursed ground which of it self brings forth nothing but thorns and thistles There is not only a possibility in our will to sin as there was in Adam before the Fall but a violent and a precipitious inclination to transgress the Law The Saints and the heaven are not clean in Gods sight says Job How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water Job xv 16. The will of man is of that nature it cannot rest naked devested of all desires unfurnisht of an object and since in its own rebellion it hath forsaken God there is no relief but it will betake it self to the unlawful concupiscence of the Creature Mark how peremptorily St. Paul concludes against man as he is left to the will of his own flesh Rom. viii 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be In the state of this miserable captivity under sin for we are servants to that which we obey the will of man is partaker of its own freedom which grows with it and cannot be parted that it is not held under necessity to commit this or that sin naming any particular act what you will but under sin it is held so that the evil which we would not we shall do and the good which we would we shall not do But Christ is our Advocate and he will speak for us more than we could or durst say for our selves hear his testimony Joh. xv 4. The branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Because these words are parabolical he speaks roundly in the next verse Without me ye can do nothing It is not meant of natural or animal works as eating drinking walking indeed we can do none of these things unless his omnipresency and omnipotency support us but here it is meant of such things as are praise worthy before God without me that is without the divine assistance and help which I have merited by my obedience ye cannot bring forth the fruits of righteousness to eternal life Yet I pray you mark one thing to qualifie some mens severe opinions Christ did not say whatsoever ye do without me even with the best moral rectitude and justice shall plunge you further into damnation Every thing which comes from a meer natural man is so bad and defective that it shall do him no good toward the attaining of everlasting life but some things have a moral honesty according to the law of nature which do not deserve Hell fire but rather they are such things as shall make their damnation more tolerable The branch can bring forth no fruit unless it be in the tree Frugiferum opus est quod ad vitam aeternam refertur That is a frugiferous work which God rewards in his Kingdom No such fruits can grow from nature which wants the conduction of the Spirit St. Paul very cautiously 1 Cor. xiii mustering up the works of an unregenerate man which want Charity says he If I do all these things and want charity they profit me nothing not simply that the continence of Socrates the temperance of Scipio should hurt them but they profit me nothing a natural man brings forth nothing which can profit him to eternal life St. Austin doth so diligently ponder every word of the Text now cited that I must impart his sweet labours unto
called to hear the word of faith and of none other God might have left them in their bloud as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks and given them over to the reprobate sense of their own mind but because he requires a new Covenant from all those to whom Christ is preached therefore he gives them new abilities lest he should seem to invite them in vain but being supplied with these internal excitations of supernatural help they are unexcusable This is the way to give God the glory and to make all the hearers of the Word know what talent they have received But the force of exhortations and expostulations were taken away if a sinner were converted by Enthusiasms and sudden inspirations If God would immediately bring a man to himself without feeling of his sin without hating it without desiring pardon it were superfluous to say We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain I marvel you are so soon removed from him that called you to the grace of Christ Gal. i. 6. They that heard St. Peters Sermon Acts ii 37. at the beginning of it were unbelieving and rebellious Jews before he had ended they were terrified felt the guiltiness of innocent bloud upon themselves desired freedom submitted themselves to direction Men brethren what shall we do All these were good internal effects but as yet they were not converted and regenerate as yet unbelievers for had they believed they had never made that question What shall we do They come to that in the next verse says Peter Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins Well they followed this counsel and then at the soonest and not before they were justified in Christ for thereupon it is said There were added unto the Church above three thousand souls So I have made that conclusion undeniable I think that Christ doth produce some effects of initial grace before conversion The next conclusion is that since the natural man hath no powers in the freedom of his will to do good therefore the first effects of grace that are brought forth in us the Holy Ghost doth produce them solely and intirely the will of man conferring no strength at all As the ground receives the seed which is cast into it so a natural man takes the good seed from God which he casts into him passivè receptivè only passively and by way of reception Even they that will not be beaten off from their tenet but that the will of man hath some cooperancy with Gods grace in the act of conversion yet they give their suffrage to this doctrine that this preventing grace or grace of preparation is res infusa not comparata a thing infused from above not gotten by our diligence or acquired even as the air doth not dispose it self to admit the light of the Sun but is illuminated by the presence of the Sun They are best known by the name of Semi-pelagians who would not admit this truth for it was taught in their School that the beginning of faith was from man and the increase from the power of the Holy Ghost But why did they teach that the beginning of faith was from man Because they imagined that the talent of grace was promised to them that used the talent of nature well Habenti dabitur to him that hath it shall be given But I would have them find me any such Covenant in all the Scripture which God made with man that such as negotiated the talent of nature well should have an increase of grace for their reward It is a trespass and a foul one to bely a man and to father Covenants upon him which he never made the offence is greater to alledge Covenants from God and yet no tittle leaning that way in all his Testament The powers of nature are blindness of understanding obdurateness of will perverseness of affections what reward can be due to these but eternal death When thou wert in thy bloud Ezek. xvi that is when thou wert under the loathsom filthiness of sin and under the condemnation of death I said unto thee live that is I began to extend my mercy of vivification upon thee The beginning and introduction of all Christian vertue is to think of God From whence comes this From any good parts wherewith we were born Go to the fountain of wisdom and ask there We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. iii. 5. The next a b c and first rudiment of goodness is to pray to God Is nature a sufficient Mistris to teach you that Is it not the Spirit which the Lord sends into us crying Abba Father I will pour upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and supplications and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem Zach. xii 10. Thus St. Austin proves that the very firstlings and proems of all our Christian dispensations are from God because St. Paul said I obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful 1 Cor. vii 25. Misericordiam consecutus sum ut fidelis essem non ut fidelior essem That I was made faithful or had any faith it was the benefit of God and not only by way of increase or augmentation that I was made more faithful otherwise we should lead the Spirit to take his aim from us and not be led by the Spirit a Passive Verb and fit to express that we are merely passive in the first preparations of faith I shall speak anon touching that efficacy of the Spirit upon the heart of man But touching the work of preparatory grace in the first onset it brings illumination with it it dispels darkness from our understanding it makes us perceive we are gone astray in our sins like sheep that are lost it makes us know God is to be feared it makes us discern that we are in a wretched estate this illumination cannot be resisted Mens nostra ipsum scire effugere non potest Philosophy doth dictate that we cannot repel the knowledge of a thing palpably demonstrated before us though we would it pierceth as easily into the mind as a needle through a thin cloath Yet I do not say this grace which first possesseth the soul and makes it willing to good motions which was most averse before doth compel a man or force him compulsion is a word of hostility rather than of favour It comes with that sweetness and authority together that it will not be said nay Thus we are led by the Spirit in the first introduction of preparatory grace The third thing to be considered is how the Spirit doth lead us all the while we use this preparatory grace before conversion St. Austin comprehended all in this short rule Primùm gratia Dei operatur bonam voluntatem deinde per eam First Gods grace doth effect a good will in us and then by that will so illuminated and excited it produceth
these did foully err and hold that a man being conscious to himself of some sin that was worthy death might put himself to death that it was an act of justice yea and a Martyrdom and upon this ground whether shouId I say more foolish or more impious they Canonized Judas for a Martyr But St. Austin shews that their Argument jars against two common principles Nemo potest esse judex reus It is incompetible that the same man should be both the guilty person and the Judge 2. Nocentem hominem privata potestate occidere non licet It is murder for any private man not authorized by a lawful Magistrate to execute death upon a Malefactor Judam execramur quamvis sceleratum hominem occidit Judas was a Malefactor and could not kill a worse man than himself yet that sin alone without the rest was damnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the slaying of himself Remember the Commandment Thou shalt not kill Whom not Neither your self nor your neighbour for you have no more power to hurt your self than another the body is Gods and the Temple of the Holy Ghost And who gave you leave to pluck down a Temple Nature inclines a man to the conservation of himself and what a detestable thing it is to violate the chief Maxime of Nature Which is this in St. Pauls words No man hates his own flesh but loves and cherisheth it No man indeed but he that makes hast to be no man that he might the sooner be a Devil The Heathen went thus far that a man is put into this world as a Souldier is put into some File or some place of the Watch from that station he must not stir till his General calls him Et majori supplicio afficiendus est desertor vitae quà m desertor militia And is not he more worthy of punishment that leaves the place where God did put him before he was summoned than he that comes off from the Watch before the General calls him If the love of your soul the dreadful expectation of Hell-fire will make you decline a sin take heed of this for Gods sake above all others All other sins when they are committed have yet some leasure to beg mercy and at what time soever a sinner c. but how can the Lord put such a sin out of his remembrance where it is impossible there should be time to repent Vt laqueo respiratio it a prohibetur desperatione spiritus sanctus as Bedae said of Judas they stop their own breath and with that desperate act exclude the Holy Ghost from inspiring any sanctified cogitation into them What can befal a man in this world to defie Heaven and Earth at once And to die the death of the damned without redemption Bethink your selves judiciously it cannot be want torture or calamity for though these be very sharp especially to those that are impatient yet they are not so smartful as the stinging of a Bee nor the biting of a Flea compared with the Lake of Brimstone into which they irrecoverably send their own soul that let out of the body with their own violent hand Nor should it irke a man to stay Gods leasure till he be dissolved for any reproach or ignominy that he hath incurred for so your former dishonour is not forgotten but ten times more divulged and increased See how publick shame which followed such desperate persons after their death did work with some of Miletum as Plutarch reports it Many of the Milesian Virgins through the perswasions of some Diabolical Philosophers hanged themselves To stop this unnatural fury when no reason would revoke them the Magistrates made a Law that the bodies of all such should be left naked in the open Market-place for ten days and the fear of that worldly shame did for ever after rectifie those who were living that they held their hands from violence But what other impulsive cause can be named Can the remorse of sins past breed such a destructive melancholy in any mans disposition God forbid This is to cast Mountains upon Mountains and to make all worse Sins are not covered by heaping one upon another but blessed is the man whose unrighteousness is forgiven and whose sin is covered There is another life given to expiate your iniquities and not your own even the bloud of Christ Repent you seriously and be merciful unto your self and then God will be merciful unto you Yet Achitophel with all his politick reach could not make use of these plain notions but confounded himself partly with the guiltiness of his rebellion partly with the fear of his reputation For it is very likely he shuffled his Game thus If Absalon overcome King David Hushai hath given the better counsel and so I shall live in disgrace If David prevail which is very likely he will take away my life because of the pernicious Plots which I have laid against him See how this witty Wretch could forget that David was a merciful Prince and did not execute one of his enemies in cold bloud But God lets the wits of the wisest turn addle who meditate to be Authors of their own ruine and to cast themselves down from a Pinacle upon the Devils suggestion But God keeps all those from this sin whom he means to have converted and be saved The Jaylor took out his Sword and was ready to have faln upon it but Paul cried out at the instant Do thy self no hurt and soon after he was baptized and believed he and his house Paul may loath this world and desire to be dissolved but he must wait the Lords leisure and not hasten his dissolution It was the blessing of the Lord upon mankind Increase and multiply To replenish the world is a Benediction to take one of Gods Servants away unless by the hand of justice and that the Magistrate doth in the person of God is a Malediction What spirit was in the Tridentine Fathers to make the second book of Machabees Canonical Wherein Razias is commended in most fluent phrases that killed himself I know St. Austin says Razii mors narratur non laudatur it is but a narration of the fact not an Encomium Let any child read Chap. xiv toward the end of it and judge if he be not extolled for it with most artificial commendation The same Father is more Orthodox in another place that pious reason is to be preferred before examples Quae tantò dig niora sunt imitatione quantò excellentiora pietate which are no further worthy of imitation than they excel in Piety And again I may say Why did the Roman Martyrology Canonize the Virgins of Aquileia Who drowned themselves to avoid certain barbarous Ravishers For as Aquinas treats upon the fact 1. Fornication were a less sin than violent murder 2. If they had not refused that carnal sin as much as they could yet Repentance might have wash'd away the spot of that crime in the other act of unnatural
upon them to make them loiter from their daily necessary labour but it was an high solemnity as fell out in all the year Dies celeberrimus sanctissimus as the Vulgar Latin reads it Lev. xxiii 21. where we read that then they should proclaime and call an holy Convocation So I have summed up the three occasions of this Feast in the Old Law first to give thanks for their deliverance from bondage Secondly to honour the day wherein first they received the Law at Mount Sinah and thirdly to offer up the first fruits of their Harvest will you see now how aptly the gift of the Holy Ghost was distributed at the same time When the day of Pentecost c. First Whereas the Jews did celebrate at the Feast of Pentecost their enfranchisement from the house of bondage so the benefit of liberty was augmented this day much more than ever it was before This Satan knew well enough and therefore the longest thing wherein he held the Church in ignorance was about the sending of the Holy Ghost long after the name of Christ and his power was received whole Cities and Societies confessed they had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost or not Ignorance in those Points which are necessary to salvation is the greatest thraldom and captivity in the world False Prophets says S. Paul do lead captive silly women laden with sins 2 Tim. iii. 6. I spake not only of such as sate in the darkness of death and were lost these were like Samson in fetters having their eies put out but the Disciples the flower of Christs train saw nothing in holy mysteries as they ought to see till the influence of this glorious day cleared there eye-sight their eyes were held their hearts were held they knew not which way their Redemption was brought about and how Israel was restored Our Saviour took out but one Text in all the New Testament it is out of Isaiah and it is to this very purpose that the Spirit of God redeemed us out of the captivity of ignorance the place is extant Luk. iv 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised This comes home to the matter I am sure Yet moreover this is a day of restitution unto liberty because it dissolved the Church from the tye and yoke of Levitical Ceremonies from those multitude of Statutes which overwhelmed the people with observation As Pharaoh was drowned in the red Sea so the tenure of Mosaical Ceremonies was drowned in the bloud of Christ which was shed upon the Cross and on this Feast we received the Seal of the Spirit that we were rid of them all So far I have demonstrated that at this time we shook off the bondage of Ignorance and Ceremonies which makes it a feast of Pentecost to us Christians as well as it was to the Jews Secondly You shall find the other correspondency marvelously kept between the Law and the Gospel Christ at his death was slain not only as the Paschal Lamb but even when the Lamb was slain on the Feast of Passeover Now from the Feast of Passeover or rather from the second day of sweet bread reckoning fifty days the Children of Israel came to Mount Sinah and there received the Law which was kept ever after with a most sacred memorial so fifty days after Christ rose from the dead the Apostles and the Church received the Spirit of Sanctification And I am sure we have much more cause to renown our Pentecost than the Jews had to honour theirs If the Law which was the ministration of death was so thankfully remembred how much more the dedication of the Gospel For this day as the Fathers say very well was the first dedication of Christs Catholick Church upon earth They were made the Sons of the bondwoman by the Law we are made the Sons of the free-woman by the Spirit We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the spirit of adoption Rom. viii 15. A sinner could have no comfort in the Pentecost of the Jews they had the Law and that condemned them this was miserable comfort We have gladsom tidings this day not from Sinah but out of Sion which bids us live by faith in Christ In no other Feast of the Jews might Leaven be eaten it was an hainous transgression but the two loaves of the first fruits were to be baked with Leaven which were dedicated to God at this Feast Lev. xxiii 17. Expositors say no more to it but thus Leaven was put into the dough of new corn Vt panes sapidiores essent to make it more savory certainly so vulgar an interpretation is much under the meaning of the Holy Ghost I would rather say it had a mystical construction that Leaven was allowed at this Feast to intimate that the Holy Spirit would bear with the leaven of our nature with our sins of frailty and infirmity And it is observable that this is the number of the Jubilee every fiftieth year was the Jubilee year which was a time with the Jews to restore all men to their Lands which were sold away by ill-husbandry and a general forgiving of all debts So this day was a true Jubilee for remission of Trespasses it was at this time that Peter preach'd remission of sins to all that did repent and believe to all without exception for says he the Promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even to as many as the Lord our God shall call So I have shewed that we received the divine Spirit of grace at Sion at the same time that they received the terrible Law at Sinah which makes it a greater Feast of Pentecost to us Christians than it was unto the Jews Thirdly We agree no less with them in the next similitude for keeping this day The Israelites according to the early maturity of corn in that climate began to put their Sickle at this time into Wheat Harvest so the Apostles from this day forward went forth to reap that which the Prophets had sown gathering much fruit unto eternal life and bringing the Wheat of God into his Garner unto the everlasting praise of the glory of his grace Their Barly Harvest such was the condition of their Soil and Husbandry begun at Easter their Wheat was begun to be cut down seven weeks after at Whitsuntide and the latter was called Tempus primitiarum the Time or Festival of First-fruits which were presented to the Lord. So God breathed his spirit into man at the creation of Adam that was the first Harvest which spirit being choked by him and coming to nothing this day there was a second emission of the spirit into man fully to restore and renew him again Now the two Loaves
opened that the Word should run swiftly throughout all the world when good tidings were diffusive great joy unto all people The sound came flying upon the wings of the wind that there was neither Speech nor Language upon the earth but their voices were heard among them The Law made a great din when it was published there came thunder with it and the noise of a Trumpet louder and louder Yet this noise was spread in the Desart of Sinai in a desolate and uninhabited Region But this sound which hapned when the Gospel was authorized to be preached in every Nation it had audience in the most populous place of all Judaea in the City of Jerusalem As who should say it was a communicable sound which should be received into the Imperial Cities of all Kingdoms I draw this only observation from it to your holy practice that the Lord loveth fragorem vocis not a whispering silence but an exalted voice a loud exclamation to praise him Open confession of Gods name is an effect individually connex'd with a true lively faith so says David Psal cxvi I believed and therefore I spake There are three things hateful to God which jar against it 1. Hypocritical profession when the protestation of the mouth is not rooted in the heart 2. Abnegation of the Faith whether they deny the truth for fear or for resolved Apostasie 3. There is another way to sin against the confession of the Faith and that is malum silentium not to glorifie God openly in our profession when it concerns his honour in whose person the Psalmist speaks I kept silence yea even from good words but it was pain nay it will be pain and grief unto them St. Paul complains of those Christians that were of Rome in his days that none would openly declare themselves of his side in the time of persecution At my first answer none stood with me but all forsook me I pray God it may not be laid to their charge 1 Tim. iv 16. The Lord would not have it lurk only in the secrets of our breast that we are Christs Disciples but that it should resound abroad to his glory for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation And let Gods service be performed on all sides on the Priests part and on the peoples with fervor and strength of voice like the sound of many waters You may pray tacitly in the heart but sure the holy Spirit came not from heaven like a vehement sound to teach you to fumble in the mouth and scarce to open your lips when you are in Prayer Prayer is a calling upon God Call upon me in the time of trouble Psal l. Nay a roaring for very disquietness of heart says the same Prophet in another place Our humble Petitions are called Vituli labiorum Heb. xiii Their lips will offer their sacrifice aloud if the true incense of zeal do burn within for our Saviour says Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh A troubled soul I grant it sometimes cannot utter it self sometimes a dumb-born Prayer is very powerful as Hannah the Mother of Samuel is the great instance of it but in the ordinary way assuredly the more strength of voice we put to our Supplications the more we shake off the drowsiness of the flesh the more we stir up the grace of the holy Spirit which loves that the Eccho and chearful sounds of the voice should ascend up to heaven But the Scripture doth not leave at this that there came a sound from heaven it goes further and tells us the manner of the sound that it was like unto that noise which is caused by a vehement wind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if the wind had blown but it was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Oecumenius that you might not imagine the holy Spirit to be a corporeal breathing like the vaporous substance of the wind therefore the quasi is very significant that it had but the similitude of the wind Yet it is very inquirable why like that more than any thing else If we had been left to guess what sound it was why might not we have imagined it to be the purling of some soft streams Or the humming of Bees about their Hive Or the voice of harpers playing with their harps Rev. xiv 2. None of those it was but as the fragor of the wind And when God declares his vertue in some sensible object you must perswade your reason there is some great relation between the sign and the thing signified Did not our Saviour illustrate unto Nicodemus our Regeneration or new Birth from the blasts of the air Joh. iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the voice thereof and knowest not whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit Yet more feelingly when he did infuse into his Apostles the power of the Holy Ghost bequeathing them that great Sacerdotal priviledge Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Was it not conveyed by blowing upon them like the wind by insufflation Joh. xx 22. He breathed on them and saith unto them receive ye the Holy Ghost Now I will tell you together where both the mystery and the use of it do consist First As the breath which we send forth comes from the warmth of our Lungs and of our bowels within so the Spirit proceedeth from the substantial love of the Father and of the Son What was the meaning then of that sensible expiration But that as the breath which he vented out came from his Humane Nature so the Holy Ghost which he breathed on his Disciples came from his Divine Nature And this must follow to give it you by the way that Christ is very God for who but God can communicate the Holy Ghost For it was Gods Promise that He and none but He would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh Isa xliv And it stands as well proved that the Holy Ghost is God for the prime and supreme power to remit sins is the Holy Ghosts he was given to the Disciples for that end and none can forgive sins but God alone Secondly Christ communicated his spiritual gifts by breathing to shew that he even the same Lord was the Author both of our temporal and eternal life For in the Creation the Lord breathed into mans nostrils the breath of life Gen. ii 7. But this life shall pass away and the body shall crumble into dust Why behold the breath of the Lord will go forth again to cause a joyful Resurrection as it is in the Prophets vision of the dry bones Ezek. xxxvil 5. Thus saith the Lord unto these bones Behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live Yet if this body wherein sin reigns and inclines it only to
says St. Hierom that is if the Wolf come near the Sheepfold he must not only be threatned with the Staff but the Dogs must bark at him likewise and then he will leave his Prey and take him to his heels St. Austin presseth the same Doctrin out of St. Paul Ephes iv 11. He gave some Apostles and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Says he I collect from hence that every Pastor that is every Bishop must be a Teacher for it is not said he gave some Pastors and some Teachers as it went before some Apostles and some Prophets but Pastors and Teachers are put together without a distinctive member ut intelligerent Pastores ad officium suum pertinere doctrinam that Pastors may know how teaching is included in their duty and cannot be separated from it This then was the principal intent of giving the tongue at the Feast of Whitsuntide as it is Isa l. 4 The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season First then negligent silence in Pastors is a stifling the grace of God Quantùm vitae merito aedificat tantùm destruit silentio Secondly affected silence is affronting the grace of God as those Orders of Friars that bind themselves by vow and institution of life not to utter a word excepting one day or it may be one hour in the week sometimes not so often Agatho the Anchorite is commended in the lives of the Fathers that he never spake what is this but as it were to advow not to receive the benediction of the Holy Ghost Finally to be preproperous and over-hasty to teach the Gospel is to prevent the Spirit or rather not to wait for the grace of God For Christ had first rooted the knowledge of the Word and Scripture in the Apostles and then endued them with a tongue but they that start up Teachers before they be grounded in the Word speak with their own tongue before they have received the tongue of the Holy Ghost But the tongue supplies another office in nature and that 's to taste The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meats Job xxxiv 3. so the Spirit makes us feel and know the good things of God that are in us even as the tongue makes us relish that which is sweet upon the palat and will be delectable for nourishment Nay we do not only taste the things of heaven slightly and as we say upon the tip of the tongue but the same Spirit makes us to ruminate upon them and chew the cudd my heart is always musing of thy testimonies says David O 't is a comfortable thing to have a tast of Heaven in our Soul to have some persuasive Experiment that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in us especially to have it proceed to that most pleasing Sapor when the Spirit shall testifie to our Spirit that we are the Sons of God but in all that are meetly disposed to Eternal Life there is some perceivance in others more in others less there 's some Tast some Consolation that Christ is in them and works in them by Faith and Love and the more you tast it the more sweetness you shall find to breed an Appetite The Natural Man perceives not the things that are of God he counts the Doctrin of Christ and him crucified to be Madness and Foolishness he thinks they that kill his Apostles do God good service he puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Isa 5.20 there 's all the Tast that he hath he wants a Tongue to dijudicate of the Manna that comes from Heaven which no man knows but he that receiveth it Rev. ii 17. He to whom it is given to know what is the height bredth and depth of the Love of our Lord Jesus and his Redemption he accepts of all things in a diverse manner from him to whom the mind of the Lord is not revealed he interprets the Poverty of Christ to be the Riches of the World his Ignominy to be the Triumph of the Saints Tribulation for the truth is a Refreshing to his body Mortification and pious Sorrow a dainty Lenitive to his soul he receives the Doctrin of our Ministry not as the Word of Man but as it is indeed the Word of God he cannot but speak the Truth though his life ly at the stake for it negare Dei verbum non valeo quia spiritus sancti linguam habeo it is Gregories I cannot deny the word of God because the Holy Ghost hath given me a tongue to speak it To conclude this point no man can have a smack of the Kingdom of Heaven but through the rellish of this tongue no man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. xii 3. as we are born children of wrath in our unregenerate estate we have bitterness in our throat and the poison of Asps under our lips how can we savour the things that are of God but the Spirit makes us a new creature and takes away all this sourness and ill relished acrimony and then his fruit will be sweet unto our mouth Cantic ii 3. Having delivered unto you the substance of this Vision which is a tongue it follows to speak of the Figure and Form of it It was cloven that 's truly called the Figure and like as of fire that 's truly called the Form A Tongue was a Commission and an enabling of the Apostles to preach but a Cloven Tongue was their hability to preach unto many The Syrian language was all that they could speak before and in that they faultered too and mouthed it rudely and unelegantly a silly Damosel quipt even St. Peter with it Thou art a Galilaean and thy speech betrayeth yet such a tongue as it was they were unlettered men and could speak no more all the world beside were Barbarians to them and they Barbarians to all the world But the Lord knew that they had need of many tongues to pay that great debt which they owed his Church ite praedicate universae creaturae go and teach all Nations from Jerusalem and Samaria even unto the ends of the world I would a little satisfie my Auditors before I go any further that would know how the tongues did resemble a cloven figure that sat upon the Apostles If you look upon such types of it as Picture-drawers have framed remember that there is no heed to be given to their Pencil for they will extremely abuse your ignorance they usually represent the Apparition as if every Apostle and the Blessed Virgin sitting in the midst of them had a little lamp of fire like the flame of a small Torchet blazing upon their head and so would thrust this belief upon the rash gazer that God sent down a shew of many firy tongues into the place where this holy Society was gathered together and that there was singularis flammula a little flame proportioned somewhat like a Tongue sitting
speak the Oracles of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rational discourses 1 Pet. iv 11. So our Saviour promised his Disciples I will give you a mouth and wisdom not a mouth only but wisdom with it so that all your Adversaries shall not be able to gainsay it Luk. xxi 15. Finally the Prophet Isaiah speaking in the person of an Evangelical Priest The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should speak a word in season Isa l. 4. And so to end all let us send up our tongues of praise and thanksgiving to heaven to the gracious God that did send down the blessing of these Tongues to his Church upon earth And the same Lord Jesus exalt us to his Church Triumphant where with one song and with one voice we shall sing glory to him for evermore AMEN THE FIFTH SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 12 13. And they were all amazed and were in doubt saying one to another what meaneth this Others mocking said these men are full of new wine MEntion being made in the former part of this Chapter what effects the Mission of the Holy Ghost as upon this day wrought in the Apostles the next thing which is disclosed in these two verses is what entertainment it found in the World What entertainment should it find but joy and gladness and thanksgiving it was a shower of grace that fell from Heaven and every drop of it more valuable than an Orient Pearl which made the whole earth barren and unfruitful before spring out with spiritual increase that from thenceforth the Wombs of Mothers should not bring out men but Saints It was not as upon the sixth day of the week in the Creation of the World that God did breath into man the breath of Life but upon this first day of the week he breathed into his Church the breath of Righteousness and filled it with the seeds of future Glory From the Feast of the Passover the Jews were to number seven weeks and then they kept a most solemn day called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Pentecost that 's this very day instituted to recognize how at that time they came out of Egypt from the Bondage of Pharaoh and received the Law which was delivered upon Mount Horeb. But to expunge the memory of that occasion God did superinduct a far greater blessing upon this Festival day and poured out his Spirit in a bountiful and miraculous manner upon his Disciples at Jerusalem Was there a season appointed to congratulate the deliverance of the Jews from the Captivity of the Body and doth not this Mercy exalt it self above the other that they are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise to be enfranchised from the slavery of Sin and the Devil Was the remembrance of the Law a perpetual rejoycing though it were a killing Letter and is it not ten thousand times more comfortable to receive the power of the Holy Ghost which enabled them to keep the Law Did they take it kindly and chearfully to receive the Law written in Tables of Stone And is not the change a great deal better on this day to have it written in the fleshly Tables of their Heart Then the Lord gave them but one Talent and they made but small multiplication of it nay they were the Servants in the Parable and who but they that bound it up and buried it in a Napkin Lo here are five Talents delivered unto us a greater Sum than ever the Children of Men received before And answer me now in equity what entertainment the Mission of the Holy Ghost should receive in the World Not to deceive your expectation with many words the case is thus The best of the Jews that came to the God-speed of this days work profest ignorance and knew not what to make of it the worst of them exhaled envy and rancour out of their malignant minds and jeared at it And they were all amazed and were in doubt c. The parts must needs arise to these two heads Grande miraculum Grande ludibrium First a great Miracle for it wrought these three things first Amazement they were all amazed secondly Doubt they were in doubt thirdly earnest Search and Inquisition for they said one to another what meaneth this But though the greater part were thus affected and therefore it is said they were all amazed meaning the greater number yet divers turn'd it to mockery and said these men are full of new wine First the sending of the Holy Ghost was construed to be a great Miracle by all that saw the effects of it in the Apostles and in the beginning it is exprest by a passion that took away their reason for a time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were amazed then it troubled their reason they doubted and finally it exercised their reason for they asked after it Amazement is a word to express the highest and most sudden admiration that can take a man when astonishment doth seize upon the faculties of the mind and bind them up for a little space that they have no power to exercise themselves as if they were Planet-blasted The Latin word Attonitus is he that is scared with a sudden clap of thunder so that he is stupified for a while but the Greek word in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goes further for the right signification is they were beside themselves or they were in an extasie So our Saviour's Kinsmen being themselves out of their wits with ignorance thought that our Saviour was transported when he preached the Gospel and knew not what he said therefore their opinion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is beside himself Mark iii. 21. Ecstatici qui non sunt in potestate mentis they that are amazed have not their mind present for the time it is dizied and confounded so that this Miracle wrought upon the Jews after the highest pitch of admiration Let us interpret it to the best that joy did overcome them to see the riches of all goodness poured out upon the Sons of men Their Forefathers were astonisht with fear at the delivery of the Law and they are astonisht with joy at the coming of the Holy Ghost The Gift it self the Persons that received it the Operation which it did exercise in them to speak the glory of God in all Tongues and Languages all are transcendently wonderful that the wit of a natural man especially is not able to comprehend them The Gift it self in the first place is so celestial that the Lord himself is not more wonderful in all his works than in sending the Holy Ghost so hidden from the knowledg of the world so rare to be found so beneficial to mankind that he that marvels not at it is himself a Miracle Are you amazed at things which are secret and very abstruse in their nature none more close and unperceivable than this As the wind passeth by and is not perceived so God breaths the
be our Intercessor with his Father and to prepare a place for us Whitsunday or the Coming of the Holy Ghost is like a fair Land-mark to instruct the most unlearned that though our nature is most corrupt and averse from all good motions yet the spirit is poured into us whereby in some weak measure we become obedient Children and cry Abba Father These are the Days which the Lord hath made and when we devote our selves to magnifie him upon these occasions they prove the best means to teach us the Catechetical and fundamental points of faith And as Christ was great in himself and in those works of grace so He is great in the Angels of Heaven great in the Apostles in the Evangelists in all Saints and Martyrs and the choice is made by our Church of the Flower of all occasions in this kind publickly to praise the Lord and it is very fit I say that there should be a sensible difference between these and common days both for our thanksgiving and for the profitableness of our piety Gods works are all worthy of observation but not at all times alike to be remembred for as the Lord by being every where doth not give unto all places one and the same degree of holiness but the Church is more sacred than the High-ways of the Field though Gods Immensity and Omnipotency is alike in both so neither is one and the same dignity competent to all times although the Omnipotency of God doth work in all times but as his extraordinary presence hath hallowed and sanctified certain places so they are his extraordinary works which have worthily advanced certain times for which cause they ought with all men that honour God to be in more honour than other dayes I should add two things more that are very ponderous to confirm this truth one from the practice of some holy persons in the Old Testament whose constitutions God approved the other from the practice of our Fore-fathers in all Ages and 't is fit to tread in their steps in things that are laudable honest and indifferent but this shall not be hudled up I will dilate it hereafter To dispatch all beside our holy due of the Lords Day we are now to celebrate the Kings Day and for good reason in all equity we ought to do some Religious Service on His Day who is the Defendor of our Religion Next under the Providence of God who but the King doth maintain the Truth among us therefore on what day of the week soever this Day lights it becoms us to set open the Door of the Church and to praise the Lord because we have freedom to come to Church all the year by his grace and protection We have no Romish Superstition no Anabaptistical or Presbyterian Anarchy to make this holy place irksom unto us God be praised that has given his Anointed a faithful heart to serve him and to uphold his People in the right way that they may hold up clean hands to Heaven I do read that Constantine celebrated an yearly Feast for his Victory against Licinius I read that the Church of Alexandria celebrated a Day yearly wherein the waters asswaged after a great Inundation I read that Alexius Comnenus appointed a perpetual Holiday for the memory of the famous Emperor and Lawgiver Justinian nay St. Ambrose calls to mind that Felix Bishop of Cuma kept that day every year in a magnificent manner to God wherein he was consecrated Bishop Thus former Ages have given us light that we keep in the Circle of that which is lawful when we adorn the Anniversary Day of the Inauguration of our most noble King with joy and festivity in the sight of God and first let us confess the Lords benefit towards us and say as the People did of Solomon Because thy God loved Israel to stablish them for ever therefore made he thee King over them to do judgment and justice 1 Chron. ix viii Secondly let as put up Prayers and Intercessions to the Divine Majesty to give great prosperity to our Anointed Sovereign to his Royal Consort and to their Posterity for ever AMEN A SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION PSAL. cxviii 24. This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it IF you have ever seen a piece of Coin stamp'd with one face upon the fore-side and with another upon the reverse then set that fancy before you to understand the double sense of this Text. First If you ask according to the Letter whose Image and Superscription is this I tell you and I have told it you once before it is Davids And this is the triumphant Hymn of the devout men of Israel exulting that God had given them such a King to go in and out before them If you ask according to the Spirit to whom this Verse belongs most certainly it aims at Christ and that two ways either calculating this Day for the whole Age of the Gospel that is the day which God hath made to put gladness into his chosen through the remission of our sins because the day-spring from on high hath visited us Or else in a more eminent sort it is the joyful acclamation of the Church upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus that being the most honourable and most welcome of days because the Resurrection hath ever been esteemed the most glorious of all the works of the Gospel I have spun out the first of these concerning David to the last thread now my Web which is upon the Loom is concerning Christ that is I have given unto Caesar that which is Caesars and it is very expedient as the more principal duty to give unto God that which is Gods Indeed I cannot say that I am come to the heart and to the vitals of the Text till now till now that I apply it not as formerly to the Lords Anointed but to Christ himself our Lord anointed And I have clear way made me for this interpretation as clear as I can wish for never any that have received the Book of the Psalms for spiritual and divine melody but do reckon this Psalm and especially this part of the Psalm to belong to Jesus the Author and finisher of our Salvation The Doctors of the Jews says St. Hierom did use to sing it in praise of the Messias And the Doctors of the Christians must be all of one Chorus to chant it merrily to the Son of God because four places of the New Testament that is witness enough have made a challenge unto it that this Psalm is an Allelujah or Hosannah to the Son of God And because the words of my Text are obvious to be recited upon any memorable and plausible occasion sometimes they have been drawn to congratulate humane affairs yet with this reservation that none under heaven hath a true interest in them I read that in the second Constant Council held under Justinian the Emperour Johannes Presbyter as he was
Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Altar And the Lord smelled a sweet savour IT is impossible to choose a better method than Elihu did to find out wisdom Repetam scientiam meam à principio Job xxxvi 3. I will fetch my knowledge from far or from the very beginning But why do I call it Elihu's method When behold a greater than Elihu impugning the frivolous divorcements of marriages among the Jews which then had common passage doth thus overthrow them Ab initio non fuit sic It was not so from the beginning From which words I am bold to pronounce that this must be the leading rule of Divine Learning that all Religion must be tried and allowed from the first and most ancient Ordinations Now we have four Ages to run through upon that examination First for the Age before the Floud whereof Almighty God hath left us a very short and confused memorial I will not say as some do that the Church began when Enos was born to Seth although we find it written Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord Gen. iv ult Nor from the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel for the tradition of the Hebrews hath reason in it that Adam himself had often sacrificed before but the first hint of Religion in that Age is at this mark where the Lord made woman and brought her unto man which was a mystery of Christ and his Church Eph. v. 12. Secondly if you will know how the fear of God was first professed after the Floud it is written in my Text. Thirdly If you will be acquainted with the first institution of the Mosaical Law enquire for it at that time when God appeared in glory at Mount Sinai And fourthly If you will search to the bottom when the Law was quite abrogated and the Gospel was purely in force reckon from the coming down of the Holy Ghost at the Feast of Whitsontide Among these four I have wittingly light upon the second that I may entreat before you how Religion was first managed presently after the Deluge under the Law ot Nature For this seems to me to borrow somewhat of all the rest so that speaking of this one they will all be remembred The Mystery of Christ and his Church knit together is not here forgotten where the clean Beasts and the clean Fowls are laid upon the Altar The Sacrifices of Moses Law certainly were patterned by this example and the inspiration of the holy Spirit must needs be in the Sacrifices work from whence the Lord smelt a sweet savour If your attention be now ready to receive the distribution of these words into their several parts they may thus be divided into two principal branches here is the material part and the formal part the body and the soul of that Divine Worship which Noah performed unto the Lord. He builded an Altar unto the Lord and took of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Altar that is the matter the visible body of his good work And the Lord smelled a sweet savour there is the invisible part or the Soul The material outward work contains these three things 1. That he offered burnt offerings 2. Of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl 3. Vpon an Altar which he built And Noah builded an Altar unto the Lord and offered burnt offerings on the Altar In the formal part there are two things to be spoken of sensibile and sensus The sensibile that this Sacrifice had a sweet savour 2. There was a quick sense that took it and that is the Lords the Lord smelled a sweet savour And Noah builded an Altar c. I take the material part first in hand and this is the principal composition in the matter that Noah offered burnt-offerings to the Lord. This was it I perceive why Noah thought it long till the Floud were asswaged and sent one bird after another to learn if the waters were faln that he might come forth and worship him with an holy Worship that made both the Flouds and the dry Land As a conscionable man recovering from a perilous sickness which brought him even to deaths door thinks every hour seven till he present himself in the Church before the Lord that he may praise his name in the Congregation So the heart of this Patriarch had been so long full of meditations all those days that he was shut up in the Ark how he and his Posterity alone were preserved from the common Deluge that his desires grew restless and he sent forth the Dove three several times and no less to bring him better news if he might come forth and do his homage for the possession of the Earth upon an Altar of earth and that the Incense of his devotion might smoke up to heaven in Sacrifice Now I lift up this example before you to let you behold why we are born and for what use we have our Station in this Globe of Creatures The Lord hath opened our Mothers Womb to bring us forth into the light as he opened the door of the Ark to set Noahs feet in a large room We were shut up in a place which God had appointed for us till our passage was made into the world almost as long as he now we have our egress and the liberty of the Earth and Air. To what end all this What is appointed for man Which way should his business tend To enjoy the pleasures of the Age To extend our appetite over the abundance of all things which the earth affords To build and plant To be renowned and leave a Posterity behind us No that account is ill cast up for you may see in this condition of Noah that he and all that were with him were let forth of the Ark as a people then born again into a new world and the end was to offer up spiritual Sacrifices with a clean heart and while we have any being to praise the Lord. When the Angel had delivered the Apostles out of the common-Prison into which they were cast says he Go stand and speak to the people in the Temple all the words of this life So we are set at liberty from our Mothers Womb from that Ark to which we were committed for a time that we may go to the Courts of the house of our God even as Noah came abroad and took seisin of the earth immediately to make an Altar thereof and thereon to offer Sacrifice to the strength of his deliverance The question will be what direction the holy man had to worship the Lord with this kind of Service Lay it down for that which must be granted He that makes his own brain the model of his Religion shall have little thanks for his forwardness Ascribe unto the Lord the honour due unto his name honour of Duty and Precept is best that which is redundant and of
Deum gubernat amoris omne regnum est Love did rule God himself love swayed all things in the world We know and admire the meaning that the love of the Son turn'd the enmity of the Father into peace it turn'd threatnings into forgiveness and death into life Poise every thing in a right scale and mark the heavy weight of our undeservings and the nature of man might stink in Gods nostrils which had so much offended him to believe a Serpent nay to believe the Devil in a Serpent rather then the lively Oracle of his own mouth Yet love took away that distastefulness which the whole Trinity had conceiv'd against sinful flesh and the second Person became flesh for our sakes and was made sin for our sakes by imputation that we might be made sons and righteous before God nay that we might be made the righteousness of God Rom. v. The Athenians were proud of Pompey's love that he would write his name a Citizen of their City for a princely person to accept a freedom in a mean Corporation is no little kindness how much more doth it aggravate the love of Christ to come from heaven and be made a Citizen of this vile earth to be born after a more vile condition than the most abject of the people 2. It is not so proper to say God did love us by Christ for God is love and in himself and for his own goodness sake he could not but love the work of his hands but this is the true and proper understanding of it that notwithstanding his love to his own justice through the merit of our Saviours humility he forgave us our sins therefore his love toward mankind and his love toward his justice went hand in hand and could not be parted He satisfied the vehemency of his love toward sinful man that he gave his Son to be born of a Virgin and to become our Mediator he satisfied the love he hath to his own Justice and the hatred he hath against sin when he did impose this office of a Mediator upon his beloved Son not without shedding of blood Justice cried out it was meet mercy should not rule all Adam and his posterity ought to dye or who will answer for them not an Angel or Spirit and therefore not the Son of God as he is God for God is a Spirit Meet it is every one should bear his own burden the nature that sinned let it bear the curse of its own sin Mans nature had sinned mans nature ought to suffer but that which our nature should bear our nature by a fit adequation of recompence could not bear Our sufferings were not enough to satisfie the wrath of God due to sin The Son of God is a most valuable person but not passible man is passible but not valuable the one nature ought to suffer but could not the other could suffer but ought not That he might be liable to all contempt he was born a Saviour and made a child that he might be able to pay the price he was perfect God as well as perfect man a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. 3. Love and Justice are mightily declared that a Saviour was born and the eternal Wisdom of the Father comes in for her part to be magnified It is beyond our understanding to say nay but that the Father might have made a creature fit to satisfie his Justice to have clearly paid the price of our Redemption and so to have spared his Son yea but wisdom interpos'd it was not fit that man should owe his redemption to any other than to whom he owed his creation for the value of that benefit would compel us to love our Redeemer better than our Creator So Bernard Plus nos ad charitatem excitat redemptio quam creatio Therefore God would not so dispose the mystery of our souls health that occasion should be given to love an Angel or Saint better than himself the King of Glory The Son that sits at his right hand by whom he made the worlds let him restore all things and the blessing of our Creation Redemption and all other good gifts shall meet in one center This is pretii difficilimi decentissima solutio say the Schoolmen a most convenient payment of a most difficult ransom 4. The boundless power and infinite virtue of the Godhead I confidently pronounce it did never appear so much in any other work as when a Saviour was born He that knew no beginning but was from all eternity to begin to be a man he that speaks to the world in thunder to cry in a cradle Verbum infans he that decketh himself with light as with a garment to be wrapt in swadling clouts he that opens his hand and filleth all things with plenteousness to suck for a few drops of milk at a womans breasts we are able to answer nothing to this but with the Angel to cry out Rev. v. 12. Dominion and power to the Lamb and to him that sitteth on the throne for evermore And so far of the second point The next word to be consider'd in the Text is like the flesh-hook which the Priest had to draw a portion of the Sacrifice unto himself To you a Saviour is born says the Angel Vobis natus the good turn shall be yours the blessing yours you ought to be affected with joy at this wonderous work for he is your Saviour Tell the Shepherds that a Saviour is born and they cannot but understand he is de nobis like unto us in nature but tell them unto you a Saviour is born that 's a great deal more than they understand that he is born for their redemption It is honourable to be made like us but advantageous in the highest degree that he was made for us Let us work upon this mine and here we shall find the precious mettal fit to pay the price of our debts to God in our steed when we were bankrupts First we learn from hence he was born to you and not unto himself to your glory to his own abasement and exinanition for his own part he was begotten of God before all times so noble a Nativity that when the Father bringeth in the first-begotten into the world he saith And let all the Angels of God worship him Heb. i. 6. Therefore for himself he needed no other birth to be born at all especially to be thus basely born in the manger of a stable He took a body as it were sown in dishonour that we might reap the harvest and be magnified Likewise he is called a Saviour not in respect of his own person indeed he was his own destroyer and our Saviour when the High Priests servants sought to lay hold of him in the Garden neither doth he go about to escape or to deny himself but whom seek ye I am he No man would put himself into the hands of barbarous enemies that meant to be his own Saviour all the salvation that he
Chrysostomes judgment upon it is that when Christ came out of the Grave death it self was delivered from pain and anxiety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 death knew it held him captive whom it ought not to have seized upon and therefore it suffered torments like a woman in travel till it had given him up again Thus he But the Scripture elsewhere testifies that death was put to sorrow because it had lost its sting rather than released from sorrow by our Saviours Resurrection Secondly Cajetan understands by the loosening of the pains of death the undoing or taking off those penalties which he suffered in triduo mortis in those three days while he lay asleep in the Sepulchre But what penalties are those in his construction Why one thing irksom unto him was that the body and soul should be divided in sunder the other that the very place of hell to which his soul descended is in it self ordained for torment Et mora in inferno erat paena infamiae as another said any stay or delay in hell was a derogation to his honour and for the body resting in the Grave though then it have no sense of smart yet for that while it is sub mortis victoriâ imperio under the charge and Empire of death There is somewhat near to truth in this Exposition as I will manifest by and by and somewhat clean mistaken For all the sorrow and punishment of Christ was finished in his death that was the consummation of all his penal sufferings Wherefore his body was not kept in the Grave much less his soul made progress to Hell to bear any penalty revenge or sorrow for our sakes or to satisfie for our sins but to fulfill all righteousness to confirm our faith that he was truly dead and to captivate the Devil Therefore his Resurrection did not cut off or mitigate any sorrows which he sustained in death I cannot consent to Cajetan if he mean the contrary But if he take not sorrows in a proper signification but Metaphorically for the bands of death as the Syrian Paraphrast reads it Solvens funes mortis loosening the cords or twists of death so I think it to be the very marrow and true sense of the Text that God raised up his Son not Christ but God the sense continuing in the same person having loosened or unbound him from that death wherein he was detained three days But if it agree to the Person of Christ that he loosed the pains of death though it be a little violence to Grammer me thinks then thirdly it comes to this interpretation that Christ had paid you know that is solvere too he had undergone he had satisfied the pains of death or a most painful death So Beza says it may be taken here Dolores mortis pro morte dolorum The pains of death for a death full of pains even all that spight and malice could wreck upon him Andradius likewise in his defence of the Tridentine Faith agrees with Beza that Christ after he had given up the Ghost and paid the debt of Nature upon the Cross was acquitted or exempted from the sorrows of death that is from a death full of sorrows sorrows that were not only deeply impressed into the body as far as whips and thorns and nails could reach but exceeding anguish and pain of mind sighs and horrors that we can not conceive Thus far only we may peep into it that God was represented to him most â—ngry at our sins that He felt the malediction of his wrath lying upon him for our sakes especially that He was troubled to shed his bloud for so many ungrateful wretches that had no regard of it these were the sorrows of death that compassed him about but that He should put on the horror of our guiltiness so far and suppose himself to stand in our person at his Fathers Tribunal even to the forgetting of himself to the confusion of his reason to the pangs of desperation as if He felt hell about him whatsoever a grave and worthy Author says to this point upon my Text and in other places I draw my consent from it Exceeding sorrows both of body and mind gat hold of him but they were loosened and finished upon the Cross But will some man say why doth St. Luke speak of these in order after his Resurrection I answer that Christ satisfied the wrath of God to the full upon the Cross and paid that debt for which He was our surety to the utmost farthing Thereby He loosed the deadly sorrows yet it did not appear so well that He had loosed those sorrows till the time He rose from the dead therefore the victory over those sorrows being estated as it were in his rising again St. Luke ascribes it to his resurrection I have not spared you see to open this third and most common opinion unto you yet I rather satisfie my self in this Interpretation that as it was Gods work to raise up Christ so it was his act to loose the pains of death solvere i. e. irritum reddere all that the pains and sharpness of death could do was to divorce his Soul from his Body and God did frustrate and dissolve all that by uniting them again in the Resurrection And according to this true reading of the words which I have hitherto beaten upon the Expositions are easie and full of consolation full of consolation I say for neither could the Scripture say that the sorrows of death were all paid neither had it been possible for Christ to have got out of the Grave if there had been any one sin though the least in the world unsatisfied The other reading is strange to the Original yet admitted by all them that are bound even to the errors of the vulgar Latin Translation and often quoted and cited for great authority in some Controversies solvens dolores inferni having loosed the pains of Hell 'T is true that Irenaeus and some others of good credit of old do use the same and our Criticks tell us of one antient Greek Copy that concurrs with them and a learned Bishop of our own Church reconciles the seeming difference on this wise that by death in that place is meant not the first but the second Death the second Death you know is eternal punishment in Hell fire and in his opinion it comes all to one pass to say having loosed the sorrows of death and having loosed the sorrows of hell This will be examined by and by but first I will premise how some have blundered themselves in this reading St. Austin in that famous Epistle of his to Evodius propounds it though very faintly that it is not improbable that the Soul of Christ went into Hell in triduo mortis and carried away with him some that were there tormented and if none other were released yet at least Adam was If the Father can be expounded to mean that Christ blotted out the hand-writing against us harrowed Hell and
mind but unless we intermix the solemn Service of God at those times and spend some hours with godly profit in the Church it is but the Feast of Fools or perhaps worse the Feast of Epicures So the Prophet mentions some Swinish Carousers that thought they did solemnize their Kings Day in a jovial manner with drinking healths till they lost their wit and their health In the day of our King the Princes made him sick with flagons of wine Hos vii 5. Such Tospots celebrate a Feast to the use of the Devil and not to the Glory of God But it was unto that Glory that this Song and this Day which is chanted and this Joy which is so chearfully profest are all dedicated This is the Day which the Lord hath made c. But how hard a thing it is to draw men and women with their good will to Church for some have stretcht all their wits and their learning to defie our Church because it hath appointed Holidays for solemn occasions of Prayer and Thanksgiving and the greatest part of the Kingdom not out of opposition but out of negligence and slothfulness doth omit the due observation which belongs unto them You give your selves over at such times to cessation from work it may be to Sports and Games and Interludes the Fields shall be all day full of loose persons and the House of the Lord empty It is true that rest from labour becoms an Holiday yet the very vacation from labour is not simply pleasing to God but the better to follow Religious Service and beware to confound rest and idleness as if they were all one they are idle whom the painfulness of action causeth to avoid that labour whereunto God and Nature bindeth them they rest that either cease from their work when they have brought it to perfection or else give over a meaner labour because a better and more worthy is to be undertaken therefore though some part of an Holiday is indulged to put gladness into the life of them that are toiled with continual work yet the substantial character of the day is to meet together in our Religious Convocations and to adore the Name of the Lord. I shall not be able at this fag end of the hour to traverse this point as I would some satisfaction I will give you now God willing and defer that which remains to a more spacious occasion My Doctrin which I lay down is this that it is lawful for any Church to celebrate what Feasts it will so all be done with order and edification And I say more that every Church ought to set apart Solemn Times to remember annually the extraordinary works of God though such designed and determinate Days are not commanded in Holy scripture And I put to this moreover that God doth accept what the Church in due consideration doth voluntarily consecrate to Religious use I will put two parts of my Proposition together that this was lawful to be done and that it ought to be done Nature did teach the Heathen God taught the Jews and Christ by his own practice while he was upon earth taught us that to meet at Extraordinary Times for the celebration of Excellent Things was just and righteous One doth eloquently and very truly commend the various fruit of keeping such Sacred Times in this full Encomiasticon Festival days are the Splendour and outward Dignity of our Religion forcible Witnesses of ancient truth agnizing of great Benefits received Provocations to the Exercises of Piety Shadows of our endless felicity in Heaven First I will begin at the last of these That there must be great consolation in the due keeping of an Holiday if you rightly understand it because it represents the joy which is laid up for us in the Kingdom of Heaven and it is a most comfortable expectation when the very outward countenance of that which we are about on Earth doth prefigure after a sort that which we tend unto in the everlasting Habitations Bear but this in mind that the Rubrick days in the Almanack do prefigure that celestial condition wherein being mixed with Angels we shall sing Haleluia to the Lamb for evermore having no worldly toil or vexation to distract us and this would make us most chearful to bear a part in a solemn Congregation The Kingdom of Heaven was but darkly revealed to the Jews in the Old Testament and yet to bear in mind the glory which is laid up for the Godly they devoted a portion of every Day to the Divine Service in the Morning and Evening Sacrifice a portion of every Week upon the Sabbath a portion of every Moneth upon the New Moon a portion of every Season of the Year the Passover in the Spring the Feast of Pentecost in the Summer the Feast of Tabernacles in the Autumn and in latter Ages the Feast of Dedication in the Winter Every seventh Year was a Solemn Year for the Cessation of all Plowing and Sowing and that 's a contracted Age Every Fiftieth Year was most solemn for the memorizing of the Grand Jubilee and that 's a long protracted Age. If they did so often represent their longing to be at rest in heavenly places much more doth it concern us under the Gospel who are nearer neighbours than they to that future glory Secondly such gandy dayes are most meet for the agnizing of great benefits received I esteem the more of this reason because it is St. Austins Ne volumine temporum ingrata obreperet oblivio by Festival Solemnities and set Days we dedicate and sanctifie to God the memory or his chief benefits lest unthankfulness and forgetfulness should creep upon us in the course of time Nor is it enough to remember some notable favour upon one day and no more with great pomp and splendor for the revolution of time will obscure that as if it had never been the constant habit of doing well is not gotten without the custom of doing well without an iteration of holy Duties Beside such as are weak and tottering in faith might imagin that we did set no high price upon the Nativity of our Lord upon his Passion his Resurrection his Ascension and upon the Coming of the Holy Ghost if we did not extol him for them with some outward and eminent acts of glory Thirdly the principal Articles of Faith are nailed fast to our memory by clothing great Feasts with some transcendent tokens of joy and holiness At the Feast of Christmas every simple body is put in mind that Christ took our nature upon him and was born of a pure Virgin On Good Friday even Babes and Children are taught that he died upon the Cross to redeem us from eternal death Easterday proclaims it that our Saviour rose again in his own Body from the Grave and will raise up our Flesh at the last day to be like his own glorious Body Ascension day or Holy Thursday rememorates every year that He is gone up into Heaven to