laid in such a Village The Roman Historian made a marvail that so noble an Emperour as Alexander Severus was could come out of Syria Syrus Archisynagogus as they call'd him in scorn Behold that Emperour's Lord comes not only out of Syria but out of the homeliest corner in Syria out of the despicable tributary City of David And as it is in the next verse not so well born as in the City but natus in praesepi born in a dunghil-stable in Civitate born in a City what a Citizen of this world no the words following correct it he had no room given him among men but among beasts a pilgrim and a foreiner on earth his Kingdom lay not here In a word for all Joseph and Mary were a poor couple Bethlehem a little City the stable a place of the meanest account in all that City Shepherds of the lowest condition that were sent to visit him all things were little and humble about Christ at his Birth that nothing might be proud and insolent and vain-glorious about us if we would be born the Sons of God but alas how unconformable are we to this lowly fashion of our Saviour the Feasts of many rich men are for pomp to let as rich as themselves see their munificence and not for charity to the poor who stand in need of refreshment Apparel superlatively costly most vain and most effeminate how generally it is to be seen upon all peoples shoulders to what excessive bravery is the pride of the whole Kingdom rais'd in less than the revolution of thirty years not only in this luxurious City but in little Bethlehem in every village of the field But I am sure the costly pride of the LandLords apparel shall make the poor Tenant humble Bethlehem the house of bread the poor Farmers grange shall be made small enough with these new invented expences And where men are become lovers of themselves altogether not lovers of God not lovers of the publick weal not lovers of the poor members of Christ in these there is no fruit to be seen of true humility What a revenue it would be to help the needy if the tenth of Christmas gaming and dicing were bestowed upon them yet they that will not give a shilling to the hungry are free enough to dice a pound Perdere norunt donare nesciunt Men know how to be loosely wasteful but not wisely liberal Among lawful and good pastimes of this Festival time it is strange that dicing is crept in among them The miscreant Souldiers that crucified Christ cast lots which some interpret to be throwing the Dice for his garments generally it is so painted more likely therefore to be a sport for them that keep a Feast for joy that Christ was crucified than for joy that Christ was born Beloved let the greatest part of your Christmas joy be according to the Angels pattern first ascribing glory to God then some friendly pastimes may resemble peace and joy on earth but put off all strife debate and envy so you shall observe good will towards men but at every turn remember the little City of David remember humility Bethlehem honora parvam quae te inducit in paradisum says Nazianzen Make honourable esteem of little Bethlehem of lowliness and humility and that will bring you into Paradise into the Kingdom of Heaven where the Lamb of God this day born in the flesh sits upon the Throne for evermore Amen THE SEVENTH SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 13 14. And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly Hoste praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will towards men GOod Christians have ever observed to keep this feast of the Birth of Christ with some decency in Apparel more than ordinary with bounty of Fare with Carols of joy and many other circumstances of chearfulness I am sure the decorum of a fit Text for the day is as much and more requisite than any thing that I have named A word spoken in season ought to taste better upon the palate of our understanding than meat in season I have gone that way hitherto and still continue in it to teach you some remarkable passage which fell out when our Saviour was born upon this blessed Day and Season wherein he was born This portion of St. Lukes Gospel which by appointment is the second Lesson for our Morning Prayer hath been the Theme of my Doctrine sundry times it afforded me to speak of the Nativity it self next of the Humility afterwards of the Sermon which the Angel preacht upon it fourthly of the poor Shepherds to whom these glad Tidings were first published Now for a conclusion here is an Host of Angels to confirm all for truth which one of their Order had said before and to make the Tidings sweeter and joyfuller by their congratulation Indeed all that goes before is made so compleat and full by that which they have added that our Church hath made a stop there and bids us read no further The Message which one Angel brought made it known that a Saviour was born in the City of David had it not been for him the birth was so obscure and private and indeed so unlikely to be the same which it was we cannot guess how it should ever have come to light and been published But those Tidings which that Angel brought were so strong so far above reason so far beyond the deservings of miserable sinners that unless a multitude of Angels had seconded all that was said before we cannot guess how it should ever have been believed The shepherds never said one to another let us go unto Bethlem and see this thing which is come to pass for that which one Angel told them they stirred not out of the field to go see the wonder until an Army of those heavenly Watchmen concorded to it and chanted it out with a merry noise Glory to God c. This convinceth the truth of the Incarnation of Jesus far more than that Text which I handled the last year though that as I shewed was a very powerful evidence For Wisemen to come from the East to Hierusalem and to have a strange Star for their Leader rais'd a mighty fame of the Nativity both in that City and perhaps in a great part of the world But if all the Stars of heaven had gone before them and all the wise Gymnosophists had made a journey it were but a mean Demonstrance to this that all the Angels of heaven I conceive no less of this multitude than of all should make an Apparition in the air and Carol the coming of Christ into the earth The Stars of the Firmament are sometimes figuratively called the Host of heaven these Apparitors in my Text are not called but are so litterally and properly The Wisemen were but Questionists and raw Disciples where is he that is born These say the word when and where with all other
Rebellions Julian the Apostate reading the Bible with a malicious intention to quarrel at it said that Christianity was a Doctrin of too much patience but he could never find any place in it to object that it was a Doctrin of Rebellion If the Administration of a Kingdom were out of frame our Bishop maintain'd it were better to leave the redress to God than to a seditious Multitude and that the way to continue purity of Religion was not by Rebellion but by Martyrdom To resist lawful Powers by seditious Arms and unlawful Authority was not the Primitive and Apostolical Christianity but Popish Doctrin not taught the first 300 years but much about 1000 years after our Saviour's ascension into Heaven by the Pope of Rome the very time the Spirit of God said Satan should be let loose viz. by Gregory the VII who first taught the Germans to rebel against the Emperor Henry the fourth Yet this poison was now given the English People to drink out of the Papal Cup while they pretended quite contrary But our Bishop ever asserted this was not the way to pull down Antichrist but Protestant Religion and therefore he warn'd the Non-conforming Divines with whom he lately treated to have a care how they cried up a War and became famous only in the Congregation as Erostratus by setting the Temple on fire To prevent that fatal Bill of Root and Branch the Committee condescended to print the Liturgick Psalms in King James's Translation to expunge all Apocryphal Lessons and alter some passages in the body of the Book of Common-Prayer and certain other things which divers of the Presbyterian Divines said were satisfactory save that the furious Party of them put the Commons upon the violent way in particular old Mr. John White told many of the party who still pressed at Conferences for further Abatement of Conformity and the Laws established Time would come when they would wish they had been content with what was offered While this Committee was sitting the House of Commons having now entred upon the debate of taking away the whole Government Ecclesiastical by Bishops Deans and Chapters together with all their Revenue several Members of that House being friends to the Hierarchy mov'd that no mans Freehold might be taken away in Parliament without hearing them first speak for themselves whereupon the whole Committee imposed the Task upon Dr. Hacket forthwith to depart to his own House and Study and meet them again to morrow morning prepared to speak as the Advocate of the Church of England in the behalf of Deans and Chapters The Speech it self I found among his Papers which in regard that it was never yet published at large I have thought meet to add as follows May it please you Mr. Speaker and this Honourable House OVr expectations to be heard by Council in this great Cause hath brought us unto you most unprepared to deliver that which might be utter'd upon so copious Subject Yet since we have that favour from this Honourable House that we may be heard or some one of us in our own persons somewhat shall be offered to your prudent considerations by the meanest and most unpractised in pleading and forensecal causes of all those that attend you this day The unexpectedness to be thus employed it was imposed upon me but yesterday afternoon as my Brethren know is joyned with another disadvantage that we have not heard upon what crimes or offences of the Deans and Chapters so great a Patrimony as they enjoy is called in question that we might purge our selves of such imputations but only reports that fly abroad have arrived at our ears that Cathedral and Collegiate Churches with their Chapters are accounted by some to be of no use and convenience I aim at perspicuity and therefore I will cast what I have to say into as clear a method as I am able The use and convenience of Deans and Chapters I reduce unto two heads quoad res quoad personas first in regard of some things of great moment secondly in regard of divers persons whom I know the Justice of this Honourable House will take into consideration And first since God hath called his House the House of Prayer I shall keep a right order without derogation to any thing that follows to present them unto you as very convenient for the service of Prayer which is offered up to God in them daily both in his Morning and in his Evening Sacrifice In the antient Primitive Church as many learned Gentlemen in this Honourable House do know and as my Brethren that assist me can attest unto it the Christians did every day meet at Prayers and for the most part at the Blessed Sacrament if persecution did not distract them Then it is fit in a well-govern'd Church that there should be some places in imitation of them where daily Thanksgivings and Supplications should be made unto God And whereas it cannot be supposed but that divers remiss Christians do neglect oftentimes their daily duty of Prayer and some are forced to omit that length to which they would produce their Prayer by their multitude of business it is fit that there should be a publick duty of Prayer in some principal places where many are gathered together to supply the defects that are committed by private men And though I am sure the publick Duty of Prayer shall find great acceptance and approbation before so Christian an Auditory yet I confess I have heard abroad that the Service of Cathedral Churches gives offence to divers for the superexquisiteness of the Musick especially in late years so that it is not edifying nor intelligible to the hearers For this Objection in part I will confess it is strong and forcible in part I will mollifie it It is a just complaint Mr. Speaker and we humbly desire the assistance of this Honourable House for the reformation of it that Cathedral Musick for a great part of it serves rather to tickle the ear than to affect the heart with godliness and that which should be intended for devotion vanisheth away into quavers and air we heartily wish the amendment of it and that it were reduced to the form which Athanasius commends ut legentibus sint quà m cantantibus similiores But though these fractions and affected exquisiteness be laid aside yet the solemn Praise of God in Church Musick hath ever been accounted pious and laudable yea even that which is compounded with some art and elegancy for St. Paul speaks as if he had newly come from the Quire of Asaph requiring us to praise God in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs Surely he would not have exprest himself in such variety of phrase I think if he had not approved variety of Musick in the Service of the Lord. Some will say per adventure What if this daily duty of making Prayers to God were intermitted in Cathedral Churches might it not be supplied in other Parochial Churches I have but thus much to
everlasting curse His bloud be upon us and upon our Children Sanguis ille veniat super nos sed in ablutionem Let his bloud come upon us all I beseech God but to wash away our sins in the Laver of Regeneration But upon whom it comes for vengeance it must needs put out their eyes and make them stark blind A bloudshed eye can never see well A man never fares worse than when he is his own carver No greater infelicity can betide us than when we have our own wishes Inter vota imprecantium senescimus says Seneca No marvel if we do not thrive in this world What by our own prayers what by the prayers of our friends who shoot wide of the true good we spend our age in imprecations The Jews here did ask such a thing that they never had the reason more to ask any thing that was good They see no more than if a beam were in their eyes a beam as big as the tree of the Cross of Christ And so much for the second punishment the blindness of the Nation But thirdly A just reward is faln upon these murderers that the haters of the Lord should be despised in the eyes of all men Canes facti sunt filii filii facti sunt canes says Theodoret long since Those who were called dogs in the person of the Syrophaenician woman are beloved like the Children and those that were Children are spurned at like Dogs under the Table If we meet a Jew our phancy makes us believe that we see our enemy Nay the most part of men presage no better luck after their sight than if some dismal beast had been in the way which our superstition is afraid of Truly we may say of their dejected countenance and that malignant Mark of Cain in their face as Caesar did of Cassius Quid Cassius sibi vult mihi pallor ejus non placet Cassius did dart treason in his eyes and they dart murder I will not report it upon tradition because fame is but the Post-master to carry lies that the savour of death is in their bodies to this day or that their Children are born with knots of bloud in their hands This I may be bold to say it is an heavy vengeance and the great judgment of God if these things be true But true or false the anger of God is broke out upon them that the whole world with one consent should speak such things unto their infamy as their Conquerours thought them not worthy to be Freemen So as if they had been worse than beasts and not fit to make good bondslaves thirty of them have been sold at a baser price than an Ass head was sold in Samaria or than they sold our Saviour Alas they that find none to love to regard to pity them to prize them at an honest rate they are in Hell already but God forbid that I should teach you to hate a Jew Every living soul for which Christ died is the object of a Christians charity This is the very day wherein we offer up our prayers both at Morning and Evening Sacrifice for the salvation of Jews and Paynims according to our Church Liturgie I come now to end this long discourse with the fourth malediction to wit that we may well fear that they and their Children die an accursed death who crucified our Saviour They that were so nice as to deny to come into Pilates house in the days of the Passeover lest they should be defiled with bloud What will become of their poor souls when they shall be thrust into the Valley of Hinnon Into the Tophet of damnation Timent contaminari habitaculo alieno non timent contaminari scelere proprio says the Gloss It was a perillous thing to set foot in Pilates doors that would defile them But what destruction will it be to take the mystical house of Pilate I mean the Kingdom of darkness over their head for ever They that ignominiously bad our Saviour come down from the Cross the greatest Cross in the world is come down upon them says Nazianzen Forty years did the Lord prove them in the Wilderness seventy years in Babilon But as Christ said unto Peter Thou shalt forgive thy brother unto seventy times seven times Even just so many years were there by true computation between the return from Babylon and the destruction of the Temple Now they have endured almost one thousand seven hundred years of desolation O that the anger of the Lord would go no further then they might sing a Jubilee for ever But the Prophet Isaiah doth threaten them Though you lift up your hands I will not hear your Prayers because they are defiled with bloud Their Mothers were fruitful for nothing but to bring forth abundance of them who might be slaughtered Beside the number as great as the sand upon the Sea-shore that perished under Titus in the Wars of Adrian when they gathered themselves under Barcosdau their Pseudomessias twice as many say our Histories were slain with the Sword as came out of Egypt Assyria and Babylon have known their Captivity Vespasian drove them into Italy Adrian from thence into Spain They have been cast out into Brittany and cashiered Into France and banished Out of Spain by Emanuel and Ferdinand expulsed O where shall they rest at last But where there is no rest for ease no Christ for Redemption no pity for consolation Yet believe it Brethren the Lord hasten the day of his merciful visitation the time will come when a Remnant shall be saved The Holy Ghost did dip the Pen of St. Paul into Prophesie and he cannot deceive us Wherefore one glosseth thus upon my Text Vestrum peccatum vestra poena vestra ut omnium redemptio Your sin it is O Israel your punishment it must be and see to it further for if his Persecutors do repent your redemption it shall be But to construe the words of the Prophets touching a visible Kingdom of the Jews to come a new Jerusalem another Temple a potent Monarchy over all the World Let this fancy prevail with other men for my part I will say to it as one did in the like case His victoribus herbam porrigo sed elleborum Two things says St. Hierom are of great obscurity in the New Testament the Kingdom of Antichrist and the restauration of the Jews We know all about what hour Christ gave up the Ghost so we shall be able in some conjecture to trace the steps of Antichrist but at what hour Christ arose from the dead we cannot tell Ita majus est mysterium quando Judaei restituentur quia est quaedam resurrectio says the Father So it is a more intricate mystery when the Jews shall be restored because it is a kind of resurrection But O Lord we call upon thee and beseech thee to begin thy Kingdom of grace in our hearts upon earth Also to call home thine ancient people the Jews and to hasten thy Kingdom of
loud voice Lazarus come forth AMong all the miracles that our Saviour wrought this suscitation of Lazarus or raising him up from the dead it was his true Benoni or Son of sorrow None came off with so much anxiety none cost him so dear in all the Gospel Twice he groaned in Spirit and once he wept his Passions were as variable as the life and death of Lazarus Look back to the fifteenth verse and you shall see it wrought comfortably I am glad for your sakes that Lazarus is dead Look unto the 35 verse and you shall see it wrought bitterly Jesus wept What alterations are there says St. Austin Gaudebat propter discipulos flebat propter Judeos horum fides confirmabatur horum incredulitas augebatur It joyed him for the Disciples sake that their faith would be confirmed and revived It grieved him for the Jews sake whose hearts were hardened The preparation then of this Miracle was not without sorrow but the event and sequel was worst of all For although the Counsel of the High Priests stomach'd at our Saviour long before yet they wisht his life no hurt till he had wrought this wonder which all the world were amazed at From that time Caiaphas began to talk like a Wizard That one man must die for the people and Christ must suffer Now you see good cause why our Lord might groan and weep Israel shall pass over into Canaan but Moses must die upon Mount Nebo the birth of Benjamin shall be Rachels funeral Lazarus shall be revived and Jesus crucified Yet I can tell you one thing Beloved how the Son of God shall neither groan nor weep for Lazarus but rejoyce in Spirit and be glad even at this day be glad as he stands at the right hand of God and it lies upon you to do it Did he then groan for the infidelity of the Pharisees Then sure he will now rejoyce if we believe in his works and have faith in the Resurrection Did he then weep because his own death was contrived for doing good Then he will now be comforted if you take heed that you do not again crucifie the Lord of life Tâ—llite lapidem as it is in verse 39 remove the stone the hardness of your heart and joy will follow in heaven for the conversion of a sinner Do you consider that the days past were a time of mourning and sad contrition Why here is a Text which was not preach'd without Christs mourning and lamentation Do you remember his Passion but the other day Why this is the Text which was an occasion to bring him to his Cross and Passion What do you meditate upon this day but our Saviours issuing out of the Grave Why here is Lazarus broke out of the Tomb Lazarus come forth Which words as I have read them rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon You shall perceive that the business in my Text is a work of great dignity that is one part and a work of great Divinity that is the other part The dignity consists in these two Points 1. In that which Christ had spoken before when he had said thus And what was that He pray'd unto his Father wherefore it is dignum oratione a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation 2. It is Dignum proclamatione it was cried with a loud voice and fit to be published to all the world The Divinity appears in these three circumstances 1. Exeat mortuus that a dead man is summoned to appear 2. Exeat Lazarus Lazarus after four days departure comes forth 3. Exeat ligatus one who was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths walks upon his feet O strange Divinity the Monuments which were shut did open for Christ did call who had the Key of David The dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds bring forth young ones and called Adam from the dust of the earth The body which lay putrified four days gave no offence in the smell Christ was at hand who is a sweet savour for us unto God The feet which were bound with Grave-cloaths could walk before him for in him we live and move and have our being Was not this excellent work worthy of a Prayer So far we have gone this day in our morning Sacrifice Was it not worthy of the proclamation of a loud voice fit to be preached that the world may hear of it and believe and be saved And that is the business which doth now take up your attentions With these two circumstances of the Miracle I must first begin the preparation of our Saviours Prayer and the promulgation of his loud voice or preaching And when he had thus said c. That is when he had prayed unto the Father Dimidium facti qui benè caepit habet And he that begins his work with Prayer as Christ did hath half dispatch'd it Vox clamantis the voice of a Crier was the fore-runner of Christ when he came upon the earth Vox orantis the voice of Prayer must be the fore-runner of our necessities when we look for any thing from heaven As the people shouted when the foundation of the Temple was laid grace grace be unto the first stone of the building so let the foundation of every thing be laid with shouting and strong Ejaculations to our God that he may say upon the moving of the first stone Grace be to the building In Gen. xii Abraham removed three times to several quarters and still before he pitcht his Tent he built an Altar to Jehovah remove not stir not enter upon no new task before you have built an Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom wheresoever you are pray and your own heart is a Temple or the Alter of Jehovah Religion is the Bow and the heart is the String but Prayer is that which bends the Bow Religion is unbent as it were and the Shafts cannot fly untill Prayer dispatch them Well might Peter who was prompt of tongue and ready to speak upon all occasions be counted a chief Apostle for Prayer which is the tongue of Religion and our Consciences Orator is the chief of all our vertues Debilem facito manu debilem coxâ pede no matter for infirmities in the feet for diseases in the hands so the dumb Devil be not in our tongues The penitent Thief had no hands to hold up they were nailed to the Cross no knees to bend for his legs were broken he had a tongue to say Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom and it did him service enough to open Paradise O the delusions of the Devil For all this that I have said you shall sooner make ignorants and vain people believe that Diseases are curable by unsignificant Charms by unhallowed mutterings than by godly Prayers As if the Devil could go further with Non-sense than a good Christian with Faith and Prayer One Talent in
having such near relation I have found out most principal Texts for them both this year out of the same Chapter for Easter day Ver. 24. whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death For Whitsunday in that notable portion of the story which I have read unto you And I told you upon the last great solemnity that Whitsunday was principally ordained for this end to make Easter day famous over all the world But the principal fruits of this day are three if we may comprehend an Ocean of graces in so small a number In the zeal of our Prayers we passed them over in the Morning Collect and that Collect extracted them from the Epistle and Gospel appointed Thus you may perceive that the Service of the Church of England is the treasure of my observations The Collect runs upon these three Points Teaching Illumination Consolation God which upon this day hath taught the hearts of thy faithful people for heavenly Doctrine began to be made common to all the world from this day Yet many hear the Word but most unprofitably therefore it follows that God hath sent us the light of his holy Spirit to have a right judgment in all things And many have the benefit of true Doctrine and the help of Illumination but with much sorrow and persecution therefore the Holy Ghost came down also that we might rejoyce in his holy comfort Thus far the contents of that short Prayer have helpt me The Gospel for the day runs altogether upon the last branch upon Consolation I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter The Epistle falls upon the two former upon Doctrine and Illumination and that in two sensible miracles For Doctrine that a sound came from heaven as of a mighty wind to foreshew that the sound of the Word should go forth into all Lands for Illumination that cloven tongues appeared and sate upon them as it were of fire The noise was as a Trumpet to wake the World the firy Tongues as so many lights to let them see their visitation Thus the Holy Ghost is presented to both the senses to the Ear as to the sense of faith to the Eye as to the sense of love The Ear is the ground of the Word and Doctrine and that gives the first admittance to Faith and therefore the Holy Ghost began his operation there according to my Text and that in these particulars to be considered 1. That God caused a sound to be heard upon the descending of the Holy Spirit 2. The manner of the sound is resembled to a Wind. 3. To a sudden wind 4. To a rushing mighty wind 5. It was from heaven 6. It filled all the house where they were sitting All these particulars are worthy of my labour and your attention That there came a sound from heaven at the mission of the Holy Ghost is the first thing remarkable A sound first to call in them that were without Secondly To demonstrate the Office of them that were within As the chiming of Bells calls us together to Church so an audible sound from heaven was a warning to the Jews to flock to that place where the Apostles were gathered together The Master of the Feast in the Gospel sent forth his Servants and invited the Guests and bad them be told what preparation he had made for their coming so the men of Jerusalem had as sensible an invitation to draw them to the great Feast of the Gospel as if a Canon had been discharged in their Ear. Or if they were yet unprepared to taste of such Manna as fell from heaven into their lap yet the Lords doings were so palpable before them that their consciences must be extremely stupified with malice if they made an ill interpretation of others that were then filled from above with the great power of God And indeed Oecumenius says that the sound did pierce the ears of all that were in the City that such as were curious to know the reason might come and see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the open manifestation of the miracle might preserve it from calumny But you will say it did not gain the good opinion of the Jews for all the gift of Tongues had such a forerunner not vox clamantis but sonus intonantis not the voice of a Crier but a peal of thunder to bring it into the world yet the people did disgrace it with a vile imputation of drunkenness True it proved as ill as could be expected but says St. Chrysostome if they said the Apostles were full of new Wine when these signs concurred what would they have said without them The most graceful and melodious sounds in the world are lost to deaf men and though a clamour and a cry from heaven were come down as it is in my Text yet it moved not those that like the deaf Adder had stopped their ears The Serpent in that place is called in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Antiphrasis or the contrary because it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unperswaded Creature all Art and Charming is spent in vain it will not listen it will not mitigate its venomous wrath and so the Translator Apollinarius says upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when the Adder is mischievously angry for the time of his violent anger and while that lasts he is stark deaf though he can hear by nature So such as are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. i. 16. Disobedient and reprobate to every good work though they have the sense of hearing by nature yet when they are violently set upon infidelity and stubbornness they give no more attention to the sound that comes from heaven than do the stones of the Temple When Stephen preached so divinely to the Jews that the heavens opened in the time of his Sermon Acts vii 56. as if way had been made for the Angels and Saints to be his Auditors even then when the gates of heaven stood wide open at the grace of his words they that should have given him best attention stopped their ears and ran upon him But the sin of them that will not hear let it lie upon their own head they cannot say but there hath been a Trumpet among them to awake them from the sleep of sin The sound which God hath sent forth is shrill and loud to call in those that are without And he that hath ears c. But secondly the Spirit came in a very audible sound to declare what a door of utterance should be opened from thenceforth to the Messengers of Christ That their sound should go out into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the World Rom. x. 18. The Gospel preached to every creature under heaven Col. i. 23. How many were in that lamentable condition like the Disciples at Ephesus that had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost Angels themselves began to be Preachers when a door of entrance was
necessary Imperative Law Sometimes it binds as when we find them frequently joyn Fasting with Prayer and where we meet with their strict Discipline that they delivered up obstinate offenders to Satan and cast them out of the Church but elsewhere their practice draws on no absolute necessity but leaves us to our prudent liberty and ties no harder as appears by their Colledges of Widows to wash the Saints feet by their Feasts of Charity c. For whereas St. Paul says That which you have heard and seen in me that do Phil. iv 9. It is a Commission that they may imitate him in any thing he did for he did nothing but things lawful yet it infers it not to be necessary to do all things as he did As a Physician may say to his Patient eat whatsoever you see me eat which is spoken by way of warrant not of necessary observation Well then since the practice of the Apostles sometimes leaves us at liberty to follow them sometimes presseth the duty upon us and we must do as they did how shall we know the one from the other In my small reading I could never find it cleared yet but you shall have my opinion of it It is a rule in St. Austin Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentumest c. Whatsoever is not defined by any General Council and yet is practised by the whole Church it hath been delivered from hand to hand by the Apostles Here I take the hint that some things were delivered by the Apostles for order and decency sake which were but temporary agreed only to some times and some places and every Church receiv'd them freely with their own liking but whatsoever is derived from their Exemple and is dispread over the whole Church and hath continued in all Ages so hath the observation of the Lords day that was at first grounded in the practice of the Apostles not to be received indifferently but to be admitted as a Divine Institution Now I sum up the Orthodox Truth as I take it by what right and tenure we keep the Lords day holy 1. Not by virtue of the Letter of the fourth Commandment but by the natural equity and moral contents of it and reasonable consequences deduced out of it 2. The glorious act of Christs rising from the dead did not constitute the first day of the week to be a day of perpetual sanctification but upon good congruity the Church took occasion from thence to celebrate this day unto the Lord. 3. There are no express imperative words in the New Testament immediately to command it but in general principles that we are to obey our Rulers in all things 4. and lastly It is establisht in the practice of the Apostles and so uniformly received in all Ages that it is most probable they purposed it not for an Ecclesiastical Sanction which is alterable but for a Divine Institution which is perpetual and unalterable This labour which is past hath been spent about this Day in reference to Gods making that which follows is upon the same Subject in reference to our own rejoycing we will rejoyce and be glad in it that is God hath sanctified the day and we will sanctifie it that is God hath sanctified it by ordeining it to sacred use and we must sanctify it with an holy gladness imploying it chiefly in religious conversation We must separate it from profane uses to divine we must meet in holy places we must come together about holy purposes hearken to holy things and this must be our chief delight that we keep Holy-day to the Lord. Attend the time therefore with all chearfulness and diligence which summons us to appear in the House of God 't is religionis discendae introducendae medium the only and most available means to keep Religion in life and being Our sins are very grievous I confess and there is much unjust communication in the world we do not deal usually as between Brother and Brother but as between faithless Infidels and utter Adversaries but to what extremity would our sins wax if we did not pray to the Lord in his good day to guide us with a good conscience all the week after Mark therefore that the fourth Commandment is set in the midst of the Decalogue in the end of the first Table and before the beginning of the second as if it were the common nerve of Religion take away this and we shall neither know the duties of the one Table or of the other either to God or our Neighbour It is very meet therefore and our bounden duty that we should every one set forth a large share of this Day to the honour of God in Publick Assemblies not for a spurt of time and then apply our selves to other affairs as Christ bid us go every day into our secret Chamber to praise the Lord but according to the appointment both of God and the Church the best part of the day must be surrendred up to the use of Prayer and Preaching that God may have both his Morning and his Evening Sacrifice to declare his truth in the morning and his faithfulness in the night season as David says And therefore I have noted it to my self how in every Age for at least 600 years after Christ Godly Bishops did lengthen out Service by little and little to keep us the longer at Church At first there was but an Epistle and Gospel read and the Lords Prayer said and then they went to the Communion then the reading of the Psalms was added then certain Lessons out of the Old and New Testament then came in the Litany then the Confession with divers Collects of Prayers And our own Church above all others draws out the Service with the Ten Commandments Some there are that complain we spend not the Lords day totally or sufficiently in the House of Sanctification and yet with the same breath they will complain of long Prayers and will of purpose decline Cathedral Churches and never come at them because Divine Service is continued there an hour longer at least than in Parochial Congregations But how can time be better spent than in this Holy Temple that commands all time The Sabbath was made for man under the Law and the Lords day is made for man under the Gospel yet it is called the Lords day and not mans it is made for man that is for the instruction of the Soul and the refreshing of his Body but it is his day to whose honor it is set apart for the spiritual worship of Christians in all days much more in this is terminated to God And I speak it with gladness that it is a good sign that the fire of Religion burns within our breasts when we devote our selves so much to pious Exercises on Sunday that a great number are loth to hear of external joy and gladness The more observant we are of this time the more we please God
Noah sent up clean Prayers to God with the Oblation of every clean Beast and of every clean Fowl For while Zachary burnt Incense in the Temple the whole multitude were Praying without at the time of Incense Luk. i. 8. And Solomon gives us light what was done at Sacrifice he spread out his hands to heaven in Prayer and dedicated the fat of the Peace-offerings to the Lord. Nay more the Evening Sacrifice burnt all night upon the Altar and the Priests continued in the Temple till morning at Prayer You that by night stand in the house of the Lord lift up your hands in the Sanctuary and bless the Lord Psal cxxxiv. 2. I know not what company they had at the Prayers of the Sacrifice by night or day very little if their devotion were no greater than ours I read in the Ages upward what a thrust there was in their Churches at the daily service of Prayer which concourse is quite disused in our days and unless the office of Prayer be pieced out with a Sermon in all places you shall find a most contemptible paucity and yet we should know that in a Sermon God sacrificeth to us not we to him Let me be bolder with you they are scarce worthy to be called Prayers as they are most negligently handled The Priest reads I will not say how dreamingly sometimes the People gape about and have other business in their heads Some chop in at the latter end cannot spare leisure to all Some answer to one line and hold their peace at ten Some stand more upon their ease than to stand up or bow down when they should with reverend gesture What can there be in such Prayers as these to call them a sweet savour Our sins stink in the nostrils of God and are odious you confess that and miserable man have you no better than such careless shuffling Supplications to sweeten them They were Wisemen that took out Myrrh and Frankincense when they came to Christ Ad faetorem stabuli excludendum to correct the ill savour of the Stable where he lay but contrary to all reason when our heart is dung and our ways more filthy than Augias Stable we yawn out heedless heartless undevotioned Prayers to mend the matter O is it not to us that he speaks by the Prophet Amos v. 21. I despise your Feasts I will not smell in your holy Assemblies I will borrow a piece of a Sermon from St. Bernard to make up this Point Stand before the Lord chearfully reverently devoutly Non pigri non oscitantes non parcentes vocibus non praecidentes verba dimidia Be not drowsie let not your attention slip from you when God is praised leave not all the Prayers to the Priests care but every one make up his part do not mangle and chop Gods Service let your Spirits go with every word when you hear an Hymn or Psalmodie think of nothing else but that which is sung You are not allowed a good thought at that time if it be extravagant much less a worldly a malicious a wanton cogitation Pare away these superfluities that you may say My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise Thus far that the devotion of Noah was very Aromatical in the sweet savour of his Sacrifice Secondly the care that this Patriarch had for the instauration of Religion above all things is like Mary's sweet Ointment which she poured upon our Saviour it shall be spoken of so far as the Word is Preaced in all the world Bethink you as well you may when Noah put forth his head out of the Ark to tread upon the earth which could afford him nothing but room to walk upon with how many thoughts he was distracted What house to put his head in where to be provided of Food and Raiment where were all the necessaries and comforts of life to be had How should he rake up a New World out of the Ruines of the Old All these instances and more than these were thoughts to take up a wise man and yet he laid all these under his feet and built an Altar upon them to institute a true form of Divine Worship in the first place that all the World might follow it Why it is evident that his heart gave him in charge to look to Religion above all the necessaries of life and to forget all things even himself till he had remembred God Abraham was a Pilgrim and it is ever observed in this Book of Genesis or with little exception that he never removed to any new place but first he built an Altar to the Lord. At the first quiet Station which the Children of Israel had vvhen they came out of Egypt Moses sanctified the first-born to God David was no sooner confirmed a King but he brought the Ark into its resting place We stand before a great God that will not be served with the second or third part of our care The Jews were rebuked that built houses for themselves when they were returned from Captivity and let the House of the Lord lie waste Christ did reprove it that the young man that was called to follow him should put in another thing between First let me go and bury my Father Can you find out any first before God that is the first and the Last Piety and Sacred Offices are sweetly managed when you give them the flower of your care and the pre-eminence before all things The day will shine prosperously on you if you give the first hour after you rise from your bed to Prayer The whole Week is blessed because the first day is the Lords-day to call holy Assemblies together The Heathen Romans began the Laws of the twelve Tables with a sanction of Religion Deos castè adeunto In all Commerce Confederacies Treaties let the honour of God be the prime and Master respect And all other fine devices will prove but counterfeits of wit to such sacred Policy Another thing makes this repair and settlement of Religion precious and highly valued for the unity and conformity of all parties present at it It was the first solemnity performed to God after the Floud that the Company before they dispersed might agree in one outward form of Divine Worship I do not know whether such a complete consent of all persons in the Earth was ever seen before or since the days of Noah Therefore it must needs afford an excellent savour There was no Idolatry in the world no different ways no divisions I am for this and I am for that This little Flock was at unity in it self the old Patriarch his Sons and Daughters agreeing in one Prayer and in one Sacrifice O rare and heavenly One Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts in the tongues of all the Angels is the most Angelical part of the Angels Ministry That is in heaven but the sacred Concord that I preach of was on earth An obedience running all one way no separations no
the Lord then Hezekiah chatters like a Swallow the day of trial begins to be nearly discerned But how much better is it to do this in your health and before your strength faileth There is nothing more sorrowful to the Devil than the godly sorrow of the Saints When his tentations come upon you open the flood-gates let in the sluces and drown them The Ark was made to float upon the Waters when the wicked world was drowned So the true Church of Christ shall be carried in safety upon the streams of devout tears Weep and lament the evil days that are past and be comforted that there is an Age an Eternity to come when God will wipe away all tears from our eyes Onward now to the next Point the third part of that remedy which Nehemiah used to cure the wound of a troubled soul says he I mourned certain days The heavenly water which fell from his eyes brought forth no weeds but sad and serious Repentance which ejected all light joy The Israelites in their days of distress had some outward badges of mourning as covering the head and lip not washing the face not combing the hair putting on Sackcloth or other sad rayment or such like Which whether they were to be seen in Nehemiah as I cannot affirm so I will not deny for I incline to perswade my self that he wanted not those outward marks and habilements of sorrow that the habit and grizly uncomposedness of his body might utter the affections of his mind But that which pleased God was the sorrow of the Heart and not of the Garment It is the distress of the soul with inward anguish that knocks at heaven for mercy and comfort will sooner shine upon them that cover themselves with darknâ—â—s and will not be comforted Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Mat. v. 4. It is not a punishment but a gift of God to be endued with godly sorrow And all his gifts put together make a treasure of felicity Cum te video in conspectu Domini suspirantem spiritum sanctum non dubito aspirantem Cyprian de caenâ Domini When I see thee breath out sighs upon earth I discern that God hath breathed into thee his holy Spirit from heaven Now the same Spirit took on him the shape of a Dove when he came down from heaven to sit upon our Saeviour at his Baptism It is impossible to teach a Dove to sing a chearful note for Nature hath ingraffed in her a solemn mourning Gemitum pro cantu it doth not sing like other birds but groan and it is the Spirit that puts afflictive thoughts into our Spirit with groans unutterable O hang up the Harps of mirth for a while and let them remain untuned Lament the days wherein we have provoked the Lord to give us nothing but lamentation You never read that God will honour your joy to keep it in his everlasting remembrance but you are sure he will not forget your mourning says David Psal lvi 8. Thou tellest my flitting put my tears into thy Bottel are not these things noted in thy Book Nor doth he merely bear them in mind and keep them in his Register but Figuratively as some interpret it he wears them upon his head for says Christ Cant. v. 2. My head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of the night as if he wore the tears of our mourning like drops of Pearl upon his head Dry eyes and unrelenting hearts are the curse of God as it is Ezek. xxiv 23. You shall not mourn nor weep but ye shall pine away for your iniquities Do you love to be heightned in your pleasures To be always conversant in joy and voluptuousness Would you never be wrinced with any sorrow for your sins O what a mischief is this which you long for If you do not mourn at some seasons if you do not fall into pious contristation you shall pine away in your iniquities I may not forget the continuance of Nehemiahs mourning it lasted certain days As a watry Moon breeds foul weather for an whole month after So when he began to be a mourner for the sins and scourges of his people he persevered till it came to some magnitude of afflictive compunction Nothing will come to any large increase in an hour therefore he produced his sorrow longer and longer and mourned certain days Not first a sigh and suddenly a flux of laughter upon it not humbled in fasting to day and pampering the body in all excess and riot to morrow Are there none here that will be so fickle and change so soon God grant it For a short acquaintance with godliness is soon forgotten He that catcheth at Repentance by sudden fits will never lay hold of it Insist upon good motions protract them to day and to morrow and continue many such days together that Piety may have its perfect course When you will scarce hold out the length of an hour nay hardly the length of the Lords Prayer but your mind is drawn off from the survey of Repentance you have done as good as nothing They that first did distribute apt times and seasons in the Church for the Service of God contrived forty days together in Lent for religious sorrow and humiliation a long time of perseverance indeed that we might be perfect in the Lesson As Moses continued forty days together in the Mount that he might be perfect in the Law of the Lord. All that I bend towards in my instruction is this That forasmuch as we have but this one day allotted for our exercise of extraordinary Prayer and Mortification the benefit may dispread unto to morrow and the morrow after and so spin it out that we may keep time with Nehemiah and say we have mourned certain days But why hath he not expressed how long he continued in this sad habit of repentance I mourned certain days and wherefore are his certain days so uncertain Because he did not keep reckoning with God and take a precise account how much service he did him as the Pharisee had it at his fingers ends I fast twice a week and as the most are perfect to number their few good deeds I give so much yearly to the poor I frequent the holy Communion so often I go now and then on working days to morning Prayer And perhaps before night some will break out into boasting how many hours they have spent at Church upon this solemn Fast This is to serve God by weight and measure and to score up every good minute we have spent lest the Lord should forget it But Nehemiah doth not make ostentation of the just length of time which he spent in devotion and sorrow but closeth it up indefinitely in this manner I mourned certain days And this mourning drew on another exercise of religious affliction which denominates the Piety of this day He fasted It is very proper that this partner should go hand in hand
are the words of Calvin To call a Publick Fast is to draw a solemn profession from the tongues of all men in the behalf of all men So do we for those who out of stubbornness and frivolous exceptions against our Liturgy will not joyn with us in this Church duty So we do for those who out of blindness in a superstitious breeding had rather mutter they know not what in an unknown Tongue than pray with us in that Language wherein they may be comforted and edified So we do for those who out of profaneness and Atheism think not of these things and have no affection to bear a part in common Supplications We fast for all these to day as for our selves desiring God as it is in our Litany that he will have mercy upon all men The sick that desire to joyn with us in Prayer and cannot come Infants and Sucklings whose tongues are not yet framed to magnifie the Lord we represent all these and include them in our faithful and charitable Supplications for our selves and for all these we pray to our heavenly Father that as we spread not our Table this Noon so he will fit us against Night to eat our meal with a good conscience with confidence and comfort that he hath restored us to all his blessings again And though we have been Prodigal Children yet we shall be brought into our Fathers house to eat the bread of life and the fatted Calf even Jesus Christ A Fast is commonly the Eve before some Holy-day and I pray to God that this Publick Fast may be such the Eve or forerunning day to joyful times to come and so it will be if as sure as this is a Fast the time to come be observed with all diligence as holy to the Lord. And now in the conclusion of all that you may know that Nebemiah fulfilled all righteousness for Jerusalems sake when so many exercises of humiliation had gone before in the upshot he prayed before the God of heaven Weeping and Mourning and Fasting are about Prayer like prickles about a Rose But as no sweet Rose is without prickles so no powerful Prayer is without these or some of these But this is the Rose this is the flower of Religion this is the Odour of sweet Incense that ascends up before the Lord. Ibi nuntius noster oratio mandatum per agit quò caro pervenire non potest says St. Austin It delivers our Message like an Embassadour in the Sanctuary of God whither corruptible flesh and bloud cannot enter For as the Winds and Air have free access unto those places which are immured and watcht that no foot of man can approach unto them So though a Cherubim brandish a flaming Sword before Paradise that the Seed of mortal man cannot come to it without destruction yet our Prayers are Spirits and Angels that fly upon the wings of the wind and come boldly to that place where God is wonderful in light inaccessible A poor whelp hath found out a way by nature to lick it self whole with its tongue when it is bitten or wounded So when we are oppressed with any evil of sin or of punishment our tongue is our instrument to lick the sore Call upon the Lord in the time of trouble and he will hear thee and help thee Yet very much goes to it to make Prayer speeding and effectual Go unto the House of the Lord as often as you can and joyn in humble Petition with the Spirit of the whole Church with the Congregation of Saints and bring your mind with you as well as your body your zeal as well as your voice Observe your constant times of private Prayer at least every Morning and every Evening if oftener the better Cast your self upon your knees with a resolved preparation to be a faithful a penitent an earnest Supplicant Intermit not this practice for any worldly avocation either to serve your self or to serve your friends and I can tell you this will bring such admirable effects to pass when you have got the habit and perseverance of that vertue as I durst not name but that the Spirit of God hath got assurance of it It will give you knowledge of divine things when you will wonder how you learnt them It will pick the thorns of Concupiscence out of your flesh when you will marvel how you were rid of them It will give you courage in dangers when there is small hope to escape And content when desire is not obtained And chearfulness when every thing that should procure joy is far from you It is grace and peace health and wealth and every good thing that concerns this life and a better Only ask seek and knock ask with confidence seek with diligence knocb with perseverance No Father if his Child ask him bread will give him a stone or if he ask a fish will give him a Scorpion If they that are evil give good things how much more will your heavenly Father If we ask him Victory he will not give us a Defeat If we ask him Peace he will not give us continuance of War If we ask him for Justice he will not give us Oppression If we ask him for the continuance of true Religion he will not give us Idolatry and Superstition But ask zealously faithfully devoutly with love unfeigned with a clean heart as becometh Saints For if you ask amiss you shall go without Look towards the pattern of Nehemiah he was one of great integrity and uprightness and therefore fit to carry the Petitions of all the people in his lips to God He prayed before God not like an Hypocrite to be seen of men He set God always before him assured that he was present to hear his words and to see his ways But they that have the itch of the Pharisees to draw the eyes of men upon them the Lord will turn away his face and reject their Prayers He prayed before the God of heaven he did not pray to the Saints in heaven No says Friar Walden we confess that none of the just men in the Old Testament did ever pray to any Saint departed partly because the souls of the righteous were not admitted unto the Vision of God in heaven before Christ by his Ascension did open the Kingdom of heaven to all believers Even as much then as now for ought he knows and how much or how little either then or now it is hard for him or us to know But his second reason is that the Jews were kept from the custom of praying to Saints least they should run into Idolatry I thank him for that caution for that mis led practice of praying to Saints is a symptome of Idolatry Let us direct our Petitions to the Lord alone in whom we have assurance that he doth hear us and will help us I have said unto the Lord thou art my God hear the voice of my Prayer O Lord Psal xl 6. Is there any Precept in Scripture
was performed after the best form and exactness within the Precincts of this City therefore those that emulate the Jews in an holy way to magnify the Lord Jesus and to advance his Name in their reasonable service they carry this good report to be called the Jerusalem of God Obadiah's Cave conteined most Orthodox Prophets Capernaum had a Synagogue to preach in perhaps as good Sermons delivered there as in all Judea Joppa had many devout people in it Bethany afforded a Family which exceeded all others in love to our Saviour but if you will shape unto your selves the beautiful Churches of Christ you must pass by these reserving much praise unto them all for that wherein they did very well and you must extend your thoughts to the flourishing Profession of Gods Name at Jerusalem Thither the Tribes went up that they might worship together in their most populous Assemblies not like some in our days that keep at home when the Convocations of the Lord require their presence and flatter themselves with their own sufficiency as if they needed no Prayers to commend them to Heaven but their own But one Simon Stylita mounted up in his Pillar by himself is not an whole Jerusalem To keep Religion in life there is nothing more needful than that such as are of the Visible Church have communion and society one with another Beside in this Metropolis of the Land of Canaan the degrees of the holy Priesthood were conspicuous from the chief Pontif to the meanest Levite Not all fellows as Core would have it And why not every one as good as Aaron This would make Babel and not Salem Demetrius his concourse for all the World Act. xxix no man was tied to say by your leave to his Companion for every man was a Master of the Mutiny Let not the pride of them that cannot get preeminence cry down the Authority of them who have commanded from the Apostles to this Age And remember that St. Jude hath pointed out some who were Spots in the Church not in the Synagogue that perished in the gainsaying of Core Now Core's gainsaying if you will expound it to the Letter can be nothing else but a seditious attempt against Ecclesiastical Dignity Beside the sound of Jerusalem brings to our remembrance all Divine Offices that were done in the Temple to celebrate his glory who is wonderful above all wherein we succeed them either in the same or by clothing their Figures with a Substance They had appointed hours of Prayer day by day in the Publick Congregation for their sakes that will find out a little time between Morning and Evening to step out of the affairs of the World into the Courts of Heaven they had the Law preached and expounded with uncessant diligence there were no less than 460 Synagogues within the Circuit of that City in the days of Josephus so many Pulpits to inculcate Doctrin into the People It seems they had a form of Catechizing by that Conference which was held between our Saviour and the Doctors they had Psalmody according to the most skilful Musick of David and Asaph they had Incense to learn us devotion they had Sacrifices to teach us mortification The exercise of all which indeed was much kept down under captivity and during Antiochus his Persecution But in the days of peace and liberty it had this external face of holiness And that our solemn and outward Profession of Gods worship should be suitable to this decency and splendor and not shuffled up as if we took our Platform from such an obscure Village as Bethphage or Emmaus it is incited to do all things after a sacred comeliness and magnificence by the name of Jerusalem So it is and yet these Mosaical fashions are passed away But it is an indelible Character belonging to that place from whence the Church rejoyceth to take its name that the first foundations of Christianity were laid in Jerusalem for as Seneca said of the Heavens dignum idoneum spectaculum si tantum praeteriret it was a gay and a goodly sight though it did no more but move above our head and pass away how much better was it to us by the virtue of its light and influence So Jerusalem is famous for that Levitical Worship of God which is passed away and vanished but much more glorious for the influence dispersed from thence over all the World by the Apostolical preaching for out of Sion went the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Isa ii 3. Let us do it all favour says the Emperour Justin the Elder to Pope Hormisda for it is Mater Christiani nominis the Mother the Foundress of our Christian Profession We may take leave I think to discourse a little upon the wisdom of Gods good pleasure why this was the Brood-nest wherein the first Assembly was hatched that taught the Gospel First says Leo Vt ubi passus est Christus ignominiam ibi subiret gloriam Christ chose Bethlem for his Nativity but populous Jerusalem for his Passion where many might behold his opprobrious Death Lo in that soil where he became a scorn and dirision to them that were round about him he ascended into Heaven for Mount Olivet browed upon Jerusalem there he sent down the Holy Ghost there Faith and Repentance began to be preached in his Name there St. Peter made his first Sermon among devout men that were gathered together of every Nation under Heaven As there had been the Golgotha of his Humility so there he advanced the Standard of his Glory 2. Since our Saviour began to take his Kingdom upon him where should he proclaim himself first but in his Royal City there was the Court of David and of Solomon and meet it was that His Court should be there who was to sit upon the Seat of his Father David And it jumps well that he did not take possession of Jerusalem presently after he was baptized no not till he was crucified He did not actually reign in full Majesty till he triumphed over Death in his Resurrection From thenceforth the Royal Robe of Immortality was upon him and his Scepter in his hand to crush his Enemies and this was made known in the chief place of Gods Worship in the Gates of Jerusalem 3. Had the Gospel been preached in the beginning near about us in Europe or in Affrica or elsewhere far from that Country where Christ preached and suffered and rose again the news would have been strange and Unbelievers would have replied who are your Witnesses of these things But in the first utterance of Christian Faith to preach of his Passion within sight of Calvary of his Doctrin within the Temple of his Resurrection hard by Joseph of Arimathaea's Garden This was a demonstration of truth that it vented it self where it was best known Much unlike unto them who tell us in these parts what Miracles their Disciples do in India and tell them in India what Miracles they
And though I am likely to do all this with very small Acumen and judgment yet I hope with true zeal and sincere affection to the glory of God and honour of the Church of England The Members of which Church have been reputed of all others the slackest to celebrate their own Worthies partly I conceive from the humility and modesty of their Principles and Education partly from the great multitude of incomparable Scholars therein to be commemorated that such labours would be almost infinite For which reason the Dypticks of the Ancient Church were likewise laid aside when Religion was setled and Christians grew numerous But yet if the Divines of the Church of England lived elsewhere we may well conjecture what Books the World should have had of their learning and piety For who sees not the many Volumes of Lives daily published by others wherein ample Commendations are given to idleness popularity and very ordinary deservings After an impartial reading thereof I cannot but think that our Own Church has far better Subjects and matter to write upon if we that survive wanted not ability or affection to maintain our own Cause and publish the Merits of our departed Worthies to the World Therefore out of Emulation partly and shame from a foolish Nation as St. Paul says but much more out of a profound sense of the Duty I owe to the Memory of this renowned Prelate and most of all out of hope of stimulating posterity to the imitation of the vertues of better times I have taken care to give the World this Account of our Author and not to permit his Books to be buried as it were in the Grave with his Body mortal and immortal to descend together into the same Land of oblivion Though it be no real Prerogative but an accidental and contingent thing How we are born after the flesh yet it is commendable to search into the Beginning and Causes of such things as we would throughly know and therefore the Extract and Parentage of learned and great men is usually enquired after in the first place John Hacket was born in the Parish of St. Martins in the Strand near Exeter House upon September 1. Anno Domini 1592. in the happy Reign of Queen Elizabeth of honest and virtuous Parents and of good reputation in that place his Father being then a Senior Burgess of Westminster and afterwards belonging to the Robes of Prince Henry descended from an antient Family in Scotland which reteins the Name to this day His Father and Mother were both true Protestants great lovers of the Church of England constant repairers to the Divine Prayers and Service thereof and would often bewail to their young Son after the coming in of their Countrymen with King James the seed of Fanaticism then laid in the scandalous neglect of the Publick Liturgy which all the Queens time was exceedingly frequented the people then resorting as devoutly to Prayers as they would afterwards to hear any famous Preacher about the Town And his aged Parents often observed to him that Religion towards God justice and love amongst Neighbours gradually declined with the disuse of our Publick Prayer In our Bishops opinion Parentage alone added little to any man no more than if we should commend the Stock of a Tree when we cannot commend the Fruit Mirari in trunco quod in fructu non teneas who held that the glory of our Forefathers reflected upon us was but Color intentionalis like the sparkling colour of wine upon fair Linnen or as the Sea-green and Purple in the Rainbow which are not real colours but meer shadows and reflections And that never was Pedegree so well set out as that of Noah These are the Generations of Noah Noah was a just man c. And in like manner our Blessed Saviour commends his Forerunner John Baptist not so much for his Honourable Descent and Miraculous Conception as for his pious and laborious Ministry in turning many to Righteousness This was agreeable to our Bishop's mind in comparison whereof he little valued all other Titles of Honour But in his discourse he would often give God thanks for the place he was born in viz. that he was born an Englishman and especially in the City of London He was indeed a great lover of his own Nation little England as he would term it the sweetest spot of all the Earth and say that the City of London was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very England of England Vrbs Vrbium and wish the Country were a little more sprinkled with her Flour for in his Travels he had discerned in places remote a Northern rigour and churlishness among our Villagers wanting that Southern sleekness that was usually found in Cities and great Towns the Metropolis especially And though there is no place but has in some Age been enlightned with some famous Luminary The Prophet Jonas was born in Galilee out of which said the Pharisees there arises no Prophet Yet withal it was observed in Scythia there was never born but one Philosopher but in Athens all were such So in all parts of England there have been learned men born but in London innumerable and therefore once in a pleasant discourse between Him and a learned Friend who were reckoning up the Country where many Scholars were born and could not presently tell what Countryman Mr. L. was the Bishop merrily said As the Rabbins believed when ever any great Prophet was named in Scripture and the place of his Birth not named that it was in Jerusalem so he would take it for granted by the like parity of reason since Mr. L's Country was unknown he must needs be born in London Yet in his judgment it was but a small lustre likewise that the Place where any Man was Teem'd could cast upon him but he ought rather to give Lustre to it for Places did not conciliate Honour to Men but Men to Places and that little Hippo was more ennobled by great St. Austin than great St. Austin by little Hippo. And therefore he never rejoyced so much for the City or Country wherein he was born as for the Churches sake wherein he was baptized and born again which of all others to his dying day he most loved and admired and accordingly he would often render hearty thanks to God that his Birth and Breeding was in a Reformed Church and of all others the most prudent and exact according to the Doctrine of holy Scripture and the Primitive Pattern that would neither continue in the Fulsom Superstitions of the Roman Church nor in Reforming be born down with the violent Torrent as some others were But from these lesser Circumstances of his Birth let us therefore proceed to those of his Education and Breeding which are far greater and do especially make the difference between one man and another For whereas all by Nature are born alike of the same corrupt Materials Education only like the Hand or Wheel of
in the beauty of holiness few or none would break the publick Order and decent Customs of his Church but the whole Congregation generally rose and sate fell down or kneel'd and were uncovered together He liked Ceremony no where so well as in Gods House as little as you would in your own was his phrase but could by no means endure to see in this Complemental Age men ruder with God than with Men bow lowly and often to one another but never kneel to God He thought Superstition a less sin than Irreverence and Profaneness and held the want of Reverence in Religious Assemblies amongst the greatest sins of England and would prove it from many Histories that a careless and profane discharge of Gods Worship was a most sure Prognostick of Gods anger and that Peoples ruin When a Stranger Preached for him upon a Sunday he would often read the Prayers himself and with that reverence and devotion that was very moving to all his Auditors And upon Wednesdays and Fridays he would frequently do the like and thereby engaged many to resort better to them always assuring them God would soonest hear our Prayers in the Communion of Saints Sometimes when he had occasion to go into the City and saw slender Congregations at Prayer he would much wonder at his Countrymen that had so little love to holy Prayer but when he heard of any that would not go to Church to Prayer unless it were accompanied with a Sermon he would nor scruple to say he scarce thought them Christians and never deemed any Divine to be really famous and successful in his Preaching who could not prevail with his People to come frequently to Sacraments and Prayers He was a great lover of Psalmody and above all a great admirer of Davids Psalms so full of Divine Praises and of all Religious Mysteries great helps to Contemplation apt to beget a Divine Charity being a perfect supply for all our wants joyful to Angels grievous to Devils filling the heart with spiritual delights and a kind of representation of the Celestial felicity That he constantly call'd upon his People to be present at them and at all parts of the Churches Prayers remembring them that after our Blessed Saviour had cast our the Sheep and Oxen yet he still called His House the House of Prayer to shew that though those Sacrifices were at an end yet this should never end and therefore the Apostles themselves after his death resorted to the Temple at the Hours of Prayer He ever took great care to procure a grave and able Curate a Master of Arts at least for the instruction of the younger sort in the Church Catechism Visiting of the Sick Burial of the Dead Preaching of Funeral Sermons Christnings and Marriages These he generally left to the Curate for his Perquisits and better encouragement and would often complain that in great Parishes there was not competent maintenance to keep many Curats under the Parish Priest that might be able to live at the Altar and better discharge all private and domestick duties of piety sorrowing that herein Popish Countries were better provided for who had ten for one that wait at the Altar there more than we have among us and therefore though he would much recommend daily visiting of the Flock from house to house yet found it was impossible for one Minister to perform the Publick and Private Duties both Private Baptisms he would never countenance unless in Cases of necessity or some great convenience as being expresly contrary to the Constitutions of our Church and greatly derogatory to the dignity of the Sacrament to be dispensed in a Parlour or a Chamber and not with that Solemnity that our initiation into Gods Church required and therefore greatly commended the Lutherans who baptized none at home but the sick and the spurious Funeral Sermons though he rarely preached himself yet he defended them to be no Novelty brought in with the Reformation for John Fisher Bishop of Rochester hath one in Print for Henry the Seventh and in Edward the Sixth his time an Herse was set up in St. Pauls Church for King Francis the First of France and a Funeral Sermon likewise preached for him by Dr. Ridly Bishop of Rochester While he lived in this Parish he would give God thanks he got a good Temporal Estate Parishioners of all sorts were very kind and free to him divers Lords and Gentlemen several Judges and Lawyers of eminent quality were his constant Auditors whom he found like Zenas honest Lawyers conscientious to God and lovers of the Church of England and very friendly and bountiful to their Minister Sir Julius Caesar never heard him preach but he would send him a broad Piece and he did the like to others and he would often send a Dean or a Bishop a pair of Gloves because he would not hear Gods Word gratis Judge Jones never went to the Bench at the beginning of a Term but he fasted and prayed the day before and oftentimes got Dr. Hacket to come and pray with him This strict Judge condemned one for stealing a common-Common-Prayer Book out of his Church whom he could not save the Judge would by no means forgive him because of the sacredness of the place but accepted well of his Intercession and said he should prevail in another matter and when the Doctor saw he could not succeed he thanked the Judge for his severity Anno 1631 the Bishop of Lincoln made him Archdeacon of Bedford whither he ever after went once a year commonly the Week after Easter and made the Clergy a Speech upon some Controversial Head seasonable to those Times exhorting them to keep strictly to the Orders of the Church to all regular conformity to the Doctrine and Discipline by Law established without under or over doing asserting in his opinion that Puritanism lay on both sides whosoever did more than the Church commanded as well as less were guilty of it And that he only was a true Son of the Church that broke not the boundals of it either way About this time of King Charles the First 's Reign it was justly said Stupor mundi Clerus Anglicanus and whereas in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reformation Siquis's had been set up in St. Pauls If any man could understand Greek there was a Deanry for him if Latine a good Living but in the long Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James the Clergy of the Reformed Church of England grew the most learned of the World for by the restlessnes of the Roman Priests they were trained up to Arms from their youth and by the Wisdom and Example of King James had wrote so many learned Tractates as had almost quite driven their Adversaries out of the Pit and forced them to yield the Field So that now we were only unhappy in our own differences at home But above all the Bishop admired that People should complain in those days for want of Preaching wherein lived
Brownrig and Holdsworth and Micklethwait and both the Shutes and infinite more especially Josiah Shute whom the Bishop ever termed Generalis Praedicatorum in Allusion to the General of the Jesuits or the Praepositus Dominicanorum besides many other incomparable Orators in and about the City of London In the first rank of whom our excellent Author may well be reckoned if we consider his acute Wit deep Judgment flowing Elocution singular Learning and great Reading whereby as Porphiry complained of Origen he made use of all Heathen Learning to adorn the Doctrine of Christianity Who was expert withal to handle both Testaments Law and Gospel that sometimes his Auditors would acknowledg he had like St. Chrysostom swarms of Bees sitting upon his Lips and that nothing but Honey and Milk lay under his Tongue At other times he seemed like St. Basil to be a strong Hail shower bearing down all before it and as was said of Pericles left a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or wound upon the most obstinate and insensible mind behind him Yet as Joseph Scaliger would say He envied the learning of three men Theodore Gaza Angelus Politianus and Picus Mirandula so the Bishop would acknowledge he could never enough admire Vshers profound skill in Antiquity Overalls great knowledge in Divinity nor imitate Brownrigs Preaching when he would put forth his utmost powers But let any man peruse this Course of excellent Sermons upon all our Saviour Christs great Works and many more remarkable matters of Scripture which were most of them his weekly Preaching together with what I hope will hereafter follow whole Chapters and Psalms of Scripture expounded by continued Discourses upon the Chain of the holy Text from first to last after the custom of the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom and other ancient Fathers yet extant and let him speak impartially if this great Prelate be not for Learning Piety perspicuity of Phrase and knowledge of Divine and Humane things almost equal with any of them Methinks when I read his accurate and divine Labours and withal contemplate the religious and peaceable dayes wherein they were preached in an Auditory equal to the greatest of old wherein God was served with so much holy Order I cannot reckon with my self readily where either by St. Austin at Hippo St. John Chrysostom at Antioch or Constantinople or the famous St. Basil at Neocaesarea any people were more happy in the labours of a Pastor or any Pastor more beloved by the wisest of his People Whatsoever he preached to them once upon the Lords Day he preached six times over again in his Pious Conversation upon the days of the Week following and ever thought that frequent Preaching was but a sorry commendation to any man unless prepared with study and diligence before to speak as became the Oracles of God and likewise attended with agreeable practise afterwards to make that easie by example which had been before only dictated in Doctrine While he Officiated here I must not forget two things more First his Charity to the Poor of whom he held himself bound by his Calling to have an especial care and be no less than a continual Overseer Besides his spiritual Alms and counsel upon all occasions freely administred he gave freely also out of his own Estate upon all Holy-days and prayer-Prayer-days and would often engage the Parish Officers so to distribute their Collections as might best bring the Poor to Prayers to Catechising and to reap other benefit to their soul at the same time that they received a Boon for the body In all publick meetings which were many in that great Parish this worthy man would never so much as eat and drink as the custom had been upon the Parish Stock but alwayes bore his own Expences though he met upon the Parish Account so that by his prudence and industry and frugality for them the Revenues of the poor were in his time very much increased above what they were formerly But his main concern for that place is yet behind Church and Poor commonly go together and he had an equal care of both the Church Edifice was faln into great decay the Church-yard too small to bury their Dead and the Church it self too little to contain the Living so that a great desire he had to build them a new Church from the ground for which purpose he had obtained the promise of the Patron the most Religious and Noble Earl of Southampton to confer all the Timber for the Roof and very large Subscriptions he had procured from the Nobility and Gentry and from many other well-affected Parishioners for the finishing of the rest for these he had been soliciting from the time of his first coming scarce any of quality dying but according to ancient Piety at his request left a Legacy to that purpose which was laid up in the Church Chest The good Doctor often telling them how mournful a sight it was to him to see any place excel the Church in Beauty and Magnificence and that it was not the Fashion in the best times of Religion for any man to dwell better than God and that the Fabrick of Churches ought not only to be suited to the bare Convention of people but likewise to the riches and wealth of the Parish or Nation from which God expected a suitable proportion to the setting forth of his glory And therefore as much as King Solomons Temple exceeded Moses's Tabernacle so much did he conceive ought our Churches now adays to exceed the poverty and plainness of our Forefathers and would often bewail to see the contrary that our Forefathers were sumptuous in Gods House and poor at home but we who are far richer have built our own Houses rich and new while Gods House lies waste To remedy this he was not willing to permit that any rich mens bones should lie sumptuously buried in his Church who never bestowed so much upon Gods House in their life as the value of their Tomb amounted unto saying Such did not adorn but trouble the Church By his perswasions many gave very liberally in particular I remember the pleasantness of Sir Henry Martin who at his first speaking bade his man pay him Thirty Pounds when he received it because he gave him humble thanks he bade his man count him Five Pounds more for his humble thanks About Ann. 39. having many thousands in stock and in subscription he went to my Lords Grace of Canterbury to ask his Lordships leave that what Workmen were willing might indifferently be entertained by him without being thought prejudicial to the repair of St. Pauls but our Troubles came on and the Long Parliament seized the Money gathered for the repair of both Churches to carry on their War both against King and Church Thus was he defeated in his pious intention here yet God made him happy in accomplishing the like hereafter as you shall hear elsewhere Long before viz. Anno 1625. being the great Plague Year which happened at the
vox which I shall bring forth that they have barr'd all alienation with many curses and imprecations It is Gods own sentence upon the Censers which Core and his Complices used in their Schism with pretence to do God's service Numb 16.38 They offered them before the Lord therefore they are hallowed This is not spoken after the way of a Levitical form and nicety for the using of those Censers was anti-Levitical but this is an absolute Theological Rule out of the mouth of the Lord that which is offered unto the Lord is hallowed Again Prov. 20.25 It is a snare to the man that devoureth that which is holy This is Proverbial Divinity every mans notion and in every mans mouth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theology preached in every Street of the City and every High-way of the Field Let me only add that smart question of St. Paul Rom. 2.22 Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacrilege I have done Mr. Speaker if you will let me add this Epiphonema Upon the ruins of the rewards of learning no Structure can be raised up but ignorance and upon the Chaos of ignorance no Structure can be built but profaneness and confusion In the Afternoon it was put to the Question and carried by many Votes that their Revenues should not be taken away yet not long after in the same Session after a most Unparliamentary manner they put it to a second Vote and without a second hearing Voted the contrary And now all things tending to violence it was no longer safe to debate these things publickly therefore at his House were held constant meetings of the Loyal Clergy Bishops often and others Morton Brownrig Holdsworth Jefferies and many more who from thence wrote Letters all over England to all Divines of learning and reputation especially of the Vniversity of Cambridge to know how they stood affected Quae vobis mentes rectè quae stare solebant And to engage them to stand fast in the cause of the King and Church Amongst others Dr. Brownrig having been formerly acquainted sent to old Mr. Dod the Decalogist for his opinion who answered That he had been scandalized with the proud and tyrannical practices of the Marian Bishops but now after more than sixty years experience of many Protestant Bishops that had been worthy Preachers learned and Orthodox Writers great Champions for the Protestant Cause he wished all his friends not to be any impediment to them and exhorted all men not to take up Arms against the King which was his Doctrine he said upon the Fifth Commandment and he would never depart from it Likewise Letters were written by them to many Forreign Divines to try their affection in that day of need Blondel Vossius Hornbeck and whom he most condoled Salmasius were sent to in vain though afterwards that great Scholar came off from his rigour and made ample amends for his error Vossius contain'd himself for fear of the Parliament and of losing his Prebend at Canterbury in their possession which King Charles the First conferred upon him with great liberality Deodat wrote firm for Episcopal Government from Geneva and accused the Presbyterians of Schism Hugo Grotius said nothing hapned but what the wise King James had foretold and he now beheld with great horrors Episcopius much pitied the sufferings of the Kings Divines and particularly of Dr. Ward whom he accounted the most learned member of the Synod of Dort Monsieur Amyrald declared himself a friend to Episcopacy in a Select Tractate sent hither which one of that Party borrowed and would never restore and so it could not be Printed He who was thus zealous both in and out of his Pulpit in the King 's and Churches Cause could not be long permitted to Officiate in the City of London one Sunday while he was reading the Common Prayer in his Church a Souldier of the Earl of Essex came and clapt a Pistol to his breast and commanded him to read no further the Doctor smiled at his insolency in that sacred place and not at all terrified said he would do what became a Divine and he might do what became a Souldier so the Tumult for that time was quieted and the Doctor permitted to proceed But the War being begun and all things in confusion the Orthodox and Loyal Clergie were every where Articled against and ejected committed to Prisons without accommodations but upon unreasonable Payments such as they were unable to make In the City of London and Parishes adjacent one hundred and fifteen Parochial Ministers were turned out besides many hundreds in all Countries more than ever had been in all Queen Mary's Queen Elizabeth's and King James's or King Charles's Reigns by the Bishops of all sorts Some few factious Parishioners Articled against him at the Committee of Plunderers and he was advised by Mr. Selden that it was in vain to make defences they would never permit him to preach in that publick Theatre but he must retire to Cheam and he would endeavour to keep him quiet there but thither also the storm followed him for the Earl of Essex his Army being upon their March against the King took him Prisoner away with them till after some time he was brought before Essex himself and others who knew him and had often heard him preach at Whitehall who made him great proffers if he would turn to their side which he disdained to accept They kept on their March and as he would say at length the Princes of the people let him go free From that time he lay hid in his little Villa as Gregory the Great in his little Sazimus which he would pleasantly call Senectutis suae nidulum There he constantly preached every Sunday Morning expounded the Church Catechism every Afternoon read the Common Prayer all Sundays and Holy days continued his wonted Charity to all poor people that resorted to it upon the Week days in money besides other relief out of his Kitchin till the Committee of Surrey enjoyned him to forbear the use of it by Order of Parliament at any time and his Catechising out of it upon Sunday in the Afternoon Yet after this Order he ever still kept up the use of it in most parts never omitting the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments Confession and Absolution and many other particular Collects and always as soon as the Church Service was done absolved the rest at home with most earnest Prayers for the good success of his Majesties Armies of which he was ever in great hope till the Tidings came of the most unfortunate Battel at Nazby He was that Morning at an especial Friends house ready to sit down to Dinner but when the news came he desired leave to retire went to his Chamber and would not Dine but fasted and prayed all that day and then was afraid that excellent King and Cause was lost using to say of Cromwel as the Historian of Marius He lead the Army and Ambition lead him and therefore lookt far
nothing but the ruine that came He was naturally of a very pleasant and chearful temper but sad news made his soul retire a great way further into him and quite of another humour Indeed no man was more troubled and angustiated in mind for the miseries and distresses of this Church and Kingdom I have often heard his deep Sighs and his great Complaints when he did profess he did only breath but not live I have seen the heaviness of his eyes when he spake nothing his grave and ripe wisdom made him apprehend Fears more deeply than other people did But when his Majesties sufferings in Person came no man could conjecture the load of sorrow that was upon him He would say he felt his old heart wither within him and could not but sigh away his spirit he would often repent He had done no more by Preaching and Writing to prevent it and after the Kings Death frequently desired nothing else but to depart from this world of sin and suffering crying out Satur sum omnium quae video aut audio But next to the Death of his Royal Majesty he would bewail the cutting up the pleasant Vine of the Church of England and alienating the Churches Patrimony together with those of the King Queen Loyal Nobility and Gentry whereby the whole Kingdom of England was then in the hands of unjust Possessors For the Citie 's abetting this bloudy War He was now grown to a strong aversation toward London the place where he was born baptized bred and nothing could ever move him to go thither more until the Earls of Holland and Norwich both requested his Assistance at their expected deaths The Earl of Holland was very penitent for that he had deserted so good a Master in the beginning of the Wars Norwich was very chearful in the comforts of a good Conscience He would much admire how God sometimes gives secret admonition of things contrary to all humane expectations for the Earl of Holland had many Messengers came and told him they had Votes enough and to spare for his life yet nothing would perswade him but he should die within a few days and so he did The Earl of Norwich that knew of no friends yet would not believe but he should escape and so he did After this he return'd to his Rural retirement to end his Old Age in continual Prayer and Study omitting all exercise of body whereupon he fell into a great fit of sickness and upon his recovery the famous Dr. Harvy enjoyned him two things to renew his chearful conversation and take moderate walks for exercise assuring him that in his practise of Physick since these times he observed more people died of grief of mind than of any other disease and that his studious and sedentary life would contract him frequent sickness unless he used seasonable exercise Whereupon afterwards for his healths sake he would every Morning before he setled to his study take large walks very early to make him expectorate phlegm and other cloudy and fuliginous vapours whereby he afterwards continued Vegete and healthful to the last At this time he did much good in the Country by keeping many Gentlemen firm to the Protestant Religion who were much assaulted by lurking Priests who sought to perswade them that it was then necessary to joyn with the Roman Church or else they could be of none for they saw as the others said the Protestant Church quite destroyed But the good Doctor advised them better that the Church of England was still in being and not destroyed rather refined by her sufferings God then tried us as Silver is tried in the hot fire of persecution which purifies but wastes not Then especially our Church resembled the Primitive which grew up in persecutions and as the Earth is said to be the Lords in all its Fulness so the Church of England was the Lords in all its penury and emptiness And in these lowest of times he was full of faith and courage that himself should still live to see a better world one day and would greatly blame any of the Kings Friends who despaired of seeing the time of the restitution of all things His opinion was the Youths at Westminster spun a Spiders Web that could not last long and therefore was very confident of his Majesties return and would instance in Josephs case who was sometime sold for a slave imprisoned as a Malefactor yet afterwards advanced to be Governour of the Kingdom and in David who was hunted over all the Mountains of Israel yea and forced to fly his Country too and yet after brought to the Throne and also in Caius Marius who was forced to hide himself in the Flags of a Fenny ditch from the pursuers of Sylla so that the Historian asks Quis eum fuisse Consulem aut futurum crederet Who would ever have thought him to have been Consul or should live to be Consul again And therefore when any would say There was but little hope he would answer Tum votorum locus est cum nullus est spei They ought to pray the more and Prayer was a good reserve at the last cast Accordingly he would acknowledge that his many cares for the welfare of the King and Church of England did often send him to his Prayers but gave God thanks that his Prayers did always expel his cares After a day spent in Prayer he would tell an especial Friend he found in himself a marvelous illumination and chearfulness in the Evening and that as usually thick clouds in Winter cause dark weather till they were dissolved in rain or snow but then the Sun would shew himself and the air grow pleasant again So sorrows and cares cloud the mind and soul till we are able to dissolve them into devotion and holy Prayers and then post nubila Phoebus and professed nothing more contributed to his divine joys than his often reading and meditation upon Davids Psalms which he conceived they had done very wisely who set them in the midst of the Bible as the Fourth Commandment for Religious Assemblies was by God himself in the midst of the Decalogue In those doleful days that was done in St. Paul's London which Selymus threatned to St. Peter's at Rome to Stable his horses in the Church and feed them at the High Altar whereupon our Doctor was very confident their ruine grew ripe apace and not long after hapned the death of Oliver of which being suddenly told and the manner of it he only said as Tully of a Villain Mortem quam non potuit optare obiit and that we should see within a little while all the world would stink of him and disdain his Arbitrary and bloudy usurpations and accordingly in a very short time we saw all things incline to work about the happy revolution towards the accomplishment whereof no man was more active in stirring up the Nobility Gentry Clergy and People to desire a free Parliament and Petition General Monk
to beg the Kings leave to let him go home before the end of the Session sometimes in frosty Winter weather to be like the good Pastor among his Sheep where they might hear his voice at Christmas and the other great Feasts and accounted silence a Womans vertue but not a Bishops who if sickness and great Affairs molested not was still bound to labour in the Word and Doctrine and held it a mistake to prefer Governing before Preaching whereas it was ever contrary as appeared by 1 Tim. 15.17 Let the Elders that rule well be accounted worthy of double honour especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine and therefore the Bishop alwayes preached and the Presbyter never before him but when deputed or in his absence so that when he was sometimes told by his friends that he was now Miles emeritus and might lawfully lay aside his Preaching pains in his extreme old age he would by no means consent but still lay-by his other Studies upon Saturday afternoon and retire to his preaching Meditations and for the most part preacht once upon Sunday mornings both to profit others and to warm himself Three Sundays at least every Month he would preach up and down his Diocess and not only in his chief City of Lichfield or near to his own Cathedral but like to a benign Star would irradiate all places within his Orb He would often take Coach and go more than seven miles sometimes nine or ten upon Sunday morning and yet be at Church before most of the Parish and go home again to dinner and yet alwayes have the full Service of the Church before Sermon and many times afterwards rectify disorders in Churches and sometimes differences about Seats or Pews This Custom he continued till he died often mentioning the words of Bishop Andrews who was wont to institute all his Ministers in curam meam tuam and therefore thought he must no more hide his Talent in a Rochet than they might theirs under a Cassock Thus was his diligence equal to any of the Ancients and his success answerable reducing multitudes in all places to piety and conformity with the Church of England almost like another Gregorius Thaumaturgus Bishop of Neocaesarea a great and populous City who when he came thither found but seventeen Christians and when he died gave God thanks he left but seventeen Pagans This great success did owe it self not only to his frequent preaching and diligent study but to his eximious piety and perpetual prayer Formerly he had taken great pains in the Study of Antiquity and for Ecclesiastical History especially he was inferior to very few no man could give a better account of the Travels of the Apostles after the day of Pentecost and the Conversion of the World by the Primitive Christians and for the History of the Reformation after the second Pentecost no man I think could give the like Narrative how miraculously in all places it was effected In our own Church there was nothing whereof he was ignorant all the Councils and passages of the Reformation from the first beginning or Matrix thereof he perfectly understood But of late years he would say his Studies were not to be more wise and learned but more holy and good and therefore laid aside Polemical Divinity wholly and his principal study were Cases of Conscience Canon Law and the Liturgies of the Antient Church in which he was very skilful yet would often complain he found this last an unlearned study and much against his own nature who was a lover of Philology and Rationality But he much wondred that any learned men could contrary to the practice of the whole Church lay aside all use of Liturgies even against the sense of Calvin himself who wishes there might be in every Church an uniform Liturgy for preservation of Unity and prevention of Vainglory and other inconveniencies from which it should be unlawful for Ministers to depart but especially in our Church where so many young men are ordain'd he wondred any wise man would be against a set Liturgie and refer all the Service of God to free Prayer and would assert that it was more easie to marr than to mend the Book of Common-Prayer and therefore we ought not to adventure the one for the other but in regard the Minister of the Parish was permitted to compose a Prayer of his own before his Sermon he thought no Sectary had cause to complain Bidding of Prayer before Sermon he never practised and said no more did Dr. Ravis and Dr. Fletcher Archbishop Whitgift's Chaplains afterwards Bishops who drew up the 55. Canon whom he knew very well and often heard preach and always used a Form of their own and no Bishops Articles ever examined or found fault with it and was certainly used by St. Ambrose in Antiquity and therefore in the Convocation 1640 it was carried for a Form And although it was his mind that all Students were not to be tied up to Canonical hours but such only whose Devotion need not be interrupted by necessary study and employment yet he would rarely intermit them himself unless want of health or very extraordinary business constrained him In a morning he would rarely permit any to visit or disturb him but held that time was made for God rather than for men as the Historian says of Charles the fifth Manè frequentior cum Deo quà m cum hominibus sermo therefore the first thing after his sleep was his private Devotion with reading of the holy Bible Psalms and Chapters then gentle walking for health then Study then Publick Prayer then Private Prayers again before Dinner presently after Dinner to his Private Prayers again and then to his Study unless Ecclesiastical Affairs or sutable Company prevented him for an hour or so and of all sorts of Prayer he would especially abound in thanksgiving using St. Paul's words often In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God and wish that our Common Prayer had more Forms to that purpose and would sometimes wonder that when the world had been so cloyed with Religious Orders Predicants Humiliats Oratorians Mendicants and many other titles yet there was never any called Eucharistici a Congregation appointed to give God thanks for all the good things wherewith this World is replenished In the Evening of every day Recount thy own actions and the divine preservations was his rule to others and customary to himself and to pray for the pardon of the one and praise God for the receit of the other And in all his Prayers day and night he was a continual sollicitor for the peace of the Catholick Church All his counsels like Melanchton's were ever moderate and he often wished such a Form of Prayer were composed that all Christians might joyn in being a great Enemy to sharpness and violence in the matters of Religion and would often use Erasmus his words Mihi adeò est invisa discordia ut
veritas displiceat seditiosa After his Majestie 's return and restauration of the Church of England he prayed for nothing more in this World than the downfal of Mahomet and the resurrection of the Greek Empire and Church again and would say he thought in his complexion and Religion both that he was the greatest Anti-Ottoman in Europe he was extremely afflicted for poor Hungary the Antimurale or Bulwark of Christendom in the last Invasion and consequently for the horrible division of Christians through the juglings of the Papacy for which reason he could not yet foresee which way possible they should unite under one General who might be able to put an Hook into the jaws of Mahomet and repulse the Grand Signior into Arabia again or to his Scythian Cottages and therefore he never hoped for this happy time till he saw the Papacy fall first which yet he hoped should never be brought to pass by those Infidels though he was very much affected with the words of Musculus spoken above a hundred years ago Ecclesia Sancti Petri sic aedificatur Romae ut ad plenum aedificata sit nunquam citiùsque destruenda sit a Turcis quà m ad finem structurae perducenda a Romanis He took the Pope to be an ill Member of Christendom yet would have no man desire the Devil should pull him down viz. the Turk or Goths and Vandals viz. German Anabaptists and Socinians for fear the change should be for the worse the Italians were a civil people and lovers of learning the Anabaptists of Germany more ignorant and bloudy far than they From this civility of his own temper he did not much love to fix the Title of Antichrist upon the Papacy yet believed that our learned Divines Mr. Mede and Dr. More especially had with that great learning in all kinds so charg'd this crime upon Him that he admired his Champions who daily scatter books of all other matters could permit their supreme Pontife to be so slander'd if it were not true and he thought it frivolous for them to write upon other controversies before they were able to clear themselves before all the world of this Capital one and which being true concluded all other crimes in it Though a reconciliation of all Christians were desireable yet he held it impossible to be effected as long as the Doctrines of their Churches Infallibility and the Popes Supremacy were so obstinately maintain'd The Pope was now become like a Blazing-star dreadful to all Potentates and Rulers and therefore whereas his two great Friends Bishop Vsher and Mr. Mede out of Apocalyptical Principles were of opinion that there would be a general Apostacy and Dagon set upon his feet again he could not believe it For he never feared Christian Princes would be so forsaken of their own understandings and other Counsellers as to resign their own Crowns to adorn a foreign Mitre especially when both Mr. Selden and Sir Robert Cotton had told him they could shew undoubted testimonies that all the Princes in Christendom envied Henry the Eighth's Act in this kind and would gladly have imitated him if they durst But this he imputed to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or want of Magnanimity in them who would not endeavour to recover their own rights in calling Councils presenting to Churches and other Flowers of their Crowns unjustly deteined from them by the See of Rome and therefore ever prayed the Kings of England might still retein their own just Supremacy without giving up their Regalia to any foreign Jurisdiction He thought the increase of Popery ought to be strictly watched not only for the perniciousness of the Tenents of their Heterodox Religion in themselves as being in his opinion Idolatrous and favouring of Rebellion but likewise for the cruelty and sanguinary minds of Papists themselves that whereas all Protestants express a charitable respect towards the souls and bodies of all Papists abhorring all bloudy Persecutions of them on the other side Designant nos oculis ad mortem Papists ever bear bloudy minds towards us and want nothing but power and opportunity to make as many Bonfires in England as they had done formerly and whereas in their excuse some say that the many late Treasons against their Princes were but the private Acts of some particular Papists then he wondred no Pope should ever think fit to send out his Bull to declare that he abhorred them or that none of their learned men should print books licensed by authority wherein they were renounced which he would have given a great deal of money to read The Bishop was an enemy to all separation from the Church of England of whatsoever Faction or Sect But their hypocrisie he thought superlative that allowed the Doctrine and yet would separate for mislike of the Discipline these mens impudence outwent all preceding Histories and he would challenge any to shew him in all Antiquity for 1500 years where any Christian withdrew from the Churches Communion much less rose up against lawful Governors for their imposition of indifferent matters or Ceremonies though in ancient times they imposed more than we do now All that were baptized were presented in White Garments which the Priest charged them to keep white and undefiled to the Coming of the Lord and they used not only the Sign of the Cross but praegustatio mellis lactis intimating that they were now brought to the Land of Canaan flowing with Milk and Honey Standing at Prayers was required upon all lords-Lords-days between Easter and Whitsuntide and Prayer with their hands extended after the similitude of a Cross sometimes which must needs be very tedious and so many other things in St. Austin's time that his complaint is well known Tolerabilior erat Judaeorum conditio yet no Separate Churches were then set up for these things Truth is he thought the permission of Conventicles did shew great irresolution and unsatisfaction in the Truth administred great tentation to Shopkeepers and sedentary people to be tainted with errors and novelties of which the English temper is too receptive people being generally vain and whimsically sceptical and never to be satisfied like Him in the Talmud that would alwayes be questioning why the Sun rose in the East and set in the West to whom it was answered if it should do otherwise he would still complain to know the reason But above all he held we ought to become wise by former experience for Conventicles in Corporations were the Seminaries out of which the Warriours against the King and the Church came and therefore would much admire that if any man coin'd false money it was counted Treason if any man cheated a Pupil or an Orphan he was punisht or if he spread false News he was lyable to suffer for it but if any man publish'd false Divinity to the damnation of souls or perverting the minds of people from their obedience to their Governors there was little or no regard of it Beside he
therefore you shall find him thus speaking to the people in Josephus Country-men says he you know the Law and are not ignorant that God is in every place as well at Dan and Bethel as at Hierusalem Vbique vota exaudit ubique cultores suos respicit his ear is every where to hear your Prayers his eye is every where to see your Worship and therefore there is no such necessity as the Priests talk of to go up yearly to the Temple at Hierusalem This is Jeroboams Divinity in one act both an Heretick and a Traitor he took away the Crown from Gods anointed by violence and would take away the throne dedicated to God himself by fraudulence Beloved every Religion knew this that one house or more as the worship required was to be built unto the God before whom they prayed and in whose name they took an Oath before the Altar Dagon the Idol of the Philistins had his Temples and so had the rest and shall the Assemblies gathered in the name of Christ shall they only worship in the Mountains and in desart places The Angel hovered from above over the fields where the Shepherds abode because he was a Messenger of Heaven and therefore proclaim'd the Christ under the open heaven but men that have their habitation upon earth must not so preach Christ as if they had dropt out of the skies the presence of an Angel did consecrate the waste plains upon which the flocks were feeding any place was holy for that time where an Angel spoke but corruptible and sinful man must not think that it is his priviledge to do the like unless the place be set apart for Gods service by a lawful solemnity of dedication Philo the Jew makes mention of some that worshipt God with most fervent devotion in Egypt and the parts of Alexandria frequent in Prayers and Watchings and it appears to some they were Christians and they says Philo had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 religious buildings full of reverence and Majesty to praise the Lord. This that Philo speaks of was in the reign of Claudius the Emperour twelve years and no more after our Saviours Ascension into Heaven The Primitive Church flourishing the Apostles all living these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Oratories and Chappels were built so ancient is the practice to call upon God in such stately buildings as were appropriated to be the houses of Prayer and the Reverend Council of Gangra past this Canon against Eustachius an enemy to Church buildings If any man shall say the house of God is contemptible and the Assemblies vain let him be an Anathema And of the two circumstances of the place that the Angel appeared in the field before the Shepherds so much and no more Thirdly I observed for the time that it was night when the Angel came unto them I dispute not what time of the night it was The night was distributed into four watches assigning the space of three hours to a Watch to this end that he who could not endure the tediousness of a whole night to lie abroad under the open air might be relieved at the end of a watch by him that took his place and it is not improbable that this occasion fell out towards the last watch of the night For to Premonstrate that Christ came to bring light to enlighten every man that came into the world he was annunciated by the Angel both at the increase of the year and at the increase of the day Oriente Salvatore non solum humani generis salus sed etiam solis ipsius claritas innovatur says St. Ambrose at this day Salvation shin'd upon the soul of man which had been in the darkness of condemnation even as our Saviour was born toward the dawning of the morning when the Sun was peeping out of the darkness of the night Nay the same Father goes further You would think his phancy were Rhetorical or rather Poetical but he delivers it for a Doctrine which he did verily believe that it was late at night when the Angel came into the field Cum sol festinans ob dominicae nativitatis obsequium c. When the Sun in homage to our Saviours Nativity posted as it were and before the Stars had run their courses cut short the night shined upon the world many hours before the day expected him and thus he reasons if the Sun stood still in the day for the Prayers of Josuah why might not he shorten the night to behold our Saviours Nativity Wherefore at night this Babe of Glory was born that he might turn the night into day A meditation of St. Gregories may supply us with another reason the Sun-shine of the day is the great Oracle of manifestation the smallest Atoms then appear and whatsoever lay in obscurity is clearly discerned now we have no clear apprehension of the mysteries of faith in this life as if they lay naked before us Sancti quamdiu in hác vitâ sunt divinae naturae Secreta quasi sub quadam imaginatione conspiciunt The Saints in this world behold the secrets of the Divine Nature as if it were in the imagination of a dream as men think they see Visions when they sleep in the night I do not go about therefore to span those things which cannot be measured how that which is infinite and finite are one in personal Union how he was conceived by the Holy Ghost What perfection of knowledge and grace there was in his Infancy if you look into the Ark with the Bethlemites you may forfeit your eyes It is modesty to say these things are incomprehensible for the Angel did reveal them in the night They that raise questions and dispute about those depths concerning our Saviour which cannot be sounded look for thanks because they are industrious whereas their curiosity seems to me to use him no better than if they crowned him with thorns We must believe without appoizing the Articles of our Faith to the balance of reason and then though we see darkly in a glass we are children of the day But if we will scan the secrets of God by the scruples of humane wisdome then is our day turned into night One day telleth another and one night certifieth another Psal 19.2 That is says Bernard the day told unto the day when the Angel came unto the modest Virgin Mary the night certified the night that is the Serpent conferred with Eve when she was fond and curious I am yet under this pillar of Cloud I mean under this circumstance of time that the Angel Gabriel addrest unto the Shepherds by night Captivities that be famous in Scripture are three Under Pharaoh in Egypt under Cyrus in Babylon and under the Devil in the thraldom of sin Mark what issue every one of these had to obtain liberty 1. The Children of Israel arose at midnight and departed out of Egypt 2. Nehemiah and those few the first that
is the brightness of his Fathers glory and the express image of his person Upon those words of the Apostle Col. iv 18. the salutation of me Paul with my own hand says S. Chrysostom it was great comfort to the brethren to see salutations and greetings and wishes under Pauls own hand Some comfort it might be but far short of this to see not only the word of salutation but the word of salvation dwell among us the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth As Pliny said to Trajan of his virtuous Wife Nihil sibi ex fortuna tua nisi gaudium vendicat she desired no further interest in his good fortune but to rejoyce and to be glad at his felicity so the righteous man leaves the wide world for the children of the world to share it among them Nihil sibi nisi gaudium vendicat all that he challengeth for his own is the Blessed Virgins solace and My spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour O my beloved it cannot be uttered what tranquility and joy is in that heart which seriously apprehends those evident signs that God is reconciled unto us Those heavens which Pythagoras spoke of that they were never without concent and harmony that Fable being moralized is agreeable to nothing but to that soul which is comforted in the mercies of Christ Semper illic serenum est it is like the state of the world above the Moon it is ever fair and clear in that place without any storm or tempest it is like the tribe of Zabylon situated in a safe harbour close unto the tumultuous Seas Aliorum videt naufragia sed ipse salvus est it looks forth upon the Seas and sees how some are tost in perilous waters how some are shipwrackt and cast away but it self is safe under the shadow of Christ and in no such terror or calamity The ordinary comforts of this world which concur to the being and to the well-being of nature may be wanting perchance to a true servant of God these may a little abate the courage perhaps it makes us appear says St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sorrowful 't is but as if it were so Tanquam lugentes as sorrowful but always rejoycing The tongues of men and Angels are not able to devise a message of joy more sweet and allective than this that our severe Judge hath sent his Son to be our Mediator and that Mediator to be our Judge and that Judge to be our Brother for so he calls us by that term of intimate affection This is such a demulcing comfort to a sin-wounded conscience that it leaves our heart in St. Austins phrase to be Thalamus Dei palatium Christi habitaculum Spiritus sancti the marriage-chamber of God the courtly Palace of Christ and the habitation of the Holy Ghost This is the proper joy of Christs Birth with which the Angel did accost the Shepherds the delight and serenity of a good Conscience It is agreeing to the solemnity of this time to speak also of the other branch of joy which is sufferable and may be warranted which is called Risus ad naturae recreationem pastimes and delightful exercises to refresh the sadness of the heart And if there be any man whose strictness will allow of no sports or pleasurable jocundities at this season of our Saviours Nativity let me tell him that such austerity is groundless and hath no foundation in the Word of God and to censure all innocent relaxation of mirth because with some men and in some places it is done with excessive vanity and riot he wants a grain of Charity Shall we build no houses to put our head in because fools built a Babel shall we plant no Vineyards because Noah was overseen shall we forswear courtesie because Absalom's kindness was full of flattery what is another mans sin to my harmless mirth Joy is in the Text and if there be harmless joy in the time no judicious man will disallow it But why do sickly men imagine that all meats taste rank and unsavory it is the ill affection of their own palat Why do Boat-men think that the shore goes from them because they go from the shore So the heart of churlish men is undelightsome and that makes them to think all delight is vicious There is a time to weep and a time to laugh says the Wise man Eccles iii. 4. And what time more convenient for rejoycing than this when Solomon dedicated his Temple to the Lord first he magnified God in a solemn prayer then all Israel kept a Feast and a joyful holy day This Temple was but a figure of Christ the everlasting Priest these are the days wherein we celebrate the dedication of this Temple and after we have magnified Gods name in solemn Prayer for his mighty work we may chear and refresh our selves with joy in a lawful measure of innocency and sobriety Why should we lowre and look sad like those hypocrites the Pharisees who had nothing in them but a form of outward austerity True joy cannot contein it self in a contemplative meditation it will exult it will break forth like John Baptist in his Mothers womb who rejoyced in the Spirit that Mary had conceived the Messias in her Womb. Nor was that all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Babe sprang and leapt for gladness Whatsoever mirth is honest and lawful whether spiritual or civil joy the Angel gives liberty to the Shepherds to use it Behold I bring you tidings of great joy The spiritual and the innocent civil joy are both native and proper to these festival days of the Birth of Christ but by our abuse that which is most frequent and common is the third member of the distinction which is sinful Risus ex immoderata turpi laetitia a mirth bestain'd with riot and all kind of offensiveness It is time to cry down the noise of all immoderate and wicked pleasures with an heavenly song How different are our tunes of beastliness from that which the children of Jerusalem did sing upon the Advent of Christ Hosanna to the Son of David Hosanna in the highest How different were their modest garments from that pomp and pride which divers of us do bear upon our backs they spread their garments in the way to entertain the King of Glory Christ would not have honour'd yours with his feet he would not have trod upon your Peacock attire which is so vain and alterable O beloved what an incongruity is this Christ came down from Heaven to dwell among us and you rake Hell for merriment to make him welcome If a Jubilee come once a year wherein you have indulgence for a sweet relaxation in Sports and Festivals must you needs lose your wits exeat Cato as if no sober man all that while were fit for our company If you will spend a few days of solace and recreation so wickedly so untowardly do you not deserve that God should turn your Feasts
Christ Here are species praeliantium voces cantantium the habit of War and the Song of Peace Their habit shews what was before war and enmity against the earth their Song shews what shall be hereafter confidence and courage against our spiritual foes and assurance to get the mastery and so to have joy and peace in the Holy Ghost If Herod and all his partizans were troubled to hear the wisemen ask Where is he that is born King of the Jews what concussion of fear would have been among them to have heard that he brought a multitude of heavenly Souldiers with him into the world they are a defensive guard unto his little flock and though Tyrants rage though Inquisitions be advanced though Leagues be sworn though Armadoes fill the Seas and the Air with their Ships and Sails though the Rulers of the earth take counsel against the Lord and against his Christ yet there is an Army always ready prest in the Air the mighty one hath girt his Sword upon his thigh to deliver his Church in the time of need and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Therefore Solomon says of it thou art comely as Jerusalem and terrible as an Army with banners Cant. vi 4. Some of little Faith may look upon Christ newly born with fleshly eyes and may doubtingly say Nunquid isle salvare potest Israelem Can this Infant restore Israel can this sucking babe lead forth our Armies to vanquish our enemies O see how many legions he can command from Heaven and then say it is a vain thing to trust in the forces of man it is the Lord that hath powers and principalities in store to awe the world loe he cometh with a multitude of the heavenly host Thus much of the Choiristers I have now to speak of the preparation to their musick which is two-fold for it was with much speediness and with much chearfulness with much speediness for suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host The Choire was not long a tuning but the Hymn was sung immediately after the Sermon was ended like a chime that follows a Clock without distinction of a minute one good work follows another incontinently without any tedious pause or lingring respite as Pliny said of the Emperour Trajan in his Panegyrick that the people did often give him extemporary applauses and those sudden acclamations were a sign of their true hearty liking of his government Quae fingendi non habent tempus for being done of a sudden they had no leasure to think how to dissemble or flatter him so it is a sign our heart is right with the Lord when we break out into sudden praises of his goodness upon all occasional meditations When we have received any favour or when the merciful kindness of the Lord comes into our remembrance why do we not break forth into a speedy benediction and thanksgiving at what should we stick certainly every hesitation is a sin every moment of delay is ingratitude it was a Prophetical motion in John the Baptist before he was born as soon as the voice of the salutation of the Blessed Virgin sounded in Elizabeths ears the babe leaped in her womb for joy Quick motions of zeal and devotion are ever most acceptable Procrastinating of time is the ready way to be taken tardy like the foolish Virgins When Abraham entertain'd Angels Gen. xviii he gave them welcome as I may say with Angelical celerity Abraham hastned into the Tent to Sarah Sarah made ready quickly three measures of fine meal Abraham ran into the herd for a tender Calf and gave it to a young man and he hasted to dress it See what an active family here was all upon the speed to do good Nemo piger est in domo charitatis a charitable house had not one sluggish person in it The Cherubims are graven with wings to put wings to our slothfulness our heart should fly as fast to all good works as an arrow out of a well drawn bow The faithful among the Jews had long waited for the joy of their eyes the promised Messias day by day they did expect his appearance and one of their own says it was a chief part of the service and Prayers in the Synagogues to beseech God that his Anointed his Christ would come into the world After this earnest expectation he comes with as much haste and expedition as heart could wish messenger upon messenger one Angel after another and a third telling his errand almost before the second had done And because all the Angels equally wish our salvation one as much as another the whole multitude of them with the same nimble dispatch at the same instant proclaim it That the day-spring from on high hath visited us Yet before I end this point understand the case right the heavenly host did publish these glad tidings suddainly that God should be glorified the earth should have peace and good will should be imparted to sinners not that suddainly and immediately from that moment it should so come to pass Joseph had a dream sent him from God that his Father and his Brethren should bend unto him and he should be possest of great command and so it came to pass but after long imprisonment and much tribulation The Angel Gabriel greeted Mary that she was highly favoured of God the Shepherds honour'd her the Wise men visited her Simeon blest her yet the same Simeon tells her that before her blessedness should be accomplisht a Sword should pierce her own soul So the Angels give suddain intelligence of glad tidings and suddain joy makes the passion the stronger but many years were to turn about before the effects of their message should be fulfilled that is the earth enjoy her peace and God his glory For the speediness of the coming of the heavenly host let this suffice the other circumstance which concurs with the delivery of their message is their chearfulness and alacrity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they praised God with a merry noise and I must say it since all Expositors have said as much before me they sang chearfully to the God of Jacob They that offer him praise do honour him Psal l. 23. Now after the honouring of God for his own being for the eternal generation of the word for the proceeding of the Holy Ghost the supreme most excellent most glorious work is the Incarnation of Christ This is that noble act for whose sake all voices that have utterance shall magnifie him for evermore Therefore the usual Evening Anthem in Cathedrals I and the Psalms sung in private Parishes I am sure my observation deceives not was wont to be Psal cxlviii Praise ye the Lord from the heavens praise ye him all his Angels praise him all the host praise ye him Sun and Moon praise him all ye stars of light c. And the first Psalm among those proper ones appointed for morning Prayer begins The heavens declare the
Prophet sute with him Out of thee shall come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting Can this be meant of any mortal man when you hear him measured not by time but by days of Eternity This is invincible I suppose against the incredulous But some sharp-witted Rabbins do recriminate that our Evangelists words are quite contrary to the Prophesie of Micah the one says Thou Bethlehem Ephrata though thou be little among the thousands of Israel St. Matthew very differently Thou Bethlehem in the land of Judea art not the least among the Princes of Judah The least and not the least some good interpretation must salve it or it will remain a flat contradiction One usual reconciliation hath faln from many Pens that Bethlehem was very little for territory of ground or sumptuousness of buildings it seems so that there was but small receipt in it by the entertainment of the Blessed Virgin who was delivered in a Stable but it was no little seat for honour that the Governour came out of it who should repair the ruins of Israel and of all Nations This is a most sensible distinction in it self but considering that one of these Texts are the quotation of another it agrees not to me as if it ended the Controversie Junius is of that mind but for a quainter reason the Scribes would terrifie Herod with the expectation of the Messias and would not relate the Text thou Bethlehem art little but thou Bethlehem art not the least the more to vex the Tyrant St. Hierom hath a strange fetch to soder all up that St. Matthew alledgeth the words not originally by the Copy of Micah but purposely wrong to discredit the chief Priests and Scribes whose negligence or perverseness was such that they miscited the holy Scriptures to Herod Though this of St. Hieroms be questionable yet some others of his own time are much more to be rejected who grant most dangerously that some forgetfulness might be incident to the Evangelist through humane infirmity yet for the better edifying of the Church by the dispensation of the Holy Ghost Much better St. Austin in another place all falshood is abhorrent from an Evangelist Non solum ea que mentiendo promitur sed etiam ea que obliviscendo Not only that which is derived from wilful lying but even from weak forgetfulness To be short among all that toss these words about in their Expositions I stick close to them that read the words both of the Prophet and the Evangelist without any difference and that 's done by drawing Micha's words into an interrogation Thou Bethlehem Ephrata art thou little among the thousands of Israel So St. Matthew varies not a jot to say Thou Bethlehem art not the least among the Princes of Judah This is no ungrounded conjecture for learned Authors say that some ancient Copies of the Septuagint read the Prophet interrogatively so do some Gothick Testaments translated as it is thought 1200 years since Such another place just to match it is in Isaiah xlix 6. the Text is bent to speak of Christ and you must help the sense by a meiosis in the pronuntiation It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Judah and to restore the preserved of Israel I will give thee for a light unto the Gentiles It is a light thing says Isaiah but the Septuagint turn it It is a great thing that thou shouldest be my servant and the Chaldee Paraphrast reconciles both by interrogation Nunquid parum est is it a small thing that thou shouldest be my servant so by making an interrogation of those words of the Old Testament you may unite them easily to the New And so I have set in joynt Micha's Prophesie that Christ came out of Bethlehem A City worthy for his sake that was born in it not only to have a strange Star hang over it like a Canopy but for ever to be call'd the Star of all Cities the glory of the whole earth Such as have viewed it and observed it with their bodily eyes commend it and Mount Tabor for the most delicious ground in all Palestina Here the Mother of our Lord brought him forth there He was transfigured in glory From Jerusalem to Bethlehem which are six miles in sunder all fruitfulness and pleasures are to be found which that part of the world affords I know our Saviour had no need of these fleshly delights who came to endure miseries and sorrows yet the earth owed him all the delicacies it could bring forth especially to bedeck the seat of his Nativity And I collect the curiosity of the sight from hence that St. Hierom says after the desolation of the Country that Idolaters were possessed of the land Adonis his Grove was erected where Bethlehem once had flourisht and all Scholars know the meaning of Adonidis horti Adonis his Gardens were the choicest Fields that could be found I need not rehearse that St. Hierom spent his best days and ended his last days at Bethlehem or that Helen the Mother of Constantine founded so glorious a Church there that all the world as far as I can hear are not able at this day to shew such a pile of building besides four Monasteries within those walls of her own cost and erection in one of which the most Holy Paula a Roman Lady of the great race of the Scipio's magnified Gods name day by day for the Incarnation of Christ until her own soul left it in carnation These inhabitants it had not for the sweetness and commodiousness of the place which I speak of but to befit them in their prayers and contemplations Here they did often eat the bread of Angels in Bethlehem which is by interpretation the house of bread And should not the living bread which came down from heaven first appear among men in the house of bread This day and many other days the table of the Lord is our Bethlehem our house of bread of which we may say after the words of the Prophet forenamed And thou loaf of bread consecrated for that holy use art but plain and common food out of which every one can have but little of them that participate yet every one whose heart believes unto righteousness shall with thee receive that body which was born for thee in the manger and broken for thy sins upon the Cross that thou mightest inherit eternal life I will not fill up the time with those other reasons which some give to design out Bethlehem as more fit for this Nativity than any other seat of the world The Scripture hath uttered but one thing that way and by the mouth of the Jews He cometh out of the Town of Bethlehem where David was John vii 41. The Son of David was born there that you may be more certain of the promises that he came of the stock and lineage of
and fell to them again seven times and no less and never made an end till his Servant told him he saw a little cloud rising out of the sea He that will give over for seven times seven repulses and will not be importunate with the Lord it were pity his desires should be successful Such constant such contrite devotion how can it choose but pierce the clouds The High Priest went once a year into the Holy of Holies with the perfume of Incense What is Incense but Prayer What is the Holy of Holies but the Kingdom of heaven O that you would believe which I am sure you ought to do that no part of Piety is so beneficial to the soul as Prayer You will remember my saying perhaps when you are upon the bed of your last sickness that Prayer is the Key to open the gate of heaven that Prayer is that address of the soul with which God appointed we should draw near unto him Now I know the most of you had rather spend your pains another way but at that last hour of anxiety unless God forsake you for your sins your heart will be intent upon nothing but upon zealous Prayer It is but a circumstance drawn into my Text from another Evangelist therefore I will pass it by with Bedes observation that Prayer is an active and a passive Benediction it draws God to us and by the same motion draws us to God as if a ship lay at Anchor tost upon the waves you may pluck the Cable with your hands and think to hale the ship to you but the Cable being of stronger tack will pluck you to the Ship The Prophet Isaiah in his Prayers was confident he could not be denied therefore he cries out O that thou wouldst burst the heavens O Lord and come down Our High-Priest Jesus offered the sweet odours of his Prayers unto his Father and loe the heavens were opened unto him The second consideration of the first Point is ended but I would you would diligently begin to practise it Thirdly I shall recite it before you how this Miracle fell out to glorifie Christ Therefore the Text says Loe the heavens were opened to him opened manifestly for the view of all beholders that were present but opened unto him because it was meant for his inauguration to honour his Mediatorship who came to redeem mankind from the curse of endless death and captivity Therefore imagine not as if the whole heavens did seem unveiled to discover all their glory but only so much of the Firmament did spangle like a Canopy advanced in state over our Saviours head as might betoken his Celestial Dignity The Father at this Baptism proclaimed him from above to be his well beloved Son and to make us understand that his love where it lights consists not in sweet words of affection only he did attire the Air in most Princely beauty to honour his well-beloved in whom he was well pleased Contrariwise at the Passion of Christ the Sun denied his light to the earth and the Regions above did never look so terrible as then with black clouds and darkness for he carried the malediction of us all upon him and it was a day of wrath and vengeance when God took punishment upon all iniquity We read of no Angel that was near to behold him at that dolorous hour upon the Cross belike it was a sight so ingrate and pitiful to behold that they withdrew themselves but at the triumph of his Baptism it is not mine but St. Austins opinion that the heavens which reach as far as the habitation of all blessed spirits were opened Vt in coelestibus esset miraculum de his quae agebantur in terris that the Angels might take this amiable spectacle into their view of those things that were done upon earth for would it not ravish the Powers of Heaven to peep into this Mystery that the Son of God should stoop so low in the River Jordan That a mortal man should hold up his hand above his head to baptize him When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from the Babylonish bondage the deliverance was so gladsom to the Land of Canaan to receive her ancient Inhabitants again that the Mountains skipped like Rams and the little Hills like young Sheep When the Apostles prayed among them that were converted and had received the Holy Ghost the place was shaken where they were assembled as if the ground could have cleft for joy Acts iv 31. Then could the Heavens contain to burst themselves for joy when Christ was initiated into his Royal Office The Earth was obsequious to the honour of such as were earthly the Heavens did honour Christ at his Baptism for the second man was from the heaven heavenly Now I come to fill up the last thing considerable in this Miracle what joy and comfort the opening of the heavens affords to all them that believe in Jesus The heavens were opened the Dove descended a voice from above proclaimed the good will of the Father to rejoyce our hearts that the immortal Laver of Baptism is able to cast all those blessings upon us not that all those were not in Christ and due to him before the Sacrament For did he then begin to have the Spirit rest upon him who is of the same eternal substance with the Spirit Or was that the first time when the heavens were opened to him of whom it is said of old Heaven is my seat and Earth is my foot stool Nor did his Father then begin to call him Son for we read in the book of the Psalms Thou art my Son this day that is from all eternity I have begotten thee When God spake and answered our Saviours Prayer from Heaven Christ turns to the Jews saying This voice came not for me but for your sakes Joh. xii 30. Likewise he might expound upon the opening of the heaven this was not for me but for your sakes Restincta est aquis baptismi romphaea flammatilis quae claudit paradisum says Ratbertus A fiery flaming Sword debarr'd the way into Paradise by Gods appointment which flame is mystically quenched in the Baptism of our blessed Mediator and now as if the Angel had said I will stop the way into Paradise no more the Heavens were opened And if Marriage be called honourable inasmuch as he vouchsafed his Presence at a Marriage at Cana in Galilee then Baptism is most honourable and blessed because he was more than present at it He came in his own person from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized To what purpose should this Scripture say Loe or behold the heavens were opened Unless it were a continual opening from that time to this how could we behold it If open and immediately shut again it were not so proper to say unto us behold But if they always stand open by the meritorious Redemption of Christ then it is an apt Phrase to say Behold the Heavens were opened
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
give him the onset this is no God So Jesus grazing about like a poor sheep that could find nothing but stones for fodder the Wolf grins upon him but he proved to be the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Impar congressus Achilli and the wild beast of the Forest was repelled by him that led captivity captive the more infirmity pretended on Christs part the more glorious the victory Fames Domini pia fraus est ne caveat tentare Diabolus says Bonaventure This fast and hunger was a pious fraud or stratagem laid by God to draw on Satan to tempt his Lord and Maker and so prove him guilty of a most foul rebellion St. Austin doth so receive this opinion that he rejects all others it may be said says he that fasting came after Baptism even as a good diet is to be kept after health recovered for fear of a relapse but that is impertinent Illius causa jejunii non Jordanis tinctio sed Diaboli tentatio fuit This fast had no reference to the dipping in Jordan but to cozen Satan and make him rashly adventure upon the ensuing tentation So St. Ambrose likewise and almost all the best Authors of the best antiquity It is a fatal requital upon some busie wits that as they are sharp and sore deceivers so when their own turn comes about they are as sorrily deceived Marcus Crassus was one of the cunningst flatterers that ever was and yet no man so easily and so notoriously gull'd with flattery So Satan is the grand Impostor of mankind and yet this grand Imposture was thrust upon him to enter combate with Christ who is invincible and omnipotent And let cheaters and cunning practisers beware that their own shot rebound not upon themselves God hath a retorsion in store a fallere fallentem which will fall upon them in spight of subtilty and circumspection They think they work closely and no harm shall happen unto them I am sure that David prophesies how certainly they shall be stew'd in their own sawce they are taken in the crafty wiliness that they imagined for others in the same net that they hid privily is their foot taken The ways of a Serpent are slippery and treachery shall be tript up with treachery The Lord hath spoken it and the Lord hath done it I have set these three reasons why Christ fasted in the formost rank because they are warrantable Brentius I think mistook when he interserted this for a reason It is a great anxiety or a great sickness which keeps a man from his meat for a few days so as he thought the tentations of Christ were so violent and horrible that for forty days he eat nothing I suppose when I come to shew at what time the Devil began his work I shall make it appear that no tentation was offered to Christ until the fortieth day Howsoever the Author took his aim amiss for although we read that our Saviour endured a most violent conflict in the garden when he sweat drops of bloud in his Prayer the case is not the same in this conflict with the Devil In the Garden he stood before his Father representing himself not as the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased but under the imputation and malediction of all our sins and he struggled with his Fathers justice that he might bear our iniquities in his own body upon the cross This was a wrestling indeed to put all his strength and powers in a heat and all his spirits in an agony But to beat down the suggestions of the evil one it put him to no sollicitousness or anxiety never was victory got so easily None of those poysoned darts could stick in him this was the Lamb without spot that could commit no sin but came to take away the sins of the world This error is easily put off the next opinion is maintained more pertinaciously that this fasting was part of that obedience by which he merited exaltation of his Father and in like manner the pennance of fasting is meritorious to the obedient members of his Church Thus they I will examine this strictly by several pieces First to enter into a tedious disputation how or what Christ did merit by his obedience cannot consist with the time and it doth not piece well with my Text. But take a little knowledge of it by this similitude the Angels of heaven have a double operation one that they stand always before the face of our Father which is in heaven another that they are ministring Spirits and do good offices to the Church upon earth as they do always stand before God so they must needs be completely blessed having the substance of their reward but as they assist and help us so they have some kind of increase or as it is called accidental addition to their reward So Christ in the union of the two natures could not but ever behold the divine glory so that the fruition of that eternal happiness was ever conjoyned to him but inasmuch as the dispensation of our redemption was his continual exercise upon earth so that deserved him some additions to his glory in the glorification of the sensible part of mans nature the speedy resurrection of the body his speedy ascension or exaltation into heaven and as some do add that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow or if so be these things were so intrinsecal to the hypostatical union that they could not be parted from it yet thus it may be well agreed Mereri est de debito facere majus debitum These things accrued to Christ meritoriously because that which was due by the hypostatical union was made more due by his humiliation I add secondly that the great abstinence and sweet temperance of our Saviours life was part of his humiliation but for the forty days wherein he fasted I concur with them that maintain this was no part of his abstinence What abstinence could there be says one in this miraculous act when all that while he had no provocation in his appetite to long for meats no more than the Angels have who taste no corruptible things The faculties of nutrition call'd for no sustenance God repressed the appetite says Cajetan from feeling the provocations of hunger and thirst even as he suppressed the devouring quality of the fire that it should not burn the three constant Saints that were cast into it I make it my third reply though Christs obedience in his humiliation was meritorious yet there is so much disparity between his obedience and ours that men can take no measure of it I do not only mean in this difference which is so well known that he did exactly fulfil all the Law of God and for our part in many things we sin all There is another thing which puts as wide a difference between us Christ obeyed his Father because he would we because we must He obeyed without any terrour pronounced to compel
Custom yet a strict and severe abstinence for so long was delivered from the Apostles to the Church to be kept for ever So Cardinal Bellarmine quotes St. Ambrose but in those Writings whereof he is not certainly the Author But St. Hierom is truly alledged I confess in saying it was the Apostles tradition but the testimony of any Author though a very reverend one is little available since no man said so before him from the Apostles age to his own which is a long distance of four hundred years A late Writer delivers his mind very roundly that the Fathers took many things out of adulterated books as Pastors Visions Clemens Constitutions the Gospel of Nicodemus and such like and called these Apostolical traditions Indeed nothing lets but the Fathers might be deceived by the Writings of Impostors This answer I am sure deserves not to displease that many things were called Apostolical Traditions which came not from any of the Twelve but from the Scholars of the Apostles So Tertullian calls Luke not an Apostle but an Apostolical man and says Maldonat the Jesuite those were called Apostolical men Qui quamvis Christum non audivissent audivissent Apostolos Who though they had not heard Christ had heard his Apostles Now it is a main odds whether the Apostles or their Scholars transfused such Traditions to the next generations Intererit multum Davus ne loquatur an Herus I will balance St. Hierom with Cassianus and St. Austin men of the same Age. Says Cassianus while the Apostles lived upon the earth men were obedient to refrain from surfeit and luxury all this while no times of fast were kept because the whole life of Christians was addicted to Parsimony and moderation But when these good men were gone to God and temperance began to be forgotten then was the fast of Lent bidden and appointed to draw men to compunction and repentance Cardinal Bellarmine hath no answer to this Authority but Cassian knew not what he said But St. Austin gave a studied and meditated answer to Casulanus Quibus diebus jejunandum sit aut non jejunandum Apostolos non constituisse There is a contradictory to St. Hierom. The Apostles did not constitute when we should fast and when we should not Alas what an impertinent labour it is to heap quotations that there was a Quadragesimal observance anciently in the Church when they do not touch the question whether it were by Apostolical Tradition The Nicen Council doth appoint indeed that every year in all places two Provincial Synods should be held one before the Quadragesima that men might serve God the better when strifes were appeased This is all and Cyril of Hierusalem says a great deal less Thou that loyterest all the year long 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wilt thou not bestow forty days time in Prayer There is mention of Prayer nothing of Fast and not one word of a Fast derived from Apostolical Tradition And of all other Arguments this will never be satisfied Lent was never kept uniformly in the former Ages but after most different fashions almost in all the Churches of the world In the beginning the term of forty days was so far from being usually kept that it had no other name but Jejunium Paschale the fast that went before Easter Well the name of Quadragesima grew on to be commonly received but the Moon is not so variable as the several customs of that Fast all Authors who have wrote of this subject toss that place of Irenaeus up and down Some keep strictly but one days fast for the devout penance of that time some two days some more some forty and some when they fast account twelve hours unto the day some four and twenty Is this like to be an Apostolick Precept where there was no unity in the observation Among those that would tie themselves to forty days observation the greater part of old did exempt the Sundays Dominico jejunium celebrare nefas esse ducimus says Tertullian It is a great crime to keep a fast upon the Lords day So Hilary to name no more Constitutum est ne diebus Dominicis jejunetur It is appointed there should no Fasts be held upon any of the Lords days Now for an exact complement of the number of forty others did borrow four days from the precedent week and Gregory six hundred years after Christ was the first that setled the time how Lent should begin from Ashwednesday they that continued their fast all that week and all the space till Easter day called it Quinquagesima the Monks brought it to a Sexagesima the Friers to a Septuagesima almost forty days doubled is it likely if the Apostles had set things in order the bounds at all times should be thus removed Shall I give you full measure in two things lest this discourse which is laborious to me be tedious to you First The Disciples of our Lord did not design out the limits or manner of this Fast for no body knew when to begin their Lent till the Council of Nice had setled that discord because the exact time for the observation of Easter-day was uncertain till that Synod had concluded it All the while the Church was unresolved of the one without question it was unresolved of the other Secondly For the most part these two Constitutions are yoaked together to keep a solemn abstinence in Lent and that none should fast upon any day of the week between Easter and Pentecost The same obedience was required to both both accounted equally laudable but as ceremonies of decency and no necessity So alterable that the one is quite forgot therefore I conclude the other can be no Apostolical Tradition You have heard me discover their error that maintained the yearly observation of a Quadragesimal Fast to be necessarily grounded either upon Christs example or upon Apostolical Tradition now I will proceed to shew that it is an Ecclesiastical Constitution a lawful Constitution and a laudible There are many that speak very reverendly of this time of moderation in diet and yet they will acknowledge that the Hereticks who are named from Montanus did first begin it and that the Orthodox Church did follow them in that lest they should seem to be outgone in the thing of good praise and austerity by the enemies of the Gospel This were no discredit to a good Institution for to imitate the Heathen in that which is just and honest cannot choose but bring forth a good effect We may borrow a Jewel from an Egyptian but not an Idol Howsoever the original is not well known but this is well known that the custom hath been transmitted to us from generation to generation Both by the Greek and Latine Churches without contradiction for the space of 1300 years And St. Austin said in his time Ecclesiae consuetudo roboravit The practice of the Church hath confirmed at what time of the year all men should unanimously
with his Granaries Christ was made poor that we might be made rich and for the good use of our riches he hath made many poor I did read you even now what Exposition might be made upon those words of David I never saw the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread some not unfitly do bend it to this sense The Psalmist commends liberality in the preceding verses and those that are prone to relieve the helpless Now lest any man might object yet I may cloath others so far that I may leave my self naked I may supply others till I be drawn dry No says he in that verse no misfortune shall come to such liberality I never saw the righteous forsaken meaning such righteous as he spake of before that are liberal and lend I never saw his seed beg their bread The charitable shall have his loan again sometimes corporally sometimes spiritually always certainly And thus you have heard my reasons to controul Satans rule that there are and have been divers opprest with necessity and want of bread and yet God doth not cease to be their Father and they must retain the comfort that they are his Sons Only take in this to the advantage of the Point As Satan is vigilant to espy who are in want and to suggest doubts and infidelity into their heart so there is no man shall think he is not in want if he will be ruled by his perswasion I told you before out of Theophylact what he propounded to our Saviour Cum panis unus sufficeret jubet lapides in panes converti When one loaf of bread might satisfie a mans hunger he required all the stones in the Wilderness which were near at hand to be turned into bread It is he that makes our prodigal Feasters wish their chear were better when they have already too much To have bare enough in his construction is to want and nothing is sufficient but an Epicures superfluity Perhaps the plenty which is present will evict the greatest murmurer and make him confess here is well and enough for the present occasion O but says the Tempter are you sure of large suppeditation for the time hereafter If you are not aforehand with the world you are in a bad case and want bread If your condition be not more comfortable than your Prayer Give us this day our dayly bread you may pray and perish Howsoever Beloved do you rely upon this that Gods providence will be the best interpreter of his own Prayer he that bids you pray for the sustenance of one day best knows how he will cherish and relieve you tomorrow Whereas in the former petitions we are taught to ask that the Kingdom of heaven might come it were unwise having so good a thing in our wish to ask much for the bread of this life One days dimensum is enough to ask for at once for who knows whether after a day he shall go from hence for ever and be no more seen If happily a worldly man be satisfied to say I have enough for one and enough for my time Soul thou hast much goods laid up in store for many years yet Satan will object that you want bread for you have not enough laid up for your Posterity and for many generations and because men know not how their stock may increase and fructifie therefore they dilate their appetite in infinitum and say after the words of that Disciple Whence shall I have bread for so many that come out of my Loyns that every one may have a little Gehazi did not say his Master had need of Naamans Rayments or his money but there were two children of the Prophets lately come to him and he would have two change of Rayments and a Talent of Silver for them So many will confess they have wherewithal to serve their own turn they cannot complain but their own necessities are liberally provided but they would have change of Rayments and Talent upon Talent for their children And if it were possible like Noah and those that came out of the Ark with him they would have the whole world to be distributed among their Sons and Daughters All these ways our Adversary the Devil doth shape discontent in our hearts to make us say we lack and have not enough then he objects Who is then your Father that should provide for you What Son is he that wanteth bread if he have a merciful Father And so far upon the first general part of the Text. And as this Satanical rule upon which I have spoken depraves our judgment in the most capital conclusion of true Religion the next rule which I now come to open bars and corrupts our practise in all manner of justice and righteousness it is thus whosoever wants bread let him get it by any stratagem or device by any unlawful slight which Proposition though it be not exprest in such plain terms in my Text yet the wit of Satan neither would nor could insinuate that bad meaning in any other Language to Christ than as we read it Command that these stones be made bread I know Christ hath extended his miracles to supply worldly blessings to his people especially at a push as Peter found ready pay for his Masters Tribute and for his own out of the head of a Fish and lest the people should faint that had continued fasting three days to hear Christ preach in the Wilderness a wonderful increase of food was multiplied to satisfie many thousands out of five loaves and two fishes God did get himself glory by these works in the sight of all Jury But the case is quite altered in this which Satan demands Christ was private by himself in the Desart when he had fasted forty days and forty nights and was afterwards an hungry the Devil had no colour in that place to bid him filch or cheat or do any base office to feed his belly The worst therefore he could say was altogether to omit he should call upon God nay rather since the Lord had destituted him of all provision without expectation of help from the Divine Providence do the best you can for your self Command that these stones c. This is that Maxim which those Heathens that had no Equity nor Philosophy in them did maintain Quocunque modo rem stand not upon the niceties of Truth and Law and Justice but get your living as you can Victum tibi confice quem Deus non suppeditat as our most literal Expositors do Paraphrase my Text God cares not for you but shift for your self as well as you can you must have bread Such are those irreligious and discontented words 2 Kings vi 33. The evil is of the Lord what should I wait for the Lord any longer There is no Commandment of the two Tables can be unviolated if you remove the bounds of justice and give your wit and conscience scope to make a fortune upon all jugling and devices Blasphemy Idolatry
than the man that rides him And in this circumstance likewise Satan was egregiously cozened to his exceeding contumely for when Christ permitted himself to be lifted up from the earth it seemed to Satan that it was his strength and power which carried him away and though much unwilling to be caught up in that wise yet being an impotent man he could not help it Thus the evil Spirit was deluded to ascribe that to his own power that came to pass by the hand of God Like the Fly in the Fable sitting upon the Axeltree of the Cart when it was moved apace took it to it self that the Cart was driven so fast and cries out see what a dust I make So this evil Angel either took up Christ in his hands in that body which he had assumed and thought it was in his power to stay him from falling or as spiritual substances in some mens Philosophy can move a corporeal thing by emanation of vertue which goes from them though they do not touch it as the intelligences move the heavens and so Satan not touching Christ at all might think it was his force and efficacy that snatcht him up from the earth to a Pinacle of the Temple But the former way is more likely as if he would shew him how the Text of David was literally meant He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up Beloved as the Divel did arrogate that he took up Christ on high by his own force and arm yet it was nothing so In like manner he thinks that all those hold their tenure of him who are exalted by wicked means he took them up to a Pinacle of the Temple he raised them up to civil honour Indeed wicked persons live as if they owed their service rather to Satan than to God for their preferment but it is the Lord that sets both good and bad in the seat of dignity the powers that be they are from God For this cause I have raised thee up he spake it to wicked Pharaoh that I might make my power known in thee Let mighty ones therefore remember they are Gods liege men and not the Devils And they that rise up like smoke from hell fire like smoke they shall vanish into nothing So I have shewed it was not in the power of Satan to carry our Lord whither he would but Christ suffered this Assumption of Satans out of patience not out of infirmity and suffered himself to be lifted up on the Cross and at last he came to the third Assumption to be received up into glory There is a third thing remains to be satisfied which every one will expect what a gazing sight would this be for all the Region over which Christ did fly and for the populous City of Jerusalem It must needs be an object upon which all men would cast their eyes and why is it not more spoken of in the Gospel and objected to our Saviour by his enemies It is no solid answer to say it hapned in the night and none were aware of it For the tentation which follows must needs be done in the clear light when he shewed the Son of God all the Kingdoms and glory of the world in the twinkling of an eye The true answer is that Satan was more over-reach'd in this surmise than in all the rest For he thought by this hovering aloft in the Air to make Christ a spectacle to all the world that men might think him some Inchantor or Magician by riding above in the clouds in the mean time says St. Chrysostome Christ made himself invisible that he was seen of no man the Devil being no way privy to it that he did abide invisible So Joh. viii ult the Jews took up stones to cast at Christ but he hid himself and went out of the Temple going through the midst of them what was this to hide himself and to go through the midst of them But to pass through the throng invisible as among others Euthymius noteth No point of cozenage and sorcery was practised more of old by the Impes of Satan than these flyings aloft these aereal supervolitations to the wonder of the world Nero Caesar was given much to Incantations and to experiments above nature especially in this kind Suetonius says that one of his Flatterers would undertake to fly up to heaven at his command but got a tumbling cast for his labour insomuch that some of the parties bloud did light upon Nero himself as he sate to behold this new sight in the Theater I will not say that this was Simon the Sorcerer spoken of Acts viii because he in the Theater did personate Icarus in sport but Simons was a solemn undertaking to confute the Doctrine of Peter and Paul by flying up to heaven So it is in the book called Clemens his Constitutions that this child of the Devil began to take his flight up on high openly before all the people of Rome and at the instant Prayers of the Apostle Peter he fell down headlong and brake his legs Because that Book is justly suspected for an adulterate work Arnobius who wrote in the Reign of Dioclesian to all the Gentiles says as much Cursum Simonis Magi nominato Christo evanuisse The flight of Simon Magus was cross'd in the name of Jesus Christ This was grown so common either by Mathematical engines or by Witchcraft that every Impostor did begin to profess it Graeculus esuriens in Coelum jusseris ibit says the Satyrist The Prince of the Air thought to amuse the world and to do stupendious works in his own Territories but he that sits on high shall laugh them to scorn the Lord shall have them in derision These are but foolish Antiques and Mimicks of the proper sending up of our spirit to God by desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ by having our conversation in heaven and delighting in those joys which are laid up for the Saints and by fervent Prayer which carries up the heart to God upon the wings of Zeal and Innocency so the Psalm mentions how a man may raise himself even unto the top of the holy City which is the new Jerusalem in heaven My soul flyeth unto the Lord before the morning watch I say before the morning watch And so much for the second general Point the manner of this tentation which was by Assumption Then the Devil taketh him up c. The holy City is the Locus communis the place largely taken to which he was carried out of the Wilderness and that is the ground to work upon for the third general Observation of the Text. This must needs be the Periphrasis of Jerusalem because God had a Temple no where else but there and St. Luke hath spared this Periphrasis and named the place he took him to Jerusalem and set him on a Pinacle of the Temple The eminent honour which this place had for many Sacred
fullonicant ingeniis suis says Origen Hereticks set a bright gloss upon their false opinions they in his construction are those Fullers upon earth that would make their doctrine if it were possible as white as truth but if you pattern it with the Scripture you shall see it colours not with that spiritual light which comes from Christ That Doctrine which hath the simplicity of the Spirit without the knotty entanglements of mans wit that which says let God have the glory but to us belongs shame and confusion of face That which impresseth humility into the thoughts zeal and devotion into the heart all manner of vertue into the practice This is that true light which comes from heaven no Fuller upon earth none that sit in the pestilent Chair of deceitful tongues can make a thing so white and every one that is of the truth loveth the light and hateth darkness And so far upon this admirable vision His countenance was altered and his rayment white and glistering These were res mirae strange and uncouth things the next general part of the Text doth handle personas miras strange persons whom a man would not expect in that place and at that time Behold there talked with him two men which were Moses and Elias If any of the people had been by that took him to be Elias or Jeremias or one of the old Prophets they should have seen a difference in this Vision between the head and the feet between the Lord and his Servants For surely some of the old Prophets two for all and those whom the Jews did most admire came upon this Theater to be seen that Christs glory might appear the more Let the eyes of Peter look upon them together and see if Christs glory be not far exalted above all the Saints Quantùm lenta solent inter viburna cupressi Among the Gods there is none like unto thee O Lord Psal lxxxvi 8. Non in Angelis coelestibus seu in altissimis says the Chaldee Paraphrase not among the Angels nor among any of the blessed souls that live in the highest places Was this such a business to be taught will some men say to bring the dead out of their graves Can any mistake that the honour of Christ is far exalted above all his Servants For to which of the Angels did the Father say at any time Sit thou on my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool Beloved are there none that keep the festival days of the Saints with more devotion and observance then the first day of the week for ever to be sanctified because Christ rose from the dead on that day Do they not make more Pilgrimages and Vows to some Patrons of their own invention who have been but men Are not there more Temples erected in their name More costly Ornaments bestowed upon their Images More Prayers poured out unto them than to Christ himself And had I not need to remember you that two men who were now glorified talked with Christ upon Mount Tabor that they might appear like little stars obscured before the greatest Planet Moses did but verifie in person what he had taught in a Song before Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods Who is like unto thee Exod. xv 11. I adjudge it for another reason that two men beatified came to talk with him because he would not seem to ingross the light of glory to himself without derivation to others It is not a treasure to be reserved unto himself but a communicable donative The glory which thou gavest me I have given them Joh. xvii 22. As a seed-corn is fruitless unless it die and bring forth stalks of Wheat so Christ compares himself to such a grain of Wheat which must die to bring forth much fruit or else it abideth alone as if all were marred unless we were accommodated by his fruitfulness The Kings honour is in the multitude of his people the joy of the Father is in the Olive branches round about his Table The glory of the woman is for the children to grow up and call the mother blessed The felicity of these consists herein to have some that are partners of their felicity But God is all-sufficient to contemplate his own glory though he had never made the world he did not make man to praise him as if he wanted voices to magnifie his name and make him God Yet he is pleased to express his love so far that his honour should be alone unless the goodly fellowship of Saints and Prophets were round about him Except a seed-corn fall into the ground and die it abideth alone Joh. xii 24. Lord why dost thou esteem thy self alone and heaven to be solitary without us But O man how canst thou be without him in thy heart on earth that would not be alone without thee in heaven Behold when he brought down heaven upon earth in his own body two of the Elect brought down their glory to the Mountain to assist him His own Disciples were yet but earth and corruption and therefore incapable of such illuminated brightness till the time should come to be translated out of the prison of mortality And Angels were not fit to be his Compeers at this bout because he manifested the glorification of the flesh which pertains not to Angels but to Men. None of the living would serve the turn to appear with him in Majesty they were not supernaturalized to undergo it nor any of the Angelical Order they were not of the right Predicament two men came down unto him who had been exalted into Heaven and now I will shew with what great congruity these two men who were Moses and Elias But to omit nothing which is fit to be observ'd I will make three general heads of this matter 1. Whether all Elias and all Moses did appear both body and soul 2. From whence they came to be Parties at the celebration of this great Miracle And 3. If I can reach so far Why they became the representative persons for the whole Body of the Saints in Heaven To the first that these two Witnesses presented themselves in bodily shapes there is no wit so scrupulous I think that can make a question of it for S. Matthew says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these men were seen of Peter James and John Then they were heard talking and by their talk discover'd to be those grand Prophets as I will shew hereafter They talked as men to men vocally not in an intellectual fashion as spirits do And the Apostles in their extasie mentioned the making of Tabernacles to shrowd them in but a Tabernacle is a Coverture for a Body and not for a Spirit The controversie doth not consist in this therefore I pass it over That which hath caused diversities of judgments to arise is herein what manner of Bodies these were wherewith Moses and Elias were cloathed to attend the Transfiguration of Christ I will make bold to remove
to do The ordinary means of salvation is to lend an ear to them who bring the glad tydings of peace for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God Rom. x. 17. The very Heathen could say that the most barbarous Nations would be civilized and brought to good nurture if they would but hear Philosophy taught among them Nemo adeo ferus est qui non mitescere posset si modo culturae patientem accommodet aurem but far better effects must needs follow where Christianity is publickly taught and well observed in every mans private attention There are three sorts of them whose ear is shut when the Lord knocketh at the door to have them open First the Ignorant that doth not listen when he calls I fear there are too many so ungrounded in the first rudiments of Faith so unacquainted with the Text of Holy Screpture that they conceive as little of that which is taught as if we preacht in an unknown Language whose illiterate dulness makes plain English as unfruitful as Latin Popery These I may liken to Davids description of Idols They have ears and hear not noses but they smell not they do not apprehend nor smell the sweet savour of life in the Word of life therefore they set like Images in the Congregation they have ears and hear not Secondly there is the wilful and perverse that will not hear what is taught if it rub up his conscience and offend him this is like Davids deaf adder that stoppeth her ear which will not hearken to the voice of charmers charming never so wisely Psal lviii 5. such were the Jews that could not endure to hear of the eternal glory of Christ as soon as ever Stephen had said I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God they cried with a loud voice and stopped their ears and ran upon him Acts vii 27. God did open heaven unto him and they shut their ears against him And well they deserved says Nyssen to be left to such obdurateness they deserved not to receive such heavenly harmony into their ears as the sinful Samaritans shut their Gates against our Saviour for they deserved not to entertain him There is a third Auditor whom I may call the distracted man and cannot listen when God calls so many fancies and affairs buz in his brains when he comes into this sacred Assembly that he is presens absens as little here as if he were quite away When there is such a noise within we must needs lose our Errand when we knock at the ear without I called this the distracted Auditor because he is like that man in the Gospel possessed with an unclean Spirit that was both deaf and dumb and he that is deaf to hear I conclude he will be dumb to pray Out of this it is easie to deduce ignorance must learn to understand the truth obstinacy must take no offence at the truth The busie imagination must leave all cares and fancies at home and come to Church to mind the truth and then my Text will take place and prevail upon you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him I am loath to find fault with them that will but seem to be diligent in these most negligent times Yet that affectation which some have not only to spend but even to waste their time in hearing calls to mind the difference which Isocrates put between his two Scholars Ephorus and Theopompus the one by his good will would never take his Book in his hand the other by his good will would never lay it out of his hand the one said their Master had need of a Spur and the other of a Bridle Let me not be interpreted as if in this place in the sight of God I durst blame them that love to hear for blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness but where Religion is well planted and we rather want obedience than knowledge I would not have well-meaning people make Preaching an every days Tale for too much familiarity breeds contempt but excepting some special occasions to make it Sundays Religion A stomach over-charged is more prone to crudities than good digestion A seasonable rain enricheth the Earth with store but when showers come too fast one after another the fruits of the field are spoyled with must and rottenness And I would have this long-ear'd Age consider that six days practice in the Week are few enough to make use of one days instruction The Horse-leech sucks full and then drops off and is good for nothing take heed of that Especially take heed you be not puffed up in your mind that the number of Sermons which you hear shall be imputed to you for righteousness For as the Superstitious count their Prayers upon their Beads so some count their Religion by the multitude of godly exercises As the woman with the bloudy issue said within her self If I can but touch the hem of his garment I shall be healed So some seduced weak ones If we do but hear and hear often we shall be saved You deceive your selves for still I inculcate it is not audire but obaudire not the bare hearing but the fruit which comes by hearing that is acceptable to him who gives the reward This same simplex auditus to afford God the bare courtesie to hear him Turks and Pagans may do that and yet never believe To go further this same simplex credulitas to hear all and to trust God so far that all which he says is true sinners and reprobates may do that and yet never amend But they that are obedient and dutiful take the charge right who are not only hearers but doers of the Word of God This is that hearing which our Saviour puts into one verse both in the right and the wrong use Jo. viii 47. He that is of God heareth Gods words ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God And as hearing is no vertue unless we obey so obedience and hearing are not matcht right together unless we intend them and apply them unto Christ the voice from heaven said Hear him When God the Father had spoken from above This is my beloved Son and when he had said it twice for the stronger confirmation once at the solemnity of Baptism another time at this miracle of the Transfiguration who would have thought any more needed to be added It is much that we should put him to it to say this moreover Hear him What strange men are we that we should be taught to hear him when we know he is the Son of God in whom alone the Father is well pleased But the begining of this Point shall be to shew that this administers Consolation and removs away some sadness which might have grown upon the Disciples Moses and Elias did appear upon Mount Thabor before they were look'd for and were gone in a trice before their departure
Jordan his Disciples being with him What did this advantage them why Mors Lazari cum Lazaro discipulorum fides surgit cum sepulto says Chrysologus Lazarus was translated from death to life and this did increase the Disciples faith which lay half dead before 2. Martha sollicits for her Brother and 't is strange that Christ came to Bethany on purpose for Lazarus sake and yet spent more time with Martha than with them all The case is plain says Theophylact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alas her belief was near unto death almost quite gone and Christ came especially to quicken her with his grace that was Martha's resurrection 3. Her Sister Mary was a woful woman and she falls down in compassion about out Saviours feet St. Austin takes her to be the very same Mary that was the publick sinner which washt his feet with her tears and wip'd them with the hairs of her head Luke 7. whereupon he infers Maria peccatrix magis resuscitabatur quà m Lazarus Mary the Sinner was more revived when she was made a penitent Saint than Lazarus was when he was made a living man that was Marries resurrection 4. Here were divers Jews that came to comfort the two Sisters they were witnesses of this work and did glorifie God and believe Christ thanked his Father for it Whereupon says St. Ambrose Non unum Lazarum sed fidem omnium suscitavit it was a Resurrection day not for Lazarus alone but for the faith of all the multitude that were present whether they were the Disciples or Martha or Mary or the multitude of the Jews they had not been as they were if Christ had not made one in every part of the Miracle wherefore let us make a difference between them that came to gaze and them that came to believe a Miracle from the twelfth of this Gospel and the ninth verse The Jews came not only for Jesus sake but to see Lazarus also We come not together this day so much to see Lazarus reviv'd as to see the strength of Jesus above the power of death I have entred once before into this verse and the former both which rise up into two eminent heads like Tabor and Hermon First it is a work of great Dignity that 's one part and a work of great Divinity that 's the other part The Dignity consists in these two points First in that which Christ had spoken before when he had thus said and what was that he prayed unto his Father wherefore it is dignum oratione a work worthy of a Prayer for the preparation Secondly it is dignum proclamatione it was cried with a loud voice and fit to be publisht to all the world The Divinity appears in these three Circumstances 1. Exeat mortuus that a dead man was summon'd to appear 2. Exeat quatriduanus Lazarus after four days departure comes forth 3. Exeat ligatus he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin he comes forth of the Monument O strange Divinity the Sepulchers which were shut did open for Christ did call who had the key of David the dead who lay in silence could hear his tongue for it was the same voice which makes the Hinds to bring forth young ones the Body which lay putrified four days gave no offence in the smel Christ was at hand who is a sweet favour for us unto God the feet which were bound with Grave-cloaths could walk before him for in him we live and move and have our being Was not this work worthy of a Prayer was it not worthy of a Proclamation so far I have gone already as likewise into the first Circumstance of the Divinity that a dead man was raised up As Aelian says of the Sybarites that they invite their Guests to a Feast a just year before the day of the Feast so long is it since I promised you the dispatch of this Text and now I am come to perform it you see what remains for this hours employment the two latter Circumstances Quatriduanus excitatur Lazarus is raised up after he had been four days in the Grave and 2 ligatus excitatur it was he that was bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face with a Napkin two strange parts of his resurrection not lightly to be passed over for to speak of a Miracle suddenly and in a word non dat lucem videntibus sed pavorem it is like lightning says one the flash that glides by of a sudden it may terrifie the eye but not enlighten it First of ille quatriduanus he came forth alive who had been four days asleep in the Monument It is hard to perswade death to part with any thing it hath gotten The Devil strove with the Angel about the Body of Moses think you that Death would not strive with Christ much more about the Soul of Lazarus what a Guest of four dayes continuance and let him go I may say to the Grave as the Prophet said to Ahab for letting Benhadad escape Why hast thou let a man go out of thy hand who was appointed to utter destruction Wherefore St. Chrysostom brings in Death to complain of this fact for a sore grievance on this wise Elias rais'd up a Child whose soul was departed for a time Elisha did as much likewise this I took for a violence done to nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but here 's a Conqueror that 's more violent than them both he takes a dead man out of my chaws who stinks and hath been four days in the Sepulcher The same Father replies again this is a small thing to raise up one from burial after four days do you complain of that what if he were putrified what if he were dry bones what if he were dust and clay yea what if that dust were converted into other creatures Adam shall be cloathed again with flesh Noah hath lived in two Worlds he shall live again in a third And according to the Basil Edition of the 72. Job was one of those that rose and appeared in the holy City unto many Matth. 27. Si attendamus quis fecit delectari debemus potiùs quà m mirari says St. Austin If we do but attend who it is that doth all these things we shall rather break out into a passion of Joy than into Admiration For Christ that died for us and rose again for our Justification he hath the Keys of Life and Death and therefore we shall not see corruption for ever Martha had a faith that God could raise up her Brother again and that He would do it if Christ would pray unto him I know even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God God will give it thee O Woman says Chrysologus thou art yet but of little faith Judex ipse est quem tu postulas Advocatum Wouldest thou make Christ thine Advocate to plead thy Cause Nay Comfort is nearer at hand he is the Judge whom thou
of Heaven and all the Stars thereof Moreover Vna Sabbati litterally rendred is not the first but one day of the Week because one is the first ground to begin numbring and Theophilact says the Lords day is called the one day of the Week either because it is the only day from whence the blessing is procured for all the rest or besides it is a figure of the life to come Quando una tantum dies est nequaquam nocte interpolata when there shall be but one day for ever and no night of darkness to interrupt it Thus much of the words The matter of the Point is of a more profitable use And hence I begin that as God the Father upon the first day did begin to make this visible world of Creatures so Christ rose the same day from the dead to signifie that a new Age was then begun Resurrectio est alterius mundi spiritualis creatio says Justin Martyr The Resurrection is well called a creation of a new spiritual world On the first day of the Week God said Let there be light and he divided between the light and the darkness Verily on that wise on the first day of the Week God brought the light of the world out of the darkness of the Grave and the life says St. John was the light of men Now this infinite work to tread death under feet and to bring all flesh out of corruption into the state of immortality being more eximious than to make man in a possibility at first to die and perish therefore all Christian Churches have desisted to meet together at holy exercises upon the Sabbath of the Jews and the first day of the Week is the day appointed to sanctifie out selves unto the Lord for what reason I will now unfold and it is a case of no small perplexity And let me auspicate from the Text and Authority of Holy Scripture and these places following do conspire to verifie the Truth Acts xx 7. Paul abode seven days at Troas the seventh day of his abode was the first day of the Week then and not before it seems upon the first day of the Week when the Disciples came together to break Bread that is to partake of the Lords Supper Paul preacht unto them This seems to approve that in the Apostles time it was no more in use for their Disciples to meet upon the Sabbath but as well to honor the Resurrection as to separate from the Rites and Customs of the Jews in the Spirit of God they did convene together on the first day of the Week From Preaching and Administring the Holy Communion let us come to Collection of Alms. 1 Cor. xvi 2. Vpon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come How can this be expounded but that distributions were made to the poor upon the first day of the Week in their most solemn Assemblies For if the meaning were that every man should set apart a share of his own gains upon that day in his private Coffers and not in the publick Treasury when their Congregations were together then Collections had been to be made from house to house when Paul was to come who desires it might be laid up in readiness as it were in one stock before 'T is pity we are faln from that good order but in the most antient Church I find that they never miss'd to carry the Poors Box about every Lords Day witness this place of St. Cyprian Locuples es dives Dominicam celebrare te credis quae Corbanam omnino non respicis Thou that art rich and wealthy dost thou imagin thou keepest the Lords Day as thou oughtest and dost cast nothing into the Treasury Thirdly as the last day of the Week when God rested from his works was called the Sabbath of the Lord so it is of much moment to the point that the first day of the Week is called the Day of the Lord or the Lords Day Rev. i. 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lords Day as it appears Rev. i. 13. John was walking on the Sea shore meditating upon holy things in the Isle of Patmos Very probable that there was no solemn meeting to praise God as it ought to have been among those Pagan Islanders otherwise John had not betaken himself to solitary Meditations but see how he was recompensed Nactus est Doctorem ipsum Deum quando fortasse deessent quos ipse doceret when he was disconsolate because he wanted Auditors to teach God preached unto him the Mysteries of the Age to come But to enforce the Text forenamed for an Argument we have but two things in the New Testament called the Lords the Sacrament is called the Supper of the Lord 1 Cor. xi 20. and this day of Christian Assemblies is called the Lords Day the Lords Prayer and the Lords House are good Phrases but our own not the Scriptures but as we keep the Feast of Passeover no more but instead thereof eat the Lords Supper so neither do we observe the Jews Sabbath any more but instead thereof we keep the Lords Day Thus far I have prest the Authorities of Sacred Scripture The Authority of the Primitive Church and so downward to this Age will convince it clearly against any that is obstinate Ignatius was St. John's Scholar and as if he had learnt of his Teacher he writes thus Let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lords Day which is dedicated to the honor of his Resurrection the Queen and Princess of all days Justin Martyr commands the same day to be kept holy to the Lord every Week in his 2. Apolog. So doth Tertullian more than once and I cited St. Cyprian before The Council of Laodicea speaks thus resolutely Anathema to all those that rest upon the Sabbath let them keep the Lords Day when they observe a vacancy of labor and do as becometh Christians The great Council of Nice doth not command the first day of the Week to be kept holy but supposeth in the 20. Canon all good Christians would admit that without scruple and then appoints other significant Ceremonies to be kept upon the Lords Day from Easter to Whitsontide I need not reckon downward after the Nicen Council because in one word I have not heard or read that it was opposed by any of the Fathers They knew that an appointed time must be allotted for every necessary Duty and certainly upon the abrogation of the Old Sabbath not Man but God did appoint a time for so necessary a thing as the religious Service of his Name Christ made an end of all Sabbaths by his own Sabbath lying all that day and night in the Grave and to hold that the Sabbath which is but a Shadow is to continue is to hold that Christ the Body is not yet come yet that being laid apart let us
Church was that there were no divisions or distractions in their Body God be praised for the multiplication of his Saints now over all the world we cannot meet now under one Roof as these did nor sit down in rows in one Field together as those 5000 did whom our Saviour fed in the Desart the bounds of all the Land of Canaan are not able to hold us God be glorified for the increase Our unity of place is to meet in those publique Assemblies which are allotted to particular Churches at those appointed times which are enjoyned us In no wise to slack our presence here on the Lords day to flock together on other festival days at Morning Prayer on week days to be much more diligent than we have been fie upon our tardiness and excuses in that duty do we look that God shall bless us in our Persons and Calling to take a Benediction away with us to serve us the whole week and come no oftner is not he the God that makes men to be of one mind to come to the Temple together and there to receive the Holy Ghost Chiefly I wish heartily in Christ that they would consort together with us who take no offence at our Doctrine established but make a separation and strangeness both from us and among themselves for matter of Ceremonies and things indifferent They that are baptized into Christ and one Faith why should they not come together with one accord in one place I must not be prolix I will say no more to it but let us say with St. Paul Hebr. x. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are not of them who separate or draw back unto perdition Vnto perdition let that be noted The observation of this point gains thus much more out of St. Austin As all the Tribes of Israel were gathered together about Mount Sinah to hear in what manner the Law was proclaimed so here was an agreement of all persons to joyn together to receive the Holy Ghost but in that admirable similitude there is this dissimilitude that the people were prohibited with many terrors to come near the place where the Law was delivered but at this time the Holy Ghost was sent unto them who expecting the promise were all with one accord in one place And Calvin conjects much unto this note that the minds of the faithful were exceedingly encouraged and chang'd for the better the stoutest Champions of them all had no manlike fortitude in them before the Shepherd was smitten and instantly they were scattered and ran away for fear now the very women had hardned themselves against all danger they mix themselves together in one place with that holy company and fear no evil that can happen unto them A resolved constant mind an heroick heart to take up the Cross of Christ and to suffer unto the death for righteousness sake is a sign of much grace in the soul and an admirable preparation to receive the greatest measure of the Holy Ghost And that you may not think this Apostolical Society had crept into a dark corner where no espials could find them out Many Authors that have laboured to understand where it was say it was a spacious goodly Room of as much note as any private House in all Jerusalem and frequented so often by the Apostles that their haunt was known through all the City All that I have met withal conclude it was the same upper Chamber where our Saviour celebrated his last Supper and so consecrated the place Nicephorus and Cedrenus say it was the House of John the Evangelist for he took the Blessed Virgin to his own home and she was now among them a slender guess God wot and repugnant to many circumstances of Scripture Theophylact says it was the House of Simon the Leper how can that be when his House was in Bethany Matth. xxvi 6. Euthymius says it was the House of Joseph of Arimathea an honourable Counseller and had goodly Rooms to receive them Baronius goes with the most voices all are but conjectures that it was the House of Mary the Mother of John whose surname was Mark. To this Adrichomius consents and says this was the place where 3000 Jews were converted by Peter and baptized thither Peter betook himself when the Angel brought him out of prison there Stephen and others were made Deacons there James the Brother of our Lord so called was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem there the first Council of the Apostles was held Acts xv All ancient Authors conclude it was about where the Tower of Sion stood and this is certain that Helen the Mother of Constantine did build a goodly Temple upon the same place to honour that holy ground It was a Figure of the whole Church of Christ so much the more to be remembred and the Church is a Figure of the Kingdom of Heaven where all the Saints and I trust all we shall praise the Lord with one accord in one place for evermore It follows now as the outward Bond of Peace was with this Society so they were claspt together faster with the inward Bond of Agreement with the unity of the same spirit they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one accord There cannot be a more proper true and certain disposition to make us meet for the Holy Ghost than unanimity As the Halcyon so our Naturalists say never appears but against fair weather so the Spirit comes either not at all or not very plentifully unto us until he find concord among us without jars and tranquility without bitterness The unity of the Apostles is called by the Fathers parasceue spiritus the way-making to receive the grace of God and if the Patient be prepared aright the Agent will do his work the sooner and the better No gifts of benediction are given to strive and oppose to fight one against another but for charity and edification therefore it was the beginning of our Collect three Sundays past Almighty God which dost make the minds of all faithful men to be of one will and it is a principal part of our Gospel for this day Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you That peace which Christ left among the Apostles was as it were an earnest penny put into their hands that they should have the full donative of the Comforter from above Our Saviour was born in the days of Caesar Augustus when a still Peace was over all the world now He pours out his holy spirit upon them that were of one accord and of one heart the one was his first act upon earth the other is his last then he was cloathed with our flesh now we are invested with his spirit This remarkable amity and Saint-like brotherhood among the Members of the Church which had no ruptures was well prefigur'd in the old Feast of Pentecost which was kept by the Jews For Levit. xxiii 19. upon the day of Pentecost among other Burnt-offerings the Priests were appointed in
sufficient bigness to hold those three thousand that were converted ver 41. of this Chapter To that other Circumstance also that the men and women are said to be sitting in the house when this blessing came down upon them I have little to add I love reverence of gesture with all my soul yet I love not to be so nice as some that hold it so necessary for the Apostles to be humbled on their knees when the grace of God fell on them that they say the meaning of the Text is not sitting but kneeling howsoever the words go and that to sit signifies not the posture of their body but their habitation I confess and believe if they had lookt for the Comforter at that moment they would have cast themselves down upon the ground when the Majesty of God was in the place and I perswade my self they did instantly kneel and give thanks as soon as they perceived what mighty work God had wrought upon them But remember they were taken suddenly and unawares in some honest communication no doubt And being so unprovided why might not Christ begin this Miracle while they were sitting as well as Christ appear from heaven to Paul as he was riding or God appear unto Moses while he was keeping sheep Excellently Cajetan Non horreo sessionem corporalem cum nihil indecens inducat I am not scrupulous or troubled at their sitting as long as it was done with no obstinate irreverent disobedient affection O but the Roman Missal for this day hath this Hymn Orantibus Discipulis Deum venisse nunciat While they were at their prayers they mean kneeling the sound gave them warning that the Holy Ghost was come Well this case is quickly resolved their Hymn is mistaken and let them mend their Missal and not mend the Scripture Is there any thing more to be extracted out of this last Point One thing and that is all It is a remarkable note of a most acute Father of our own Church Thus This Wind filled not all the Country or all Jerusalem but that house where they sate Nay says he and very truly that Room only of the house where they were assembled One Room for an whole house is a frequent Synechdoche Natural Winds breath over many places at once but this Wind blew electivè by choise and discretion The Spirit blows upon certain places where it will and upon certain persons and they shall plainly feel it and others about them not a whit It is a peculiar wind appropriate to the place where the Apostles are that is the Church else where to seek it is but folly the place it bloweth in is Sion This is the Divinity of that great Scholar Bishop Andrews that the Spirit hath not cast an universal diffusion over all the world but it blows by election and choise that is at Gods good will and pleasure upon that place only where Christ hath his Church For what use can they make or have they ever made of the Spirit to whom the name of Christ and salvation in his bloud was never revealed The purpose of giving the Holy Ghost is to make the Seed of the Word fruitful in our hearts that we may believe the Gospel that we may live holily according to the profession of our Faith and that through faith which must work by love if it be true faith we may be saved AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE Descent of the Holy Ghost ACTS ii 3. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sat upon each of them OF all Mysteries of all Visions of all Revelations which the Church ever had this that is conteined in my Text hath one peculiar blessing that it is most easie to be understood I can give no reason for it but this that as natural light makes all colours visible to our eyes and it self most visible so the Holy Ghost causeth all celestial Doctrin that concerns eternal salvation to be revealed to the knowledg of faith and makes himself to be most apparent and intelligible Therefore I cannot but observe it unto you that some Angel or some Saint departed did always interpose their presence at the other mighty works of the Gospel only they forbore to shew themselves at this Feast of Pentecost upon the sending of the Holy Ghost I will spread this before you in a trice and my conjecture upon it At the Nativity of our Saviour many Angels were employed to divulge it At his Transfiguration Moses and Elias appeared to ratifie it At his Agony in the Garden an Angel waited there to strengthen him At his Resurrection two Angels in white appeared in his Sepulcher to glorifie him And lastly at his Ascension two others clad in as white apparel as they did testifie of him But upon the descending of the Holy Ghost the Angels did quite withdraw themselves I am sure they came not in any bodily shape into the place where the Apostles were gathered together for that were as the Proverb says facem soli praeferre to light a candle before the Sun at noon day and that illustrates all things can be illustrated by nothing but by himself This is the comfort then of my Text that we have light on every side to walk in this is the great latitude of the benefit conteined in it that it gives us vocem scientiam linguam ignem both tongue and fire both science and elocution sapere fari quae sentiat to conceive clearly that which is fit to be learnt and to utter distinctly that which is wisely conceiv'd And therefore in one word we owe unto this blessed day both completely to be made happy and completely to know our happiness No marvel if the Old Church many hundred years since which was most prudent in appointing Festivals did constitute that between Easter and Whitsuntide all the fifty dayes should be destinated to joy and gladness that all the people should sing haleluja with a loud voice so often as they met in their holy Assemblies that there should be no fasting days no mourning no not so much as the dejection of kneeling on the ground but to stand and pray all that space of time these Fathers were exceeding full of ceremony to express the gladness which they had for the gift of the Holy Ghost And therefore Bernard calls the Lenten strictness that goes before Easter Quadragesimam luctus paenitentiae the fourty days of godly sorrow and repentance but he calls the time following to Whitsuntide Quinquagesimam gaudii the fifty days of Exaltation for our joy doth surpass our sorrow At Easter we are assured by Christs Resurrection that the body shall rise from corruption at Whitsuntide these firy tongues do manifest that the Soul shall rise from darkness and ignorance and be partaker of the marvelous light And because this mighty miracle was communicated to the Apostles in most sensible objects therefore I told you the last year that the third person
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
Gospel we must always rejoyce for the Kingdom of Christ Upon the establishment of this Kingdom all the Creatures are adjured to express their gladness Psal xcvi I quote that place for there is none like it to this purpose thus the Psalmist ver 10. Say among the Heathen that the Lord reigneth let the Heavens rejoyce and let the Earth be glad let the Sea roar and the fulness thereof let the field be joyful and all that is therein then shall all the trees of the Wood rejoyce before the Lord for he cometh for he cometh to judge the earth Tenerae militiae delicatus conflictus as Gregory says We call our Pilgrimage upon earth a Christian warfare a wrestling with Powers and Principalities an affliction of the flesh the sufferance of the Cross c. And are all those affrighting words converted into this Lesson Rejoyce and be glad He that will stick with God for the duty Jubeas miserum esse libenter let him eat the bread of sorrow let him live in misery and mourning when he need not Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn while the Bridegroom is with them Says our Saviour to the Pharisees when they grudg'd that his Disciples did not humble and macerate themselves with fasting But the days will come that the Bridegroom shall be taken from them and then they shall mourn Two things I deduce from hence Out of the latter words it appears that dismal times will befal the Church Evangelical by bloody persecutions by the venemous tongues of Hereticks sharper than any two-edged Sword Yet those woful Calamities result not out of the Gospel it self but are extrinsecal mischiefs that force themselves upon it And though the Bridegroom be gone he hath sent the Comforter and in the midst of sorrows his enlightnings do enrich the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we converse says St. Paul among sad events as if we were sorrowful but in good earnest we are alway rejoycing But secondly it appears from the exordium of our Saviours Sermon Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn while the Bridegroom is with them That the Gospel in its own nature is a Bride-chamber or solemnization of a great Marriage wherein there is nothing but joyfulness and festivity Says the Apostle Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us that was the constitution of the Gospel Well what follows Therefore let us keep the Feast 1 Cor. v. 8. St. Cyprian reads it Festa celebremus let us keep the Feasts let us all days festival for Christs sake St. Paul alludes to the Feast of unleavened bread among the Jews which was held seven days continually without ceasing In like sort let us celebrate such a feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and Numerus septenarius est symbolum universitatis to keep it for seven days is from the mystical number of eternity to keep it for ever and ever Clemens says Vniversa vita justi est quidam celebris ac sanctus dies All the life of a good Christian is holy day Pope Sylvester meant it so when he changed the common names of the week days and called them all Ferias Feria prima secunda and so forth Nay our own Church intends it so likewise therefore in our Cathedral Churches solemn praise are sung to the Organ all the year long with the voice of melody and in Parochial Churches every day of the year when Morning Prayer is read after the Confession and Absolution of our sins the Introitus or Introduction appointed is an Hymn and thus it begins Come let us sing unto the Lord let us heartily rejoyce in the strength of our salvation If I descend to some particulars wherein our Evangelical gladness consists I know it will be more satisfactory to the Auditory First It brings with it a spiritual delight Secondly An external gladness which opens it self in signs and tokens The spiritual delight which we treasure up within the soul looking stedfastly upon Jesus that died for our sins and rose again for our justification is heavenly and unutterable it is a superlative joy that cries down all other petty delights It is risus ex serenitate conscientiae as the Fathers call it not Sarahs gigling but Abrahams laughter when he believed that Isaac should be born and involved in the same belief that Christ the Redeemer should be born out of the stock of Isaac The external utterances of a pious joy are these 1. Days of rest from bodily labour for the meaner labour must give way when a better and a worthier is to be undertaken And while the mind hath just occasion to make its abode in the house of gladness the weed of ordinary toil and travel doth not become us therefore it is fit that ordinary labour should sometimes surrender it self up to the service of God 2. To laud the name of the Lord and to give thanks unto him are the only language of our thankfulness Says David I went with the multitude unto the house of the Lord in the voice of praise and thanksgiving among such as keep holy day Psal xlii 5.3 God doth not deny it but he that offereth him praise doth honour him but will you know how that honour is best exalted Make a chearful noise to the God of Jacob singing and making melody to the Lord with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs If the Jews might justly say how can we sing the Lords song while we are in a strange Land while we are in Captivity Then we must acknowledge on the contrary how can we choose but sing the Lords Song being delivered out of captivity Singing of Psalms is a most proper exercise of our reasonable service Curious Musick upon costly Instruments is an admirable alarm for devotion in Cathedral and Collegiate places where such as are wise and skilful do come together to enjoy it Yet still the people have their Vulgar Psalms to solace their hearts and they that mock at such innocent harmony have great want of charity that they will not descend to the weakness of their poor brethren St. Hierom tells it of his days that as the people walk'd about the Market as they sailed in Ships as they wrought with their Needle they sung these holy Ditties Says St. Basil this is irksome to none but to the Devil let scoffers mark that for the evil Spirit went out of Saul when David played upon the Harp and David was no profane Minstril but an holy Singer 4. Another effect of Christian joy is to give because it abounds A joy that will not distribute to the needy is a shrunken withered joy nay a joy that will carry the curse of God with it because it wants fruits And a joy that will carry the curse of the poor with it because they are suffered to pine and languish in our publick gladness 5. And lastly all sorts of mirth and innocent recreation wherein our Substance is not exhausted nor our time trifled away are agreeable
world and therefore Dulia a petty Worship will serve for them to cross this absurdity I confess that God is honourable alike as in one Appellation so in another but our eternal happiness is granted unto us by this Appellation more than any other But when as Samuel came to anoint one of the Sons of Jessai for a King Eliab was beautiful in his eyes and so was Abinadab and so was Shammah but God would have the Horn of Oyl poured only upon the head of David So let every tongue confess that the names of Jehovah Elohim Immanuel and Christ are reverend and glorious and worthy that our knees should stoop unto them as low as Earth and our lips carry them as high as Heaven But Peter hath wrought Miracles by the Name of Jesus and Paul hath preach'd glorious things of the Name of Jesus therefore my Soul and Body shall be prostrate to that Name especially which is wonderful and holy The neglect of this is an undutiful omission yet I reckon it not in the place of the greatest sins But the greatest reproach and dishonour which the Name of God doth suffer is in the mouth of the Swearer and Blasphemer that is the Tongue whereof St. James speaks that is set on fire from Hell Yea and Nay the trial of all truth is accounted in this dissolute Age precise and simple communication What God is he that you swear by so often Is it not he that gave you breath and can stop your breath at a moment Whose Bloud is that you swear by Even that Bloud which should wash away your sins is unto you an occasion of more pollution Whose Wounds are these you swear by Even those Wounds wherein you should bury your sins make them live unto condemnation as St. Hierom said Ipse aer constupratur scelestis vocibus that ribald obscene talk did adulterate the air So I may say of Oaths that are vomited up from the superfluity of sin Ipse aer profanatur scelestis vocibus the Air is prophaned and unhallowed by abusing the Name of God Lord to what an excess this windy airy sin of Swearing is come to I think for one reason the Devil may be called the Prince of the Air because he is the Prince of such blasphemous language And so much for the Honour due to the Name of God But secondly to Honour his Name and to disobey his Word is to imitate those disloyal Subjects of the Emperour Maximilian they called Maximilian scornfully Regem Regum a King of Kings it was because the Nobles that were under him lived like Kings without subjection or obedience Or it is to make such a God to our selves as the Church of Rome makes Bishops in the East the one is called Bishop of Antioch another called Bishop of Jerusalem and Title enough they have if that would maintain them but nothing else Keep your Masters Commandments and love his Ordinances to do them and then God is Honoured Concerning Obedience read and observe the life and death of Saul he would sacrifice to God and that of the fattest Cattel among all the Flocks of the Amalekites Why this was Honour one would think No it was not juxta Verbum Domini according to the word which was brought unto him by the mouth of Samuel and God prefers Obedience before Sacrifice This is the reason says Aquine in Sacrifice we offer up the flesh of a beast but in Obedience we offer up our own will unto God The Jews did so much esteem the killing Letter of the Law that they wore it as the chief ornament of their Vesture in the Fringe of their Garments as Frontlets before their eyes and about the wrists of their hands mark but that before their eyes for meditation about their arms for practise and execution There is a rule in Physick says a learned Bishop Per brachium fit judicium de corde The Veins come from the heart to the hand and there Physicians take their Crisis by their Pulse and motion So it is in Divinity you must make conscience of your knowledge by your practice and obey the word David held the word of God super mille pondo auri argenti above thousands of Gold and Silver Solomon esteemed the Law to be as bright as the Sun in the Firmament Praeceptum Domini lucidum illuminans oculos You have heard of Idolaters that have worshipped the Sun and Moon Much more let true Believers reverence the Law of God which is brighter than the Sun in the Firmament for so Elias thought and he covered his face with a Mantle as soon as ever the Lord spake as if the voice of the Lord were eyes sufficient to see by and he needed not the eyes of this body But far above Kings and Prophets and all the Sons of men the holy Angels are so ready to do Gods will that you shall scarce once read in Scripture that they were bid to go of Gods Errand but before you could say Do this they were gone to dispatch the Lords Employment Surely as it was a great abasement for the Word which was God to be united to the flesh of man so it is a great Honour for man who is but flesh to be united in obedience to the Word of God To contract my self in this Point Remember what manner of Law it is that we should obey St. Paul says it is sancta justa bona holy in respect of God that gave it just toward all men in civil commerce good for our selves to live in peace and safety What yoke then is more easie than the yoke of that Law which is holy and just and good Now in the third place as the Air which we hear sounding in our ears by concretion says Philosophy becomes clear water and may be seen so the Word of God which we hear preached unto the Ear in the holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper becomes verbum visibile a visible word in wine and water Honour one and honour the other for though they be twain in the administration yet in effect they are but one and the same one in application of our Saviours merits and the mercies of God one in fruit and efficacy to wash away our sins and to cleanse our Soul For as the bright Constellation which we call the Morning and Evening Star is one and the same So Christ in Baptism is the Morning light which illuminates Infants anon after they peep into the world and Christ in his Last Supper is the Evening Star Vltimum viaticum a light to shew every man the right way out of the world that is going to Heaven As one said of Prayer that it was due unto God when we rise and when we go to bed as a Morning and an Evening Sacrifice and therefore it might be called Clavis diei sera noctis the Key to open the day and the Bolt to lock in the night So I may say of the two Sacraments that they
his Story of the Jesuits affairs makes his Protoplast Ignatius Loiola to be so fortunate in carrying all the substance of the Scripture in his mind that had the Scriptures been utterly lost a thing perchance which he wisht for Ignatius could have delivered all points of faith without book I would you were all as truly such as Orlandine fain'd and imagin'd him to be I would you were such as that Antonius of Padua who by those that admired his cunning in the Scriptures was called Arca Testamenti the Ark wherein the Law of God was laid up to be kept I would you would make them your inheritance as David did Thy testimonies have I claimed as mine inheritance for ever Like righteous Naboth though Ahab and Jezebel the Devil and the flesh would extort that Inheritance from you sooner die than part with it but when you are so oblivious and forgetful of all holy things Gods blessings your own repentance and the sweet relish of the Scriptures is it not a sign that you despise the Lord Thirdly contempt is seen in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to take it to heart not to be wounded with compassion when Sion is wasted and Gods honour is trampled under feet Like Gallio the Deputy in the 18. of the Acts that professed he sat in judgment to take up discords of civil peace but if a controversie come before him about the Law of God let it be right or wrong he would not meddle with it But Lot was grieved and afflicted with the filthy conversation of the Sodomites 2 Pet. ii 7. though Persecutions of bloud be not upon our land and O Lord be gracious still and for ever to keep them from us yet a righteous man suffers some persecution in his soul when filthy conversation jets about before his eyes Phineas was inflam'd with zeal to see Adultery in the Congregation and slew both Zimri and the Moabitess Num. 25. Ezekias rent his Garments and put on sackcloth when he heard the blasphemy of Rabshekah against the living God Horror hath taken hold on me says David because of the wicked that forsake thy Law Psal cxix 53. there is not such a Sacrifice offered up unto God says St. Ambrose as a zealous conscience that is eaten up as it were and consumed because the fear of God is imminish'd among the Sons of men nay says he take away zeal for Gods honour and you take away the office the excellency nay the very nature and substance of an Angel Old Polycarpus went always right with the true Doctrine of the Church but because Hereticks grated his ears with their unsavoury opinions he cries out Deus bone in quae tempora me reservasti at haec audiam Good Lord why do I live to hear such pestilent speeches against thy glory Beloved upon these your Festival days of pomp and ostentation give ear a little to the calamities which the Protestant Church doth suffer at this day under the hands of Tirants that do not love the purity of our Gospel Our Brethren that suffer the least share of their fury are threatned and besieged a most Valiant and Illustrious King through the covetousness and mutiny of his own Forces much weakned and dejected the florishing Inheritance of the Rhene quite rent away from the true and ancient Possessors Can O can you forget when the Tribe of Benjamin was as it were quite cut off with the edg of the sword that the Eleven Tribes remaining came to the House of the Lord and abode there till Evening and lift up their voices and wept sore and said O Lord God of Israel why is this come to pass in Israel that there should be to day one Tribe lacking in Israel The Country Palatine was a strong Pillar to uphold the happy proceedings of the Reformed Churches our Confederacy is now much weakned in that damage Away with Sports and Revels and gaudy Pastimes a Tribe it wanting this day in Israel let us mourn for it in our Prayers and engage our fortunes for it in the field He that doth not condole for the great blow given to the Church doth he not slight the miseries of Sion and depise the Lord Hearken now to the fourth sign of scorn and contempt which consists in this to speak ill of those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who are precious to God and of high esteem as when Hezekiah called the brasen Serpent Nehushtan a lump of Brass which the people did superstitiously adore it is manifest that Hezekiah did despise the vanity of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the saying is speak that which may be lucky and fortunate both to your selves and others let the Praises of God and his Saints be in your mouths the Lord delights to have their names exalted and magnified See what a commemoration S. Paul hath made of the faithful departed Heb. xi he passeth not over one without some Encomium of his zeal and piety nay our Saviour gave Mary Magdalen his blessing that wheresoever the Gospel was preached in all the world it should be reported to her honour what costly ointment she had poured upon his head and should we be so froward as some are to put down the solemn Holy-daies which are allotted to the memory of the Evangelists and Apostles upon whose foundation I mean their doctrin and not their person the Church is built throughout the world I fear that God would be offended at us and impute it to our disdain that we despised him because we grew weary to revive the memory of his Saints Many are willing that Bartholomew or any other Apostle should hold a Fair in the City for the quick uttering of Wares and Merchandize but they would not have the Church opened upon a solemn day for St. Bartholomews My Brethren both may be well done but the last of the two much better than the other for I hope you will know St. Bartholomew was a Churchman and not a Merchant Another fault there is let it lye upon the score of private persons and not upon the whole Church The adoration which the Church of Rome ascribes to the Blessed Virgin Mary the Invocation of Saints which they maintain St. Peters Supremacy and the Popes Succession in his person which they defend as their life these opinions are false and superstitious but none of those noble persons have therefore deserved ill at your hands that in the heat of the controversy we should insult over St. Peters faults or make havock of the Reliques of the Saints or speak slightly of that incomparable vessel the Virgin Mary and mince her title of Blessed when the sacred Hymn says that all generations shall call her blessed leave this to the railing Jew who in disdain calls our Saviour not Ben Mariam the Son of Mary but Ben Aariam the Son of her that is vile as smoak As for such backbiters of the glorious Children of God like as the smoak vanisheth so shall
they be driven from the presence of God And I pray you what credit is it to our Church to make such a bustle as some private men have done about scandalous Ministers as if the Clergy were grown so disordered that the most necessary thing to be provided for in the Weal Publick were new Laws for the rectifying and deprivation of scandalous Ministry When sundry Petitions were put into the hand of Constantine the Great at the famous Council of Nice against some Bishops and Priests and Deacons he threw them all into the fire with this answer He would not have complaints in that kind so publick but if he knew how to cover their trespasses he would cast his own royal Robe upon them As you wish that God might not be despised as you wish the Jesuits might not triumph at your Ministers beware to make such a mountain of that which private advertisement might better rectifie Many of my Brethren of good parts are unfurnish with means and where poverty and wit meet together I confess they seldom make an honest man between them God give them grace to bear their wants more religiously and with less scandal but I hope you will not think the whole Loom is bad because the List is coarse But for those that are so ready to blur their reputation whom God hath appointed to burn Incense before his name that is to pray for his people is it not a sign that God is despised by them Fifthly To step into the observation of a judicious Commentator it is an apparent disgust of contempt Minimè ad minas contremiscere not to tremble at his anger that threatens Primos in orbe Deos fecit timor says Statius not so soundly that fear was the first thing that made a God but I am sure that want of fear is the first thing that will make an Atheist and perswade a man there is no God The Prophet Isaiah could say no worse of the Idols made of stocks and stones but that they could do no evil that we should be dismaid at them Isa xli 23. Every part of our Saviours Passion was undergone to satisfie in the kind wherein we had most prevaricated Our Extortion wounded his hands our Gluttony gave him Gall to drink our want of fear put him into the strongest part of his Passion that Agony full of great fear in the Garden when he sweat drops of bloud as for them that hear lamentations read unto them that have heard the vengeance of Captivity and the Sword threatned to a wicked Land and yet their heart is not quail'd their courage is undaunted it shall fall out unto them as it did unto the Philistines they brought out Samson to play before them and made a mocking-stock so long of his Arms of Steel that at length he plucked down their Temple about their ears and brained them A filial fear that loves God for his goodness is like a bright day that hath not a cloud to disfigure it a servile fear that loves God for fear of the wrath to come is like a day that is overcast with clouds but it is clearer than the fairest Moonshine night It is good to have the Spirit of Adoption but it is better to have the Spirit of bondage than the Spirit of slumber It is good to be in Canaan but it is better to be in the Wilderness than in Egypt It is good to be a Child but it is better to be a Servant than a Stranger to the Lord. The Lions roar and the Beasts of the Forest are moved at his mighty voice the winds arise and the sowls of the air flutter and lay them down in their Nests the thunder-claps rend the air and the Spirits of Princes are dismaid and troubled but if the God of the Winds and of the Seas and of the Thunder threaten and menace us for our sins shall we not much more dread his fury and look pale at his indignation But when we bear all prodigious signs and wonders without crouching when we esteem not the terrours God help us that are now round about us is it not a sign that God is despised Sixthly To take another Arrow out of the same Quiver it is a sign we under-value the power of another Minimè ad opem ejus consugere not to fly to his help when we had need of relief so when the Israelites blurted at Saul as if he did not look like the man that could lead out their Armies against the Philistines Nunquid iste salvare potest Israelem Can such a man as this save Israel It is a manifest token that they did despise him God is much offended when we neglect him in prosperity and he is no less displeased when we do not fly to him in misery You are for the God of Ekron in your sickness says the Prophet to King Ahaziah when he sent thither for remedy is it because there is no God in Israel A word if you mark it that relisheth of most sharp indignation it is because there is no God in Israel Invoca me Psal ◠Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear thee Invocantibus miseteri desiderat qui monet ut invocetur says Gregory God hath a great good affection to be gracious unto them that invoke him when he puts us in mind to be invoked The Children of Israel were miserably oppressed with bondage under Pharaoh yet their curs'd hearts had rather put up their wrongs and suffer them than be beholding to the Lord for their delivery Trajan had rather pine away with Leprosie than call upon the name of Christ whose Servants he had persecuted Wizzards and cunning Soothsayers so called some run to these for relief Tutelary Angels that have the Patronage over several Kingdoms so well do they know what God hath appointed in Heaven imaginary Saints that are fortunate in expelling some particular disease as it is thought some run to these for protection Non defensoribus istis our hope is not in such miserable comforters as these but the Lord is our refuge in the day of trouble If we say unto the needy that God is his portion and he must not steal if we say unto the sick that the Prayer of the Faithful availeth much he must not fret and be disquiet and yet he rageth and curseth at his afflictions if we say to the opppressed that God will judge their cause and yet they desire to break the net that held them in by violence and to take private vengeance into their hand Where is their patience Where is the testimony that they fly to the Almighty in the evil days Is it not a sign that God is despised Seventhly and lastly to end this Point let me borrow but the speech of the angry Goddess when she thought she should be contemned Et quisquam numen Junonu adoret Praeterea aut supplex aris imponat honorem that is when Sacrifice comes not in plentifully to the
residue the Lord will give victory to his chosen people But as Cyrus in Xenophon speaks of the manner of the Median hunting beasts in Gardens that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hunt beasts that were bound so to follow these turncoat Fugitives which have sheltred themselves in Cloisters and are sworn to do us mischief it were vincta venari to pursue that which was entangled therefore I leave them with Judas and this brand upon both their foreheads concluding the second part of my Text c. I am now descended in the third place to the stratagem of this day and am faln upon the haters of my Lord the King A King who is an uniter of Kingdoms into one body as David was of Judah and Israel none more zealous no not David himself for the prosperity of Jerusalem and the magnificence of the holy Temple Under Christ not only the Supreme Head but under Christ the most careful Watchman of our Churches and as Christ did tenderly affect his Apostles above all other men so the Successors of the Apostles the Reverend and most holy Bishops of our Church have found not the smallest place in the love of our gracious Soveraign Surely above all men if the Clergy be not careful to set forth the honour of this day with great joy and solemnity it is their ignorance or their negligence Ignorance is the very annihilating of a Scholar negligence the foulest fault in a Labourer Had these furious Sword-men that laid their weapons to his throat sound an austere Master nay a Tyrant they must have born with it and not touch the man that bears the character of the Lords Anointed But his Peers are verè parâ—s welcom as his equals his familiar friends Had they been out of the lists of counsel not acquainted with secret affairs what should they do but be thankful for the peace which they enjoy without trouble and pray for that Government which fills them with plenteousness without their labour but they were familiars in whom he trusted adventuring his Royal Person not only under their roof but under their locks and custody Lastly had his bounty no way flown into their Coffers and whose bounty among all the Kings of the earth hath replenished more yet their bodies are secure by the protection of his Laws their souls secure by his maintenance of true Religion their goods secure by his Courts of Justice and yet his own c. Did eat of his bread that is true But to feed upon the Kings hospitality is a curtesie every day common to thousands that visit the Court But for a mighty Monarch to grace his Subjects Table with his Royal Presence and to eat of his bread this is not the felicity of every one Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter it is a respect of high honour where it lights and the glory of an illustrious Family And out of doubt that mind must be very sordid and avaricious that esteems it not the more noble grace to make their service find acceptation that they may expend somewhat rather than receive somewhat of a mighty Potentate I can spare no more time to publish the black sin of the Authors of this treachery It was Dionysius his saying to Plato that if he should dismiss him and give him leave to depart for Greece Plato would make him the common talk of Athens Do not think O King says Plato that we have so little care of learned conference that we would chuse you for our discourse So I hope beloved that our hearts are so full charged with thankfulness to God for this days deliverance that in twenty years and more we have no leisure as yet to think of the Malefactors Let this day be spent and many days following only in Prayer and Supplication and Thanksgiving to that God who hath given victory to his Anointed and will do to his Seed for evermore Nay let me add one thing coronidis vice and I have quite done we have found this verse to tax Achitophel to condemn Judas and lastly to lie at their door who perished deservedly this day in their own fury Bonaventure hath yet smelt out another enemy and such a one as none more familiar none more intimate to any of us all Is not this fair warning beloved And will you know who it is O man it is thy self He that prays to God to bless him from his enimies is afraid of malice indeed it is a dreadful thing He that prays to God to bless him from his friends is afraid of treachery and indeed no mischief less avoidable But let me pray to God to bless me from my self no enemie so full of flattery so like to prevail so cunning in tentation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is the Civil War which wastes the inward parts it is the carnal man against the spiritual Self-love is every mans disease Why You are your own familiar friend Confession of sins can hardly be extorted from us Why We trust to our selves too much Gluttony and Riot are within our Walls Why We feed our selves and are our own carvers From our enemies defend us O Christ from Forain Invasion from Domestical Conspiracy from the malice of Satan and from the corruption of this vile Flesh the body of death which we carry about Good Lord deliver us AMEN THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Fifth of November AMOS ix 2. Though they dig into Hell thence shall my hand take them WE have two sorts of Holy-days and Festivals to call Assemblies together into the Church of God Some in honour of the Saints who are our friends that their Piety may redound to our imitation Some occasioned by the malice of our enemies to sing praises for our preservation both are useful if we advise aright And who knows whether King David was instructed better from Hushai his Friend or from Shemei that reviled him He that would be safe says Plutarch and walk sure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he must either have true Friends or bitter enemies And as God would have it the Church hath plenty of both sorts Saints of honour in heaven spiteful men to undermine it upon earth darkness beneath to complot treachery light above to reveal it There is both manus fodiens an hand digging into Hell against us and manus educens the eternal hand that fashioned all things on our side to take them out Beloved here are two chief instructions from two main ways to inform our faith blessed is every one that hath duly prepared one heart to receive them Which that we may the better do I pray observe what a lofty Hyperbole the whole verse doth consist of threatning the ungodly that they shall neither have advantage by Heaven nor Hell Though they dig c. They that go about to cast away themselves are not in their way except they wander And that you may know how sinners straggle whithersoever they go mark what several interpretations the words do bear Hugo the
usage that the souls were put to One at the wheel another drawing water some rowling stones and some twining cords every corner full of fretful industry For if Satan himself take no rest shall his instruments look for ease and softness Six days thou shalt labour God requires no more Nay thou shalt labour seven days Sunday and every day alike and break the Sabbath that is the Doctrine of the Tempter I speak to them that can judge of the secresie of States and the wisdom of the world what a Labyrinth Matchiavel hath put his disciples into to learn his mysteries and principles of treachery How many Centuries of Rules to be observed Which I know not but by the Index it will ask brains to dig and delve for that invention of iniquity but pure Religion and undefiled may be comprehended in the smalest Medal Love thy neighbour as thy self All Liquors that are wholsom for the sound are for the most part simple and unmixed but how many extractions go before how many distillations and decoctions follow after to make a Poyson Cariùs venenum quà m vinum bibitur It is an easie matter to tread the Vintage and press out the juyce of the Grape in great plenty but you must attend the fire and furnace to confect a drachm of poyson So the service of Baal is but vassalage his Priests roar from Morning to Evening they lance and wound their Carkasses fodiunt ad inferos they dig to Hell but the service of the Lord passeth away with joy and melody A sacrifice of Prayer at Morning and a sacrifice of praise at Evening an heart without guile towards men a stedfast belief in Jesus Christ this is all And yet will you say the ways of the Lord are grievous The forbidden fruit you know it was not planted in the skirts of Paradise near to the hedge where any man might reach it but in penetralibus in the midst of the garden as if God had hidden sin from man but that the Serpent made him industrious to find it out Quid irâ laboriosius says Seneca Look upon the pale face of anger and envy Is not that sin a labour Consider the loathing of surfeit and drunkenness is not that sin a labour Go to the Hospitals of incontinent lascivious persons see how their marrow and their bones are consumed is not that sin a labour Will you laugh a little at the pitiful object of a covetous man No we will not sport our selves with his vanity the Lord shall have him in derision but when he denies sleep to his eyes and meat to his belly and rest to his bones to scrape in a mite more to his heap is not that sin a labour Finally let us look upon our Parliament Pioneers such another Band as Judas brought from the High Priest with Lanthorns and Staves to betray Christ three years they kept this Fox in their bosom till at last it eat out their bowels Three years O Lord they did behold thy heavens above and all that time did never think of Hell that was within them Did they not plow up the Seas to and fro in conference with foreign Nations Did they not plow up the Land with their own arm and possessed vaults with all Munition as if they had belonged to the Devils Armory When were any Gentlemen daintily bread put more to labour What use shall we make now of all these instances But cast off the bondage of iniquity be not vassals to the Prince of darkness since Christ hath made you free O but you will say the work of Godliness is very great the Gospel is a yoke the way to glory is streight and narrow So it is And no question if you look not upon the reward to come every course in the world is painful Life and death the fear of God and the power of sin all are vexation of spirit in this corruptible flesh But Beloved who gave you feet and hands Who did frame your body woven with veines and strengthned with sinews What may God Almighty say that did all this As that Roman did to his Son Non te genui Catilinae sed patriae Since you needs must work either in my Vineyard or in the Devils Dunghil turn unto him that gave you limbs to work they were not made to dig into Hell but for my imployment and my glory And so much for the tedious labour to the which the ungodly do enthral themselves Now secondly digging doth imply that they cast about for conveyance and secresie a thing that God did always reprove ever since he divided between the light and darkness The Ferret the Mole and the Cony those creatures that dig into the ground were unclean food to Gods children Lev. xi Spiritus movebatur super expansum Gen. i. the face of the world lay open before God when the Spirit moved upon it but there are an evil sort of men whose Spirit never moves upon the face of the earth but live as if they were strangers in our Horizon and traded with our Antipodes close and subtle fearful of nothing but a revelation you can scarce fathom how deep their soul lies within their body When Saul enquired for the Prophet Samuel every Maiden whom he found carrying a pitcher of water could certifie him that the Man of God did sacrifice on the top of the hill 1 Sam. ix But he was fain to enquire and search over all the Land to find out the Witch of Endor Apemantus the Cynick says Plutarch never thought himself better than in the company but of one more his Partner Timon never thought himself more chearful than when he was quite left alone The face of man will ever carry so much reverence so much of the Image of God that outragious sins will turn away and be loth to appear before it Herodotus reports of certain Indians that were wont to blaspheme the bright Sun when it rose in glory as if the nights were too short to commit filthiness Why but our very name is enough to dispel darkness from our actions We are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Greeks as if men and day-children did not differ one letter and they that lurk and retire like Sisera in the Tent of Jael and live like Meteors the imperfect bodies of nature in a cloud they seem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to repine at their birth and creation which hath brought them to the light Besides that the substance of our nature is more naked from the womb than any beast without hair or feathers without scales or shell to cover us like the Fishes of the Sea Besides this I say Nature hath provided that the Countenance of no creature doth betray the inward disposition so much as the face of man Then let Herod the Fox know and the profound Craftsmen of our age that God hath half opened the heart of man in the complexion of his visage as Isaac did open the two Wells in the Valley
examination for they will not tell us what they mean It cannot be that Terrestrial Paradise out of which Adam was banisht it cannot be that for the Floud prevailed above all the earth to waste and spoil it And for figurative significations of the word they are endless who can interpret them But will you know the truth upon Eccles xliv 16. The Vulgar Latine of such authentick credit with them hath cogg'd in the word Paradise Enoch pleased the Lord and was translated into Paradise The Arabick Version I hear upon the eleventh of the Hebrews hath used St. Pauls Text so and inserted the word Paradise into it Yet there is no such syllable in the 72 or in the Greek Text of the Son of Syrach that is all one to them where it serves their turn they make use of the Greek Copies before the Hebrew and of the Latine before the Greek the Roman Church can dignifie what Language it pleaseth But enough of this it is a meer Latine errour which first seduced the Schoolmen to write that Enoch was translated into Paradise Touching Limbus Patrum their Doctrine is more clear and explicite that it is a place below the earth called in large sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell a receptacle of the souls of those holy ones and good believers that died before Christ ascended into heaven where they were at rest and peace but enjoyed not the presence of God And this they expound to be that bosom of Abraham whither the Angels carried the soul of Lazarus The latter instance I suppose is enough to confute the former for the rich man looked up and saw Abraham and Lazarus in the high places above him a great gulf of exceeding distance being between them therefore it could be no such Limbus as they dream of in the Confines or Suburbs of hell And St. Austin dasht this opinion long since with an Argument not to be answered I have searched the Scriptures says he and could never find that Hades or Hell was taken in good part therefore to make a place of rest and joyful habitation to be the fourth and best degree of hell as all their Authors take it is beyond his understanding But why not Enoch assumed into some part of heaven Their reason for that The Scripture says plainly that Elias was carried up to heaven not because any quiet Habitation may be called Heaven in respect of this world of misery but forasmuch as verily he did change Earth for Heaven and therein is made a Type of Christs Ascension as Jonas the Prophet was a Type of his Resurrection So St. Ambrose I should have remembred it before upon the Funerals of Valentinian allows Abrahams bosom to be the house of God above the Firmament Certainly St. Paul would never have used that distinction Whether in the body or out of the body he knew not if it had been impossible for the body of man to be exalted into the third Heavens As Core and Dathan were swallowed quick into Hell body and soul for their great Rebellion so Enoch and Elias were carried quick into heaven body and soul for their great obedience The Greek Church keeps the Feast of Elias upon the twentieth of July says Metaphrastes in his Catalogue All that Lapide the Jesuit says unto it is that Elias his name is honoured upon that day by the Greek Church but he is not worshiped or invocated on that day because he is not in Heaven I know not whether the Jesuit say truth in that because I never saw the work of Metaphrastes but if the Greek Church neither make Prayers unto him nor give him religious honour I am sure they are the wiser and the farther from the Roman Superstition They have one question among the Schoolmen maintained pro and con with bitter contentions so God afflicts their wits that resist the truth upon their supposition that Enoch and Elias are not yet in Patriâ termino not yet come to the consummation of their days not yet in the receptacles of heaven but in some other place whither they be still in proficiency of holiness waxing better and better as when they lived upon earth for then say those Doctors this absurdity would follow they should exceed the Merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints their stock of good Works should run on in infinitum I think they are afraid they might prove such excellent servants that God should scarce be able to requite them Thus they entangle themselves in endless strifes to keep Enoch out of Heaven and with him all those souls that died in the Faith before our Saviour gave up the Ghost and upon affected misconstruction of those Texts that Christ was the first fruits of them that sleep that no man hath ascended into heaven but he that first descended the Son of man that is in heaven To explain my self and satisfie them remember our Saviours words that there are divers mansions in his Fathers house that is divers Stories of glory in his Fathers house built one above another there are outward Courts of glory and inward Chambers Now it is not to be denied but that Enoch and all the souls of all the just men of the Old Testament were in some quarterings of Heaven as in their proper place and in a state of happiness and salvation which is figuratively called heaven yet I do not say but Christ did open a door unto them to bring them nearer to the Vision of God in the highest heavens when himself did enter into glory The souls of good men deceased were ever in the hand of God but not ever in like distance to the joyes of God They were in Heaven before Christ ascended but not in such an Heaven as they possess now after he ascended Their Lot was Heaven from the beginning but their inheritance is augmented that Verse in our Morning Hymn looks this way I take it when thou hadst overcome c. But of St. Pauls meaning to jump with this Doctrine I am very confident Heb. ix 8. The way into the holiest of all was not yet mode manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing That I may leave no objections behind me to stumble you the main scruple is that the Scripture speaks as if Christ had made the first passage into Heaven in his own person which must be interpreted of the highest heavens where the blessed shall remain for ever no man was admitted there not the body nor the soul of man till he that was God and man in one person went in first and by his own merits and intercession gave access unto his brethren I settle in my own belief upon this answer not for want of two other answers and both of them probable The one that before ever Christ took flesh virtually and meritoriously he opened the Kingdom of heaven to all Believers Ab origine mundi operata est Christi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministry of
a Pillar of Salt But let us come from persons to things that concern Gods Worship and Honour and note how we defalk and rob God in them Of two Testaments of holy Scriptures the Manichaeans Hereticks in ancient times and now our modern Anabaptists do reject the Old Of two parts of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Bread and Wine to signifie the body of Christ crucified and his bloud spilt the Layty you know where have lost the use of the Cup. Of four Commandments in the First Table of the Law the Second among some is either snapt off for brevity sake or crouded into the First to make it lose its force and vigour Instead of Faith and good Works which are both necessary to salvation we are much too slow with our good Works and think to come off well enough with a dry barren Faith Instead of our Prayers early and late as a Morning and Evening Sacrifice dissolute men and women think a short good-night will serve the turn as they go to bed Instead of glorifying God in our bodies and in our spirits many do subtract their humility of bodily worship and suppose it is abundantly well done to serve him in Spirit Finally instead of devoting our whole Age to repentance and newness of life many will not abandon their sins till their sins are forsaking them in their last years nay perhaps in the last hour nay God help them perhaps but in the last gasp or two of that latest hour thus the Devil hath envenomed the World with a Sacrilegious Poyson and perswades us that all is well gotten which is lost to God But in deed and in truth God loseth nothing He will be honoured either in our Conversion or in our Confusion As his mercy was content to be glolified in the deliverance of Lots Wife so his justice was exalted in her punishment Thirdly This woman was come out of Sodom come out of the Plain hard by the Gates of Zoar at the very last Furlong of the way as Adrichomius describes it and cast her self wilfully away when she was almost past all danger as the Proverb is In portu naufragium she had pass'd the Waves of a perilous Journey but shipwrackt and lost all when she was come home to the Haven Quod quisque vitet nunquam homini satis cautum est in horas None perish so soon as they that think they cannot perish now they are past the worst and so become less wary of their safety When Caesar had it divin'd unto him that the Ides of March should be fatal to him he should never out-live that day he was jocund and secure about afternoon and frumpingly told his Wizzards the day was far-spent and he felt no sign of death O but says one that Prophesied evil to him the day is come but it is not pass'd yet and the event of the day was the slaughter of Caesar So many are wound up to the last minute of confidence and security and there began their ruine where they thought to consummate their felicity Abimelech marched against the City of Thebes he took it he besieged the Tower close to the Gates of the Tower and was about to set fire to the Gates thus he stood in limine victoriae as his Victory was come to the just complement a woman cast down a piece of a Mill stone and brake his skull that he died Judg. ix 22. Thus as a Gamesters whole Stake and winnings may be lost at the last cast so many men have had a long progress in prosperity and for want of due thankfulness of that they had received their conclusion and shutting up of their eyes hath been bitterness Relapsing in sickness a thing as frequent as the water that runs by us it is not unskilfully imputed to the heedlesness of him that was too adventurous upon recovery and some other indisposition of natural causes but when we see a man brought down to the Grave with infirmity and brought back again by Art and skil and yet in the midst of his joy to be strangely cast back into the former languishment Let not the sound judge anothers servant but let the sick party judge himself that either he returned to the vomit of his former sins which he did abandon upon fear of death or promised restitution of something got by fraud which afterwards he would not perform or forgave his enemies at the point of extremity and being restored renewed his old grudge or forgot his Vows which he had made or flubbered over the benefit which God had done for him with careless ingratitude Certainly some offence did intervene that when the bitterness of death did seem to be past the Lord should cause his very recovery to be his ruine For there is nothing more dangerous than deliverance out of danger if we do not use our fortune reverently and stand in awe of God even in the midst of his mercies And this is more conspicuous in the soul than in the body Gods grace leads a penitent man along by the hand in the narrow way of righteousness but if he begin to think that he can go alone without a supporter when he thinks he hath one foot in heaven he shall be thrown down to hell or as our Saviour speaks the latter end of that man shall be worse than the first How many have revolted from the true Faith through the deceivable wit of seducers even upon the last bed of their sickness How many have repulsed Satans tentations oftentimes and have yielded as you would say at the last time of asking As Samson denied Delilah sundry times but betrayed his life into her hands at the last onset and importunity What a courage had Peter against the whole band of the Priests servants And how much discouraged at the voice of a silly Damosel and made to forswear his Master This was in extremo actu deficere to be far from Sodom and almost at Zoar and yet to fall back from God when we are within sight and almost within touch of the Crown of life this is that turpitude which is most ignominious to our Christian Warfare With shame enough shall back-sliders hear that reproach from God You did run well who did hinder you You were almost at the top of my holy hill why did your feet slip Why did you look back to Sodom Wherefore my Beloved when your conscience tells you that hitherto your heart hath been right with the Lord you have plaid your part well to the last act why then be most sollicitous that you be not defective in the end and lose your reward and the fruit of all your labour that went before But pray with David Forsake me not O Lord in mine old age when I am gray-headed Let me not forget thee as Lots Wife did when I am almost at Zoar and then the Lord will say Even to your old age even to your hoary hairs will I carry you Isa xlvi 4. So much be
Wound consists in five degrees of humiliation 1. He sat down 2. He wept 3. He mourned certain dayes 4. He fasted 5. He played before the God of Heaven That God that gives many Medicines to heal the sickness of the Body hath provided these sacred Remedies to heal the troubles of the Soul I rise up now from the first step Nehemiah was sore perplexed to hear what the Land had suffered Upon which I begin with this Observation that he was in great anguish not for any evil which he saw but with bad tidings and grievous reports as it is just before my Text The Remnant of Israel were in great affliction and reproach the Wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the Gates burnt with fire This is short and sowr yet far short of the total of their tribulation Howsoever Nehemiah saw none of this he was at Babylon when these Tragedies were acted at Jerusalem he heard of their distress but was not upon the place to behold it yet the noise that came to his ears did strike his heart that he sat down and wept So open your bowels and condole like Christians when you hear of one anothers miseries though they be far from you else God will draw them nearer I will name the remotest to you the mournful condition of the Servants of Christ in Hungary Dalmatia Greece and Candia under the Mahumetan cruelty though these are a thousand leagues from you yet joyn them close to you in your Prayers and Compassion Let me come home we are not upon the Seas to day with our illustrious Duke and valiant Country-men we are not in peril of Wracks and Storms and roaring Canons as they are but let our Prayers walk upon the Seas unto them as Peter assayed to go to Christ that as they hazard their lives for us we offer up our Souls to God for them To descend to lower Objects you do not see the hard food of the Poor his sorry Table his dry Morsels you do not see the comfortless Lodging and Dungeon of the Captive These are the Blessings of Wealth and Liberty Yea but do you not consider it sometimes and bewail and extend your hand to relieve it if not some of us may know what hunger and captivity mean if the report of those things in others do not cause you to melt in charity Nehemiah did not see much evil yet the report toucht him near and he sat down and wept My next Observation is that as he did not see the evil of the Land of Judah so he could not feel it If all Jerusalem had been burnt to ashes it had not broke him in his fortune nor eclipsed him in his honour He was a Courtier in the Palace of Artaxerxes his Cup-bearer a dignified Officer no weeping news could diminish his greatness Had he been a self-lover like too many of these dayes a cunning Courtier that had no end but to provide for himself then he would have measured all fortune by his own Last and unless his own person had been toucht the Shoo should not have wrung him But here was one reteining to the holy Court indeed to the Court of Heaven his own prosperity did disrelish with him because Gods anger was upon the Land to which he owed his life He did like a good man to involve himself in the publick fortune And what joy could he take in his Honours with Artaxerxes when reproach had spread upon the Country that bred him and upon the Church of God in which he lookt for salvation He that makes light of common danger with tush they are on the Seas I am on the Land I shall shift for one that man is the fairest mark at whom God will suddenly shoot with a swift arrow because he is in love with his own security Nehemiah could have shifted for one but that did not content him When it is best with our selves then it is safest to fear then to seek the Lord and to beseech him for the welfare of our selves and others Health and plenty and ease have not yet forsaken us yet the blasts of bad rumours and presages are about us When you hear such words it is time to mourn and fast and pray before the God of Heaven Hitherto I have treated that Nehemiah bewailed the sufferings past my next observation is upon another matter that when by Gods hand the repair was very hopeful it grieved him that the mischievous attempts of envious unlucky Neighbours did all that they could to stop the remedy which is just our case God sent this Tirshata this mighty man to build up the holy City again out of the ruines under which it was covered but it grieved their Neighbours over the next River Chap. ii 9. as ours are over the next Seas that there came a man to seek the welfare of Israel Ver. 10. Mark their conditions who they were Sanballat of Samaria and Samaria had long been the nest of Rebellion Tobiah the servant an Ammonite a man servile low born of base extraction Geshem the Arabian and the Arabians were great Thieves by Land as our Foes are Arabians upon the waters These Samaritans Ammonites Arabians Rebels and Thieves basely descended maligned the prosperity of Jerusalem when it began to flourish again under Nehemiah And note their shifts and half witted devices to oppose him First They fell to mocking and scoffing Chap. iv 1. Scurrility is to be expected from such as are bred up in the rudeness of a populacy Secondly At the eighth verse of the fourth Chapter they made ready to fight him but hearing his preparations shewed their teeth and never proceeded Thirdly Chap. vi 8. they raised scandalous reports against the Ruler and the People and how our Maligners would desame us with broaching lies Europe and all the world are witness Fourthly At the thirteenth verse of that Chapter they hired Prophets to Prophesie against Nehemiah to put him in fear and if we would be discouraged by such fictions they have not been wanting These were troubles which fell upon the noble heart of Nehemiah to see that blessing which God had begun by his industry cross'd and check'd by an ignoble and servile Generation So may our renowned Prince and General say in disdain at this upstart bog of men whose Noble Person is of more value than all their Provinces estimated at a rackt value Et mecum certasse ferentur Unless England had given them being and a power to resist they had not been able this day to have resisted the meanest of the Captains of my Lord the King To dispatch this Point though our Kingdom hath no resemblance to Pharaoh and the Egyptians God be praised yet our Plagues and those of Egypt have some parallel in their order Their first Plague was the Plague of bloud so was ours but God hath delivered us from the continual slaughters of a most impious and rebellious War Pass from the end of the seventh Chapter of Exodus to the beginning
as if our charity could be altogether inoffensive No the Spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. viii but it doth not quite take away all infirmity we are not made of the substance of Angels while we travel in this mortal flesh Sanctification will leak out at certain crannies but all is made sure with cupio dissolvi take in sunder the soul and body by death and in the state of our Exaltation Mercy can never get away There is a molting time for these two Wings and the best Christian displumes certain feathers through tentation but O that I had wings like a Dove says David for then would I fly away and be at rest Now the last Point is that which troubles all the world especially our Western world which is in continual combat with our Romish Adversaries wherein the Art lies to preserve Truth that it may not forsake us But some there are clouds without water men unstable in their minds halting between God and Baal that think the whole Church is at a loss for truth and we can stedfastly trust to nothing For it will easily break prison out of the Syllogism of the old Philosophers witness so many busie disputations of late and the success so unprofitable it cannot be bound up in the laborious Tomes of Controversies no Age more industrious to write than ours hath been and none further from Peace To think that the limits of Truth are bound to St. Peters Chair so called is most childish and frivolous The two Testaments indeed are the touchstone of Truth but they are stained with presumptuous glosses and we do not ask now adays Quomodo scriptum est How is it written But Qomodo expositum est What is the intepretation of Expositors Lastly If we say that Truth is the Daughter of Time and that the reverend Antiquity of the Fathers must be her Register What if one say one thing and some another What if they be equally divided What if index expurgatorius spunge out all that should be justly alleadged And hear what Cyprian says Non dixit Christus ego sum consuetudo sed ego sum veritas Surely yet among these many conflicts there is a way to bind truth as a Crown unto us give me leave to unfold it without ornament of Language in a particular declaration In the midst of a froward Generation whose Wits sweat on both sides to win the day who would not take a sure course which cannot be reproved Now all the Law and the Prophets are comprised in these three things 1. In Prayer and Thanksgiving to God 2. In a sincere belief 3. In obedience to his Commandments The absolute form of Prayer is the same which Christ taught us Mat. vi The sum of our Belief is the Apostles Creed And the two Tables of the Law want nothing which should teach Religion and Justice towards God and men What Christianity can be more secure than this How can Truth forsake him that rules himself to the Letter of these holy Institutions and goes no further But whatsoever is more than this is tossed about with every blast of disputation it may be erroneous it may be Will-worship it cannot be the substance of things not seen it impeacheth Gods wisdom as if he would not reveal unto man the explicite way of his salvation When I come into the Temple and see a devout Monk running over the Hierarchy of heaven upon his Beads and filling the Saints with the noise of his complaints and when I see another Christian piercing the highest heavens with zeal and coming boldly to the Throne of Grace to God alone to which part shall he that is unlearned say Amen Beloved if Our Father would not serve the turn it may seem John Baptist did teach his Disciples to pray better than Christ Sweet Jesu they are thine own words therefore I cannot do amiss to turn me from the Angels when I have Christ for my Master but they that make the Elders about the Throne Partners with God in Invocation they cannot be so confident that truth doth not forsake them Again one Church entertains the craft of Demetrius and the Silversmiths even upon Gods own Shrine their eyes are filled with their molten Images when they look unto the hills from whence cometh their salvation But they distinguish that they keep their body to a lesser Religious Worship and not to the highest Adoration and they exalt the Image of the true God not the Idols of the heathen Our Church refuseth no Ornaments of Decency no Histories of Piety no remembrance of eternal Glory But the Law is not in our eye but in our heart and we pray as if it were our Saviour at midnight in the Garden when no resemblance could be before him What should a soul say here disquieted with the rents of Sion Why thus Lord thou hast forbidden all graven Similitudes thy Commandment did not comment upon a petty duty to the Saints a nice Hyperdulia to our Lady and an admirable Latria to thy self thou hast not made me so good a Lapidary to discern in stocks and stones between an Image and an Idol I may be an Idolater with the Inventions of the former I cannot err in the spiritual Worship of the latter Confounded then be all they that worship carved Images I will not let thy Truth forsake me Thirdly Concerning that inquinatissima purgatio that loathsom cleansing of sins after this life in torments which is a kind of Spanish Inquisition Why art thou so vexed O my soul And why do thoughts arise within thee So trust in God not as fearing the scorching Kitchin of Purgatory or the freezing of St. Patricks Lake for a season but as dreading an eternal death for ever not as if my punishment must be mitigated after my death by the Beads and Orizons and Bribery of my forgetful Executors but as if in my life they must be redeemed by the luke-warm bloud of Jesus Christ Then for the thing propounded I know my Saviour descended into Hell to triumph over Satan and bruize his head I know He ascended up into Heaven to make Intercession for us to God the Father this is my Creed I am sure and the third place is Apocrypha my belief is as broad as the holy Apostles made the pattern and if I stop mine ears at the rest I will not let thy truth forsake me Fourthly Concerning the material part of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper I take my Saviours words into the explication of my Faith This is my body this is my bloud But what have I to do to let men interpret Christs meaning when themselves confess it is such a mystery that cannot be comprehended Is it not enough for me to receive these precious gifts with thanksgiving but that I must argue how and after what manner Christ is present at that participation I am sure the outward Elements of Bread and Wine are there for as God gave me an heart to believe so he
people was and we seek a Country in the heavens What are five Loaves and two Fishes the poor pittances of Nature to procure us felicity Some say send them to the next Village for succour to the intercession of Saints and Angels No sweet Saviour but as the eyes of a servant look unto the hands of his Master so our soul waits upon thee until thou have mercy upon us Nor did our Saviour distribute his Largess only to stop the gap of necessity For had they been runnagates David doth award them to be unpitied Let them continue in scarceness but flagrante ptetate when their hearts were set upon zeal and their ears attentive by the space of an whole day to hear the Doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven then this Miracle falls out as a reward of their Piety For even as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Feasts of Charity were wont to be celebrated among the Christians in the Primitive Church immediately after the divine Mysteries had been solemnized So when these Jews had lent their patience to a good Sermon I am sure for never man spake like him by his enemies confession the close of it was that they eat bread together joyfully with singleness of heart And I do not amiss to say that this diligence to hear and learn did attract his love to do this for them for did they importune him by Prayer Did any one among so many beseech him to shew his power and pity them no but they had done enough to open his bowels though they held their peace for first seek the Kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness thereof and all these things shall be added unto you Hallow his name advance his Kingdom and do his will and that which follows comes in by course you cannot fail of your daily bread In this Assembly that sanctified the whole day in the Desart to wait on Christ you may imagine there were sundry of them that lived by their sweat and labour from hand to mouth Will not these be much damnified by their godliness The night was come they had earned nothing by their labour they may go home and starve yea nothing less they that had committed themselves to his providence like the fowls of the air shall fair as well as the fowls of the air For the Lions do lack and suffer hunger but they that fear the Lord do want no good thing Psal xxxiv 10. The Apostles not long before this accident in my Text were sent abroad without Scrip without provision without change of raiment Lacked you any thing says our Saviour the Heathen could not say that the Christians were the poorer for not working the seventh day your Trade is increasing while your shop is shut up on Holidays if you serve the Lord. Godliness is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. iv 8. We had Brethren in diebus illis in those noble times that came near to the Apostles who durst urge the Lord upon his word in the face of Infidels that the soul of the righteous should not famish In the year 176 Marcus Aurelius was ready to give battel to the Marcomans but the day was so hot and the drought so sore that his Army fainted and could not strike a stroke The Christians that served under him to shew the glory of their great Master Jesus the Son of God joyned their Prayers together and instantly obtained so much rain as refreshed all the Roman Legions and so much thunder as consumed the Marcomans with fire and lightening I make not the Doctors of the Church my Authors for it but Dion Cassius an Heathen confesseth the accident and Xiphiline another of the same ascribes it to the Christians and that Legion which consisted of Christians was called from hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the thundring Legion long after The blessings of the Lord they are not viscata beneficia they do not hang in his fingers like birdlime when his Children need them but they drop like an Honeycomb without straining But men are so apt to object against this as if they stretcht their wits to make God a liar they will tell you that they have known and heard of righteous men that have been forsaken and destitute Digito terebrare Salinum contentus perages si cum Jove vivere tentas Poverty ever was and will be the obloquy of honesty Neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of understanding nor favour to men of skill Eccles ix 11. Well the knot is soon untied if you do not over-reckon with God and extend his word to a greater proportion of temporal blessings than he hath promised There is a Son that grudged at his Father Luke xv quia nusquam haedum dedisset he had never given him a Kid to make merry with his friends Must every one that is a Son look for a Kid and for enough wherewith he may be merry and voluptuous no no if you have pabulum latibulum any thing to stay hunger and a Cave to put your head in God is not in your debt and you may do as well as they that have the Kid for life is oftner lost by surfeiting than by starving Every Levite that serves faithfully at the Altar must not think to wear a Mitre like Aaron as St. Hierom speaks of Praetextatus that would be baptized and become a Christian if he might be Bishop of Rome All men must not look to be requited like Valentinian that refused the Tribune-ship of Julian upon condition of Idolatry and became an Emperor They that gape for so much tenter Gods promise to the stretch of their own greediness First They seek dominion and wealth and think the Kingdom of Heaven will come into the vantage Miserable souls that do not fear lest their dignity should be their total recompence and all that ever they shall have for their service They that put themselves upon Gods providence as these men did in the Desart they shall not want but remember then that they must accept of barley loaves for current payment Peter and John had neither silver nor gold yet they had food and raiment and for the most part the most fortunate are they that be no such Camels but they may pass through the eye of the needle I will work out of the point but this little more these five hundred men that waited upon Christ had kept their Fast to the full Canonical time they had eat nothing until night therefore he distributes the loaves dissolves their fast and would not suffer them to continue it any longer than might do them good A man in the fervour of his desire will pursue that he desires so hard as he will quite forget his meat so Esau felt no hunger when he was in the chase a hunting but as soon as that was over he longed for meat upon any terms so during the whole day that our Saviour
of all the Royal Order yet neither the hand of man nor the fury of Satan could do him hurt but immediatly the Angel c. Brethren you see my Text speaks of a smiting Angel An Angel smote the first-born of Pharaoh an Angel made an exceeding slaughter in the Host of Sennacharib An Angel brandished a Sword before David when seventy thousand died of the Pestilence Conceive not of these things as if an Angel had a Sword of Steel or offered any visible violence per contactum but as Abulensis says the Angel did apply some pestilent noisomness to the air which in a moment entred into their bowels and destroyed their Vitals Beloved the holy Angels seem as it were desirous and ambitious to avenge Gods glory against the pride of Herod Indeed there is so little zeal in his cause now adays so few do stir in it as if to this hour we left all to them and expected Angels Nay rather as if we thought of neither God nor Angel Where is the Courage of Phinehas Where is the Zeal of Elias Where is the Voice of John the Baptist Where is the Sword that is not lent in vain unto the Magistrate The lean Cattel it may be shall go to the Shambles but Amalek and the fat ones are your prey and your Sacrifice Ecquid tinnit Dolobella Then no man cuts him off though he give not God the glory The world is grown as unconscionable as that heathen man who said He had rather heaven should lose a Star from the Firmament than himself to lose an heifer from his flocks of Cattel So we are more tender of our own reputation than to maintain his glory by whom Kings reign and by whom we hope to reign as Kings in glory The Noble Descent of our Ancestors the Antiquity of our House the Dignity of our Place the Gravity of our Years Praecedere quatuor annis these are things that our bloud will rise at if they be called in question but the profanation of the name of Jesus the alienation of holy things the demolishment of Churches irreverent carriage at Divine Prayers and the holy Communions are as little our care as matters of Religion did pertain to Gallio I must again recall you to the practice of the Angels For when the Sadducees did so much dishonour them that they said there were no Angels at all yet we do not read in all the Scripture that these Angels did avenge themselves of the Sadducees in their own behalf but in another quarrel in Gods cause they are as quick and hot as a flaming fire Nay for fear lest some body should step in before them to do the deed as soon as ever the word was out of Herods mouth that he was magnified as a God immediatly he is apprehended And that is the third part Tantus tam repentè without pause without time of revocation immediately c. The Judgments of the Lord are so sudden so accustomed to tread upon the heels of sin that all the comparisons of nimble motion are borrowed to express it The Flying Arrow Psal xci The noysom Pestilence that cleaves to the flesh in a moment in the same place The coming of a Bridegroom whose longing desires use not to be tardy Mat. xxv The Thief in the night that gives no warning The gliding of the Lightning from the East unto the West The blast of a Trumpet The crowing of a Cock that breaks our sleep What can be said more that Gods Angel doth immediately strike the insolent Nazianzen speaking of those Scoffers that abused S. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is marvel that Thunderbolts are not stirring upon such a trespass St. Hierom in his Commentary upon the Prophet Habakkuk relates That Julian the Apostate reading this story of Herods downfall cavilled against the Christians for saying their God was patient and of long suffering Nihil iracundius nihil hoc furore praesentius says he ne modico spatio indignationem distulit Nothing more angry nothing more sudden he did not defer his indignation no not for an hour It is true indeed sin and death are Acus filum iniquity draws on judgment as the Needle draws the thread immediately after it For such as are vessels of dishonour when they first jussel against Gods Commandments they begin to crack in the very moment although they break not in pieces till the fulness of time when the Milstone shall fall upon them and grind them to powder In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die says God to Adam that is thou shalt grow mortal and decline every minute more and more to the grave But there is a chosen Generation yet let them not presume upon grace that shall be pardoned seventy seven times Whereupon says St. Austin Commemoratione hujus numeri omnia peccata sunt dimissa quando ipse per quem omnia peccata remissa sunt septuagessimâ septimâ generatione secundum Lucam natus est That is if sins be remitted seventy seven times to the Elect then all their sins shall be remitted for he in whom all sins are remitted Christ Jesus was born by a mystery in the seventy seventh Generation from God the Eternal Father according to St. Luke Immediately he was smitten in such Splendour of Attire in such Celebrity of Attendants before the face of Strangers among those who in their hearts were no better than his enemies never did he come out of that Chair of the Scorner from that Throne wherein he was Canonized till he was stript of all Dignity and deprived of that Title by the Angel of the Lord. Had he been struck with sickness in any other place I know how it would have been excused the fault would have been laid upon his long journey from Galilee to Cesarea perchance the Sidonians had been charged to poyson him such suspicions are very rife as if it were impossible for Princes to come to their end by natural infirmities but now no such rumour could be broached Immediately c. Beloved It is the most dreadful thing upon earth to be suddenly apprehended by judgment What will not our strict Reformers cavil at who demand to have the Prayer against sudden death to be put out of the Litany It is well if they themselves be so well prepared for the hour of Judgment come it never so unexpected Indeed it should be so But let the Christian whom I would instruct pray every Morning as if he should see the Sun rise no more Pray every Evening as if he should see the Sun set no more be ready to meet the Bridegroom at Midnight and yet despise not that Supplication From sudden death good Lord deliver us He that promiseth God repentance hereafter pays him in the mean time with iniquity Ab hôc loco hoc ipso tempore Deo servire statui it is St. Austins Meditation If your heart be touched at any Sermon do not consult with your Almanack what day will be most
their avengers It cannot utterly be gainsaid therefore but that the Grammatical words will bear this sense that the Souls under the Altar pray for deliverance rather than revenge For the deliverance of their Brethren that suffer not for the confusion of those Malefactors that spill their bloud I confess if you take Revenge in the usual way for a cankered desire to see the hurt of another this construction were the safer And for Analogy of Faith it agrees well with that that the holy Ones in the sight of God pray that their Brethren may be pluckt out of the jaws of their Tormentors and fill up their Society in Heaven So St. Cyprian Illic copiosa turba nos desiderat de suâ immortalitate secura adhuc de nostra solicita An innumerous company of holy ones in Heaven desire our coming resting secure in their own peace and glory but solicitous for ours And Bernard very vehemently Vnde tibi hoc ô caro foetida How comes this to pass O filthy and sinful flesh of man that they in whom Gods Image is repaired should long for thy fellowship in whom it is defaced That they who are made white with the bloud of the Lamb should wish for thee that art polluted So I leave this Point with a probable assent but no more that the Saints desire not the vengeance of the ungodly but the deliverance of the righteous It is drawn up more solidly in the fourth Conclusion That vengeance indeed is no part of their Petition in Heaven it was their love and forgiveness of their Enemies which God accepted when he exalted them thither and surely their Charity is increased and not diminished But how then will St. Johns Vision and their Charity hold together Well enough directly they pray for that which is fit for the voice of Saints but because no good thing is good to them that hate the Church obliquely it brings vengeance upon them Cajetan is the great abettor of this Interpretation I shall find another Author for it they are our Saviours words Luk. xviii 7. Shall not God avenge his own Elect that cry day and night unto him Says he The assiduous cry of the Elect tends formally to this that the Kingdom of God would come and that he would accomplish all things but forasmuch as when this Kingdom is come and the Elect are gathered together from the four Winds the wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the people that imagined evil against his Sanctuary therefore virtually and indirectly they invocate God that his Foes may be swept away with the Beesom of destruction Affectu orant pro persecutoribus effectu pro vindictâ Their affections are sweet and tender that all Infidels who defie the Gospel of Christ may be converted but the effect which follows their Prayers shall not be their Salvation but their Subversion for ever The Casuists express this after a pretty manner that the Will of any man is Mother to some effects and Grandmother to other some Such things as it wisheth for expresly it is the Mother of those desires when many things fall out consequently upon these desires and quite beside the intention of the wish they are not the Children of our own Will but our Daughters Daughters as it were and our Will is but Grandmother unto them I desire fair weather meerly for mine own delight my fancy covets nothing else but this may hinder the Seeds-man in the Field or burn up his Flowers that hath planted a Garden those effects are not begot by my Will their relation is that they came to pass out of that which I desired they are my Childrens Children and so remotely they are mine Or as a Ward wisheth that he were come to Age and had sued out his Livery his aim is to be seized of his own Inheritance yet that desire cannot be accomplished in some instances without wringing his Estate out of the hand of his Guardian and leaving him poor and succourless So says Gregory the Great to this case in my Text Sancti petunt mundi consummationem atque indui corporibus These blessed Souls call for the consummation of the World for a joyful Resurrection and to be cloathed with their bodies But woe unto violent men that have insulted upon the Righteous when that shall come to pass then shall their cruelty begin to be requited The Saints do praise God day and night and the Incense of their Prayers is lifted up unto him for a greater amplification of their triumph yet since their honour must be the ruine of many this must necessarily be derived out of their Petitions that the Lord would judge and avenge their bloud on them that dwell on the Earth But you will say I have not yet made it to appear that the primary and direct Petition of the Saints is that God will reveal his utmost glory in the end of all things and in the Resurrection of their bodies I refer you for that to the verse which follows my Text for why had each of them his white Robe given Or why is it said That they should rest for a little season and till all were fulfilled This is no answer to the words of my Text but an answer to their uncessant Prayer for the future Resurrection that the pittance of glory which they had must satisfie them and in due time when the whole body was gathered together there should be an accomplishment of their blessedness I do not say That the time deferred is irksom to them for their heart is so devoted to every thing that God pleaseth to have done that it is sweeter to them since the Lord will have it so to have the time adjourned when they shall be cloathed with their house which is from Heaven than if it were now at hand Yet the Spirit hath such a thirst to resume the Flesh again that it spends their affections in part upon the object which otherwise would freely and intirely without deducting any share be consecrated to the praise of the Eternal Majesty To dispatch this Conclusion now if I look right upon it it is sound and hath no flaw namely that the proper ingredients of the prayer of the Saints departed are for the hastening of Christs Kingdom and for a speedy Resurrection but to the terror of them that are destructive and unmerciful that heavenly supplication devoves them by consequent to the nethermost Hell There is but one Conclusion more behind the fifth and last which stands upon this firm Basis that if any man will be contentious that revenge is every way to be exploded out of the Prayers of holy Martyrs though his conscience receive scandal unjustly where none is given yet there is one interpretation left which is obnoxious to no exception namely that these words are not Oratio personae sed rei the Martyrs themselves do not utter such a Prayer in the ears of God but the wrongs and injuries which they sustained