before us Try all things and prove your own heart if you understand which way you walk unto the Lord. Ephraim feedeth on the wind and followeth after the East wind wherein the Prophet deciphers them that know not what they seek after or at least how they would comprehend it Some eat and drink their own damnation because they discern not the Lords body they come by custom to the Table of the Lord not with solemn and faithful preparation these are not led by the Spirit Some lay their hand to this Plow to preach the Kingdom of Christ but never bethought them seriously what it was to bear the Ark of God upon their shoulders they took the Priests Office upon them only for the hire and wages but never examined whether they were inwardly called these were not led by the Spirit The Widows in St. Pauls days who were to continue in supplications night and day these were not to be taken into that Society which attended the Church under threescore years of age and such as had been diligent in every good work In after Ages out of more presumption than due care some were accepted to take the vow of continency upon them at the age of forty Others more dangerously admitted Virgin Votaries at the age of twenty five And now every youngling at the age of fourteen is solemnly received to be incloystered in an unmaried estate for ever before they know the hazard of their own frailty the iron bondage of such a Vow or how to avoid the continual tentations of most discontenting melancholy these took their snare upon them by fond enticements and ignorant devotion they were not led by the Spirit This was St. Ambrose his reason of this phrase 2. The next owes it self to St. Hilary Non aliter tentatus est quà m spiritûs permissu auxilio He was led by the Spirit that is he maintained this quarrel against the Devil by the permission and assistance of the Holy Spirit The Holy Ghost is not an idle Spectator but a party that leads us by the hand and holds up our hands to conquer these Amalekites as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses The Apostles were like things shut up that durst not come abroad till they were filled with the Spirit that had no heart to offer themselves to the trial of any affliction but kept out of the way But in Gods help as David says they leapt over the wall and ventured forth out of that narrow imprisonment and to make some satisfaction for that privacy when they lived as recluses they travelled boldly through all places of the world baptizing all Nations in the name of the Lord Jesus What durst they not do for the honour of God when they were led by the Spirit The Children of Israel made no scruple to pitch their Tents within the borders of their enemies if the Pillar of cloud did remove before them so wheresoever the grace of God doth carry a man Gods glory being his undoubted end without all vain delusions and carnal reservations he may be bold to venture As we read of Sampson that before he did those great and heroical exploits against the Philistines he was possessed with the Spirit of the Lord and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him when he slew a thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an Ass Judg. xv 14. So it holds in the works of Regeneration Patience Obedience denying of our selves taking up the Cross of Christ mortifying the body of Sin these cannot be done unless the Spirit of the Lord do move upon us But according to the method of the Psalm first we must trust in God to pluck our feet out of the snare before he lead us in the right way and set us upon a rock of stone where we shall not be moved First lead us not into tentation that is leave us not to our selves and then bear us on Eagles wings and bring us to himself Exod. xix 4. We do not so much deprecate in the Lords Prayer that we should not come near the assault of any tentations as that we may not be drawn into the midst of them and there left unto our selves Most excellently the Apostle Heb. xiii 20. The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus through the bloud of the everlasting Covenant he will bring us out of the Pit-falls of the Devil that is implied for it follows he will make us perfect in every good work to do his will Aristotle hath a rule in his Rhetoriques how that must needs be an excellent thing which the worst men desire they may seem to have though they want it As liberality must needs be a graceful vertue for few are so sordidly covetous but that they love to be accounted liberal So the guidance of the divine Spirit necessarily must be the most laudable principle of all humane actions for there is not so palpable an hypocrite that will confess he was led by his own Concupiscence or seduced by his Passions no he will pretend it is the fear of God and his Conscience that doth lead him in all things What wonder if Christian Hypocrites have such conceits For the King of Assyria a Most prophane Blasphemer thought it was the best way to make the same pretension when he came to pluck down the living God Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it The Lord said to me go up against this Land to destroy it And I would it were not the disgrace of these times that many such live among us who have their secret stratagems and desires to make havock of the small revenue of the Church and to pluck down the glory and dignity of it but with the same ungodly flourish that the King of Assyria made We are led by the Spirit the Lord said unto us go and destroy this as they most impudently and ignorantly call it Superstition I will give them the Prophet Ezekiels woe for their reward Ezek. xiii 3. Thus saith the Lord God woe unto the foolish Prophets that follow their own Spirit and have seen nothing These are led on by their fury to bring to pass the works of the evil one not led by the Spirit as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Arch-leader was to overcome the tentations of the Devil The third reason is out of St. Chrysostoms Quiver and I cannot exceed beyond that at this time Non simpliciter profectus sed abductus God did inspire the Evangelists to write in this manner how Christ was led when he went into temptation rather than that he went of himself simply without more addition because no man should offer himself rashly and voluntarily to be tempted unless God did put some constraint and impulsion upon him It is a most cautilous note if you observe it for take the matter right and consider Christ in himself alone without respect of leaving an example
SERVE GOD AND BE CHEAREFVLL THE RIGHT RD. FATHER IN GOD IOHN HACKET L D BISHOP OF LICH AND COVENT Aged 78 Dyed 28. Oct. 1670. W. Faithorne sculp His face this Icon shewes his pious wit These Sermons would you know him further yet your selfe must dye for Reader you must looke In Heau'n for what 's not of him in this Booke A CENTURY OF SERMONS Upon Several Remarkable Subjects PREACHED BY The Right Reverend FATHER in GOD JOHN HACKET LATE LORD BISHOP OF Lichfield and Coventry Published by THOMAS PLUME D. D. LONDON Printed by Andrew Clark for Robert Scott at the Princes Arms in Little Britain MDCLXXV TO His Most Sacred MAJESTY CHARLES II. By the Grace of GOD King of Great Britain France and Ireland Most Gracious and Dread Soveraign I Here present with all Humility to Your Royal Majesty a Bundle of Holy Frankincense and Myrrh hoping that Your Majesties great Piety will please to admit It among the many Rarities of Your Closet and at times seasonable into the more sacred recesses of your Mind and Soul It was the Compound of a late Reverend and Learned Prelate exalted by your Majesty to be the Intelligence to rule the Orb of Lichfield and Coventry Who in his ordinary attendance upon your Majesty your Royal Father and Grandfather had the Honour to preach more than Eighty times at Court and in This one Volume has comprized no less than a Whole Body of Divinity wherein the Great Mysteries of our Christian Faith are clearly explained all mens Duty towards God sincerely taught your Majesties Regal Authority strongly maintained the Doctrine and Discipline of our Church by Law established learnedly Vindicated Long may your Majesty peaceably retain your rightful Jurisdiction over this Church and State Long may there be in it such Religious and Learned Prelates placed by your Majesty in Higher Spheres free from Parity and Poverty And long may your Majesty continue like the Sun not onely to Irradiate the Stars of greater Magnitude above but also in due time to cast more Lustre upon the lesser Luminaries of the Church that they may shine more bright beneath And then as your Majesty like your Blessed Saviour was attended with an Happy Star at your Birth so your Majesty shall likewise with Him be attended by a Good Angel at your Death to translate your Majesty to that Crown of glory that fadeth not away Which is the perpetual prayer of Your MAJESTIES Most humble Supplicant and Dutiful Subject THOMAS PLUME A TABLE Directing to the TEXTS of SCRIPTURE handled in the following SERMONS XV Sermons upon our Blessed Saviours Incarnation I. UPon S. Luke ii 7. And she brought forth her first born Son and wrapped him in swadling clothes and laid him in a Manger because there was no room for them in the Inn page 1 II. Vpon S. Luke ii 8. And there were in the same Country Shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their Flock by night p. 10 III. Vpon S. Luke ii 9. And lo the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid p. 20 IV. Vpon S. Luke ii 10. And the Angel said unto them Fear not for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people p. 30 V. Upon the same p. 40 VI. Vpon S. Luke ii 11. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord p. 50 VII Vpon S. Luke ii 13 14. And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly Hoste praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will towards men p. 60 VIII Upon the same p. 70 IX Vpon S. Luke xi 27 28. A certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said unto him Blessed is the Womb that bare thee and the Paps which thou hast sucked But he said Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it p. 79 X. Vpon S. Luke ii 29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation p. 88 XI Vpon S. Luke i. 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people p. 98 XII Vpon S. Luke i. 69. And hath raised up an horn of Salvation for us in the house of his servant David p. 109 XIII Vpon S. Matth. ii 1 2. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the dayes of Herod the King behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem Saying where is he that is born King of the Jews for we have seen his Star in the East and are come to worship him p. 118 XIV Upon the same p. 127 XV. Upon the same p. 136 VI Sermons upon the Baptism of our Saviour I. Vpon S. Matth. iii. 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him p. 147 II. Vpon S. Matth. iii. 14. But John forbad him saying I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me p. 157 III. Vpon S. Matth. iii. 14 15. And comest thou to me And Jesus answering said unto him Suffer it to be so now For thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness p. 166 IV. Vpon S. Matth. iii. 15 16. Then he suffered him And Jesus when he was baptized went up straightway out of the water p. 175 V. Vpon S. Matth. iii. 16. And loe the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him p. 184 VI. Vpon S. Matth. iii. 17. And loe a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased p. 193 XXI Sermons upon the Tentation of our Saviour I. Vpon S. Matth. iv 1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil p. 205 II. Upon the same p. 214 III. Upon the same p. 224 IV. Vpon S. Matth. iv 1 2. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil And when he had fasted forty dayes and forty nights he was afterwards an hungry p. 234 V. Upon the same p. 244 VI. Vpon S. Matth. iv 3. And when the Tempter came to him he said If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread p. 254 VII Upon the same p. 263 VIII Upon the same p. 273 IX Vpon S. Matth. iv 4. But he answered and said it is written Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God p. 282 X. Vpon S. Matth. iv 5. Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City and setteth him on a pinacle of the Temple p. 292 XI Vpon S. Matth. iv 6. And saith unto him If thou be Son of God cast thy self down For it is written He shall give his
respect which is to be had to the young branches of the whole Kingdom and the weight will be very ponderous All men are not born Elder-brothers and all Elder-brothers are not born to be Inheritors of Lands Divers of low degree have generous spirits in them and would be glad to make themselves a fortune as the phrase is What hopes have they to atchieve this in a more ready way than to propose unto themselves to lead a virtuous and industrious life that they may attain to a share of the endowment of Collegiate and Cathedral Churches they only are the common possession of the Realm lying open to all that will qualifie themselves to get a part in them They are not inclosed in private mens Estates but they are the Commons of the Kingdom With all humble leave Mr. Speaker now let us proceed to speak a little for our selves in behalf of the Clergy We hear it by such as are travel'd in parts beyond the Seas most of this Honourable House know it to be true that I shall alledg in their own experience that this Kingdom of England God be praised affords better livelihood to most degrees and ranks than the neighbour Kingdoms do The Knights and Esquires live more plentifully than theirs our Yeomanry far more fashionably than their Peasants Then we trust it will not be thought unreasonable that the Clergy may in some sort have a better maintenance than in the neighbour Reformed Churches Otherwise we shall become the most vile and contemptible part of the State because of our poverty and we shall degenerate into such Priests as Jeroboam appointed the refuse and most base of the people from whom nothing can be expected but Ignorance Superstition and Idolatry Neither is our estate better than all other Reformed Churches in this case for I have heard it from them that have diligently travel'd over all the Reformed Churches in Germany that the Clergy among the Swedes have such Collegiate Chapters with means endowed to the use of the Government of the Church as we have And the Reformed in France and the Low-Countries do sufficiently testify how much they desire that they were Partners of the like prosperity because many of their rarest Scholars have found great relief and comfort by being installed Prebendaries in our Cathedral and Collegiate Churches I will speak but of a few whom my self hath known In the Reign of Blessed Queen Elizabeth Dr. Saravia was maintained in these Foundations in the Reign of the most learned King James Casaubon Father and Son O the renowned Casaubon the Father what a miracle of learning add unto these Dr. Primrose Mr. Vossius and the great honour of the Reformed Churches the most learned Dr. Peter Moulin Concerning whom let me add with your leave Mr. Speaker what he wrote lately to an Honourable person out of France that by reason of great preparations of war in France he feared it would be dangerous for him to live any longer in Sedan if troubles increased he would come for England but if the Entrates of his Prebend and what else he enjoyed in this Church were cut off the whole livelyhood of himself his Wife and Children should be taken from him A pittiful moaning and to be regarded But the testimony of an Adversary is that which may most lawfully be used to advantage The greatest enemy and foul-tongued reviler of the Reformed Church of England was Sanders in his Book of the English Schism as he terms it Consult him in the 163. page as it is in my Edition how he envies us and snarles at us for our prosperity of those forenamed Churches he says that the Royal Queen did judg it fit for the glory of her Praelacy for the splendor of her Kingdom for the firmness of her Sect so he calls our Religion that in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches she would have Provosts Deans Prebendaries Canons This was it that troubled him that he saw these Foundations conduced to the stability of Religion So that I judg by his words a fatter Sacrifice could not be offered up to such as himself than the extirpation of them I go forward now to that benefit which the King and Commonwealth taking them in uno aggregato do reap by them They that think themselves cunning in the Kings Revenue do inform us that we do pay greater summs to the Exchequer by First-fruits Tents and Subsidies according to the proportions which we enjoy by them than any other Estates or Corporations in the Kingdom Beside Horse and Arms which we find for the defence of the Realm against all Enemies and Invasions And this we issue forth with most free and contented hearts Neither would we stop here We are not ignorant with what continual diligence and study this Honourable House doth forecast to provide great summs of money for two Armies and sundry other great occasions God forbid but we should have publick spirits as well as other men And if we be call'd upon to contribute in an extraordinary manner to this great charge of the Kingdom which now lies upon it we shall be ready to do it to the utmost of our ability yea and beyond our ability and if we fail in it let us be branded with your anger and censures for our sordid covetousness Now we shall come to an high pitch imploring the ancient and most Honourable Justice of this House and for the sake of that famous and ever renowned Justice we hope to find grace in your eyes We are now by the admittance of Your Honours favour under that roof where your worthy Progenitors gave unto the Clergy many Charters Privileges Immunities and enacted those Statutes by which we have the free right and liberty in all that we have We read it in Records that in the beginnings of many Parliaments in the first place divers favours were confer'd upon us and we believe the subsequent consultations fared the better for it Indeed we meet with stories likewise that the Prior aliens are vanished out of England that the Orders of St. John of Jerusalem and the Knight Templars were dissolved It is true Mr. Speaker and they deserv'd it their crimes proved manifestly against them were most flagitious and some of them no less than High Treason God be praised we are not charged much less convicted of any scandalous faults And therefore we trust we shall not suffer the like fate who have not committed the like offences And after our casting our selves upon your Honourable Justice I will lead you to the highest degree of all considerations to the Honour of God The Fabricks that I speak of were erected to his glory the lands bequeathed to them were dedicated to his Worship and Service And to that end I beseech you to let them continue for ever and to the maintenance of such persons whom their liberality did expresly destine to be relieved by them and withall I must inform you and I dare not conceal it from you it is tremenda
the word of men though they call themselves the Church for the children of men are deceitful upon the weights they are altogether lighter than vanity it self To draw this Doctrine streight and even upon the Text 1. Many will alledge Simeons example and say they could willingly die if they might see this or that come to pass Pray observe that such as these seldom or never see their desire come to pass because they fabricate vain hopes to themselves without the word of the Lord. 2. When that which they long'd for doth come to pass they are content to redeem it with any Physick or cost that they may not die for all their bragging like the woman in the Fable that was miserably poor and gathering sticks for her fire and herbs for her sustenance being vexed with extreme want she bursts out into this frowardness O that death would come to me Says the Fable death did come to her to know what she would have Help me up with my bundle of sticks says she I have nothing else to say to you But this is the sum of this point all our petitions are but avaritious craving or unchristian presumption unless we say Lord let it be according to thy word And now I shall end my Sermon in that point wherein Simeon desired to end his life it is the reason upon which he stood why he would depart because he had seen that which his soul waited for before it flitted away For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which is to this effect the Redeemer is come let my fetters therefore be broken off my joy is excessive and superlative this frail flesh cannot contain it The new Wine is poured in O let the old bottles break Thou hast granted me more than ever thou didst grant to any Prophet upon earth therefore exalt me to thy Saints in heaven For all the Prophets could get no more than this answer that a Virgin should conceive Immanuel that is God with us should be born and their posterity should not fail to behold him in after ages but says St. Paul all these died in Faith not having received the promises themselves but having seen them afar off Heb. xi 13. Now this Patriarch did far exceed all the Prophets that he saw the Messias with his own eyes and none other And mark the Pleonasmus not contented to have said I have seen thy salvation He doth denote the assurance of the act that he was not deceived hisce oculis vidi I have seen him with mine eyes it is the very Jesus that shall save the world I cannot be deluded as Vlysses speaks to Circe in Homer that she should re-transform his associates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishing true sight from phantastical Nicephorus a most corrupt Historian hath a tale by himself that Simeon was so far stricken in years that he had been long blind and as soon as ever this heavenly babe was brought near unto him he recovered his sight and therefore he magnifies God that his eyes were restored to see the object of all objects the blessed Child Incarnate and is it likely that St. Luke would have concealed such a miracle if it had been true and would God have let us receive it from so corrupt an hand as Nicephorus The Scripture says ver 27. of this Chapter He came by the Spirit into the Temple not that he was led like a blind man There are some conjectures that rove at random likewise by what means he should discern such Divine glory in our Saviour Admit there were other Infants presented in the Temple at the same time how did he perceive that this was the Son of the most high rather than any of the rest I find one Author shoot his bolt that a celestial splendor came down from Heaven and shone round about the Child I find another Author more superstitious than this that the Blessed Virgin was compast about with a cloud of glorious light in the place where she stood and so that honour should terminate it self upon her and not upon Christ This is to trifle in a most serious matter for certainly the suggestion of the Holy Ghost within him was enough to direct him without any external cognizance and therefore Nyssen says well Blessed were the eyes both of his soul and body his bodily eyes did see the happiest sight in heaven and earth but the eyes of his soul did respect that which is invisible His bodily eyes did see God made of a woman an object more beautiful and estimable then even Paradise it self when Adam saw it at the best Nay more beautiful than the whole Revelation which S. John saw in heaven excepting Christ himself whom he saw upon his throne Abraham would have given his portion in the promised land to have seen him David his Kingdom Solomon his revenews of Ophir and therefore no wonder if Simeon triumph in it that the eyes of his body had seen him But what the eyes of his soul did pierce into is magnum auctarium an huge addition They did see his salvation and salvation cannot be comprehended but by a lively and an effectual Faith They did see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cornu salutis as old Zachary calls it in whom God had reposed all the stock and treasure of salvation But why thy salvation and not rather ours had it not been more proper to say mine eyes have seen mine or our salvation There is no difference in effect one saying is as proper as the other salutare tuum for he is the Son of God the gift of God to us the holy One conceived by the Holy Ghost and in those notions Gods salvation as David says the Lord hath made known his salvation Psal xcviii 2. Again salutare nostrum for he came to redeem us and to give himself a ransom for us and so he is our salvation As if Simeon had said this is he after whom Jacobs heart panted Gen. xlix 18. I have waited for thy salvation O Lord. This is he of whom Isaiah foretold All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God chap. lii 10. He comes with much impotency and weakness to be presented in the Temple and to be redeemed after the custom of the Law with five shekels of silver but he will redeem us both from the bondage of the Law and from the bondage of sin with the five wounds of his body If such salvation as this were only to be glanced upon perfunctorily this sage Israelite would have been contented to have seen him and rested there but forasmuch as we must incorporate our Saviour in our souls and endeavour that there be a real union 'twixt Christ and us therefore in the verse before my Text Simeon took up our Saviour into his arms and St. John makes that a great mystery of his own and his brethrens happiness that their hands had handled the word of life Quod Simeon ulnis gestavit nos fide
Saints but would not have them forget Zeal Ne dolum habeas in columba demonstratum est ne simplicitas frigida remaneat in igne demonstratum est Guile and circumvention are to be banisht from Christianity if the Dove sit upon your head it will instill simplicity but simplicity may be chil and faint in a good cause therefore if a Pillar of fire sit upon your head it will infuse fervency There was no fire wanting in Stephen the Martyr when he did asperse the Jews with all manner of disdainful reproaches because they were stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart There was no Dove-like simplicity wanting because he prayed for them that stoned him And so far of the second point how aptly the Spirit came like a Dove upon Christ at his Baptism in cloven tongues and in fire upon the Apostles at the Feast of Whitsontide The conclusion of the Text rests now upon this Point that the figure of the Dove sweetly doth admonish us concerning many properties of the Holy Ghost It sate upon Christs head not to enrich him with any heavenly treasure which he wanted before but to derive the manifold issues of sanctification into our heart Solus injuriis se subdidit Dominus sed solus gratiam non quaesivit says St. Ambrose all manner of ignominies and buffetings all manner of injuries upon the Cross our Lord and Saviour took them to himself alone but the coming down of the Spirit that he took not to himself alone I will pray unto the Father and he will send you another Comforter Open your heart wide therefore and this Dove will fill it A dumb creature ye know and may signifie many things and because I am perswaded the Holy Ghost came down in that shape which had the largest number of significations for the advancement of piety therefore I will hold me to my task to collect all that are profitable and omit none And because it bears a similitude which will increase into many applications I will enter upon that occasion first therefore it is animal foecundum it is a bird of a most teaming fertility and whether any bird that flies doth breed oftner I am not certain I believe not many such fecundity there is always in a lively faith Like the trees of Eden always bearing fruit never without some good work either the tongue is praying or the ear is hearing or the heart is meditating or the eye is weeping or the hand is giving or the soul is thirsting for remission of sins and every pious action is like a Pomgranate in Aarons garment full of kernels to betoken it will seed farther and spread in infinitum This is faiths fertility therefore the Spirit harboured himself in the shape of a Dove Secondly The Gall is the drought of cholerical matter in mans body out of that distemper proceed anger revenge and malice but the Dove hath no gall or if Aristotle hath observed it better than others so small a one that it can scarce be perceived So the Spirit loves to inhabit in a mild and gentle soul without wrath and fury The wrath of man worketh not the will of God for his will is mercy and forgiveness The Dove will intreat for Miriam as Moses did and sheild off the revenge of David from Nabals folly as Abigail did and crave pardon of Philemon for his fugitive servant Onesiphorus as Paul did The bruised reed shall not be broken and the smoaking flax shall not be quenched therefore when James and John called for fire from heaven upon the Samaratans their check was Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of as who should say ye have forgot the coming down of the Dove Thirdly The harmlesness of that bird is notable it hath neither beak nor talons to tyrannize over smaller Creatures Sine armis extra sine felle intus the smallest flies or gnats may hum about it and take no harm for it devours nothing wherein there is life There is not I dare pronounce it a more Saint-like ornament in any Christian than a Dove-like innocency Devour not one another by greedy gaining by racking oppression by strict advantages by extortion by treacherous blind informations He that wrongfully fleeceth his neighbour of all his substance to increase his own store would eat the flesh likewise from his brothers arm like a savage Cannibal if he wanted sustenance The spoyls which you have robb'd from others perhaps they shall be found upon thy back at the dreadful hour of judgment but wil our Saviour say thou didst not learn this thou extortioner from the Dove that sate upon me Fourthly The Dove feeds cleanly not upon Carrion like Vultures Corvi de morte pascuntur Crows peck upon dead carkasses but it picks up grains of corn and the purest fruits of the field Me thinks in this propertie I see the Spirit invite us to the Table of the Lord What corn-food so pure as that which our Saviour brake and gave to his Disciples saying Take eat this is my body Non hoc corpus quod crucifigetur c. not as St. Austin glosseth my very body which shall be crucified and my very bloud which shall be spilt that was the gross understanding of the sapernaits to think our Saviour meant his fleshly body The Dove is no devourer of that fleshly body of Christ which he assumed from the Virgin Mary but it satisfies its spiritual hunger with those pure crums of bread which are the Sacrament of his body Fifthly It is impossible to teach a Dove to sing a chearful tune for nature hath ingrafted in it a solemn mourning Gemitus pro cantu and it is the Spirit that puts compunction into our spirit with groans unutterable Sometime hang up the Harps of mirth and sit down and weep You never read that God will honour your joy in his eternal remembrance you are sure he will not forget your mourning says David Psal lvi 8. Thou tellest my slittings put my tears into thy bottle are not these things noted in thy book Yea not only doth he bear them in mind and keep them in register but if some Interpreters erre not he wears them upon his head Cant. v. 2 My head is filled with dew says Christ and my locks with the drops of the night as if he wore our tears says the Paraphrast like drops of Pearl upon his head Dry eyes and unrelenting hearts are the curse of God Ezek. xxiv 23. Ye shall not mourn nor weep but ye shall pine away for your iniquities Sixthly The Holy Ghost useth the wings of Angels the wings of the wind the wings of the Dove a bird of strong flight for the Spirit is swift in operation what he doth he doth it quickly Nescit tarda molimina Abraham ran forth to meet the Angels that drew to his Tent Sarah made ready quickly three measures of fine meal Abrahams young man ran to the Herd to fetch a Calf tender and good Nemo piger est
time which the Devil chose to set upon him then says my Text that is in the next place after his Baptism which went before Immediately says St. Mark as soon as ever the voice from heaven had said This is my beloved Son 4. Christs manner of addressing himself to the combate He was led up of the Spirit or as St. Luke more emphatically Being full of the Holy Ghost he was led by the Spirit 5. Here are the Lists where the Combate was fought or at least begun to be fought the Wilderness Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit c. Christ put himself upon a Tentation that is the first part of the Text and the Load-star by which all is guided that pertains to the whole matter which I am to handle in this story Other things did fall out at the same time but this was the drift of our Saviour For although we read that he fasted forty days in the Wilderness yet the purpose of his going thither ultimately was not to fast but to be tempted fasting was an accessory he must fast when he was there because there was no food to be had So Moses fasted forty days in Mount Horeb yet he went not up to the Mountain to fast but to receive the Tables of the Law Therefore St. Mark says that Christ was forty days in the Wilderness tempted of Satan but he never speaks of his fasting It is true He did expose himself to both those infirmities in his body he suffered hunger in his soul tentation both at once but his purpose was not to shew how his natural body could subsist a long time without the sustenance of meats but to manifest his strength and innocency in the trial of Tentation That he might say with Davids words and St. Austin says they are his own speech and his own words Psal cxviii 13. Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall but the Lord helped me There are many things which will leave our wits in a maze if we cast our eye down from the top of Christs Majesty to the bottom of his infirmity the bread which came down from heaven did hunger strength it self was weak comfort it self was sad and heavy life it self did die but that purity and innocency it self in which no unrighteousness could be found should be instigated over and over to most horrid sins raiseth one point of admiration more than any thing else Magnum fuit facinus Deum conspui alapis caedi verum haec omnia ad malum paenae spectant c. It is a mystery of humility that God himself would be spit upon and beaten and be crown'd with thorns it was very much and yet these at the very worst were but the evils of punishment to be sollicited to distrust in his Fathers providence to be ambitious to be an Idolater these are far more incompetent to the Son of God because they are the evils of sin Let me search it therefore very diligently through all the causes which may be useful to your learning and instruction why Christ would be tempted of the Devil First He yielded himself to be assaulted with strong provocations of evil that he might pity us the more because he knew in his own case and trial what hard encounters we had with the enemy As if a General of a field would lie perdew take his rest on the bare ground assign a place unto himself in battel where he knew there was the greatest danger that he might the better understand and commiserate the distress of the common Souldier St. Paul comforts his brethren the Hebrews with a double consolation First That Christ our High Priest is gone into heaven to make intercession for us there Secondly That he bore all our afflictions upon earth and knows our infirmities here Heb. iv 14. Says he we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens and we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all Points tempted like as we are yet without sin so far as sin might not be admixed or have any place in him so far there was no kind of sorrow or tentation which we undergo but he bore his part therefore he sustain'd not the languors of feavours or sickness which are contracted usually by Luxury always by ignorance to preserve the constitution of our body in good plight both which are most unworthy of this High Priest And as for sin he suffered the outward invitement of tentation in great measure but not the inward rebellion of concupiscence to which we are obnoxious in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Let not our hope therefore be utterly pressed down with the weight of our sins Christ will have compassion because he knows the devices of our Adversary and how feeble we are to make resistance his Spirit shall not strive with man because he is but flesh and if weak flesh be overcome sometimes by the spirit of darkness he will not be extreme to mark what is done amiss Quia fragilis est in homine conditio non eos ad aeternos servabit cruciatus says St. Hierom Every trespass wherewith our frail nature is deceived by the devil shall not be punished with eternal fire And the knowledge of God discerning of what corrupt metal we are made doth not only cause him to free us from eternal torments but also to mitigate his temporal chastisements Gen. viii 21. And the Lord said in his heart I will not again curse the ground any more for mans sake for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth Because the imaginations of mans heart are so evil and will lead him into disobedience therefore the Lord is merciful Once he destroyed the whole earth because all flesh had corrupted its way to satisfie his Justice but no more than once that he might not turn justice into wormwood and bitterness Sweetly St. Ambrose the Lord extended his universal revenge but once Vindicta ad timorem proficit magis quà m ad naturae commutationem quae corrigi in aliquibus potest in omnibus mutari non potest The Lord doth not reiterate his universal punishments for he knoweth that depraved nature may be corrected in some it cannot be changed in all Moses in this point is seconded by David that the discerning of our infirmities doth stir up Gods compassion Psal ciii 14. Like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him Novit enim figmentum nostrum for he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust That is no marvel indeed says Gregory to say he knows our frame and the stuff whereof we are made for there is nothing hid from his knowledge What special notice doth he take of it more than any thing else Gregory answers Figmentum nostrum scire est hoc in seipso ex pietate suscepisse He knows our frame more nearly and intimately
1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil IN the elder times of the Church every man can tell you who is a little acquainted with their customs that particular Churches especially those that were the principal and greatest Seats did keep an anniversary commemoration of the noble acts of the Saints and chiefly for them who had endured hard encounters for the name of Christ either into bonds and imprisonment or some other stern calamity who were called confessors or into bloud and death who were called Martyrs And this Ceremony was well instituted in praise and admiration of their victories who would not let that truth be overcome which was in their possession Therefore their memory was kept fresh every year for a double benefits sake says Minutius Felix Defunctis praemium futuris dabatur exemplum The dead were much renowned and the living were no less edified by their example What were the conflicts of men that we were so mindful of them And should not we much more remember this for ever famous conflict of the Son of God Brethren partakers of the heavenly calling consider the Apostle and High Priest of our Profession Jesus Christ who girded himself with strength and with the power of the holy Spirit and brake the heads of Leviathan in pieces Magnifie him therefore that rideth upon the heavens as it were upon an horse praise him in his noble acts praise him in his excellent greatness yea and rejoyce before him This opposition of the whole battery of Hell against him his constancy to suffer it his victory to tread it under feet hath not only a due commemoration of it once a year in the Gospel for Ash-Wednesday or the first day of Lent but every week in the year so often as we read the Litany we speak of it to his honour and to our comfort By thy Baptism Fasting and Temptation good Lord deliver us A great omission might be imputed to Divines me thinks if Poets in their versifying fury should be able to raise the Wars of Troy to such an opinion in all Ages and we should flag in setting down the most terrible battel that ever was fought between Christ and Satan the trustiest Champion and the deadliest Enemy of mans Salvation one against another I say it were a shame to our negligence not to be blotted out if we should not prosecute the description of every circumstance I for my part with all requisite industry and you with all attention I take this first verse therefore into my hands once again which was thus disparted into five points 1. That among other parts of humility wherein Christ our High Priest was made like unto us He was tempted to sin 2. It is expressed by what sort of tentation neither by the concupiscence of the flesh nor by the vanities of the world but by the outward solicitations of the Devil 3. Here is the time and opportunity which Satan chose with all despight to set upon him then says my Text that is in the next place after his Baptism which went before Immediately says St. Mark after the voice from heaven had said This is my beloved Son 4. We may learn from hence how Christ was marshalled to the combate he was led up of the Spirit or as St. Luke more emphatically Being full of the Holy Ghost he was led by the Spirit 5. It is no idle word in the verse that we have the Lists where the combat was fought at least where it was begun to be fought the Wilderness In the first place at this time I must bend my meditations to the third of these particulars having dispatcht the other two in their place before and that is the time which Satan thought he nickt very right for his purpose then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was the Motto of the wise man Pittacus of Greece know the seasons and opportunities of time and you can hardly fail of that which you enterprize Yet all things fell out contrary to the imaginations of this subtil Serpent that the time which he thought was most in season was most out of season it was no such a critical hour as he hoped for But why was Christ tempted then So lies the question and thus I answer it in the first place because our Saviour had been lately baptized then as soon as ever he was initiated in the Sacrament of purification then the engines of iniquity were planted to overthrow him If Christ had been as one of us who are prone to relapse into our former filthiness after we have vowed a new life to God this had been a likely way to have sped and as dangerous as the counsel of Achitophel A Penitent that hath newly bid adieu to all unclean conversation newly gone out of Sodom goes upon a ticklish ground and stands not so sure but that he is easily thrown down Lucerna recens extincta levi flatu accenditur how often have you seen a candle put out by a mischance and blow the snuff presently while it is hot it flames again So carnal concupiscence being but lately corrected in a good Convert by the fear of God take heed the Devil blow not presently upon the snuff for an easie matter will make it flame again A man that hath lately begun a good work which is pleasing to God must keep a Midsummer watch over it a double guard more than he shall need when he is grown into custom and continuance So Chrysologus doth abet this very reason which I give upon my Text Diabolus primordia boni pulsat sancta in ipso ortu festinat extinguere Satan hath a more malicious aim than ordinary at the first fruits of holiness he would crop the beginnings of reformation before they grow up to perfect fruits of amendment of life The smallest bird can pick off the blossoms of a tree if that blossom be not nibled away but grow a fair apple the hurt is small that the fouls of the air can do unto it So the firstlings of a godly life are in the greatest danger upon maturity of holiness when the fear of God is well rooted in the heart those unclean Harpies of the air the Devil and his Angels shall be less able to annoy us Scit quod fundata subvertere non potest says the former Author Satan wants no sagacity to observe his advantages but is aware that if the Camp put their Spade into the ground for a few days and cast their trenches they will hardly be displanted An Army that is not long set down before a place is more easily removed so I say once for all that I may roul the same stone no more expect to find the greatest impediment from the Tempter at the beginning of a good work As the Children of Israel were never so full of Wars as when they first set foot into the Land of Canaan How many Factions bandied against David when he
hold that in all that space Satan did not cast the least tentation before him Was this the time for the powers of darkness to begin their fury more than ever before So it seems and for this reason for those thirty years he was obedient to his Parents without the least noise made that he was the eternal Son of God that came to save the world and passed away his time in such obscurity that there is no print or footstep of any rare action that he did save that he disputed with the Doctors at twelve years old in the Temple But as soon as he began the work of his Mediatorship in open publication as soon as ever he began to advance the Banner of faith that all that believed in his name should be saved Hell could contain it self no longer but belch'd out defiance against him The Heathen had a common Maxim which Plutarch liked not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apparitions of evil Spirits never infested any one that was wise and judicious This did not relish with that Author because Dion and Brutus a pair of most renowned Captains were even distracted with Phantasms and visions that haunted them So he whose opinion is good but upon another ground and it is thus Satan hath ever strived to set shoulder to shoulder against them who have either been the beginners or the restaurators of the Doctrine of the Kingdom of heaven That word of the Angel set him on fire worse than Hell it self Evangelizo vobis I come not with the Law but I do Evangelize I bring good tidings of great joy to all people and when Christ began to set that Gospel on foot it was insufferable to the Devil he must tempt him in the Wilderness Remember the tempest which was raised when Christ was embark'd to sail over the Lake of Genazeret to the Gaderens It was a tempest conjur'd up I suppose by means Diabolical that the Gaderens who were the most part Gentiles might not hear of Righteousness and Salvation The Spirit cried out to Paul to come over to Macedonia and help them He and Silas found no better entertainment than to be scourged for coming to Macedonia Acts xvi 9. How long how many hundred years were all the skilful men in the world deluded nay how long bewitcht I may well use that word that neither by the Sphere nor by Navigation nor by any other conjecture so many nimble wits and industrious men could not find out so large a portion of the world as America We were all so long held in ignorance that those miserable and vast multitudes of Nations might be held in infidelity And our late Stories report that many dear Servants of God who have sailed thither as well to enlarge Christs Kingdom as their own means have suffered most unusual wrecks and storms at Sea nay that they have encountred Phantasms and Apparitions in all likelihood Diabolical I will make no long excursion here but a short Apology for one that deserved well of the reformed Religion Many of our Adversaries have aspersed Luther with ill words but none so violent as our English Fugitives because he doth confess it that the Devil did encounter him very frequently and familiarly when he first put Pen to Paper against the corruptions of the Church of Rome In whose behalf I answer Much of that which is objected I cannot find in the Latin Editions of his works which himself corrected although it appears by the quotations some such things were in his first Writings set forth in the Dutch Language 2. I say no more than he confesseth ingenuously of himself in an Epistle to Brentius his meaning was good but his words came from him very unskilfully and his stile was most rough and unsavoury St. Paul says of himself that he was rudis sermone rude in speech But Luther was not so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word used in Paul as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after his Dutch Monastical breeding and his own hot freedom by nature he had a boisterous clownish expression but for the most part very good Jewels of Doctrine in the dunghils of his Language 3. If the Devil did imploy himself to delude and vex that heroical Servant of God who took such a task upon him being a simple Monk to inveigh against Errors and Superstitions which had so long prevailed why should it seem strange to any man Ribadenira sticks it among the praises of his Founder Ignatius Loiola that the Devil did declame and cry out against him believe it every one of you at your leisure and why might not the Devil draw near to vex Luther as well as roar out a great way off against Loiola I have digrest a little with your patience to make Luthers case appear to be no outragious thing that weak ones may not be offended when they hear such stuff objected out of Parsons or Barclay or Walsingham or out of Bellarmine himself If Beelzebub was busie with the Master what will he be with the Servants When Christ did begin to lay the first corner stone of the Gospel then he was led into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil I will suffer a reason of Tolets to make up the fifth place before I leave this Point Christ presented himself upon the desart of the Wilderness to undergo his tentation before he had wrought many Signs and Miracles to put a mist before the Devils eyes that when he did not ween him to be the eternal Son of God he might give the onset without distrust not as Ahab went disguised into the field lest the Army of the Syrians should bend their forces against him but to delude the great Adversary lest he should retire when he suspected to be over-mastered Sicut luctator inclinat corpus suum ut supplantet alium Bernards similitude I think Our Saviour omitted no evidence of humility and infirmity to win the day of Satan by this abasement As a cunning wrastler dops downward as low as he can that he may fetch over his Antagonist But this Point will meet us again upon a larger entreaty These five reasons if you can remember them will give you satisfaction I suppose what time and opportunity this was which Satan chose with all despight to set upon our Lord and Saviour the word of time is very emphatical Then was c. The next general part comes now to be handled how the Spirit like a Grand Marshal brought Christ into the field to combate with the Devil He was led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness I will deliver my mind upon this hint in these four particulars 1. Of what Spirit this place is to be understood 2. How the Spirit did lead him 3. Why this passage is inserted into the Story that he was led up of the Spirit 4. It will be expedient to annex unto these How the grace of God doth lead us and draw us on to vanquish the Devil and all the
corruption that is in us and to be the Sons of God Because there is mention of a good Spirit immediately before my Text that descended from heaven upon him in the shape of a Dove and all the business after my Text concerns an evil Spirit that assaulted him with many tentations therefore the quaere ariseth which of these did lead him into the Wilderness The Syriack determines it plainly Ductus â spiritu sancto he was led by the Holy Ghost And it is of more moment that certainly the Syriack Paraphrase took it from St. Luke Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that understand Grammer and the original Text do easily discern that the same word in the same sentence implies one and the same thing the latter being an effect of the former for being full of the Holy Spirit he was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness And I will parallel it plainly anon with that of St. Paul Acts xx 22 Behold I go bound in spirit to Jerusalem Moreover the Devil approached not unto him till after he had fasted forty days he began to be an hungry for he had no motive to begin his tentations till he perceiv'd he was in the distress of hunger like a weak man Therfore it was not Satan that carried him into this place where he fasted for then the tentation had begun before he had set foot in the Wilderness The case is clear to say no more of the first Point that the Spirit which led him was the influence and impulsion of the Holy Ghost The second thing to be askt is how the Spirit did lead him This can be conceived but two ways Either by inward instigation or removing him suddenly from one place to another which is called outward translocation Each way may be admitted for both are according to Analogy of Faith and both are favoured out of the Greek Text of sundry Evangelists You shall read in St. Luke Chap. iv 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was led by the Spirit which doth imply that the Holy Ghost did inwardly inspire that resolution into him and did assist continually while he abode in the Wilderness You shall read in St. Mark Chap. i. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness as if he had been transported thither in some wonderful rapture And my Text is read thus in St. Mathew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was led up of the Spirit The Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sursum to lead up hath either regard to the situation of the Desart which was by far the higher ground in respect of Jordan where our Saviour was before Or else that he was exalted from the earth and carried away by the Spirit through the air untill he came unto that place where he spent forty days in Prayer Fasting and Meditation I dare not contend out of the Scriptures but that the Spirit wrought both ways upon Christ both carrying his body into the Wilderness and instigating his mind No unusual thing in the first sense for the Spirit to transport a body suddenly through the air without the motion of the feet to a place of far distance And although the whole Trinity God the Father the Son and Holy Ghost concur to that action and produce it or perhaps appoint an Angel to be the instrument yet it goes under the name of the Spirit because that Miracle impresseth a strange vertue into a material body as if it were spiritual How Enoch and Elias were translated on high in their bodies I have declared my mind not long since And surely before Elias his last translation into heaven this did befall him often times Obadiah was jealous of it 1 King xviii 13. It shall come to pass when I am gone from thee the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not What Ezekiel reports of himself I cannot say but it was rather an imaginary than a real rapture but thus he Ezek. viii 3. The hand of God took me by a lock of mine head and the Spirit lift me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem This could not be imprinted in his imagination but that it was possible to be done really And Gregory meditates well upon it Every regenerate person during the time of this mortal flesh is so lifted up between heaven and earth Adhuc ad superna plene non pervenit sed tamen ima dereliquit His conversation and his heart are not altogether in heaven but they are higher than the earth What a direct instance is that of the Prophet Habakkuk He was carrying food to the Reapers in the Land of Jury and the Angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head and through the vehemency of the Spirit set him in Babylon Neither need this be rejected for Apocryphal since there is an example to match it Acts viii 39. The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip who was then at Gaza and he was found at Azotus which two are forty miles distance after the best descriptions of the Holy Land A Faith that is but linum fumigans a dusky faith and shines not clearly may easily admit this for if the birds can cut the air with their gross wings naturally who will not be perswaded that God can make the body of man more nimble and fit for such a motion by his supernatural power But I marvel at those Expositors who are squemishly conceited against that opinion that they did not frame this objection God doth not use to work Miracles only to shew tricks as one would say no necessity requiring Then cui bono Why might not Christ have gone into the Wilderness step by step What occasion of moment should urge the Spirit to transport him Beloved it was thus far expedient that Christ should vanish and no man know which way he was departed that he might avoid the honour which the multitude would have done him upon that voice which came from heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased So in the sixth of St. John after the miracle of feeding some thousands with a little bread and a few fishes Christ perceived that they would take him by force and make him a King therefore he made a sudden departure none knew whither till his Disciples met him walking upon the Sea in a dark night and a great storm Mat. xiv 23. This is reason then sufficient to decline the people who were astonished at the testimony which was given him from heaven that the Spirit snatcht him away in a rapture into the Wilderness Why this interpretation of the word should not take with you I know not but I am sure the next must take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was led by the Spirit that is the Holy Ghost did inspire this heroical
resolution into his humane nature to fight with and to overthrow the tentations of the Devil I shall reach this doctrine unto you the better upon certain questions And first what needed this Preface of all other before this mighty work that he was guided by the Spirit What action throughout all his life did not deserve the same commendation A young Rhetorician dedicated an Oration to one Antalcidas What is the subject of your Oration quoth he Says the young Orator the praise of Hercules Fie man says Antalcidas what needless pains have you taken Who did ever dispraise Hercules So it may seem as redundant an expression to say that Christ was led by the Spirit at this time for through the grace of Union and the grace of Unction he was always conducted by the Spirit It is sufficient for answer to this that this was the first exploit of those that Christ did act to shew he was the Christ and the Mediator of God and man therefore this clause being prefixt to the formost of his actions is a title to all the rest he was led of the Spirit 2. It is not to be taken per modum inhaerentiae that he was now full of the Holy Ghost as if he had received a larger measure than he had before but by way of manifestation for the Spirit even now had visibly descended upon him in the shape of a Dove Semper fuit actus à spiritu sed jam maximè ejus vis apparuit the common gloss of the best Writers The Spirit did always lead him and dwel in him but now it did appear and put forth its strength I move another question be not offended that I move these hard things as it were by way of Catechism are the leadings of the Spirit of more sorts than one Yea these two are degrees one above another The first is general to all the Sons of God for they are all stirred up to faith and hope and good works by a divine illumination If ye be led by the Spirit then are ye not under the Law of the flesh Gal. v. 18. The second is special to the chiefest and principal Ministers of God as Kings Prophets and Apostles when Saul was anointed King over Israel the Lord gave him another heart his Spirit came upon him and he Prophesied So Christ our anointed Prophet prepared himself for a famous enterprize and he had the badge of Gods good liking The Spirit came upon him or he was led by the Spirit Suffer but one interrogatory more and it is this Did the Spirit thrust on Christ and as it were hale him with compulsion at this time So a man might hap to fall into that error by St. Marks words The Spirit driveth him into the Wilderness And the Vulgar Latine gives the same offence Luk. iv 1. Agebatur a spiritu he was pusht on by the Spirit For answer hard words are soon mollified by good construction The very Heathen could say Generosus est animus hominis magisque ducitur quà m trahitur Mans will is a free generous thing and had rather be led fairly than drawn forcibly Therefore the other Evangelists must be expounded by St. Matthew that the Spirit led him by illumination and propounding the will of his Father unto him not by violence and coaction So Cajetan Non vis significatur sed efficientia impulsus spiritus All was done by the efficacy and motion of the Spirit nothing by compulsion Some there are who care not what old Pillars of Divinity they pull down to set up their new devises that hold that Christ did obey his Father and the Divine Law with so much liberty and freedom that it were no offence to say Christ could not have obeyed his Father not have kept the Law and so by consequent have sinned and whereas it is certain he did not sin they will neither allow that the Hypostatical Union was the cause of it O strange Theologie nor yet the grace of Unction wherewith he was anointed above his fellows O strange impudency Neither of these was fundamentum impeccabilitatis And all this to maintain that because he did merit by his obedience his will was not determined to do good but left indifferent to good or evil Away with this over audatious disputing Christ could not but fulfil all righteousness I must do the works of him that sent me Joh. iv 9. All good things conducible to the work of a Mediator were necessary to be done And it was necessary Gods will being declared that it should be fulfilled of Christ although he was not necessitated by a violent determination but moved willingly and obediently unto it by a certain perswasion Non necessitatus erat sed propter illud quod necessarium erat sponte motus says Abulensis The object propounded was necessary to be done of him though he accepted it with much alacrity and desire and no way driven by constrainment Therefore this was not like Peters case Another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not Joh. xxi 18. But the hand of the Lord was with him and carried him whither he liked himself Non invitus aut captus sed sponte liberè venit says St. Hierom He was not drawn on as if his own will drew back but rejoyced as a Giant to run his course To say no more but this Oblatus est quia voluit It was his own good will that he was slain for the sins of the world it was his own pleasure not to dread death and it was as much his own pleasure to grapple with tentations And so much for that question how the Spirit did lead him into the Wilderness You shall now be partakers of the third thing why this passage is inserted into the story that he was led up of the Spirit Good reasons are rather to be esteemed by their weight than their multitude take these few to content you 1. The Spirit is said to lead him because de did not run on blindfold but knew the task which he undertook he foresaw the difficulties that he would meet and weighed them in the balance of judgment and discretion Non ignarus sed consilio ducebatur says St. Ambrose The counsel of the Spirit did enlighten him to see what he had in hand Saul thought that David was but a fool-hardy Stripling and knew not what a perilous thing it was to fight with such a Giant as Goliah Thou art but a youth and he a man of War from his youth thou art not able to go against this Philistine But David shewed the reason of his confidence the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the Lion and out of the paw of the Bear he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine He had considered Gods mercies and protection therefore he was led by the Spirit into that noble action Beware to plod on like Balaam with our eyes shut never discerning what is
to the Members of his body and it was laudible in him to wish some trial that he might encounter the Devil and spoil him of his Kingdom Tentationem exoptare in eo qui succumbere nequit est laudabile say the Schoolmen It was an heroical magnanimity in Christ to wish tentations so might fall upon him because he could not be vanquished And therefore some gather an observation contrary to St. Chrysostom that our Saviour went into the Wilderness and fasted forty days and after was an hungry destinating that the Devil should find him out Obviam procedit Diabolo quem scit non pug naturum nisi lacessitum He went out to dare the Tempter because he knew he would not come on and fight unless he were provok'd yet it is the sounder way to collect that for our instruction when we should examine this Story Christ did not go in a bravado or a challenge to offer himself to be tempted but the Spirit led him as who should say this was not Curtius in foveam a precipitated intrusion Let not man expose himself to temptation Dubia est victoria who knows that carries the badge of Adams frailty in his body whether he shall come off with victory or captivity Happy is that man and the Lord shall bless his integrity who will not come near the suburbs of sin for no man can keep the Commandments unless he be careful to avoid the first invitations of evil and to shun the farthest and remotest impediments of obedience Have you seen little children dare one another which should go deepest into the mire But he is more childish that ventures further and further even to the brim of transgression and bids the Devil catch him if he can I will but look and like says the wanton where the object pleaseth me I keep company with some licentious persons says an easie nature but for no hurt because I would not offend our friendship I will but bend my body in the house of Rimmon when my Master bends his says Naaman I will but peep in to see the fashion of the Mass holding fast the former profession of my faith Beloved I do not like it when a mans conscience takes in these small leaks it is odds you will fill faster and faster and sink to the bottom of iniquity I have read of a Bishop that was performing the Office of Baptism to many that were converted from Gentilism and when a Virgin came near the Font of an extraordinary beauty he desired a substitute to discharge the place for he would not please his eyes no not for a few minutes to look upon such an object as allured his fancy What a careful Christian this was that kept off occasions of sin and would not suffer them before him as David charged his treacherous Son Absalom to keep a distance and not to come near Jerusalem Hannibal that approved Souldier placed himself in a battel where many Darts of the enemy flew round about him and when some commended him that he ventured his person upon the mouth of danger you mistake says Hannibal I am more ashamed of my self this day than ever I was in my life that being the General of the Field I came in peril to be wounded This is well applied to every Souldier that fights under Christs Banner when we are run into tentations it is good and blessed to come off with the least impairment to our innocency But why did you come so near the flame that you were in peril to be scorched Job comforted himself that he had kept his eyes from wandring Jeremy was careful neither to lend upon Usury nor to borrow upon Usury In a word when Tentations fall upon you by Gods permission resist them manfully but if you mean to be led by the Spirit do not wittingly and daringly fall upon tentations This is the sum of the third observation I defer the fourtn to a larger tractate To God the Father c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the VVilderness to be tempted of the Devil THis Text you see will not let me go I have been parting from it twice and still it invites me to stay As the Levite took his farewel at Bethlem sundry times and could not get away Judg. xix And now I have good cause to tarry being led by the leading of the Spirit Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile with him go with him twain says Christ Mat. v. 21. And if the Spirit of God compel us to go with him one Sermon we will go with him twain it cannot be irksom or weary to follow such contemplations But it is fit I should satisfie you where I stick in this verse for the present that I do not proceed how Christ was tempted wherefore he was tempted by whom he was tempted when he was tempted I have rid my hand of these discourses Likewise I have passed thus far how Christ was marshalled into the field by the divine impulsion of the Holy Ghost Here I resume my task into my hands where I left it That which remains for me to survey and for you to exercise your attentions upon is this First Since Christ himself was led by the Spirit when he went forth to fast and pray and to fight against the Devil therefore I will make enquiry how the grace of God doth lead us to eschew evil and to do good And secondly I will bring you along to consider the place whereon our Saviour planted himself to encounter his enemy it was the Wilderness How all men whom God calls to the saving truth by the preaching of the Spirit are led by the Spirit that is governed and directed by his grace is the Doctrine with which I begin in which intricate subject I confess my self to be in a Wilderness before I come to the last part of my Text if ever there were a question which troubled the whole world it is this How the will of man is guided unto Salvation by the supernatural help of God It is run into a Proverb that there are three things almost impossible to be traced The one how a King doth govern his Kingdom the secret reasons of state make the course of his actions so obscure Cor regis inperscrutabile says Solomon The other how grace doth govern the soul And the third how God doth govern the world We are sure divine motions move within us and yet we know not how they move Our Saviour did admonish us it would be a hard matter to understand when he spake of the Holy Ghost who doth regenerate us The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou knowest not whence it comes nor whither it goes What impression a spiritual quality doth or can make upon a spiritual substance Philosophy cannot judge of it but so far as the Scripture opens the mysterie Divinity may examine it and faith must believe it In these labyrinths
wherein so many run upon this Point I will give you my judgment in that method wherein I have always directed my self a method to give God the glory of all that which is good to make sinners humble because they have no good in themselves as of themselves and to make us all diligent in good works that we may not neglect the gift which is given us in Christ through sluggishness and security The grounds upon which I will insist are these 1. We must be led by the Spirit before we can work any thing which is good 2. I will unfold how we are led by initiating or preventing grace when we are first made partakers to taste of the hopes of a better life 3. I will shew how we are led by preparatory grace which goes before the complete act of our regeneration 4. With what great and mighty power the Spirit doth lead us in converting grace 5. How we are led by subsequent grace and sanctification which co-operates and assists us after our conversion To these heads I will briefly and peaceably reduce a volume of litigious disputation 1. I enter into all by this door before the Spirit come down upon us and lead us with his sweet motions our heart can produce nothing which is good The heathen are no competent witnesses in this cause how far nature is weakened in all vertue and how much it is prone to all evil they know no supernatural strength above nature and therefore could not acknowledge the efficacy of it In a word we must not believe man how far he is corrupted but God for man must not be judge in his own cause The Pharisees likewise shall not be heard to speak in this Point whose arrogancy made them enemies to grace You remember with what contempt they ask'd Christ are we blind Joh. ix 40. Alass of our selves we are all under that woe Vae vobis duces caeci Woe be to you blind guids Mat. xxiii 16. Whither will a blind mans feet carry him but into a pit or into a snare unless he have a leader By nature this dark blindness is upon us for else why have we a Leader Omne id naturae deesse intelligitur quod spiritus sancti operâ communicatur says St. Austin Whatsoever is put into us by the Holy Ghost manifests how much was wanting by nature The good Spirit may say of his direction as Job did of his charity I was eyes unto the blind and feet unto the lame Job xxix 15. The heathen erred from the truth through ignorance the Pharisees through arrogancy among Christians none offended more foully than the Pelagians partly through subtilty of wit partly through arrogance What shifts did they not invent rather than confess the truth Sometimes calling the endowments of mans nature even under this great blemish of depravation by the name of grace When that would not serve yet they would allow no grace to support mans free will but the external preaching of the Word and dispensation of the Sacraments 3. When this would not satisfie the Church they went thus far they did not hold there was grace of sanctification to prevent us from sin but grace of mercy to remit our sins Yet they stood under condemnation and at last this was all that could be wrung from them supernatural grace was necessary not simply to strengthen us to do good but only to do good with greater facility Whereas it behoved them to have accused nature in this present state of malignity so far that now it is become that accursed ground which of it self brings forth nothing but thorns and thistles There is not only a possibility in our will to sin as there was in Adam before the Fall but a violent and a precipitious inclination to transgress the Law The Saints and the heaven are not clean in Gods sight says Job How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water Job xv 16. The will of man is of that nature it cannot rest naked devested of all desires unfurnisht of an object and since in its own rebellion it hath forsaken God there is no relief but it will betake it self to the unlawful concupiscence of the Creature Mark how peremptorily St. Paul concludes against man as he is left to the will of his own flesh Rom. viii 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be In the state of this miserable captivity under sin for we are servants to that which we obey the will of man is partaker of its own freedom which grows with it and cannot be parted that it is not held under necessity to commit this or that sin naming any particular act what you will but under sin it is held so that the evil which we would not we shall do and the good which we would we shall not do But Christ is our Advocate and he will speak for us more than we could or durst say for our selves hear his testimony Joh. xv 4. The branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Because these words are parabolical he speaks roundly in the next verse Without me ye can do nothing It is not meant of natural or animal works as eating drinking walking indeed we can do none of these things unless his omnipresency and omnipotency support us but here it is meant of such things as are praise worthy before God without me that is without the divine assistance and help which I have merited by my obedience ye cannot bring forth the fruits of righteousness to eternal life Yet I pray you mark one thing to qualifie some mens severe opinions Christ did not say whatsoever ye do without me even with the best moral rectitude and justice shall plunge you further into damnation Every thing which comes from a meer natural man is so bad and defective that it shall do him no good toward the attaining of everlasting life but some things have a moral honesty according to the law of nature which do not deserve Hell fire but rather they are such things as shall make their damnation more tolerable The branch can bring forth no fruit unless it be in the tree Frugiferum opus est quod ad vitam aeternam refertur That is a frugiferous work which God rewards in his Kingdom No such fruits can grow from nature which wants the conduction of the Spirit St. Paul very cautiously 1 Cor. xiii mustering up the works of an unregenerate man which want Charity says he If I do all these things and want charity they profit me nothing not simply that the continence of Socrates the temperance of Scipio should hurt them but they profit me nothing a natural man brings forth nothing which can profit him to eternal life St. Austin doth so diligently ponder every word of the Text now cited that I must impart his sweet labours unto
you Without me you can do nothing so our Saviour Had he said without me you can do little or without me you can do no excellent thing or without me it will be hard and difficult for you or without me you can perfect no good work then there had been some evasion for a man to trust in his own abilities but to say without me you can do neither much nor little greater things nor inferiour things with ease or with difficulty neither finish nor begin this chops off all boasting in the powers and industries of the natural man Without me ye can do nothing The Eunuch plainly felt this impotency and when Philip askt him Vnderstandest thou what thou readest Says he How can I unless some man should guide me As the sick person complained at the Pool of Bethesda he wanted some man to put him in when the water was troubled Verè homo fuit illi necessarius sed homo ille qui Deus est Says St. Austin He wanted a man indeed to cure him but no other than he that is God and man Jesus Christ So the Eunuch wanted no other man to guide him but he that was made the Son of man that we might be made the Sons of God And upon those words of the Eunuch thus St. Hierom. We come not to walk in the paths of life Sine praevio monstrante semitam Without celestial aid to prepare the way and go before us Let me strike these two strokes more upon this point and I have done with it first when I say nature is so unfit to produce any good so indisposable to attain the Kingdom of heaven let no man say Why should I strive then against the stream of my inbred corruptions I will give my self over to work all filthiness with greediness This is a devillish resolution But rather say I will be very instant in prayer with my God that he will take away this heart of stone and give me an heart of flesh For in the like case the Tongue can no man tame it is an unruly evil full of deadly poyson Jam. iii. 8. So St. James It is not his meaning that we should suffer this unruly evil to do what it list and permit it without any manner of reformation but with all contention of heart to implore the divine assistance that this member of unrighteousness may become an instrument to serve the Lord. Secondly Those Nations whom we perceive to be led by the viciousness of their own nature and not to be led by the spirit we cannot say without great error and obstinacy that these are appointed to everlasting life if the heathen had sufficient means of salvation what priviledge had we in the Church who have the Word and Sacraments and the infusions of sanctification to make them profitable Thou knowst Lord why these do sit in darkness and in the shadow of death Bonus es in beneficio certorum justus in supplicio ceterorum says St. Austin Thou art very good to those to whom thou art gracious thou art very just to those that are punished This is St. Pauls doctrine up and down Eph. ii 12. It cannot be controuled He describes the wretched estate of the Gentiles before salvation appeared unto them We were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world How can it be affirmed that they want not help to bring them out of this captivity of sin When St. Paul says Spem non habentes they have no hope This is the condition of nature which is not aided by the Spirit 2. Now I will unfold how we are led by initiating or preventing grace when we are first made partakers to taste of the hope of a better life In this Point I will annex the explication of two things First That there is such an initial preparatory grace in them that are not yet justified and converted 2. That in the first entrance of it the Spirit doth produce it in us solely and entirely the will of man conferring no strength at all Concerning the former of these two conclusions I say there are many good internal effects wrought by the power of the Word and the illumination of the Holy Ghost which enter into the hearts of them that are not yet converted as some knowledge of the divine will sense of sin fear of punishment grudgings of sorrow some earnings to be delivered some hope of favour This is a middle state between natural corruption which is altogether enmity with God and between perfect regeneration when we are called to adoption of Sons I marvel this should not be easily admitted for these reasons The Philippians had fellowship in the Gospel St. Paul calls this the beginning of a good work in them and he trusts God would perform and finish it Phil. i. 6. Yet more clearly Heb. vi 4. he shews there are antecedent portions of grace in many before they are converted and made heirs with Christ yea in such as never were ingrafted lively in Christ he calls it thereby the name of illumination tasting of the heavenly gift tasting of the power of God tastings of the Word of God and in some wise being made partakers of the Holy Ghost Yet these having but these first preparations of grace may backslide crucifie the Lord of life and put him to an open shame The similitudes which are used to shew how grace doth possess the soul do plainly shew as much 1. As in natural generation there are many previous dispositions which go before the introduction of the soul into the matter So there must be many antecedent preparations of the divine blessing before our spiritual regeneration that we be born again and become the Sons of God 2. Gratia se habet ad animum sicut sanitas ad corpus Grace doth raise up the soul from sin as health doth affect the body and bring it out of sickness but there is a middle state of recovery before health be perfectly regained so there is a previous illumination and good direction in the mind and will which go before our conversion that we be actually made the living members of Christ Some are afraid to call this grace and yet they cannot avoid it for they are compelled to call it auxilium Dei a special help of God flowing from his providence Sometimes they abhor not the name but say it is gratia reprimens an assistance of God whereby such as are not converted may repress the occasions or commissions of some heinous sins Either they allow it to be as much as true grace or no better than nature for many evils may be avoided and repress'd by nature no good thing can be done without grace It is therefore that internal calling wherewith God doth seriously invite those to repentance and belief in Christ who have the tidings of salvation brought unto their ears I say I speak of those only who are
called to hear the word of faith and of none other God might have left them in their bloud as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks and given them over to the reprobate sense of their own mind but because he requires a new Covenant from all those to whom Christ is preached therefore he gives them new abilities lest he should seem to invite them in vain but being supplied with these internal excitations of supernatural help they are unexcusable This is the way to give God the glory and to make all the hearers of the Word know what talent they have received But the force of exhortations and expostulations were taken away if a sinner were converted by Enthusiasms and sudden inspirations If God would immediately bring a man to himself without feeling of his sin without hating it without desiring pardon it were superfluous to say We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain I marvel you are so soon removed from him that called you to the grace of Christ Gal. i. 6. They that heard St. Peters Sermon Acts ii 37. at the beginning of it were unbelieving and rebellious Jews before he had ended they were terrified felt the guiltiness of innocent bloud upon themselves desired freedom submitted themselves to direction Men brethren what shall we do All these were good internal effects but as yet they were not converted and regenerate as yet unbelievers for had they believed they had never made that question What shall we do They come to that in the next verse says Peter Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins Well they followed this counsel and then at the soonest and not before they were justified in Christ for thereupon it is said There were added unto the Church above three thousand souls So I have made that conclusion undeniable I think that Christ doth produce some effects of initial grace before conversion The next conclusion is that since the natural man hath no powers in the freedom of his will to do good therefore the first effects of grace that are brought forth in us the Holy Ghost doth produce them solely and intirely the will of man conferring no strength at all As the ground receives the seed which is cast into it so a natural man takes the good seed from God which he casts into him passivè receptivè only passively and by way of reception Even they that will not be beaten off from their tenet but that the will of man hath some cooperancy with Gods grace in the act of conversion yet they give their suffrage to this doctrine that this preventing grace or grace of preparation is res infusa not comparata a thing infused from above not gotten by our diligence or acquired even as the air doth not dispose it self to admit the light of the Sun but is illuminated by the presence of the Sun They are best known by the name of Semi-pelagians who would not admit this truth for it was taught in their School that the beginning of faith was from man and the increase from the power of the Holy Ghost But why did they teach that the beginning of faith was from man Because they imagined that the talent of grace was promised to them that used the talent of nature well Habenti dabitur to him that hath it shall be given But I would have them find me any such Covenant in all the Scripture which God made with man that such as negotiated the talent of nature well should have an increase of grace for their reward It is a trespass and a foul one to bely a man and to father Covenants upon him which he never made the offence is greater to alledge Covenants from God and yet no tittle leaning that way in all his Testament The powers of nature are blindness of understanding obdurateness of will perverseness of affections what reward can be due to these but eternal death When thou wert in thy bloud Ezek. xvi that is when thou wert under the loathsom filthiness of sin and under the condemnation of death I said unto thee live that is I began to extend my mercy of vivification upon thee The beginning and introduction of all Christian vertue is to think of God From whence comes this From any good parts wherewith we were born Go to the fountain of wisdom and ask there We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. iii. 5. The next a b c and first rudiment of goodness is to pray to God Is nature a sufficient Mistris to teach you that Is it not the Spirit which the Lord sends into us crying Abba Father I will pour upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and supplications and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem Zach. xii 10. Thus St. Austin proves that the very firstlings and proems of all our Christian dispensations are from God because St. Paul said I obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful 1 Cor. vii 25. Misericordiam consecutus sum ut fidelis essem non ut fidelior essem That I was made faithful or had any faith it was the benefit of God and not only by way of increase or augmentation that I was made more faithful otherwise we should lead the Spirit to take his aim from us and not be led by the Spirit a Passive Verb and fit to express that we are merely passive in the first preparations of faith I shall speak anon touching that efficacy of the Spirit upon the heart of man But touching the work of preparatory grace in the first onset it brings illumination with it it dispels darkness from our understanding it makes us perceive we are gone astray in our sins like sheep that are lost it makes us know God is to be feared it makes us discern that we are in a wretched estate this illumination cannot be resisted Mens nostra ipsum scire effugere non potest Philosophy doth dictate that we cannot repel the knowledge of a thing palpably demonstrated before us though we would it pierceth as easily into the mind as a needle through a thin cloath Yet I do not say this grace which first possesseth the soul and makes it willing to good motions which was most averse before doth compel a man or force him compulsion is a word of hostility rather than of favour It comes with that sweetness and authority together that it will not be said nay Thus we are led by the Spirit in the first introduction of preparatory grace The third thing to be considered is how the Spirit doth lead us all the while we use this preparatory grace before conversion St. Austin comprehended all in this short rule Primùm gratia Dei operatur bonam voluntatem deinde per eam First Gods grace doth effect a good will in us and then by that will so illuminated and excited it produceth
good effects Then the will of man according to that free liberty it hath which is helped toward good works not taken away doth all things with that indifferency that it may cast away this initial grace or embrace it work fruitfully with it or unfruitfully This is that qualification and condition of grace which some wicked ones are said to resist this is that Spirit which other sensual men are said to grieve They will not understand they will not be gathered together they will not follow their Leader through the servile liberty of their own concupiscence It is this first pittance and portion of a good life that many are said to begin in the Spirit and to end in the flesh In the work of conversion though a man hath power to resist it being founded in the natural liberty of the will yet no man doth actually resist the grace of conversion yet this grace of preparation many do resist out of the pravity of their will in which respect they are said to quench the Spirit I cannot speak so much as I might in this subject but because the understanding of Gods favour and justice and the provocations of our own duty depend much upon it therefore I will give you some short rules and corollaries to bear away 1. I do not say all men but as many as are invited by the preaching of the Word are made partakers of some preparatory grace for as a Vein and Artery run together in the body natural to convey bloud wherein the life consists so the Word preacht and some measure of supernatural grace go hand in hand in the mystical Therefore St. Paul says We are Ministers not of the Letter but of the Spirit It is told to no man in vain that Christ died for him the possibility of apprehending the benefit of that sacrifice is offered him if he do not hinder the work of God 2. In this previous grace and for the good use of it we apply unto you the exhortations comminations invitations of all the Prophets and Apostles giving you truly to wit that God hath given you the means to be saved if you do not reject them The last end at which we drive in all our Sermons is your conversion and regeneration that is the Crown of all diligence in this world but the immediate and next end that we labour is that men and women do their diligence to make good use of this preparatory grace 3. This grace of preparation before convertion is shorter in some than in others God did presently hasten the conversion of Paul of Lydia of the Jaylor Why may he not do what he will with his own And give a Peny to them that have laboured one hour as soon as to them that have laboured ten But usually there is large trial and with some this preparatory grace continues alone till anon before they end their life 4. God forsaketh no wicked man within the Church till he hath quenched this grace and interrupted the chain of those means which were prepared for his conversion Prius quam deseratur neminem deserit multos desertores saepe convertit says Prosper which is in part thus Englished 2 Chron. xxiv 20. Because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you Solomon was an excellent Divine as well as a Philosopher Prov. i. 24. Because I have called and ye refused ye have set at nought my counsel they hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord therefore I will mock at their calamity but though he forsakes none untill they forsake him yet he forsakes not all that forsake him So said Prosper Multos desertores saepe convertit Peter and Judas both did reject this grace of preparation and fall from it yet the one hath efficatious grace given to convert him the other hath not This inequality is from the pure pleasure of God and no man can sound the depth 5. Some are much more largely watered with this heavenly dew of preparatory grace all may drink their fill but some have their cup brim full some are endued with more patience proved with fewer tentations Yet none can justly grudge why hath he five talents and I but three Why doth God stand longer at the door to knock for him than he will for me God is not bound to follow men with all manner of grace 6. If these works of preparation be not hindred if this grace be not quenched God will follow the soul with saving grace Not that any man in the world did ever use this precedaneus help so well but that it deserved to be taken from him How many sins do we incur How stubborn how disobedient is the heart of every man Here we might be for ever forsaken according to our misdeeds but the Lord will accept of small endeavours as great accomplishments In a word the good use that we can make of this gift of God is no way meritorious to salvation the ill use of it in those that perish is demeritorious and makes them justly undeserving to be called to salvation This I am perswaded is the true doctrine of this Point to stop the mouth of them that are lost and to shew the plenteous riches of Gods mercy in the vessels of Election Fourthly I labour for the easiest notions I can invent to make these intricate things plain the fourth Point will require an intelligent Auditor with what great and mighty power the Spirit doth lead the children of God in converting grace I have spoke of the first preparation of grace and the will prepared so I must speak distinctly of the act of renovation and the will renewed and the nature of renovation or conversion is best conceived in these six heads 1. What this converting grace adds above that preparatory help 2. God doth work it alone and the will doth passively receive it 3. It doth infallibly attain its effect 4. It is no violent compulsion upon the will 5. It is more than a moral perswasion 6. This is not repugnant to the Promises to the comminations or to the exhortations of God First It adds this above preventing initial grace that it doth but dispose a man to life but after this act we may say justly this man is born of God That is common to them that are lost who quench the first beginnings of divine assistance by their own evil will this is only given to the elect servants of Christ God works by several quantities and doses of Sanctification 1. That they can resist if they will as in Adam before his Fall 2. In others that they will not though they can as in those in whom he doth conserve his preparatory grace 3. In others that they will not nor cannot in the introduction of that act as in them whom he doth actually convert 4. In others that shall never can nor will as in the Angels and Saints of heaven God foresaw if he should only give this grace of preparation all
men in the Church would either resist it at the first or fall off at the last for if Adam did pervert that grace which gave him possibility to stand before his will had declined to evil how much more will we pervert that grace which gives us no more than possibility to serve God who have a depraved disposition to evil therefore he decreed to give converting grace especial grace efficacious grace to some out of the riches of his mercy by which they should infallibly be brought to Salvation The next branch which I drew from the root of this Point was that God alone doth work first the act of Renovation and the will doth passively receive it The Pelagians ascribed Free-will to man to do that which is spiritually good without any beam of grace therein both we and the Pontificians decry them But many of the Pontificians ascribe to mans will that it doth co-operate with Gods grace in the act of conversion and hath freedom to take or refuse it That the Holy Ghost leads the will no further than a middle state of indifferency Hoc agite sultis and then a man doth either mar himself or else make himself the child of God This is a famous controversie between many Divines now I had rather say there is a passive power to receive this supernatural transmutation where God will confer it but no natural power to produce this act either by it self or with any other For I did ever conceive that which is left to man to specificate the act and as it were by his choice to perfect it to be saving grace should be more than Gods work to bring the will by exciting grace to an equal poise and to say to man as it were now turn the scale which way you will Further I could never like it that God should be present at our conversion by his Spirit not principally infallibly predominantly but contingently concomitantly for so there was a possibility that Christ should come into the world die for the sins of the world impetrate grace for all the Members of the Church and yet not one be saved there being no determinate ordination but that all might refuse it I had rather say with the Prophet Turn thou me and I shall be turned thou art the Lord my God Jer. xxxi 18. I had rather examine it by such terms as the Scripture useth than by mans Philosophical constructions When I read that the conversion of a sinner is to make a man a new creature to raise him from death to life it impresseth this notion in my mind What doth the Creature confer to Gods act when it is created Nothing What assistance doth a dead man afford when he is raised to life again Nothing Such a thing is the heart of man when it is regenerated and in that moment when it is exalted to be an heir of the Promise Put this Text into the balance of humility and it will weigh down all that can be said against it Joh. i. 13. We are born not of bloud nor of the will of flesh nor of the will of man but of God From the warrant of this very Oracle St. Bernard dispersed that common saying Quid agit liberum arbitrium Breviter respondeo salvatur c. What part doth mans free-will perform in conversion I answer briefly it is saved This hath reference to God that doth the deed to man in whom it is done God is the Author of that Salvation free-will is receptive and takes his benediction Whether St. Paul also doth not decide it judge ye Eph. ii 10. We are his workmanship his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is all due to him nothing to us created in Jesus Christ to good works it is he that hath made us and not we our selves And is it not he that hath regenerated us and not we our selves The Psalm runs on we are his people and the sheep of his pasture He that made us men without concurrence of our own help will not he make us the sheep of his pasture without our active co-operancy I am sure the Parable says when the sheep went astray the good shepherd did not lead it home or direct it home but took it home upon his shoulders St. Austin most perspicaciously and plainly strengthens this Doctrine from the word which the Lord spake to Elias touching those Israelites his chosen ones who had not gone after Baal Yet have I left me seven thousand in Israel all the knees which have not bowed to Baal and every mouth which hath not kissed him It is not said seven thousand are left seven thousand have left themselves unspotted from Idolatry God takes it wholly to himself I have left me seven thousand knees which have not bowed to Baal Thirdly I make up the sum with this Proposition Gods act in the conversion of any sinner is not frustrated but doth infallibly attain its effect For in those that are called according to his purpose he doth not only bring them so far as to have a power to believe and to have certain spiritual habilities which can chuse the good and forsake the evil but by the efficacy of a secret and ineffable operation I confess he doth bring forth from our will being renewed the very act of believing and conversion It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. ii 13. For if he should only give us posse credere posse converti we should do as our first Parents did and much sooner than they as I shew'd before start aside like a broken bow and never bring that possibility into act therefore this eminent special grace is not an act produced by the will but a bonity infused into the will called by Prosper Prima supremi agricolae plantatio God is the husbandman that doth ingraft that first plantation in us That secret influence and illapse from heaven is sooner believed than demonstratively learned but this methinks the most litigious may grant that it is easie for the most high to draw the will after him powerfully infallibly without any violence offered to the nature of it Resistency is taken away only for that act not the full and final power to resist It hath ever a bitter root in this life which hath an eagerness and pronity to resist the counsel of God I only say that that resistibility is supprest for this moment that it should not break forth into act What should repel this grace says St. Austin Nothing but the hardness of our heart Now that malignity is curb'd for it first takes away the hardness of our heart and how can our perverseness resist this admirable work of God when it prevents that perverseness and frames a right spirit within us that we will not resist This is the proper notion of this phrase in my Text agi spiritu to be led by the Spirit As Aristotle says of beasts that follow an instinct of
nature Non agunt sed aguntur So in the act of renovation we are not fellow-workers but are led and carried whither the Spirit will And as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. viii 14. 4. We know divine mysteries best by negative expressions and therefore I go on fourthly that this immission of efficacious grace is no violent compulsion upon the will Compulsion I said was a word of hostility and not of favour When God doth his work in us throughly energetically that it shall not fail by a Catachresis it is called a coaction So it is said in the Parable to them that were sent to bring in the blind and the lame Cogite intrare compel them to come in I say this is a Catachresis so Prosper the great director of this way that I take Hanc abundantiorem gratiam ita credimus potentem ut negemus violentam We believe this eminent abundant grace worketh with great power but not with violent compulsion For because of those previous preparations I spake of which make us know and have some desire of heavenly things God saves no man against his will therefore it is no violent attraction for no man is ordinarily saved that hath positive repugnancy though in the momentary act of conversion he doth add no auxiliary co-operancy Nay so far is this most abundant benediction of the Spirit from offering coaction and force to the will that the will of a regenerate man doth instantly shew its complacency and turn it self to God This efficacious motion is infused from God and in the same moment exercised and put into act by man for to that end it was inspired by God that man should produce the act of believing and adhering to Christ This is an Altitude for faith to look upon Voluntas est subjectum istius volitionis causa suae volitionis in eodem instanti I think verily the not marking of this hath caused much debate that the will of man in the act of conversion is the subject upon which God works faith and it self the cause which doth produce the act of faith in the same instant They have my suffrage that say how these two cannot well be divided in time one from another Gods operation converting a sinner to be his Son and the act of believing in that man converting himself to God no object can be for a moment in the will but it must affect it one way or other but in order of nature Gods inspiration is first to be conceived and then mans embracing and assent Thus it appears the agitation of this divine motion is not by force and compulsion but with a sweet and fatherly attraction and the effect is no way rough and against nature but above it For to limit and determine the indifferency of the will is not the destruction of free will but the perfection witness the Saints and Angels who are confirmed in grace that they cannot sin If the Son make you free then are ye free indeed which is thus expounded by the Apostle Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. iii. 17. Fifthly I annex that the powerfulness of this converting grace is not well expressed when it is entitled but a moral perswasion The hearts of Kings and surely of all other men whose power is less free are in the hand of God and he inclineth them which way he will perswasions may labour upon the affections it is the scope of an Orator but the most flexanimous Rhetorician that ever spake cannot be said to have the hearts of his Auditors in his hands that is a phrase out of humane capacity What moral perswasion was there in this Christ called Peter and Andrew James and John and Mathew from the receit of custom and they left all and followed him Shew me any ground here for moral perswasion that is probable allegation of reason Not a word more spoken than follow me or perhaps I will make you fishers of men few words God knows But a mighty efficacious impression was secretly instilled into the heart there it was it must needs be that celestial irradiation which made them leave all to follow Christ whose outward appearance was most contemptible and his society according to the wisdom of the world most dangerous Perswasion can but propound an end and as every man is affected so he likes the end which is offered We that disperse the Word have the Office to perswade you to the Kingdom of heaven but God forbid he should bring us no further The Devil can suggest and perswade likewise and prevail above his Makers perswasions as it appears Gen. iii. therefore ascribe the honour due unto the Lord that his Spirit is more efficacious to produce good than Satan to produce evil therefore his work consists not in perswading but in governing and inclining the heart Finally To dispatch this Point I said this potent and infallible assistance of converting grace doth well consist with the Promises and Threatnings and Exhortations of holy Scripture There are other matters objected against this but at the last you will find all sticks at this knot For after some wrangling in the end it is confest God can restrain the liberty and indifferency of the will and make it bring forth what act he please and it must be allowed that the taking away that liberty to work either good or evil is not the destruction but the perfection of the will The angry question is Whether the removing away that liberty and indifferency from the will in the act of conversion can consist with this order that a man shall be commanded to convert himself to God upon the condition of eternal life and upon the commination of Hell fire Now I must tell you this was the very thing that Pelagius quarrelled St. Austin for saying Da Domine quod jubes jube quod vis Give me to do what thou commandest O Lord and then command what thou pleasest But take all my answers like grapes upon a cluster 1. They that make this objection know we are commanded to have the first grace of illumination and they acknowledge it is freely and merely wrought by God Why then do they stumble at converting grace that conversion should be commanded us and God altogether cause it and yet allow it in preparatory grace 2. Doth not the Scripture frame our tongue to speak thus Make you a new heart and a new spirit Ezek. xviii 31. there is a command I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you Ezek. xxxvi 26. there he doth execute in us what himself commanded It is to be magnified and admired not to be disputed of when God will work that good by his Spirit within us which he might in rigour without that extraordinary help exact of us 3. Whither will Divinity be tost about if this be not certain That our just and omnipotent Lord commands
such excellent things which we cannot attain to perform that we may be excited to pray unto him for succour with a vehement and a flagrant devotion 4. He commands and he fulfils and he rewards crowning his own gifts and no works of ours that glory may be ascribed to his name for evermore The Synodal Epistle of all the Affrican Bishops St. Austin being one of the Society encourages me that these answers are far more reasonable than the objection Jubet Deus homini ut velit sed Dominus in homine operatur velle jubet ut facias sed operatur facere He hath charged us to will that which is good but he effecteth that willingness in man he says Do and thou shalt live his grace enables thee to do and thou shalt live for ever Let this suffice to teach you how we are led by the Holy Spirit in converting grace and I think it most comfortable to put our hope in God and not in our selves Cursed is every one that putteth his trust in man Jer. xvii 5. To dispach all I will be brief in the fifth Point how we are led by subsequent grace and sanctification which co-operates and assists us after our conversion this is that truth wherein all dissensious parts conjoyn and accord That Voluntas liberata concurrit ad bonum opus eliciendum cum gratiâ divinâ the will of man having conquered the dominion of sin by converting grace is made free and then it freely conjoyns it self with Gods grace to produce a good effect Then it lies upon our own diligence never wanting the directing vertue of the Spirit to increase the good gifts of Sanctification by acts of often doing well then we do further and promote those holy inspirations to a plentiful or unplentiful increase This is not passively to be led by the Spirit but to walk in the Spirit as it is Gal. v. 16. Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh In a word this distinction reacheth over all which can be said upon this matter There are some actions which principally concern the well being of a justified man without which regeneration cannot consist these are they the turning of the heart to God a true belief a faithful conclusion of our life in the fear of God and the peace of a good conscience justifying grace doth so attend the production of these actions that the Lord in his own good time makes us able for these things willing to do and actually to perfect those necessary parts of salvation Other works of obedience as to do this or that good to shun this or that evil all these especilly and particularly considered do not concur to our saving health as to the very making or marring of it In the practice of all these particular good instances the motions and conduct of the Spirit are never wanting to them that are regenerate more or less but sufficient to have kept them blameless in every particular but in many of these we sin often and are wanting to the co-operation of grace through our own stubbornness in the will and sensuality in the affections I will conclude You see how diversly we are led by the Spirit how many sundry ways we are assoiled from Sin and Satan by the direction and efficacy of grace The natural man is able of himself to bring forth no spiritual good work The Lord doth totally and with no assistance of vitiated nature bring forth the first good preparatory grace in the will From thenceforth unto conversion this previous preparatory grace is made effectual or uneffectual by mans free-will In the act of conversion and renovation wherein all the controversie about free-will is moved the Lord doth turn our heart unto himself the will for the act being the passive subject and at the same instant it is the cause of a good action in turning it self to God in subsequent grace unto the end of our life the will being made free from the dominion of sin works together with the motions of celestial inspiration This is the sum of all If any thing be delivered too briefly impute it to the compass of the time If any thing be hard to be conceived impute it to the deep discourse of the matter If any thing be defective in the discourse give Gods grace the glory of all and impute it to my infirmity THE FOURTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 1 2. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterwards an hungry MAny things were rightly applied by him that compared the success of the Children of Israel upon their entrance into the Land of Canaan with the circumstances of this combate between Christ and Satan 1. the Israelites were miraculously brought through the Red Sea so the first glorious Apparition of our Saviour which went immediately before this business was the Baptism which he received of John in Jordan 2. The Israelites pass from the Red Sea into a great and solitary Wilderness So our Saviour was led after his Baptism into the greatest Wilderness of Judaea a place uninhabited by man for he was with the wild beasts Mar. i. 13. Then the Israelites were in great distress for foot hungry and thirsty their soul fainted in them And Christ had nothing to eat in that place he fasted forty days and forty nights and was afterward an hungry 4. As the Israelites were pined with hunger so they had bloudy Wars with all the Nations of Canaan many a time have they fought against me might Israel then say So many a time did the Legions of Hell attempt me might our Lord and Saviour say yea many times did the powers of darkness compass me about but they have not prevailed against me On the one side here was first the Red Sea then a journey into the Wilderness then scarcity of Food then War and fighting So on the other side here was first a Baptism then a sequestring into the Wilderness then a long Fast and then a long conflict with the Prince of Devils Moreover the men of Israel did appear in that forlorn and despicable fashion before the Canaanites that they were much scorn'd and vilified so God provided we seemed in their sight but as Grashoppers said Caleb and Josuah this drew the Kings of Canaan forth to beat them back and so were overwhelmed in their own pride and cruelty Thus in all points did our Saviour deal with Satan the Eternal wisdom against the wisdom of the Serpent He flies into the Wilderness as one abandoned of the World there he continues in great necessity as one whom none would succour not a morsel of food supplied him by God or man Adversarium non virtutis jactatione sed infirmitatis ostentione provocat thus he provokes and draws Satan out against himself not by a boasting challenge but by the appearance of
laugh with them that are merry but to make them voluptuous and exceed fly as low as you will and as high as you will Which alteration you shall find between that tentation which is past already and that which is now begun Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City and setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple In which words are to be noted four things Ordo Modus Locus communis Locus proprius First The order of these tentations that this is the immediate and next tentation to the former for then the Devil took him Secondly The manner is by assumption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he took him up 3. The more common place to which he took him it was to the holy City Jerusalem 4. Here is the peculiar and proper place he setteth him on a Pinacle of the Temple These are the parts of that Argument which at this time lies before us Now this is the reason why I make the order of these tentations one and the first part of the Text at this time because St. Luke puts this tentation in the last part which St. Matthew accounts the second and this which St. Matthew reckons for the second St. Luke refers it last For after Christ had refused the motion to make bread of stones it follows according to St. Luke The Devil took him up into an high Mountain and shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world in a moment of time but our Evangelist gives his Narration the accent of time Tunc assumpsit then he took him up into the holy City Because therefore St. Matthew shews the Connexion of order it is believed generally that he hath the perfect consequence of the story One says that in some old Copies of the Greeks St. Luke concurs passage by passage with St. Matthew Jansenius a learned Author it seems had found some such thing and I believe so had St. Ambrose for whereas he wrote Commentaries purposely upon St. Luke yet he keeps no other order but the self-same which is found in St. Matthew Howsoever this is no jar or contradiction between the holy Writers but a variety which begets many good Meditations when we think upon it First Aquinas did thus excogitate upon it Quandoque ex inani gloria venitur ad cupiditatem quandoque ex cupiditate ad inanem gloriam The tentation upon the Pinacle was directed to beget vain-glory the tentation upon the Mountain tended to beget immoderate coveting of worldly things Now for these two there is no choice in the precedency for sometimes vain-glory would support it self by coveting in excess and sometimes a covetous affection drives a man into the itch of glory Secondly All sins are not equal yet there are some capital sins that in several respects are of an equal deformity between themselves and then they take their turn in holy Scripture one interchangeably to be set before the other Murder and Adultery Adultery and Murder are flagrant crimes and in some comparisons one is the greater trespass against our brother in some comparisons the other Thou shalt do no murder thou shalt not commit adultery so Moses ranged them in the Law to the Jews Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill Rom. xiii 9. So St Paul disposeth them writing to the Gentiles Indeed in the Hebrew Murder is first forbidden for being is simply better than well-being but in the 70 Translation Adultery is first forbidden for comparatively well-being is better than being St. Matthew therefore following the Hebrew says Christ did thus rehearse the Commandments to the young man Thou shalt not kill thou shalt not commit Adultery Mat. xix 18. St. Luke following the 72. cites our Saviour saying to the same man Do not commit Adultery do not kill Luk. xviii 20. So Pride in some cases is worse than Covetousness and therefore our Evangelist entreats first upon the tentation to Pride in some cases Covetousness is worse than Pride and so the other Evangelist writes first of that tentation which instigated unto Covetousness Thirdly St. Luke laid those two tentations together which were commenced in the Wilderness and Mountains and then with less confusion to the Readers apprehension speaks of that which fell out in the City and upon the Temple Many times the Scripture by anticipation brings in the history of a thing before the precise time wherein it was done as Mat. xxvii In the description of our Saviours Passion this accident is brought in that many dead bodies of the Saints arose and appeared in the holy City to many and yet it came not to pass upon the Passion day but when Christ was risen from the dead This Maxim is of good direction to the wise that can understand it Ordo artificialis in narratione rerum saepe est utilior ad intelligendum quà m ordo naturalis To transpose things in an history artificially is many times better for our understanding than the plain natural order But this tentation as it is sorted in St. Matthew is well placed both by the natural truth of the history and by the artificial method of it And thus much briefly to make this Point even between these two most divine Evangelists I put on to the next thing which is most strange in this tentation and verily to be admired the manner of it to which Christ did submit himself it is by Assumption by carriage through the air Then the Devil taketh him up into the holy City It was a good Spirit which led him into the Wilderness to the exercises of Fasting and Prayer and Contemplation the very same which sate upon his head at Baptism in the shape of a Dove Now here is another Spirit retaining to the contrary faction who is ready not only to lead him but even to carry him through the Air to the most conspicuous Turret in all the City of Jerusalem Some of the ancient and pure stock of Writers were so loath to preach this Doctrine in the Church that Satan did bear up Christ between Heaven and Earth for fear of offending weak ones that they made other constructions of it which will no abide the test St. Cyprian expounds it as if all this had been done by Vision and Imagination But will Cyprian say that Christ was urged to cast himself down to the ground putativè not really but in imagination Or will he grant that our glorious Champion did vanquish his Adversary but in fancy and opinion Exilis esset Christi victoria Then Christ had but little to boast of and the Scripture would never have recorded this act as the most famous of all victories Beside these many other Interpreters in a more rational way confess this was a conflict truly and apparently fought and that the Devil really took him up Pedibus ductum non volantem he went along from the Wilderness up to the top of the Pinacle on his feet upon the Devils provocation And this opinion they maintain upon the meaning
this power and priviledge even while he debased himself in all humility Did he not consent to the destruction of the Gadarens Swine and curse the barren Figtree Because his jurisdiction extended to any thing in the world Did he not send for the Ass and the Colt with absolute command saying no more but the Lord hath need of them Did he not charge the Souldiers to let his Disciples alone And no man toucht them All these are Arguments of indefinite authority But this Government which is most ample perfect eternal was not after a Regal way as David and Solomon were Kings in Israel It was not contrary to the Rulers of the earth usurping any power to thwart and controule theirs but a transcendent exaltation above them and above all things visible and invisible yet withal he was most obedient and subject unto them paying Tribute unto Cesar and medling with no Humane Laws to divide their Inheritance that were contentious If he had professed himself an earthly King it had hindred the work which he had in hand to perswade men to the contempt of honour and glory Yet having all power given him of his Father it argued the more humility that he made himself subject to most vile men therefore it is put into the Creed that he suffered under Pontius Pilate meaning that he took his death with patience under the authority of a most unjust Governour Therefore St. Austin endites these words as from our Saviours mouth Hear me Jews and Gentiles hear me Circumcision and Uncircumcision hear me all ye Judges of the world Non impedio dominationem vestram in hôc mundo Enjoy the Principalities of this world unto your selves I do not hinder them In the third Conclusion I determined how in most proper and safe construction we must say that Christs Kingdom was a spiritual Kingdom I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Psal ii 6. The Psalm speaks of a spiritual Sion as St. Austin notes because it is termed an holy Sion therefore it must be understood of a spiritual King His Unction was not that Coelestial and not Corporeal With my holy oyl have I anointed him with the grace of Unction Such as the Unction is such must be the Kingdom a spiritual Kingdom His Priesthood was not carnal such as Aarons was but spiritual such as Melchisedechs was Like as was his Priesthood so was his Kingdom Those whom God had given him What were they His Disciples that never forsook him those that were born again of the Spirit His Subjects were Spiritual therefore his Kingdom could not be Terrestrial The Law of Moses was carnal so it was esteemed imperfect and is disannulled the Law of Christ which is set up instead of it is the Gospel which prescribes a reasonable and an holy service Where the Law of Christ is spiritual his Kingdom must needs be within us it is a Ghostly Kingdom Finally all the good things thereof concern the Spirit grace peace of conscience remission of sins and eternal life Says Fulgentius the Gold which the wise men of the East offered him in his Cradle shewed him to be a King but not such a King as will have his Image and Superscription in the Coin but such a one as seeketh his Image in the hearts of the Sons of men After the Angel had said The Lord would give him the Throne of his Father David Mark how divinely the words are qualified in the next verse And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end He shall reign and did reign here not in regno sed in domo in no Monarchy but in a Family in the house of Jacob that is in the houshold of the Faithful for alas they are but a Family to the potent multitudes of Unbelievers One question before I shut up the Point Christ was promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob Principally to Abraham What means the Angel then to omit Abraham and Isaac and to speak of one and no more that he shall reign in the house of Jacob Why the house of Abraham had Ismael as well as Isaac but Ismael was the Seed of the bond-woman which figured those that pertained not to the freedom of the Spirit The house of Isaac had Esau as well as Jacob Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated He reigned not in all the house of Isaac But all the twelve Sons of Jacob were Circumcised all blessed all represented the Church all heirs of the Promise and because Christs Kingdom was totally spiritual in the Faithful and Elect the Angel very properly delivered his Errand that He should reign in the house of Jacob. This last part of my Sermon was very necessary to be insisted upon that our Lord Christ invested himself with no such honour as Satan tendred to him All this power will I give thee and the glory of them Yet he had a Kingly Office adjoyned both with Priestly and Prophetical Offices Those are holy Functions the Devil likes not them he never spoke of them Nay let us have the Priesthood to serve God or let us take nothing without it St. Peter tells us we shall be Regale Sacerdotium a Royal Priesthood We shall have a Kingdom and a Priesthood combined together far exceeding all the power and glory which mortal men do manage Run fervently to the end of the Race and you shall have the prize Deus vult omnes suos athletas coronari says St. Hierom God will have all that try Masteries for his sake receive the Laurel and the Crown of Victory Every Saint hath his Kingdom who is cloathed with immortality and honour to live with the Lamb of God for evermore But you will say What Abraham a King Moses a King Peter and Paul Kings Where are the Nations which they govern Where are their Subjects Regnum est ubi nulli inimico subjicimur non quia populus nobis subjicitur A full answer it is a Kingdom because all our enemies are trodden under our feet not because any of the Blessed are Liege-men and Vassals unto other In the fruition of that Kingdom a main part of the Soveraignty will be that he shall be trodden under our feet who is so impudent and audacious in my Text to offer all the Kingdoms in the world God replenish us with the Kingdom of his grace in this life and exalt us to his Kingdom of glory hereafter AMEN THE SEVENTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 9 10. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Then saith Jesus unto him get thee hence Satan OUR natural Philosophers say very truly that a Serpent lays not her eggs one by one but they come from her in a cluster like a rope of beads and hang one at another in a string Satan deserves no better comparison than a Serpent the sins which he suggests no better comparison than the eggs
miracle was acted It was a waste in the borders of Edom a nameless and a barren piece of ground unprofitable to bring store into the barn but profitable to yield some pious meditations it is the wilderness There was no place that received Israel where some memory or monument of Gods mighty hand was not left behind in Egypt in the Red Sea in Moab in Basan in the Wilderness But this last put them to the greatest trial it was ilium malorum sorrows that met them single elsewhere rusht all upon them in the Wilderness There they suffered war and weariness thirst and hunger plagues and mortality And though they called for redress they had none only they had a cure for the biting of the fiery Serpents So in this Pilgrimage upon earth all manner of offences and afflictions are familiar unto us and though we fast and pray they shall not be taken from us No man must look for comfort or plenty or pleasure in a Wilderness Let it suffice for all that we have a remedy against the venom of the Serpent against the deadly sting of sin For if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is our propitiation not that we should not be afflicted but that we should not perish but have everlasting life I will make one question to the Point that I may give many answers Wherefore was so great a deliverance obscured in the Wilderness where the world could take no notice of it As the Disciples pressed our Saviour to go into Judea that men might see his works If thou do these things shew thy self to the world Joh. vii 4. So had it not been better that the most frequented Cities had been spectators of this wonderful power of healing And was not the Wilderness a little too secret for the fame and publication of it I answer first that is not the vogue and acclamation of the world that the God of sanctity aims at but the faith of the Elect. The fewer that saw these wonders the happier for them that believe and never saw them Many works of the Lord are not necessary to be seen of all but to be believed of all and for the greatest mysteries all must believe though the eye did not nay though it cannot see them Secondly Because the making of this Serpent by Moses had a typical drift in it to set forth Christ we shall not see him more like himself than if we go forth to find him in the Wilderness thither the Spirit led him forth to be tempted and he fought against the Devil so strongly in those Lists that he vanquished him by his innocency Adam in horto superbus Christus in deserto humilis Adam was accommodated with too much pleasure where the Serpent enticed him therefore the second Adam pitch'd his battel in a Desart of a contrary condition It was a Land uncomfortable for solitariness neither fountains nor fruits in it nothing but penury where Satan was overcome but it was a garden drest and delicate filled with all manner of store where he got the victory But is it not better to be humble with Christ in a barren Desart than to be proud with Adam in a delicious Paradise Fight against the Tempter upon the same advantage that our Captain chose Meet him not where pleasures abound meet him not in the Garden but in the Wilderness Come my beloved let us go forth into the field let us lodge in the Villages Cant. vii 11. There is much contagion in the communication with the world therefore the Beloved is invited rather to some harmless privacy Fuge seculi mare naufragium non timebis says St. Ambrose Sail away into some little stream leave the Ocean of ungodliness which is in the most frequented places and you shall not fear shipwrack Our Saviour made himself often a stranger unto this world and retired into a Mountain alone or into the Wilderness Quasi in mundo extra mundum ageret To teach us to live in this world as if we lived without it When we find our selves infected with the conversation of Court or City it is the Wilderness we must fly to a retiring to a private reckoning between God and our selves if we mean to be cured of Serpents We had need of longer Vacations than Terms more rest to pray and repent than stirring days to get wealth that we may ask God forgiveness at leisure for those sins which we did commit in our business Come ye apart into a desart place and rest awhile says our Saviour to his Apostles Mar. vi 31. All cannot receive this saying you will reply all have not the opportunity to come out of the croud some there are whose worth and dignity keeps them always in action To these I say as our Saviour prayed for his Disciples I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil Joh. xvii 15. Says St. Cypriaen Etsi omnes diversorium non capiat loci animi tamen omnino necessaria est solitudo All men cannot must not cast off care the Church and Republick cannot spare their company that they should sequester themselves into remote places O but let not the heart lose that happiness which is denied unto the body I may be vacant to good meditation in the midst of troubles I may stand before men as my Calling requires and be alone with God Pious Meditation which will not mix with any secular thing is like an hermitage to the soul Like a Wilderness wherein I have leisure to look stedfastly upon that Serpent who is the cure of Serpents and the Balm of Gilead Lastly for the time breaks me off that I must conclude there is no place more open or common in the world than a Wilderness There the Image of the Serpent was fixed as a publick benefit which was prohibited to none that would look upon it They that stood nigh they that were far off it was indifferent to both if they beheld it stedfastly So Christ crucified is alike unto all that believe and call upon him to Jew and Gentile to high and low to Rich and Poor to the generations that are passed to us that are further off and to the Generations that are yet to come Let it not trouble you that the Brazen Serpent was lifted up in the midst of the Camp of Israel as if it only served for the Latitude of that Meridian It fell not to their lot in Canaan or in Jerusalem but in the Wilderness which was every mans soil and every mans possession Therefore the root of Jesse is called an Ensign of the people to which the Gentiles shall seek Isa xi 12. All have their part in this Ensign the banner of our Victory Christ exalted that will seek unto him Crux Christi mundi est ara non templi says Leo The Cross of Christ was an Altar yet not a private
faciem Because in this life we see darkly as in a glass but hereafter we shall see God face to face As concerning natural Causes and Effects says Aristotle we see into them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Owles eyes by day that discern nothing clearly but as concerning the Mysteries of Godliness we look upon them as Moses did upon the Land of Canaan when Jordan was between we are in one Country and see afar off indistinctly the prospect of another As Rebecca took away her vail when Isaac came toward her that she might see his face so this vail shall be taken from the Church which is the Spouse of God when he draws near unto it Now Lazarus his Napkin is about our face O that thou wouldst rent away this vail O Lord that we might see thy glory Behold as the eyes of Servants look unto the hand of their Masters and as the eyes of a Maiden unto the hand of her Mistress even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have mercy upon us AMEN THE FOURTH SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN XX. I. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early when it was yet dark unto the Sepulcher and seeth the stone taken away from the Sepulcher THis is the day which the Lord hath made and thus begins the Gospel appointed for this great day of the Lord. A Gospel of which I may say it is full even to the brims of Divine Meditations For here are those two Christian Pillars that uphold the Church of God such as shall never be removed Fides Fidelis the faith of the Elect and relatively an elect Vessel that receiv'd the faith a principal Article of our Creed that Christ rose again the third day from the dead and a very illustrious instance of Mary Magdalene who was brought to believe in that Article 1. The Faith which must be believ'd to sanctifie our contemplations 2. The Faithful that did believe to bring us to a godly practice So the Spirit of God hath led Mary Magdalene to the Sepulcher to see that Christ was risen from the dead and the self-same Spirit hath led us to see the love and piety of Mary Magdalene And as this devout woman hath obtained a place of memorial for her name among the blessed of the New Testament because the example of her zeal did shine before us So our names shall find a place among those that are recorded in the Book of Life such honor shall they have that follow after My Text begins a story concerning that first witness to whom our Lord and Saviour's Resurrection was revealed Now upon so much of the Story as is recorded in this verse five things shall be handled First the Condition of that Witness before whom our Lord did first appear after he came out of the Grave Mary Magdalene 2. You may note the Constancy of her love that she remembred him after death and came unto his Sepulcher 3. It is to be ascribed to her Faith that she chose the right season the first day of the week 4. The Expedition which she made is a token of restless diligence that she came early when it was yet dark 5. An Accident of admiration encounters her that she seeth the stone taken away from the Sepulcher No Witness more classical for Gods use than Mary Magdalene a repentant Sinner No love more expressive than to shew affection even after death no season so fit to be watcht as the same which Christ foretold how the third day he would rise which fell out on the first day of the week no fruit that doth better become Faith and Love than vigilant diligence without sloth Repentance Love Faith Diligence shall ever be thus requited that God will shew them a sign from Heaven beyond their expectation The condition of the person is the first thing that we encounter Mary Magdalene cometh unto the Sepulcher She came not alone but other Associates did bear her company such as were devout women and loved our Lord. But our Evangelist knew a reason that she alone was worth the mentioning instead of all besides and upon her name only his Narration runs that Mary Magdalen came unto the Sepulcher The Scripture hath not forgot some of those that were her Associates in other Gospels St. Matthew says Mary Magdalen went forth as it began to dawn and the other Mary St. Mark names three Mary Magdalen and Mary the Mother of James and Salome St. Luke speaks of an indefinite number but every Divine Writer begins with Mary Magdalen she and Joanna and Mary the Mother of James and other Women that were with them But this Woman in my Text was more fervent and passionate in the cause she incited all the rest to go with her to the Sepulcher wherefore she is remembred by our Evangelist in a kind of singularity above all the rest John himself was the Disciple of Love and was careful to eternize her name in this story which did abound in Love above all her Fellows Some antient Writers knew not how so good a Work could be done wherein many religious Women conspired together without the most Blessed Mary the mother of our Lord. Rather than it should turn to her disesteem to stay behind Sedulius Nyssen and Nicephorus were willing I think to mistake that the Woman whom St. Matthew calls the other Mary was the Holy Virgin The disadvantages which this Opinion brings with it were not thought upon that another name should stand before hers to be past over with such an easie mention as the other Mary and not the mother of our Lord a thing which especially St. Luke useth not to forget And what an instance of moment were this that among all others our Lord did first appear to Mary Magdalen after he was risen from the dead Surely his mother had been partaker of that sweet Vision as soon as any if she had been in place to behold him Bernard invents a reason to satisfie himself though perhaps it will not satisfie all men why the Blessed Virgin did willingly absent herself from coming to the Sepulcher the first day of the Week because her Faith abounded more than all the rest She was constantly persuaded that Christ was risen upon the third day even as he had spoken before and she would not go to the Sepulcher to seek the living among the dead But if any man should cast a doubt that the Holy Scriptures would not have concealed such a superexcellent strain of Faith in the Blessed Virgin if she had believed the Mystery of the Resurrection when the Disciples and all other were mistaken besides that none of the Church did perfectly understand the Scriptures until the Holy Ghost fell down upon them at the Feast of Pentecost I say if any should cast in such a doubt I know not how it would be resolved I have no Warrant to affirm any thing in this point neither doth the Scripture
these persons and to this season not to these persons for it is most likely that none but the Apostles were partakers of the Divine illumination which came from Heaven upon this day and the Apostles no man calls it in question had the talents of that grace delivered unto them which saved their souls Ir is a masterless and a false fame that any castaways were in the number of these that were filled with the Holy Ghost Christ himself is said to be full of the Holy Ghost Luke iv 1. and the Blessed Virgin gratiâplena full of grace and St. Stephen the Captain of all Martyrs full of the Holy Ghost Acts vi and Barnabas the Son of Consolation full of the Holy Ghost Acts xi None but such as were peerless Saints are deigned with that praise to give this scruple a full satisfaction regard the time and season wherein this dew of heaven did drop down into the Fleece of wooll it is the day so long before promised wherein the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh the scaturigo the first spouting out of the Spirit and do you think that this being the original from whence the spring began that all the best Balsams and Liquors did not flow into them that received it I resolved therefore that these persons in my Text did not only partake such gifts as made them wonderful in the eyes of the world but such also as made them holy and acceptable in the sight of God that is it did not only speak in their tongues but it was diffused in their hearts To end this matter remember what manner of spirit that is which God bestows it is from above it is holy it is not our own but Christs a Spirit from above and not from beneath as St. Paul says Now we have received not the spirit of this world but of God 1 Cor. ii 12. Spiritus mundi est per quem arripiuntur phanatici says St. Ambrose that 's the spirit of this world with which phanatical men are led which drives them into contention or vain glory but they are enemies to peace and savour not the things which belong to God And since we are bidden to deny our selves if we will be Christs Disciples we must also deny our own private Spirit and submit our selves to the Spirit of the Church which is the Spirit of God for our Saviour hath promised to be with it unto the end of the world Take heed of this hot windy humour which makes some cleave pertinaciously to their own imagination and attribute far more to their own ignorant judgment than becomes them The Spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets but if any one think that some new mysteries are revealed to him which the Church never heard of before and begin to trouble our peace with his falsesly pretended raptures and enthusiasms I say unto such in Ezekiels words Woe unto the foolish Prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing Thus far I have spoken of the Gift which was given to the Apostles to supply the room of Christ himself now he was gone and ascended into Heaven Hominem portavit in coelum Deum misit in terram says St. Austin he carried away his Manhood into Heaven and instead thereof he sent down God unto the Earth I mean the Holy Ghost and this Gift more worth than all the world beside is his usual and continual favour but the measure of it is more than ordinary repleti sunt omnes they were all filled with the Holy Ghost And Leo did very well to mark it that this was not spiritus inchoans but cumulans not the initiation but the accumulation of the Spirit the augmenting of the old stock which the Apostles had in a good quantity before not the beginning of a new They had the Spirit before as appears particularly in St. Peter when Christ told him he had prayed that his faith might not fail therefore he had a portion of faith In general it is most manifest that Christ breathed on them all and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost But as it appears by Elisha's request to his Master Elias there are single and there are double Portions of the Spirit there is a single Talent of Grace given to one Servant two to a second and five Talents committed to him that was most entrusted by his Master there are such as have a little of this Manna in their Omer and them that have it top full And these that received the Holy Ghost at this Feast were such as were not sprinkled but replenished with it quibus nulla pars animae mansit carens spiritu sancto says Cajetan the fruits of sanctification did not grow thinly in them here a berry and there a berry upon the top of a bough but pious conformity to Gods will obedience and the fear of the Lord were in every faculty of their soul and body The Romanists oftentimes put in such impertinent cautions that their bedging in of some needless exception lays waste the truth of God Among others of that bad stamp this is one that the Apostles and other holy men are said to be filled at this time with the Holy Ghost because an Increase was put to that which they had before but the Blessed Virgin was so full before that she received not any new addition or if she received a new distillation of it now illud erat ut in nos tantum effunderet says Lorinus it was for our sakes that it might overflow and be transfused from her to us even as Christ was full of grace and truth from the first moment that he was incarnate and yet for our sakes the Spirit came upon him when he was baptized in Jordan Matth. iii. a most scandalous comparison between the Infinite and the Finite between the Creator and the Creature for though Christ thought it no robbery to be equall with God Philip. ii yet it is a great robbery of the Divine honor to make the Blessed Virgin equal with Christ But to keep to mine own work the Apostles had an earnest penny of the Spirit before but they came to the fulness of it by degrees first they were baptized and so had an introduction unto sanctity afterward Christ breathed on them that was their proficiency last of all came this mighty rushing and cloven tongues as it were fire and sat upon each of them that 's their perfection by nature and of themselves they were of the earth earthly but they were regenerate and born again in Baptism that 's an Element above the Earth The next step of their heavenly promotion was that the Lord breathed on them so the Air is above the Water In conclusion the Holy Ghost came down upon them in fire this is a sign that they were now full to the brim for that 's the Element which is above the Water and the Air and is the next to Heaven And well may it be called a
and the names of the Stars and Constellations and with flat Romances about the good Angels falling in love with mortal Creatures things most unworthy to be fathered upon Enoch that walked with God Therefore St. Jerom moderates the variance Non probavit librum totum Judas sed illud duntaxat testimonium St. Jude did patronize no more of that Book but that Prophesie which he copied out into his Epistle As St. Paul gave no divine authority to certain heathen Poets but only to those particular Verses which he borrowed To come to a point It sounds nearest to truth that Enoch was no such Prophet as left Canonical Records because Christ was wont to argue against the Jews from Moses and the Prophets allowing Moses for the most ancient Prophet that delivered Scripture to the Church by inspiration A late Capuchin Frier hath laboured to prove as he thinks solidly as I think very superficially that Monkish Fraternities and Covents were the first invention in the Church and in his sense to be a Prophet is all one as if Enoch had been of some Colledge or religious Order separated from the ordinary Sons of God Out of his own conjectures he doth erect two strict sodalities of Religion in those ancient days From Enos the Enoscaei such as professed silence from all talk and sequestration from all men And from Cainan the Cinaei or Kenites such as lived in a regular but an active Vocation More of this in due time but we read of no vow or affected institution of life into which the Patriarchs entred we read of some illuminated Prophets or Prophet among them and that was Enoch As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets which have been since the world began Luk. i. 70. 3. His next mark of glory follows That he was an example of repentance to all Generations They that are careful to expound these words in Ecclesiasticus accurately are divided in the sense Some have searched among the Rabbines for their opinions of this and one of them says that wickedness did abound in the Age of Enoch the foul crimes of Sorceries and Witchcrafts had begun to shew their blade and Lamech was the seventh from Adam in the Race of Cain a Bigamist and a Murderer His sins in all likelihood were scandalous and contagious at that time over a great part of the earth and for these iniquities the Lord drowned the third part of the habitable world in Enochs time and Enoch threatned an universal Deluge to all flesh if they did not repent which indeed came to pass so his Doctrine and Prophesies gave notice of Repentance to all Generations But Procopius says upon this Text and he had it from some Jewish Scribes that this holy man had been very incontinent and vicious before he begat Methusalah but after that he proved so relenting a Convert laid hold so fast on God because he knew what a misery it was to lose him that his few years of repentance did God more faithful service than almost a thousand years of innocence in the best of the Patriarchs Which aspersion upon this holy Saint since it hath no ground to build upon it is answered well enough by Cajetan Enoch is twice commended in this Chapter that he walked with God in this Text and within two Verses before it the ingemination of that puts it into more probability that he was a constant follower of good works from his youth up till the time that God translated him Leaving these far-fetch'd conjectures this is the most sutable exposition to the words as I apprehend repentance is often taken for all that sanctification and righteousness which is in man that is born and conceived in sin Acts v. 31. God hath exalted Christ to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins but God gives a new heart and a new spirit to Israel and new obedience when he gives them forgiveness of sins To repent is properly reverti à peccato to return from a sinful life but sometimes it is avertere à peccato to turn a side from the broad way which leadeth to perdition though the Child of God never went astray in it So Enoch having a corruptible body which pressed down the pious alacrity of the soul and doing those things by frailty sometimes which he ought not to have done his innocency and holiness is called repentance whereupon the Son of Syrach calls him an example of repentance to all Generations 4. To be a Prophet to be an example of repentance both of these gives us an introduction to understand this Phrase that he walked with God but the true key that opens it is the fourth thing Vpon the earth was no man created like Enoch says the Son of Syrach A Cedar among other fair trees a great Star among other lesser lights a most sanctified man among many just ones like the man in the Parable that was the truest servant to his Master exceeded him that gained but two Talents exceeded him that gained five Talents he made return of ten Talents to his Lord and bore the praise away from them all that had done very well before him upon the earth was no man created like Enoch We commend those from our lips that are inter non pessimè malos not so bad as the worst But God commends them from his mouth that are inter optimos praecipui the most excellent of them that are the best Reuben was kinder towards Joseph than the rest of his Brethren so Reuben tells them of it Gen. xlii 22. yet he was but unnatural Jehu was a truer worshipper of God than the Priests of Baal yet wanted much of sincerity Gamaliel was more favourable to the Apostles than the rest of the Judges yet he did them unjustice and was an unbelieving Pharisee The Kingdom of heaven is not to be look'd for upon assurance that there are greater sinners than you but hereby you shall try if the love of God be in you when you pant and strive with all your soul and with all your might that none may be better It is a pitiful and indeed a dishonourable praise to point out a man and say he is religious devout or conscionable as the world goes Hath God ever promised to take measure from that form as a bad world goes how he will give a man an heritage with the Angels in the world to come To be an Hercules among the Argonautes I mean the first Champion in the Lords cause in the first file a Peter among the Disciples Lovest thou me more than these An Elias among Prophets a Moses an Aaron among his Priests and Samuel among such as called upon his name an Enoch among the Patriarchs upon the earth was no man created like him this is the pitch we must desire to grow unto and not to say with the Proverb Occupet extremum scabies All is well if you be not the worst of a wicked company Whatsoever you know or hear of