is worthy of stoning but who shall cast them How ill would they become hands as guilty as her own What doe they but smite themselves who punish their own offences in other men Nothing is more unjust or absurd then for the beam to censure the moat the oven to upbraid the kiln It is a false and vagrant zeal that begins not first at home Well did our Saviour know how bitter and strong a pill he had given to these false Justiciaries and now he will take leisure to see how it wrought Whiles therefore he gives time to them to swallow it and put it over he returns to his old gesture of a seeming inadvertencie How sped the receit I do no see any one of them stand out with Christ and plead his own innocency and yet these men which is very remarkable placed the fulfilling or violation of the Law only in the outward act Their hearts misgave them that if they should have stood out in contestation with Christ he would have utterly shamed them by displaying their old and secret sins and have so convinced them by undeniable circumstances that they should never have clawed of the reproach And therefore when they heard it being convicted by their own conscience they went out one by one beginning at the eldest even unto the last There might seem to be some kinde of mannerly order in this guilty departure not all at once lest they should seem violently chased away by this charge of Christ now their slinking away one by one may seem to carry a shew of a deliberate and voluntary discession The eldest first The ancienter is fitter to give then take example and the yonger could think it no shame to follow the steps of a grave fore-man O wonderful power of Conscience Man can no more stand out against it then it can stand out against God The Almighty whose substitute is set in our bosome sets it on work to accuse It is no denying when that sayes we are guilty when that condemns us in vain are we acquitted by the world With what bravery did these Hypocrites come to set upon Christ with what triumph did they insult upon that guilty soul Now they are thunder-struck with their own Conscience and drop away confounded and well is he that can run away furthest from his own shame No wicked man needs to seek out of himself for a Judge Accuser Witness Tormentor No sooner do these Hypocrites hear of their sins from the mouth of Christ then they are gone Had they been sincerely touched with a true remorse they would have rather come to him upon their knees and have said Lord we know and finde that thou knowest our secret sins this argues thy Divine Omniscience Thou that art able to know our sins art able to remit them O pardon the iniquities of thy servants Thou that accusest us do thou also acquit us But now instead hereof they turn their back upon their Saviour and haste away An impenitent man cares not how little he hath either of the presence of God or of the mention of his sins O fools if ye could run away from God it were somewhat but whiles ye move in him what doe ye whither goe ye Ye may run from his Mercy ye cannot but run upon his Judgment Christ is left alone Alone in respect of these complainants not alone in respect of the multitude there yet stands the mournfull Adulteresse She might have gone forth with them no body constrained her to stay but that which sent them away stayed her Conscience She knew her guiltinesse was publickly accused and durst not be by her self denied as one that was therefore fastened there by her own guilty heart she stirs not till she may receive a dismission Our Saviour was not so busie in writing but that he read the while the guilt and absence of those accusers he that knew what they had done knew no less what they did what they would doe Yet as if the matter had been strange to him he lifts up himself and saies Woman where are thy accusers How well was this sinner to be left there Could she be in a safer place then before the Tribunal of a Saviour Might she have chosen her refuge whither should she rather have fled O happy we if when we are convinced in our selves of our sins we can set our selves before that Judge who is our surety our Advocate our Redeemer our ransome our peace Doubtlesse she stood doubtfull betwixt hope and fear Hope in that she saw her accusers gone Fear in that she knew what she had deserved and now whiles she trembles in exspectation of a sentence she hears Woman where are thy accusers Wherein our Saviour intends the satisfaction of all the hearers of all the beholders that they might apprehend the guiltiness and therefore the unfitness of the accusers and might well see there was no warrantable ground of his further proceeding against her Two things are necessary for the execution of a Malefactor Evidence Sentence the one from Witnesses the other from the Judge Our Saviour asks for both The accusation and proof must draw on the sentence the sentence must proceed upon the evidence of the proof Where are thy accusers hath no man condemned thee Had sentence passed legally upon the Adulteresse doubtlesse our Saviour would not have acquitted her For as he would not intrude upon others offices so he would not crosse or violate the justice done by others But now finding the coast clear he saies Neither do I condemn thee What Lord Dost thou then shew favour to foul offenders Art thou rather pleased that grosse sins should be blanched and sent away with a gentle connivency Far far be this from the perfection of thy Justice He that hence argues Adulteries not punishable by death let him argue the unlawfulness of dividing of inheritances because in the case of the two wrangling brethren thou saidst Who made me a divider of inheritances Thou declinedst the office thou didst not dislike the act either of parting lands or punishing offenders Neither was here any absolution of the woman from a sentence of death but a dismission of her from thy sentence which thou knewest not proper for thee to pronounce Herein hadst thou respect to thy calling and to the main purpose of thy coming into the world which was neither to be an arbiter of Civil Causes nor a judge of Criminal but a Saviour of mankinde not to destroy the Body but to save the Soul And this was thy care in this miserable Offender Goe and sin no more How much more doth it concern us to keep within the bounds of our vocation and not to dare to trench upon the functions of others How can we ever enough magnifie thy Mercy who takest no pleasure in the death of a sinner who so camest to save that thou challengest us of unkindness for being miserable Why will ye die O house of Israel But O Son of God though
that persecuted thine innocence but limbs of this Devil And why are we then amazed to see thee touched and locally transported by the head when we see thee yielding thy self over to be crucified by the members If Satan did the worse and greater mediately by their hands no marvel if he doe the lesse and easier immediately by his own yet neither of them without thy voluntary dispensation He could not have looked at thee without thee And if the Son of God did thus suffer his own holy and precious Body to be carried by Satan what wonder is it if that Enemy have sometimes power given him over the sinful bodies of the adopted sons of God It is not the strength of Faith that can secure us from the outward violences of that Evil one This difference I finde betwixt his spiritual and bodily assaults those are beaten back by the shield of Faith these admit not of such repulse As the best man may be lame blind diseased so through the permission of God he may be bodily vexed by an old Man-slayer Grace was never given us for a Target against externall Afflictions Methinks I see Christ hoised upon the highest battlements of the Temple whose very roof was an hundred and thirty Cubits high and Satan standing by him with this speech in his mouth Well then since in the matter of nourishment thou wilt needs depend upon thy Father's Providence that he can without means sustain thee take now further tryall of that Providence in thy miraculous preservation Cast thy self down from this height Behold thou art here in Jerusalem the famous and holy City of the World here thou art on the top of the pinnacle of that Temple which is dedicated to thy Father and if thou be God to thy self The eyes of all men are now fixt upon thee there cannot be devised a more ready way to spread thy glory and to proclaim thy Deity then by casting thy self headlong to the Earth All the World will say there is more in thee then a man And for danger there can be none What can hurt him that is the Son of God and wherefore serves that glorious Guard of Angels which have by Divine Commission taken upon them the charge of thine Humanity Since therefore in one act thou mayest be both safe and celebrated trust thy Father and those thy serviceable Spirits with thine assured preservation Cast thy self down And why didst thou not O thou malignant spirit endeavour to cast down my Saviour by those same presumptuous hands that brought him up since the descent is more easie then the raising up Was it for that it had not been so great an advantage to thee that he should fall by thy means as by his own Falling into sin was more then to fall from the pinnacle Still thy care and suit is to make us Authors to our selves of evil thou gainest nothing by our bodily hurt if the Soul be safe Or was it rather for that thou couldest not I doubt not but thy Malice could as well have served to have offered this measure to himself as to his holy Apostle soon after But he that bounded thy power tethers thee shorter Thou couldest not thou canst not do what thou wouldst He that would permit thee to carry him up bindes thy hands from casting him down And woe were it for us if thou wert not ever stinted Why did Satan carry up Christ so high but on purpose that his fall might be the more deadly So deals he still with us he exalts us that we may be dangerously abased he puffs them up with swelling thoughts of their own worthinesse that they may be vile in the eyes of God and fall into condemnation It is the manner of God to cast down that he may raise to abase that he may exalt Contrarily Satan raises up that he may throw down and intends nothing but our dejection in our advancement Height of place gives opportunity of Tentation Thus busie is that Wicked one in working against the members of Christ If any of them be in eminence above others those he labours most to ruinate They had need to stand fast that stand high There is both more danger of their falling and more hurt in their fall He that had presumed thus far to tempt the Lord of Life would fain now dare him also to presume upon his Deity If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down There is not a more tried shaft in all his quiver then this a perswasion to men to bear themselves too bold upon the favour of God Thou art the Elect and Redeemed of God sin because Grace hath abounded sin that it may abound Thou art safe enough though thou offend be not too much an adversary to thine own liberty False spirit it is no liberty to sinne but servitude rather there is liberty but in the freedome from sin Every one of us that hath the hope of Sons must purge himself even as he is pure that hath redeemed us We are bought with a price therefore must we glorifie God in our body and spirits for they are God's Our Sonship teaches us awe and obedience and therefore because we are Sons we will not cast our selves down into sin How idlely do Satan and wicked men measure God by the crooked line of their own misconceit Iwis Christ cannot be the Son of God unlesse he cast himself down from the Pinnacle unlesse he come down from the Crosse God is not merciful unlesse he honour them in all their desires not just unlesse he take speedy vengeance where they require it But when they have spent their folly upon these vain imaginations Christ is the Son of God though he stay on the top of the Temple God will be merciful though we miscarry and just though sinners seem lawlesse Neither will he be any other then he is or measured by any rule but himself But what is this I see Satan himself with a Bible under his arm with a Text in his mouth It is written He shall give his Angels charge over thee How still in that Wicked one doth Subtilty strive with Presumption Who could not but over-wonder at this if he did not consider that since the Devil dar'd to touch the sacred Body of Christ with his hand he may well touch the Scriptures of God with his tongue Let no man henceforth marvel to hear Hereticks or Hypocrites quote Scriptures when Satan himself hath not spared to cite them What are they the worse for this more then that holy Body wich is transported Some have been poisoned by their meats and drinks yet either these nourish us or nothing It is not the Letter of the Scripture that can carry it but the Sense if we divide these two we prophane and abuse that Word we alledge And wherefore doth this foul spirit urge a Text but for imitation for prevention and for successe Christ had alledged a Scripture unto him he re-alledges Scripture unto Christ
At leastwise he will counterfeit an imitation of the Son of God Neither is it in this alone what one act ever passed the hand of God which Satan did not apishly attempt to second If we follow Christ in the outward action with contrary intentions we follow Satan in following Christ Or perhaps Satan meant to make Christ hereby weary of this weapon As we see fashions when they are taken up of the unworthy are cast off by the Great It was doubtlesse one cause why Christ afterward forbad the Devil even to confesse the Truth because his mouth was a stander But chiefly doth he this for a better colour of his Tentation He gilds over this false metall with Scripture that it may passe current Even now is Satan transformed into an Angel of Light and will seem godly for a mischief If Hypocrites make a fair shew to deceive with a glorious lustre of Holinesse we see whence they borrowed it How many thousand souls are betraied by the abuse of that Word whose use is soveraign and saving No Devil is so dangerous as the religious Devil If good meat turn to the nourishment not of Nature but of the Disease we may not forbear to feed but endeavour to purge the body of those evil humours which cause the stomach to work against it self O God thou that hast given us light give us clear and sound eyes that we may take comfort of that Light thou hast given us Thy Word is holy make our hearts so and then shall they finde that Word not more true then cordial Let not this Divine Table of thine be made a snare to our souls What can be a better act then to speak Scripture It were a wonder if Satan should do a good thing well He cites Scripture then but with mutilation and distortion it comes not out of his mouth but maimed and perverted One piece is left all misapplied Those that wrest or mangle Scripture for their own turn it is easie to see from what School they come Let us take the Word from the Author not from the Usurper David would not doubt to eat that sheep which he pulled out of the mouth of the Bear or Lion He shall give his Angels charge over thee Oh comfortable assurance of our protection God's children never goe unattended Like unto great Princes we walk ever in the midst of our guard though invisible yet true careful powerful What creatures are so glorious as the Angels of Heaven yet their Maker hath set them to serve us Our Adoption makes us at once great and safe We may be contemptible and ignominious in the eyes of the world but the Angels of God observe us the while and scorn not to wait upon us in our homeliest occasions The Sun or the Light may we keep out of our houses the Aire we cannot much lesse these Spirits that are more simple and immaterial No walls no bolts can sever them from our sides they accompany us in dungeons they goe with us into our exile How can we either fear danger or complain of solitarinesse whiles we have so unseparable so glorious Companions Is our Saviour distasted with Scripture because Satan mis-laies it in his dish Doth he not rather snatch this sword out of that impure hand beat Satan with the weapon which he abuseth It is written Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God The Scripture is one as that God whose it is Where it carries an appearance of difficulty or inconvenience it needs no light to clear it but that which it hath in it self All doubts that may arise from it are fully answered by collation It is true that God hath taken this care and given this charge of his own he will have them kept not in their sins they may trust him they may not tempt him he meant to incourage their Faith not their Presumption To cast our selves upon any immediate Providence when means fail not is to disobey in stead of believing God We may challenge God on his Word we may not strain him beyond it we may make account of what he promised we may not subject his Promises to unjust examinations and where no need is make triall of his Power Justice Mercy by devices of our own All the Devils in Hell could not elude the force of this Divine answer and now Satan sees how vainly he tempteth Christ to tempt God Yet again for all this do I see him setting upon the Son of God Satan is not foiled when he is resisted Neither diffidence nor presumption can fasten upon Christ he shall be tried with Honour As some expert Fencer that challenges at all weapons so doth his great Enemy In vain shall we plead our skill in some if we fail in any It must be our wisedome to be prepared for all kinde of assaults as those that hold Towns and Forts do not only defend themselves from incursions but from the Cannon and the Pionier Still doth that subtil Serpent traverse his ground for an advantage The Temple is not high enough for his next Tentation he therefore carries up Christ to the top of an exceeding high Mountain All enemies in pitcht fields strive for the benefit of the Hill or River or Wind or Sun That which his servant Balac did by his instigation himself doth now immediately change places in hope of prevailing If the obscure country will not move us he tries what the Court can do if not our home the Tavern if not the field our closer As no place is left free by his malice so no place must be made prejudicial by our carelesnesse and as we should alwaies watch over our selves so then most when the opportunity carries cause of suspicion Wherefore is Christ carried up so high but for prospect If the Kingdomes of the earth and their glory were only to be presented to his imagination the Valley would have served if to the outward sense no Hill could suffice Circular bodies though small cannot be seen at once This shew was made to both divers Kingdomes lying round about Judea were represented to the eye the glory of them to the imagination Satan meant the eye could tempt the fancy no less then the fancie could tempt the will How many thousand souls have died of the wound of the eye If we do not let in sin at the window of the eye or the door of the eare it cannot enter into our hearts If there be any pomp majestie pleasure bravery in the world where should it be but in the Courts of Princes whom God hath made his Images his Deputies on earth There is soft rayment sumptuous feasts rich jewels honourable attendance glorious triumphs royal state these Satan laies out to the fairest shew But oh the craft of that old Serpent Many a care attends Greatnesse No Crown is without thorns High seats are never but uneasie All those infinite discontentments which are the shadow of earthly Soveraigntie he hides out of the way nothing may
miserable and not feel it to feel and not regard it to regard and yet to smother it Concealment doth not remedy but aggravate sorrow That with the counsel of not weeping therefore she might see cause of not weeping his Hand seconds his Tongue He arrests the Coffin and frees the Prisoner Young man I say unto thee Arise The Lord of life and death speaks with command No finite power could have said so without presumption or with success That is the voice that shall one day call up our vanished bodies from those Elements into which they are resolved and raise them out of their dust Neither sea nor death nor hell can offer to detain their dead when he charges them to be delivered Incredulous nature what dost thou shrink at the possibility of a Resurrection when the God of Nature undertakes it It is no more hard for that almighty Word which gave being unto all things to say Let them be repaired then Let them be made I do not see our Saviour stretching himself upon the dead corps as Elias and Elisha upon the sons of the Sunamite and Sareptan nor kneeling down and praying by the Bier as Peter did to Dorcas but I hear him so speaking to the dead as if he were alive and so speaking to the dead that by the word he makes him alive I say unto thee Arise Death hath no power to bid that man lye still whom the Son of God bids Arise Immediatly he that was dead sate up So at the sound of the last Trumpet by the power of the same voice we shall arise out of the dust and stand up glorious This mortall shall put on immortality this corruptible incorruption This body shall not be buried but sown and at our day shall therefore spring up with a plentiful increase of glory How comfortless how desperate should be our lying down if it were not for this assurance of rising And now behold lest our weak faith should stagger at the assent to so great a difficulty he hath already by what he hath done given us tastes of what he will do The power that can raise one man can raise a thousand a million a world no power can raise one man but that which is infinite and that which is infinite admits of no limitation Under the Old Testament God raised one by Elias another by Elisha living a third by Elisha dead By the hand of the Mediator of the New Testament he raised here the son of the Widow the daughter of Jairus Lazarus and in attendance of his own Resurrection he made a gaol-delivery of holy prisoners at Jerusalem He raises the daughter of Jairus from her bed this Widows son from his Coffin Lazarus from his grave the dead Saints of Jerusalem from their rottenness that it might appear no degree of death can hinder the efficacie of his overruling command He that keeps the keys of Death cannot onely make way for himself through the common Hall and outer-rooms but through the inwardest and most reserved closets of darkness Methinks I see this young man who was thus miraculously awaked from his deadly sleep wiping and rubbing those eyes that had been shut up in death and descending from the Bier wrapping his winding-sheet about his loyns cast himself down in a passionate thankfulness at the feet of his Almighty restorer adoring that Divine power which had commanded his Soul back again to her forsaken lodging and though I hear not what he said yet I dare say they were words of praise and wonder which his returned Soul first uttered It was the mother whom our Saviour pittied in this act not the son who now forced from his quiet rest must twice pass through the gates of death As for her sake therefore he was raised so to her hands was he delivered that she might acknowledge that soul given to her not to the possessor Who cannot feel the amazement and ecstasie of joy that was in this revived mother when her son now salutes her from out of another world and both receives and gives gratulations of his new life How suddenly were all the tears of that mournful train dried up with a joyful astonishment How soon is that funeral banquet turned into a new Birth-day feast What striving was here to salute the late carcase of their returned neighbour What awful and admiring looks were cast upon that Lord of life who seeming homely was approved Omnipotent How gladly did every tongue celebrate both the work and the Author A great Prophet is raised up amongst us and God hath visited his people A Prophet was the highest name they could find for him whom they saw like themselves in shape above themselves in power They were not yet acquainted with God manifested in the flesh This Miracle might well have assured them of more then a Prophet but he that raised the dead man from the Bier would not suddenly raise these dead hearts from the grave of Infidelity They shall see reason enough to know that the Prophet who was raised up to them was the God that now visited them and at last should doe as much for them as he had done for the young man raise them from death to life from dust to glory The Rulers Son cured THe bounty of God so exceedeth man's that there is a contrarietie in the exercise of it We shut our hands because we opened them God therefore opens his because he hath opened them God's mercies are as comfortable in their issue as in themselves Seldom ever do blessings go alone where our Saviour supplied the Bridegroom's wine there he heals the Rulers son He had not in all these coasts of Galilee done any Miracle but here To him that hath shall be given We do not finde Christ oft attended with Nobilitie here he is It was some great Peer or some noted Courtier that was now a suitor to him for his dying son Earthly Greatness is no defence against Afflictions We men forbear the Mightie Disease and Death know no faces of Lords or Monarchs Could these be bribed they would be too rich Why should we grudge not to be privileged when we see there is no spare of the greatest This Noble Ruler listens after Christ's return into Galilee The most eminent amongst men will be glad to hearken after Christ in their necessity Happy was it for him that his son was sick he had not else been acquainted with his Saviour his Soul had continued sick of ignorance and unbelief Why else doth our good God send us pain losses opposition but that he may be sought to Are we afflicted whither should we goe but to Cana to seek Christ whither but to the Cana of Heaven where our water of sorrow is turned to the wine of gladness to that omnipotent Physician who healeth all our infirmities that we may once say It is good for me that I was afflicted It was about a dayes journey from Capernaum to Cana Thence hither did this Courtier come for
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
I kept silence my bones consumed For day and night thy hand O Lord was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer O let me confess against my self my wickedness unto thee that thou maist forgive the punishment of my sinne We have a tongue for God when we praise him for our selves when we pray and confess for our brethren when we speak the truth for their information which if we hold back in unrighteousness we yield unto that dumb Devil Where do we not see that accursed spirit He is on the Bench when the mute or partial Judge speaks not for truth and innocence He is in the Pulpit when the Prophets of God smother or halve or adulterate the message of their Master He is at the Barre when irreligious Jurours dare lend an oath to fear to hope to gain He is in the Market when godless chapmen for their peny sell the truth and their soul He is in the common conversation of men when the tongue belies the heart flatters the guilty balketh reproofs even in the foulest crimes O thou who onely art stronger then that strong one cast him out of the hearts and mouths of men It is time for thee Lord to work for they have destroyed thy Law That it might well appear this impediment was not natural so soon as the man is freed from the spirit his tongue is free to his speech The effects of spirits as they are wrought so they cease at once If the Son of God do but remove our spiritual possession we shall presently break forth into the praise of God into the confession of our vileness into the profession of truth But what strange variety do I see in the spectators of his Miracle some wondring others censuring a third sort tempting a fourth applauding There was never man or action but was subject to variety of constructions What man could be so holy as he that was God What act could be more worthy then the dispossessing of an evil spirit Yet this man this act passeth these differences of interpretation What can we doe to undergoe but one opinion If we give almes and fast some will magnifie our charity and devotion others will tax our hypocrisie If we give not some will condemn our hard-heartedness others will allow our care of justice If we preach plainly to some it will favour of a careless slubbering to others oft a mortified sincerity elaborately some will tax our affectation others will applaud our diligence in dressing the delicate viands of God What marvel is it if it be thus with our imperfection when it fared not otherwise with him that was Purity and Righteousness it self The austere forerunner of Christ came neither eating nor drinking they say He hath a Devil The Son of man came eating and drinking they say This man is a glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners and here one of his holy acts carries away at once wonder censure doubt celebration There is no way safe for a man but to square his actions by the right rule of justice of charity and then let the world have leave to spend their glosses at pleasure It was an heroical resolution of the chosen vessel I pass very little to be judged of you or of mans day I marvel not if the people marvelled for here were four wonders in one the blind saw the deaf heard the dumb spake the Demoniack is delivered Wonder was due to so rare and powerful a work and if not this nothing We can cast away admiration upon the poor devices or activities of men how much more upon the extraordinary works of Omnipotency Whoso knows the frame of Heaven and earth shall not much be affected with the imperfect effects of frail Humanity but shall with no less Ravishment of soul acknowledge the miraculous works of the same Almighty hand Neither is the spiritual ejection worthy of any meaner entertainment Rarity and difficulty are wont to cause wonder There are many things which have wonder in their worth and lose it in their frequence there are some which have it in their strangeness and lose it in their facilitie Both meet in this To see men haunted yea possessed with a dumb Devil is so frequent that it is a just wonder to finde a man free but to finde the dumb spirit cast out of a man and to hear him praising God confessing his sins teaching others the sweet experiments of mercy deserves just admiration If the Cynick sought in the market for a man amongst men well may we seek amongst men for a Convert Neither is the difficulty less then the rareness The strong man hath the possession all passages are block'd up all helps barred by the treachery of our nature If any soul be rescued from these spiritual wickednesses it is the praise of him that doth wonders alone But whom do I see wondring The multitude The unlearned beholders follow that act with wonder which the learned Scribes entertain with obloquy God hath revealed those things to babes which he hath hid from the wise and prudent With what scorn did those great Rabbins speak of these sons of the earth This people that knows not the Law is accursed Yet the Mercy of God makes an advantage of their simplicity in that they are therefore less subject to cavillation and incredulitie as contrarily his Justice causes the proud knowledge of others to lie as a block in their way to the ready assent unto the Divine power of the Messias Let the pride of glorious adversaries disdain the povertie of the clients of the Gospel it shall not repent us to go to Heaven with the vulgar whiles their great ones go in state to perdition The multitude wondered Who censured but Scribes great Doctors of the Law of the divinitie of the Jews What Scribes but those of Jerusalem the most eminent Academie of Judaea These were the men who out of their deep reputed judgement cast these foul aspersions upon Christ Great wits ofttimes mislead both the owners and followers How many shall once wish they had been born dullards yea idiots when they shall finde their wit to have barred them out of Heaven Where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made the wisdome of the world foolishness Say the world what it will a dram of holiness is worth a pound of wit Let others censure with the Scribes let me wonder with the multitude What could malice say worse He casteth out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils The Jewes well knew that the Gods of the heathen were no other then Devils amongst whom for that the Lord of Flies so called whether for the concourse of flies to the abundance of his sacrifices or for his aid implored against the infestation of those swarms was held the chief therefore they stile him The Prince of Devils There is a subordination of spirits some higher in degree some inferiour to others Our Saviour himself tells
substance he made them richer in grace At whose board did he ever sit and left not his host a gainer The poor Bridegroom entertains him and hath his water-pots fill'd with Wine Simon the Pharisee entertains him and hath his table honoured with the publick remission of a penitent sinner with the heavenly doctrine of remission Zachaeus entertains him Salvation came that day to his house with the Author of it That presence made the Publican a Son of Abraham Matthew is recompensed for his feast with an Apostleship Martha and Mary entertain him and besides Divine instruction receive their Brother from the dead O Saviour whether thou feast us or we feast thee in both of them is Blessedness Where a Publican is the Feast-master it is no marvel if the guests be Publicans and sinners Whether they came alone out of the hope of that mercy which they saw their fellow had found or whether Matthew invited them to be partners of that plentiful grace whereof he had tasted I inquire not Publicans and sinners will flock together the one hateful for their trade the other for their vicious life Common contempt hath wrought them to an unanimity and sends them to seek mutual comfort in that society which all others held loathsome and contagious Moderate correction humbleth and shameth the offender whereas a cruel severity makes men desperate and drives them to those courses whereby they are more dangerously infected How many have gone into the prison faulty and returned flagitious If Publicans were not sinners they were no whit beholden to their neighbours What a table-full was here The Son of God beset with Publicans and sinners O happy Publicans and sinners that had found out their Saviour O merciful Saviour that disdained not Publicans and sinners What sinner can fear to kneel before thee when he sees Publicans and sinners sit with thee Who can fear to be despised of thy meekness and mercy which didst not abhorre to converse with the outcasts of men Thou didst not despise the Thief confessing upon the Cross nor the sinner weeping upon thy feet nor the Canaanite crying to thee in the way nor the blushing Adulteress nor the odious Publican nor the forswearing Disciple nor the persecutor of Disciples nor thine own executioners how can we be unwelcome to thee if we come with tears in our eyes faith in our hearts restitution in our hands O Saviour our breasts are too oft shut upon thee thy bosome is ever open to us We are as great sinners as the consorts of these Publicans why should we despair of a room at thy Table The squint-eyed Pharisees look a-cross at all the actions of Christ where they should have admired his Mercy they cavil at his Holinesle They said to his Disciples Why eateth your Master with Publicans and sinners They durst not say thus to the Master whose answer they knew would soon have convinced them This winde they hoped might shake the weak faith of the Disciples They speak where they may be most likely to hurt All the crue of Satanical instruments have learnt this craft of their old Tutor in Paradise We cannot reverence that man whom we think unholy Christ had lost the hearts of his followers if they had entertained the least suspicion of his impurity which the murmure of these envious Pharisees would fain insinuate He cannot be worthy to be followed that is unclean He cannot but be unclean that eateth with Publicans and sinners Proud and foolish Pharisees ye fast whiles Christ eateth ye fast in your houses whiles Christ eateth in other mens ye fast with your own whiles Christ feasts with sinners but if ye fast in pride while Christ eats in humility if ye fast at home for merit or popularity while Christ feasts with sinners for compassion for edification for conversion your fast is unclean his feast is holy ye shall have your portion with hypocrites when those Publicans and sinners shall be glorious When these censurers thought the Disciples had offended they speak not to them but to their Master Why doe thy Disciples that which is not lawfull now when they thought Christ offended they speak not to him but to the Disciples Thus like true make-bates they goe about to make a breach in the family of Christ by setting off the one from the other The quick eye of our Saviour hath soon espied the pack of their fraud and therefore he takes the words out of the mouthes of his Disciples into his own They had spoke of Christ to the Disciples Christ answers for the Disciples concerning himself The whole need not the Physician but the sick According to the two qualities of pride scorn and over-weening these insolent Pharisees over-rated their own holinesse contemned the noted unholinesse of others As if themselves were not tainted with secret sins as if others could not be cleansed by repentance The searcher of hearts meets with their arrogance and findes those justiciaries sinfull those sinners just The spiritual Physician findes the sicknesse of those sinners wholsome the health of those Pharisees desperate that wholsome because it calls for the help of the Physician this desperate because it needs not Every soul is sick those most that feel it not Those that feel it complain those that complain have cure those that feel it not shall finde themselves dying ere they can wish to recover O blessed Physician by Whose stripes we are healed by whose death we live happy are they that are under thy hands sick as of sin so of sorrow for sin It is as unpossible they should die as it is unpossible for thee to want either skill or power or mercy Sin hath made us sick unto death make thou us but as sick of our sins we are as safe as thou art gracious Christ among the Gergesens or Legion and the Gadarene Herd I Do not any where finde so furious a Demoniack as amongst the Gergesens Satan is most tyrannous where he is obeyed most Christ no sooner sailed over the lake then he was met with two possessed Gadarenes The extreme rage of the one hath drowned the mention of the other Yet in the midst of all that cruelty of the evil spirit there was sometimes a remission if not an intermission of vexation If oft-times Satan caught him then sometimes in the same violence he caught him not It was no thank to that malignant one who as he was indefatigable in his executions so unmeasurable in his malice but to the mercifull over-ruling of God who in a gracious respect to the weakness of his poor creatures limits the spightfull attempts of that immortal enemy and takes off this Mastive whiles we may take breath He who in his justice gives way to some onsets of Satan in his mercy restrains them so regarding our deservings that withall he regards our strength If way should be given to that malicious spirit we could not subsist no violent thing can endure and if Satan might have his will we should
this Jesus a power to apply his merits and obedience we are no whit the safer no whit the better only we are so much the wiser to understand who shall condemn us This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint Jesus the Son of the most high God the other piece like a Devil What have I to doe with thee If the disclamation were universall the latter words would impugne the former for whiles he confesses Jesus to be the Son of the most high God he withall confesses his own inevitable subjection Wherefore would he beseech if he were not obnoxious He cannot he dare not say What hast thou to doe with me but What have I to doe with thee Others indeed I have vexed thee I fear In respect then of any violence of any personal provocation What have I to doe with thee And dost thou ask O thou evil spirit what hast thou to doe with Christ whiles thou vexest a servant of Christ Hast thou thy name from knowledge and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest as if nothing could be done to him but what immediately concerns his own person Hear that great and just Judge sentencing upon his dreadfull Tribunal Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these little ones thou didst it unto me It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the Members from the Head He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God hath boldnesse enough to expostulate Art thou come to torment us before our time Whether it were that Satan who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners whose musick it is to hear our shrieks and gnashings held it no small piece of his torment to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny or whether the very presence of Christ were his rack for the guilty spirit projecteth terrible things and cannot behold the Judge or the executioner without a renovation of horrour or whether that as himself professeth he were now in a fearfull expectation of being commanded down into the deep for a further degree of actual torment which he thus deprecates There are tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels Men that are led by Sense have easily granted the body subject to torment who yet have not so readily conceived this incident to a spiritual substance The Holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts rather willing that we should herein fear then enquire But as all matters of Faith though they cannot be proved by Reason for that they are in a higher sphere yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all Reason that dares bark against them since truth cannot be opposite to it self so this of the sufferings of Spirits There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to Spirits and a reall For as in Blessedness the good Spirits finde themselves joyned unto the chief good and hereupon feel a perfect love of God and unspeakable joy in him and rest in themselves so contrarily the evil Spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God and see themselves setled in a wofull darkness and from the sense of this separation arises an horrour not to be expressed not to be conceived How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts There needs no other gibbet then that which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart And if some pains begin at the Body and from thence afflict the Soul in a copartnership of grief yet others arise immediately from the Soul and draw the Body into a participation of misery Why may we not therefore conceive mere and separate Spirits capable of such an inward excruciation Besides which I hear the Judge of men and Angels say Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I hear the Prophet say Tophet is prepared of old If with fear and without curiosity we may look upon those flames why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more then natural fire In the end of the world the Elements shall be dissolved by fire and if the pure quintessential matter of the skie and the element of fire it self shall be dissolved by fire then that last fire shall be of another nature then that which it consumeth What hinders then but that the Omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even to Spiritual essences Or why may we not distinguish of fire as it is it self a bodily creature and as it is an instrument of Gods justice so working not by any material virtue or power of its own but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy to which it is exalted by the Omnipotence of that supreme and righteous Judge Or lastly why may we not conceive that though Spirits have nothing material in their nature which that fire should work upon yet by the judgement of the Almighty Arbiter of the world justly willing their torment they may be made most sensible of pain and by the obedible submission of their created nature wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures besides the very horrour which ariseth from the place whereto they are everlastingly confined For if the incorporeal Spirits of living men may be held in a lothed or painful body and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels or men may be held in those direfull flames and much more abhor therein to continue for ever Tremble rather O my Soul at the thought of this wofull condition of the evil Angels who for one onely act of Apostasie from God are thus perpetually tormented whereas we sinfull wretches multiply many and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God And withall admire and magnifie that infinite Mercy to the miserable generation of man which after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels so graciously forbears our hainous iniquities and both suffers us to be free for the time from these hellish torments and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedome from them for ever Praise the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name who forgiveth all thy sins and healeth all thine infirmities who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions There is no time wherein the evil spirits are not tormented there is a time wherein they exspect to be tormented yet more Art thou come to torment us before our time They knew that the last Assises are the prefixed terme of their full execution which they also understood to be not yet come For though they knew not when the Day of Judgement should be a point concealed from the glorious Angels of Heaven yet they knew when it should not be and therefore they say Before the time Even the very evil spirits confesse and fearfully attend a set
himself that owns the roof that receives him But oh the incomparable happiness then of that man whose heart receives him not for a day not for years of dayes not for millions of years but for eternity This may be our condition if we be not streightned in our own bowels O Saviour do thou welcome thy self to these houses of clay that we may receive a joyful welcome to thee in those everlasting habitations Zacheus was not more glad of Christ then the Jews were discontented Four vices met here at once Envy Scrupulousness Ignorance Pride Their eye was evil because Christ's was good I do not hear any of them invite Christ to his home yet they snarl at the honour of this unworthy Host they thought it too much happiness for a Sinner which themselves willingly neglected to sue for Wretched men they cannot see the Mercy of Christ for being bleared with the happiness of Zacheus yea that very Mercy which they see torments them If that viper be the deadliest which feeds the sweetest how poisonous must this disposition needs be that feeds upon Grace What a contrariety there is betwixt good Angels and evil men The Angels rejoyce at that whereat men pout and stomack men are ready to cry and burst for anger at that which makes musick in Heaven Oh wicked and foolish elder brother that feeds on hunger and his own heart without doors because his younger brother is feasting on the fat calf within Besides Envy they stand scrupulously upon the terms of Traditions These sons of the earth might not be conversed with their threshold was unclean Touch me not for I am holier then thou That he therefore who went for a Prophet should go to the house of a Publican and Sinner must needs be a great eye-sore They that might not go in to a Sinner cared not what sins entred into themselves the true cozens of those Hypocrites who held it a pollution to go into the Judgment-hall no pollution to murder the Lord of life There cannot be a greater argument of a false heart then to stumble at these straws and to leap over the blocks of gross impiety Well did our Saviour know how hainously offensive it would be to turn in to this Publican he knows and regards it not A Soul is to be won what cares he for idle misconstruction Morally good actions must not be suspended upon danger of causeless scandal In things indifferent and arbitrary it is fit to be overruled by fear of offence but if men will stumble in the plain ground of good let them fall without our regard not without their own peril I know not if it were not David's weakness to abstain from good words whiles the wicked were in place Let Justice be done in spite of the world and in spite of Hell Mercy Ignorance was in part guilty of these scruples they thought Christ either too holy to go to a Sinner or in going made unholy Foolish men to whom came he To you righteous Let himself speak I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Whither should the Physician go but to the sick the who le need him not Love is the best attractive of us and he to whom much is forgiven loves much O Saviour the glittering palaces of proud Justiciaries are not for thee thou lovest the lowly and ragged cottage of a contrite heart Neither could here be any danger of thy pollution Thy Sun could cast his beams upon the impurest dunghil and not be tainted It was free and safe for the Leper and Bloody-fluxed to touch thee thou couldst heal them they could not infect thee Neither is it otherwise in this moral contagion We who are obnoxious to evil may be insensibly defiled thy Purity was enough to remedy that which might marre a world Thou canst help us we cannot hurt thee Oh let thy presence ever bless us and let us ever bless thee for thy presence Pride was an attendant of this Ignorance so did they note Zacheus for a Sinner as if themselves had been none His sins were written in his forehead theirs in their breast The presumption of their secrecy makes them insult upon his notoriousness The smoke of pride flies still upward and in the mounting vanisheth Contrition beats it down and fetcheth tears from the tender eyes There are stage-sins and there are closet-sins These may not upbraid the other they may be more hainous though less manifest It is a dangerous vanity to look outward at other mens sins with scorn when we have more need to cast our eyes inward to see our own with humiliation Thus they stumbled and fell but Zacheus stood All their malicious murmur could not dishearten his Piety and Joy in the entertaining of Christ Before Zacheus lay down as a Sinner now he stands up as a Convert sinning is falling continuance in sin is lying down Repentance is rising and standing up Yet perhaps this standing was not so much the site of his Constancy or of his Conversion as of his Reverence Christ's affability hath not made him unmannerly Zacheus stood And what if the desire of more audibleness raised him to his feet In that smalness of stature it was not fit he should lose ought of his height It was meet so noble a proclamation should want no advantage of hearing Never was our Saviour better welcomed The penitent Publican makes his Will and makes Christ his Supervisor His Will consists of Legacies given of Debts paid gifts to the poor payments to the injuried There is Liberality in the former in the latter Justice in both the proportions are large Half to the poor fourfold to the wronged This hand sowed not sparingly Here must needs be much of his own that was well gotten whether left by patrimony or saved by parsimony or gained by honest improvement For when he had restored fourfold to every one whom he had oppressed yet there remained a whole half for pious uses and this he so distributes that every word commends his bounty I give and what is more free then gist In alms we may neither sell nor return nor cast away We sell if we part with them for importunity for vain-glory for retribution we return them if we give with respect to former offices this is to pay not to bestow we cast away if in our beneficence we neither regard order nor discretion Zacheus did neither cast away nor return nor sell but give I do give not I will The prorogation of good makes it thankless The alms that smell of the hand lose the praise It is twice given that is given quickly Those that deferre their gifts till their death-bed do as good as say Lord I will give thee something when I can keep it no longer Happy is the man that is his own executor I give my goods not anothers It is a thankless vanity to be liberal of another mans purse Whoso gives of that which he hath taken away from the owner doth more
our own those of our Domesticks which labour in our service do but justly expect and challenge their diet whereas day-labourers are oft-times at their own finding How much more will that God who is infinite in mercy and power take order for the livelihood of those that attend him We see the birds of the aire provided for by him how rarely have we found any of them dead of hunger yet what doe they but what they are carried unto by natural instinct How much more where besides propriety there is a rational and willing service Shall the Israelites be fed with Manna Eliah by the Ravens the Widow by her multiplied meal and oyle Christs clients in the wilderness with loaves and fishes O God whiles thou dost thus promerit us by thy Providence let not us wrong thee by distrust God's undertakings cannot but be exquisite those whom he professes to feed must needs have enough The measure of his bounty cannot but run over Doth he take upon him to prepare a table for his Israel in the desart the bread shall be the food of Angels the flesh shall be the delicates of Princes Manna and Quails Doth he take upon him to make wine for the marriage-feast of Cana there shall be both store and choice the vintage yields poor stuff to this Will he feast his Auditors in the wilderness if they have not dainties they shall have plenty They were all satisfied Neither yet O Saviour is thy hand closed What abundance of heavenly doctrine dost thou set before us how are we feasted yea pampered with thy celestial delicacies Not according to our meanness but according to thy state are we fed Thrifty and niggardly collations are not for Princes We are full of thy goodness oh let our hearts run over with thanks I do gladly wonder at this Miracle of thine O Saviour yet so as that I forget not mine own condition Whence is it that we have our continual provision One and the same munificent hand doth all If the Israelites were fed with Manna in the desart and with corn in Canaan both were done by the same power and bounty If the Disciples were fed by the loaves multiplied and we by the grain multiplied both are the act of one Omnipotence What is this but a perpetual miracle O God which thou workest for our preservation Without thee there is no more power in the grain to multiply then in the loaf it is thou that givest it a body at thy pleasure even to every seed his own body it is thou that givest fulness of bread and cleanness of teeth It is no reason thy goodness should be less magnified because it is universal One or two baskets could have held the five loaves and two fishes not less then twelve can hold the remainders The Divine munificence provides not for our necessity only but for our abundance yea superfluity Envy and ignorance whiles they make God the author of enough are ready to impute the surplussage to another cause as we commonly say of wine that the liquor is God's the excess Satan's Thy table O Saviour convinces them which had more taken away then set on thy Blessing makes an estate not competent only but rich I hear of barns full of plenty and presses bursting out with new wine as the rewards of those that honour thee with their substance I hear of heads anointed with oyle and cups running over O God as thou hast a free hand to give so let us have a free heart to return thee the praise of thy Bounty Those fragments were left behind I do not see the people when they had filled their bellies cramming their pockets or stuffing their wallets yet the place was desart and some of them doubtless had farre home It becomes true Disciples to be content with the present not too solicitous for the future O Saviour thou didst not bid us beg bread for to morrow but for to day not that we should refuse thy bounty when thou pleasest to give but that we should not distrust thy Providence for the need we may have Even these fragments though but of barley loaves and fish-bones may not be left in the desart for the compost of that earth whereon they were increased but by our Saviours holy and just command are gathered up The liberal housekeeper of the world will not allow the loss of his orts the childrens bread may not be given to dogs and if the crums fall to their share it is because their smalness admits not of a collection If those who out of obedience or due thrift have thought to gather up crums have found them pearls I wonder not Surely both are alike the good creatures of the same Maker and both of them may prove equally costly to us in their wilful mispence But oh what shall we say that not crusts and crums not loaves and dishes and cups but whole patrimonies are idly lavisht away not merely lost this were more easie but ill spent in a wicked riot upon dice drabs drunkards Oh the fearful account of these unthrifty Bailifs which shall once be given in to our great Lord and Master when he shall call us to a strict reckoning of all our talents He was condemned that increased not the sum concredited to him what shall become of him that lawlesly impairs it Who gathered up these fragments but the twelve Apostles every one his basket â—â—ll They were the servitours that set on this banquet at the command of Christ they waited on the Tables they took away It was our Saviours just care that those offals should not perish but he well knew that a greater loss depended upon those scraps a loss of glory to the omnipotent worker of that Miracle The feeding of the multitude was but the one half of the work the other half was in the remnant Of all other it most concerns the successors of the Apostles to take care that the marvelous works of their God and Saviour may be improved to the best they may not suffer a crust or crum to be lost that may yield any glory to that Almighty agent Here was not any morsel or bone that was not worthy to be a relick every the least parcel whereof was no other then miraculous All the antient monuments of Gods supernatural power and mercy were in the keeping of Aaron and his sons There is no servant in the Family but should be thriftily careful for his Masters profit but most of all the Steward who is particularly charged with this oversight Wo be to us if we care only to gather up our own scraps with neglect of the pretious morsels of our Maker and Redeemer The Walk upon the Waters ALL elements are alike to their Maker He that had well approved his power on the Land will now shew it in the Aire and the Waters he that had preserved the multitude from the peril of hunger in the Desart will now preserve his Disciples from the peril of the tempest
Christ the true use we make of Christ is to supply Moses By him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Thus must we hold in with both if we will have our part in either so shall Moses bring us to Christ and Christ to glory Had these Pharisees out of simplicity and desire of resolution in a case of doubt moved this question to our Saviour it had been no less commendable then now it is blame-worthy O Saviour whither should we have recourse but to thine Oracle Thou art the Word of the Father the Doctor of the Church Whiles we hear from others What say Fathers what say Councils let them hear from us What saiest thou But here it was far otherwise they came not to learn but to tempt and to tempt that they might accuse Like their Father the Devil who solicits to sin that he may plead against us for yieldance Fain would these colloguing adversaries draw Christ to contradict Moses that they might take advantage of his contradiction On the one side they saw his readiness to tax the false glosses which their presumptuous Doctors had put upon the Law with an I say unto you on the other they saw his inclination to mercy and commiseration in all his courses so far as to neglect even some circumstances of the Law as to touch the Leper to heal on the Sabbath to eat with known sinners to dismiss an infamous but penitent offender to select and countenance two noted Publicans and hereupon they might perhaps think that his compassion might draw him to cross this Mosaical institution What a crafty bait is here laid for our Saviour Such as he cannot bite at and not be taken It seems to them impossible he should avoid a deep prejudice either to his justice or mercy For thus they imagine Either Christ will second Moses in sentencing this woman to Death or else he will cross Moses in dismissing her unpunished If he command her to be stoned he loses the honour of his clemency and Mercy if he appoint her dismission he loses the honour of his Justice Indeed strip him of either of these and he can be no Saviour O the cunning folly of vain men that hope to beguile wisdome it self Silence and neglect shall first confound those men whom after his answer will send away convicted In stead of opening his mouth our Saviour bowes his body and in stead of returning words from his lips writes characters on the ground with his finger O Saviour I had rather silently wonder at thy gesture then inquire curiously into the words thou wrotest or the mysteries of thus writing only herein I see thou meantest to shew a disregard to these malicious and busy cavillers Sometimes taciturnity and contempt are the best answers Thou that hast bidden us Be wise as serpents givest us this noble example of thy prudence It was most safe that these tempters should be thus kept fasting with a silent disrespect that their eagerness might justly draw upon them an insuing shame The more unwillingness they saw in Christ to give his answer the more pressive and importunate they were to draw it from him Now as forced by their so zealous irritation our Saviour rouzeth up himself and gives it them home with a reprehensory and stinging satisfaction He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her As if his very action had said I was loath to have shamed you and therefore could have been willing not to have heard your ill-meant motion but since you will needs have it and by your vehemence force my justice I must tell you there is not one of you but is as faulty as she whom ye accuse there is no difference but that your sin is smothered in secrecy hers is brought forth into the light Ye had more need to make your own peace by an humble repentance then to urge severity against another I deny not but Moses hath justly from God imposed the penalty of death upon such hainous offences but what then would become of you If death be her due yet not by those your unclean hands your hearts know you are not honest enough to accuse Lo not the bird but the fouler is taken He saies not Let her be stoned this had been against the course of his Mercy he saies not Let her not be stoned this had been against the Law of Moses Now he so answers that both his Justice and Mercy are entire she dismissed they shamed It was the manner of the Jewes in those hainous crimes that were punished with Lapidation that the witnesses and accusers should be the first that should lay hands upon the guilty well doth our Saviour therefore choak these accusers with the conscience of their so foul incompetency With what face with what heart could they stone their own sin in another person Honesty is too mean a term These Scribes and Pharisees were noted for extraordinary and admired Holiness the outside of their lives was not only inoffensive but Saint-like and exemplary Yet that all-seeing eye of the Son of God which found folly in the Angels hath much more found wickedness in these glorious Professors It is not for nothing that his eyes are like a flame of fire What secret is there which he searches not Retire your selves O ye foolish sinners into your inmost closets yea if you can into the center of the earth his eye follows you and observes all your carriages no bolt no barre no darkness can keep him out No thief was ever so impudent as to steal in the very face of the Judge O God let me see my self seen by thee and I shall not dare to offend Besides notice here is exprobration These mens sins as they had been secret so they were forgotten It is long since they were done neither did they think to have heard any more news of them And now when time and security had quite worn them out of thought he that shall once be their Judge calls them to a back-reckoning One time or other shall that just God lay our sins in our dish and make us possess the sins of our youth These things thou didst and I kept silence and thou thoughtest I was like unto thy self but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thee The penitent mans sin lies before him for his humiliation the impenitents for his shame and confusion The act of sin is transient not so the guilt that will stick by us and return upon us either in the height of our security or the depth of our misery when we shall be least able to bear it How just may it be with God to take us at advantages and then to lay his arrest upon us when we are laid up upon a former suit It is but just there should be a requisition of innocence in them that prosecute the vices of others The offender
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
desire rather to leave their children great then good that are more ambitious to have their sons Lords on earth then Kings in Heaven Yet I commend thee Salome that thy first plot was to have thy sons Disciples of Christ then after to prefer them to the best places of that attendance It is the true method of Divine prudence O God first to make our children happy with the honour of thy service and then to endeavour their meet advancement upon earth The mother is but put upon this suit by her sons their heart was in her lips They were not so mortified by their continual conversation with Christ hearing his Heavenly doctrine seeing his Divine carriage but that their mindes were yet roving after temporal Honours Pride is the inmost coat which we put off last and which we put on first Who can wonder to see some sparks of weak and worldly desires in their holiest teachers when the blessed Apostles were not free from some ambitious thoughts whiles they sate at the feet yea in the bosome of their Saviour The near kindred this woman could challenge of Christ might seem to give her just colour of more familiarity yet now that she comes upon a suit she submits her self to the lowest gesture of suppliants We need not be taught that it is fit for petitioners to the Great to present their humble supplications upon their knees O Saviour if this woman so nearly allied to thee according to the flesh coming but upon a temporal occasion to thee being as then compassed about with humane infirmities adored thee ere she durst sue to thee what reverence is enough for us that come to thee upon spiritual suits sitting now in the height of Heavenly Glory and Majesty Say then thou wife of Zebedee what is it that thou cravest of thine omnipotent kinsman A certain thing Speak out woman what is this certain thing that thou cravest How poor and weak is this supplicatory anticipation to him that knew thy thoughts ere thou utteredst them ere thou entertainedst them We are all in this tune every one would have something such perhaps as we are ashamed to utter The Proud man would have a certain thing Honour in the world the Covetous would have a certain thing too Wealth and abundance the Malicious would have a certain thing Revenge on his enemies the Epicure would have Pleasure and Long life the Barren Children the Wanton Beauty Each one would be humored in his own desire though in variety yea contradiction to other though in opposition not more to God's will then our own good How this suit sticks in her teeth and dare not freely come forth because it is guilty of its own faultinesse What a difference there is betwixt the prayers of Faith and the motions of Self-love and infidelity Those come forth with boldnesse as knowing their own welcome and being well assured both of their warrant and acceptation these stand blushing at the door not daring to appear like to some baffled suit conscious to its own unworthinesse and just repulse Our inordinate desires are worthy of a check when we know that our requests are holy we cannot come with too much confidence to the throne of Grace He that knew all their thoughts afar off yet as if he had been a stranger to their purposes asks What wouldest thou Our infirmities do then best shame us when they are fetcht out of our own mouths Like as our Prayers also serve not to acquaint God with our wants but to make us the more capable of his mercies The suit is drawn from her now she must speak Grant that these my two sons may sit one on thy right hand the other on thy left in thy Kingdome It is hard to say whether out of more pride or ignorance It was as received as erroneous a conceit among the very Disciples of Christ that he should raise up a Temporal Kingdom over the now-tributary and beslaved people of Israel The Romans were now their masters their fancy was that their Messias should shake off this yoke and reduce them to their former Liberty So grounded was this opinion that the two Disciples in their walk to Emmaus could say We trusted it had been he that should have delivered Israel and when after his Resurrection he was walking up mount Olivet towards Heaven his very Apostles could ask him if he would now restore that long-exspected Kingdome How should we mitigate our censures of our Christian brethren if either they mistake or know not some secondary truths of Religion when the domestick Attendants of Christ who heard him every day till the very point of his Ascension misapprehended the chief cause of his coming into the world and the state of his Kingdome If our Charity may not bear with small faults what doe we under his name that conniv'd at greater Truth is as the Sun bright in it self yet there are many close corners into which it never shined O God if thou open our hearts we shall take in those beams till thou doe so teach us to attend patiently for our selves charitably for others These Fishermen had so much Courtship to know that the right hand and the left of any Prince were the chief places of Honour Our Saviour had said that his twelve Followers should sit upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel This good woman would have her two sons next to his person the prime Peers of his Kingdome Every one is apt to wish the best to his own Worldly Honour is neither worth our suit nor unworthy our acceptance Yea Salome had thy mind been in Heaven hadst thou intended this desired preeminence of that celestial state of Glory yet I know not how to justifie thine ambition Wouldst thou have thy sons preferred to the Father of the faithfull to the blessed Mother of thy Saviour That very wish were presumptuous For me O God my ambition shall goe so high as to be a Saint in Heaven and to live as holily on earth as the best but for precedency of Heavenly honour I do not I dare not affect it It is enough for me if I may lift up my head amongst the heels of thy Blessed Ones The mother asks the sons have the answer She was but their tongue they shall be her eares God ever imputes the acts to the first mover rather then to the instrument It was a sore check Ye know not what ye ask In our ordinary communication to speak idly is sin but in our suits to Christ to be so inconsiderate as not to understand our own petitions must needs be a foul offence As Faith is the ground of our Prayers so Knowledge is the ground of our Faith If we come with indigested requests we prophane that Name we invoke To convince their unfitness for Glory they are sent to their impotency in Suffering Are ye able to drink of the cup whereof I shall drink and to be baptized with the Baptisme wherewith
place to thy love and obedience How should we have known these evils so formidable if thou hadst not in half a thought inclined to deprecate them How could we have avoided so formidable and deadly evils if thou hadst not willingly undergone them We acknowledge thine holy fear we adore thy Divine fortitude Whiles thy Minde was in this fearfull agitation it is no marvell if thy Feet were not fixed Thy place is more changed then thy thoughts One while thou walkest to thy drouzy Attendants and stirrest up their needfull vigilancy then thou returnest to thy passionate Devotions thou fallest again upon thy face If thy body be humbled down to the earth thy Soul is yet lower thy prayers are so much more vehement as thy pangs are And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground O my Saviour what an agonie am I in whiles I think of thine What pain what fear what strife what horrour was in thy Sacred breast How didst thou struggle under the weight of our sins that thou thus sweatest that thou thus bleedest All was peace with thee thou wert one with thy coeternal and coessential Father all the Angels worshipped thee all the powers of Heaven and earth awfully acknowledged thine Infiniteness It was our person that feoffed thee in this misery and torment in that thou sustainedst thy Father's wrath and our curse If eternal death be unsufferable if every sin deserve eternal death what O what was it for thy Soul in this short time of thy bitter Passion to answer those millions of eternal deaths which all the sins of all mankinde had deserved from the just hand of thy Godhead I marvell not if thou bleedest a sweat if thou sweatest blood If the moisture of that Sweat be from the Body the tincture of it is from the Soul As there never was such another Sweat so neither can there be ever such a Suffering It is no wonder if the Sweat were more then natural when the Suffering was more then humane O Saviour so willing was that precious blood of thine to be let forth for us that it was ready to prevent thy Persecutors and issued forth in those pores before thy wounds were opened by thy Tormentors O that my heart could bleed unto thee with true inward compunction for those sins of mine which are guilty of this thine Agonie and have drawn blood of thee both in the Garden and on the Cross Woe is me I had been in Hell if thou hadst not been in thine Agonie I had scorched if thou hadst not sweat Oh let me abhor my own wickednesse and admire and blesse thy Mercy But O ye blessed Spirits which came to comfort my conflicted Saviour how did ye look upon the Son of God when ye saw him labouring for life under these violent temptations with what astonishment did ye behold him bleeding whom ye adored In the Wilderness after his Duell with Satan ye came and ministred unto him and now in the Garden whiles he is in an harder combat ye appear to strengthen him O the wise and marvellous dispensation of the Almighty Whom God will afflict an Angel shall relieve the Son shall suffer the Servant shall comfort him the God of Angels droupeth the Angel of God strengthens him Blessed Jesu if as Man thou wouldst be made a little lower then the Angels how can it disparage thee to be attended and cheared up by an Angel Thine Humiliation would not disdain comfort from meaner hands How free was it for thy Father to convey seasonable consolations to thine humbled Soul by whatsoever means Behold though thy Cup shall not passe yet it shall be sweetned What if thou see not for the time thy Fathers face yet thou shalt feel his hand What could that Spirit have done without the God of Spirits O Father of Mercies thou maiest bring thine into Agonies but thou wilt never leave them there In the midst of the sorrows of my heart thy comforts shall refresh my Soul Whatsoever be the means of my supportation I know and adore the Author Peter and Malchus or Christ Apprehended WHerefore O Saviour didst thou take those three choice Disciples with thee from their fellows but that thou expectedst some comfort from their presence A seasonable word may sometimes fall from the meanest attendant and the very society of those we trust carries in it some kinde of contentment Alas what broken reeds are men Whiles thou art sweating in thine Agonie they are snorting securely Admonitions threats intreaties cannot keep their eyes open Thou tellest them of danger they will needs dream of ease and though twice rouzed as if they had purposed this neglect they carelesly sleep out thy sorrow and their own peril What help hast thou of such Followers In the mount of thy Transfiguration they slept and besides fell on their faces when they should behold thy glory and were not themselves for fear in the garden of thine Agonie they fell upon the ground for drouzinesse when they should compassionate thy sorrow and lost themselves in a stupid sleepinesse Doubtlesse even this disregard made thy prayers so much more fervent The lesse comfort we finde on earth the more we seek above Neither soughtst thou more then thou foundest Lo thou wert heard in that which thou fearedst An Angel supplies men that Spirit was vigilant whiles thy Disciples were heavy The exchange was happy No sooner is this good Angel vanished then that domestick Devil appears Judas comes up and shews himself in the head of those miscreant troups He whose too much honour it had been to be a Follower of so Blessed a Master affects now to be the leader of this wicked rabble The Sheeps fleece is now cast off the Wolf appears in his own likenesse He that would be false to his Master would be true to his Chapmen Even evil spirits keep touch with themselves The bold Traitor dare yet still mix Hypocrisie with Villany his very salutations and kisses murder O Saviour this is no news to thee All those who under a shew of Godlinesse practise impiety do still betray thee thus Thou who hadst said One of you is a Devil didst not now say Avoid Satan but Friend wherefore art thou come As yet Judas it was not too late Had there been any the least spark of Grace yet remaining in that perfidious bosome this word had fetcht thee upon thy knees All this Sunshine cannot thaw an obdurate heart The sign is given Jesus is taken Wretched Traitor why wouldst thou for this purpose be thus attended and ye foolish Priests and Elders why sent you such a band and so armed for this apprehension One messenger had been enough for a voluntary prisoner Had my Saviour been unwilling to be taken all your forces with all the Legions of Hell to help them had been too little since he was willing to be attached two were too many When he did but
the breast of Pilate His Conscience bids him spare his Popularity bids him kill His Wife warned by a Dream warns him to have no hand in the blood of that just man the importunate multitude presses him for a sentence of death All shifts have been tried to free the man whom he hath pronounced innocent All violent motives are urged to condemn that man whom malice pretends guilty In the height of this strife when Conscience and moral Justice were ready to sway Pilate's distracted heart to a just dismission I hear the Jews cry out If thou let this man goe thou art not Caesar's friend There is the word that strikes it dead it is now no time to demur any more In vain shall we hope that a carnal heart can prefer the care of his Soul to the care of his safety and honour God to Caesar Now Jesus must die Pilate hasts into the Judgment hall the Sentence sticks no longer in his teeth Let him be crucified Yet how foul so ever his Soul shall be with this fact his hands shall be clean He took water and washt his hands before the multitude saying I am innocent of the blood of this just person see ye to it Now all is safe I wis this is expiation enough water can wash off blood the hands can cleanse the heart protest thou art innocent and thou canst not be guilty Vain Hypocrite canst thou think to escape so Is Murder of no deeper dye Canst thou dream waking thus to avoid the charge of thy wives dream Is the guilt of the blood of the Son of God to be wip'd off with such ease What poor shifts do foolish sinners make to beguile themselves Any thing will serve to charm the Conscience when it lists to sleep But O Saviour whiles Pilate thinks to wash off the guilt of thy blood with water I know there is nothing that can wash off the guilt of this his sin but thy blood Oh do thou wash my Soul in that precious bathe and I shall be clean Oh Pilate if that very blood which thou sheddest do not wash off the guilt of thy bloodshed thy water doth but more defile thy Soul and intend that fire wherewith thou burnest Little did the desperate Jews know the weight of that blood which they were so forward to wish upon themselves and their children Had they deprecated their interest in that horrible murder they could not so easily have avoided the vengeance but now that they fetch it upon themselves by a willing execration what should I say but that they long for a curse it is pity they should not be miserable And have ye not now felt O Nation worthy of plagues have ye not now felt what blood it was whose guilt ye affected Sixteen hundred years are now passed since you wished your selves thus wretched have ye not been ever since the hate and scorn of the world Did ye not live many of you to see your City buried in ashes and drowned in blood to see your selves no Nation Was there ever people under Heaven that was made so famous a spectacle of miserie and desolation Have ye yet enough of that blood which ye called for upon your selves and your children Your former cruelties uncleannesses Idolatries cost you but some short Captivities God cannot but be just this Sin under which you now lie groaning and forlorn must needs be so much greater then these as your vastation is more and what can that be other then the murder of the Lord of Life Ye have what ye wisht be miserable till ye be penitent The Crucifixion THe sentence of Death is past and now who can with dry eyes behold the sad pomp of my Saviours bloody execution All the streets are full of gazing spectators waiting for this ruefull sight At last O Saviour there thou comest out of Pilate's gate bearing that which shall soon bear thee To expect thy Crosse was not torment enough thou must carry it All this while thou shalt not only see but feel thy death before it come and must help to be an agent in thine owne Passion It was not out of favour that those scornfull robes being stripped off thou art led to death in thine own cloaths So was thy face besmeared with blood so swoln and discoloured with buffetings that thou couldst not have been known but by thy wonted habit Now thine insulting enemies are so much more imperiously cruell as they are more sure of their successe Their mercilesse tormentings have made thee half dead already yet now as if they had done nothing they begin afresh and will force thy weakned and fainting nature to new tasks of pain The transverse of thy Crosse at least is upon thy shoulder when thou canst scarce goe thou must carry One kicks thee with his foot another strikes thee with his staffe another drags thee hastily by thy cord and more then one spur on thine unpitied wearinesse with angry commands of hast Oh true form and state of a servant All thy former actions O Saviour were though painfull yet free this as it is in itself servile so it is tyrannously inforced Inforced yet more upon thee by thy own Love to mankind then by their power and despight It was thy Father that laid upon thee the iniquity of us all It was thine own Mercy that caused thee to bear our sins upon the Crosse and to bear the Crosse with the curse annexed to it for our sins How much more voluntary must that needs be in thee which thou requirest to be voluntarily undertaken by us It was thy charge If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his crosse and follow me Thou didst not say Let him bear his crosse as forceably imposed by another but Let him take up his crosse as his free burden free in respect of his heart not in respect of his hand so free that he shall willingly undergoe it when it is laid upon him not so free as that he shall lay it upon himself unrequired O Saviour thou didst not snatch the Crosse out of the Souldiers hands and cast it upon thy shoulder but when they laid it on thy neck thou underwentest it The constraint was theirs the will was thine It was not so heavy to them or to Simon as it was to thee they felt nothing but the wood thou feltest it clogged with the load of the sins of the whole world No marvell if thou faintedst under that sad burden thou that bearest up the whole earth by thy word didst sweat and pant and groan under this unsupportable carriage O blessed Jesu how could I be confounded in my self to see thee after so much losse of blood and over-toilednesse of pain languishing under that fatal tree And yet why should it more trouble me to see thee sinking under thy Crosse now then to see thee anone hanging upon thy Crosse In both thou wouldst render thy self weak and miserable that thou mightest so much the
the advantages of Greatness what unequal levies of Legal payments what spightfull Sutes what Depopulations what Usuries what Violences abound every where The sighs the tears the blood of the poor pierce the Heavens and call for a fearfull retribution This is a sour Grape indeed and that makes God to wring his face in an angry detestation Drunkennesse is the next not so odious in the weaknesse of it as in the strength Oh wofull glory strong to drink Woe is me how is the World turned Beast What bouzing and quaffing and whiffing and healthing is there on every bench and what reeling and staggering in our streets What drinking by the Yard the Die the Douzen what forcing of pledges what quarrels for measure and form How is that become an excuse of villany which any villany might rather excuse I was drunk How hath this torrent yea this deluge of excesse in meats and drinks drowned the face of the Earth and risen many cubits above the highest Mountains of Religion and good Laws Yea would God I might not say that which I fear and shame and grieve to say that even some of them which square the Ark for others have been inwardly drowned and discovered their nakednesse That other inundation scoured the World this impures it and what but a Deluge of Fire can wash it from so abominable silthinesse Let no Popish Eaves-dropper now smile to think what advantage I give by so deep a censure of our own Profession Alas these sins know no difference of Religions Would God they themselves were not rather more deep in these foul enormities We extenuate not our guilt whatever we sin we condemn it as mortal they palliate wickednesse with the fair pretence of Veniality Shortly They accuse us we them God both But where am I How easie is it for a man to lose himself in the sins of the time It is not for me to have my habitation in these black Tents let me passe through them running Where can a man cast his eye not to see that which may vex his Soul Here Bribery and Corruption in the seats of Judicature there Perjuries at the Bar here Partiality and unjust Connivency in Magistrates there disorder in those that should be Teachers here Sacriledge in Patrons there Simoniacal contracts in unconscionable Levites here bloody Oaths and Execrations there scurril Prophanenesse here Cozening in bargains there breaking of Promises here perfidious Underminings there flattering Supparasitations here Pride in both Sexes but especially the weaker there Luxury and Wantonnesse here contempt of Gods Messengers there neglect of his Ordinances and violation of his Daies The time and my breath would sooner fail me then this wofull Bed-roll of wickednesse Yet alas were these the sins of Ignorance of Infirmity they might be more worthy of pity then hatred But oh the high hand of our presumptuous offences We draw iniquity with the strings of vanity up to the head up to the eare and shoot up these hatefull shafts against Heaven Did we sit in darknesse and the shadow of death as too many Pagan and Popish Regions do these works of darknesse would be lesse intolerable but now that the beams of the glorious Gospel have shined thus long thus bright in our faces Oh me what can we plead against our own confusion O Lord where shall we appear when thy very Mercies aggravate our Sins and thy Judgments How shouldst thou expect fruit from a Vineyard so chosen so husbanded and woe worth our wretchednesse that have thus repai'd thee Be confounded in thy self O my Soul be confounded to see these deplored retributions Are these grapes for a God Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unjust Hath he for this made us the mirrour of his Mercies to all the World that we should so shamefully turn his graces into wantonnesse Are these the fruits of his Choice his Fencing his Reforming his Planting his Watch-tower his Winepresse O Lord the great and dreadfull God keeping the covenants and mercies to them that love thee we have sinned and committed iniquity and have rebelled by departing from thy precepts and from thy Judgments O Lord righteousnesse belongeth to thee but unto us confusion of faces as at this day We know we acknowledge how just it may be with thee to pull up our Hedges to break down our Wall to root up our Vine to destroy and depopulate our Nation to make us the scorn and Proverb of all Generations But O our God Let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy Jerusalem thy holy mountain O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and doe Defer not for thine own sake O our God for thy City and thy people are called by thy Name But alas what speak I of not deferring to a God of mercy who is more forward to give then we to crave and more loath to strike then we to smart and when he must strike complains Why will ye die O house of Israel Let me rather turn this speech to our selves the delay is ours Yet it is not too late either for our return or his mercies The Decree is not to us gone forth till it be executed As yet our Hedge stands our Wall is firm our Vine grows These sharp monitions these touches of Judgment have been for our warning not for our ruine Who knows if he will not return and yet leave a Blessing behinde him Oh that we could turn unto him with all our heart with Fasting and with weeping and with mourning Oh that we could truly and effectually abandon all those abominable Sins that have stirred up the Anger of our God against us and in this our day this day of our solemn Humiliation renew the Vows of our holy and conscionable obedience Lord God it must be thou onely that must doe it Oh strike thou our flinty hearts with a sound remorse and melt them into tears of penitence for all our sins Convert us unto thee and we shall be converted Lord hear our Prayers and regard our tears and reform our Lives and remove thy Plagues and renew thy loving countenance and continue and adde to thine old mercies Lord affect us with thy favours humble us for our sins terrifie us with thy Judgments that so thou maist hold on thy favours and forgive our sins and remove thy Judgments even for the Son of thy Love Jesus Christ the righteous To whom c. Postscript SInce it seemed good to that Great Court to call this poor Sermon amongst others of greater worth into the publick light I have thus submitted to their pleasure And now for that they pleased to bid so high a rate as their Command for that mean piece I do willingly give this my other Statue into the bargain This work preceded some little in time that which it now follows in place not without good reason Authority sends forth that this Will and my Will hath learned ever to give place to Authoritie Besides my
who is infinitely careful for the good of his Church above all possible reaches of our desires but that we may be raised up to a meet capacity of Mercy God cannot hate his enemies or love his own ever the more upon our intreaties yet he will be sued to for the particular effects of both if ever we look to tast of his Mercy in either If we have not a heart to pray God hath not an hand to help So did God hate Amalek that he commanded it to be rooted out of the earth so did he love Israel as the apple of his eye Yet unless Moses hold up his hand Amalek shall prevail against Israel These are our best our surest weapons even our Prayers and blessed be God that hath put it into the heart of his Anointed to seek his face in these powerful Humiliations We sought him against the Pestilence and prevailed almost miraculously against that destroying Angel why should we not hope to find him against unseasonable Clouds against the opposite powers of flesh and blood Here is your safety here is your assurance of victory O ye great Princes and Potentates of the earth if ye trust to the arm of flesh it will fail you Let your Navies be never so well rigg'd and mann'd let your Forces be never so strong and numberless let them have not onely hands and feet that is horsemen and footmen but a bulk of body too that is full substance of wealthy provision as the word of Flaminius was let your counsel be vigilant your munition ready your troops trained and valiant yet if there be not Devotion enough in our bosome to make God ours in vain shall we hope to stand before our enemies This onely whatsoever the profane heart of Atheous men may imagine this is the great Ordnance which can batter down the wals of our enemies yea the very black gates of Hell it self in comparison whereof all humane powers are but paper-shot Yea this is that Petar which onely can blow open the gates of Heaven and fetch down victory upon our heads and make us another thundring Legion What is it that made us so happily successful in Eighty eight beyond all hope beyond all conceit but the fervency of our humble Devotions That Invincible Navie came on dreadfully floating like a moving wood in the sight of our coast those vast Vessels were as so many lofty Castles raised on those liquid foundations Then straight as if those huge bottoms had been stuft with Tempests there was nothing but thunder and lightning and smoak and all the terrible apparitions of death We what did we we fought upon our knees both Prince and people Straight God fought for us from Heaven Our Prayers were the gale yea the gust that tore those mis-consecrated flags and sails and scattered and drencht those presumptuous piles and sent them into the bottom of the deep to be a Parlour for Whales and Sea-monsters There lay the Pride of Spain the Terrour of England And is the hand of our God shortned Is he other then what he was We may be as we are weakned and effeminated by a long luxurious peace Our God is yesterday and to day and the same for ever If we be not wanting to him in our Prayers he cannot be wanting to our Protection Look up to him O dear Christians that is the God of our Salvation Behold the Lions out of their reeds the Buls out of their forests and these in banded multitudes conspire against us and the mis-led Calves of the people are apt enough to back their attempts Neither is this a fair hostility our enemies are those that hate peace and delight in war offering insolent provocations to our State in dis-inheriting part of the Royal Issue violating their faiths maintaining their unjust affronts ambitiously aspiring to undue Soveraignty What shall we then doe O put not your trust in Princes nor in the sons of men whose breath is in their nostrils O put not your trust ye Princes and Peers in your sword in your bow in your powers and confederacies Trust onely to the great God of hoasts who alone can but blow upon all the proudest preparations of your enemies and scatter them to the lowest Hell Come to him in your humble devotions with an Increpa and Dissipa he shall soon make your enemies to lick the dust But what shall I say Honorable and Beloved we have pray'd and have not been heard and thou O Lord hast not of late gone forth with our hoasts yea thou hast rebuked us in stead of our enemies Alas we can more grieve then wonder at this issue Israel in the hot chace of all their victory is foiled more then once by a Canaanite Whence was this There was a pad in the straw an Achan in the camp Theft and Sacriledge fought against Israel more then the men of Ai the wedge of Gold wounded them more then the enemies steel the Babylonish garment disarmed and stripped them Israel had sinned and must flee Alas my brethren what do we pray for victory over our enemies when our sins which are our deadliest enemies conquer us To what purpose are our Prayers loud when our sins are louder to what purpose are our Bodies this day empty if our Souls be full of wickedness whiles we provoke God to his face with our abominable licentiousness with our fearful profanations with our outragious lives how do we think to glaver with him in our formal Devotions What care he for our smooth tongues when our hearts are filthy what cares he for an elevated eye when our Souls are depressed to vile lusts what cares he for the calves of our lips when the iniquity of our heels compasses us about The very Sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord his very Prayer is turned into sin even that whereby he hopes to expiate it Oh that my people had hearkned to me and Israel had walked in my waies faith God I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves to him but their time should have endured for ever Psal 81. 13 14 15. Oh then cleanse your hands ye sinners and purge your hearts ye double-minded wash your hands in innocence and then compass the Altar of God Then shall the God of our righteousness hear in his holy Heavens and rise up mightily for our defence then shall he be a wall of brass about our Iland then shall he wound the head of our enemies and make the tongues of our dogs red with their bloud then shall he cover our heads in the day of battel and make this Nation of ours victoriously glorious to the ends of the world even to all ages and times then shall he be known to be our God and we shall be known to be his people for ever Which he of his infinite mercy vouchsafe to grant us for the sake of the Son of his Love
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
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
more praise the mercy and wisdome of the giver and exercise the charity and thankfulness of the receiver The essence of our Humanity doth not consist in Stature he that is little of growth is as much man as he that is taller Even so also Spiritually the quantity of Grace doth not make the Christian but the truth of it I shall be glad and ambitious to adde cubits to my height but withall it shall comfort me to know that I cannot be so low of stature as not to reach unto Heaven CXXXVIII Upon an importunate Begger IT was a good rule of him that bade us learn to pray of Beggers with what zeal doth this man sue with what feeling expressions with how forceable importunity When I meant to passe by him with silence yet his clamour draws words from me when I speak to him though with excuses rebukes denials repulses his obsecrations his adjurations draw from me that Alms which I meant not to give How he uncovers his Sores and shews his impotence that my eyes may help his tongue to plead With what oratory doth he force my compâ—ssion so as it is scarce any thank to me that he prevails Why doe I not thus to my God I am sure I want no lesse then the neediest the danger of my want is greater the alms that I crave is better the store and mercy of the Giver infinitely more Why shouldst thou give me O God that which I care not to ask Oh give me a true sense of my wants and then I cannot be cool in asking thou canst not be difficult in condescending CXXXIX Upon a Medicinall potion HOW loathsome a draught is this how offensive both to the eye and to the scent and to the tast yea the very thought of it is a kinde of sickness and when it is once down my very disease is not so painfull for the time as my remedy How doth it turn the stomach and wring the entrails and works a worse distemper then that whereof I formerly complained And yet it must be taken for health neither could it be so wholsome if it were lesse unpleasing neither could it make me whole if it did not first make me sick Such are the chastisements of God and the reproofs of a Friend harsh troublesome grievous but in the end they yield the peaceable fruit of Righteousnesse Why do I turn away my head and make faces and shut mine eyes and stop my nostrils and nauseate and abhor to take this harmlesse potion for Health when we have seen Mountebanks to swallow dismembred toads and drink the poisonous broath after them only for a little ostentation and gain It is only weaknesse and want of resolution that is guilty of this queasinesse Why do not I chearfully take and quaffe up that bitter cup of Affliction which my wife and good God hath mixed for the health of my Soul CXL Upon the sight of a Wheel THE Prophet meant it for no other then a fearfull imprecation against Gods enemies O my God make them like unto a wheel whereby what could he intend to signifie but instability of condition and suddain violence of Judgement Those spoaks of the wheel that are now up are sooner then sight or thought whirled down and are straight raised up again on purpose to be depressed Neither can there be any motion so rapid and swift as the Circular It is a great favour of God that he takes leisure in his affliction so punishing us that we have respites of Repentance There is life and hope in these degrees of suffering but those hurrying and whirling Judgments of God have nothing in them but wrath and confusion O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger I cannot deprecate thy rebuke my sins call for correction but I deprecate thine anger thou rebukest even where thou lovest So rebuke me that whiles I smart with thy Rod I may rejoyce in thy Mercy CERTAIN CATHOLICK PROPOSITIONS Which A Devout Son of the CHURCH Humbly offers to the serious consideration of all ingenuous Christians wheresoever dispersed all the world over To all them who through the whole Israel of God follow Absolom with a simple heart BE not deceived any longer dear Christian Souls be ye free that ye may be safe There is a certain Sacred Tyranny that miserably abuses you and so cunningly beguiles you that you chuse rather to erre and perish God hath given you Reason and above that Faith do not so far wrong your selves as to be made the mere slaves of anothers will and to think it the safest way to be willingly blinde Lay aside for a while all prejudice and superstitious side-taking and consider seriously these few words which my sincere love to your Souls and hearty ambition of your Salvation hath commanded me as before the awfull Tribunall of Almighty God to tender unto you If what I say be not so clear and manifest to every ingenuous judgment that it shall not need to borrow further light from abroad condemn this worthlesse scroll and in your severe doom punish the Author with the losse of an hours labour But if it shall carry sufficient evidence in it self and shall be found so reasonable as that to any free minde it shall not perswade but command assent give way for Gods sake and for your Souls sake to that powerfull Truth of God which breaks forth from Heaven upon you and at last acknowledge besides a world of foul Errours the miserable insolence and cruelty of that once-Famous and renowned Church which to use Gerson's word will needs make Faith of Opinion and too impotently favouring her own passions hath not ceased to persecute with fire and sword the dear and holy servants of God and at last notwithstanding all the vain thunderbolts of a proud and lawlesse fury make much of those your truly-Christian and religious brethren who according to the just liberty of Faithfull men refuse and detest those false and upstart Points of a new-devised Faith But if any of you which God forbid had still rather to be deceived and dote upon his received Errors and as angry Curres are wont shall bark and bay at so clear a light of Truth my Soule shall in silence and sorrow pity that man in vain I wis we have had disputing enough if not too much Away from henceforth with all these Paper-brablings God from Heaven shall stint these strifes Wonder O Catholicks and ye whom it concerns repent Certain Catholick PROPOSITIONS which a devout Son of the Church humbly offers to the serious consideration of all ingenuous Christians wheresoever dispersed all the World over I. EVery true Christian is in that very regard properly capable of Salvation and for matter of Faith goes on in the ready way to Heaven II. Whosoever being duely admitted into the Church of God by lawfull Baptism believeth and maintaineth all the main and essential Points of Christian Faith is for matter of belief a true Christian III. The Summe of the Christian