Disciples stood compassed in that bright Cloud exspecting some miraculous event of so Heavenly a Vision when suddenly they might hear a voice sounding out of that Cloud saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him They need not be told whose that voice was the place the matter evinced it No Angel in Heaven could or durst have said so How gladly doth Peter afterwards recount it For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son c. It was onely the eare that was here taught not the eye As of Horeb so of Sinai so of Tabor might God say Ye saw no shape nor image in that day that the Lord spake unto you He that knows our proneness to idolatry avoids those occasions which we might take to abuse our own fansies Twice hath God spoken these words to his own Son from Heaven once in his Baptisme and now again in his Transfiguration Here not without some oppositive comparison not Moses not Elias but This. Moses and Elias were Servants this a Son Moses and Elias were sons but of grace and choice this is that Son the Son by nature Other sons are beloved as of favour and free election this is The Beloved as in the unitie of his essence Others are so beloved that he is pleased with themselves this so beloved that in and for him he is pleased with mankinde As the relation betwixt the Father and the Son is infinite so is the Love We measure the intention of Love by the extention the love that rests in the person affected alone is but streight true Love descends like Aaron's Ointment from the head to the skirts to children friends allyes O incomprehensible large love of God the Father to the Son that for his sake he is pleased with the World O perfect and happy complacence Out of Christ there is nothing but enmity betwixt God and the Soul in him there can be nothing but peace When the beams are met in one center they do not only heat but burn Our weak love is diffused to many God hath some the world more and therein wives children friends but this infinite love of God hath all the beams of it united in one onely Object the Son of his Love Neither doth he love any thing but in the participation of his Love in the derivation from it O God let me be found in Christ and how canst thou but be pleased with me This one voice proclaimes Christ at once the Son of God the Reconciler of the world the Doctor and Law-giver of his Church As the Son of God he is essentially interessed in his Love as he is the Reconciler of the world in whom God is well pleased he doth most justly challenge our love and adherence as he is the Doctor and Law-giver he doth justly challenge our audience our obedience Even so Lord teach us to hear and obey thee as our Teacher to love thee and believe in thee as our Reconciler and as the eternal Son of thy Father to adore thee The light caused wonder in the Disciples but the voice astonishment They are all falne down upon their faces Who can blame a mortal man to be thus affected with the voice of his Maker Yet this word was but plausible and hortatory O God how shall flesh and blood be other then swallowed up with the horror of thy dreadful sentence of death The Lion shall roar who shall not be afraid How shall those that have slighted the sweet voice of thine invitations call to the rocks to hide them from the terror of thy Judgments The God of mercies pities our infirmities I do not hear our Saviour say Ye lay sleeping one while upon the earth now ye lye astonished Ye could neither wake to see nor stand to hear now lye still and tremble But he graciously touches and comforts them Arise fear not That voice which shall once raise them up out of the earth might well raise them up from it That hand which by the least touch restored sight lims life might well restore the spirits of the dismaied O Saviour let that soveraign hand of thine touch us when we lye in the trances of our griefs in the bed of our securities in the grave of our sins and we shall arise They looking up saw no man save Jesus alone and that doubtless in his wonted form All was now gone Moses Elias the Cloud the Voice the Glory Tabor it self cannot be long blessed with that Divine light and those shining guests Heaven will not allow to earth any long continuance of Glory Only above is constant happiness to be look'd for and injoyed where we shall ever see our Saviour in his unchangeable brightness where the light shall never be either clouded or varied Moses and Elias are gone only Christ is left The glory of the Law and the Prophets was but temporary yea momentany that onely Christ may remain to us intire and conspicuous They came but to give testimony to Christ when that is done they are vanished Neither could these raised Disciples finde any miss of Moses and Elias when they had Christ still with them Had Jesus been gone and left either Moses or Elias or both in the Mount with his Disciples that presence though glorious could not have comforted them Now that they are gone and he is left they cannot be capable of discomfort O Saviour it matters not who is away whiles thou art with us Thou art God all-sufficient what can we want when we want not thee Thy presence shall make Tabor it self an Heaven yea Hell it self cannot make us miserable with the fruition of thee The Woman taken in Adultery WHat a busie life was this of Christs He spent the night in the mount of Olives the day in the Temple whereas the night is for a retired repose the day for company His retiredness was for prayer his companiableness was for preaching All night he watches in the Mount all the morning he preaches in the Temple It was not for pleasure that he was here upon earth his whole time was penal and toilsome How do we resemble him if his life were all pain and labour ours all pastime He found no such fair success the day before The multitude was divided in their opinion of him messengers were sent and suborned to apprehend him yet he returns to the Temple It is for the sluggard or the coward to plead a Lion in the way upon the calling of God we must overlook and contemn all the spight and opposition of men Even after an ill harvest we must sow and after denials we must woe for God This Sun of Righteousness prevents that other and shines early with wholesome doctrines upon the Soules of his hearers The Auditory is both thronged and attentive Yet not all with the same intentions If the people came to learn the Scribes and
City an Harlot And God about the same time cryed unto them by Micah Thou that art named the house of Jacob thou that wast of late my people and to the Ten Tribes by Hosea Ye are not my people and I will not be your God After the same manner Christ said to the Jews which gloried and made their boast that God was their Father If God were your Father ye would love me Ye are of your father the Devil and the lusts of your father ye will doe If we speak of the Romish Church according to this Distinction defining the Church by the keeping of the Covenant in pureness of Doctrine and Holiness of life God himself hath stript her of that glorious name calling her spiritually Sodome Egypt and Babylon Sodome in the pollution of her most filthy life Egypt in the abominable multitude of her filthy Idols Babylon in the cruell and bloodie oppression and persecution of the Saints And because she was to call her self as falsly as arrogantly the Mother-Church the Angel calleth her The Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth Because also she was to bring and magnifie her self in the multitude of her Saints he saith that she is drunk with the blood of the Saints and with the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus And taking from her the name of the Church which she challengeth privatively to all other Christian Congregations he nameth her as I have already said The habitation of Devils the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful Bird. In the first sense Moses said to God Why doth thy wrath wax hot against Thy people because although they had broken the Covenant on their part by the works of their hands God had not as yet broken it on his part Jeremiah in the greatest heat of their monstrous Idolatries praied after the same manner Do not abhor us for thy Names sake do not disgrace the Throne of thy glory Remember break not thy Covenant with us and Esaiah Thou art our Father we are ALL thy people For so long as God calls a people to him by his Word and Sacraments and honours them with his Name so long as they consent to be called by his Name professing it outwardly they remain his people although they answer not his Calling neither in soundness of Faith nor in Holiness of life Even as rebellious Subjects are still true Subjects on the Kings behalf who loseth not his right by their Rebellion nay on their own also in some manner because they still keep and profess his name and give not themselves to any forein Prince Did David lose his right by the Rebellion of the people under his son Absalom And therefore when the King subdueth these Traitors he carrieth himself towards them both in forgiving and in punishing as their lawfull and natural Prince and not as a Conquerour of new Subjects So as a Strumpet is a true Wife so long as her Husband consents to dwell with her and she is named by his name and as Agar when she fled from her Mistress Sarai was still Sarai's maid as she confessed saying I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai In like manner a rebellious fugitive and whoring Church is still a true Church so long as God keeping the right of a King of a Master of a Husband over her giveth her not the bill of divorcement but consents that his Name be called upon her and she still calleth her self his Kingdome his Maid his Wife Thus God calleth the Jews His people even then when he said they were not his people because he had not broken the band of Marriage with them and put them away by divorcement Therefore he said unto them Where are the letters of your Mothers divorcement whom I have put away Meaning he had not given unto them a writing of divorcement but did still acknowledge them to be his Spouse notwithstanding their manifold and most filthy whoredomes with false gods which he charged them with saying unto them by Jeremiah Thou hast polluted the Land with thy whoredomes and with thy wickedness Thou hast a whores forehead and refusest to be ashamed Wilt thou not for this time cry unto me My Father thou art the Guide of my youth Turn O backsliding children saith the Lord for I am married unto you or according to the French Translation I have the right of an husband over you So after he had called the Ten Tribes Lo-ruhama and Lo-hammi saying he would no more have mercy upon them and that they were not his people he calleth them his people My people saith he asketh counsel at their stocks and their stuffe answereth them But after that God had scattered them among the Medes and other Nations of Assyria and broken his Covenant with them they became not onely in the second but also in the first sense Jesrehel and no more Israel Loruhama and no more Ruhama Lohammi and no more Hammi Then was fulfilled the Prophesie Plead with your Mother plead for she is not my wife neither am I her husband So the Jewes which were Gods people in the midst of their Idolatrie since they have denied Christ to be the Messias the Mediator between God and them and have crucified the Lord of Glory are no more Gods people although they beg still that name They are saith Christ the Synagogue of Satan They say they are Jewes and are not but do ly For seeing God hath broken them off and grafted the Gentiles in their room they qualifie themselves Gods people as falsely and injuriously as a Whore lawfully divorced by her Husband calleth her self his Wife To apply this to the Roman Church which hath adulterated and corrupted the whole service of God and is more adulterous then was at any time Juda or Ephraim and therefore is not a true visible Church in the second sense I say she is one in some sort in the first In her God doth still keep his true word in the Old and New Testament as the contract of his Marriage with her In her is the true Creed the true Decalogue the true Lords Prayer which Luther calleth the kernal of Christianity In her Christ is preached though corruptly In her the Trinity and Incarnation of Christ are believed In her the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are prayed unto though in an unknown tongue to the most part In her the little Children are Baptized in the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And no Divine will deny that their Baptisme is a true Sacrament whereby their Children are born to God seeing we do not rebaptise them where leaving her they adjoin themselves to us Who then can deny that she is a true Church For out of the Church there is no Baptisme and the Church alone beareth children to God In her sitteth the man of sin the
is no novelty but their apparition they are alwaies with us but rarely seen that we may awfully respect their messages when they are seen In the mean time our faith may see them though our senses doe not their assumed shapes doe not make them more present but visible There is an order in that heavenly Hierarchie though we know it not This Angel that appeared to Zacharie was not with him in the ordinary course of his attendances but was purposely sent from God with this message Why was an Angel sent and why this Angel It had been easie for him to have raised up the prophetical spirit of some Simeon to this prediction The same Holy Ghost which revealed to that just man that he should not see death ere he had seen the Messias might have as easily revealed unto him the birth of the forerunner of Christ and by him to Zacharie but God would have this voice which should goe before his Son come with a noise He would have it appear to the world that the harbinger of the Messiah should be conceived by the marvellous power of that God whose coming he proclaimed It was fit the first Herald of the Gospel should begin in wonder The same Angel that came to the Blessed Virgin with the news of Christs conception came to Zacharie with the news of John's for the honour of him that was the greatest of them which were born of women and for his better resemblance to him which was the seed of the woman Both had the Gospel for their errand one as the messenger of it the other as the Author both are foretold by the same mouth When could it be more fit for the Angel to appear unto Zacharie then when prayers and incense were offered by him Where could he more fitly appear then in the Temple In what part of the Temple more fitly then at the Altar of Incense and whereabout rather then on the right side of the Altar Those glorious spirits as they are alwaies with us so most in our devotions and as in all places so most of all in Gods house They rejoice to be with us whiles we are with God as contrarily they turn their faces from us when we goe about our sins He that had wont to live and serve in the presence of the master was now astonished at the presence of the servant So much difference there is betwixt our faith and our senses that the apprehension of the presence of the God of spirits by faith goes down sweetly with us whereas the sensible apprehension of an Angel dismayes us Holy Zacharie that had wont to live by faith thought he should dye when his sense began to be set on work It was the weaknesse of him that served at the Altar without horror to be daunted with the face of his fellow-servant In vain doe we look for such Ministers of God as are without infirmities when just Zacharie was troubled in his devotions with that wherewith he should have been comforted It was partly the suddenness and partly the glory of the apparition that affrighted him The good Angel was both apprehensive and compassionate of Zacharie's weakness and presently incourages him with a cheerful excitation Fear not Zacharias The blessed spirits though they doe not often vocally expresse it doe pity our humane frailties and secretly suggest comfort unto us when we perceive it not Good and evil Angels as they are contrary in estate so also in disposition The good desire to take away fear the evil to bring it It is a fruit of that deadly enmity which is betwixt Satan and us that he would if he might kill us with terror whereas the good spirits affecting our relief and happinesse take no pleasure in terrifying us but labour altogether for our tranquillity and chearfulnesse There was not more fear in the face then comfort in the speech Thy prayer is heard No Angel could have told him better newes Our desires are uttered in our praiers What can we wish but to have what we would Many good suits had Zachary made and amongst the rest for a Son Doubtlesse it was now some space of years since he made that request For he was now stricken in age and had ceased to hope yet had God laid it up all the while and when he thinks not of it brings it forth to effect Thus doth the mercy of our God deale with his patient and faithfull suppliants In the fervour of their expectation he many times holds them off and when they least think of it and have forgotten their own suits he graciously condescends Delay of effect may not discourage our faith It may be God hath long granted ere we shall know of his grant Many a father repents him of his fruitfulnesse and hath such sons as he wishes unborn but to have so gracious and happy a son as the Angel foretold could not be lesse comfort then honor to the age of Zacharie The proof of children makes them either the blessings or crosses of their parents To heare what his son should be before he was to heare that he should have such a son a son whose birth should concern the joy of many a son that should be great in the sight of the Lord a son that should be sacred to God filled with God beneficial to man an harbinger to him that was God and man was news enough to prevent the Angel and to take away that tongue with amazement which was after lost with incredulity The speech was so good that it found not a sudden belief This good news surprised Zachary If the intelligence had taken leisure that his thoughts might have had time to debate the matter he had easily apprehended the infinite power of him that had promised the pattern of Abraham and Sara and would soon have concluded the appearance of the Angel more miraculous then his prediction Whereas now like a man masked with the strangenesse of that he saw and heard he misdoubts the message and asks How shall I know Nature was on his side and alledged the impossibility of the event both from age and barrennesse Supernaturall tidings at the first hearing astonish the heart and are entertained with doubts by those which upon further acquaintance give them the best welcome The weak apprehensions of our imperfect faith are not so much to be censured as pittied It is a sure way for the heart to be prevented with the assurance of the omnipotent power of God to whom nothing is impossible so shall the hardest point of faith goe down easily with us If the eye of our minde look upward it shall meet with nothing to avert or interrupt it but if right forward or downward or round about every thing is a block in our way There is a difference betwixt desire of assurance and unbelief We cannot be too carefull to raise up our selves arguments to settle our faith although it should be no faith if it had no feet to stand
thee from Jury to Egypt As thou wouldst be born mean and miserable so thou wouldst live subject to humane vexations that thou which hast taught us how good it is to bear the yoak even in our youth mightst sanctifie to us early afflictions Or whether O Father since it was the purpose of thy wisdom to manifest thy Son by degrees unto the world was it thy will thus to hide him for a time under our infirmity And what other is our condition we are no sooner born thine then we are persecuted If the Church travel and bring forth a male she is in danger of the Dragons streams What do the Members complain of the same measure which was offered to the Head Both our births are accompanied with tears Even of those whose mature age is full of trouble yet the infancie is commonly quiet but here life and toile began together O Blessed Virgin even already did the sword begin to pierce thy soul thou which wert forced to bear thy Son in thy womb from Nazareth to Bethleem must now bear him in thy arms from Jury into Egypt yet couldst thou not complain of the way whilest thy Saviour was with thee His presence alone was able to make the stable a Temple Egypt a Paradise the way more pleasing then rest But whither then O whither dost thou carry that blessed burthen by which thy self and the world are upholden To Egypt the slaughter-house of God's people the fornace of Israel's ancient affliction the sink of the world Out of Egypt have I called my Son saith God That thou calledst thy Son out of Egypt O God is no marvel It is a marvel that thou calledst him into Egypt but that we know all earths are thine and all places and men are like figures upon a table such as thy disposition makes them What a change is here Israel the first-born of God flies out of Egypt into the promised Land of Judaea Christ the first-born of all creatures flies from Judaea into Egypt Egypt is become the Sanctuary Judaea the Inquisition-house of the Son of God He that is everywhere the same makes all places alike to his He makes the fiery fornace a gallery of pleasure the Lions den an house of defence the Whales belly a lodging chamber Egypt an harbour He flees that was able to preserve himself from danger to teach us how lawfully we may flee from those dangers we cannot avoid otherwise It is a thanklesse fortitude to offer our throat unto the knife He that came to die for us fled for his own preservation and hath bid us follow him When they persecute you in one City flee into another We have but the use of our lives and we are bound to husband them to the best advantage of God and his Church God hath made us not as Butts to be perpetually shot at but as the marks of Rovers moveable as the wind and Sun may best serve It was warrant enough for Joseph and Mary that God commands them to flee yet so familiar is God grown with his approved servants that he gives them the reason of his commanded flight For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him What wicked men will do what they would do is known unto God before-hand He that is so infinitely wise to know the designs of his enemies before they are could as easily prevent them that they might not be but he lets them run on in their own courses that he may fetch glory to himself out of their wickednesse Good Joseph having this charge in the night staies not till the morning no sooner had God said Arise then he starts up and sets forward It was not diffidence but obedience that did so hasten his departure The charge was direct the business important He dares not linger for the light but breaks his rest for the journey and taking vantage of the dark departs towards Egypt How knew he this occasion would abide any delay We cannot be too speedy in the execution of God's commands we may be too late Here was no treasure to hide no hangings to take down no lands to secure the poor Carpenter needs doe no more but lock the doors and away He goes lightly that wants a load If there be more pleasure in abundance there is more security in a mean estate The Bustard or the Ostridge when he is pursued can hardly get upon his wings whereas the Lark mounts with ease The rich hath not so much advantage of the poor in injoying as the poor hath of the rich in leaving Now is Joseph come down into Egypt Egypt was beholden to the name as that whereto it did owe no lesse then their universal preservation Well might it repay this act of Hospitality to that name and blood The going down into Egypt had not so much difficulty as the staying there their absence from their Country was little better then a banishment But what was this other then to serve a prentiship in the house of bondage To be any where save at home was irksome but to be in Egypt so many years amongst idolatrous Pagans must needs be painful to religious hearts The Command of their God and the Presence of Christ makes amends for all How long should they have thought it to see the Temple of God if they had not had the God of the Temple with them How long to present their Sacrifices at the Altar of God if they had not had him with them which made all Sacrifices accepted and which did accept the Sacrifice of their hearts Herod was subtle in mocking the wise-men whiles he promised to worship him whom he meant to kill now God makes the wise-men to mock him in disappointing his expectation It is just with God to punish those which would beguile others with illusion Great spirits are so much more impatient of disgrace How did Herod now rage and fret and vainely wish to have met with those false spies and tell with what torments he would revenge their treachery and curse himself for trusting Strangers in so important a businesse The Tyrants suspition would not let him rest long Ere many daies he sends to inquire of them whom he sent to inquire of Christ The notice of their secret departure increaseth his jealousie and now his anger runs mad and his feare proves desperate All the Infants of Bethleem shall bleed for this one and that he may make sure work he cuts out to himself large measures both of time and place It was but very lately that the Starre appeared that the wise-men re-appeared not They asked for him that was born they did not name when he was born Herod for more securitie over-reaches their time and setches into the slaughter all the Children of two years age The Priests and Scribes had told him the town of Bethleem must be the place of the Messia's nativity He fetches in all the Children of the coasts adjoyning yea his own shall for the time be a Bethleemite
know that hereby thou intendedst to teach thy Parents that thou couldest live without them and that not of any indigency but out of a gracious dispensation thou wouldest ordinarily depend upon their care In the mean time thy Divine wisdome could not but foreknow all these corroding thoughts wherewith the heart of thy dear Mother must needs bleed through this sudden dereliction yet wouldst thou leave her for the time to her sorrow Even so O Saviour thou thoughtest fit to visit her that bore thee with this early affliction Never any loved thee whom thou doest not sometimes exercise with the grief of missing thee that both we may be more careful to hold thee and more joyful in recovering thee Thou hast said and canst not lie I am with you to the end of the world but even whiles thou art really present thou thinkest good to be absent unto our apprehensions Yet if thou leave us thou wilt not forsake us if thou leave us for our humiliation thou wilt not forsake us to our final discomfort Thou mayest for three daies hide thy self but then we shall finde thee in the Temple None ever sought thee with a sincere desire of whom thou wert not found Thou wilt not be either so little absent as not to whet our appetites nor so long as to fainten the heart After three daies we shall finde thee and where should we rather hope to finde thee then in the Temple There is the habitation for the God of Israel there is thy resting place for ever Oh all ye that are grieved with the want of your Saviour see where you must seek him In vain shall ye hope to finde him in the streets in the Taverns in the Theaters seek him in his holy Temple seek him with piety seek him with faith there shall ye meet him there shall ye recover him Whiles children of that age were playing in the streets Christ was found sitting in the Temple not to gaze on the outward glory of that house or on the golden Candlesticks or Tables but to hear and appose the Doctors He who as God gave them all the wisdome they had as the Son of man hearkens to the wisdome he had given them He who sate in their hearts as the Author of all learning and knowledge sits in the midst of their school as an humble Disciple that by learning of them he might teach all the younger sort humility and due attendance upon their Instructors He could at the first have taught the great Rabbins of Israel the deep mysteries of God but because he was not yet called by his Father to the publick function of a Teacher he contents himself to hear with diligence and to ask with modesty and to teach only by insinuation Let those consider this which will needs run as soon as they can go and when they finde ability think they need not stay for a further vocation of God or men Open your eyes ye rathe ripe invaders of God's Chair and see your Saviour in his younger years not sitting in the eminent pulpits of the Doctors but in the lowly floors of the Auditors See him that could have taught the Angels listning in his minority to the voice of men Who can think much to learn of the Ancients when he looks upon the Son of God sitting at the feet of the Doctors of Israel First he hears then he asks How much more doth it concern us to be hearers ere we offer to be teachers of others He gathers that hears he spends that teacheth if we spend before we gather we shall soon prove bankrupts When he hath heard he asks and after that he answers Doubtless those very questions were instructions and meant to teach more then to learn Never had these great Rabbins heard the voice of such a Tutor in whom they might see the wisdome of God so concealing it self that yet it would be known to be there No marvel then if they all wondred at his understanding and answers Their eyes saw nothing but humane weakness their ears heard Divine sublimity of matter betwixt what they saw and what they heard they could not but be distracted with a doubting admiration And why did ye not O ye Jewish teachers remember That to us a Childe is born and unto us a Son is given and the government is upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of peace Why did ye not now bethink your selves what the Star the Sages the Angels the Shepherds Zachary Simeon Anna had premonished you Fruitless is the wonder that endeth not in faith No light is sufficient where the eyes are held through unbelief or prejudice The Doctors were not more amazed to hear so profound a childhood then the Parents of Christ were to see him among the Doctors the joy of finding him did strive with the astonishment of finding him thus And now not Joseph he knew how little right he had to that Divine Son but Mary breaks forth into a loving expostulation Son why hast thou dealt so with us That she might not seem to take upon her as an imperious Mother it is like she reserved this question till she had him alone wherein she meant rather to expresse grief then correption Onely herein the Blessed Virgin offended that her inconsideration did not suppose as it was that some higher respects then could be due to flesh and blood called away the Son of God from her that was the daughter of man She that was but the mother of humanity should not have thought that the business of God must for her sake be neglected We are all partial to our selves naturally and prone to the regard of our own rights Questionlesse this gracious Saint would not for all the world have willingly preferr'd her own attendance to that of her God through heedlesness she doth so her Son and Saviour is her monitor out of his Divine love reforming her natural How is it that ye sought me Know ye not that I must goe about my Fathers businesse Immediately before the Blessed Virgin had said Thy father and I sought thee with heavy hearts Wherein both according to the supposition of the world she called Joseph the Father of Christ and according to the fashion of a dutiful Wife she names her Joseph before her self She well knew that Joseph had nothing but a name in this business she knew how God had dignified her beyond him yet she saies Thy father and I sought thee The Son of God stands not upon contradiction to his Mother but leading her thoughts from his supposed father to his true from earth to Heaven he answers Knew ye not that I must go about my Fathers business It was honour enough to her that he had vouchsafed to take flesh of her it was his eternal honour that he was God of God the everlasting Son of the heavenly Father Good reason therefore was it that the respects to flesh
the need of Baptism John baptized without Christ within The more holy a man is the more sensible he is 〈◊〉 his unholiness No carnal man could have said I have need to be baptized of thee neither can he finde what he is the better for a little Font-water The sense of our wretchedness and the valuation of our spiritual helps is the best tryal of our regeneration Our Saviour doth not deny that either John hath need to be baptized of him or that it is strange that he should come to be baptized of John but he will needs thus far both honour John and disparage himself to be baptized of his Messenger He that would take flesh of the Virgin education from his Parents sustenance from his creatures will take Baptism from John It is the praise of his Mercy that he will stoop so low as to be beholden to his creatures which from him receive their Being and power both to take and give Yet no so much respect to John as obedience to his Father drew him to this point of humiliation Thus it behoves us to fulfill all righteousness The Counsels and Appointments of God are Righteousness it self There needs no other motive either to the servant or the Son then the knowledge of those righteous purposes This was enough to lead a faithful man through all difficulties and inconveniencies neither will it admit of any reply or any demur John yieldeth to this honour which his Saviour puts upon him in giving Baptism to the Authour of it He baptized others to the remission of their sins now he baptizes him by whom they are remitted both to the Baptizer and to others No sooner is Christ baptized then he comes forth of the water The element is of force but during the use it turns common when that is past Neither is the water sooner powâ—ed on his head then the Heavens are opened and the Holy Ghost descendeth upon that head which was baptized The Heavens are never shut whiles either of the Sacraments is duly administred and received neither do the Heavens ever thus open without the descent of the Holy Ghost But now that the God of Heaven is baptized they open unto him which are opened to all the faithful by him and that Holy Ghost which proceeded from him together with the Father joyns with the Father in a sensible testimony of him that now the world might see what interest he had in the Heavens in the Father in the Holy Spirit and might expect nothing but Divine from the entrance of such a Mediatour Christ tempted NO sooner is Christ come out of the water of Baptism then he enters into the fire of Tentation No sooner is the Holy Spirit descended upon his head in the form of a Dove then he is led by the Spirit to be tempted No sooner doth God say This is my Son then Satan saies If thou be the Son of God It is not in the power either of the gift or seals of Grace to deliver us from the assaults of Satan they may have the force to repell evil suggestions they have none to prevent them yea the more we are ingaged unto God by our publick vows and his pledges of favour so much more busie and violent is the rage of that Evil one to encounter us We are no sooner stept forth into the field of God then he labours to wrest our weapons out of our hands or to turn them against us The voice from Heaven acknowledged Christ to be the Son of God This Divine Testimony did not allay the malice of Satan but exasperate it Now that venomous Serpent swels with inward poison and hasts to assail him whom God hath honoured from Heaven O God how should I look to escape the suggestions of that wicked one when the Son of thy love cannot be free when even grace it self draws on enmity That enmity that spared not to strike at the Head will he forbear the weakest and remotest limme Arm thou me therefore with an expectation of that evil I cannot avoid Make thou me as strong as he is malicious Say to my Soul also Thou art my Son and let Satan do his worst All the time of our Saviours obscurity I do not finde him set upon now that he looks forth to the publick execution of his Divine Office Satan bends his forces against him Our privacy perhaps may sit down in peace but never man did endevour a common good without opposition It is a sign that both the work is holy and the Agent faithful when we meet with strong affronts We have reason to be comforted with nothing so much as with resistance If we were not in a way to do good we should finde no rubs Satan hath no cause to molest his own and that whiles they goe about his own service He desires nothing more then to make us smooth paths to sinne but when we would turn our feet to Holinesse he blocks up the way with Tentations Who can wonder enough at the sawcinesse of that bold spirit that dares to set upon the Son of the ever-living God Who can wonder enough at thy meeknesse and patience O Saviour that wouldst be tempted He wanted not Malice and Presumption to assault thee thou wantedst not Humility to endure those assaults I should stand amazed at this voluntary dispensation of thine but that I see the susception of our Humane nature laies thee open to this condition It is necessarily incident to manhood to be liable to Tentations Thou wouldst not have put on flesh if thou hadst meant utterly to put off this consequence of our infirmity If the state of Innocence could have been any defence against evil motions the first Adam had not been tempted much lesse the second It is not the presenting of Tentations that can hurt us but their entertainment Ill counsel is the fault of the Giver not of the Refuser We cannot forbid lewd eyes to look in at our windows we may shut our doors against their entrance It is no lesse our praise to have resisted then Satans blame to suggest evil Yea O blessed Saviour how glorious was it for thee how happy for us that thou wert tempted Had not Satan tempted thee how shouldest thou have overcome Without blows there can be no victory no triumph How had thy power been manifested if no adversary had tried thee The first Adam was tempted and vanquished the second Adam to repay and repair that foile doth vanquish in being tempted Now have we not a Saviour and High Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but such an once as was in all things tempted in like sort yet without sin How boldly therefore may we goe unto the Throne of grace that we may receive mercy and finde grace of help in time of need Yea this Duell was for us Now we see by this conflict of our Almighty Champion what manner of Adversary we have how he fights how he is resisted how overcome
steps in his temptations of the second The stones must be made bread there is the motion to a Carnal appetite The guard and attendance of Angels must be presumed on there is a motion to Pride The Kingdomes of the Earth and the glory of them must be offered there to Covetousnesse and Ambition Satan could not but have heard God say This is my welbeloved Son he had heard the Message and the Carol of the Angels he saw the Star and the journey and Offerings of the Sages he could not but take notice of the gratulations of Zachary Simeon Anna he well knew the Predictions of the Prophets yet now that he saw Christ fainting with hunger as not comprehending how infirmities could consist with a Godhead he can say If thou be the Son of God Had not Satan known that the Son of God was to come into the World he had never said If thou be the Son of God His very supposition convinces him The ground of his Temptation answers it self If therefore Christ seemed to be a mere man because after forty daies he was hungry why was he not confessed more then a man in that for forty daies he hungred not The motive of the Temptation is worse then the motion If thou be the Son of God Satan could not chuse another suggestion of so great importance All the work of our Redemption of our Salvation depends upon this one Truth Christ is the Son of God How should he else have ransomed the World how should he have done how should he have suffered that which was satisfactory to his Fathers wrath how should his actions or Passion have been valuable to the sin of all the World What marvel is it if we that are sons by Adoption be assaulted with the doubts of our interest in God when the natural Son the Son of his Essence is thus tempted Since all our comfort consists in this point here must needs be laid the chief battery and here must be placed our strongest defence To turn Stones into Bread had been no more faulty in it self then to turn Water into Wine But to do this in a distrust of his Fathers Providence to abuse his power and liberty in doing it to work a Miracle of Satans choice had been disagreeable to the Son of God There is nothing more ordinary with our spiritual enemy then by occasion of want to move us to unwarrantable courses Thou art poor steal Thou canst not rise by honest means use indirect How easie had it been for our Saviour to have confounded Satan by the power of his Godhead But he rather chuses to vanquish him by the Sword of the Spirit that he might teach us how to resist overcome the powers of darknesse If he had subdued Satan by the Almighty power of the Deity we might have had what to wonder at not what to imitate now he useth that weapon which may be familiar unto us that he may teach our weaknesse how to be victorious Nothing in Heaven or earth can beat the forces of Hell but the word of God How carefully should we furnish our selves with this powerful munition how should our hearts and mouths be full of it Teach me O Lord the way of thy Statutes O take not from me the words of Truth Let them be my Songs in the house of my pilgrimage So shall I make answer to my Blasphemers What needed Christ to have answered Satan at all if it had not been to teach us that Temptations must not have their way but must be answered by resistance and resisted by the Word I do not hear our Saviour aver himself to be a God against the blasphemous insinuation of Satan neither do I see him working this miraculous Conversion to prove himself the Son of God but most wisely he takes away the ground of the Temptation Satan had taken it for granted that man cannot be sustained without bread and therefore infers the necessity of making bread of stones Our Saviour shews him from an infallible Word that he had mislayed his suggestion That man lives not by usual food only but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God He can either sustain without bread as he did Moses and Elias or with a miraculous bread as the Israelites with Manna or send ordinary means miraculously as food to his Prophet by the Ravens or miraculously multiply ordinary means as the Meal and Oyle to the Sareptan Widow All things are sustained by his Almighty Word Indeed we live by food but not by any virtue that is without God without the concurrence of whose Providence bread would rather choak then nourish us Let him withdraw his hand from his creatures in their greatest abundance we perish Why do we therefore bend our eyes on the means and not look up to the hand that gives the blessing What so necessary dependance hath the blessing upon the creature if our Prayers hold them not together As we may not neglect the means so we may not neglect the procurement of a blessing upon the means nor be unthankful to the hand that hath given the blessing In the first assault Satan moves Christ to doubt of his Fathers Providence and to use unlawful means to help himself in the next he moves him to presume upon his Fathers protection and the service of his blessed Angels He grounds the first upon a conceit of want the next of abundance If he be in extremes it is all to one end to mislead unto evil If we cannot be driven down to despair he labours to lift us up to presumption It is not one foil than can put this bold spirit out of countenance Temptations like waves break one in the neck of another Whiles we are in this warfare we must make account that the repulse of one Temptation doth but invite to another That Blessed Saviour of ours that was content to be led from Jordan into the Wildernesse for the advantage of the first Temptation yields to be led from the Wildernesse to Jerusalem for the advantage of the second The place doth not a little avail to the act The Wildernesse was fit for a Temptation arising from Want it was not fit for a Temptation moving to Vain-glory the populous City was the fittest for such a motion Jerusalem was the glory of the World the Temple was the glory of Jerusalem the Pinnacles the highest piece of the Pinnacle there is Christ content to be set for the opportunity of Tentation O Saviour of men how can we wonder enough at this Humility of thine that thou wouldest so farre abase thy self as to suffer thy pure and sacred Body to be transported by the presumptuous and malicious hand of that unclean Spirit It was not his Power it was thy Patience that deserves our admiration Neither can this seem over-strange to us when we consider that if Satan be the head of wicked men wicked men are the members of Satan What was Pilate or the Jews
a Woman nor so look upon him as a Son that she should not regard him as a God He was so obedient to her as a Mother that withall she must obey him as her God That part which he took from her shall observe her she must observe that nature which came from above and made her both a Woman and a Mother Matter of miracle concerned the Godhead only Supernatural things were above the sphere of fleshly relation If now the Blessed Virgin will be prescribing either time or form unto Divine acts O woman what have I to doe with thee my hour is not come In all bodily actions his style was O Mother in spirituall and heavenly O Woman Neither is it for us in the holy affairs of God to know any faces yea if we have known Christ heretofore according to the flesh henceforth know we him so no more O Blessed Virgin if in that heavenly glory wherein thou art thou canst take notice of these earthly things with what indignation dost thou look upon the presumptuous superstition of vain men whose suits make thee more then a solicitor of Divine favours Thy Humanity is not lost in thy Motherhood nor in thy Glory The respects of Nature reach not so high as Heaven It is far from thee to abide that honour which is stolne from thy Redeemer There is a Marriage whereto we are invited yea wherein we are already interessed not as the Guests onely but as the Bride in which there shall be no want of the wine of gladnesse It is marvel if in these earthly banquets there be not some lack In thy presence O Saviour there is fulnesse of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb. Even in that rough answer doth the Blessed Virgin descry cause of hope If his hour were not yet come it was therefore coming when the exspectation of the guests and the necessity of the occasion had made fit room for the Miracle it shall come forth and challenge their wonder Faithfully therefore and observantly doth she turn her speech from her Son to the Waiters Whatsoever he saith unto you doe it How well doth it beseem the Mother of Christ to agree with his Father in Heaven whose voice from Heaven said This is my well-beloved Son hear him She that said of her self Be it unto me according to thy word saies unto others Whatsoever he saith to you doe it This is the way to have Miracles wrought in us obedience to his Word The power of Christ did not stand upon their officiousnesse he could have wrought wonders in spite of them but their perverse refusall of his commands might have made them uncapable of the favour of a miraculous action He that can when he will convince the obstinate will not grace the disobedient He that could work without us or against us will not work for us but by us This very poor house was furnished with many and large vessels for outward purification as if sin had dwelt upon the skin that superstitious people sought Holiness in frequent washings Even this rinsing fouled them with the uncleannesse of a traditional will-worship It is the Soul which needs scowring and nothing can wash that but the blood which they desperately wished upon themselves and their children for guilt not for expiation Purge thou us O Lord with hyssop and we shall be clean wash us and we shall be whiter then snow The Waiters could not but think strange of so unseasonable a command Fill the water pots It is wine that we want what do we goe to fetch water Doth this Holy man mean thus to quench our Feast and cool our stomacks If there be no remedy we could have sought this supply unbidden Yet so far hath the charge of Christs Mother prevailed that in stead of carrying flagons of wine to the table they goe to fetch pails-full of water from the Cisterns It is no pleading of unlikelihoods against the command of an Almighty power He that could have created wine immediately in those vessels will rather turn water into wine In all the course of his Miracles I do never finde him making ought of nothing all his great works are grounded upon former existences He multiplied the bread he changed the water he restored the withered limmes he raised the dead and still wrought upon that which was and did not make that which was not What doth he in the ordinary way of nature but turn the watery juice that arises up from the root into wine He will only do this now suddenly and at once which he doth usually by sensible degrees It is ever duly observed by the Son of God not to doe more miracle then he needs How liberal are the provisions of Christ If he had turned but one of those vessels it had been a just proof of his power and perhaps that quantity had served the present necessity now he furnisheth them with so much wine as would have served an hundred and fifty guests for an intire Feast Even the measure magnifies at once both his power and mercy The munificent hand of God regards not our need only but our honest affluence It is our sin and our shame if we turn his favour into wantonness There must be first a filling ere there be a drawing out Thus in our vessels the first care must be of our receit the next of our expence God would have us Cisterns not Channels Our Saviour would not be his own taster but he sends the first draught to the Governour of the Feast He knew his own power they did not Neither would he bear witness of himself but fetch it out of others mouths They that knew not the original of that wine yet praised the taste Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine and when men have well drunk then that which is worse but thou hast kept the good wine untill now The same bounty that expressed it self in the quantity of the Wine shews it self no lesse in the excellence Nothing can fall from that Divine hand not exquisite That liberality hated to provide crab-wine for his guests It was fit that the miraculous effects of Christ which came from his immediate hand should be more perfect then the natural O Blessed Saviour how delicate is that new Wine which we shall one day drink with thee in thy Fathers Kingdome Thou shalt turn this water of our earthly affliction into that Wine of gladnesse wherewith our Souls shall be satiate for ever Make haste O my Beloved and be thou like to a Roe or to a young Hart upon the Mountain of Spices The good Centurion Even the bloody trade of War yielded worthy Clients to Christ This Roman Captain had learned to believe in that Jesus whom many Jews despised No Nation no trade can shut out a good heart from God If he were a forreiner for birth yet he was a domestick in
hast believed so be it unto thee Never was any Faith unseen of Christ never was any seen without allowance never was any allowed without remuneration The measure of our receits in the matter of favour is the proportion of our belief The infinite Mercy of God which is ever like it self follows but one Rule in his gift to us the Faith that he gives us Give us O God to believe and be it to us as thou wilt it shall be to us above that we will The Centurion sues for his Servant and Christ saies So be it unto thee The Servants health is the benefit of the Master and the Masters Faith is the health of the Servant And if the Prayers of an earthly Master prevailed so much with the Son of God for the recovery of a Servant how shall the intercession of the Son of God prevail with his Father in Heaven for us that are his impotent Children Servants upon Earth What can we want O Saviour whiles thou suest for us He that hath given thee for us can deny thee nothing for us can deny us nothing for thee In thee we are happy and shall be glorious To thee O thou mightie Redeemer of Israel with thine eternal Father together with thy Blessed Spirit one God infinite and incomprehensible be given all Praise Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen Contemplations THE THIRD BOOK Containing The Widows son raised The Rulers son healed The dumb Devil ejected Matthew called Christ among the Gergesens or Legion and the Gadarene Herd To my right Worthy and Worshipful friend Mr JOHN GIFFORD OF Lancrasse in Devon Esq All Grace and Peace SIR I Hold it as I ought one of the rich mercies of God that he hath given me favour in some eyes which have not seen me but none that I know hath so much demerited me unknown as your worthy Familie Ere therefore you see my face see my hand willingly professing my thankfull obligations Wherewith may it please you to accept of this parcel of thoughts not unlike those fellows of theirs whom you have entertained above their desert These shall present unto you our Bountifull Saviour magnifying his mercies to men in a sweet variety healing the Diseased raising the Dead casting out the Devil calling in the Publican and shall raise your heart to adore that infinite goodness Every help to our Devotion deserves to be precious so much more as the decrepit age of the World declines to an heartlesse coldnesse of Piety That God to whose Honour these poor Labours are meant blesse them in your hands and from them to all Readers To his Protection I heartily commend you and the Right vertuous Gentlewoman your worthy Wife with all the Pledges of your happy affection as whom you have deserved to be Your truly thankful and officious Friend JOS. HALL The Widows son raised THE favours of our beneficent Saviour were at the least contiguous No sooner hath he raised the Centurion's Servant from his bed then he raises the Widows Son from his Biere The fruitful clouds are not ordained to fall all in one field Nain must partake of the bounty of Christ as well as Cana or Capernaum And if this Sun were fixed in one Orbe yet it diffuseth heat and light to all the world It is not for any place to ingrosse the messengers of the Gospel whose errand is universal This immortal seed may not fall all in one furrow The little City of Nain stood under the hill of Hermon near unto Tabor but now it is watered with better dews from above the Doctrine and Miracles of a Saviour Not for state but for the more evidence of the work is our Saviour attended with a large train so entering into the gate of that walled City as if he meant to besiege their Faith by his Power and to take it His Providence hath so contrived his journey that he meets with the sad pomp of a Funeral A woful Widow attended with her weeping neighbours is following her onely Son to the grave There was nothing in this spectacle that did not command compassion A young man in the flower in the strength of his age swallowed up by death Our decrepit age both exspects death and solicits it but vigorous youth looks strangely upon that grim Serjeant of God Those mellow apples that fall alone from the tree we gather up with contentment we chide to have the unripe unseasonably beaten down with cudgels But more a young man the onely Son the onely childe of his mother No condition can make it other then grievous for a well-natur'd mother to part with her own bowels yet surely store is some mitigation of loss Amongst many children one may be more easily missed for still we hope the surviving may supply the comforts of the dead But when all our hopes and joyes must either live or dy in one the loss of that one admits of no consolation When God would describe the most passionate expression of sorrow that can fall into the miserable he can but say oh daughter of my people gird thee with sackcloth and wallow thy self in the ashes make lamentation and bitter mourning as for thine onely Son Such was the loss such was the sorrow of this disconsolate mother neither words nor tears can suffice to discover it Yet more had she been aided by the counsel and supportation of a loving yoke-fellow this burden might have seemed less intolerable A good Husband may make amends for the loss of a Son had the root been left to her intire she might better have spared the branch now both are cut up all the stay of her life is gone and she seems abandoned to a perfect misery And now when she gave her self up for a forlorn mourner past all capacity of redress the God of comfort meets her pities her relieves her Here was no solicitor but his own compassion In other occasions he was sought and sued to The Centurion comes to him for a Servant the Ruler for a Son Jairus for a Daughter the neighbours for the Paralytick here he seeks up the Patient and offers the cure unrequested Whiles we have to doe with the Father of Mercies our afflictions are the most powerful suitors No teares no prayers can move him so much as his own commiseration O God none of our secret sorrows can be either hid from thine eyes or kept from thine heart and when we are past all our hopes all possibilities of help then art thou nearest to us for deliverance Here was a conspiration of all parts to mercy The Heart had compassion the Mouth said Weep not the Feet went to the Bier the Hand touched the coffin the Power of the Deity raised the dead What the Heart felt was secret to it self the Tongue therefore expresses it in words of comfort Weep not Alas what are words to so strong and just passions To bid her not to weep that had lost her only Son was to perswade her to be
the cure of his sons Fever What pains even the greatest can be content to take for bodily health No way is long no labour tedious to the desirous Our Souls are sick of a spiritual Fever labouring under the cold fit of Infidelity and the hot fit of Self-love and we sit still at home and see them languish unto death This Ruler was neither faithless nor faithful Had he been quite faithless he had not taken such pains to come to Christ Had he been faithful he had not made this suit to Christ when he was come Come down and heal my son ere he die Come down as if Christ could not have cured him absent Ere he die as if that power could not have raised him being dead How much difference was here betwixt the Centurion and the Ruler That came for his Servant this for his Son This son was not more above the servant then the Faith which sued for the servant surpassed that which sued for the son The one can say Master come not under my roof for I am not worthy onely speak the word and my servant shall be whole The other can say Master either come under my roof or my son cannot be whole Heal my son had been a good suit for Christ is the onely Physician for all diseases but Come down and heal him was to teach God how to work It is good reason that he should challenge the right of prescribing to us who are every way his own it is presumption in us to stint him unto our forms An expert workman cannot abide to be taught by a novice how much less shall the all-wise God endure to be directed by his creature This is more then if the Patient should take upon him to give a Recipe to the Physician That God would give us grace is a beseeming suit but to say Give it me by prosperitie is a sawcy motion As there is faithfulness in desiring the End so modesty and patience in referring the Means to the author In spiritual things God hath acquainted us with the means whereby he will work even his own Sacred Ordinances Upon these because they have his own promise we may call absolutely for a Blessing In all others there is no reason that beggers should be chusers He who doth whatsoever he will must doe it how he will It is for us to receive not to appoint He who came to complain of his son's sickness hears of his own Except ye see signes and wonders ye will not believe This Nobleman was as is like of Capernaum There had Christ often preached there was one of his chief residencies Either this man had heard our Saviour oft or might have done yet because Christ's Miracles came to him onely by hear-say for as yet we finde none at all wrought where he preached most therefore the man believes not enough but so speaks to Christ as to some ordinary Physician Come down and heal It was the common disease of the Jews Incredulity which no receit could heal but Wonders A wicked and adulterous generation seeks signes Had they not been wilfully graceless there was already proof enough of the Messias the miraculous conception and life of the Fore-runner Zacharie's dumbness the attestation of Angels the apparition of the Star the journey of the Sages the vision of the Shepherds the testimonies of Anna and Simeon the Prophecies fulfilled the Voice from Heaven at his Baptisme the Divine words that he spake and yet they must have all made up with Miracles which though he be not unwilling to give at his own times yet he thinks much to be tied unto at theirs Not to believe without signes was a signe of stubborn hearts It was a foul fault and a dangerous one Ye will not believe What is it that shall condemn the world but unbelief What can condemn us without it No sin can condemn the repentant Repentance is a fruit of Faith where true Faith is then there can be no condemnation as there can be nothing but condemnation without it How much more foul in a noble Capernaite that had heard the Sermons of so Divine a Teacher The greater light we have the more shame it is for us to stumble Oh what shall become of us that reel and fall in the clearest Sun-shine that ever looked forth upon any Church Be merciful to our sins O God and say any thing of us rather then Ye will not believe Our Saviour tels him of his unbelief He feels not himself sick of that disease All his minde is on his dying son As easily do we complain of bodily griefs as we are hardly affected with spiritual Oh the meekness and mercy of this Lamb of God! When we would have look'd that he should have punished this suitor for not believing he condescends to him that he may believe Go thy way thy son liveth If we should measure our hopes by our own worthiness there were no exspectation of blessings but if we shall measure them by his bounty and compassion there can be no doubt of prevailing As some tender mother that gives the breast to her unquiet childe in stead of the rod so deals he with our perversnesses How God differences men according to no other conditions then of their Faith The Centurion's servant was sick the Ruler's son The Centurion doth not sue unto Christ to come onely sayes My servant is sick of a Palsie Christ answers him I will come and heal him The Ruler sues unto Christ that he would come and heal his son Christ will not goe onely sayes Goe thy way thy Son lives Outward things carrie no respect with God The Image of that Divine Majesty shining inwardly in the Graces of the Soul is that which wins love from him in the meanest estate The Centurion's Faith therefore could doe more then the Ruler's Greatness and that faithful mans servant hath more regard then this great mans son The Ruler's request was Come and heale Christ's answer was Goe thy way thy Son lives Our merciful Saviour meets those in the end whom he crosses in the way How sweetly doth he correct our prayers and whiles he doth not give us what we ask gives us better then we asked Justly doth he forbear to goe down with this Ruler lest he should confirm him in an opinion of measuring his power by conceits of locality and distance but he doth that in absence for which his presence was required with a repulse Thy Son liveth giving a greater demonstration of his Omnipotencie then was craved How oft doth he not hear to our will that he may hear us to our advantage The chosen Vessel would be rid of Tentations he heares of a supply of Grace The sick man asks Release receives Patience Life and receives Glory Let us ask what we think best let him give what he knows best With one word doth Christ heal two Patients the son and the father the sons Fever the fathers Unbelief That operative word of our
thy words never till now at thy silence A miserable suppliant cries and sues whiles the God of mercies is speechlesse He that comforts the afflicted addes affliction to the comfortlesse by a willing disrespect What shall we say then Is the fountain of Mercy dried up O Saviour couldst thou but hear she did not murmur not whisper but cry out couldst thou but pity but regard her that was as good as she was miserable If thy ears were open could thy bowels be shut Certainly it was thou that didst put it into the heart into the mouth of this woman to ask and to ask thus of thy self She could never have said O Lord thou son of David but from thee but by thee None calleth Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost Much more therefore didst thou hear the words of thine own making and well wert thou pleased to hear what thou thoughtest good to forbear to answer It was thine own grace that sealed up thy lips Whether for the triall of her patience and perseverance forâ— silence carried a semblance of neglect and a willing neglect laies strong siege to the best fort of the Soul Even calm tempers when they have been stirred have bewrayed impetuousness of Passion If there be any dregs in the bottom of the glasse when the water is shaken they will be soon seen Or whether for the more sharpning of her desires and raising of her zealous importunity Our holy longings are increased with delaies it whets our appetite to be held fasting Or whether for the more sweetning of the blessing by the difficulty or stay of obtaining The benefit that comes with ease is easily contemned Long and eager pursuit endears any favour Or whether for the ingaging of his Disciples in so charitable a suit Or whether for the wise avoidance of exception from the captious Jews or lastly for the drawing on of an holy and imitable pattern of faithfull perseverance and to teach us not to measure God's hearing of our suit by his present answer or his present answer by our own sense Whiles our weakness exspects thy words thy wisdome resolves upon thy silence Never wert thou better pleased to hear the acclamation of Angels then to hear this woman say O Lord thou son of David yet silence is thy answer When we have made our prayers it is an happy thing to hear the report of them back from Heaven but if we alwaies do not so it is not for us to be dejected and to accuse either our infidelity or thy neglect since we finde here a faithfull suitor met with a gracious Saviour and yet he answered her not a word If we be poor in spirit God is rich in mercy he cannot send us away empty yet he will not alwaies let us feel his condescent crossing us in our will that he may advance our benefit It was no small fruit of Christ's silence that the Disciples were hereupon moved to pray for her not for a mere dismission it had been no favour to have required this but a punishment for if to be held in suspense be miserable to be sent away with a repulse is more but for a mercifull grant They saw much passion in the woman much cause of passion they saw great discouragement on Christ's part great constancy on hers Upon all these they feel her misery and become suitors for her unrequested It is our duty in case of necessity to intercede for each other and by how much more familiar we are with Christ so much more to improve our interest for the relief of the distressed We are bidden to say Our Father not mine yea being members of one body we pray for our selves in others If the foot be prickt the back bends the head bows down the eyes look the hands stir the tongue calls for aide the whole man is in pain and labours for redresse He cannot pray or be heard for himself that is no mans friend but his own No prayer without faith no faith without charity no charity without mutual intercession That which urged them to speak for her is urged to Christ by them for her obtaining She cries after us Prayer is as an arrow if it be drawn up but a little it goes not far but if it be pull'd up to the head it flies strongly and pierces deep If it be but dribbled forth of carelesse lips it falls down at our foot the strength of our ejaculation sends it up into Heaven and fetches down a blessing The childe hath escaped many a stripe by his loud crying and the very unjust Judge cannot indure the widows clamour Heartless motions do but teach us to deny servent suits offer violence both to earth and Heaven Christ would not answer the woman but doth answer the Disciples Those that have a familiarity with God shall receive answers when strangers shall stand out Yea even of domesticks some are more intire He that lay in Jesus his bosome could receive that intelligence which was concealed from the rest But who can tell whether that silence or this answer be more grievous I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel What is this answer but a defence of that silence and seeming neglect Whiles he said nothing his forbearance might have been supposed to proceed from the necessity of some greater thoughts but now his answer professeth that silence to have proceeded from a willing resolution not to answer and therefore he doth not vouchsafe so much as to give to her the answer but to her solicitors that they might return his deniall from him to her who had undertaken to derive her suit to him I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Like a faithfull Embassadour Christ hath an eye to his commission That may not be violated though to an apparant advantage whither he is not sent he may not goe As he so all his have their fixed marks set at these they aime and think it not safe to shoot at rovers In matter of morality it is not for us to stand onely upon inhibitions avoiding what is forbidden but upon commands endeavouring only what is injoyned We need no other rule of our life then the intention of our several stations And if he that was God would take no further scope to himself then the limits of his commission how much doth it concern us frail men to keep within compass or what shall become of our lawlesness that live in a direct contrariety to the will of him that sent us Israel was Jacob's name from him derived to his posterity till the division of the Tribes under Jeroboam all that nation was Israel then the Father's name went to the most which were ten Tribes the name of the Son Juda to the best which were two Christ takes no notice of this unhappy division he remembers the antient name which he gave to that faithfull wrestler It was this Christ with whom Jacob strove it was he
they straight vent it into the eare of their Master O Saviour whiles thou art in Heaven thy school is upon earth Wherefore serve thy Priests lips but to preserve knowledge What use is there of the tongue of the learned but to speak a word in season Thou teachest us still and still we doubt and ask and learn In one short question I finde two Truths and two Falshoods the Truths implied the Falshoods expressed It is true that commonly man's suffering is for sin that we may justly and do often suffer even for the sins of our Parents It is false that there is no other reason of our suffering but sin that a man could sin actually before he was or was before his being or could before-hand suffer for his after-sins In all likelihood that absurd conceit of the Transmigration of Souls possessed the very Disciples How easily and how far may the best be miscarried with a common errour We are not thankfull for our own illumination if we do not look with charity and pity upon the grosse mis-opinions of our brethren Our Saviour sees and yet will wink at so foul a misprision of his Disciples I hear neither chiding nor conviction He that could have inlightned their mindes as he did the world at once will doe it by due leisure and only contents himself here with a milde solution Neither this man nor his Parents We learn nothing of thee O Saviour if not meekness What a sweet temper should be in our carriage towards the weaknesses of others judgment how should we instruct them without bitterness and without violence of Passion exspect the meet seasons of their better information The tender Mother or Nurse doth not rate her little one for that he goes not well but gives him her hand that he may goe better It is the spirit of lenity that must restore and confirm the lapsed The answer is direct and punctual neither the sin of the man nor of his Parents bereaved him of his eyes there was an higher cause of this privation the glory that God meant to win unto himself by redressing it The Parents had sinned in themselves the man had sinned in his first Parents it is not the guilt of either that is guilty of this blindness All God's afflictive acts are not punishments some are for the benefit of the creature whether for probation or prevention or reformation all are for the praise whether of his Divine Power or Justice or Mercy It was fit so great a work should be usher'd in with a preface A suddain and abrupt appearance would not have beseemed so glorious a demonstration of Omnipotence The way is made our Saviour addresses himself to the Miracle a Miracle not more in the thing done then in the form of doing it The matter used was clay Could there be a meaner could there be ought more unfit O Saviour how oft hadst thou cured blindnesses by thy word alone how oft by thy touch How easily couldst thou have done so here Was this to shew thy liberty or thy power Liberty in that thou canst at pleasure use variety of means not being tied to any Power in that thou couldst make use of contraries Hadst thou pull'd out a box and applied some medicinal ointment to the eyes something had been ascribed to thy skill more to the natural power of thy receit now thou madest use of clay which had been enough to stop up the eyes of the seeing the virtue must be all in thee none in the means The utter disproportion of this help to the Cure addes glory to the worker How clearly didst thou hence evince to the world that thou who of clay couldst make eyes wert the same who of clay hadst made man since there is no part of the body that hath so little analogie to clay as the eye this clearness is contrary to that opacity Had not the Jews been more blinde then the man whom thou curedst and more hard and stiffe then the clay which thou mollifiedst they had in this one work both seen and acknowledged thy Deity What could the clay have done without thy tempering It was thy spittle that made the clay effectual it was that Sacred mouth of thine that made the spittle medicinal the water of Siloe shall but wash off that clay which this inward moisture made powerfull The clay thus tempered must be applied by the hand that made it else it avails nothing What must the blinde man needs think when he felt the cold clay upon the holes of his eyes or since he could not conceive what an eye was what must the beholders needs think to see that hollowness thus filled up Is this the way to give either eyes or sight Why did not the earth see with this clay as well as the man What is there to hinder the sight if this make it Yet with these contrarieties must the Faith be exercised where God intends the blessing of a Cure It was never meant that this clay should dwell upon those pits of the eyes it is onely put on to be washed off and that not by every water none shall doe it but that of Siloam which signifies Sent and if the man had not been sent to Siloam he had been still blinde All things receive their virtue from Divine institution How else should a piece of wheaten bread nourish the Soul How should spring-water wash off spiritual filthiness How should the foolishness of preaching save Souls How should the absolution of God's Minister be more effectual then the breath of an ordinary Christian Thou O God hast set apart these Ordinances thy Blessing is annexed to them hence is the ground of all our use and their efficacy Hadst thou so instituted Jordan would as well have healed Blindness and Siloam Leprosie That the man might be capable of such a Miracle his Faith is set on work he must be led with his eyes daubed up to the pool of Siloam He washes and sees Lord what did this man think when his eyes were now first given him what a new world did he finde himself now come into how did he wonder at Heaven and earth and the faces and shapes of all creatures the goodly varieties of colours the chearfulness of the light the lively beams of the Sun the vast expansion of the aire the pleasant transparence of the water at the glorious piles of the Temple and stately palaces of Jerusalem Every thing did not more please then astonish him Lo thus shall we be affected and more when the scales of our mortality being done away we shall see as we are seen when we shall behold the blessedness of that other world the glory of the Saints and Angels the infinite Majesty of the Son of God the incomprehensible brightness of the all-glorious Deity O my Soul that thou couldst be taken up before-hand with the admiration of that which thou canst not as yet be capable of foreseeing It could not be but that many eyes
had been witnesses of this man's want of eyes He sate begging at one of the Temple gates not only all the City but all the Country must needs know him thrice a year did they come up to Jerusalem neither could they come to the Temple and not see him His very blindness made him noted Deformities and infirmities of body do more easily both draw and fix the eye then an ordinary symmetry of parts Besides his Blindness his Trade made him remarkable the importunity of his begging drew the eyes of the passengers But of all other the Place most notified him Had he sate in some obscure village of Judaea or in some blinde lane of Jerusalem perhaps he had not been heeded of many but now that he took up his seat in the heart in the head of the chief City whither all resorted from all parts what Jew can there be that knows not the blinde begger at the Temple gate Purposely did our Saviour make choice of such a Subject for his Miracle a man so poor so publick the glory of the work could not have reach'd so far if it had been done to the wealthiest Citizen of Jerusalem Neither was it for nothing that the act and the man is doubted of and inquired into by the beholders Is not this he that sat begging Some said It is he others said It is like him No truths have received so full proofs as those that have been questioned The want or the suddain presence of an eye much more of both must needs make a great change in the face those little balls of light which no doubt were more clear then Nature could have made them could not but give a new life to the countenance I marvell not it the neighbours which had wont to see this dark visage led by a guide and guided by a staffe seeing him now walking confidently alone out of his own inward light and looking them chearfully in the face doubted whether this were he The miraculous cures of God work a sensible alteration in men not more in their own apprehension then in the judgment of others Thus in the redresse of the Spiritual blindnesse the whole habit of the man is changed Where before his Face looked dull and earthly now there is a sprightful chearfulness in it through the comfortable knowledge of God and Heavenly things Whereas before his Heart was set upon worldly things now he uses them but injoyes them not and that use is because he must not because he would Where before his fears and griefs were only for pains of body or losse of estate or reputation now they are only spent upon the displeasure of his God and the peril of his Soul So as now the neighbours can say Is this the man others It is like him it is not he The late-blinde man hears and now sees himself questioned and soon resolves the doubt I am he He that now saw the light of the Sun would not hide the light of Truth from others It is an unthankfull silence to smother the works of God in an affected secrecy To make God a loser by his bounty to us were a shamefull injustice We our selves abide not those sponges that suck up good turns unknown O God we are not worthy of our spiritual eye-sight if we do not publish thy mercies on the house top and praise thee in the great congregation Man is naturally inquisitive we search studiously into the secret works of Nature we pry into the reasons of the witty inventions of Art but if there be any thing that transcends Art and Nature the more high and abstruse it is the more busie we are to seek into it This thirst after hidden yea forbidden Knowledge did once cost us dear but where it is good and lawful to know inquiry is commendable as here in these Jews How were thine eyes opened The first improvement of humane Reason is inquisition the next is information and resolution and if the meanest events passe us not without a question how much lesse those that carry in them wonder and advantage He that was so ready to professe himself the Subject of the Cure is no niggard of proclaiming the Author of it A man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and sent me to Siloam to wash and now I see The blinde man knew no more then he said and he said what he apprehended A man He heard Jesus speak he felt his hand as yet he could look no further upon his next meeting he saw God in this man In matter of Knowledge we must be content to creep ere we can goe As that other recovered blinde man saw first men walk like trees after like men so no marvel if this man saw first this God only as man after this man as God also Onwards he thinks him a wonderfull man a mighty Prophet In vain shall we either exspect a suddain perfection in the understanding of Divine matters or censure those that want it How did this man know what Jesus did He was then stone-blinde what distinction could he yet make of persons of actions True but yet the blinde man never wanted the assistance of others eyes their relation hath assured him of the manner of his Cure besides the contribution of his other Senses his Eare might perceive the spittle to fall and hear the injoined command his Feeling perceived the cold moist clay upon his lids All these conjoined gave sufficient warrant thus to believe thus to report Our eare is our best guide to a full apprehension of the works of Christ The works of God the Father his Creation and Government are best known by the Eye The works of God the Son his Redemption and Mediation are best known by the Eare. O Saviour we cannot personally see what thou hast done here What are the monuments of thine Apostles and Evangelists but the relations of the blinde man's guide what and how thou hast wrought for us On these we strongly relie these we do no lesse confidently believe then if our very eyes had been witnesses of what thou didst and sufferedst upon earth There were no place for Faith if the Eare were not worthy of as much credit as the Eye How could the neighbours doe lesse then ask where he was that had done so strange a cure I doubt yet with what minde I fear not out of favour Had they been but indifferent they could not but have been full of silent wonder and inclined to believe in so Omnipotent an Agent Now as prejudiced to Christ and partial to the Pharisees they bring the late-blinde man before those professed enemies unto Christ It is the preposterous Religion of the Vulgar sort to claw and adore those which have tyrannically usurped upon their Souls though with neglect yea with contempt of God in his word in his works Even unjust authority will never want soothing up in whatsoever courses though with disgrace and opposition to the Truth Base mindes
where they finde possession never look after right Our Saviour had pick'd out the Sabbath for this Cure It is hard to finde out any time wherein Charity is unseasonable As Mercy is an excellent Grace so the works of it are fittest for the best day We are all born blinde the Font is our Siloam no day can come amisse but yet God's day is the properest for our washing and recovery This alone is quarrel enough to these scrupulous wranglers that an act of Mercy was done on that day wherein their envie was but seasonable I do not see the man beg any more when he once had his eyes no Burger in Jerusalem was richer then he I hear him stoutly defending that gracious author of his Cure against the cavils of the malicious Pharisees I see him as a resolute Confessour suffering excommunication for the name of Christ and maintaining the innocence and honour of so Blessed a benefactor I hear him read a Divinity Lecture to them that sate in Moses his chair and convincing them of blindness who punish'd him for seeing How can I but envie thee O happy man who of a Patient provest an Advocate for thy Saviour whose gain of bodily sight made way for thy Spiritual eyes who hast lost a Synagogue and hast found Heaven who being abandoned of Sinners art received of the Lord of Glory The stubborn Devil ejected HOW different how contrary are our conditions here upon earth Whiles our Saviour is transfigured on the Mount his Disciples are perplexed in the valley Three of his choice Followers were with him above ravished with the miraculous proofs of his Godhead nine other were troubled with the business of a stubborn Devil below Much people was met to attend Christ and there they will stay till he come down from Tabor Their zeal and devotion brought them thither their patient perseverance held them there We are not worthy the name of his clients if we cannot painfully seek him and submissely wait his leisure He that was now awhile retired into the Mount to confer with his Father and to receive the attendance of Moses and Elias returns into the valley to the multitude He was singled out awhile for prayer and contemplation now he was joyned with the multitude for their miraculous cure and Heavenly instruction We that are his spiritual agents must be either preparing in the mount or exercising in the valley one while in the mount of Meditation in the valley of Action another alone to study in the assembly to preach here is much variety but all is work Moses when he came down from the hill heard Musick in the valley Christ when he came down from the hill heard discord The Scribes it seems were setting hard upon the Disciples they saw Christ absent nine of his train left in the valley those they flie upon As the Devil so his Imps watch close for all advantages No subtile enemy but will be sure to attempt that part where is likelihood of least defence most weakness When the Spouse misses him whom her Soul loveth every watchman hath a buffet for her O Saviour if thou be never so little stept aside we are sure to be assaulted with powerful Temptations They that durst say nothing to the Master so soon as his back is turned fall foul upon his weakest Disciples Even at the first hatching the Serpent was thus crafty to begin at the weaker vessell experience and time hath not abated his wit If he still work upon silly Women laden with divers lusts upon rude and ungrounded Ignorants it is no other then his old wont Our Saviour upon the skirts of the hill knew well what was done in the plain and therefore hasts down to the rescue of his Disciples The clouds and vapors do not sooner scatter upon the Sun's breaking forth then these cavils vanish at the presence of Christ in stead of opposition they are straigth upon their knees here are now no quarrells but humble salutations and if Christ's question did not force theirs the Scribes had found no tongue Doubtlesse there were many eager Patients in this throng none made so much noise as the father of the Demoniack Belike upon his occasion it was that the Scribes held contestation with the Disciples If they wrangled he fues and that from his knees Whom wil not need make both humble and eloquent The case was wofull and accordingly expressed A son is a dear name but this was his only son Were his grief ordinary yet the sorrow were the lesse but he is a fearfull spectacle of judgment for he is Lunatick Were this Lunacy yet merely from a natural distemper it were more tolerable but this is aggravated by the possession of a cruell spirit that handles him in a most grievous manner Yet were he but in the rank of other Demoniacks the discomfort were more easie but lo this spirit is worse then all other his fellows others are usually dispossessed by the Disciples this is beyond their power I be sought thy Disciples to cast him out but they could not therefore Lord have thou mercy on my Son The despair of all other helps sends us importunately to the God of power Here was his refuge the strong man had gotten possession it was only the stronger then he that can eject him O God spiritual wickednesses have naturally seized upon our Souls all humane helps are too weak only thy Mercy shall improve thy Power to our deliverance What bowels could chuse but yearn at the distresse of this poor young man Phrensy had taken his brain that Disease was but health in comparison of the tyrannical possession of that evil spirit wherewith it was seconded Out of Hell there could not be a greater misery his Senses are either berest or else left to torment him he is torn and racked so as he foams and gnashes he pines and languishes he is cast sometimes into the fire sometimes into the water How that malitious Tyrant rejoices in the mischief done to the creature of God Had earth had any thing more pernicious then fire and water thither had he been thrown though rather for torture then dispatch It was too much favour to die at once O God with how deadly enemies hast thou matched us Abate thou their power since their malice will not be abated How many think of this case with pity and horror and in the mean time are insensible of their own fearfuller condition It is but oftentimes that the Devil would cast this young man into a temporary fire he would cast the sinner into an eternal fire whose everlasting burnings have no intermissions No fire comes amisse to him the fire of Affliction the fire of Lust the fire of Hell O God make us apprehensive of the danger of our sin and secure from the fearfull issue of sin All these very same effects follow his spiritual possession How doth he tear and rack them whom he vexes and distracts with inordinate cares and sorrows How
do they foam and gnash whom he hath drawn to an impatient repining at God's afflictive hand How do they pine away who hourly decay and languish in Grace Oh the lamentable condition of sinfull Souls so much more dangerous by how much lesse felt But all this while what part hath the Moon in this mans misery How comes the name of that goodly Planet in question Certainly these diseases of the brain follow much the course of this queen of moisture That power which she hath in humors is drawn to the advantage of the malicious spirit her predominancy is abused to his despight whether it were for the better opportunity of his vexation or whether for the drawing of envy and discredit upon so noble a creature It is no news with that subtle enemie to fasten his effects upon those secondary causes which he usurps to his own purposes Whatever be the means he is the tormentor Much wisdome needs to disstinguish betwixt the evil spirit abusing the good creature and the good creature abused by the evil spirit He that knew all things asks questions How long hath he been so Not to inform himself That Devil could have done nothing without the knowledge without the leave of the God of Spirits but that by the confession of the Parent he might lay forth the wofull condition of the childe that the thank and glory of the Cure might be so much greater as the complaint was more grievous He answered From a childe O God how I adore the depth of thy wise and just and powerfull dispensation Thou that couldst say I have loved Jacob and Esau have I hated ere the children had done good or evil thoughtest also good ere this Childe could be capable of good or evil to yield him over to the power of that Evil one What need I ask for any other reason then that which is the rule of all Justice thy Will Yet even these weak eyes can see the just grounds of thine actions That childe though an Israelite was conceived and born in that sin which both could and did give Satan an interest in him Besides the actual sins of the Parents deserved this revenge upon that piece of themselves Rather O God let me magnific this Mercy that we and our s escape this Judgment then question thy Justice that some escape not How just might it have been with thee that we who have given way to Satan in our sins should have way and scope given to Satan over us in our punishments It is thy praise that any of us are free it is no quarrell that some suffer Do I wonder to see Satans bodily possession of this yong man from a childe when I see his spiritual possession of every son of Adam from a longer date not from a childe but from the womb yea in it Why should not Satan possesse his own we are all by nature the sons of wrath It is time for us to renounce him in Baptism whose we are till we be regenerate He hath right to us in our first birth our new birth acquits us from him and cuts off all his claim How miserable are they that have nothing but Nature Better had it been to have been unborn then not to be born again And if this poor soul from an infant were thus miserably handled having done none actual evil how just cause have we to fear the like Judgments who by many foul offences have deserved to draw this executioner upon us O my Soul thou hast not room enough for thankfulnesse to that good God who hath not delivered thee up to that malignant Spirit The distressed Father sits not still neglects not means I brought him to thy Disciples Doubtlesse the man came first to seek for Christ himself finding him absent he makes suit to the Disciples To whom should we have recourse in all our spirituall complaints but to the agents and messengers of God The noise of the like cures had surely brought this man with much confidence to crave their succour and now how cold was he at the heart when he found that his hopes were frustrate They could not cast him out No doubt the Disciples tried their best they laid their wonted charge upon this dumb spirit but all in vain They that could come with joy and triumph to their Master and say The Devils are subject to us finde now themselves matched with a stubborn and refractory spirit Their way was hitherto smooth and fair they met with no rub till now And now surely the father of the Demoniack was not more troubled at this event then themselves How could they chuse but fear lest their Master had with himself withdrawn that spiritual power which they had formerly exercised Needs must their heart fail them with their successe The man complained not of their impotence it were fondly injurious to accuse them for that which they could not doe had the want been in their will they had well deserved a querulous language it was no fault to want power Only he complains of the stubbornnesse and laments the invinciblenesse of that evil spirit I should wrong you O ye blessed Followers of Christ if I should say that as Israel when Moses was gone up into the Mount lost their belief with their guide so that ye missing your Master who was now ascended up to his Tabor were to seek for your Faith Rather the Wisdome of God saw reason to check your over-assured forwardnesse and both to pull down your hearts by a just humiliation in the sense of your own weaknesse and to raise up your hearts to new acts of dependance upon that soveraign power from which your limited virtue was derived What was more familiar to the Disciples then ejecting of Devils In this only it is denied them Our good God sometimes findes it requisite to hold us short in those abilities whereof we make least doubt that we may feel whence we had them God will be no lesse glorified in what we cannot doe then in what we can doe If his Graces were alwaies at our command and ever alike they would seem natural and soon run into contempt now we are justly held in an awfull dependance upon that gracious hand which so gives as not to cloy us and so denies as not to discourage us Who could now but expect that our Saviour should have pitied and bemoned the condition of this sad father and miserable son and have let fall some words of comfort upon them In stead whereof I hear him chiding and complaining O faithlesse and perverse generation how long shall I be with you how long shall I suffer you Complaining not of that wofull father and more wofull son it was not his fashion to adde affliction to the distressed to break such bruised reeds but of those Scribes who upon the failing of the successe of this suit had insulted upon the disability of the Followers of Christ and depraved his power although perhaps this impatient father
I am baptized O Saviour even thou who wert one with thy Father hast a Cup of thine own never Potion was so bitter as that which was mixed for thee Yea even thy draught is stinted it is not enough for thee to sip of this Cup thou must drink it up to the very dregs When the vinegar and gall were tendred to thee by men thou didst but kiss the cup but when thy Father gave into thine hands a potion infinitely more distastful thou for our health didst drink deep of it even to the bottome and saidst It is finished And can we repine at those unpleasing draughts of Affliction that are tempered for us sinful men when we see thee the Son of thy Fathers love thus dieted We pledge thee O Blessed Saviour we pledge thee according to our weakness who hast begun to us in thy powerful suffereings Onely do thou enable us after some four faces made in our reluctation yet at last willingly to pledge thee in our constant Sufferings for thee As thou must be drenched within so must thou be baptized without Thy Baptisme is not of water but of blood both these came from thee in thy Passion we cannot be thine if we partake not of both If thou hast not grudged thy precious blood to us well maiest thou challenge some worthless drops from us When they talk of thy Kingdome thou speakest of thy bitter Cup of thy bloody Baptisme Suffering is the way to reigning Through many tribulations must we enter into the Kingdome of Heaven There was never wedge of gold that did not first pass the fire there was never pure grain that did not undergoe the flail In vain shall we dream of our immediate passage from the pleasures and jollity of earth to the glory of Heaven Let who will hope to walk upon Roses and Violets to the throne of Heaven O Saviour let me trace thee by the track of thy Blood and by thy red steps follow thee to thine eternal rest and Happiness I know this is no easie task else thou hadst never said Are ye able Who should be able if not they that had been so long blessed with thy presence informed by thy doctrine and as it were beforehand possessed of their Heaven in thee Thou hadst never made them judges of their power if thou couldst not have convinced them of their weakness Alas how full of feebleness is our body and our minde of impatience If but a Bee sting our flesh it swels and if but a tooth ake the head and heart complain How small trifles make us weary of our selves What can we doe without thee without thee what can we suffer If thou be not O Lord strong in my weakness I cannot be so much as weak I cannot so much as be Oh do thou prepare me for my day and enable me to my trials I can doe all things through thee that strengthenest me The motion of the two Disciples was not more full of infirmity then their answer We are able Out of an eager desire of the Honour they are apt to undertake the condition The best men may be mistaken in their own powers Alas poor men when it came to the issue they ran away and I know not whether one without his coat It is one thing to suffer in speculation another in practice There cannot be a worse signe then for a man in a carnal presumption to vaunt of his own abilities How justly doth God suffer that man to be foiled purposely that he may be ashamed of his own vain self-confidence O God let me ever be humbly dejected in the sense of mine own insufficiency let me give all the Glory to thee and take nothing to my self but my infirmities Oh the wonderful mildness of the Son of God! He doth not rate the two Disciples either for their ambition in suing or presumption in undertaking but leaving the worst he takes the best of their answer and omitting their errors incourages their good intentions Ye shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptized with my baptisme but to sit on my right hand and my left is not mine to give but to them for whom it is prepared of my Father I know not whether there be more mercy in the concession or satisfaction in the denial Were it not an high Honour to drink of thy Cup O Saviour thou hadst not fore-promised it as a favour I am deceived if what thou grantest were much less then that which thou deniest To pledge thee in thine own Cup is not much less dignity and familiarity then to sit by thee If we suffer with thee we shall also reign together with thee What greater promotion can flesh and blood be capable of then a conformity to the Lord of Glory Enable thou me to drink of thy Cup and then set me where thou wilt But O Saviour whiles thou dignifiest them in thy grant dost thou disparage thy self in thy denial Not mine to give Whose is it if not thine If it be thy Fathers it is thine Thou who art Truth hast said I and my Father are one Yea because thou art one with the Father it is not thine to give to any save those for whom it is prepared of the Father The Father's preparation was thine his gift is thine the Decree of both is one That eternal counsel is not alterable upon our vain desires The Father gives these Heavenly honours to none but by thee thou givest them to none but according to the Decree of thy Father Many degrees there are of celestial Happiness Those supernal Mansions are not all of an height That Providence which hath varied our stations upon earth hath pre-ordered our seats above O God admit me within the wals of thy new Jerusalem and place me wheresoever thou pleasest The Tribute money pai'd ALL these other Histories report the Power of Christ this shews both his Power and Obedience his Power over the creature his Obedience to civil Powers Capernaum was one of his own Cities there he made his chief abode in Peter's house to that Host of his therefore do the Toll-gatherers repair for the Tribute When that great Disciple said We have left all he did not say We have abandoned all or sold or given away all but we have left in respect of managing not of possession not in respect of right but of use and present fruition so left that upon just occasion we may resume so left that it is our due though not our business Doubtless he was too wise to give away his own that he might borrow of a stranger His own roof gave him shelter for the time and his Master with him Of him as the Housholder is the Tribute required and by and for him is it also paid I inquire not either into the occasion or the summe What need we make this exaction sacrilegious as if that half-shekel which was appointed by God to be paid by every Israelite to the use of the Tabernacle and
be actors None can awake Lazarus out of this sleep but he that made Lazarus Every mouse or gnat can raise us up from that other sleep none but an Omnipotent power from this This sleep is not without a dissolution Who can command the Soul to come down and meet the body or command the body to piece with it self and rise up to the Soul but the God that created both It is our comfort and assurance O Lord against the terrors of death and tenacity of the grave that our Resurrection depends upon none but thine Omnipotence Who can blame the Disciples if they were loath to return to Judaea Their last entertainment was such as might justly dishearten them Were this as literally taken all the reason of our Saviours purpose of so perilous a voyage they argued not amiss If he sleep he shall doe well Sleep in sickness is a good sign of Recovery For extremity of pain barres our rest when Nature therefore finds so much respiration she justly hopes for better terms Yet it doth not alwaies follow If he sleep he shall doe well How many have dyed in Lethargies how many have lost in sleep what they would not have forgone waking Adam slept and lost his rib Sampson slept and lost 〈◊〉 strength Saul slept and lost his weapon Ishbosheth and Holofeâ—â—â— slept and lost their heads In ordinary course it holds well here they mistook and erred The misconstruction of the words of Christ led them into an unseasonable and erroneous suggestion Nothing can be more dangerous then to take the speeches of Christ according to the sound of the Letter one errour will be sure to draw on more and if the first be never so slight the last may be important Wherefore are words but to express meanings why do we speak but to be understood Since then our Saviour saw himself not rightly construed he delivers himself planly Lazarus is dead Such is thy manner O thou eternal Word of thy Father in all thy sacred expressions Thine own mouth is thy best commentary what thou hast more obscurely said in one passage thou interpretest more clearly in another Thou art the Sun which givest us that light whereby we see thy self But how modestly dost thou discover thy Deity to thy Disciples not upon the first mention of Lazarus his death instantly professing thy Power and will of his resuscitation but contenting thy self only to intimate thy Omniscience in that thou couldst in that absence and distance know and report his departure they shall gather the rest and cannot chuse but think We serve a Master that knows all things and he that knows all things can doe all things The absence of our Saviour from the death-bed of Lazarus was not casual but voluntary yea he is not only willing with it but glad of it I am glad for your sakes that I was not there How contrary may the affections of Christ and ours be and yet be both good The two worthy Sisters were much grieved at our Saviours absence as doubting it might savour of some neglect Christ was glad of it for the advantage of his Disciples Faith I cannot blame them that they were thus sorry I cannot but bless him that he was thus glad The gain of their Faith in so Divine a Miracle was more then could be countervailed by their momentany sorrow God and we are not alike affected with the same events He laughs where we mourn he is angry where we are pleased The difference of the affections arises from the difference of the Objects which Christ and they apprehend in the same occurrence Why are the Sisters sorrowful because upon Christ absence Lazarus died Why was Jesus glad he was not there for the benefit which he saw would accrew to their Faith There is much variety of prospect in every act according to the several intentions and issues thereof yea even in the very same eyes The father sees his son combating in a Duel for his Country he sees blows and wounds on the one side he sees renown and victory on the other he grieves at the wounds he rejoyces in the Honour Thus doth God in all our Afflictions he sees our teares and hears our groans and pities us but withall he looks upon our Patience our Faith our Crown and is glad that we are afflicted O God why should not we conform our diet unto thine When we ly in pain and extremity we cannot but droop under it but do we finde our selves increased in true Mortification in Patience in Hope in a constant relyance on thy Mercies Why are we not more joyed in this then dejected with the other since the least grain of the increase of Grace is more worth then can be equalled with whole pounds of bodily vexation O strange consequence Lazarus is dead nevertheless Let us goe unto him Must they not needs think What should we doe with a dead man What should separate if death cannot Even those whom we loved dearliest we avoid once dead now we lay them aside under the board and thence send them out of our houses to their grave Neither hath Death more horrour in it then noisomeness and if we could intreat our eyes to endure the horrid aspect of Death in the face we loved yet can we perswade our sent to like that smell 〈◊〉 arises up from their corruption Oh love stronger then Death Behold here a friend whom the very Grave cannot sever Even those that write the longest and most passionate dates of their amity subscribe but your friend till death and if the ordinary strain of humane friendship will stretch yet a little further it is but to the brim of the grave thither a friend may follow us and see us bestowed in this house of our Age but there he leaves us to our worms and dust But for thee O Saviour the grave-stone the earth the coffin are no bounders of thy dear respects even after death and burial and corruption thou art graciously affected to those thou lovest Besides the Soul whereof thou saiest not Let us goe to it but Let it come to us there is still a gracious regard to that dust which was and shall be a part of an undoubted member of that mystical body whereof thou art the Head Heaven and earth yields no such friend but thy self O make me ever ambitious of this Love of thine and ever unquiet till I feel my self possessed of thee In the mouth of a mere man this word had been incongruous Lazarus is dead yet let us goe to him in thine O almighty Saviour it was not more loving then seasonable since I may justly say of thee thou hast more to doe with the dead then with the living for both they are infinitely more and have more inward communion with thee and thou with them Death cannot hinder either our passage to thee or thy return to us I joy to think the time is coming when thou shalt come to every of our graves
be the inculcation of Gods merciful promises of their relief and supportation O God if thou hast said it I dare believe I dare cast my Soul upon the belief of every word of thine Faithfull art thou which hast promised who wilt also doe it In spight of all the unjust discouragements of Nature we must obey Christ's command Whatever Martha suggests they remove the stone and may now see and smell him dead whom they shall soon see revived The sent of the corps is not so unpleasing to them as the perfume of their obedience is sweet to Christ And now when all impediments are removed and all hearts ready for the work our Saviour addresses to the Miracle His eyes begin they are lift up to Heaven It was the malicious mis-suggestion of his enemies that he lookt down to Beelzebub the beholders shall now see whence he exspects and derives his power and shall by him learn whence to exspect and hope for all success The heart and the eye must goe together he that would have ought to doe with God must be sequestred and lifted up from earth His Tongue seconds his Eye Father Nothing more stuck in the stomack of the Jews then that Christ called himself the Son of God this was imputed to him for a Blasphemy worthy of stones How seasonably is this word spoken in the hearing of these Jews in whose sight he will be presently approved so How can ye now O ye cavillers except at that title which ye shall see irrefragably justified Well may he call God Father that can raise the dead out of the grave In vain shall ye snarle at the style when ye are convinced of the effect I hear of no Prayer but a Thanks for hearing Whiles thou saidst nothing O Saviour how doth thy Father hear thee Was it not with thy Father and thee as it was with thee and Moses Thou saidst Let me alone Moses when he spake not Thy will was thy Prayer Words express our hearts to men Thoughts to God Well didst thou know out of the self-fameness of thy will with thy Fathers that if thou didst but think in thine heart that Lazarus should rise he was now raised It was not for thee to pray vocally and audibly lest those captious hearers should say thou didst all by intreaty nothing by power Thy thanks overtake thy desires ours require time and distance our thanks arise from the Echo of our prayers resounding from Heaven to our hearts Thou because thou art at once in earth and Heaven and knowst the grant to be of equal paces with the request most justly thankest in praying Now ye cavilling Jews are thinking straight Is there such distance betwixt the Father and the Son is it so rare a thing for the Son to be heard that he pours out his thanks for it as a blessing unusual Do ye not now see that he who made your heart knows it and anticipates your fond thoughts with the same breath I knew that thou hearest me alwaies but I said this for their sakes that they might believe Merciful Saviour how can we enough admire thy goodness who makest our belief the scope and drift of thy doctrine and actions Alas what wert thou the better if they believed thee sent from God what wert thou the worse if they believed it not Thy perfection and glory stands not upon the slippery terms of our approbation or dislike but is real in thy self and that infinite without possibility of our increase or diminution We we onely are they that have either the gain or loss in thy receit or rejection yet so dost thou affect our belief as if it were more thine advantage then ours O Saviour whiles thou spak'st to thy Father thou liftedst up thine eyes now thou art to speak unto dead Lazarus thou liftedst up thy voice and criedst aloud Lazarus come forth Was it that the strength of the voice might answer to the strength of the affection since we faintly require what we care not to obtain and vehemently utter what we earnestly desire Was it that the greatness of the voice might answer to the greatness of the work Was it that the hearers might be witnesses of what words were used in so miraculous an act no magical incantations but authoritative and Divine commands Was it to signifie that Lazarus his Soule was called from farre the speech must be loud that shall be heard in another world Was it in relation to the estate of the body of Lazarus whom thou hadst reported to sleep since those that are in a deep and dead sleep cannot be awaked without a loud call Or was it in a representation of that loud voice of the last Trumpet which shall sound into all graves and raise all flesh from their dust Even so still Lord when thou wouldst raise a Soul from the death of sin and grave of corruption no easie voice will serve Thy strongest commands thy loudest denunciations of Judgements the shrillest and sweetest promulgations of thy Mercies are but enough How familiar a word is this Lazarus come forth no other then he was wont to use whiles they lived together Neither doth he say Lazarus revive but as if he supposed him already living Lazarus come forth To let them know that those who are dead to us are to and with him alive yea in a more entire and feeling society then whiles they carried their clay about them Why do I fear that separation which shall more unite me to my Saviour Neither was the word more familiar then commanding Lazarus come forth Here is no suit to his Father no adjuration to the deceased but a flat and absolute injunction Come forth O Saviour that is the voice that I shall once hear sounding into the bottome of my grave and raising me up out of my dust that is the voice that shall pierce the rocks and divide the mountains and fetch up the dead out of the lowest deeps Thy word made all thy word shall repair all Hence all ye diffident fears he whom I trust is Omnipotent It was the Jewish fashion to enwrap the corps in linen to tye the hands and feet and to cover the face of the dead The Fall of man besides weakness brought shame upon him ever since even whiles he lives the whole Body is covered but the Face because some sparks of that extinct Majesty remain there is wont to be left open In death all those poor remainders being gone and leaving deformity and gastliness in the room of them the Face is covered also There lies Lazarus bound in double fetters One Almighty word hath loosed both and now he that was bound came forth He whose power could not be hindred by the chains of death cannot be hindred by linen bonds He that gave life gave motion gave direction He that guided the Soul of Lazarus into the body guided the body of Lazarus without his eyes moved the feet without the full liberty of his regular paces no doubt
is up the whole City is moved Neither is it otherwise in the private oeconomy of the Soul O Saviour whiles thou dost as it were hide thy self and lye still in the heart and takest all termes contentedly from us we entertain thee with no other then a friendly welcome but when thou once beginnest to ruffle with our Corruptions and to exercise thy Spiritual power in the subjugation of our vile Affections now all is in a secret uprore all the angles of the heart are moved Although doubtless this commotion was not so much of tumult as of wonder As when some uncouth sight presents it self in a populous street men run and gaze and throng and inquire the feet the tongue the eyes walk one spectator draws on another one asks and presses another the noise increases with the concourse each helps to stir up others exspectation such was this of Jerusalem What meanes this strangeness Was not Jerusalem the Spouse of Christ Had he not chosen her out of all the earth Had he not begotten many children of her as the pledges of their love How justly maiest thou now O Saviour complain with that mirrour of Patience My breath was grown strange to my own wife though I intreated her for the childrens sake of my own body Even of thee is that fulfilled which thy chosen Vessel said of thy Ministers Thou art made a gazing-stock to the world to Angels and to men As all the world was bound to thee for thy Incarnation and residence upon the face of the earth so especially Judaea to whose limits thou confinedst thy self and therein above all the rest three Cities Nazaret Capernaum Jerusalem on whom thou bestowedst the most time and cost of preaching and miraculous works Yet in all three thou receivedst not strange Entertainment only but hostile In Nazaret they would have cast thee down headlong from the mount In Capernaum they would have bound thee In Jerusalem they crucified thee at last and now are amazed at thy presence Those places and persons that have the greatest helps and priviledges afforded to them are not alwaies the most answerable in the return of their thankfulness Christs being amongst us doth not make us happy but his welcome Every day may we hear him in our streets and yet be as new to seek as these Citizens of Jerusalem Who is this Was it a question of applause or of contempt or of ignorance Applause of his abettors contempt of the Scribes and Pharisees ignorance of the multitude Surely his abettors had not been moved at this sight the Scribes and Pharisees had rather envied then contemned The multitude doubtless inquired seriously out of a desire of information Not that the citizens of Jerusalem knew not Christ who was so ordinary a guest so noted a Prophet amongst them Questionless this question was asked of that part of the train which went before this Triumph whiles our Saviour was not yet in sight which ere long his presence had resolved It had been their duty to have known to have attended Christ yea to have published him to others since this is not done it is well yet that they spend their breath in an inquiry No doubt there were many that would not so much as leave their shop-board and step to their doors or their windows to say Who is this as not thinking it could concern them who passed by whiles they might sit still Those Greeks were in some way to good that could say to Philip We would see Jesus O Saviour thou hast been so long amongst us that it is our just shame if we know thee not If we have been slack hitherto let our zealous inquiry make amends for our neglect Let outward pomp and worldly glory draw the hearts and tongues of carnal men after them Oh let it be my care and happiness to ask after nothing but thee The attending Disciples could not be to seek for an answer which of the Prophets have not put it into their mouths Who is this Ask Moses and he shall tell you The seed of the Woman that shall break the Serpents head Ask our Father Jacob and he shall tell you The Shiloh of the tribe of Judah Ask David and he shall tell you The King of glory Ask Esay he shall tell you Immanuel Wonderful Counsellor The mighty God The everlasting Father The Prince of peace Ask Jeremy and he shall tell you The righteous Branch Ask Daniel he shall tell you The Messiah Ask John the Baptist he shall tell you The Lamb of God If ye ask the God of the Prophets he hath told you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Yea if all these be too good for you to consult with the Devils themselves have been forced to say I know who thou art even that Holy One of God On no side hath Christ left himself without a testimony and accordingly the Multitude here have their answer ready This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazaret in Galilee Ye undervalue your Master O ye well-meaning Followers of Christ A Prophet yea more then a Prophet John Baptist was so yet was but the harbinger of this Messiah This was that God by whom the Prophets were both sent and inspired Of Nazaret say you ye mistake him Bethleem was the place of his Birth the proof of his Tribe the evidence of his Messiahship If Nazareth were honored by his preaching there was no reason he should be dishonoured by Nazareth No doubt he whom you confessed pardoned the errour of your confession Ye spake but according to the common style the two Disciples in their walk to Emmaus after the Death and Resurrection of Christ give him no other title This belief passed current with the people and thus high even the vulgar thoughts could then rise and no doubt even thus much was for that time very acceptable to the Father of Mercies If we make profession of the Truth according to our knowledg though there be much imperfection in our apprehension and delivery the mercy of our good God takes it well not judging us for what we have not but accepting us in what we have Shouldst thou O God stand strictly upon the punctuall degrees of knowledg how wide would it goe with millions of Souls for besides much errour in many there is more ignorance But herein do we justly magnifie and adore thy Goodness that where thou findest diligent endeavour of better information matched with an honest simplicity of heart thou passest by our unwilling defects and crownest our well-meant confessions But oh the wonderful hand of God in the carriage of this whole business The people proclaimed Christ first a King and now they proclaim him a Prophet Why did not the Roman bands run into armes upon the one why did not the Scribes and Pharisees and the envious Priesthood mutiny upon the other They had made Decrees against him they had laid wait for him yet now he passes in state through their streets acclamed both
or of a Disciple Give me leave O Saviour to borrow thine own words Verily I have not found so great faith no not in all Israel He saw thee hanging miserably by him and yet styles thee Lord he saw thee dying yet talks of thy Kingdome he felt himself dying yet talks of a future remembrance O Faith stronger then death that can look beyond the Crosse at a Crown beyond dissolution at a remembrance of Life and Glory Which of thine eleven were heard to speak so gracious a word to thee in these thy last pangs After thy Resurrection and knowledge of thine impassible condition it was not strange for them to talk of thy Kingdome but in the midst of thy shamefull death for a dying malefactor to speak of thy reigning and to implore thy remembrance of himself in thy Kingdome it is such an improvement of Faith as ravisheth my Soul with admiration O blessed Thief that hast thus happily stolne Heaven How worthy hath thy Saviour made thee to be a partner of his sufferings a pattern of undauntable belief a spectacle of unspeakable mercy This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Before I wondred at thy Faith now I envy at thy Felicity Thou cravedst a remembrance thy Saviour speaks of a present possession This day thou suedst for remembrance as a favour to the absent thy Saviour speaks of thy presence with him thou spakest of a Kingdome thy Saviour of Paradise As no Disciple could be more faithfull so no Saint could be happier O Saviour what a precedent is this of thy free and powerfull grace Where thou wilt give what unworthinesse can barre us from Mercy when thou wilt give what time can prejudice our vocation who can despair of thy goodnesse when he that in the morning was posting towards Hell is in the evening with thee in Paradise Lord he could not have spoken this to thee but by thee and from thee What possibility was there for a thief to think of thy Kingdome without thy Spirit That good Spirit of thine breathed upon this man breathed not upon his fellow their trade was alike their sin was alike their state alike their crosse alike only thy Mercy makes them unlike One is taken the other is refused Blessed be thy Mercy in taking one blessed be thy Justice in leaving the other Who can despair of that Mercy who cannot but tremble at that Justice Now O ye cruell Priests and Elders of the Jews ye have full leisure to feed your eyes with the sight ye so much longed for there is the blood ye purchased and is not your malice yet glutted Is not all this enough without your taunts and scoffs and sports at so exquisite a misery The people the passengers are taught to insult where they should pity Every man hath a scorn ready to cast at a dying innocent A generous nature is more wounded with the tongue then with the hand O Saviour thine eare was more painfully pierced then thy brows or hands or feet It could not but goe deep into thy Soul to hear these bitter and girding reproaches from them thou camest to save But alas what sleabitings were these in comparison of those inward torments which thy Soul felt in the sense and apprehension of thy Fathers wrath for the sins of the whole world which now lay heavy upon thee for satisfaction This oh this was it that pressed thy Soul as it were to the nethermost hell Whiles thine eternall Father lookt lovingly upon thee what didst thou what neededst thou to care for the frowns of men or Devils but when he once turn'd his face from thee or bent his brows upon thee this this was worse then death It is no marvel now if darkness were upon the face of the whole earth when thy Fathers face was eclipsed from thee by the interposition of our sins How should there be light in the world without when the God of the world the Father of lights complains of the want of light within That word of thine O Saviour was enough to fetch the Sun down out of Heaven and to dissolve the whole frame of Nature when thou criedst My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh what pangs were these dear Jesu that drew from thee this complaint Thou well knewest nothing could be more cordial to thine enemies then to hear this sad language from thee they could see but the outside of thy sufferings never could they have conceived so deep an anguish of thy Soul if thy own lips had not expressed it Yet as not regarding their triumph thou thus powrest out thy sorrow and when so much is uttered who can conceive what is felt How is it then with thee O Saviour that thou thus astonishest men and Angels with so woful a quiritation Had thy God left thee Thou not long since saidst I and my Father are One Are ye now severed Let this thought be as farre from my Soul as my Soul from Hell No more can thy Blessed Father be separated from thee then from his own Essence His Union with thee is eternal his Vision was intercepted He could not withdraw his Presence he would withdraw the influence of his comfort Thou the Second Adam stoodst for mankind upon this Tree of the Cross as the First Adam stood and fell for mankind under the Tree of Offence Thou barest our sins thy Father saw us in thee and would punish us in thee thee for us how could he but withhold comfort where he intended chastisement Herein therefore he seems to forsake thee for the present in that he would not deliver thee from that bitter Passion which thou wouldst undergoe for us O Saviour hadst thou not been thus forsaken we had perished thy dereliction is our safety and however our narrow Souls are not capable of the conceit of thy pain and horror yet we know there can be no danger in the forsaking whiles thou canst say My God He is so thy God as he cannot be ours all our right is by Adoption thine by Nature thou art one with him in eternal Essence we come in by Grace and merciful election yet whiles thou shalt inable me to say My God I shall hope never to sink under thy desertions But whiles I am transported with the sense of thy Sufferings O Saviour let me not forget to admire those sweet Mercies of thine which thou powredst out upon thy Persecutors They rejoyce in thy death and triumph in thy misery and scoff at thee in both In stead of calling down fire from Heaven upon them thou heapest coals of fire upon their heads Father forgive them for they know not what they doe They blaspheme thee thou prayest for them they scorn thou pitiest they sin aganst thee thou prayest for their forgiveness they profess their malice thou pleadest their ignorance O compassion without example without measure fit for the Son of God the Saviour of men Wicked and foolish Jewes ye would be miserable he will not
corps such as if all the Powers of Darkness shall band against they shall finde themselves confounded In spight of all the gates of Hell that word shall stand Not a bone of him shall be broken Still the infallible Decree of the Almighty leads you on to his own ends through your own waies Ye saw him already dead whom ye came to dispatch those bones therefore shall be whole which ye had had no power to break But yet that no piece either of your cruelty or of Divine prediction may remain unsatisfied he whose bones may not be impaired shall be wounded in his flesh he whose Ghost was yielded up must yield his last blood One of the souldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith there came out blood and water Malice is wont to end with life here it overlives it Cruel man what means this so late wound what commission hadst thou for this bloody act Pilate had given leave to break the bones of the living he gave no leave to gore the side of the dead what wicked supererogation is this what a superfluity of maliciousness To what purpose did thy spear pierce so many hearts in that one why wouldst thou kill a dead man Methinks the Blessed Virgin and those other passionate associates of hers and the Disciple whom Jesus loved together with the other of his fellows the friends and followers of Christ and especially he that was so ready to draw his sword upon the troup of his Masters apprehenders should have work enough to contain themselves within the bounds of patience at so savage a stroke their sorrow could not chuse but turn to indignation and their hearts could not but rise as even mine doth now at so impertinent a villany How easily could I rave at that rude hand But O God when I look up to theee and consider how thy holy and wise Providence so overrules the most barbarous actions of men that besides their will they turn beneficial I can at once hate them and bless thee This very wound hath a mouth to speak the Messiahship of my Saviour and the truth of thy Scripture They shall look at him whom they have pierced Behold now the Second Adam sleeping and out of his side formed the Mother of the living the Evangelical Church Behold the Rock which was smitten and the waters of life gushed forth Behold the fountain that is set open to the house of David for sin and for uncleanness a fountain not of water only but of blood too O Saviour by thy water we are washed by thy blood we are redeemed Those two Sacraments which thou didst institute alive flow also from thee dead as the last memorials of thy Love to thy Church the water of Baptisme which is the laver of Regeneration the blood of the new Testament shed for remission of sins and these together with the Spirit that gives life to them both are the three Witnesses on earth whose attestation cannot fail us Oh precious and soveraign wound by which our Souls are healed Into this cleft of the rock let my Dove fly and enter and there safely hide her self from the talons of all the birds of prey It could not be but that the death of Christ contrived and acted at Jerusalem in so solemn a Festival must needs draw a world of beholders The Romans the Centurion and his band were there as actors as supervisors of the Execution Those strangers were no otherwise ingaged then as they that would hold fair correspondence with the Citizens where they were engarisoned their freedome from prejudice rendred them more capable of an ingenuous construction of all events Now when the Centurion and they that were with him that watched Jesus saw the Earthquake and the things that were done they feared greatly and glorified God and said Truely this was the Son God What a marvelous concurrence is here of strong and irrefragable convictions Meekness in suffering Prayer for his murderers a faithful resignation of his Soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father the Sun eclipsed the Heavens darkned the earth trembling the graves open the rocks rent the veile of the Temple torn who could goe less then this Truly this was the Son of God He suffers patiently this is through the power of Grace many good men have done so through his enabling The frame of Nature suffers with him this is proper to the God of Nature the Son of God I wonder not that these men confessed thus I wonder that any Spectator confessed it not these proofs were enough to fetch all the world upon their knees and to have made all mankind a Convert But all hearts are not alike no means can work upon the wilfully-obdured Even after this the Souldier pierced that Blessed side and whiles Pagans relented Jews continued impenitent Yet even of that Nation those beholders whom envie and partiality had not interessed in this slaughter were stricken with just astonishment and smote their breasts and shook their heads and by passionate gesture spake what their tongues durst not How many must there needs be in this universal concourse of them whom he had healed of diseases or freed from Devils or miraculously fed or some way obliged in their persons or friends These as they were deeply affected with the mortal indignities which were offered to their acknowledged Messiah so they could not but be ravished with wonder at those powerful demonstrations of the Deity of him in whom they believed and strangely distracted in their thoughts whiles they compared those Sufferings with that Omnipotence As yet their Faith and Knowledge was but in the bud or in the blade How could they chuse but think Were he not the Son of God how could these things be and if he were the Son of God how could he die His Resurrection his Ascension should soon after perfect their belief but in the mean time their hearts could not but be conflicted with thoughts hard to be reconciled Howsoever they glorifie God and stand amazed at the expectation of the issue But above all other O thou Blessed Virgin the Holy Mother of our Lord how many swords pierced thy Soul whiles standing close by his Cross thou sawest thy dear Son and Saviour thus indignely used thus stripped thus stretched thus nailed thus bleeding thus dying thus pierced How did thy troubled heart now recount what the Angel Gabriel had reported to thee from God in the message of thy blessed Conception of that Son of God How didst thou think of the miraculous formation of that thy Divine burden by the power of the Holy Ghost How didst thou recal those prophecies of Anna and Simeon concerning him and all those supernatural works of his the irrefragable proofs of his Godhead and laying all these together with the miserable infirmities of his Passion how wert thou crucified with him The care that he took for thee in the extremity of his torments could not chuse but melt thy heart into sorrow But
drink no more of the fruit of this Vine till I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom Mat. 26. 29. It must needs be an excellent liquor which is used to resemble the joyes of Heaven Yea the Blood of the Son of God that celestial Nectar which tomorrow shall chear our Souls is it otherwise resembled then by the blood of the Grape He is Vitis vera the true Vine this is his juice Alas would God we had not too much cause to complain of the pleasure of this fruit Religion Reason Humanity savour not to the palate of many in comparison of it Wine is a mocker saith Solomon How many thousands doth it daily cheat of their Substance of their Patrimony of their Health of their Wit of their Sense of their Life of their Soul Oh that we had the grace to be sensible of our owne scorn and danger But this is the honour of the fruit and the shame of the man the excesse is not more our Sin then the delicacy is the praise of the Grape For sweetnesse of verdure then all plants will yield to the Vine so tastfull so pleasing so delightfull unto God are the Persons the Graces the Endeavours of his Israel Their Persons are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12. 1. Their Love is better then wine Cant. 4. 10. Their Alms are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sweet-smelling savour Philip. 4. 18. Their Prayers as evening Incense of a most fragrant composition and for the rest of their words the roof of their mouth is like the best Wine Cant. 7. 9. Acceptation hath wont to be the incouragement of forwardnesse Honourable and beloved how should this hearten us in our holy stations in our conscionable actions Whiles we continue Vines it is not in the power of our imperfections to lose our thanks The delicatest Grape cannot be so relishsome to the palate of man as our poor weak obediences are to the God of Mercies Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse thou hast ravished my heart saith Christ of his Church Cant. 4. 9. The Vine is a noble plant but a feeble and tender one Other trees grow up alone out of the strength of their own sap this grovels on the ground and rots if it have not an Elm to prop it like as Man the best creature is in his birth most helplesse and would presently die without outward succours Such is the Israel of God the worthiest piece of Gods Creation yet of it self impotent to good here is no growth no life but from that Divine Hand Without me ye can doe nothing They are no Vines that can stand alone Those proud spirits as they have no need of God so God hath no interest in them His Israel is a Vineyard and the Vine must be propped As a Vineyard so God's Vineyard The Church shall be sure not to be Masterlesse There is much wast ground that hath no owner our Globe can tell us of a great part of the World that hath no name but Incognita not known whether it have any inhabitant but a Vineyard was never without a Possessor till Noah the true Janus planted one there was no news of any Come into some wilde Indian Forest all furnished with goodly Trees you know not whether ever man were there God's hand we are sure hath been there perhaps not mans but if you come into a well-dressed Vineyard where you see the Hillocks equally swelling the Stakes pitcht in a just height and distance and the Vines handsomely pruned now it is easie to say as the Philosopher did when he found Figures Here hath been a man yea a good husband There is an universall Providence of God over the World but there is a special eye and hand of God over his Church In this God challengeth a peculiar interest that is his as we heard worthily this day in a double right of Confederation of Redemption Israel is my Son yea my first-born saith God to Pharaoh Thou hast brought a Vine out of AEgypt thou hast cast out the Heathen and planted it saith the Psalmist 80. 8. Oh the blasphemous diffidence of foolish men Can we dare we impute ill husbandry to the God of Heaven Hath God a Vineyard and shall he not tend it shall he not mightily protect it Goe on ye Foxes ye little Foxes to spoil the tender Grapes goe on ye Boars of the Wood to waste this Vineyard and ye wilde beasts of the field to devour it our sins our sins have given this scope to your violence and our calamity But ye shall once know that this Vineyard hath an Owner even the mighty God of Jacob every cluster that you have spoiled shall be fetcht back again from the bloody Wine-presse of his wrath and in spight of all the gates of Hell this Vine shall flourish Even so return we beseech thee O God of Hosts look down from Heaven and visit this Vine and the Vineyard which thy right hand hath planted and the branch that thou madest strong for thy self Ye have seen Israel a Vineyard and God's Vineyard now cast your eyes upon the favours that God hath done to his Vineyard Israel such as that God appeals to their own hearts for Judges What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done Mark I beseech you He doth not say What could have been done more then hath been done but more that I have not done challenging all the acts done to his Vineyard for his own As the Soil is his so is all the culture He that elsewhere makes himself the Vine and his Father the Husbandman here makes Israel the Vine and himself the Husbandman Nothing is nothing can be done to his Church that passeth not his hands My Father still worketh saith he and I work This work this care knows no end no limits Many a good Husband over-tasks himself and undertakes more then his eye can overlook or his hand sway and therefore is fain to trust to the management of others and it speeds thereafter But the owner of this Vineyard is every where and works whereever he is nothing can passe his eye every thing must passe his hand This is the difference betwixt Solomon's Vineyard and his that is greater then Solomon Solomon lets out his Vineyard to Keepers Cant. 8. 11. Christ keeps his in his own hand He useth indeed the help of men but as Tools rather then as Agents he works by them they cannot work but by him Are any of you Great ones Benefactors to his Church a rare style I confesse in these not dative but ablative times ye are but as the hands of the Sub-almoners of Heaven God gives by you Are any great Potentates of the earth secret or open persecutors of his Church Ashur is the rod of my wrath saith God they are but as God's pruning◠Knives to make his Vine bleed out her superfluous juice God cuts by them He is the Author of both men are the instruments
of God which is universal not making differences of places or times like an high-elevated Star which hath no particular aspect upon one Region That there is a lawfull commendable beneficial use of Confession was never denied by us but to set men upon the rack and to strain their Souls up to a double pin of absolute necessity both praecepti and medii and of a strict particularity and that by a screw of Jus divinum Gods Law is so mere a Romane Novelty that many ingenuous Authours of their own have willingly confessed it Amongst whom Cardinall Bellarmine himself yields us Erasmus and Beatus Rhenanus two noble Witnesses whose joynt Tenet he confesses to be Confessionem secretam c. That the secret Confession of all our sins is not onely not instituted or commanded Jure divino by Gods Law but that it was not so much as received into use in the Ancient Church of God To whom he might have added out of Maldonat's account omnes Decretorum c. all the Interpreters of the Decrees and amongst the School-men Scotus We know well those sad and austere Exomologeses which were publickly used in the severe times of the Primitive Church whiles these took place what use was there of private These obtained even in the Western or Latine Church till the dayes of Leo about 450. years in which time they had a grave publick Penitentiary for this purpose Afterwards whether the noted inconveniences of that practice or whether the cooling of the former fervour occasioned it this open Confession began to give way to secret which continued in the Church but with freedome and without that forced and scrupulous strictnesse which the latter times have put upon it It is very remarkable which Learned Rhenanus hath Caeterum Th. ab Aquino c. But saith he Thomas of Aquine and Scotus men too acute have made confession at this day such as that Joh. Geilerius a grave and holy Divine which was for many years Preacher at Strasburgh had wont to say to his friends that according to their rules it is an impossible thing to confesse adding that the same Geilerius being familiarly conversant with some religious Votaries both Carthusians and Franciscans learned of them with what torments the godly minds of some men were afflicted by the rigour of that Confession which they were not able to answer and thereupon he published a book in Dutch intituled The sicknesse of Confession The same therefore which Rhenanus writes of his Geilerius he may well apply unto us Itaque Geilerio non displicebat c. Geilerius therefore did not dislike Confession but the serupulous anxiety which is taught in the Summes of some late Divines more fit indeed for some other place then for Libraries Thus he What would that ingenuous Author have said if he had lived to see those volumes of Cases which have been since published able to perplex a world and those peremptory Decisions of the Fathers of the Society whose strokes have been with Scorpions in comparison of the Rods of their Predecessors To conclude This bird was hatched in the Council of Lateran Anno 1215. fully plumed in the Council of Trent and now lately hath her feathers imped by the modern Casuists Sect. 2. Romish Confession not warranted by Scripture SInce our quarrell is not with Confession it self which may be of singular use and behoof but with some tyrannous strains in the practice of it which are the violent forcing and perfect fulnesse thereof it shall be sufficient for us herein to stand upon our negative That there is no Scripture in the whole Book of God wherein either such necessity or such intirenesse of Confession is commanded A Truth so clear that it is generally confessed by their own Canonists Did we question the lawfulness of Confession we should be justly accountable for our grounds from the Scriptures of God now that we crie down only some injurious circumstances therein well may we require from the fautors thereof their warrants from God which if they cannot shew they are sufficiently convinced of a presumptuous obtrusion Indeed our Saviour said to his Apostles and their successors Whose sins ye remit they are remitted and whose sins ye retain they are retained But did he say No sin shall be remitted but what ye remit or No sin shall be remitted by you but what is particularly numbred unto you S. James bids Confesse your sins one to another But would they have the Priest shrieve himself to the penitent as well as the penitent to the Priest This act must be mutual not single Many believing Ephesians came and confessed and shewed their deeds Many but not all not Omnes utriusque sexus They confessed their deeds some that were notorious not all their sins Contrarily rather so did Christ send his Apostles as the Father sent him he was both their warrant and their pattern But that gracious Saviour of ours many a time gave absolution where was no particular confession of sins Only the sight of the Paralyticks Faith setcht from him Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee the noted Sinner in Simon 's house approving the truth of her Repentance by the humble and costly testimonies of her Love without any enumeration of her sins heard Thy sins are forgiven thee Sect. 3. Against Reason IN true Divine Reason this supposed duty is needlesse dangerous impossible Needlesse in respect of all sins not in respect of some for however in the cases of a burdened Conscience nothing can be more usefull more soveraign yet in all our peace doth not depend upon our lips Being justified by faith me have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Dangerous in respect both of exprobration as Saint Chrysostome worthily and of infection for Delectabile carnis as a Casuist confesseth Fleshly pleasures the more they are called into particular mention the more they move the appetite I do willingly conceal from chast eyes and ears what effects have followed this pretended act of Devotion in wanton and unstaied Confessors Impossible for who can tell how oft he offendeth He is poor in sin that can count his stock and he sins alwayes that so presumes upon his innocence as to think he can number his sins and if he say of any sin as Lot of Zoar Is it not a little one as if therefore it may safely escape the reckoning It is a true word of Isaac the Syrian Qui delicta c. He that thinks any of his offences small even in so thinking falls into greater This Doctrine and Practice therefore both as new and unwarrantable full of Usurpation Danger Impossibility is justly rejected by us and we for so doing unjustly ejected Sect. 4. The Noveltie of Absolution before Satisfaction LEst any thing in the Romane Church should retain the old form how absurd is that innovation which they have made in the order of their
son of perdition who sitteth in the Temple of God which is the Church It s granted that she is Babylon in the second sense and God's people is commanded to come out of Babylon What is Gods people but Gods Church which forsaketh her successively as of old the typical people came out of the typical Babylon not at once but at many several times If then we apply unto her Gods commandment exhorting her to come out of Babylon either we understand not what we say or we acknowledge her to be Gods people that is Gods Church though Idolatrous Rebellious and Disobedient Neither shall she cease to be Gods people in this sense till the coming of that blessed day when the aire shall rebound with the shouting of the Saints Babylon is fallen she is fallen that great Citie because she made all Nations drunk with the wine of the wrath of her fornication I say then that as Jerusalem was at the same time the holy Citie and a Harlot the Temple was Bethel and Bethaven Gods House and a house of Iniquity the Jews were Gods people and no people Gods children and the Devils Ephraim was Hammi and Lo-hammi in divers respects even so the Romish Church is both Bethel and Babel Bethel from God calling her to the communion of his grace in Christ by his Word and Sacrament of Baptisme Babel from her self because she hath made a gallimaufrey of the Christian Religion confounding pell-mell her own Traditions with Gods Word her own Merits with Christs the blood of Martyrs with the blood of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world Purgatory with the same blood which purgeth us from all sin Justification by Works with Justification by Faith onely Praying to the Creatures with praying to the Creator Idols of men women beasts Angels with Gods worship the mediation of Saints with the mediation of him who is the surety of the New Testament and is able to save to the uttermost all those that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them Nay as Calvin said truely in the Romish Church Christ is scarcely known among the Saints of whom some are in Heaven as the Apostles c. some on Earth as the Pope some in Hell as Saint Dominick the firebrand of the war against the Albigeois Saint Garnet whom Tyborn sent to his own place to be rewarded of the Gun-powder Treason some did never die because they had never the honour to live as Saint Christopher Saint Katharine Saint Urâ—ule Saint Longin who was a Spear Saint Eloi who was two couple of sharp nailes and many more of the same stuffe In a word the roaring of the Gamards of Bahal is so loud in that Church that Christ's voice is scant heard in her and yet heard both in the mouth of these Babylonian builders which understand not one another and in the mouths of the people halting between Christ and the Pope their Bahal And therefore in that behalf not the true but a true Christian Church This testimony is the praise of the most wonderful patience of God who suffereth so long that common hackney to bear his name It is her shame As it is the shame of a Quean married to a good husband to be convicted of running up and down after strangers It s a vantage to us in our imployment for her Conversion For as when Agar had confessed truly that she was Sarah 's maid the Angel took her at her word saying Return to thy Mistress and submit thy self to her and perswaded her Even so we take the Roman Church by the neck when she confesseth that she is Christs Church as she is indeed exhorting her to return unto Christ to obey his word to submit her self unto him and to follow the true Faith of the antient Catholick and Apostolick Church Neither is it any vantage to her against us to inforce us to return to her or to upbraid us for forsaking her For as Moses when the people had committed Idolatry took his Tabernacle and pitched it without the Camp afarre off from the Camp breaking off all Communication with those which had broken the Covenant of the Lord their God till they repented as God said to Jeremiah of the Jews which had opened their legs to every one that passed by and multiplied their whoredomes Cast them out of my sight and let them goe forth Let them return unto thee but return not thou unto them as Hosea said of Ephraim Ephraim is joyned to Idols let him alone So Christ saith unto us Come out of Babylon my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues Her sins are a spiritual Leprosie and we run away from leprous men though true men and our nearest and dearest Friends crying what they are loath to cry Unclean unclean lest their breath should infect us Her sins are Infidelity not negative but privative not in whole but in part as S. Paul a believing Jew was in unbelief when he persecuted the Church and S. Paul saith unto us Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers c. Come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters faith the Lord Almighty A faithful Subject will not take a Traitour though a Subject by the hand nor I a Papist in matter of his Religion neither will honest women goe unto the stews with the greatest Lady though she be a great ones Wife This I have ever taught privately preached publickly published in printed Books against Papists during these thirty three yeares of my Ministry in the French Churches without any advantage to our Adversaries without any contradiction of our Divines without any exception taken against it by our Churches or any particular among the Brethren which all in their name preach and publish that they are of the same mind calling themselves the Reformed Churches and our Religion the Reformed Religion For as the good Kings of Juda did not build a new Temple call to God a new people set up a new Religion but repurge and cleanse the old Temple restore the ancient Religion exhorted Gods people to shake off the new inventions of the new-patched Religion and to return to the Lord their God by the old way which their Fathers had beaten and Moses had traced unto them in the Law and as Zorobabel Esdras Nehemiah Jeshuah builded the wals of Jerusalem upon the ancient Foundation every man building next himself even so the Protestant Divines have every one next himself not builded a new Church upon a new Foundation but repurged the ancient Church of Idolatry Superstition false Interpretations of the Scriptures and Traditions of men whereof she was fuller then ever Augeas his Stable was full
them that dwell therein Perhaps there wanted not some Sacriledge in the Demolishers In all the carriage of these businesses there was a just hand that knew how to make an wholsome and profitable use of mutuall sins Full little did the Builders or the in-dwellers think that this costly and warm fabrick should so soon end violently in a desolate rubbish It is not for us to be high-minded but to fear No Roof is so high no Wall so strong as that Sin cannot level it with the Dust Were any pile so close that it could keep out aire yet it could not keep out Judgement where Sin hath been fore-admitted In vain shall we promise stability to those Houses which we have made witnesses of and accessaries to our shamefull uncleannesses The firmnesse of any Building is not so much in the matter as in the owner Happy is that Cottage that hath an honest Master and wo be to that Palace that is viciously inhabited LXXVII Upon the discharging of a Peece GOod Lord how witty men are to kill one another What fine devices they have found out to murder afar off to slay many at once and so to fetch off lives that whiles a whole Lane is made of Carkasses with one blow no body knows who hurt him And what honour do we place in slaughter Those armes wherein we pride our selves are such as which we or our Ancestors have purchased with blood the monuments of our Glory are the spoils of a subdu'd and slain enemy Where contrarily all the titles of God sound of Mercy and gracious respects to Man God the Father is the Maker and Preserver of men God the Son is the Saviour of Mankind God the Holy Ghost styles himself the Comforter Alas whose image do we bear in this disposition but his whose true title is the Destroier It is easie to take away the life it is not easie to give it Give me the man that can devise how to save Troups of men from killing his name shall have room in my Calender There is more true Honour in a Civick Garland for the preserving of one Subject then in a Lawrell for the victory of many Enemies O God there are enough that bend their thoughts to undoe what thou hast made enable thou me to bestow my endeavours in reprieving or rescuing that which might otherwise perish O thou who art our common Saviour make thou me both ambitious and able to help to save some other besides my self LXXVIII Upon the tolling of a passing-Bell HOw dolefull and heavy is this summons of Death This sound is not for our eares but for our hearts it calls us not onely to our Prayers but to our preparation to our prayers for the departing Soul to our preparation for our own departing We have never so much need of Prayers as in our last Combat then is our great Adversary most eager then are we the weakest then Nature is so over-laboured that it gives us not leisure to make use of gracious motions There is no preparation so necessary â—s for this Confâ—ict all our Life is little enough to make ready for our last hour What am I better then my Neighbours How oft hath this Bell reported to me the farewell of many more strong and vigorous bodies then my own of many more chearfull and lively spirits And now what doth it but call me to the thought of my parting Here is no abiding for me I must away too O thou that art the God of comfort help thy poor Servant that is now struggling with his last enemy His sad Friends stand gazing upon him and weeping over him but they cannot succour him needs must they leave him to doe this great work alone none but thou to whom belong the issues of death canst relieve his distressed and over-matched Soul And for me let no man die without me as I die daily so teach me to die once acquaint me beforehand with that Messenger which I must trust to Oh teach me so to number my dayes that I may apply my heart to true wisdome LXXIX Upon a Defamation dispersed WEre I the first or the best that ever was slandered perhaps it would be somewhat difficult to command my self patience Grief is wont to be abated either by partners or precedents the want whereof dejects us beyond measure as men singled out for patterns of misery Now whiles I finde this the common condition of all that ever have been reputed vertuous why am I troubled with the whisperings of false tongues O God the Devil slandered thee in Paradise O Saviour men slandered thee on earth more then men or Devils can reproach me Thou art the best as thou art the best that ever was smitten by a lying and venomous tongue It is too much favour that is done me by malicious lips that they conform me to thy Sufferings I could not be so happy if they were not so spightfull O thou glorious pattern of reproached Innocence if I may not die for thee yet let me thus bleed with thee LXXX Upon a ring of Bels. WHiles every Bell keeps due time and order what a sweet and harmonious sound they make all the neighbour Villages are cheared with that common Musick But when once they jarre and check each other either jangling together or striking preposterously how harsh and unpleasing is that noise So that as we testifie our publick rejoycing by an orderly and wel-tuned peal so when we would signifie that the town is on fire we ring confusedly It is thus in Church and Commonwealth when every one knows and keeps their due ranks there is a melodious consort of Peace and contentment but when distances and proportions of respects are not mutually observed when either States or persons will be clashing with each other the discord is grievous and extremely prejudiciall such confusion either notifieth a fire already kindled or portendeth it Popular States may ring the changes with safety but the Monarchicall Government requires a constant and regular course of the set degrees of rule and inferiority which cannot be violated without a sensible discontentment and danger For me I do so love the Peace of the Church and State that I cannot but with the charitable Apostle say Would to God they were cut off that trouble them and shall ever wish either no jarres or no clappers LXXXI Upon the sight of a full Table at a Feast WHat great Variety is here of Flesh of Fish of both of either as if both Nature and Art did strive to pamper us Yet methinks enough is better then all this Excesse is but a burden as to the Provider so to the Guest It pities and grieves me to think what toile what charge hath gone to the gathering of all these Dainties together what pain so many poor creatures have been put to in dying for a needlesse Sacrifice to the Belly what a Penance must be done by every Accumbent in sitting out the passage through all these dishes
Faith are those Principles of Christian Religion and Fundamental Grounds and Points of Faith which are undoubtedly contained and laid down in the Canonicall Scriptures whether in expresse termes or by necessary consequence and in the Ancient Creeds universally received and allowed by the whole Church of God IV. There cannot be now-a-dayes any new Rule of Faith V. As there cannot be any new Rule of Faith so there cannot now be any new Faith It is not therefore in the power of any creature under Heaven to make any Point to be of Faith which before was not so or to cause any Point not to be of Faith which formerly was so VI. He cannot be an Heretick who doth not obstinately deny something which is truly a Point of Faith or hold some Point contrary to the foresaid Articles of Christian Faith VII There are and may be many Theologicall Points which are wont to be believed and maintained and so many lawfully be of this or that particular Church or the Doctors thereof or their Followers as godly Doctrines and Probable Truths besides those other Essential and main matters of Faith without any prejudice at all of the common Peace of the Church VIII Howsoever it may be lawfull for Learned men particular Churches to believe and maintain those Probable or as they may think Certain Points of Theologicall Verities yet it is not lawfull for them to impose and obtrude the said Doctrines upon any Church or Person to be believed and held as upon the necessity of Salvation or to anathematize or eject out of the Church any Person or company of men that thinks otherwise IX Notwithstanding any such unjust Anathema denounced against any such Person or Church whosoever holds those Principles and Essential Points of Christian Faith however he be in place far remote from all the Visible Churches of Christ and neither know not or receive not those other Positions of Theological determination is throughly capable in such condition of Christian Communion and if many such be met together under a lawfull Pastor there cannot be denied unto them both the truth and title of a true Visible Church of Christ X. The Church of Rome is onely and at the best a Particular Church XI All Christian Churches are no other then Sisters and Daughters of that great and Universall Mother which furnisheth both Heaven and earth of equall priviledge in respect of God and his Faith save onely that each one is so much more honourable as it is more pure and holy It is not therefore lawfull for any one of them in regard of the businesses of Faith to take upon her self the power and command over any other or to prescribe unto any of them what they must necessarily believe upon pain of damnation XII Those issues of Controversie in regard whereof the Reformed Catholicks are wont to be condemned and anathematized by the Romane Church are far from Principles of Christian Faith neither are any other than their own Theologicall Positions and the institutions and devises of that particular Church XIII The Reformed Catholicks have not offered to bring in any new Opinion or Doctrine into the Church but only labour and endeavour to procure some late superfluous additions to the Faith to be cashiered rejected XIV Vainly therefore and unjustly is it required of them that they should shew the succession of their Religion and Church as raised upon a quite other foundation to be derived from the Apostolick times to the present since all that they professe is a desire to purge the very same Church of God from certain new Errors and Superstitious rites wherewith it is miserably defiled XV. Out of all which Premisses it necessarily followeth that the Romane Church which upon these grounds sticketh not to exclude true Christians differing from them in matter of such Doctrines from the Church of God and eternall Salvation is justly guilty of great insolency and horrible breach both of Charity and Peace and that the Reformed notwithstanding this rash and unjust censure of theirs forasmuch as they do inviolably hold all the Points of the truly ancient and Christian Faith do justly claim unto themselves a most true and perfect interest in the communion of all Christian Churches and eternall Salvation XVI There is no lesse danger in adding to the Articles of Christian Faith then in diminishing them or detracting from them XVII Those Points which the Romane Church is wont to adde and forcibly to put upon all Catholicks as well the Reformed as those whom they term their own are such as are grounded on her own mere authority XVIII The Reformed Catholicks do justly complain and prove that those Points which the Romane Church imposeth and urgeth as the meet additions both of Faith and Divine worship are neither safe nor agreeable to the holy Word of God and plead it to be utterly unjust that those accessory Points of their devising or determining wherein every Church should be left free and at her due liberty should be imperiously thrust upon them notwithstanding their vehement and just resistance XIX It argues a palpable self-love in the Romane Church and must needs at the last draw down a grievous Judgement from God upon her that this Particular Church will needs make her self uncapable of any better condition in that she vainly brags that she cannot erre and fearfully accurseth and sends down to hell all those that profer her the least endeavour of the means of her remedy and redresse XX. Upon all these grounds it is plain that the Reformed Catholicks are in a safe estate and that contrarily the Romane are in a miserable errour and fearfull danger and lastly that it is only through their default that the Church of God is not reduced to an happy Purity and Peace 2 Tim. 2. 7. Consider what I say and the Lord give you understanding in all things AN ANSWER TO POPE URBAN'S INURBANITIE Expressed in a BREEVE sent to LEWIS the French King exasperating him against the Protestants in France Written in Latine by the Right Reverend Father in God JOSEPH Lord Bishop of Excester Translated into English by his Son ROBERT HALL Master of Arts in Excester Colledge in Oxford LONDON Printed by JAMES FLESHER 1661. A BREEVE of Pope Urban the Eighth sent to Lewis the French King upon the taking of ROCHEL OUR most dear Son in Christ we send you greeting and Apostolical Benediction The voice of rejoicing and Salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous let the wicked see this and fret and let the Synagogue of Satan consume away The most Christian King fighteth for Religion the Lord of hosts fighteth for the King We verily in this Mother-City of the world triumph with holy joy we congratulate this your Majesties Victory the trophees whereof are erected in Heaven the glory whereof the generation that is to come shall never cease to speak of Now at the length this Age hath seen the Tower of ROCHEL no lesse
Saviour was not without the intention of a tryal Had not the Ruler gone home satisfied with that intimation of his sons life and recovery neither of them had been blessed with success Now the news of performance meets him one half of the way and he that believed somewhat ere he came and more when he went grew to more faith in the way and when he came home inlarged his faith to all the skirts of his family A weak faith may be true but a true faith is growing He that boasts of a full stature in the first moment of his assent may presume but doth not believe Great men cannot want Clients their Example swaies some their Authority more they cannot goe to either of the other worlds alone In vain do they pretend power over others who labour not to draw their Families unto God The Dumb Devil ejected THat the Prince of our Peace might approve his victories perfect wheresoever he met with the Prince of Darkness he foiled him he ejected him He found him in Heaven thence did he throw him headlong and verified his Prophet I have cast thee out of mine holy mountain And if the Devils left their first habitation it was because being Devils they could not keep it Their estate indeed they might have kept and did not their habitation they would have kept and might not How art thou faln from Heaven O Lucifer He found him in the heart of man for in that closet of God did the evil spirit after his exile from Heaven shrowd himself Sin gave him possession which he kept with a willing violence thence he casts him by his Word and Spirit He found him tyrannizing in the bodies of some possessed men and with power commands the unclean spirits to depart This act is for no hand but his When a strong man keeps possession none but a stronger can remove him In voluntary things the strongest may yield to the weakest Sampson to a Dalilah but in violent ever the mightiest carries it A spiritual nature must needs be in rank above a bodily neither can any power be above a Spirit but the God of Spirits No otherwise is it in the mental possession Whereever sin is there Satan is as on the contrary whosoever is born of God the seed of God remains in him That Evil one not onely is but rules in the sons of disobedience in vain shall we try to eject him but by the Divine power of the Redeemer For this cause the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil Do we finde our selves haunted with the familiar Devils of Pride Self-love Sensual desires Unbelief None but thou O Son of the ever-living God can free our bosoms of these hellish guests Oh clense thou me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me O Saviour it is no Paradox to say that thou castest out more Devils now then thou didst whiles thou wert upon earth It was thy word When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me Satan weighs down at the feet thou pullest at the head yea at the heart In every conversion which thou workest there is a dispossession Convert me O Lord and I shall be converted I know thy means are now no other then ordinary If we exspect to be dispossessed by miracle it would be a miracle if ever we were dispossessed Oh let thy Gospel have the perfect work in me so onely shall I be delivered from the powers of darkness Nothing can be said to be dumb but what naturally speaks nothing can speak naturally but what hath the instruments of speech which because spirits want they can no otherwise speak vocally then as they take voices to themselves in taking bodies This Devil was not therefore dumb in his nature but in his effect The man was dumb by the operation of that Devil which possessed him and now the action is attributed to the spirit which was subjectively in the man It is not you that speak faith our Saviour but the spirit of your Father that speaketh in you As it is in bodily Diseases that they do not infect us alike some seize upon the humours others upon the spirits some assalt the brain others the heart or lungs so in bodily and spiritual possessions in some the evil spirit takes away their senses in some their lims in some their inward faculties like as spiritually they affect to move us unto several sins one to lust another to covetousness or ambition another to cruelty and their names have distinguished them according to these various effects This was a dumb Devil which yet had possessed not the tongue only of this man but his ear not that only but as it seems his eyes too O subtile and tyrannous spirit that obstructs all wayes to the Soul that keeps out all means of Grace both from the door and windows of the heart yea that stops up all passages whether of ingress or egress of ingress at the eye or eare of egress at the mouth that there might be no capacity of redress What holy use is there of our tongue but to praise our Maker to confess our sins to inform our brethren How rife is this Dumb Devil every where whiles he stops the mouths of Christians from these useful and necessary duties For what end hath man those two privileges above his fellow-creatures Reason and Speech but that as by the one he may conceive of the great works of his Maker which the rest cannot so by the other he may express what he conceives to the honour of the Creator both of them and himself And why are all other creatures said to praise God and bidden to praise him but because they do it by the apprehension by the expression of man If the Heavens declare the glory of God how doe they it but to the eyes and by the tongue of that man for whom they were made It is no small honour whereof the envious spirit shall rob his Maker if he can close up the mouth of his onely rational and vocal creature and turn the best of his workmanship into a dumb Idol that hath a mouth and speaks not Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Praise is not more necessary then complaint praise of God then complaint of our selves whether to God or men The onely amends we can make to God when we have not had the grace to avoid sinne is to confess the sinne we have not avoided This is the sponge that wipes out all the blots and blurs of our lives If we confess our sinnes he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness That cunning man-slayer knows there is no way to purge the sick soul but upward by casting out the vicious humour wherewith it is clogged and therefore holds the lips close that the heart may not disburden it self by so wholesome evacuation When